(Portions of this post first appeared on the Pauline B. Jones blog, under 'Why I Wrote Escape From Zulaire'...)
Many years ago, I read “Shadow of the Moon,” by M. M. Kaye,
which was a well researched (and very long) novel set in India in the mid
1800’s. Much of the plot revolves round
the Sepoy Rebellion or Incident, the terrible things that occurred during that
time (rights and wrongs on both sides, I’m sure) and her main characters’
efforts to escape death. I’d never heard of the Rebellion before reading her
novel but since then I researched it pretty heavily. One aspect fascinated me
more than any other – in the novel, as in real life, many of the English women
and children living in India at the time had no idea they were at risk, no
inkling that people they trusted and thought they knew were going to turn on them one hot day as
part of a bigger war, and commit awful massacres.
There’s an old SF novella by Andre Norton, “Eye of the
Monster”, that has this same sort of theme and is one of my favorite books.
Again, the main character finds himself in a life and death situation with no
warning and has to think fast and move faster to survive and save other lives.
As an author, I was most drawn to the central idea of how it
would be find yourself going about your normal day and then suddenly violence
and danger hit all around, and you didn’t see it coming until you were plunged
into the middle of fighting to survive. What would you have to do to have any
chance of making it to safety? I always wonder what would I have done if I’d been there?
What decisions would I have made?
Unlike my first SFR “Wreck of the Nebula Dream,” where I did
a loose retelling of the sinking (with a lot of science fiction elements
added), for “Escape From Zulaire” I didn’t take anything from the facts of the
Sepoy Rebellion other than the idea of being in a place foreign to you and
finding yourself a pawn in a war. I
transplanted the story concept to the planet Zulaire in the far future and had
my heroine Andi spending part of the summer in an opulent but isolated summer
resort, as a guest. There are hints of odd things happening and tensions
building -people not arriving where they should be, gaps in communications from
the city, abandoned cars found on the road – but Andi, like everyone else in
the resort, finds it easy to explain these things away. And then of course, the
situation erupts and she’s got to fight for survival along with the Sectors military
team sent to extract just her, because she’s a citizen of the interplanetary civilization,
not a native of the planet.
Here’s the story:
Andi Markriss hasn’t
exactly enjoyed being the houseguest of the planetary high-lord, but her
company sent her to represent them at a political wedding. When hotshot Sectors
Special Forces Captain Tom Deverane barges in on the night of the biggest
social event of the summer, Andi isn’t about to offend her high-ranking host on
Deverane’s say-so—no matter how sexy he is, or how much he believes they need
to leave now.
Deverane was thinking
about how to spend his retirement bonus when HQ assigned him one last mission:
rescue a civilian woman stranded on a planet on the verge of civil war. Someone
has pulled some serious strings to get her plucked out of the hot zone.
Deverane’s never met anyone so hard-headed—or so appealing. Suddenly his
mission to protect this one woman has become more than just mere orders.
That mission proves
more dangerous than he expected when rebel fighters attack the village and raze
it to the ground. Deverane escapes with Andi, and on their hazardous journey
through the wilderness, Andi finds herself fighting her uncomfortable
attraction to the gallant and courageous captain. But Deverane’s not the type
to settle down, and running for one’s life doesn’t leave much time to explore a
romance.
Then Andi is captured
by the rebel fighters, but Deverane has discovered that Zulaire’s so-called
civil war is part of a terrifying alien race’s attempt to subjugate the entire
Sector. If he pushes on to the capitol Andi will die. Deverane must decide
whether to save the woman he loves, or sacrifice her to save Zulaire.
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