Alpha 9

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “Something fell from the roof; I am not sure if it was a body or a part of the building. I am coming back down. We know she is not in yet. We can mount an assault on the outside of the Opera House, take her down before she…”

  There was a muffle of sound and a clang of metal echoed through the little speaker.

  “Kilo!” Fa screamed.

  Morris decked her and she fell silent to the ground.

  Bravo and Juliette shot daggers at him, but then joined him in looking up at the crane, trying to glimpse Kilo descending, falling, something.

  “I don’t see him,” Bravo Two said holding her hand above her eyes to try to shield the sun.

  “There,” Alpha said pointing up. “He is coming down, he is not falling, look.”

  Alpha was right. Kilo climbed down the internal ladder of the crane, it vibrated slightly with each step he took.

  “The crane is starting to sway,” Juliette said, clamoring back towards the wall.

  Kilo continued to descend the giant ladder. The crane creaked against his weight. One of the front legs holding the truck bed level moaned then bent inwards and broke off. The crane tipped for a moment then righted itself on the other three legs.

  “That was close,” Bravo said, holding her hand over her racing heart. “Kilo needs to get down now.”

  Bravo grabbed Fa by the arms and began dragging her away from the crane. “Watch the other front leg. It looks like it is about to go too,” Juliette said, pointing to the quivering remaining front leg.

  “Bravo is right, get clear of the crane, I will wait for Kilo,” Alpha ordered.

  Morris scowled at the instruction but after the crane moaned again, he nodded in agreement. Morris strode towards Bravo struggling with Fa’s weight. He took hold of Fa’s shirt and hoisted her over his shoulder grinning at Bravo as he continued to stride from the impact zone of the cane.

  Alpha’s cheeks flushed and his thoughts drifted from the threat at hand and instead focused on the way Morris looked at Bravo Two. He imagined him tripping as he passed her and couldn’t help but smile at the idea of it.

  “Watch out,” Juliette called as she shoved Alpha to the side. He fell onto the pavement with a thud as the clang of metal fell around him. He threw his hands over his head and rolled under the body of the truck. His eyes locked on the quivering leg. If it broke, the truck bed would come down on top of him in a split second.

  The noise stopped and Alpha looked to the side. Juliette’s feet were planted not too far away, so he rolled out to join her. But when he lifted himself to his feet and turned to face her he caught his breath.

  She stood where he had been before she shoved him clear. Her eyes stared at him, wide and unblinking. They moved from side to side, searching for something. A metal rod from the crane stuck out from behind her head. It pierced through the back of her neck and was coming out of her chest.

  “Juliette,” Alpha said, looking for recognition. None came. Her eyes continued to dart from side to side but didn’t lock on anything.

  Kilo jumped down from a fire-stair to land beside him.

  “It just came apart,” Kilo said, catching his first look at Juliette. “I jumped clear just in time.”

  “Is she…” Alpha trailed off, not able to say the word. He stepped closer to Juliette and took her hand in his. She still felt warm, but not as warm as Bravo.

  “I think it is a reflex of the body,” Kilo said, placing his hand on Alpha’s shoulder to lead him away.

  “But she didn’t even fall, why didn’t she fall?” Alpha asked, letting her hand drop from his as Kilo led him back from the crane.

  “She is pinned down the back,” Kilo said as they rounded the side and saw Bravo, Morris and Fa waiting. Fa was rubbing her cheek where a purple bruise formed. “What happened to Fa?”

  “She screamed so Morris hit her,” Alpha said without thinking and in a second Kilo was in front of Morris.

  Kilo shoved Morris, he didn’t move far. His right foot went back to steady him as he glared at Kilo.

  “You had to deck her, really?” Kilo spat.

  “Would you prefer our position be given away?” Morris replied calmly to Kilo who stood about six centremeters shorter.

  Alpha rested a hand on Kilo’s shoulder.

  “This is not the time,” he said into Kilo’s ear. “We have to get the others and take back the lab.”

  Kilo grunted and turned away from Morris towards the crane. It creaked and moaned again.

  “Run!”

  They took off towards the hospital. The rest of the crane came down behind them. It creaked, moaned, cracked and smashed down over the road. The few cars in its path squished under its weight.

  “There is no way they won’t investigate that. We have to get to the others and attack as soon as possible,” Morris said, jogging beside Alpha. “With their defences spread out a little we will have a better chance.”

  “Do you think if we could show the other Annoronians what Bravo means to their survival, that they would join us?” Fa asked Morris, clearly forgiving his attack on her earlier. Kilo hadn’t, he still glared at Morris from two steps behind.

  “Yes, but only if Doctor M is dead. If she lives, she will have their trust.”

  “Good thing we don’t intend on letting her live then,” Kilo said, shoving past Morris and jogging to the front.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alpha rounded the corner to the back of the hospital and found his army waiting.

  Raising their weapons in unison, they lowered them just as quickly realising who he was.

  “We have to attack now,” Alpha said, climbing on top of an upturned trash can. “Morris and Vic will lead you lot to my left, go the way we came, attack from the front, draw their attention. And you lot.” He waved his hand towards the group to his right. “You will follow Kilo, Bravo and I through the park, to the side of the Opera House. We will surround them as best we can and take Doctor M down before she can infiltrate the lab.”

  “What if she is already inside?” one of the women called from the back of the group.

  “Then we follow her in,” Alpha said to the lot of them before jumping down. “Let’s go.”

  The group split into his directed teams and Morris threw no objections to leading the left group back past the fallen crane and to the front of the Opera House.

  Bravo Two followed Alpha towards the park, but Kilo hesitated. His attention on Fa who had followed Morris towards the crane.

  When she disappeared, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then followed the rest of Alpha’s group.

  Alpha smelt the blood before they came upon the bodies. One hundred or more lay strewn across the grass, Annoronian and human. Their bodies burned by lasers and slashed open by blades. Several piles of clothing littered the area, no trace of the blood or bodies that once filled them.

  Their weapons would not be enough. They would have to surprise Doctor M’s team, overpower them and take the advanced weaponry for their own if they were to succeed. Or hope that they had used their main supply in this assault and were now as unarmed as they were.

  Alpha led his team to weave their way through the maze of death towards the sails of the Opera House ahead, stopping every few steps to pick through a pile of clothes looking for additional weapons or ammo.

  They found a few blades and a small laser gun but nothing that would rival what Doctor M could still have.

  The team behind him whispered to each other. Whispered voices questioned his plan, questioned their chance of success. Bravo Two turned, stopped and held up her hands to halt them all.

  “We are new to this world, but we have as much at stake as you all,” she said in a hushed tone. The women stopped whispering to each other and focused on her. “We were made to stop the war, but we woke to this, an Earth that must be cohabited by two species. We will fight with you until the end, of this you can be sure.” She took a few steps towards the group. “If Doctor M gets what is insid
e that lab, we won’t stand a chance. The lab's defences will only keep her out for so long.”

  “Why don’t we try to get to another colony, away from Doctor M?” one of the Annoronians asked, her brilliant blonde hair and pale skin giving away her heritage. “It will only be a few decades before we will all die out anyway.”

  Bravo looked to Alpha for approval. He nodded and she raised her marked arm into the air for the group to see.

  “Your species is not doomed, nor is ours. I am immune to the toxin that prevents your reproduction, but more importantly, with the zygotes in our lab, and my help, we can create clones of your species that can repopulate naturally.”

  The group’s whispers grew louder, mostly from the Annoronians amongst them debating whether to trust the duplicate or not.

  “If you still want to leave, go ahead, but if you stay, you will be helping to reclaim this world, and set in motion the path to both of our survivals.”

  The whispers slowed and they all looked directly at Bravo Two. The blonde again speaking up.

  “How do we know you speak the truth?”

  Bravo looked to Alpha, her eyes wide with worry. She didn’t have proof. Morris was gone, leading the others on their frontal assault.

  “She is what she says,” came the strained voice of a male weaving his way through the group. “I saw the results myself.”

  The whispers grew again as they debated whether to trust one of their own.

  “You took me,” Bravo said a harshness to her voice Alpha had not heard since she ended Tango Nine’s life back in the nature phase.

  “I did take you, and the others. I was there when you were tested and had your result been different, I would have also been your end.”

  “What?!” Alpha spat.

  They locked eyes in an intense glare before Bravo stepped around Alpha and broke their line of sight.

  “Perhaps, but my result was positive, and without your help, all your help,” she said, gesturing to the others around them. “We will not stand a chance against Doctor M. Please, together we can create a new world, a shared world.”

  “We will fight,” the blonde said, taking a single step forwards. The collective group did the same.

  Bravo nodded, turned on her heel and began her walk again through the bodies of the fallen and the clothing of the lost.

  Alpha took step beside her.

  “Thank you for bringing them together,” he said, side-stepping quickly to not trod directly on the spilled intestines of an Annoronian boy. The boy’s eyes stared wide up at the sky, their glassy surface mirroring the blue above.

  “We need them as much as they need us,” Bravo Two replied almost tripping over a collection of clothes lumped together on the grass. “How are we going to fight this when there isn’t even a trace of the person left behind?”

  “We have to hope that she has used most of her rounds battling the rebels and her own,” Alpha said as he bent to finger through the pile. When he felt no weapons, he continued towards the sails.

  When they neared the back of the park he pulled up the group. They would have to move quietly around to the back of the Opera House. Some would need to wade through the water to get around to the far side undetected. He split them into three teams, Bravo and Kilo each leading the other two.

  Kilo, along with Sky and Tango, would take the water around to the far side, they were to cling to the edges and quietly make their way around. When Alpha’s team engaged, drawing their attention, Bravo’s team would pounce and circle them from behind, taking out as many as they could.

  He didn't like splitting with either of them, but they were the only ones he trusted completely.

  Alpha’s team would be striking head on. He hoped his timing would coincide with Morris and his team. He hadn’t heard any fighting yet and was hopeful that Morris and his group would be ready when they were.

  Alpha needed to get to the access panel so he could enter his code and override the system, then he could gain entry and attack Doctor M’s followers with the help of the ones recently woken inside. That was, if they would listen to him. He was relying on the fact he was one of them to give him a chance.

  If Doctor M beat Alpha inside, their plan would fail. They would lose the lab to the her and then within days, lose the Earth to her army of hybrid duplicates. She would stop at nothing to grow her army and find a way back to her world, to retake it for her own.

  “Why is Doctor M doing this?” Kilo asked Alpha as the others moved into their groupings behind them.

  “Doctor M doesn’t see herself as part human, not really.” Alpha drew the attention of some of those around him. “Her determination to create her own army to retake the Annoronian home world is proof enough of that. We were created in the same way as her, in the same Lab, but the Doctor--the original--must have done something wrong in her own cloning. Her duplicate is defective.”

  “Doctor M is part human?” One of the Annoronians asked.

  “Yes. The original Doctor was a part of Terminus. The clone you know is a genetic hybrid, not a part of project Swarm, but a rogue. She sees herself as Annoronian.”

  “How didn’t we know?” another voice asked.

  “We are very alike, human and Annoronian.”

  They looked around at each other in their smaller groups. Alpha was right, other than a slight luminosity to the Annoronain’s skin and an almost unnaturally even hair colour, they could have all been human.

  After clarification on their directions Kilo led his team around to the water’s edge, and each of them lowered themselves into the stinky water. A burst of bright blue energy soared up into the sky. Morris had arrived.

  With a roar, Morris and his team converged on Doctor M’s army and Alpha signaled to his group to go. When Alpha leapt over the hedge separating the Opera House and the park he didn’t allow himself to look at the damage done. He headed straight for the left-hand side of the sails.

  Ducking the blow of an Annoronian solider he slid a few feet before spinning and using his hands to project himself upright again. A burst of light shot past him to the left, his arm warmed as it missed his skin by barley a Centremeter.

  He held his breath as Kilo’s team emerged from the water, Sky and Tango with him. They climbed over the side just in time, as Doctor M’s team that were focused on gaining entry turned on Alpha.

  Alpha had to duck and weave between Annoronian and rebels, their bodies taking the blasts directed at him. But Alpha had to make it to the control panel. He had to beat Doctor M inside.

  The fighting around him became a blur of bodies and raining clothing. The result of Doctor M’s weapons used to disintegrate living tissue.

  Alpha remained focused on his mission; but he didn’t notice Doctor M had him in her sights. She leapt down from the top of one of the sails and landed in front of him. Alpha fell back onto his ass but quickly stood and lunged at her with his blade. Doctor M sidestepped at super speed.

  “You have no right to what is in that lab,” Alpha screamed at her as he reached for the gun at his back. Doctor M kicked it from his hand before he could bring it around to fire.

  “You have no idea what you are getting yourself into,” she said, stepping towards him and reaching for his arm. “You will get me inside.”

  “I will not.".

  Doctor M grabbed him and spun him towards the wall of the Opera House. The steel sheeting blocking their entry echoed and dinted with the force of his contact.

  Within a second she was upon him again. She grabbed him around the collar and hoisted him up into the air.

  “You will give me the codes to get into the facility. I have already lost too many to your modifications. You will tell me, or die.”

  “Then I die,” Alpha said, glaring down at her. “I will never give you the codes.”

  Doctor M slammed Alpha down onto the ground, her hand pressed tight around his neck.

  A growl grew near, and Doctor M’s grip lessened. Alpha tilted his head and
saw Blue biting down on Doctor M’s pant leg, pulling back trying to free Alpha from her.

  “Get her Blue,” called Zulu from somewhere behind him and Blue gained new ferocity. He snarled as his teeth tore through the fabric. He snapped his head quickly and bit down again, this time sinking into flesh.

  Doctor M released Alpha and spun to attack Blue. She hit him across the head and his grip on her leg failed as he flew sideways a few meters and lay still on the ground.

  She turned back to Alpha and kicked him across the face. He saw stars.

  As his body set out to repair his vision and the damage Doctor M’s assault had done, he watched as she strode through the battle field.

  She grabbed anyone who dared attack her, Annoronian or human, in one hand, and either threw them several feet into the air or crushed them to the ground in swift movements. She didn’t need weapons; she was the weapon.

  Alpha’s body finally reacted and righted his eyes, dulled the pain and slowed his heart rate. He took the opportunity to head for the side again, to the control panel and the entrance to the Opera House.

  Rounding the corner, he saw them. The Annoronians and women who had been with Kilo. They lay scattered, bloodied and blasted, on the cement. His stomach turned and he had to swallow back the bile that rose in his throat.

  He reminded himself of what they died for and regained his composure. Leaping between their corpses he stopped in front of a section of wall, that to any other would look no different to that which surrounded the entirety of the Opera House.

  The panel Alpha needed was hidden here. He knew the codes that would reveal the access door and allow him entry to the Lab, to the duplicates he left behind and the genetic material that could save both the Annoronian species and their own.

  A blood curdling scream called from the front of the Opera House.

  Bravo Two’s scream.

  Alpha hesitated at the panel, his hand hovered over where the keypad would reveal itself if only he applied the right amount of pressure.

  He curled his fingers in and clenched his fist. Hot-footing it back through the maze of bodies he rounded the corner and froze. Doctor M didn’t have Bravo Two, she had Bea.