The Alpha Project: Book One

by ToClark

  He gazed into her eyes, those wonderful brown liquid pools of want for him and she gazed meltingly back until he thought he would drown in her. They were both panting with want for each other, the thought beginning to overwhelm him that this was the time, this was the moment, only that she pushed him back, still gasping. “Please, Moses! Will you wait just a little longer? Soon I will have to go to supper and to sing the evening hymns with Mother and the other girls. Then I will go into my tent and we can have the whole long night together. Please, my darling. Please!”

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  “Darling, I wasn’t expecting you!” Amelie was lying drowsily in bed in the warm mindless moments before sleep overcame her. She had turned the light off so that it was very dark in the room. She felt the duvet lift up and his body roll in beside her and she reached out dreamily to him, too sleepy to feel any arousal yet. So sleepy was she that it was some time before she realised that it wasn’t Moses who was in bed with her.

  She tried to sit up but a strong arm held her pinned down. She came awake, suddenly crying “No!” until a mouth smothered hers with an inexperienced yet greedy kiss. A hand was pressing into her groin, trying to tease her clitoris into response. She wriggled and squirmed, wide awake but helpless as his body rolled over on top of her. She tried to fight him but he had forced her legs apart before she was really awake enough to be able to defend herself. She felt the sharp penetration into her unlubricated vagina and then it was too late to stop him. Hack raped her without saying a word, just grunting out his release as he ejaculated inside her. Afterwards he just held her there, she could hear his harsh breath in her ear. She wept piteously for her violated body and her abused heart but that seemed only to accelerate his response and he became rigid again inside her and raped her again, harder than before, hurting her with each thrust, seeming to take forever until his second orgasm ended it.

  He had gone as suddenly as he came and she was left lying in bed in agony. She turned on the light to see blood on the sheet where he had hurt her and that night, unknowingly, she lost Desmond’s baby that had begun incubating inside her.

  “Moses” she cried. “Moses, please help me? Where are you Moses? Where are you?”

  Chapter 12

  The inside of the tent began imperceptibly to lighten. Moses had been lying there awake for some time, Gitangali’s warm, soft, sleeping body snuggled up close against him. It was time for him to go but he lingered for a moment, savouring the delicious memory of their night together. He had aroused a sleeping tigress, after an initially virginal hesitancy, she had become almost insatiable, even more perhaps than Amelie, on this the night of her initiation into womanhood. Only now she slept, so deeply that he was able to creep away without waking her. He was away and into the concealment of the rainforest before any of the others were stirring, found his way to the airlock and the elevator. His fleece was still where he had hidden it and he donned it as he ascended back to the hub.

  His mind was full of her, he could recall the feel, touch and taste of her, sense her smell still lingering on his skin. He crossed over and went on down to the observatory, thinking that he should have a shower before returning to Amelie who might sense that he had been with another if he didn’t wash away her scent. As he lingered under the water he continued to wonder at her wantonness, she had been almost as physically responsive as he could contain, he could feel tenderness on his arms where she had dug in her fingers, gripping him so fiercely during her many moments of ecstasy. He had been surprised at how unabashed she was at the cries and moans she uttered as he forced her through a long series of orgasms, it was as if she wanted the others to know that she was being initiated into sex. He doubted if the other girls actually got much sleep. They must have wondered who Gitangali had with her in the tent and he suspected that they might guess it was him. It was just as well that Martha had gone to the observatory to sleep with Matthias last night.

  Hack wasn’t around and the others were still in their sleeping quarters, including Martha and Matthias and he felt vaguely alone suddenly. “Father, I have sinned. I have committed the sin of fornication.” He smiled to himself, then, for no reason he could put a voice to, shivered with an ominous premonition of trouble. He shook his head to clear away the thought and took the elevator down to the medical centre.

  The airlock door was closed and latched. He tried it again, to be certain. He spoke into the voice call system. “Amelie? I can’t get in. You must have locked the door by mistake.” There was no reply. He tried again and again but still there was no answer. ‘I wonder what the devil she’s up to?’ The thought came to him uncomfortably. Had she guessed what he had been doing? That he was two-timing her with Gitangali? How could she have known. Unless that devious little geek had given the game away. What if he had put up a video clip on Amelie’s screen of him chatting her up under the tree. Those last moments when she told him to come to her tent. Their hugging and kissing. His hands massaging her breasts, his lips kissing her nipples. He could feel his face flushing with a warring spate of emotions. ‘Was this what it was like to be caught sinning? The wages of sin are death!’ He shuddered with a deep involuntary superstition as the ancient words echoed in his mind. He headed back to the observatory.

  Hack was still not around. ‘Maybe he’s hiding from me,’ he thought with a surge of fury, as if Hack’s mere absence signalled his guilt. ‘I will winkle the little animal out, wherever he has gone into hiding.’ Moses went to Com1’s terminal in the common area.

  “Where is Hack?”

  “I presume you to mean M5. He has put a restriction on his personal file which is password protected.”

  “The devil he has! Is he with Amelie?” The idea suddenly surfaced in his mind. “Is that little bitch two-timing me with Hack?”

  “Amelie, F7 is in the Medical Centre. My sensors detect that she is suffering an emotional disturbance.”

  “Is she alone?”

  “Affirmative”

  “Can you open the airlock to the medical centre?”

  “Only ‘L’ designated crewmembers may override locks and latches.”

  “So I have to get Matthias’s authorisation?”

  “’L1’ or ‘L2’ will suffice”

  “They’re still in bed. Send Amelie a message from me to open up.”

  “Affirmative.” Com1 sent an audible signal to Amelie’s terminal and displayed a flashing message onscreen. Moses waited.

  “F7 is not responding.”

  “Where is she, for God’s sake?”

  “My sensors indicate that she is sitting on her bed. She appears to be traumatised.”

  “Traumatised? Why the hell should she be traumatised?”

  “A proper psycho-medical examination is required for me to be able to give you an answer.”

  Moses couldn’t contain himself, couldn’t wait any longer, he was becoming extremely agitated. He knocked on Matthias and Martha’s door, waited a few seconds, knocked again, more loudly and opened the door. They had been asleep. Matthias sat up blearily. “In the name of the Lord, what is this, Moses that is so important that you burst in on us? Are your sins catching up with you?” he added tartly, unable to know just how close to home his barb had gone.

  “Amelie has locked herself into the medical centre and Com1 says she is traumatised. Only you can authorise him to open it.”

  “What in the name of God is going on. Martha, we must go at once and see what is the matter with Mistress Amelie whom” he glared at Moses with barely suppressed fury “you said you had to have in exchange for your cooperation.”

  Moses was too distressed to reply, went to the elevator to be joined seconds later by the pair of them and they returned to the airlock which Matthias had ordered to be opened, burst into the centre and Moses threw open the door to their room, their so-recently commissioned honeymoon suite. Amelie was sit
ting naked on the bed, her back propped against the wall. She was a truly dreadful sight, causing all three of them to stop in shocked silence. Her eyes were glazed over, she was hugging her arms around herself and rocking backwards and forwards making mewing little cries in her throat. There was blood on the duvet underneath her.

  “Holy Mother of God” breathed Matthias. “What has happened to her?”

  Martha went to her, went on her knees beside her, put her arms around her and drew her against herself. “There, there! Amelie, it’s alright now. You’re safe now. We will take care of you, keep you safe.”

  “Ask her what happened” whispered Matthias. Martha stroked her hair, rocked her to herself like she was a small child, crooned words of comfort over her. She looked up at Matthias and shook her head. “She is in some kind of catatonic shock. She isn’t really conscious.”

  “The blood?” Moses voice was quaking with horror. “I think she’s been raped” said Martha.

  “Raped?” He echoed the word without really comprehending it. His Amelie who was so eager for sex. How could she have been raped? Who could have raped her. He leaned forward, touched her face. “Amelie, it’s me, Moses. Can you hear me, Amelie?” He thought that she nodded. “Who did it, Amelie? Who did this to you?”

  They all three heard her reply. Just one word. “Hack!”

  “Moses, come back!” Matthias’ words followed him unheeded. Moses’ heart was black with anger. He went up in the elevator, reached Hack’s door and smashed it open with a fire axe. It was empty and there were no clues as to his whereabouts.

  “Com1, where is he?”

  “Please be more specific, Moses.”

  “Where is Hack?”

  “I am only authorised to give that information to a password holder. Please enter the password now.”

  “Com1, Hack is a criminal. A rapist. He has no rights. I command you to tell me where he is!”

  “Command denied. Please enter the password now.”

  Moses snapped off the terminal. There were few places in the ship in which Hack could hide. He guessed the shuttles. If anywhere, Hack would be in one of the shuttles. He reactivated Com1. “Please request Matthias to lock shut the shuttle bay doors. Tell him I think that Hack is in one of the shuttles and I’m going to get him.”

  He was too late. As he opened the outer airlock door into the vacuum of the shuttle bay he could see that the doors were open. Before he could even make up his mind what to do next, S2 emitted a pulse of steam and drifted up and clear of the ship. He went for S1, entered through the airlock and had his helmet off as soon as the pressures equalised. He jumped into the pilot’s seat, still in his space suit and switched on the master control panel. He ignored the customary elaborate prestart checklist and flicked on the steam drive, activated the decoupling mechanism and fired the shuttle clear of the shuttle bay. He activated the on-board computer and commanded it to link to Com1.

  “This is S1, lock to S2 flight coordinates and keep formation.”

  “Affirmative.”

  The shuttle fired up on full fusion drive, leaving Alpha Four to disappear into the background of stars visible through the rear screen. Ahead, the radar screen connected to the already distant forward blip of S2 and he ordered emergency power. He was holding formation but only just, sitting about 100km behind and gradually drifting further apart.

  “Com1, patch me through to S2.”

  “S2 link, confirmed, you have live teleconference mode.” The cabin of S2 abruptly appeared onscreen. Hack was at the controls. He was wearing a baseball cap back to front, staring straight ahead at the azimuth and artificial horizon, hands on the control column like he was flying a spitfire.

  “Hack! Why? Why did you do it?”

  “Don’t bug me Moses, just get off my tail!”

  “You little bastard! You could have had any of them. Any one you wanted.”

  “Except Amelie. And now Gitangali.”

  “Shit, Hack. You raped her. You destroyed her. She can’t even speak! There was blood everywhere. You tore her apart.”

  “I only did what you did. And you’re bigger than I am. So what’s the big deal. Between friends.”

  Moses felt terrible rage rise over him like a black cloud that enveloped and engulfed him, then just dissolved into his psyche. He was very calm and quiet when he spoke. “I’m going to kill you Hack. You are no longer fit to be a member of the human race.”

  “Try me brother. Just try me!” Teleconference mode dissolved, replaced by the radar image of S2. It was coming straight at him at a closing speed of almost 2 kilometres a second. Terror flooded through him, freezing his hands on the controls for long seconds as the image enlarged with horrifying rapidity, bearing down on a direct collision course. Hack appeared on voice only.

  “Bye bye Big Boy! Pity you never learnt how to fly one of these properly.” Various alarms began to sound through the cabin. Moses held the controls, switched from autopilot to manual, waited with sweat breaking out on his forehead until the last moment, then twitched S1 sharply into a steep bank. The searing flame of the fusion drive raked briefly over S2’s hull and then it was past, turning almost on its axis and heading once more towards him. Moses counterattacked, driving a direct collision course back until it was S2’s turn to break away in a tight turn and then was immediately rounding on him, forcing him to evade with a steep turn of his own. The violent manoeuvres had disoriented him for a few seconds, sending his head dizzy with the violent ‘g’ forces and threatening him with nausea, losing the critical initiative so that he was faced with S2 filling the screen as it approached him head on at incredible speed and it was too late to react. They flew past each other, so close that it seemed they must collide, then the fire of Hack’s fusion drive caught S1 and his systems tripped out.

  She had become an instant hulk, tumbling uncontrollably and sickeningly about her axis, engine stalled, radar and most onboard systems plunged into blankness, a sitting duck. Hack lined her up carefully, then closed in for the kill. “If you can hear me brother Moses, it’s time to offer up one of those prayers that old Matthias seems so hooked into, ‘cos I’m goin’ to show you what hellfire really is. Then I’m going back home to see what I can find to do to entertain the lovely Gitangali”

  S2 was drifting slowly past him. Moses fumbled in the darkness, found the emergency power switch and turned it on. S1 hesitated then found her systems. He hit the main power drive just as Hack turned on S2’s drive for the final immolation. S1 stabilised as the computer compensated, he pulled the control column over, S1 turned away, catching his sister ship square on in the immolating flame of the fusion drive. S2 glowed red, then white hot and exploded silently into a spreading ball of blindingly white fire.

  Chapter 13

  The shuttle came back on autopilot. So did Moses. He came straight back to the medical centre where Matthias and Martha were still attending the traumatised Amelie. They had changed the bed and persuaded her to lie down, though she was still functioning as an automaton. He went directly to her, leaned over and placed his hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes, though they didn’t seem to see him in return. “Amelie” he said gently “Hack is dead. I killed him. You need never fear anything ever again. This I promise you, in the name of God. I will look after you, I will protect you and keep you safe. I will nurse you back to health. So help me God!”

  Somewhere in the background he heard somebody whisper “Amen!”

  He stood upright, looked to Matthias. “Forgive me Father. I have committed a mortal sin. I have killed a man. I submit myself to your judgement.”

  Matthias went to him, put his arms around him and held him to himself. “Moses you have nothing to be forgiven. The Lord said ‘I am a vengeful God!’” He held Moses at arm’s length, looked into his eyes. “You acted in the name of the Lord, you carried out His Will. You committed no sin.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, Father. I have committed many sins. I will dedicate myself from henceforth to atonement for the wrongs I have done. I will devote my life and my soul to bringing Amelie back to health and strength, forsaking all other, henceforth and forever.”

  Matthias hugged him as a son. His eyes were blinded with tears. “God be with you, my son” he said and Martha, still with her arm around Amelie added the single word of blessing “Amen!”

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  She did not get better. Moses sat with her and talked to her for hours at a time. He fed her, washed her, helped her to the toilet and wept over her when she slept. He made her get up and walk around so that she would have some exercise. He held her in his arms when she started to rock back and forth. He dried her eyes when they were wet with tears. He prayed with and for her.