The Alpha Project: Book One Read online

The Alpha Project

  Book One – Exodus

  By

  Toby Clark

  Copyright 2010 Toby Clark

   

  **************************************************

   

  Also by the same author:

  Alpha Seven

  Book One Exodus

  Chapter 1

  Amelie squealed as arms folded around her. A naked body pressed up against her from behind.

  “Guess who?”

  “Oh, Desmond, don’t be such an idiot. You gave me a fright!”

  “Mother sent me here to see how you were getting on. She says there isn’t much time.”

  She untwined his arms and turned around to be greeted by the sight of the young man, dressed only in boxer shorts in the steamy, humid atmosphere of the hydroponicum. He was quite tall, slim, well muscled and fit as were they all. Blue eyes and sandy coloured hair showed off an attractive and animated countenance. The beginnings of hair were visible on his chest, he would soon be coming into his prime. He grinned and let his eyes roam over her. “Amelie…”

  “Mother says we mustn’t even think about it. This isn’t the time.”

  “Oh, Mother! What does she know about feelings?”

  “You mustn’t say things like that, Desmond!”

  “But I love you Amelie. I think you are the loveliest person in the world! Expedition” he corrected himself. “And for the first time ever, I’ve got you on your own.”

  She lowered her eyes demurely. “Desmond! I had to get the sprays ready, this is supposed to be an emergency, after all. I was just making the final connection when you – surprised me.”

  “Well, turn it on then.”

  “You know what it will be like when I do.” She smiled, looked back into his eyes. “We can leave it for a little while yet, I’m sure. The canopy is immensely strong.” They both looked up at the reassuringly bright white dome that rose in a mighty vaulting arch high above them. “I think that Father is overdoing the precautions. If you ask me, that is.”

  She reached out and took his hand, led him to the grassy bank in front of the pond. He noticed the fat length of pipe which she had fed into it and which disappeared in amongst the undergrowth of the forest back the way they had come. “Won’t it empty all the water out?”

  “Well, of course it will to start with but it will drain back in again so it should just keep going round and round for as long at it is needed. That’s what Father said would happen. It is just like the normal rain making system only directed up on to the canopy and with more force”

  “Oh, Amelie! You’re so beautiful!” Desmond sat down on the grass and pulled her down beside him. “Will you let me kiss you?”

  Amelie lowered her eyes again. She was completely unable to suppress the blush that came to her cheeks. She nodded. Desmond leaned across and brushed his lips to her cheek. She could feel the warmth of his body as his trunk pressed against her and she instinctively leaned forward against him. Her breast was touching him, she hadn’t realised how sensitive it was. She was starting to breathe through parted lips and she could feel her heartbeat becoming stronger. He was putting both arms around her and drawing her around face to face, then his lips were against hers. She found herself winding her body around him in response, feeling the back of his neck with her hands and returning his embrace with an increasingly urgent fervour.

  They sat embracing and kissing for some minutes, following the demands of nature and the hunger of youth, uncaring for their inexperience. She pulled back apart from him and gazed into his face, drunk with sensation and the heat of physical contact. They were both breathing heavily, she could see that his face was flushed. Their eyes were locked together.

  “Mother?” she whispered. “Isn’t here” he replied breathily.

  She reached behind her and unhooked her regulation bra, let it fall on the grass beside her. His eyes dropped to her breasts. She reached forward and pulled his face down against them, gripped his shoulders, rocking him against her. He kissed her nipples, his lips pulling them up into tight points, then he was above her, she was lying back with the soft, yielding grass against her skin. His eyes looked into hers, enquiringly. She ran her hands down his flanks, hooked her fingers inside the waistband of his boxers and pushed them down over his hips, with boldness that surprised herself, eased them over his big, bulging erection and down his thighs. In an immediate response, he had pulled her knickers down as far as her knees and she wrestled them off altogether while he did the same and then they were naked.

  She was drowning in his eyes, her own were liquid pools of desire. Her time had come and she was eagerly ready for him. She held his hot, erect penis in both hands and guided him between her labia, nuzzling the head of him against herself, overwhelmed by the sheer physical sensations coming from inside. “Now!” she commanded hoarsely. He began to thrust with his hips, she could feel him pressing more tightly each time until something gave and he was entering her, going deeper, opening her for the first time until he came all the way down on to her mound. She shuddered, whispered into his ear. “Gently! Don’t hurt me. Go slowly.”

  Desmond tried to hold himself back but it was impossible. She began to writhe and moan beneath him, making him so incredibly excited that his ejaculation came almost at once. She pushed up against him, wanting more but for the moment, he was finished.

  “Desmond, that was wonderful” she murmured. “Why did you finish so quickly?”

  “Couldn’t help it” He was faintly shamefaced, feeling himself slacken inside her. “Next time it will be different, I promise!”

  “When will that be?”

  He grinned, bent forward over her and kissed her on the mouth. He had already felt renewed stirrings of passion. “Now!” He began to press with his hips, gently at first until he became fully hard again. She gripped him tightly with her hands on his buttocks, pulling him in to herself, gasping and groaning with the unbelievable sensations of joy welling up inside her as he slid strongly over her clitoris and to his full depth inside her. This time she made him work as hard as he could, he was amazed at the force of her response, she was like a wild thing, thrashing and bucking underneath him until she exploded with the violence of her orgasm and took him with her for the second time.

  They collapsed together, Desmond still lying on top of her. They were running with sweat in the hot humidity of the hydroponicum, both gasping for breath until at length they began to sink into the delicious peacefulness of relaxation after the fury of their passion. He became aware that she had fallen asleep with him still inside her, his body still covering her. He breathed in the aromatic musky scent of her body, letting himself learn the little sensations and feelings which would cement his love for her in the desperate months and years that he did not yet know were to come.

  As he sat beside her sleeping form, his eyes wandered over the lush rainforest that comprised H2. A microcosm of its earthly precursor, flora and fauna designed for maximum biodiversity but subject to the criterion of benign tolerance to humans, it was magnificent in form and delightful in the variety of its species. Small birds flitted about within the canopy, insects droned about over the pond – here a dragonfly, there a butterfly, amphibians and small reptiles could be disturbed in and around it.

  Desmond sighed with contentment. They had only been revived from hibernation a few days ago and this had been his first visit to the hydroponica albeit in response to an emergency. It was totally unlike any other part of the ship, contrasting with the metallic orderliness and functionality that defined Alpha Four’s status as a spacecra
ft. The glorious range of greens and browns punctuated with splashes of red, yellow and purple flowers set off the blueish surface of the pond.

  Overhead, the canopy presented a pearly daylight glow that set everything off to perfection. He could see exotic looking fruits here and there. He picked a ripe fig from a nearby tree and chewed it appreciatively.

  Here in this paradise, he had become a man! Here, he had fallen in love with the beautiful young woman lying at peace beside him while his sperms were making their journey to the centre of her fertility. He sighed again. His life was destined never to be the same again, he reflected as he leaned over to kiss her dear lips.

  She stirred and opened her eyes, smiled back into his, then sat up suddenly, hand rising to her mouth. “Desmond, how long have we been lying here? Mother will be furious! The sprays! We haven’t started the sprays!” She staggered to her feet and tottered into the forest, following the line of the hose.

  “Amelie, wait!” he called, following behind. “You said it wasn’t urgent…” His voice was drowned in the sudden clamour of a klaxon sounding over by the control centre and the lighting began to flicker in the firmament above him like the ominous presaging of a tropical storm. He chased after her through a winding path amongst the trees calling out her name until he burst through and out by the control centre to where she was frantically opening a valve.

  She was sobbing “the canopy, the canopy!” as the sound of intensely heavy rain began to roar down on to the foliage. “Amelie...”

  “It’s too late! Desmond, flee. Into the control centre.” She ran to him, seized his arm and propelled him towards a vertical ladder that led upwards to a hatch. He could feel the frenzied winds of a great storm beginning to blow around him and down from where they had to go. He vaulted up, two steps at a time and she climbed desperately behind him against the wind roaring loudly out of the hatchway. He reached down a hand to her and dragged her up with him. Now his body was filling the opening and air was shrieking past him, trying to drag him back down with malevolent force, now he was through and dragging her desperately up and through with him. She rolled over on to the floor out of the way, he unlatched the hatch cover and the rising hurricane grabbed it from his hands, slammed it shut with tremendous force and….suddenly all was silent.

  He went down on his knees, gasping for breath, seeing again in his mind the last terrifying view through the hatchway as the canopy collapsed on to the trees which were bending and thrashing in the fury of the tornado of escaping air from the doomed forest behind them. He looked up with horror in his face into her equally horrified eyes. “It’s gone!” she quavered. “It’s all lost. Oh Desmond, Desmond! Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I didn’t realise….”

  “And now the hydroponicum is lost. The other three are still standing, luckily for us all. Why did you fail?” They turned, cringing before the stern figure who had appeared unnoticed and was staring furiously at them.

  “Mother, I, we…”

  “Thought to find other things to amuse yourselves with while the canopy overheated. Where are your clothes? What did you think you were up to?”

  They cringed before her forbidding presence, suddenly and awfully aware and vulnerable in their nakedness.” We….”

  “You don’t need to say anything more. I’m not stupid. I can guess well enough what distracted your attention from your task. You could have killed us all. Now we have lost one quarter of our life support system and it may not be over yet. I need you to assist in doubling up on the sprays in H3. Urgently. Now!” Her command was an enraged shriek. They fled, sobbing before her, paused at the entry into the almost identical hydroponicum in terror, then climbed down into a thunderous deluge rebounding from its canopy far above.

  Chapter 2

  “I think that we have to abandon ship now, Martha!”

  “We lost H2 thanks to that no-good hussy Amelia and that stupid Desmond and I think that the others may go as well, despite the sprays. I told them to double up on the pumps and be sure that the deluge is evenly spread but it was getting dangerously hot, even so.”

  Matthias shook his head sadly. “I’m going to sound the general alarm and call them all in. There’s no more that any of us can achieve now, however hard we try. There is no point in putting lives at risk, any more than they are already.” He addressed the computer console: “Com1, sound the general alarm for one standard minute then patch me through to the sound system.”

  “Confirmed!” The computer was hiding behind his screensaver, which depicted the ship hanging in space against a backdrop of stars with the heart-wrenchingly beautiful images of Earth and Moon in the background, one green, blue and banded with white cloud, the other yellow with the black crater-thrown shadows of a lunar evening; the one teeming with water and life, the other hot, dry and dead. At once, klaxons began to resound through the hub and Matthias’s central control room, located behind the massive bulkhead which comprised the floor separating the shuttle bay from the central stores and the fuel and atmosphere tanks. They could also be heard everywhere else throughout the ship, except in the now destroyed H2. Far below him in H3, Amelie and Desmond, along with three of their fellow crewmates, paused from their frantic work of operating the sprays, able barely to hear the alarms above the roaring deluge of hot rain cascading over them and now barely able to see through a thickening pall of mist. They looked from one to another, seeking comfort and confidence in eyes that only gave red-rimmed terror in reply, their faces haggard with heat exhaustion.

  “All crewmembers are to go to the shuttles…,” this they could barely make out above the thunderous cacophony “…at once. We are abandoning ship, I repeat, abandoning ship. Make haste!”

  Amelie and Desmond were the last to go up in the elevator. They had their space suits with them and struggled to put them on before the 500 metre journey up the spoke to the hub and safety of the shuttles was completed. It was always a struggle, much more so than usual because they were in the small space together but worsened by their soaking and overheated bodies. The essential prerequisite of donning their one-piece fleece undergarments was almost impossible and added mightily to their thermal stress but somehow they dragged them on and began on the ungainly business of cladding themselves in the outer. They were still unready as it halted in the hub and they almost fell out into the small elevator lobby with their upper limbs halfway tangled up in the clumsy oversuits. It was each to themself, too busy with the struggle to help each other until finally each fastened their helmet on, the insides instantly fogging to obscurity with the humid dampness of their bodies until the suit air conditioning system had time to get the airflow under control.

  There had been no time to speak, other than the cursing which had accompanied their struggles with the suits. Desmond touched his visor against hers, seeing her frightened young face dimly within and nodded through the fog towards the airlock door. On the other side was the vacuum of the shuttle bay. He operated the air pump.

  From there, it was only a few minutes in the confusingly low-gravity environment of the hub before they had ascended the scaffolding on to the embarkation landing of S4. They were the last and the shuttle bay doors were opening as they arrived. “Look away!” A voice in their radios. “The sun will burn out your eyes. Hurry! Hurry! Everybody’s waiting.” It was Mother’s voice and its inflexion told them that she was still angry with them. They hastily crammed into the shuttle’s airlock and swung the outer door shut, checking the green indicator led that told them it had latched properly. As air rushed from the inner, bringing sound with it, they could hear the shuttle motors starting up and the vibration of movement through their gloved hands as the shuttle began to get away, clearly they were in such haste that they couldn’t wait for them to enter and reach the security of their seats. As the inner swung open, the shuttle was already manoeuvering for takeoff, they staggered through the inner hatch and both almost f
ell as they gave both hands to the task of pulling off their helmets. From there, it was just a matter of taking their seats as the steam drive cut in and S4 pushed forwards.

  Desmond could see the dreadful, menacing fireball of the sun, so close to them now. Even though the tinting of the windscreen was dimmed to maximum, it was still ferociously bright and it forced him to look away. It was the same for the cockpit crew and someone operated the shutters, projecting the scene outside on to the ship’s viewing screen instead. The other three shuttles had already departed. S4 rotated under steam until it was safely pointing away from the hull of the ship, then cut into fusion drive, pushing him back into his seat with its smooth, powerful acceleration. He exhaled the tensed up breath of tension and relaxed back into the seat, nothing more to be done. He turned his head towards Amelie and smiled. She smiled back but neither of them could find anything to say.

  An hour later, the drive was turned off and they drifted into weightlessness, far from the ship and safely clear of the gravity field of the sun. Their sun. Powerhouse to their destination planet. Someone had got the on-board computer to display Alpha Four on the screen at maximum visual magnification – just a small blob moving against that fierce background of fire. As far as they could see she still looked intact and Com1 was emitting a stream of telemetry readings which were coming up on visual on the master vdu screen, basically confirming rising temperature but so far, all her systems were still live. Except for H2.