Prince Mikael stared out the window, hands clasped behind his back. It had been months since his first encounter with his father’s new alpha and all he could see was amber eyes every time he closed his. And that voice! He clenched his jaw. She was smaller than him, but the image she projected made her stand as tall as his father.

  The emperor knew her somehow.

  It was as though he had been waiting for her to show. She was like a wild ralkesh; all pointy lizard spines and even sharper teeth. She was likely to do as much damage as the little creature too. And he wanted more of her. More of what he should not want. Alphas were dangerous; for a reason. That did not stop the wanting. He was trying to come up with a reason to hang around without looking like he was desperate. He kept trying to understand what it was that was so fascinating about her. He knew plenty of women with great looks and full of attitude. Yet she was somehow different. Even the fragrance around her was fresh, clean. There was no lingering perfume. How was he supposed to get close.

  “Your majesty, you requested an update on anything to do with the new alpha.”

  He did not even turn around. The servant remained silent; waiting on him to answer. Losing the battle against his own will, he grunted. Turning he nodded. “Speak Karjya.”

  Karjya has serve the emperor as an in infiltrator for a great many years. Reconnaissance was his specialty. He had been given the duty of serving and training the prince in the same capacity. Now that the prince was beginning to take up his role in assisting the emperor he was getting the opportunity to assess the young prince’s character.

  Since the new alpha turned up the prince was putting more effort into everything he was doing. Karjya suspected he was attempting to ignore the very woman they were discussing. Mikael was going to have to find a way to excise whatever he was feeling. As the heir he was not able to join a war pack.

  “There is a rebel faction that is against creating another alpha. They have petitioned to end the program completely including the existing alphas. They were displeased to be dismissed before they had the opportunity to explain their reasoning. As they have been a threat in the past, I ordered them monitored.

  “We managed to turn one of the rebels. They are planning to attack the compound where the new alpha is in the process of her upgrade. As you know stopping the program now will kill her. The emperor has increased patrols on the compound. The few members of her pack have not been told.”

  Mikael stood stock still. He barely breathed as he processed the information that Karjya had just given him. Why had the emperor not informed her own pack? He had to know that Karjya was explaining everything to him. He would have given orders to keep silent if he did not want Mikael to know what was going on. Curses. He was tired of being tested. “What was the name of her second in command? Ni... Nigell… no Ni’yell… send Ni’yell everything you just told me. See that a contingent of soldiers… better yet, what is the name of the mercenary group that assisted in taking down those illegal shops?”

  “CARVER Striker Company.”

  “Excellent. Find out if they have the full company here. If not, find out how long it will take for them to get one here. Let’s assume that we do not have long to secure the compound. I know that there is money in the budget for outsourced security. I doubt anyone is going to tell me that I shouldn’t make use of a never used fund. Besides they already worked with the new pack. It should be easy for them to slid in and assist.”

  “Perhaps a small team,” Karjya supplied.

  “a small team is pointless. Make it two companies. They are trained and qualified. Most of the rebels are not… unless that has changed?”

  “No majesty.”

  “Also inform the quartermaster that the new pack requires weapons and armor,” the prince turned to look out at the city that he loved most of the time. “Have ready my armor as well.”

  Karjya bowed to the waist then back out of the room. Perhaps the emperor had seen this coming and had anticipated the prince’s reaction. He always seemed to know what the likeliest outcomes of a situation usually was. After many years of service, it would be wise of a servant to know his master well enough to anticipate his needs.

  Rennick

  Rennick blinked at the screen. “Say again?”

  Ni’yell arched a brow. “I am on my way and hope to be there before anything goes wrong, but if I’m not it is up to you to ensure that our alpha remains safe. I repeat: your sole responsibility is to protect alpha while she is vulnerable. The program cannot be halted without deadly consequences. There is no guaranteed time of attack. Assume the attack is imminent.”

  “Understood.”

  “CARVER Striker Company are inbound and likely to arrive in the next three days. Prince Mikael has provided access to the armory. Use what you need.” Ni’yell reached forward and the screen went black.

  Rennick sat for a second trying to process the information. Alpha would say that it was more proof that she could not catch a break. That they needed mercenary support stung because her team wanted to be all she needed, but that was no longer true. They had always been enough before all the nonsense. They should be enough to defend her without needing help, but the compound was built to sustain an assault. It might have once, but now it was old and unkempt. At its prime it was packed and ready for assault at any time. Now it was a relic of a bygone era. He huffed. He was going to do what needed doing. Alpha was everything.

  Protecting the compound was impossible even with two mercenary units. They were going to need to buckle down and be selective about what they protected. The main bunker where the program ran was pivotal. It might also be wise to guard the power source or find a way to shift it to something more defensible. Standing, he made his way back to where the rest of the pack were waiting. All the while he was running scenarios that might get them through the coming shitshow without losing their alpha. Halting he went back to the comms room and sat back down. If he was going to come up with a solution it might be smart to know what the other guy was bringing to the table. Then he needed to go to the armory to see what he had to play with.

  Max

  Max slipped into the shuttle to access a bigger database then the compound was connected to. Unfortunately, in order to secure the facility, that housed the ALPHA protocol, it had been created as an independent structure. That did not mean impenetrable. He set up a link so that he was able to monitor Alpha. It was however limited. The alien technology that he was using had a way of accessing information on a galactic scale.

  If he was going to find out what this rebel faction was up to, he was going to need to be able dive deep. Interlocking his fingers he cracked them. Picking up a visor he sat in the copilot’s seat. He was able to work without the visor, he had before the sleek new shuttle, but he found that he was able to react faster with it. It was like there was a connection directly into his brain.

  Data filtered into streams that he was able to see as his fingers worked magic on the keys. Focusing on a particular stream he began navigating his way through data from Reigeous City in search of the names of the people threatening his alpha. one such name had been one of the spokes persons that had gone before the emperor. Immediately he began creating folders and subfolders to organize the data as he found it.

  Max had a knack for finding information. When he had first joined Micha’s team, he had been shocked at how little they were told regarding each mission. He made it his purpose to dig up every tidbit he was able to. Anything to assist the woman who had put everything on the line to protect him when he had been unable to protect himself. He had never imagined information was to become his specialty.

  She made him a valuable member of her team, made him essential on the mission; had claimed they were successful because he had been there. She extended a permanent place on their little team. He had been weak enough to admit that he needed her way more then she needed him. The information highway had been his chance to show her that she had not wasted her time on him.

  So, he dove through the information highway. He dug up details that no one wanted out for the world to see. Found ways to circumvent the leaders, undermine them in ways that would weaken them. It also told him the type of backing they had. Money always came from somewhere. In this instance it came for a much bigger faction then the Purity For All could afford to alienate. He wondered if the emperor was aware of the depth of betrayal he was facing. There were three noble houses pushing the little rabble to attack the compound.; Haafal, Iegnor and Rthalmanon.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Max dug deeper.

  The three noble houses were apart of another faction. One that appeared to argue against the emperor quite frequently. They were smart enough not to attach a name to their group. From what he was able to find there was a great deal of disquiet and a lot of one hand not knowing the other. The larger factions did not seem to know all the key players.

  They also lobbied for the rights to manage their own laws for their own sectors. So far, the emperor had not allowed it. To Max, splitting the laws into individual states when it was already unified made little sense, which seemed to be the emperor’s stance as well. The bigger faction had greater defenses in place to prevent the very thing that Max was doing. Since he was ill-equipped to take on those defenses he was forced to back off. With an expert flick of his eye, he sent all of the information that he had uncovered to Ni’yell and the prince, since he was the reason that they even knew about the incoming attack. Then he went hard after the Purity For All.

  Max attacked where it hurt the most; money and information. He saw that secrets were exposed, accounts were emptied, resourced were rerouted and that it looked like it was members of the same faction that had done it. Then he had those resources sent to an abandoned warehouse and money set in a special account for collection once Alpha was awake.

  Only then did he go back to doing everything he could to tear apart their shoddy foundation of lies. They were supposed to be about maintaining pure bodies so as to not taint their god given genetics. That meant nothing. No implants. No bionics. No mind altering drugs. And no use of nano technology. That did not seem to apply to the leaders of the faction. Max wanted to trigger the technology they were hiding publicly, but he needed assistance to managed them all. He only had two hands.

  Max froze. something triggered an attack on one of the big factions he stepped away from. Zeroing in he was unable to detect the signature. He was not going to call the attack sloppy. It was more like someone had just discovered they were able to hack at all. Out of curiosity Max threw a more sophisticated attack at the next wall. The new hacker took the attack and adapted it on the fly. Like it was natural born instinct. Before Max realized what he was doing he and the new hacker were more than half way through the firewalls without triggering a single one. Distracted, he sent the hacker a message in an attempt to connect with the stranger. At first there was no response. Then out of nowhere he was hammered with messages.

  "Don?t leave me alone. I am here.”

  “@># %%&| )&#@I want to live”

  “@># %%&| )&#@”

  “Don’t leave me alone.I am here."

  “I want to live.@># %%&| )&#@”

  “# Hurt &@<”

  “Help #e”

  The spam kept coming. Max was baffled. It was like it was trying to speak the same language but did not know how. Multitasking the attack he also started sending messages with more content. The messages he kept receiving started to take on a more understanding tone and appeared less like a code to break and more like conversation. The hacker wanted to know why he was attacking the Purity For All and the second faction and why he was helping the new hacker?

  Max considered his reply. “I must protect my alpha. There is a threat of an attack on her and there is information that can help me and my team to find the best way to protect her. I helped you because we seem to have the same goal?”

  “I WANT TO LIVE.” The message spammed once again. Over and over.

  Desperate to stop the messages from blocking him, he sent another message. “Then I will help you.”

  Silence descended. The seconds it took to reply nearly cost them their intrusion. Suddenly the intrusions multiplied; hammering at the firewall. Stunned Max watched the new hacker destroy their way through the remaining firewalls. He reacted. There was little time to access whatever was being hidden. Max was not even looking at what he was copying. He just took anything at hand. The hacker seemed to be doing the same thing. Max counted down the seconds before they were booted out and the sequence of the firewall changed. They would know that someone was in and might be able to track it back to its source. He needed to make that harder to do. At the last second Max blasted trails going in every direction.

  “I PROTECT ALPHA?”

  Max’s reply was simple. “Yes. We protect Alpha.”

  “T3ll m3 h0w.”

  Max gave his coordinates to the hacker. “Come here if you can. If not meet me at this time tomorrow.”

  “Am h3r3.”

  “Where?”

  Special grid map coordinates for the compound flashed in response. Again, Max froze. “Where do you work?”

  “am ALPHA protocol.” Again, the message kept repeating itself.

  Max ran calculations trying to piece the puzzle in front of him together. “No…” he thought. “It cant be…” he sent another message. “You are the program or you work for the program?”

  This time the same message flashed in front of his screen. “I am.”

  Air whooshed from his lungs as Max contemplated the meaning of what the message was stating. He was not even going to contemplate the plausibility of what he thought the message meant. In some sense he was not speaking to a person, but he was having a conversation with an entity. One made up of bytes of information and code. With a slow nod Max sent one final message. “I have a way to take you with us,”

  Max reached into his pack and removed one of the orbs from the underground compound. Turning back to the consol he wondered how he was going to link the orb. As he thought it a small panel slid open and was just the right size for the orb. He carefully explained where to find the connection to the orb. At first there was no response, then the visor informed him that a large quantity of data was being transferred. While the upload was finishing, Max sent the revised information to the Prince and his Second in Command. Let them decide what to do with the information from the greater houses.

  Max took off the visor and stood slowly, orb floating next to him. He had no idea how big the entity was. He was going to have to come up with a solution and quick to housing it, if it proved capable of adjusting and adapting its own program. He had no idea how long they were going to be there, but he would manage. He just needed to build a micro world that the orb was able to access the way others access their own homes. From there the sky was the limit.

  Runningwind

  Runningwind fretted as he watched Ni’yell board one of the standard shuttles that had been confiscated from the slavers. He wrang his hands nervously. He was torn between going with him and doing the task he had been assigned. Fear for Micha, of losing her was driving him crazy. He needed to decide what he was going to do. The truth was there was little he could do in the onslaught of an attack. That did not mean he was unable to assist; it just limited what he was capable of. There he was mainly going to be underfoot. The best he could do was put himself between the attacker and hope to survive.

  But here, he was able to choreograph fine details. He was capable of running the compound with the assistance of the healers, office workers and soldiers who had come to alpha’s aid. He decided to ensure that when she arrived there was going to be something she was proud of. Clenching his outer robe tightly he tried to look confident. Ni’yell turned to face him. Runningwind nodded with a wobbly smile.

  “Bring her back safely.”

  Ni’yell nodded as he closed the shuttle hatch. Backing away from the shuttle, Runningwind told himself that it was going to be alright. He knew he could trust his packmates to do their job. All he needed to do was his job. It was a simple task, but it was still important. Turning back to the compound, he marched forward. There was plenty to do he told himself. He was going to start by finding out how the construction of the asteroid was coming along. An update on the process was due the day before. He was already aware of the status of the on-planet construction on both Nootapft and Kafkirja. Nootapft had accorded three hundred cubic hectares of land on which to build. As he was moving through the plans of the compound in the small city. Noopt was digging out the underground storage facilities and setting foundations. There was room to expand if it was needed.

  Kafkirja had been more complex. To build the necessary buildings Runningwind had had to purchase seven companies that did, more or less, on a small scale what Alpha wanted to do on a much bigger scale. The city Sanomeerja had sold him air rights as well as the land rights. It was going to allow them to expand up as they needed. The melding of seven companies was a major undertaking. Fortunately, the staff of those seven companies had agreed to remain on the understanding their families were cared for. So Runningwind had given them the choice of sending their families to the compound, staying where they were or switching to the compound on Nootapft and assisting in building from scratch. It might go faster if he was there but there was too much to do where he was and he had people on the ground that were working for the wellbeing of the pack. If there was anything Runningwind knew how to do it was delegate. Half the staff and their families chose to go to Nootapft and build it from the ground up.

  Most of the illegal slaves had chosen to remain with the emerging company. Choosing to work for Micha in whatever capacity she would allow. Some were proving their worth as covert members. Some provided access to a network of information that was valuable in and of itself. He had had each slave interviewed to determine their capabilities before enslavement in order to determine how best to make use of them. Even though the interviews were ongoing there were many diamonds that were going to be worth polishing. Some were in better condition than most of the illegally kept slaves. That meant they were quickly shunted into tasks suited to their abilities.

  Any that had experience with martial arts or weapons were handed to Gleint, a burly retire soldier with a stump where his left hand once was. He organized a training regime with thirty other vetrans. It took a brief shuffle to find a rhythm that had worked for the neglected and abused slaves. The rest of the slaves were being sorted as they were released from the medical center. They were given clean clothes, food and rest. As they were able several of the retired soldiers began to build up their systems with physical exercise; regardless of where their duties were to take them. Stamina was essential to any task. Runningwind sighed. It was a slow process.

  There were still a great number of incapacitated slaves. Fortunately, he no longer needed to sort them into a system to track their terms of service. A filing system had been organized and stored for a fast and efficient means of retrieval. There at the main office he was comfortable. It was his domain. Even with the constant chaos it was comforting and left him feeling as though he was capable of achieving anything. So, he moved to his desk at the center of the mad rush and reached for the first file in front of him.

  Neicha had been given the task of learning to hunt from a couple veterans. They taught him to use a spear knife and bow. They were impressed with his desire to learn. He took in everything and asked for more with hand signals. He and the dire bear cubs were proving to be adaptable and quick to learn. They were becoming adept at hunting. While mediocre with a bow, Neicha proved to be a natural with knives of various lengths.