DISCLAIMER: All DARK ANGEL characters belong to James Cameron and Charles Eglee (Cameron Eglee Productions) and DARK ANGEL itself belongs to FOX.
ARCHIVE: No
The following scene is based on characters
created for the television series DARK ANGEL,
and is set in the time frame following the Max Allan Collins novel AFTER THE DARK. -- author's note
Night Terror
By Valjean
*************************************
It's nearly impossible to sneak up on a cat.
Whether a minute sound or the prescience of a dream awakened him he'd never know, but when Alec's eyes snapped open in the dark his senses were screaming that something was terribly wrong.
Lying totally still, he held his breath, willing his heartbeat to slow as he listened. And then there it was again, a faint scrabbling sound from the ceiling.
Rats? he wondered. Terminal City was full of the vermin, and Max's place wasn't exactly up to the standards of the penthouse suite she used to share with Logan Cale. But Alec didn't really think it was rats ... at least not the rodent kind.
Rolling over on his side, he gently put his hand over his pregnant mate's mouth. Instantly, 452's eyes were wide open, staring at him even as her fingers automatically clawed around his wrists. "Shhh," he whispered softly, hugging her close, his lips at her ear. "We've got company." He glanced toward the ceiling where all was now quiet again.
Assassins? The thought sent a cold chill down Alec's spine. He knew full well that Max was a marked woman -- especially now that she was pregnant with a child carrying her same unique DNA -- a child that would insure the comet plague which was now sweeping nations and killing uninoculated humans by the thousands would still have a cure in the future. Her blood was priceless, the basis for the vaccine that was being distributed as fast as the CDC could manufacture it. But more importantly, Max was a symbol for humanity, proof that the Breeding Cult and its immune members need not win in the end and dominate the world. Sandeman had created Max, plus the rest of the transgenics, to be an army against the cult ... an army to protect ordinaries ... and that was exactly what Terminal City's genetically empowered supersoldiers were doing, moving against the Familiars whenever and wherever they could while "Maxine" as Alec jokingly called it -- Max's blood-based plague cure -- saved millions.
The military had wanted to take Max into protective custody ... lock her away forever deep in a mountain where she would supposedly be kept safe along with her child ... his child ... They'd made noises about caging him too ... the one who'd successfully sired offspring with their "special one" ...
That hadn't happened -- yet -- although it had taken some forceful persuading (and threats) on the transgenics' part to insure their leaders' freedom. Now, however, Alec knew that he and Max might be about to pay the price for that freedom.
Gunfire. Outside and some distance away but still signaling trouble. Shoving back the blankets, his breath a white vapor in the unheated air, Alec reached for the pair of grey sweat pants he'd tossed on the floor before climbing into bed that night. "Get something on," he hissed at Max who'd already snatched up her blue silk robe -- a present from Original Cindy last Christmas. Bare chested and barefoot, Alec crept to the window and cautiously peeked around the curtain, pupils expanding to an inhuman degree, his feline eyes sweeping the frozen deserted streets below. Max's apartment was on the top floor of an old office building deep in the heart of TC. From here he had a pretty good view of most of the compound, but he didn't see anything until--
A flash of light to the right, over by the main headquarters, followed by the staccato beat of a machine gun. They were under attack. But by whom? Our people don't have automatic weapons, Alec thought with a sick feeling in his gut. It was a luxury they hadn't been able to afford.
"Soldiers?" Max asked softly from the bed, brown eyes anxious, her long dark hair partially obscuring her beautiful face as a hand rested protectively on her swollen belly.
Alec shook his head. "Maybe," he said, glancing over at the clock on the nightstand. Four a.m. ... the hour of the wolf ...
Again, there was a noise from above ... unmistakable this time ... running boots on the roof. Alec took a deep shuddering breath, and wished mightily that he had his short barrel shotgun or Glock pistol. But Max wouldn't allow guns to be kept at her place, even though that flew in the face of all logic. His weapons were tucked safely away in the armory five blocks over. However, an X5 is never helpless.
There was the sound of crashing glass from the kitchen. The skylight! They'd be coming up the staircase too. 494 looked quickly down at the street below, then back at his mate, hazel-green eyes desperate and questioning. It was a four-story drop, and he knew what her answer would be.
She was shaking her head no. There would be no escape for her that way -- too far and too dangerous for the baby. And of course he'd never leave without her, even if he could have survived the jump on his own. He turned away from the window.
Feet thudded to the floor in the kitchen -- one set, then another. Max reached into the nightstand beside the bed and drew out a wicked long-bladed knife ... the kind used for gutting or skinning. Alec flashed her a quick feral grin, then swiftly moved to the closet where he kept -- of all things -- a sword, part of the martial arts weaponry he practiced with on occasion. He wasn't nearly as good with it as Stoop, his X5 instructor, but it was better than nothing. If they were going to die, at least they'd die fighting.
Max climbed out of the bed and stood with her back to the wall, poised for battle with the blade at ready. Concentrating on the enemy they expected to charge from the kitchen, they were both caught by surprise when the apartment door burst in first. Three black clad soldiers leaped toward them, guns swinging. However, in the dark of the room their attackers weren't sure of their targets.
It was the only opening X5-494 needed.
Launching himself with the quickness of a cat, the X5 warrior, sword in hand, spun through the air, landed with preternatural grace, and came up practically on top of the three, knocking two of the rifles out of their hands and wrenching away the third even as two more gunmen came pounding through the kitchen door.
Slashing with the sword -- at an advantage because he could see -- Alec ripped open the gut of his first attacker then whirled to impale a second. The third, however, was a massive male who got his paws on him and took him to the ground. The sword flew out of Alec's hand. "Max, run!" he screamed hoarsely as the huge weight of the Breeding Cult Phalanx soldier crushed him into the floor boards and a hand brutally yanked his head back by the hair. "Run!"
But Max was cornered. Fighting like a demon, her knife a blur in the air, she was keeping her own foes at bay. However, it would only be a matter of seconds before one of them stepped back and opened fire.
"Gut the bitch!" a harsh voice -- female -- snarled. "Kill her filthy offspring!"
"Max!" Alec screamed, trying to force his way loose from a death grip. But the soldier on top of him outweighed the young transgenic by at least a hundred pounds, and had more than equal strength. Tendons cording tightly in his neck, Alec gritted his teeth and, with a superhuman effort, reached for the sword he'd dropped just as one of Max's attackers raised a gun and aimed straight at her pregnant belly.
"No!" Alec roared as his fingers first touched, then closed on the hilt of the blade just as his own assailant began to twist his head to one side in a move powerful enough to break even a transgenic's neck. However, before vertebrae could snap, there was a sickening squish, and then suddenly the soldier on 494's back became dead weight. Wriggling out from beneath the behemoth, Alec wrenched his sword out of the man's eye socket, turned, and in a blinding burst of speed plunged the steel straight into the back of the black-garbed cultist about to shoot Max.
But there was still one left. Whirling around, her eyes round and insanely savage beneath the black ski mask she was wearing, the female Familiar raised her automatic rifle, and aimed point blank at Alec's bare chest. Bracing himself for the bullet -- and death -- Alec's eyes locked with Max's, which is when with her own primal shriek of "Nooo!" 452 stabbed the bitch in the back, the blade piercing bone, muscle, and lung to bury itself in her enemy's heart.
For the longest of seconds, neither of the two transgenics moved -- both somewhat astonished to still be alive. Alec was the first to shake it off, falling into soldier mode, gathering up the automatic rifles that were lying on the floor, and making certain all of the enemy were truly dead. "You all right?" he asked Max gruffly as he picked up the last of the weapons, himself breathing heavily and beginning to tremble as the adrenalin wore off.
"I'm fine," Max said tightly. "But you're bleeding."
The X5 glanced down at himself to see a deep gash across his right shoulder where he'd fallen on splintered wood while struggling on the floor. "It's nothing," he said, shrugging it off and moving to the window where they could hear more gunfire. "I should help them," he said softly. However, then he looked back at Max who'd collapsed onto the edge of the bed ... at her anguished face. "But I won't leave you," he added softly. "Not now ... not ever."
There was a sound from the broken doorway, and Alec crouched and raised the gun.
"You kids all right?" an anxious voice called out from the darkness beyond.
"Mole?" Alec said. "That you?"
"Little Fella?" Joshua's plaintive voice returned. "Little Fella all right?"
"Little Fella's just fine," Alec said as the two transhumans stepped over the bodies on the floor (Mole looking impressed). "And Medium Fella too," he added with a wry grin. "More or less."
"Damn!" the lizard man exclaimed, enveloping his brother in a very uncharacteristic hug. "When we realized those bastards had penetrated out inner defenses we were afraid you two were toast, what with no guns and all."
"We almost were," Max said, indicating the dead men (and woman) around them. Her gaze appreciatively raked her lover. "But we managed."
"Looks like you did Stoop proud," Mole commented, lighting up a cigar as he looked knowingly at the sword lying beside one of the corpses. "All that martial arts crap you two keep practicin' over in the gym really did some good."
"Yeah, next thing you know I'll be wearin' a black trench coat and whippin' out a Katana," Alec said dryly. But then he added (with an apologetic glance at Max), "Nah, gimme a Glock and a full clip of ammo any day." He looked to the window where the sound of gunfire had died down to an occasional sporadic shot. "Should we be out there helpin'?"
"Not necessary," Mole said, puffing the stogie to life even though he knew Max didn't allow smoking in her place. "We've got it covered. Those cult bastards are a sneaky bunch, but we've got the numbers and the weapons, antiquated as they are. "Well, most of us had weapons," he amended. "Plus, they obviously didn't expect so many of us to be awake."
"All that shark DNA," Alec joked, referring to the fact that a lot of the transgenics had been bred for night fighting and therefore rarely slept.
"Whatever," the lizard man remarked softly. "I'm just glad you kept yourself and our knocked up fearless leader in one piece, smart ass."
"Why Mole," Max said. "I didn't know you cared."
"Oh, he cares," Alec said, his voice deep as he toed the dead female Familiar with his bare foot and made a face. "He cares 'cause you and me and our heists are what keeps him in those fancy cigars he likes."
"Alec and Little Fella are safe for now," Joshua said sternly. Seated beside her on the bed, he hugged Max tightly. "That's all that matters."
The X5 gave the lizard man a knowing look. We're safe. But for how long? his eyes asked his friend. Now that the enemy had made such a bold move, would other attacks be far behind?
Mole shrugged and shook his head. "You better have Luke look at that," he said, indicating the X5's shoulder wound. "Get it cleaned up."
"Yeah," Alec said slowly, now watching his mate. "We'd better get this cleaned up." He held out his hand. "Max?"
She drew the robe around herself more tightly and shivered. "I'll stay here," she said. "With Joshua," she added before Alec could protest. Then she smiled at him in that way she had that suddenly made everything ... all the pain and the danger and the killing ... worth it. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."
"I'm bringing my guns back," Alec warned as he pulled on a t-shirt and picked up his boots.
And for once, Max didn't argue with him.
THE END
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