Alpha Guard - Chapter One

A sci-fi thriller novel, most easily described as Jack Reacher in space.

Hello alpha-readers, welcome to chapter one of Alpha Guard!

I can’t wait to hear what you think, but if this is your first time visiting, here’s a quick rundown of what’s what…

• My name is Samuel George London and I’m a writer from Hampshire in the UK. Usually, I write comic books, but this is my first novel. And just so my fellow Brits know, I’m writing in American-English because the main character himself is originally from the US.

• Alpha Guard is a sci-fi thriller novel, most easily described as Jack Reacher in space, but the short synopsis is as follows:

Even after 300-years of colonization, Mars is still a tough place to live - unless you can afford to live in Dome One. However, when the wealthy need to visit out-of-dome, they hire bodyguards known as ‘bugs’ to protect them. Alpha Guard is the best bug on the Red Planet, and when he's hired to escort a VIP around Mars, his skills are tested to the absolute limit.

• So, in a nutshell, if you like books by Lee Child, Andy Weir, Mark Greaney and Blake Crouch you will (probably) enjoy reading or listening to this story.

• Throughout 2024, I’ll be publishing Alpha Guard on a monthly basis, chapter by chapter, right here for free. So, please be sure to subscribe to stay notified when new chapters are posted.

• I’ll never put a paywall on chapter posts, but if you’d like to, there is an opportunity to upgrade to paid. However, it’s only to fuel my caffeine habit. So, please only part with your hard earned cash, if you can afford it.

• There is an audio version of this post available, but to give you a heads up, the chapter reading is by an AI voiceover via ElevenLabs. However, when I eventually publish Alpha Guard as a polished novel, I will be hiring a human to read the audiobook.

• If you prefer to listen rather than read, Alpha Guard is also available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible or wherever you usually download your podcasts.

• If you'd like to follow me on social media, you can on Instagram, TikTok and X (Formerly Twitter). Whether or not you’re on social media, please consider sharing Alpha Guard with anyone you think would be interested.

Happy reading and please let me know what you think in the comments.

Ciao for now,

SGL

Stepping out of the express elevator, I took a quick security scan of the immediate vicinity and launched a micro-drone. Nothing came up on my Heads-Up-Display, so I signaled my client to step forward. Then we began walking down the dimly lit and graffitied corridor towards pod 5-39k. Apart from walking past the usual scumbags you’d find in a place like this, everything was fine. That was until about fifty paces in, when I received a suspicious activity alert on my HUD from the micro-drone. Stopping my client mid-stride, I turned to ask him a question, “Mr. Harris, there are multiple armed individuals in the pods next to and opposite our destination. Do you wish to continue?”

Without hesitation, Harris replied in his posh English accent, “This deal is going to make me a lot of money.” Seeing there was no convincing him otherwise, we carried on.

Outside the entrance of pod 5-39k, I could see him send a message through his smart-glasses. Moments later, the door slid open and a large red-haired man appeared. Once he’d picked his jaw off the floor, he spoke in a thick Irish accent, “Suckin’ diesel, you’re Alpha Guard! Dat’s a bit much isn’t it, Mr. Harris?”

“Life’s been good to me, Liam and I’d like it to stay that way. So, hiring the best bug on the planet only seemed appropriate.”

The Irishman raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement, “Fair enough. In ya come.”

Inside, was a rundown studio apartment and having lived in one of these when I first moved to Mars twenty years ago, I recalled every inch like it was yesterday. Walking through the minimalist kitchen before the main living space, I noticed two bodyguards perched on the countertop wearing second-rate mech-suits. Realizing who I was, they swiftly stood up, fixed their trigger fingers and began tracking me.

In the main living space, sitting on a cheap plastic chair, looking out the one large circular window was a thin suited man. Given his slim build and almost translucent skin tone, he was more than likely a native Martian. Whilst I kept track of the lumps of muscle inside and outside the pod, Harris spoke like he was meeting a corporate client, “Tony, thank you for meeting me on such short notice.”

Rising out of the chair to about seven-foot tall, the thin man said, “Cut it, Clive. What you want?” Somewhere between Russian and Indian, his accent and grammar confirmed he was born and bred in the pods. Harris smirked, stepped forward and presented an open briefcase.

My curiosity got the better of me, so I discreetly launched a micro-drone. Thankfully, the low hum of my mech-suit masked the slight buzz of the micro-drone. Monitoring the video feed on my HUD, I directed it out and around at first. Then slowly but surely, settled it high up on the wall behind the thin man and zoomed in. 

Glowing bright blue, the inside lid of the briefcase was covered in strip lights. Probably ultraviolet. This meant the contents needed to be constantly sanitized. In the bottom of the briefcase were rows of small medical vials full of clear liquid. I took a closer look, but there weren’t any labels or distinguishing factors.

Whatever it was, the thin man’s eyes widened as he peered into the briefcase. I could see the money being counted in his head, “This what me think?” Harris simply nodded. Returning to his full height again, the thin man asked, "You want me distributor?”

Harris closed the briefcase with a snap and stepped back to my side to reply, “One of the distributors, yes.”

Somehow the thin man got thinner and even taller as he put his hands on his hips, “One not good enough. Only, only option.”

I’ve seen this scenario play out before. The naive businessman thinks he holds all the cards and the unconcerned criminal just shoots him without a second thought. However, this time, my presence prevented that from happening.

I could see that the thin man was well practiced in these situations. Harris tried to play it cool, but his heartbeat was elevated and movements were agitated, “Okay, okay. I’m willing to give you an exclusive deal, Tony, but that means I set the prices. Right?”

The thin man turned to the window and rubbed his chin in thought. I could tell this was just theatrics, but Harris didn't have a clue what was about to happen. “Don’t like control, Clive. We take briefcase now. Make all money.” Harris gestured in my general direction. The thin man laughed, “Yes, Alpha Guard tough, but nobody beat big bug swarm.”

Switching drone feeds, thirty bodyguards filed out of the surrounding pods toward us. The activity sent an automatic message to Harris’ smart-glasses, “KEEP CALM. FOLLOW MY LEAD.”

Just as I received the seen-message acknowledgement, the Irishman darted towards the front door to let the bugs in. Simultaneously, I shot a tranquilizer at the Irishman and a drill-bullet at the window. The Irishman dropped like a sack of potatoes and as planned, the window didn’t smash. Continuing its path, the drill-bullet burrowed its way through the thick glass to the outside. This instantly triggered the pressurization alarm and brought down a heavy safety-door at the entrance of the pod. Not only did this stop the entire block from depressurizing, it bought me some time to form a plan. Before I could though, the two bodyguards already in the pod attacked me. One attempted to drive a taser-stick into me. But I deflected and thrust it right into the other, who fell to the floor in a fit of spasms. Taking one of my own taser-sticks off my hip, I jammed it into the ribs of the first bodyguard. Two bugs down, thirty to go.

The swarm must have had a plasma torch because the middle of the safety-door was starting to glow bright red and orange. I weighed up our options and statistically, we were up shit creek. So, I pulled the cord for Harris’ emergency survival suit, checked his helmet, held on tight and shot a micro-explosive at the window. As it shattered, the two incapacitated bodyguards and Irishman were sucked out with the glass. However, the thin man just stood there. Wearing his own survival suit and helmet, he looked at me with the sternest stare I'd seen in a long time. For a split second I was confused. I’d expected him to go with the others. Looking down, he was wearing magnetic boots. This guy came prepared.

Refocusing on the task at hand, I secured Harris to my chest and jumped out the window. I imagine it was pretty scary for a snowflake-executive like him. We were at least a few hundred meters high. So, the screaming was understandable, but I had things under control and was in a nostalgic mood.

I have to admit, I was excited, but my first night on Mars really set the tone. I'd been the last person to collect my food rations from the welcome trucks in the parking lot of the pods. I was admiring how large the surrounding structure was. A fifty kilometer wide crater with walls six hundred meters high. In front of me were the pods. Thousands of circular windows popping out from the inside wall of the crater. And in the distance, a blue sunset.

After such an uplifting moment, it only took a minute for life to give me a reality check. It began by me walking through the airlock of my allocated block. Then removing my survival suit helmet.

Out of the elevator came a small group of guys in their late-twenties. Looking me up and down, the ring leader tried to get my attention in what I think was an Australian accent, "Hey Earthling, we come in peace." I just ignored him and kept walking towards the elevator. But before I could step inside, he pushed me against the wall and the group surrounded me in a semicircle. "You've got two options mate. Give us your rations and we won’t beat the living daylights out of you, or..."

I was just about to hand over my rations when this giant square jawed Scotsman stepped in and said, "I hope you lads aren't makin’ any trouble." The group turned to look at who it was and pretty much disappeared in an instant.

Straightening myself out, I said, "Thank you very much, sir.”

"Nae bother, pal. Let me walk you to your pod."

After such an experience, I was in defensive mode, "No offense, Scotty, but I'd prefer to walk myself."

The guy knowingly smiled, "None taken, Yankee, but let me give you some advice. Whenever a bully tries to take advantage of you, kick him in the shin or better yet, in the balls." It caught me so much off guard, I made one of those snorting laughs out my nose.

Once I’d regained my composure, I stepped forward to shake his hand and said, "Thanks for the welcoming committee, Mister…"

Directly looking into my eyes and giving me a firm handshake, he replied, "Green. Eric Green. Nice to meet you."

We fell a few floors before I activated the multiple drone blades on the back of my suit. All rotating at three-thousand revolutions a minute, we stabilized and Harris finally stopped screaming. But when I started flying back up the wall of the pods, his heartbeat went in the same direction and he shouted, “What do you think you’re doing? Get me out of here you nutcase!”

I perched us on a rocky outcrop a couple of floors above pod 5-39k. And whilst I attached us to the wall, the drone blades reinserted themselves into my suit. Now, I was able to explain, “There’s a swarm of thirty bugs in that pod. And before getting out of here, I need to neutralize them.” Before Harris could criticize my decision, a bug on a wire zipped out of the window with his back to us in a forward-facing abseil. One by one, several others followed and started to descend. This confirmed another suspicion I had about the thin man. Yes, he’d prepared for his own survival, but when it came to bugs, he’d prioritized quantity over quality.

Ducks in a barrel came to mind, but I didn’t want to risk giving away my position until I had to. So, before I made my initial attack, I waited for fifteen of the thirty bugs to be on the wall. Once my HUD had them on lock, I pressed fire. All the taser-bullets found their targets. Knocking out the idiots inside as well as zapping their suits, they must have stayed blowing in the wind for a few hours before someone got them down.

Half down was a good start, but still a ways to go. On my feed from inside the pod, I could see the other bugs retract their abseil wires and begin to rethink their strategy. I couldn’t hear what was being said because they were on an encrypted communication link. But it only took a moment before the thin man and remaining bugs exited the pod from the front door.

This gave me an opportunity to get on the road undetected. However, my top speed without a direct descent in freefall was thirty miles per hour. From where we were, my auto-car was on the outskirts of the parking lot below, half-a-mile away. In a straight shot at a thirty degree angle, this would take forty seconds. It was on the edge of the swarm getting there before me, but entirely possible.

If I was in charge of this swarm, I would have had bugs all over the parking lot. Thankfully, I wasn’t and from what I could tell, there weren’t any. This made up my mind. So, I went for it.

Jumping off the rocky outcrop to gain some initial speed in freefall, Harris started screaming again. Fortunately, I could mute him but before I did, he managed to fit in, “Shit the bed!” I couldn’t help but chuckle.

The freefall got us to sixty miles per hour, before leveling off and slowing down to thirty miles per hour. This gave us at least a few extra seconds on the approach to my auto-car. Looking at my inventory, I was running low on micro-drones. But this was crunch time. So, I launched all four of them to get maximum perception.

Ten seconds later the drone which had made its way to the main entrance of the pods, showed the swarm rushing out. The biggest bug jumped onto a car roof and fired his rocket launcher at me. My HUD screen immediately started flashing red. It had calculated that the rocket would hit me before I reached my auto-car. The suggested action was to dispense some chaff, but I had a better plan.

I waited until the rocket was five seconds to impact and then made a sudden left turn. The rocket zoomed past and began a wide curving trajectory. The new estimated time of impact was thirty seconds. In my head, this was enough to execute my plan.

Just underneath us, were a couple of parked welcome trucks. So, I landed on top of one, turned to lock onto the rocket and shot a micro-explosive. The timing was perfect. The point of impact was right above the swarm. Some took cover back in the entrance of the pods and others dived under nearby vehicles.

There was no time to waste. I jumped off the roof of the truck and activated the drone blades on my back. On the way, my HUD reassured me that we would reach the auto-car before the swarm could. Still watching the swarm pick themselves up, I landed in a run, opened the door, threw Harris in and sat myself down. Just after the doors closed, the auto-car sped off towards our pre-programmed destination.

On the relative safety of Highway One, I told Harris to remove his helmet. I could see he was pretty shaken up, but when he said, “Flipping heck! That was incredible!” I knew he wasn’t in shock.

“Have this,” I replied and handed him an electrolyte drink to settle his nerves.

After his first gulp he asked, “You taking yours off as well then?” Every new client asks me that.

“My helmet stays on at all times.”

He tried his luck, “Every man has his price. How much to see your face, Alpha Guard?” Again, every new client asks me that.

And so, I repeated, “My helmet stays on at all times, Mr. Harris.”

Holding up his hands in defeat he said, “Fair enough, but you can’t hate a guy for trying.”

Over the next hour he didn't stop talking about how much money he made and how many women he slept with. If he wasn’t paying me so much, I would have knocked his lights out and thrown him onto the red dust. But he was paying me a lot of money. That’s what I do. Protect people for money. And I’m damn good at it. Not one client has died on my watch and I intend to keep it that way. I also benefit from the fact that no one knows who I am.

I moved to Mars in my late-teens after my father threw me out because if anything, we were too much alike. The old man couldn’t stand seeing his reflection and I couldn’t stand looking into my future. The only thing I regret is having to leave my little sister behind. After that I wanted to make a new start and when funded tickets became available, I jumped at the chance to reinvent myself. Granted, I had to live in one of those pile-of-crap pods to begin with, but twenty years on, I’m the best bodyguard on the Red Planet.

Much like the Wild West, Mars had a lot of rich people and even more poor people. But not a lot of law enforcement. That’s where I come in. Pay me what I’m owed and I’ll keep you alive.

When I started thinking about getting into the bug game,  I saw bodyguards getting taken out left and right. It didn’t really happen whilst they were on the job, it was mostly during their day lives. That’s when I bought my first mech-suit and named myself Alpha Guard. Not only did the mech-suit conceal my identity, it allowed me to carry a stupid amount of weapons. Over the years I customized and swapped out so many parts, that the only original bit left was the crotch plate. I could have easily replaced it, but it felt more like a lucky charm at this point.

“Now entering Dome One. Fifteen minutes until your destination.” Thank God the auto-car interrupted this guy’s monologue.

“Mr. Harris, when we arrive you need to stay in the car until I say otherwise. Understood?” He nodded and went back into another idiotic anecdote. I hardly registered what he said because I was watching all the smiling rich people on the pristine streets of Dome One. I couldn't help but think, rather than moving money from one bank account to another, they should be doing more to help all the folks back in the pods. I felt a bit of a fraud myself thinking that. I had a small safehouse on the outer ring of the dome. But for the most part, I lived in a duplex apartment in a settlement on the south east corner of the crater called New Jezero. On the exact opposite side of the fifty kilometer crater, were the pods. Originally named Jezero, after the crater itself, but unless it was being talked about on the news, everyone just called them the pods.

Apparently, when they were first marketed to the public, rich people loved the idea of having a pod on Mars. Over time though, the novelty of being in an underground craterside studio apartment wore off. After the pods started to become untenable for the rich, New Jezero was built. Even though it was still within the wall of the same crater, it had one large continuous skylight overhead. Plus the interior had an open layout. Almost like a massive shopping mall, rather than the claustrophobic tunnels of the pods. With more and more people moving to New Jezero, less and less people wanted to live in the pods. And in a bid to get more settlers, they started handing out free tickets to Mars with pods to those that couldn’t afford it. However well meaning that was, the pods eventually turned into a crime ridden and junkie filled cesspool.

The colonization of Mars had been going for the best part of three hundred years. During that time, they tried a million different ways to make the atmosphere liveable. Eventually, they came to realize they were making zero progress. That’s when it was decided. Instead of terraforming, the focus should be on how to get out of the crater walls and onto the surface without dying of radiation. Once thick enough transparent crystalline tiles had been developed to keep the solar radiation out, building works for Dome One began. A grand project by the governments of Earth to unify everyone, right in the middle of the crater.

Surprisingly, construction went according to plan, but when it came to working together after that. Well, let’s just say, human nature isn’t conducive to altruistic collaboration when money is involved. Once that reality sunk in, governments sold their properties to the private sector. Most notably, Dome One’s largest building, The Diamond, was bought by an outlandish trillionaire called Tristan Andras. No one had seen the eighty-year old entrepreneur in years, but rumor had it, he was still knocking about somewhere on Mars.

Arriving at our destination, the auto-car door opened. In front of me was The Diamond. A sheer kilometer tall, and the only place in the dome where you can get an uninterrupted view from bottom to top. It’s also right in the center and a major part of the structural integrity.

Due to the day’s earlier activities, I’d run out of micro-drones, but I knew it was safe. No physical crime had occurred in Dome One for years. Ushering Harris out of the car, I said, “All clear. This way.” We walked across the building’s forecourt, which had an unnecessarily large fountain. Then above the main entrance doors was a stupidly oversized Andras Corp sign. A shiver went down my spine as we passed underneath it. I don’t know what it is, but every time I bring another carbon copy executive back to this building it gives me the creeps. It might be the copious amounts of hair gel, but it’s probably the repeated corporate corruption that irked me. You don’t become a multi-trillion dollar company with a completely intact moral compass. It’s a dog-eat-dog life on Mars and Andras Corp was the biggest hound on the block.

“I’ve got another distributor lined up for next Tuesday. Are you available?” asked Mr. Harris. Scrolling through the calendar on my HUD, I could see that I was. But I never took on a job without speaking to my handler first.

“You’ll have to speak with Mr. Green.” For some reason he looked disappointed. He probably thought he’d managed to get a connection between us with his bullish bachelor talk.

After an awkward silence he said, “I’ll contact Mr. Green. See you next week, hotshot.”

“See you in due course, Mr. Harris.”

Heading back to the building's forecourt I heard the voice of my handler in my earpiece, “Next time, you can just tell him to piss off, hotshot.”

I laughed and replied, “He might be an asshole, Eric, but he’s still a paying client. We still on for tomorrow?”

“You bet, Yankee. See you at noon.”