The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  The Alpha Protocol

  Alpha Protocol Book 1

  Duncan M. Hamilton

  Contents

  Also by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Newsletter

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part II

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part III

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  From the Author

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Also by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Also by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Fantasy Novels

  The Dragonslayer Trilogy

  Dragonslayer

  Knight of the Silver Circle

  Servant of the Crown

  The Wolf of the North Trilogy

  The Wolf of the North

  Jorundyr’s Path

  The Blood Debt

  The Society of the Sword Trilogy

  The Tattered Banner

  The Huntsman’s Amulet

  The Telastrian Song

  Society of the Sword Trilogy Omnibus

  The First Blade of Ostia

  Copyright © Duncan M. Hamilton 2021

  All Rights Reserved

  The right of Duncan M. Hamilton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or downloaded in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Cover Art by Fred Gambino

  Cover Typography by Christian Bentulan

  Part I

  1

  Oculus System, Frontier Space - 2362

  The Terran Union Ship Sidewinder idled up to the unidentified vessel. Lieutenant Jack Samson watched it pass by the Sidewinder’s viewport, hopeful for the first bit of excitement on this cruise. The ship wasn’t broadcasting a transponder signal, and that usually meant it was up to no good. He scanned for weapons systems, but there were none obviously visible. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, though.

  ‘All stop,’ Captain Kate Stettin said.

  ‘Aye, Captain,’ the coxswain said. ‘All stop.’

  A series of thrusters fired, and Samson could feel the subtle change in inertia, but he kept his focus on the subject of their investigation. She was a generic design, the type of mass-produced vessel that could be easily modified to fill any of a dozen roles. Her hull was scratched and pitted like any ship that had been in service for a long time, but it seemed his visual and sensor scans were correct—she had no weapons systems. He targeted her engines as per procedure, then sat back in his chair waiting for further instruction from his captain.

  ‘This is Terran Union Ship Sidewinder hailing the ship off our bow,’ Captain Stettin said. ‘Identify yourself.’

  The half-dozen crew on the Sidewinder’s bridge remained silent at their stations, their tension palpable. Samson knew that, like him, they were all wondering if the ship would respond, try to make a run for it, or attack. Interdicting a ship was a tense time. Scans didn’t always pick up weapons, and a brief visual inspection was no guarantee either. It was a moment of complete uncertainty, something he hated and loved in equal measure.

  The bridge was filled with the sound of static clearing to reveal a man’s voice. ‘This is Cargo Vessel Arlen’s Bounty. I’m Arlen. What can I do for you, Sidewinder?’

  Captain Stettin stood from her command chair and walked over to the viewport to take a closer look at the ship.

  ‘You’re not broadcasting your identification transponder,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  There was a delay before the response came. ‘Transponder’s broken. Has been for months. I’m sure you know how hard it is to get parts out here.’

  The Sidewinder’s lonely duty was to patrol a section of the Frontier—it was the only naval vessel for several systems, and at the very outer limit of human expansion into the galaxy. The nearest worthwhile space station was a month away, and nothing lay between but small planetary settlements and smaller orbital relays. Extending the rule of law was their mandate, but dealing with smugglers, outlaws, and those seeking to live beyond legality was their stock in trade. It wasn’t the exciting life of a young naval officer that Samson had dreamed of, nor was it the one he was accustomed to.

  ‘I do,’ Captain Stettin said. ‘But for some reason I think you switched yours off. Power down and prepare to be boarded.’ She made a chopping gesture with her hand, and the communications officer cut off the transmission. Her eyes fell on Samson, sitting beside the main weapons battery control panel.

  ‘Mr. Samson,’ she said. ‘I believe it’s your turn.’

  ‘I believe it is, Captain,’ he said, a smile spreading across his face. It would be the first time he had led a boarding mission under Captain Stettin’s command, the first chance to prove himself to his new commander, and the first thing he had felt even remotely excited about since arriving on the Frontier.

  ‘You’re relieved from bridge duty, Lieutenant,’ she said. ‘Three Marines, Lieutenant Harper, and two sailors to complete the party. Good luck.’

  Samson headed for the armoury. His team would meet him in the Sidewinder’s small hangar, then the ship’s launch would take them across the void to the Arlen’s Bounty. It didn’t take long to get where he was going. He had served on capital ships where it could take a full thirty minutes to walk from stem to stern, with small trams installed to speed up the journey, but the Sidewinder was definitely not one of them. Small and cramped, there was barely enough room for two people to pass one another in the corridors, and at six feet two inches, Samson had to be careful when passing through bulkhead doors. At times he felt he was built for capital-ship service, rather than a small corvette that was a leftover from the Separatist Wars nearly a century earlier.

  When he arrived at the armoury he pulled his boarding suit from his locker and put it on as quickly as possible, being careful not to snag or tear the fabric. A vessel with no atmosphere was not the place to discover you’d damaged your suit. He took his pistol, loaded it, and pushed it into the holster on his thigh. On a capital ship, he would have had to sign the pistol out from the armoury. Here it dangled in its holster from a hook in his locker, with an ammunition box sitting on the shelf above it.

  He wouldn’t have been so aware of the issue were it not for the circumstances under which he had been assigned to the Frontier—he wasn’t sure if this boarding mission was a test, or a vote of confid
ence. He gave his suit one last check, making sure the robust fabric wasn’t pinching him anywhere, then took his helmet and made his way to the hangar, where the Marines and sailors were waiting.

  Lieutenant Harper had yet to arrive, but one of his other naval assignees, Petty Officer Vachon, had. He was an engineer. Beyond that, Samson knew nothing about him; he had never actually seen him do anything other than eat in the galley. The final sailor was a rating by the name of Kushnir, a man Samson had not yet met. He wondered why the captain had chosen to send Harper with him. An engineer and a rating would be the norm for boarding a small vessel like this. To send the other junior lieutenant blurred the chain of command, and made him wonder if Captain Stettin expected him to seize this little cargo ship and sail off in mutiny. He wondered where Harper would be pointing her pistol when they got on board, but perhaps that would be a little too obvious an insult to Samson, a man adjudged as innocent. Then again, they did things differently out here on the Frontier.

  He had come to the Sidewinder, and the Frontier, against his wishes. Getting sent here was a mark of dissatisfaction from his superiors for something that didn’t warrant official reprimand, but which they weren’t willing to let pass. Samson was given a choice: the Frontier, or kiss goodbye to his naval career. The latter was something he didn’t want to give up on quite yet. There’d been more than one occasion over the past few weeks where he’d wondered if the Frontier had been the right choice, though.

  Samson had been on board a capital ship that had mutinied. But he’d been down in a peripheral sensor station in the ship’s bowels, so the whole thing had been over before he’d even known it had started. It was one of the few times he’d been grateful that junior officers were kept out of the loop on pretty much everything.

  The fact that he had easy access to a firearm suggested his new captain was giving him a clean slate to prove himself with. He had to be grateful for that. Even so, the mundanity of the work out here, away from the main fleets, made him question if he’d made the right choice.

  ‘Standard boarding procedure,’ Samson said to the Marine sergeant, a stocky man called Price with whom Samson had little dealing in his three months on the Sidewinder. He had always found that Marines tended to keep their own company when on a ship. That they managed it on one as small as the Sidewinder was impressive. Price had two Marines with him, a man and a woman—Corporals Smit and Féng.

  ‘We’ll breach and enter, then keep you covered while you do what you have to do,’ Price said.

  Samson gave him a nod. He could hear the launch’s coxswain power up the engines as Lieutenant Harper arrived, helmet tucked under one arm as she struggled to tie back her blond hair with her free hand.

  ‘All aboard,’ Samson said. He counted off each crew member as they got on the launch, then took his seat beside the coxswain at the controls.

  ‘Ready to launch, Lieutenant,’ the coxswain said.

  ‘Permission granted.’

  The hangar bay doors opened, revealing the dark expanse of space beyond, punctuated by countless stars. Samson wondered how much of it mankind would come to occupy. It seemed humanity was both blessed and cursed to be alone in the universe—all before him was theirs for the taking, but that didn’t make up for the overwhelming sense of loneliness he felt every time he stared out at the stars. The coxswain fired the thrusters and the launch exited the Sidewinder, pulling Samson from his thoughts. Once she was clear, the coxswain rotated the launch on her axis and moved off toward the cargo vessel.

  Seeing the Sidewinder from outside again gave Samson a pang of depression. She wasn’t all that different to the cargo vessel: Her hull plates were dirty and tarnished, and bore all the marks of a long and active service. Even her design spoke to an earlier time, when getting ships into active service was the priority, not making sure they left the shipyard in perfect working order. She had been in use long enough to iron out all the kinks, but every few metres, her hull was scarred by a working alteration or repair. An old corvette on the Frontier was where a junior officer’s career went to die. He had heard of others posted to such places when he was at the Academy, and had always wondered what they had done to destroy their careers. He had always felt a certain contempt for people who could make such a mess of things, but now here he was, experiencing it first-hand and hoping he could drag his career out of the ashes. Foolish, perhaps, but like every fool, he thought it might go differently for him.

  The cargo vessel came into view as the launch glided past the Sidewinder, coasting along on its initial momentum. Samson looked it over again. If a weapons battery emerged from its hull and shot them out of space, it would be his fault—he was the one who had done the scans and deemed there to be no threat. As confident as he was that he had been correct, he couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling of doubt in his gut.

  ‘Everyone stay sharp,’ he said. ‘You never know when some crazy old hauler will decide today’s the day he wants to make a stand against the rule of law.’ His commander had used that line on his first boarding mission. He’d thought it was catchy enough to remember for future use, but felt awkward saying it.

  There were mutters of ‘Aye, sir’ from behind, but they were swallowed up by the sound of the Marines checking over their weapons. He envied them the heavier body armour of their suits. There was a good chance they would be able to take a hit from a smaller weapon and survive it. The same shot would cut through him and keep going until it hit something more substantial. Their job was to stand between him and the projectile, so he hoped they were good at what they did.

  The approach to a suspect vessel was always a tense moment—more so when you’d only done it a couple of times, all of which had been peaceable affairs. Eventually, every naval officer had to deal with a resisted boarding, and you never knew how you were going to react until there was someone shooting at you. His reputation was chequered enough. The last thing he needed was to be seen freezing under fire. He unholstered his pistol, removed the clip of plasteel bullets, checked that the chamber was clear, and tested the firing mechanism a few times, hoping the rote-learned movements would calm his nerves.

  There were a number of things the target vessel and its crew could do to make Samson’s life difficult. If they tried to make a break for it as the shuttle approached the vessel’s entry hatch, they could be left stranded there while the Sidewinder went in pursuit. It was an uncomfortably small vessel to have to sit in for hours awaiting the mother ship’s return. If the vessel fired their thrusters at the right moment while the launch was initiating its docking procedures, they could rip the airlock off the launch and cause an explosive evacuation. Some of them would likely survive—those farthest from the hatch—but experiencing that was never going to be the high point of your day. With the launch crippled, the cargo vessel would then be free to depart while the Sidewinder would be forced to remain and attempt to recover her crew. He could only hope that whoever was watching from the Sidewinder’s sensors was alert enough to spot a power surge, and have the weapons officer knock out the engines beforehand.

  The coxswain brought the launch up alongside the cargo vessel’s hatch, hove to, and then initiated the boarding airlock. Samson did his best to push his concerns to one side, but as soon as the green light indicated a successful coupling and a good pressure seal, he breathed a sigh of relief. The boarding crew donned their helmets and readied to move off.

  ‘Final equipment check,’ Samson said. ‘Suit pressure, helmet seal, weapons loaded and safety catches on.’ His career might have sunk as low as it could, but he had no intention of having a fatality on his first mission in charge. ‘Everyone ready?’

  ‘Ready to go.’

  Samson put his helmet on, checked that it was locked in place, and pressurised his suit. ‘Sergeant, lead the way.’

  ‘On me,’ Sergeant Price said. He hit the hatch release button and disappeared into the small telescopic boarding lock.

  His Marines followed without hesitation, while
Samson listened to hear if the launch depressurised. There was no sound of rushing air, and no sound of gunfire. With atmosphere present, he would have been able to hear any trouble. So far so good.

  ‘Entrance clear!’ Price’s voice was louder through Samson’s intercom, but he could hear the sergeant’s stentorian voice carry from the other ship.

  ‘Swabs on me,’ Samson said, casting a glance at Harper. He was immediately angry with himself for caring what her reaction might be. This was his mission. His decisions were the only ones that mattered. He moved to the hatch, readied his pistol, and followed the Marines.

  2

  The first step onto a boarded vessel had always been anticlimactic for Samson. He had only been on a couple of boarding missions over his short career, and this was his first time in command—a combination that was enough to bring back those first-day jitters. He fully expected to be throwing himself into a maelstrom of small-weapons fire, although he had yet to actually experience that type of welcome.