The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  Samson frowned. He struck the clean section of wall with his elbow, and with a barely audible hiss, a large panel protruded out, just enough to allow it to be pulled clear. Samson shuffled back and looked to the Marines. Price gave him a nod and Samson pulled the panel away.

  Price approached the opening in a predatory crouch, his eye in line with the sights on his carbine. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘What have we got here.’

  Samson joined him and looked in. There were two transport crates sitting beside each other inside. Samson crouched down to inspect them, but Price interrupted him.

  ‘Best let me take a look first, sir,’ he said. ‘Might be booby-trapped.’

  Samson nodded. He was not so naive as to have pulled them out without checking, but it was their first time working together, so he let it pass. He had accepted that he would have to not only prove himself, but also separate himself from the cloud he had arrived under.

  ‘Looks clear.’ Price pulled on the bottom crate and slid them both out into the cargo hold. He set them beside one another, then worked his way around the lid with a small handheld scanner to make sure they were safe to open. ‘Not showing any explosives. They’re all yours.’

  Samson flipped the latch on the first crate and opened the lid. It was lined with contoured foam to protect delicate objects. It was a modern storage crate, made of rugged polymer with sturdy latches—a type of crate that didn’t come cheap, and would only be used for expensive objects. It looked completely out of place on a ship like the Bounty, making Samson wonder what it was doing here.

  He carefully lifted away some of the foam to reveal the contents. It was confusing, and anticlimactic at the same time. The object in question was a chunk of metal, twisted and jagged like a piece of crash debris. Something about it looked odd, though. It was like no alloy Samson had ever seen. It took a considerable application of willpower not to reach in and touch it. He gave himself a moment to think. It was odd that a piece of scrap would be put in such secure packaging. What kind of metal was it?

  ‘Price,’ Samson said, ‘what do you make of this?’

  Price raised his eyebrows. ‘It looks unusual. Don’t think I’ve seen a metal like that before. The scan came back clear for explosives, so I don’t think it’s a bomb.’

  Samson pointed at the piece of metal, which in itself looked odd enough—it appeared to be polished, but it was unreflective. More curiously, he noticed what looked like etchings on one of the surfaces. The script—if that was what it was—was utterly bizarre, making him wonder if it was writing at all, and not just some random decoration. He was unable to make out anything that looked like grammar: words, sentences, punctuation, or such. It looked utterly… alien.

  He couldn’t believe he was even entertaining the notion. Alien. It seemed too far-fetched to be true. In all the years humanity had been exploring the galaxy, they’d not found even a trace of non-human life. Of course, there were some cranks who maintained the Nexus Current had been engineered by an advanced civilisation, but no sane person believed that.

  ‘Is that… writing?’ Samson said.

  Price followed the line of Samson’s fingers, and his eyes widened. ‘I… uh, well, that’s not really for me to say, sir.’

  Samson stared at it a moment longer before turning his attention to the other crate. He opened it up and pulled away the top layer of protective foam. His jaw dropped when he saw what it contained. A glowing orb was nestled in protective grey foam. Its surface looked solid, glass-like, but there was a swirling, greenish-yellow light contained within. The light was captivating, and surged between the two colours. Samson tried to make sense of it, to ascribe a purpose or use, but he couldn’t. It might merely have been a decoration, but there was something about it that said otherwise to Samson. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what its purpose might be, but there was something utterly alien about it.

  ‘Scan them both again,’ Samson said. ‘Scan for anything that might be dangerous, not just explosives. Whatever you can think of.’

  Price set about his task, leaving Samson to stand staring at the sphere, wondering what in hell it might be. Where in hell it might have come from.

  ‘Scans are all clear,’ Price said. ‘I can’t tell you anything about them. Anything at all. It’s almost like they aren’t even there. The good news is they’re not registering as any type of danger. At least not any type that the scanners can detect.’

  Samson nodded, not sure whether or not he considered that to be good news. ‘Samson to Sidewinder.’

  ‘Go for Sidewinder.’

  ‘We’ve found something unusual here, Captain,’ Samson said, doing his best to contain the sense of giddiness that was growing within him. ‘It’s a glowing sphere. About thirty centimetres in diameter, and there’s also a piece of metal that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. All scans for dangerous materials have come back clear.’

  ‘Any ideas of what they might be?’ Captain Stettin said.

  He briefly considered outlining his thoughts on the etching, but decided she could come to her own opinion on that when she saw them. ‘Not a whole lot,’ Samson said. ‘The sphere is… pretty unique. The metal fragment is too. I don’t know what to tell you, Captain. They’re strange. Securely packaged and hidden in a secret shielded compartment. Arlen clearly valued them greatly.’

  Samson could hear Stettin sigh. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Have Lieutenant Harper run another full set of scans on the objects. If they’re clear again we’ll bring them back here for a better look.’

  ‘Aye, Captain,’ Samson said. ‘Lieutenant Harper, did you hear that?’

  ‘Yes, sir. On my way to you.’

  Samson turned back to look at the glowing orb. He didn’t want to admit it even to himself, but every instinct he had said these objects were not made by human beings. He didn’t know where the thought had come from, but it was in his head now, and he couldn’t shake it off. Alien artefacts would be valuable enough to make a man like Arlen open fire on them, the lust for riches overwhelming any common sense. Whatever these things were, and whoever made them, Samson was very interested to know where Arlen’s last port of call had been.

  Life on the Frontier had suddenly got very interesting. Perhaps it wasn’t the worst place to be after all.

  4

  ‘Harper’s scans tally with the initial one,’ Samson said. ‘There’s no sign of anything dangerous. At least, nothing that we can detect.’ He rocked gently in the Bounty’s master’s chair, and wondered if he would be allowed to sit in it a while longer. He was sure there were a couple of officers on Sidewinder who would be feeling pretty hard done by that the new guy had taken their first prize in many months.

  Samson had done his best to separate the ship’s name from its previous owner. Arlen’s body had already been spaced, after a brief funeral service that endeavoured to be respectful to all traditions, not knowing what, if anything, Arlen had believed in.

  Kushnir had cleared away most of the blood, having drawn Samson’s mental short straw, but he was still at it, and Samson was doing his best not to watch. He wondered if he would ever be able to give an order for onerous duties without feeling guilty.

  ‘Good,’ Captain Stettin said over the comms channel. ‘We’ll bring the cargo vessel back to Capsilan with us. Keep Harper, Kushnir, and Vachon with you as prize crew. Price and his Marines as well. You never know how many hidden compartments there are on that ship.’

  ‘Very good, Captain. The ship’s systems are functional, but they aren’t in the best shape,’ Samson said. ‘If we’re able to power up properly, we could fry a lot of them. If I’m honest, I don’t know how much life she has left in her.’ It pained him to say it. If he got her back to Capsilan, she would be condemned as a prize, and as the officer who brought her in, he would get double the usual lieutenant’s share. Plus, having commanded a prize crew would go on his permanent record, as would his involvement in recovering unidentified, possibly alien artefacts. That might
even be gazetted. He needed to rack up as many entries on his record as he could, to push down the mention of his ignominious posting to the Frontier that was currently the top entry. None of it would matter if the Bounty’s reactor exploded when they tried to power it up, though.

  ‘All right. Send over the items you found. If the ship fails, we’ll transfer you all back here and scuttle her. In the meantime, do your best with her. Everyone aboard will appreciate a little prize money, so let’s try to make it happen.’

  ‘Aye, Captain,’ Samson said, wincing. He wanted the money as much as anyone, but for him there was even more to gain. He had to haul himself out of the hole he was in, one step at a time.

  ‘Is this your first command, Lieutenant?’

  ‘It is, Captain.’

  ‘Congratulations. Good luck.’

  Samson took a deep breath, and another look around at the squalor about him. Kushnir was finishing up with the blood, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. It would take a full clean-up crew hours to get just the bridge up to naval standards of cleanliness. That wasn’t taking into account the maintenance required. The lights flickered, power conduits hung from their junction boxes with tape wrapped around their ends, and the entire ship looked as though Arlen had thought engine-grease brown was the perfect colour to decorate with. Scuttling her in deep space would be the kindest thing for everybody, but he was determined to bring her in.

  Samson gripped the armrests and looked over the control stations on the bridge. Only a matter of weeks before, he had thought his naval career was over, but now here he was, so far away from home that his mind could barely begin to comprehend the distance involved, sitting in the command chair of a prize ship, and trying to work out what to do next. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he was nervous. The moment he’d been dreaming of his entire life—his first command—was here, and he didn’t want to make a mess of it, to power the ship up too quickly and vaporise it and everyone on board. Or get lost. That would be an embarrassment that would be very hard to live down. The only consoling thought was the fact that as it stood, there was little he could do to damage his career any further.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the crates to the shuttle and over to the Sidewinder. You all heard the captain’s orders. Mister Vachon, keep an eye out for anything broken that looks like a quick fix, and fix it. I think we can safely remove helmets and rely on the ship’s environment—’ He cast Harper an enquiring look, and she nodded. ‘So let’s do that, but set your suits to refill their supplies so they’re ready to go if needed. Keep your helmets close, just in case.’ He wondered if he was saying too much. He was the youngest on the ship, and in command purely by virtue of his Academy education. He reckoned less was more, and it was time to leave them to do their jobs. ‘Let’s be about it.’

  Samson took his helmet off and set it on a stanchion next to the command chair. He turned his attention to the command consoles attached to the chair’s arms. Their screens were smudged and grubby—either Arlen had sweated engine grease, or he hadn’t washed his hands very often. It was difficult to make out what was on large sections of them, so he clearly hadn’t cared too much about that either. Cleaning equipment wasn’t included in the standard boarding kit, and the gloves on Samson’s suit weren’t made from the best material for wiping things. He pulled one of them off, and grimaced as he wiped the screens with his palm, which slipped along the grease until he cleared enough to make them usable. He wiped his hand on his suit, glad that the navy-coloured material didn’t show it too obviously, then started to look over the information he needed.

  The power systems were first. He didn’t need to see an infographic to tell him they were running below what was needed for proper operation, but it was still a surprise to see that the engine was only running at thirteen percent efficiency. He’d need to get Vachon to look at that and see if they could improve on that as a priority. Either the engine was about to die, or it had been so inexpertly used that its performance could easily be bettered. He hoped it was the latter.

  As for other systems, there wasn’t much to inspect. The Bounty had the most basic of navigation computers, simple helm controls, and no weapons. Her Nexus portal agitator had been completely shut down, so as soon as there was power to spare it would need to be directed into the agitator’s capacitor. In its present state, the Bounty wouldn’t be able to leave the system and get to Capsilan. He’d have to notify the captain about that, but with a little luck it would only be a matter of turning it on and giving it time to charge. If the agitator was dead, then the ship was a write-off and there’d be no prize money for anyone.

  The engine was the most important thing—everything else was contingent on it being able to provide enough power—and had to be dealt with first. Unless they could get it outputting at a decent level, it would take days to charge the completely drained agitator, even on a ship as small as the Bounty. They would have to consider tethering to the Sidewinder and charging it from her power plant, but he could cross that bridge when they came to it.

  There were problems everywhere he looked, but there was something appealing in the rawness of piloting a vessel like this. Even a warship as small as the Sidewinder had a number of mechanisms and systems, like inertial and acoustic dampeners or day and night environment cycling, that softened the experience of being in space. For long voyages, the comforts were certainly appreciated, but in a ship like the Arlen’s Bounty, you could feel every change in thrust, sense the vibration of the engines through the hull, hear the sound of them powering up.

  ‘Lieutenant,’ Price said over the intercom, ‘the crates are aboard, and the launch is ready to depart.’

  Samson nodded to himself. ‘Very good. Launch, permission to depart and return to Sidewinder.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ the coxswain said, before closing the transmission channel.

  ‘Mister Vachon,’ Samson said, ‘get down to the engine bay and see what you can do to improve power generation,’ Samson said. ‘I want to be ready to get underway as soon as the transfers are made. We can fix anything else on the fly.’

  ‘I’ve reconstructed the flight path,’ Harper said. ‘Arlen was a busy man. He’s been jumping around Frontier systems pretty regularly for as far back as the logs go.’

  Samson nodded. ‘One of those types who doesn’t feel right with a planet under his feet.’

  Harper’s voice was monotone, as it had been every time she had spoken to him since his arrival on the Sidewinder. He’d known he was stepping on toes when he arrived. Another lieutenant on such a small ship was surplus to requirements. What made matters worse was the fact that she had earned her commission at a line officers’ school. Even though she had been commissioned a year before him, Academy graduates were always considered senior to other officers of the same rank, unless the contrary was explicitly stated.

  It hadn’t been in this instance. His arrival had blocked her path to promotion, and in all functional matters reduced her responsibilities to those of a midshipman. She was clinically professional with him in all their dealings, which told him clearly how annoyed she was with his arrival. The fact that he had arrived under a cloud of disgrace could only have rubbed salt in the wound. Still, the Navy wasn’t always fair, so just like him, she’d have to get on with it.

  He flicked his console onto navigational controls, and was unsurprised to see that they were operating at the most reduced level possible. Either Arlen had liked to navigate by the stars, or the Bounty had been too much for him to manage, and he had been one accident away from complete disaster. Until Vachon fed some more power into the computers, Samson wouldn’t be able to locate the Nexus portal to jump out of the system—as it was, he was barely able to locate the system’s star.

  With the Sidewinder to follow, it wasn’t so great a problem, but it left Samson feeling blind, and gave rise to the possibility of getting lost. He had no desire to add that exploit to his permanent record. Other than what he could see o
utside of the ship’s small portholes, he had virtually no navigational information available to him.

  ‘Launch is away,’ Harper said.

  ‘Acknowledged. Samson to Sidewinder.’

  ‘Go for Sidewinder.’

  ‘Launch is away.’

  ‘That’s fine, Bounty. Prepare to get underway. We’ll move off as soon as the launch is back on board. Be ready.’

  ‘Aye, Sidewinder. Samson out.’

  He didn’t think there was any point in bringing up the issue of the Nexus portal agitator just yet. With a little luck Vachon would be able to get it operational and charged by the time they reached the portal. He took one final check of the environmental systems—78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, and a steady twenty-one degrees Celsius. They’d been breathing the air for a little while, but levels were still exactly where they should be, making the environmental controls the only system that was running within required parameters. That they weren’t going to asphyxiate didn’t change the fact that the ship stank, however. The remaining component in the gas mix must have been sewer gas. He added changing or cleaning the filters on the air recycling systems to his ever-growing mental check list.

  With the priority systems checked, Samson flicked through the less important ones. Everything else was nominally functional, and Samson wondered at the mindset of a man who, with only a little more effort, could have had a far more comfortable ship to live on. Unless there was a bigger problem waiting to be discovered in the engine bay, there was no reason for it. With nothing else demanding his attention on the bridge, Samson decided to go and see for himself.

  Samson felt foolish in his optimistic hope that something so vital as the power plant might be kept in a slightly better state than the rest of the ship, and he didn’t know why he had hoped for anything different to what he was presented with in the Bounty’s engine bay.