The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  He gave a little thought to coming up with something to keep the crew’s minds occupied for the couple of days it would take them to get to the depot. There was plenty of cleaning and maintenance to do around the ship, and while it might seem pointless working on a junker they’d be abandoning as soon as they got to the depot, it at least provided everyone with something to do.

  They had all spent time serving on the Sidewinder, and like Harper, had lost friends who were as close as family. It was easier on Samson—he hadn’t been aboard long, and he had not formed any meaningful relationships with her crew. While it was shocking to lose so many colleagues so suddenly, the loss was a professional one for him—they were faces and uniforms rather than the real people they were to the others.

  The bridge hatch opened, and Price stepped through. Samson felt a flash of concern—might this mean new problems?

  ‘Permission to come on the bridge, sir.’

  ‘Granted. What can I do for you, Sergeant Price?’

  He rapped his knuckles against the hatch switch, and waited until it had closed before he spoke.

  ‘Now that we’ve completed the Nexus transit, my understanding is our chances of getting to the depot are pretty high.’

  Samson nodded. ‘I think things are looking pretty good for us now.’

  ‘That means it’s time to start thinking about how you want to deal with the mutineers.’

  Samson leaned back in his chair and blew out a long breath. ‘Yes, I’ve been giving that some thought.’

  ‘According to military justice, you’re well within your rights to throw them out of an airlock,’ Price said.

  ‘What are your thoughts on that?’

  ‘Mutiny’s mutiny, sir, regardless of the reasons.’

  ‘I can’t say I haven’t been tempted,’ Samson said, ‘but I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face.’

  Price cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘I don’t want to create new problems by trying to solve my old ones. Vachon we need, even after we get to the depot. I’ll need Harper to send the Nexus Relay transmission. It seems a little unfair to space Kushnir simply because he offers no specialist skills. The simple fact of the matter is, I don’t know what lies ahead and I don’t know what resources I’m going to need. I don’t want to get you, your Marines, and myself killed because I spaced someone I might have need of later.’

  Price nodded. ‘If help isn’t far away, you can put them in the depot’s brig and let the higher-ups deal with it when the time comes.’

  Samson thought a moment. Although it felt like he was making excuses for himself to avoid having to execute mutineers, what Price had said made perfect sense. He didn’t know how long it would take the Navy to send a relief ship, and he had no idea of what problems they might face before then. He needed to keep every resource he had available to him, but he didn’t have to let them wander around at their liberty. The brig was always there if he needed to use it.

  ‘I think that makes the most sense,’ Samson said.

  ‘Very good, sir. I’ll return to keeping an eye on them. If there’s anything else?’

  ‘No, Sergeant Price,’ Samson said.

  Price hit the hatch button, and was stepping through when Samson blurted out, ‘Thank you, Sergeant Price. I appreciate your support through this.’

  Price nodded. ‘This is the military, sir. We don’t get to pick and choose which orders we want to follow. Lieutenant Harper should have known better.’

  Left alone once more, Samson returned his thoughts to how to keep everyone occupied, and how to convince Harper to do her duty. While Vachon and Kushnir might get away with dishonourable discharges when they faced their courts martial, Harper almost certainly had a firing squad in her future. There wasn’t much he could offer to get her to cooperate, if she was set against it.

  Despite all that had happened, the idea of hiding away at the depot until help arrived didn’t sit well with him. They may have suffered a tremendous loss, and they continued to be in a perilous position, but no one joined the Navy to live a life of safety and comfort. Somewhere out there was a powerful warship that had destroyed a Navy vessel. As each day went by, the opportunity to track it diminished. The only things holding the Bounty back were its reaction matter and life support system. There was a fuel bunker at the depot, as well as many spares, replacements, and software upgrades that would allow them to turn the Bounty into a useful little scouting vessel. She wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight, but they could certainly snoop around quietly, and collect as much data as they could while waiting for the cavalry to arrive. As he thought on it, a plan started to form in his head. It wasn’t like there was anything standing in his way—except for a rickety ship with fragmenting reaction matter, and a mutinous crew.

  Part II

  12

  The few days flying through the Capsilan system to the orbital depot went without a hitch. A few hours after exiting their Nexus transit, Samson had let Rating Kushnir out of confinement, and set him to cleaning the Bounty. He was young, and clearly terrified—the time alone had allowed him to think over his court martial and execution, and his eagerness to please was uncontainable. Already the sections he had directed his energy to looked pristine, with years of dirt and abuse stripped away.

  The reaction matter had obediently held together, and neither Vachon nor Kushnir had given Samson any cause for complaint. They both knew exemplary behaviour was their best chance to avoid the firing squad, and were acting on that. Price and his Marines appeared to be more than happy to carry out summary justice, a fact that had been made clear to both Vachon and Kushnir in the event they needed any additional encouragement to follow Samson’s orders.

  Lieutenant Harper remained in her cabin, but Samson felt no guilt in leaving her there. She was fed and in comfortable confinement, which was far more than she was entitled to. Samson couldn’t deny he’d been avoiding dealing with her. Just the thought of her making her ultimatum to him set his blood to boiling every time. There was only so much longer he could delay it, though. The time for her to play a role was near at hand, and he still hadn’t come up with a way to convince her to help. While the others could possibly save their lives through good behaviour, there was nothing she could do.

  The gradual growth from bright speck in space to space station pulled a grateful Samson away from his problem with Harper. He stood and went to the viewport to watch it as it filled ever more of his view. There were some magnificent orbital stations in space—grand testimonies to man’s ingenuity—but Capsilan Naval Depot was not one of them. Nonetheless, seeing it was a relief so strong that it was all he could do to contain it.

  The depot was an old, outdated modular design that had been shipped out and pieced together by naval engineers who clearly knew they’d never have to serve in it and wanted to get the job done as quickly as possible and return to the Core. A supply freighter visited once a year to top up its fuel bunkers, refill its arsenal, and re-victual its storehouse, but other than that, the Sidewinder was the only vessel to ever stop there.

  As much of a relief as it was, returning was something of a hollow homecoming; there was no one there to welcome them back, or commiserate with them over lost comrades. All that waited were several batteries of automated Gauss guns, intended to deter anyone who saw the depot’s stores as a ripe candidate for theft. Naval vessels automatically broadcast a signal that identified them as a friend or—

  Wait. With all the other things occupying his mind, this one had slipped past Samson entirely. They weren’t on a naval vessel, and couldn’t broadcast the codes. As though reading his mind, a communication crackled out from the comms system.

  ‘Unidentified vessel, you are approaching Terran Union Naval Depot Four Six Three Eight Two. Change course immediately and maintain distance of five hundred kilometres, or you will be fired upon.’

  Samson’s heart raced. It was an automated message, so there was no one at the other end with whom to reason. If they re
mained within range, they would be blasted to pieces by their own side. He swore at himself for forgetting, but there wasn’t a whole lot he would have been able to do. He rushed back to the command chair and checked his screen. They were still outside the five-hundred-kilometre zone, so he channelled power to the braking thrusters and brought the Bounty to a halt at a safe distance. That done, he tried to think his way out of the problem.

  The transponder was an in-built system that had several layers of security to ensure it would be nigh on impossible to falsify a signal. It wasn’t his area of expertise, however, and he had no idea what the options were. There was one person who did, which placed his remaining problems in orbit of one another. Harper had been the Sidewinder’s signals officer, but he didn’t know if that meant she would be able to jury-rig something. Even if she could, would she?

  He could only hope that she would be able to put something together that would mimic the correct signal. Then he’d have to get her to agree to do it. At gunpoint, if need be. The alternatives were a very long journey to the nearest naval base—and running the gauntlet of their fragmenting reaction matter all over again—or putting down on Dobson in the hope that they could do what they needed to do from there.

  He looked out at the depot—a dirty white dumbbell standing on its end, two thick disks connected by a cylinder. What had, only moments before, represented sanctuary now threatened to blast them to oblivion. He racked his brain for any solution that would not involve Harper, but it was an exercise in futility. Signals was a highly specialised role, and she was the only person on board who had the training.

  The message played again.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Samson muttered as he double-checked that they had stopped and remained outside the exclusion zone. He stared at the depot, imagining all its guns pointed at him. He needed Harper’s help. And even if she agreed, she might not be able to do what was needed.

  He hit the intercom. ‘Sergeant Price, please report to the bridge.’

  Price arrived moments later.

  ‘We’ve got a problem,’ Samson said.

  ‘A new one?’

  Samson explained, but Price’s face remained inscrutable.

  ‘I don’t expect that’ll be an easy fix.’

  ‘No, and it’s not something I’ve the skill set to do,’ Samson said.

  ‘Harper?’

  Samson nodded. ‘What kind of form is she in?’

  Price shrugged. ‘As well as can be expected. What happened to the Sidewinder went hard on her. Now she’s made even more troubles for herself. It’s never easy to lose comrades, but it happens, and it happened to all of us. It’s no excuse for making a bad decision like she did.’

  ‘I suppose I should go and speak to her,’ Samson said.

  ‘Sounds like the best option.’

  Samson hesitated before opening the door to the cabin Harper was secured in. For a moment he considered knocking, but decided against it. Whether he needed her help or not, she was a mutineer and he intended to assert himself.

  Harper was sitting on her bunk, and looked up expectantly. According to Naval regulations, he was well within his rights to march her to the nearest airlock and push her out. He wondered if she thought that was his reason for calling on her. That she remained seated pushed on his anger button.

  ‘I believe it’s still the practice for sailors to stand to attention when a senior officer enters the room,’ Samson said, doing his best to remain calm.

  ‘Am I still a sailor?’ she said.

  ‘Until someone says otherwise,’ Samson said.

  She stood and saluted. Samson returned the gesture, and hoped it was an indication that she would be cooperative.

  ‘At ease.’ He sat on the ledge that served as a shelf beneath the cabin’s screen, a panel that looked like it hadn’t worked in a very long time. ‘We’ve safely traversed the Nexus and are back in Capsilan,’ Samson said.

  ‘Corporal Féng told me when they were bringing me food,’ she said. ‘Looks like you were right.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ he said. ‘We’ve made it to the depot, safe and intact.’

  ‘You must be pleased,’ she said.

  He didn’t detect any vitriol in her tone—if anything she sounded sad, but he couldn’t be sure if it was because he had succeeded, or at the fact that she had made the wrong choice and ruined herself for nothing.

  ‘I’m happy I’ve managed to bring everyone back safely, but unfortunately there’s still one obstacle we need to deal with. For that, I’m going to need your help.’

  Her brow furrowed for a moment. ‘I’ll do whatever you need, sir.’

  Samson raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Perhaps she thought she still had a chance at saving her skin? At the very least, he had expected her to try and bargain with him upfront in that regard. Whatever her plan was—whether it was to endear herself to him, as her co-mutineers seemed to be doing, or if she had something else in mind—so long as he got what he needed out of her, Samson didn’t give a damn. He would never trust her again, and would remain wary of a knife in the back—literally—but he needed the skills she possessed, and for that he was willing to make a bargain with the devil.

  He explained the problem and tried to gauge her reaction. It was hard to tell, but she didn’t seem to think the situation was fatal.

  ‘I can encode a distress algorithm that will let us dock,’ she said. ‘After that we can confirm our identity with biometric scans in the depot’s airlock, which will give us full access to the facility.’

  ‘Good,’ Samson said, trying not to show how relieved he was. To come this far and fail because of their own security systems would have been a bitter pill to swallow.

  ‘There’s only one problem,’ Harper said.

  Samson grimaced.

  ‘The Bounty’s communications system won’t be able to process the algorithm. It takes some pretty sophisticated processing, which most small vessels won’t have.’

  ‘Is there anything we can do about that?’ Samson said.

  ‘Maybe. But not on the ship. We’ll have to go down to Holmwood and see if we can scrounge up the parts we need to boost our unit. Even better if we can find a high-end communications processor that we can install, but I wouldn’t expect that all the way out here. Still, you never know, and they should have something to help.’

  Samson considered his options. ‘If you give me your word that you’ll conduct yourself properly, I’ll release you from custody and we can all get going with this.’

  ‘You did what you said you were going to do,’ Harper said. ‘So will I.’

  ‘It should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway,’ Samson said. ‘If I so much as suspect you’re falling out of line, I’ll have Sergeant Price shoot you without warning. If he’s not around, I’ll do it myself. Without hesitation.’

  She nodded. ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘What can we expect in Holmwood landing?’ Samson said, gently rocking against the springs in the master’s chair on the bridge. The town’s reputation had seemed exciting, but faced with the prospect of having to go down there out of necessity, it was considerably less so.

  ‘I’ve only been down to the surface a couple of times,’ Price said, ‘and always with enough force that no one was going to bother us. We don’t have that luxury now, and most people came out to the Frontier to get away from the likes of us.’

  ‘So we’re likely to encounter hostility?’ Samson said.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Price said. ‘I know me and my mates used to love giving the Navy boys and girls a riling whenever they landed on my home planet.’

  ‘You’re from somewhere like Holmwood?’

  Price nodded, a smile on his face. ‘Yes, sir. A little bigger, but not much different. The Navy were always fair game, until a squad of Marines landed with them one time and kicked the snot out of us. It was love at first punch. I enlisted a week later. The old place is a long way from
the Frontier now. Positively civilised last time I went back on leave.’

  Samson laughed. ‘And here you are now, poacher turned gamekeeper.’

  ‘You could put it like that, sir,’ Price said.

  ‘Still, I’m glad to have you on my side,’ Samson said. ‘But there’s no need to announce ourselves. We’re flying an old junker, not a naval pinnace. There’s nothing to give us away as Navy if we go down in civvies. We can get in and out fast, without raising any attention.’

  ‘That could work,’ Price said, ‘although the same problems are there. New faces in a rough town always attract attention. We won’t be signposted as much, but wearing civvies might not be enough to keep us out of trouble.’

  ‘That’s what you and your people are for,’ Samson said. ‘I’m sure if you dish out a few bloody noses, the rest will think twice about bothering us. Our survival is important, but getting word back to the Admiralty about what we’ve discovered, and what’s happened, is our paramount duty. If anyone gives us trouble, I think we’re entitled to use lethal force to ensure the success of our mission.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Price said. ‘All things considered, I think we’re justified using those rules of engagement.’

  ‘Good,’ Samson said. ‘Attempt to deescalate, use non-lethal methods if that fails, but lethal force is authorised.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Price said.

  ‘Right, that’s the bones of it worked out. Time to talk to Harper and see what she needs.’ He couldn’t bring himself to refer to her as ‘Lieutenant’.

  Price hit the intercom button on the control panel nearest him. ‘Corporal Féng, bring her in.’

  The hatch opened a moment later, and Corporal Féng urged Harper forward before she had the chance to step forward on her own.

  Samson turned to Harper. ‘You know exactly what we need to get past the depot’s automated defences?’

  She nodded. ‘I believe so, sir.’