The cargo bay had been turned into a temporary medical bay, with emergency medical equipment and supplies taken from the depot. Considering the slapdash nature of his command up until this point, this mission was the first time he had felt like a proper ship’s master and commander, even though it was still only the little Bounty.
‘First passive scan indicates the alien’s exhaust signature in orbit,’ Harper said.
Samson’s heart sank. He’d hoped that they’d be gone by now, giving him free rein to pick up any survivors. He chewed his lip. If they were detected, he knew they would lose the race to the Nexus portal. On the other hand, thus far, the other ship had only shown an interest in vessels carrying the ancient alien artefacts. He couldn’t risk the Bounty’s personnel, but the thought of leaving Dobson without searching for survivors was shaming.
‘I’m going to put us into a non-synchronous orbit that’ll take us over Dobson Port,’ Samson said. ‘Harper, plot a position that will keep us on the far side of the planet to the alien vessel. Hopefully that and our minimal power signature will hide us. Mister Vachon, be ready to squeeze every last joule out of the power plant at a moment’s notice.’
‘Aye, sir.’
With the calculations made, Samson sat back and waited for the worst as they dropped into orbit around Dobson.
‘Orbit achieved,’ Harper said. ‘No sign of any reaction from the alien vessel. Their exhaust signature is stable.’
‘So far, so good,’ Samson said. ‘As soon as our orbit takes us over Dobson Port, we’ll drop down to the surface. Where’s the alien ship?’
‘They’re synchronous over the ruins.’
He wondered what they were up to. Would it be enough to keep them distracted? ‘Hopefully that’ll keep their attention away from us,’ Samson said. ‘Set us down on the outskirts of the village.’
Samson had not seen Dobson Port on their previous visit to the planet, and its appearance now gave him little idea of how it had looked when it was a budding Frontier colony. From the air, all that remained were a number of scorched blotches on the ground. These were impact craters from an orbital bombardment, as Price had spoken of when they had investigated the burned-out farmstead. The aliens had done a very thorough job of destroying the town. It didn’t look as though there was a single building left standing.
‘Can you pick up life signs with a passive scan?’
‘No,’ Harper said. ‘I’d have to send out an active pulse for that.’
‘How far will that go?’
‘Too far,’ Harper said.
‘Looks like we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,’ Samson said.
He hit the intercom button. ‘Price, get your Marines ready and meet me at the airlock.’
‘Sir…’ Harper said.
‘I don’t want to hear it, Lieutenant. No one else is to leave the ship until I say so. I don’t want my crew scattered about the place if the aliens spot us. You have command until I get back. Let me know if there’s any hint of movement from the alien vessel. Once there is, you give us five minutes to get back, then get the hell out of here as fast as you can, whether we’re on board or not. We can hide out on the surface till more help arrives if we have to. I’m not risking the Bounty and the people on her.’
‘Aye, sir,’ she said.
Samson left the bridge and collected his boarding suit on the way to the airlock. He checked his pistol, then went to meet Price and the Marines at the airlock.
25
Dobson Port looked even more hopeless from the ground than it had from above. The destruction was so complete that even skeletal remains of the prefabricated buildings were few and far between. Everything else was blasted to ash. It didn’t take long to see the first body. It was Samson’s first personal experience of an orbital bombardment site, but he had seen plenty of pictures and video footage while at the Academy. The Navy had wanted their commanders to know very well the devastation they could cause. He hadn’t been sure back then whether they were shown the horrors in the hope that they would always consider it a last resort, or to make them aware how potent a force the Navy was. He still wasn’t. The separation from reality while sitting in a ship at orbit could make it all too easy to pull the trigger with no thought for what it was doing to the surface below.
Seeing it first-hand was visceral. He could smell the burned-out buildings. The burned flesh. People didn’t neatly fall over and die. Their bodies were obliterated, parts scattered over a large area splattered with blood, the limbs charred black. In places it was difficult to work out what belonged to which person, and Samson had to do his best not to throw up. Price seemed hardened to it, although he saw the Marine grimace on more than one occasion.
‘We’ll split into two groups and make a loop around the edge of the town until we meet, then come back through it,’ Samson said. ‘I’m starting to get the feeling we’re not going to find anyone, though.’
Price nodded in agreement, and sent Féng and Smit off while he accompanied Samson.
‘Shouldn’t you lead the other party?’ Samson said.
Price smiled. ‘Féng’s a qualified patrol leader. I’m more worried about you getting yourself into mischief, sir.’
‘Fair enough,’ Samson said, appreciative of Price’s attempt to lift the mood, difficult though it was in those circumstances. ‘Let’s have at it.’
They started off in their assigned direction. The scene didn’t get any better as they made their way around the outskirts of the ruins. Samson stopped counting body parts when he cleared a hundred. There was no way to tell if what he had seen represented the full population, but the aliens had done such a thorough job of levelling the settlement that he was rapidly losing hope of finding any survivors. He wondered what had justified the slaughter of so many people—simply their proximity to the ruins no more than a hundred kilometres away?
Part of him hoped the colonists had all been killed. There was something deeply terrifying about the thought of being taken captive by an unknown alien enemy. What horrors might they commit on their prisoners as they studied their foe?
If it was as Captain Wright suspected—if the planet and its alien ruins held some religious significance for the aliens—they were particularly zealous in defending it. That didn’t explain why they were only reacting now, however. There had been humans living on Dobson for nearly two decades. Why they had only now decided to take action remained a mystery.
Samson froze in his steps. He saw movement on the horizon. Something coming towards the town. Towards them.
‘Price, over there.’
Price instinctively dropped to a crouch and brought his carbine to bear in the direction Samson was pointing. Samson hoped that they had chanced upon survivors, but with the alien ship in orbit they had to be careful and approach everything as though it was a threat.
They moved up to a ridge and lay down in its cover. Samson lifted his binoculars and scanned the horizon. There was a surface vehicle coming toward them, kicking up a dust trail behind it. With all the dirt in the air, it was difficult to make out what it was, but he felt hopeful that it was survivors returning to pick up the pieces of their lives after the attack.
‘Survivors?’ Price said.
‘I’m not sure yet,’ Samson said, squinting through his binoculars. ‘I hope so.’
Samson continued to watch the vehicle as it drew closer. His heart sank as he started to make out its details and realised it could not be described as being of human design.
‘It’s them,’ Samson said. ‘Warn the others. Tell them to hunker down and avoid contact.’
Price sent through the message while Samson carefully tracked the vehicle’s movement.
‘It looks like there’re two occupants,’ Samson said.
‘Do you want to engage them?’
‘No,’ Samson said. ‘There’s too much risk that they’ll get a message back to their ship. Then we’re well and truly screwed. We just have to hope that they don’t spot
the Bounty.’
They had left her behind an escarpment, hidden from view of Dobson Port so they could make their approach to the town unannounced. He was glad now that they had, and so long as the aliens did not explore their scene of carnage too extensively they would never know about Samson and the others being there.
‘What d’you reckon they look like, sir?’ Price said.
‘Your guess is as good as mine. We’re about to find out, though.’
The alien vehicle drew to a halt at the edge of Dobson Port. It was similar to the vehicles humans used in less developed regions, with four large, rugged wheels supporting a cabin. There was so much they could learn from even that small vehicle, but Samson dared not activate his scanner.
Two tall, slender, bipedal aliens stepped out. Samson was shocked that they were not so far removed from humans. They were taller than him, at the higher end of six feet, and their slender figures gave them a graceful appearance that seemed to bely the bloodthirsty behaviour Samson had witnessed from them thus far. He noted that they weren’t wearing helmets, or anything else that suggested Dobson’s atmosphere was unbreathable for them.
Their heads were hairless, and as best Samson could see, they had no external ears or nose. One’s skin was a deep pink flesh colour, while the other’s tended more toward lavender. The fact that he and Price were the first known humans to lay eyes on a living alien being was not lost on him, and he wondered what to make of his almost overwhelming desire to kill them both.
He watched them as they walked into the ruins, chattering away in an abrupt, guttural language and occasionally pausing to pick something up and inspect it. He knew it was taking a risk but the intelligence to be gained was worth it, so he started to record them with the camera on his wrist console. He hoped the microphone would be sensitive enough to pick up their speech from that distance.
One of them picked up a human head—a woman’s, by the look of it. It turned the head over and around, then took a bag from a pouch at its waist and put the head in. A trophy.
Samson felt his anger flare, and it was all he could do to stop himself from drawing his pistol and opening fire. The aliens continued into the remains of Dobson Port and disappeared from sight, obscured by the wreckage. Samson eyed their vehicle, which had been left carelessly unattended. Car theft was clearly not a problem in their society. Nor vandalism. Samson had never partaken in either activity, and reckoned he was long past due trying it out.
‘Do you have any explosives, Sergeant?’
Price’s eyes widened. ‘Two thermal grenades. Why?’
‘Give them to me.’
‘I’m supposed to be keeping you out of trouble, sir.’
‘Consider your mission a failure and get over it, Sergeant. Give me the grenades.’
Price handed them over.
‘I want you to find the others, and get back to the ship with them.’ Samson cast a glance over his shoulder and tried to judge the distance between the alien vehicle and the Bounty, which sat out of sight behind the escarpment. It looked to be roughly two hundred metres, which he reckoned he could run in no more than a minute, even in his unfit state. He estimated it would take him about half that to do what he needed to do.
‘When you get back to the ship,’ Samson said, ‘click your transmitter once to let me know, and wait for exactly two minutes, no longer. If I’m not back, tell Harper her orders are to—here, take this.’ Samson took off his wrist console with the video recording of the alien. ‘Tell Harper to make all speed for the Capsilan depot and get this intel back to Command. Clear?’
‘Clear, sir.’
Price had obviously learned that there was no point trying to talk Samson around when his mind was made up.
‘Whatever you do,’ Samson said, ‘do not let them see you.’
‘Understood.’
‘Good luck.’
Price shuffled off in a crouch, moving from cover to cover with the expertise that came from years of training and experience. When he finally moved out of sight, Samson lay back and waited for the intercom click.
It seemed to take a lifetime for Price to hit his transmit button. Tension gnawed at Samson’s gut as he lay on the ground, hoping he was well enough concealed to avoid notice by the aliens. He prayed for the signal to arrive before they decided to return to their vehicle, robbing him of his opportunity for retribution.
Dobson Port was spread over an area of about twenty acres—not at all large—and Samson tried to visualise how long it would take Price to get across to the far edge, while moving in cover, and taking a more circuitous route to avoid the aliens.
A click from his earpiece pulled him from his visualisation and forced him back to the present. He scanned the town with his binoculars for the aliens, but he could see no sign of them. He wasn’t going to get a better opportunity. He stole forward, trying to copy the way Price moved. Sadly, covert operations had not been on the curriculum for naval officer cadets, and he knew he wasn’t making nearly as good a job of it. With each step he expected a guttural shout or the discharge of an alien weapon, but he reached the vehicle undetected. The instant he did, he regretted having given Price his wrist console. There was so much more data about these mysterious beings that he could have gathered. Still, if he was killed or captured, none of that would be going anywhere, and what he’d sent back with Price was already more than they’d known before.
He looked the vehicle over, then got down on his knees to inspect its underbelly. The wheels were connected with axles that came away from the side of the cabin, but were obscured from the top by panels that formed wheel arches. Samson pulled the safety pin from the first grenade and balanced it on the axle. As soon as the vehicle moved off, the grenade would fall, discard its handle, and detonate. For good measure, he repeated the booby trap on the opposite rear axle. Unable to ignore his curiosity any longer, he took a good look inside the cabin. There was nothing there he would have considered particularly out of the ordinary. Were it not for what he already knew, he could have been easily convinced that it was a new model of a human vehicle.
Satisfied that there was nothing more he could learn from it, Samson turned to head for the ship.
Impatience got the better of him, and he hurried back with less care than he had made on the outward journey, his only thought now being to reach the relative safety of the Bounty in the time he’d allowed for. The first Samson knew of being spotted was when there was a loud zipping sound and the ground to his right exploded in a cloud of dirt. It repeated, until it sounded like the air was sizzling, and plumes of dirt were exploding all around.
There had been no shout of challenge before they started using him for target practice—the aliens certainly seemed to favour a shoot-first approach. The only comfort Samson could draw on as he charged for cover was that their aim didn’t appear to be the sharpest. He threw a backward glance as he ran, and could see the aliens standing by their vehicle. He supposed it was too much to hope for that one of the grenades might fall from its perch at that moment.
The time between impacts lessened, and Samson could hear the engine of the alien vehicle power up—it seemed they planned to give chase. An instant later, the air was shocked by the concussive sound of a thermal grenade going off. The second explosion’s sound was likely swallowed up by the first. The firing stopped. Samson allowed himself a moment to survey his handiwork. There was almost nothing left of the vehicle—only a pile of burning debris. One of the aliens was in the midst of it, which was only partially satisfying, as the second was standing staring at the burning remains of its comrade.
It looked back at Samson, who could not help but smile and wave. Even with the impossibilities of communication between them, the message was clear: I killed your friend, and I’m happy about it. Never one to rest on his laurels, Samson broke back into a run toward the Bounty. The first blow for mankind had been struck.
Part III
26
‘Tell me, Lieutenant Commander,’
Captain Wright said, ‘have the unfortunate circumstances of your posting to the Frontier instilled in you a death wish?’
Wright was surveying the mission reports and details on his datapad, and didn’t look nearly as impressed as Samson had hoped he might be. The fact that they hadn’t found any survivors didn’t help matters, but Samson had thought the first successful encounter with the aliens—and final confirmation that they were indeed aliens—would have brought him some credit.
Samson looked across the briefing room table at Captain Gutierrez of the Nautilus, who had arrived in the Bounty’s absence. It was impossible to judge what he was thinking.
‘I assure you that’s not the case, sir,’ Samson said. ‘We approached the mission as planned, trying to make ourselves as invisible as possible before descending to the surface in the hope of finding survivors. It was obvious from an early stage that we weren’t going to, and then the aliens arrived. I’ll admit that I was angry with what they had done, but I did not intend at any point to risk my ship or crew any more than the situation we had all volunteered for already did—nor do I believe that I did so. The chance to destroy the vehicle, and one of the aliens with it was simply… happenstance.’
‘Happenstance,’ Wright said, with more than a hint of disbelief in his voice. ‘You’re either going to come out of this situation in a box, or with so many medals you’ll not be able to stand up under the weight. Or you’ll be the man remembered for starting a war with the first race of aliens humanity has encountered. It would have been better if you’d observed from a distance and retreated with the intelligence you gathered. As it is, I hope we don’t come to pay for your rush of blood to the head.’ He paused for a moment to let Samson digest the statement. ‘Captain Gutierrez has brought updated orders.’
Samson rankled under the criticism. These aliens had destroyed the Sidewinder, attacked the Bounty, and they had opened fire on Samson, all without warning or challenge. If anyone had started a war, it was them.
The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1 Page 18