‘Well, would you look at that,’ Smith said. ‘Ugly bastard.’
Samson kept his rifle trained on the alien, and walked closer to it, its eyes locked on him all the while. There was a large welt developing on its face where Samson had kicked it.
‘Careful, sir,’ Price said.
Samson nodded, but didn’t stop. There was a large bag on the ground beside the alien. It was made of a cloth of some type, and there were a number of bulky objects contained within. Samson’s heart was in his throat as he wondered if the alien was going to react, try to attack him. He couldn’t see any weapons, either on the ground or on its clothing. It looked like they might have caught them off guard and that this one was not armed. With a warship blasting everything that moved out of space, it was reasonable for them to have assumed that they’d have free run of the planet. Sadly for them, that was wrong.
The alien peeled back its lips, revealing a series of pointed white teeth behind its pinkish-lavender flesh. It hissed at him like a cat, and Samson did his best not to jump in surprise. He didn’t want it to think he was in any way afraid of it. The problem of how he was going to communicate with his new prisoner occurred to him. Language was obviously going to be a barrier, judging by how Captain Wright’s efforts had worked out. Nonetheless, there was one thing Samson knew he could do to make it abundantly clear where the power balance between them lay.
Samson clubbed the stock of his rifle into the side of the alien’s head, sending it sprawling back to the dirt. The alien struggled to its hands and knees, then looked back to him and hissed again, but with far less vigour.
‘Greetings from the human race,’ Samson said. ‘I hope you like prison food.’
37
The newly arrived alien ship was only a short distance away, and didn’t look to be much larger than the Sidewinder’s launch. There was no way she was an independent space-going vessel, and it doubled Samson’s concern that the mothership was not far off. She didn’t have the horseshoe design that the other ships had, looking more like a disc with a bite taken out of the back where the thrusters were located. She was constructed out of a matte grey metal that didn’t seem to reflect much light—just like the other ship—which made it hard to identify any individual shapes.
Smith managed to get through the interference and contact his men, who had come around at the scout ship from behind, missing the two aliens who had gone to help their comrades. They arrived a moment later, and looked disappointed at having missed the fun. Trev whistled through his teeth, impressed at the sight of the captive alien on the ground.
‘Well, there’s a face only its mother could love,’ he said.
‘I’m sure it’s saying the same about you, Trev,’ Smith said. He turned to Samson. ‘What are we going to do with it, anyway?’
Samson realised that he was ad-libbing his way through all of this. The circumstances were changing so quickly he could barely keep up, and any of the half-baked plans he’d cobbled together were obsolete before he had the chance to act on them. At that moment he felt like a child in a sweetshop with the offer to take whatever he wished for free, but very small pockets. There was so much here—how much of it could he really hope to get away with before the mothership arrived and he lost it all?
‘Keep it prisoner,’ Samson said. ‘Can your men secure it until we’re ready to leave or hand it over to the Navy? We’re racking up a pretty impressive haul of intel, and I’m not willing to let our roll stop just yet.’ Every byte of data they got could prove vital in the coming days. The storm that was on its way was completely unpredictable. Small victories now could mean great ones down the road.
‘Course they can,’ Smith said. ‘Ali, Trev, take care of that. Do not let it get away. And try not to kill it.’
Samson gave Smith a nod of thanks, and shoved the creature over to Ali and Trev. He wondered what it was thinking—if it was afraid. It was inscrutable, but similar enough to a human that Samson felt he should be able to extract some information from its expression. Its head was completely hairless. Its eyes and mouth were in the same place as a human’s, but in place of a nose it had a small bifurcated hole with a ridge around it, and an equally small protrusion at the top. In some respects, it reminded Samson of the tip of an elephant’s trunk.
Samson worked his way along the fuselage, looking for anything that resembled an airlock. Were it not for the trail of footprints on the ground, it would have been impossible to tell. Where human ships’ hulls were lined and scored with conduits and plate seams, the alien scout ship was perfectly smooth, with not even a scratch on the surface. Considering the inferno of atmospheric re-entry and the damage that caused to a ship’s paint job, Samson was immediately impressed by whatever the aliens built, or coated, their ships with. Something to keep the engineers happy for a few decades, he thought.
In the vacuum of space, the resistance caused by the protuberances on human vessels were irrelevant. Likewise, the perfectly smooth surface of the alien vessel served no purpose that Samson could think of beyond an aesthetic choice. Working that out was someone else’s problem, however.
He couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with their smooth facial features with no ears or nose, and if their entire aesthetic concept differed from the human one as a result. No doubt there would be countless doctorates written on that very subject in coming years. Still, it seemed to stand to reason. Either that or they had a very novel way of getting in and out of their ships.
As he studied the featureless ship, decision-making disorder began to set in. Where did he start? He had a live alien, a dead one, and parts of two others. Weapons, an intact ship—albeit a small one—and a larger crashed ship that seemed to be on a similar scale to the Sidewinder. He wondered what to prioritise. The aliens were already in the bag, so to speak, and if it was reasonably intact the crashed vessel was likely to have more impressive tech. However, everything on this ship was definitely working, and with a little luck the Maggie would be able to tow it off the planet with them if they had to leave in a hurry.
All things considered, sitting around to wait for the Navy to arrive was an increasingly unlikely reality. He needed to be ready to leave with as much of his loot as he could, the moment there was any sign of trouble arriving.
He made his decision. They’d secure this ship and prep it for removal. The thought briefly occurred to him to try flying it, but there wasn’t time to attempt working its control systems out. Destroying it in the process would defeat the whole purpose, and wouldn’t win him any popularity with the Admiralty.
‘Any ideas?’ Samson said.
‘We could blow a hole in it,’ Smith said.
Samson shook his head. ‘I’d like to get this back to the Navy as intact as possible. A crashed ship is all well and good, but a functional one is gold.’
‘That it is,’ Smith said. He tapped his intercom. ‘Ali, come back here with the prisoner. Think we might need it.’
‘You’ve a tractor magnet on the Maggie?’ Samson said.
‘Course I do. What self-respecting pira—former pirate wouldn’t?’
‘Does she have enough juice to haul this into orbit?’
Smith scratched his goatee for a moment. ‘Not sure. Probably. There’s only one way to find out, but I’ve got a better idea.’
Samson wondered what the better idea was, but Smith didn’t look like he was going to divulge anything else for now. Samson supposed Smith was the ‘salvage’ expert in this case, so he decided to let it rest, and hope it all worked out.
Ali and Trev arrived back, prodding the now-manacled alien ahead of them with the barrel of a rifle. Samson looked at the unusual lavender face, and wondered what emotion its expression represented. Hate? Fear? Confusion?
Samson pointed to the ship, and made an opening gesture with his hands. The alien stared at him, but the expression on its face didn’t change. He pointed at the ship with more urgency and repeated his gesture, which seemed so obvious to him as to
be a universal constant. Still the alien didn’t react.
‘Oh bloody hell,’ Smith said. He pointed his rifle at the alien’s head, but it had no effect. ‘Either this one’s got brass balls, or he’s brain-damaged after that beating you gave him.’
‘I want to get out of here with our loot if that ship arrives,’ Samson said. ‘And I can’t help but feel this bastard is doing its best to delay us until its friends can get here. I’ll bet they’ve signalled back already.’
‘Makes sense, if they knew we were here. Which I reckon they did,’ Smith said.
‘Put it up against the ship,’ Samson said.
Price prodded the alien in the desired direction with the barrel of his carbine, and it responded. Samson slapped the hull twice with his hand, and gestured to the alien. He couldn’t think of another way to indicate his wish for it to get inside. He reckoned that if the situation were reversed, it would be obvious to him that the aliens wanted to get a closer look at human technology. It didn’t seem to want to cooperate.
The alien made an expression that exposed some of its pointy teeth, but Samson couldn’t tell if it was a smile, a grimace, or something else entirely. Time was running out, as was Samson’s patience. He balanced the possibility of there still being a chance of establishing friendly relations with the aliens against the fact that they had destroyed three human warships and massacred an entire colony.
‘I can have a go at persuading him if you like,’ Smith said.
The implication in that statement was obvious, and Samson didn’t know how to react. Part of him was repulsed, but part of him desperately wanted into the ship.
‘No,’ Samson said, his anger and frustration building. ‘I’ll deal with it. Something tells me neither this thing nor its people are signatories of the New Paris Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Even if they were, there’s been no declaration of war between our peoples. They’ve destroyed three naval vessels, killing all hands. Hundreds of sailors. They’re pirates as far as I’m concerned, and I’m within my rights to execute it here and now. It has no rights.’
Samson slammed the butt of his rifle into the alien’s midsection. It let out a gasp and doubled over. Samson waited a moment for it to recover, then slapped the ship’s fuselage again, and gestured to the alien once more. It made no response.
Samson felt his frustration grow in equal measure to his discomfort at the path of escalating brutality he was wandering down. He had never given much thought to encountering alien life. After nearly four centuries in space, most people had given up on the possibility, content with the idea that life was a less than one in a septillion chance and that Earth was the only place that had struck it lucky. What few thoughts he had entertained ran very differently to this situation, however—sentient species sharing knowledge and taking joy that they weren’t a lonely anomaly in an infinite universe was more in line with what he’d had in mind. He had never imagined himself brutalising one in the knowledge that its friends were on their way and would turn him into a red smudge on the planet’s surface as soon as they arrived.
He reminded himself that they had mercilessly killed every human they had encountered, and the technology contained in that ship could mean the difference between thousands more sailors and colonists being killed or not.
Samson handed his rifle to Price and drew his knife. He wasn’t going to order another man or woman to carry out torture, and likewise he wasn’t going to devolve the responsibility onto Smith. There was too much to be gained, and too much to lose.
‘Hold one of its hands against the fuselage,’ Samson said.
Price cut through the plastic restraints holding the alien’s hands behind its back, and while two of Smith’s men held it, Price pulled the alien’s hand forward and pressed it to the fuselage. It seemed to realise what was going on, and made a ball of its fist, so Samson had to prise each of its gloved fingers out until its hand was splayed out against its ship. Samson held the blade of the combat knife against it and applied a little pressure. With his free hand, he slapped the fuselage two final times, and hoped the alien would give in. It glared at him and let out a quiet hiss. Samson shook his head and started to press on the blade.
Smith laughed. ‘Aren’t you the vicious bastard. If this is the way you treat pirates, I’m glad I’m a law-abiding citizen.’ His men all started to chuckle.
Samson wondered how anyone could laugh at a moment like this. The alien said something in its guttural language, and a seam on the fuselage appeared. Samson’s eyes widened in surprise, and he drew back the blade, relieved that his bluff had worked. A large, person-sized panel recessed, then slid to the side, opening the way in. Voice control. That could be a problem. At least he wouldn’t have to try flying the thing.
‘Bind its hands again and let it go in first,’ Samson said. ‘I don’t want to be the one to discover it’s also activated a security system.’
Samson held a finger up to his lips and pursed them, gesturing in the clearest way he could think of to tell the alien not to say another thing. It glared at him with hate in its eyes as Price secured its hands again, then pushed it forward and it walked into the ship.
38
Samson tried to contain his curiosity to what was immediately relevant when he stepped into the alien ship. The hatch was halfway along the fuselage, so he had Price goad the alien toward the front where he expected the controls to be, if there were any. The hatch’s voice activation was an interesting indication as to how the aliens controlled their equipment, and it seemed reasonable to assume their piloting interface might be very different to anything he was familiar with.
When they got to the front of the ship, they were greeted by an area with two seats and what looked to be a command and control station. There was nothing that Samson would have expected to see—no obvious helm or propulsion controls. Despite the fact that they could easily be incorporated into touch-screen displays, humanity had stuck with the physical controls, even if the inputs they provided were converted into digital signals. Still, there was something comforting about having them there, visible on the ship’s bridge. The aliens didn’t seem to have any such sentiment.
‘Will you be able to get the Maggie into position to use the tractor down here?’ Samson said as he continued to look around, doing his best to attribute human ship functions to the various parts of the alien design. He knew manoeuvring a ship to take on a tow in space would be very different, and far, far easier, than it would be down here.
‘Not a problem,’ Smith said, smiling. He tapped his intercom. ‘Send over the rat-catcher.’ He swore under his breath as the open channel played white noise, and looked over at his men. ‘Radio’s misbehaving again. Which one of you fancies a run?’
No one said anything. ‘Bad luck, Bert, you just volunteered. Hoof it back to the Maggie and get them to send over the rat-catcher.’
Bert nodded reluctantly, and set off.
‘Rat-catcher?’ Samson said.
‘My better idea,’ Smith said. ‘I didn’t come down here unprepared.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘Depends on how fast Bert runs. He’s quick enough when the mood takes him.’
Samson had to console himself with the fact that the Maggie wasn’t too far away, and the distance could be covered quickly when there wasn’t anything shooting at you. He continued wandering around what he took to be the ship’s bridge, afraid to touch anything, all under the watchful and hostile gaze of the alien. There were other compartments at the back of the ship, but Samson was reluctant to go digging too deeply. He had no idea what surprises might lurk back there, and would prefer for a naval tech who knew what they were doing to discover them. He probably shouldn’t have even forced entry to the ship, but there was only so much self-control he could exert on himself.
With his curiosity sated for the time being, they went back outside. A deep rumbling sound filled the air, and a brick-shaped ship appeared over the rise. It took Samson
a moment to recognise what it was.
‘That’s an SBB—a seizure and boarding barge,’ Price said.
‘Really?’ Smith said. ‘And to think all this time I’ve been using it to drop the grandkids to school.’
‘Where the hell did you get it?’ Price said.
‘Probably best not to ask,’ Smith said.
Equipment like that was as integral a part of a Marine’s life as a carbine, and Samson could see that Price was affronted that Smith had one. It was an aggressive vessel, specifically designed for the Navy. It had powerful magnetic locking clamps, and a number of borehole boarding tubes that could cut straight through a vessel’s hull and allow Marines access without the troublesome need to line up with an airlock. In addition, it had parasite systems that would take over the power and control of the vessel it had latched onto, and engines powerful enough to land and lift off a planet’s surface with heavy machinery in its grip. Only the Navy had them. And Kingsley Smith, it seemed. It would make getting the alien ship off the planet, where the Maggie could take it in tow, much easier.
Smith tried his intercom again, but there was nothing, so he waved the ship down. It hovered sideways until it was over a flat section then dropped down to the ground.
Bert got out a moment later, and Smith went over to talk to him. Clearly they could use the SBB to lift the alien ship into orbit for the Maggie to grab onto for return to Capsilan.
Bert jumped back in, moved the SBB over the alien ship, and slowly descended on top of it. There was a loud clunk as the magnetic clamps gripped onto it.
Smith held his wrist console up to the open hatch on the side of the alien ship and tapped it. The alien’s voice played, and the hatch closed.
The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1 Page 26