The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1 by Duncan Hamilton (read more books .txt) 📕

‘I’m not in a position to give that,’ Samson said.

‘No, but you can get on your radio and talk to someone who is. You go do that, and come back to me when you have.’ He tossed an encryption key to Samson, who only barely reacted in time to catch it.

‘You’ll find the details of who I really am on that. To cancel the warrant and bounties, y’see.’ He fixed Samson with a bowel-loosening stare. ‘Try to screw me on this, and I’ll be five systems away before your jackbooted stormtroopers get here to arrest me. They couldn’t catch me before, and they won’t catch me now. Of course, you’ll never find that out. You’ll be in that hole in the ground I was telling you about.’

‘I’ll need to have some idea of what you’re offering in return,’ Samson said.

‘How would you like your very own alien spaceship? Not something old from those ruins Arlen was pinching things from. Something new. Only crashed a few weeks ago. It’s no Excelsior Bay, but I promise you it’ll be worth the trade.’

32

‘Smith is Arthur Kingsley?’ Price said, and whistled through his teeth. ‘Black-Eye Kingsley?’

‘Yep. It would appear our Mister Smith is hiding from quite a reputation,’ Samson said, safe again in the command chair on the Bounty’s bridge. ‘I can see where he gets the name, though. When he’s angry they’re like two black marbles.’

‘I thought he was dead,’ Harper said.

‘Not according to this,’ Samson said, scanning over the final few lines of Smith’s entry in the naval database. It was flagged at regular intervals with flashing red warning labels containing the words ‘Extremely Dangerous.’ Samson congratulated himself for being able to spot that pretty quickly after meeting the man. Perhaps I’m a better judge of character than I’d thought.

‘It only says that his whereabouts are unknown,’ Samson continued. ‘I guess that’s not the case anymore. Says he dropped out of sight seven years ago, but the warrants on him have been outstanding for thirty years. Wonder what made him go into hiding? I think the fact that he knew Arlen, and knew what he was doing, is worthy of investigation. Smith—Kingsley could have been smuggling artefacts back to the Core for the last seven years. I don’t like the prospect of the aliens ploughing through the Core Systems looking to get them all back.’

‘Do you think they can trace them that far?’ Harper said.

‘I don’t know; it seems hard to see how they could. Maybe it’s a far-fetched fear, but it seems likely Kingsley’s known about the alien artefacts for a while. If he’s been smuggling them for a few years, it makes me wonder again why this alien ship has only appeared now. I suspect they’ve only recently arrived in this part of space; otherwise they’d have shut down Arlen’s activities long before the Sidewinder found him.’

‘That makes sense. I expect we’ll have an answer on that before this has all played out,’ Price said.

The statement suggested it would all play out in their favour, and Samson had to admire Price’s optimism. He supposed it was the mark of a good soldier, the inability to fathom defeat.

Samson returned his gaze to Kingsley’s file. He whistled through his teeth again when he saw the list of crimes he was accused of. It ran for several pages. ‘Piracy, extortion, bribery, murder—they’re just the highlights of a very extensive career.’

‘Can’t believe I was standing next to the most notorious pirate alive, and didn’t realise it,’ Price said. ‘Bringing him in is the type of thing that would make a man’s career.’

‘Might also make it a very short-lived one,’ Samson said. ‘For the time being, we’ve got bigger fish to fry—and after reading this rap sheet, that’s really saying something. If he’s got tech from the same race as the hostile alien ship, bringing that in will also make a man’s career, and without the threat of a shallow grave in the desert outside Holmwood Landing. And it’s a lot more useful to the Union than bringing in a retired pirate.’

‘Assuming the aliens don’t stop us from getting our hands on it, and doing the same as Black-Eye Kingsley threatened to do.’

‘Fair point, but if Kingsley’s hiding out on the Frontier, he’s not doing that much harm to the Union—although I’m sure he’s keeping his finger in a few illegal ventures. Getting intel on the aliens is the most important thing we can do right now.’

‘You’re going to send his proposal to the Admiralty?’ Price said. Samson could tell bringing down enemies of the Union like Kingsley brought out a Pavlovian response in Price, but Samson had no doubt in the line of reasoning he’d put forward. The aliens were their priority now, not an ageing criminal—no matter how notorious. If Smith was making a genuine offer—and Samson had no reason to doubt it—this would be of similar import to the discovery of the ruins. More so, considering this was the tech of aliens who were shooting at them every chance they got. Without his help, it could take months of searching and a huge amount of resources to find anything like what he claimed to have discovered. If they ever found it. Getting their hands on a substantial amount of the hostile aliens’ technology so early in their contact could provide a monumental advantage.

‘I think this one is way above my pay grade to decide. I can’t authorise the pardon anyway. I think it’s time to call the Admiralty.’

‘He’s found an alien vessel?’ Commodore Iyabo said. ‘A modern one?’

‘That’s what he said, sir,’ Samson said as he lounged in the command chair of Capsilan Depot and stared down at Holmwood, feeling as though Kingsley was staring right back at him.

‘And he’s confirmed it belongs to the hostile species, not the one responsible for the ruins, assuming they are not one and the same?’

‘He has,’ Samson said, ‘as much as anyone can, I suppose.’ There had