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

‘Well, my lovelies,’ Smith said. ‘We can stand here nattering all day, or we can go crack some heads and nick some alien tech.’

35

Samson pulled his environmental suit on quickly and silently. He was starting to feel more like a Marine than a sailor, and although he had the basic package of training for ground combat he was far from the expert the other men in the environmental suit room were. He realised even Price might be at a disadvantage. Smith’s men had been top-tier operators, if Smith was to be believed. They laughed and joked as they got into their suits with the casual air of men who were about to head out for a stroll. Only experience or stupidity allowed someone to behave like that. Samson hoped very much it was the former.

His nerves were building to the point he couldn’t ignore them any longer, and he took long measured breaths as the butterflies trying to beat their way out of his stomach intensified their effort. He worried that he was starting to wear out his luck. It certainly hadn’t been skill that had gotten him through the encounter on the surface of Dobson. Everyone’s luck ran out eventually, and he reckoned he’d been pressing his pretty hard over the past days.

The environmental suit room, just to the side of the Maggie’s external hatch, was like the locker room at a high-end sports club. The floor was covered with plush navy carpet, while the walls were lined with stained oak full-length lockers that stored the suits. The ship’s dedication to luxury was unending, and even though he guessed at the price as running into the hundreds of millions of credits, he was actually starting to think it was reasonable value for the money.

He didn’t want to be shown up by a bunch of former pirates, and judging by the quiet and efficient way Price was going about preparing his kit, neither did he. Even if most of them seemed to have a solid military pedigree behind them, they were still pirates.

‘You lads ready to go?’ one of Smith’s men said—the one with the mop of sandy hair. Samson wasn’t sure if he was Bert or Nige. Or Trevor or Ali, for that matter. They’d been introduced en masse, and Samson had no idea who was whom.

‘We’re ready,’ Samson said, after a quick glance at Price, who was making a good effort of looking like he had been ready for a while and was starting to get bored. GSOC was Army, the equivalent of the Navy’s Special Warfare Group. As Price was a regular Marine—albeit an excellent one—that would have put them a rung above him when they were still in the military. It was obvious to Samson that this didn’t sit well with him, and he was making sure to put his best foot forward.

Smith’s men led them out of the hatch. That they were former military was obvious by the way they moved. Price blended in seamlessly, while Samson felt a little like a square wheel as he tried to do likewise. As always, Samson was struck by the bright light when he stepped out onto the dry, gravelly planet surface. While Price’s helmet visor automatically adjusted its tint according to the brightness, Samson was wearing a Navy suit, primarily intended for use on ships with questionable environmental circumstances, and in the finest tradition of cost efficiency, his visor lacked the tint feature.

He shielded his eyes with his hand, and tried to get his bearings. There was always something disorienting about a new planet—the sun never seemed to be in quite the right place. You got used to it pretty quickly, setting yourself up for the same experience on the next planet you visited, but for the moment, he felt oddly adrift.

Smith walked out of the ship behind him, wearing the same type of GSOC-issue suit that his men wore. Samson didn’t bother asking where he’d got it, merely hoping no one had died in the acquisition. He seemed very comfortable with an assault rifle cradled in his arms. Smith made the switch between an appearance of refinement and one of violence far more smoothly than Samson would have thought possible.

Samson scanned the landscape, trying to make a strategic analysis. Ground-based combat operations really weren’t his forte, with the usual procedure being to acquiesce to the Marines. Still, he didn’t want to come across as a clueless inconvenience when the time came, so he was looking for a sense of the terrain before any shooting started.

With nothing in the way of vegetation, the only cover the planet afforded was gentle rolling hills and craggy outcrops of rock. He could see the crash site—a black streak gouged into the otherwise beige landscape with a horseshoe-shaped structure at its tip. He couldn’t see the newly-arrived alien ship, but the undulating landscape and crags could easily have hidden it, and Samson knew it wasn’t far away.

He followed Smith’s men toward the crash site. Price prowled like a predator stalking prey, his visor constantly moving as he surveyed the landscape.

Samson wondered what had brought the aliens to this planet, and if there might be more ancient remains of the other civilisation here. The thought was intriguing and the implications were huge. This entire sector of space might once have been part of an ancient alien empire. What else would have brought the alien ship here? There was nothing else in the system—this was the only planet with an atmosphere, and it fell into the category that Samson would describe as being dead. Despite the barely breathable atmosphere, it was too dry for humans to exist there without substantial terraforming. Perhaps that was the way the aliens liked it? Perhaps they had to drop out of the Nexus Current for a break and to recharge their agitator, assuming they were constrained by the same limitations as human ships.

There was still no sign of the aliens from the scout ship by