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

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