The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1 Duncan Hamilton (affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📖

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