The Alpha Protocol: Alpha Protocol Book 1 Page 4

  It seemed the ship’s former master hadn’t had any engine grease left over by the time he had finished decorating his ship with it. In the one place it was supposed to be, it was conspicuously absent. If the rest of the ship could be considered ramshackle, the engine bay was a disaster zone. Tools and various other items lay around as if tossed aside and forgotten. Some were completely enveloped in grease that hadn’t made it to the engine’s moving parts, which were dry and rusting. It wasn’t the way the engine room of a man who ever hoped to reach his destination should look, and Samson hoped that none of the mess had found its way into the sealed engine chambers. They were a long way from spare parts, and with each passing moment, Samson felt the likelihood grow that Arlen’s Bounty would be written off and used by the Sidewinder for gunnery practice.

  Vachon stood amidst it all, arms akimbo with his regulation-breaking stomach jutting out. Anywhere else in the galaxy, he would have been put on restricted rations and an exercise regimen, but on the Frontier it didn’t seem to be a matter of concern. Samson found it amusing that he, never a fan of overly strict application of naval discipline, was shocked by the lapses in it on the Frontier. Perhaps it was finally starting to sink in?

  ‘Is it as bad as it looks?’ Samson said.

  Vachon sucked air in through his teeth. He had an expression on his face that Samson could only describe as despair.

  ‘Can you do anything with it?’ Samson asked.

  Vachon approached the engine assembly, a metal behemoth dominating the centre of the room, and poked and prodded a few things. He shrugged. ‘What’s the output at the moment?’

  ‘Bridge controls say thirteen percent.’

  ‘Surprised it’s that much, sir,’ Vachon said. ‘She’s been ill-treated, but I don’t see anything obvious to be worried about. A proper service should sort most of what’s wrong. I doubt she’ll ever give one hundred percent again, but high seventies should be doable. More than enough to get her to port, I think.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘In a fully equipped dockyard? A day. Here? I’ll need to dig in and have a closer look before I can give you a reliable answer, sir.’

  Samson frowned.

  ‘I’ll have to take her completely offline for an hour to clean and oil the converter heads; realign, clean, and grease the containment magnets; and clean the filters on the fusion reactor. From the looks of it, we’re losing a lot of power because the mechanical elements haven’t been properly maintained. All the filters are probably clogged too. That should give us a fair improvement in output straight away. We can fire her up and get underway then. There should be enough power left over to start charging the agitator, assuming it turns back on. With the magnets properly aligned and spinning smoothly, I can keep tweaking the fusion reaction while we’re on the move.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll recycle the atmosphere and take her offline. Did you copy that, Sidewinder?’

  ‘Acknowledged, Bounty. We need to get this done, so prioritise it.’

  ‘Aye aye,’ Samson said.

  ‘Attention all hands, we’ll be powering down shortly for one hour. Find somewhere comfortable to sit; it’s going to be dark. Keep your helmets close. All hands, report when ready.’ He looked over to Vachon. ‘Wait for my command, then take it all offline.’ As he left the engine bay, he just hoped that it would all turn back on again.

  5

  Samson returned to the bridge and flopped down in the command chair—his chair, for the time being. It was a good feeling, although he had to shut his eyes and imagine a different view to fully appreciate it: the pristine bridge of a capital ship, populated with equally pristine officers. Then there was the ever-present pressure of not messing up. He had a big enough blot on his record already, and needed a sustained period of quiet, competent performance. During his court martial, he had come to resent the way the Navy had treated him, but the threat of losing his career had confirmed to him how much he wanted to keep it. Still, how could a junior lieutenant on his first cruise be considered potentially guilty of mutiny, even if most of the senior bridge officers were?

  The thing that frightened him the most was that if they had asked him, he probably would have joined it. Their protest was against the substandard performance of contracts for naval equipment, and the cost in sailors’ lives that resulted. Concessions were made by the Admiralty afterward, but many brave officers who had put the welfare of their crews ahead of their careers were executed. Out here on the Frontier, Samson had no idea if the Admiralty had made good on their promise to do better, but their brutal response to the mutiny meant it was unlikely they’d have to deal with another one any time soon.

  Nonetheless, it still made him angry. The big galactic corporations made a fortune on military contracts, charging high prices, and often providing equipment that was barely serviceable. They sent men and women out into the depths of space to secure new systems and planets, so they could safely exploit whatever resources were to be found. That corruption at the highest levels of the Admiralty was involved was beyond question. Everyone knew it, and it seemed as though it was an accepted state of affairs. ‘Just the way things are’ was a phrase he’d heard more than once. While all those corrupt officers, contractors, and corporate types enriched themselves and went scot-free, the officers who made a stand against it got the firing squad.

  He distracted himself from the injustice by watching the status bar on the atmosphere controls display crawl along until it reached its end, and he took a deep breath in through his nose. It was the freshest air they were likely to have for their voyage on the Arlen’s Bounty, and a marginal improvement from the stench that had pervaded before, but the smell was oozing from the ship’s seams. He suspected only a thorough overhaul and clean would sort it. If even then. He hit the intercom button.

  ‘All hands, prepare for power down. Mister Vachon, shut down the power plant at your earliest convenience.’

  ‘Aye, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Sidewinder, we are going dark. I’ll report in again in one hour.’

  ‘Acknowledged. Sidewinder out.’

  The Bounty shuddered as the engine idled down to a stop. The lights grew dimmer and finally flickered out, something Samson had been expecting to happen ever since setting foot on the ship. He had to resist the urge to let out a spooky ‘whoooooo’—he didn’t reckon either Price or Harper, who were on the bridge with him, would appreciate it. He was coming to realise that most other people’s sense of humour had continued to develop after the age of fourteen. His, it seemed, had not. It wasn’t all bad, however. Without it, he doubted he’d have made it through the weeks after the mutiny or his Admiralty Board Review—the tribunal of investigation one level below a court martial, and the one that had recommended his reassignment to the edge of the known galaxy.

  After a moment in absolute darkness, emergency lights came on, bathing the ship in a red glow. Samson wondered how long they would last.

  ‘Feel free to find a quiet spot to relax for the hour,’ Samson said. ‘I’ve nothing for you until we’re back up and running.’

  Price and Harper cleared the bridge, leaving Samson alone in his little kingdom. The small bank of emergency batteries was wholly given over to running the carbon dioxide scrubbers and feeding power to the meagre emergency lights, so there would be no communication with the Sidewinder until the engine was back up and running. The artificial gravity unit held its charge similarly to a battery. They would all be a bit lighter on their feet by the time the engine powered up again as it slowly discharged, but they wouldn’t be floating around like freshman Naval Academy students getting their first experience of zero gravity.

  If the Bounty didn’t start up again, they would be collected by the launch, and Samson’s first brief command would be blasted to pieces, a sacrifice to the Sidewinder’s underused weapons. He preferred the thought of prize money. Naval advancement required more than just ability and good fortune—the latter of which he’d not had a whole lo
t of so far. The means to effect the lifestyle of an officer and a gentleman was equally important—and he knew he would have to score on all counts to have any hope of getting a commission back in the Core.

  Samson leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, imagining a modern bridge around him once again, all the stations crewed. The quiet hum of electrical systems and the drone of the engine were absent now, leaving almost complete silence. The ship groaned and creaked every so often as the artificial gravity pulled at her superstructure and the ship’s plates contracted as they cooled. It was a normal ship sound, but in one so old and poorly looked after as the Bounty, it was unnerving. Samson’s heart skipped each time he heard one. There was a rattle of space debris across the hull. With his eyes closed, and allowing his imagination to take control, he could almost mistake it for the sound of rain against his window at home. He allowed the sound to carry him to sleep.

  ‘Lieutenant.’

  Samson opened his eyes. Despite the ship’s intermittent groans and the brevity of his slumber, he had enjoyed one of the best sleeps he had experienced in some time, and woke calm and relaxed.

  ‘Go ahead, Vachon.’

  ‘I’m ready to power up again on your order.’

  ‘Fire her up. Let’s see what we have to work with.’

  He felt the ship judder, followed by the comforting thrum of an engine running nearby. The sound seemed more pronounced than it had when he first came aboard, and as the engine settled into its rhythm, the ship started to feel alive again. The lights came on, far brighter than before, and alarms went off on several control panels as their systems powered back up. He checked his command console. Already they had seventy percent of maximum operating power for that engine.

  ‘Excellent work, Mister Kushnir. Seventy percent already.’

  ‘Aye, Lieutenant. Thank you. She’s not in too bad a way. I should be able to get her back to over eighty percent by the time I’m done. You’re free to get underway as soon as you need to.’

  ‘What about the agitator?’

  ‘Looks fine. I think it was shut down to save on power drain. I’ll initialise it now and start charging its capacitors.’

  ‘Perfect. Bounty to Sidewinder.’ He silently counted to five and frowned. ‘Bounty to Sidewinder. Come in, Sidewinder.’

  He ran a quick diagnostic on the communications system, but it was working perfectly. Nevertheless, he rebooted it and tried again. Still nothing. He stood from his chair and walked to the viewport. The Sidewinder had been alongside, so despite his best effort, he couldn’t see from the forward-facing viewport on the bridge.

  ‘Lieutenant Harper, can you come to the bridge? We need to get the full sensor suite running.’

  A nervous sensation started to develop in his gut, similar to when he had been called to appear before the Naval Academy’s commodore for one of his various youthful works of malfeasance. There was no reason he could think of to prevent him from getting through to the Sidewinder, unless there was some physical damage to the comms relay. He scanned for background communications traffic from around the system and picked up a few whispers, and his test signal had bounced back as it should. The problem didn’t appear to be at his end.

  The bridge door opened more quickly than it had in the past, but by the sound of it the bearings still needed to be cleaned and greased. Once again, the grease seemed to be everywhere except where it was needed. Harper gave Samson a nod and walked to the sensors station and sat.

  ‘Let’s get the external cameras and situational screens up first,’ he said.

  ‘Aye.’ She started to work, and one by one the screens running along the bridge’s side walls flickered to life, showing what was on the other side of the hull as if they were windows.

  He realised he was holding his breath as he waited for those showing the ship’s starboard side to come on. He saw no reason to worry Harper unnecessarily, and was trying to convince himself that he was concerned over nothing. It was possible that Sidewinder had taken the opportunity of the downtime to run maintenance or diagnostic routines that would put her communications out of action for a time. She might even have been called away to deal with a problem, though that wouldn’t explain the communications blackout.

  His heart raced and his eyes widened when the starboard screens came on. Where the Sidewinder had been, there was now a debris field.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Harper said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Samson said, his mouth agape. ‘How the hell could that be Sidewinder?’

  ‘Maybe it’s not. Have you tried hailing them?’

  ‘Of course,’ Samson said, more sharply than he had intended. ‘Get on the sensors. Track back for whatever you can find. I want to know what happened.’

  Training and professionalism took over from shock. Harper turned back to her console and started to work. Samson sat back down, and tried to make sense of things. Might one of the objects they’d sent over have been a bomb after all? Surely their repeated scans would have indicated some sort of danger?

  ‘I need all hands to the bridge,’ Samson said.

  There were a chorus of ‘ayes’ across the intercom, and he returned his gaze to the image of the wreckage that had been the Sidewinder.

  ‘Can you detect any survivors?’ Samson said.

  ‘No, sir. No life signs.’

  Samson grimaced. It was worth a try, but he hadn’t expected any. Whatever had destroyed the Sidewinder had disintegrated the ship. He’d yet to see a piece of wreckage larger than a square meter on the scanner. He thought back to the sound of small debris hitting the ship after they had powered down and before he fell asleep, and realised it hadn’t been cosmic debris. It had been the Sidewinder. The force needed to cause that was large. There was no reason for a ship to explode unless something had gone very wrong and even then he couldn’t think what might cause such complete destruction. The only thing he could come up with was that the strange orb was an explosive device. Might the crew on Sidewinder have tampered with it in some way that caused it to detonate? It just didn’t make sense. Their scans had been careful and unanimous that the orb had posed no danger. Even with an unknown and downright mysterious technology, the scans would still have been able to pick up energy signatures and anomalies.

  ‘Focus on the first fifteen minutes after the power down,’ Samson said. ‘It must have been those items we discovered, but I want to be certain.’ That was when he had heard his imagined rain on the window. Whatever had happened to the Sidewinder had happened in that timeframe. In the vacuum of space, there was no sound or shockwave to alert a person to a nearby explosion. There would have been a bright flash, but he had closed his eyes, and the viewport on the bridge was the only one on the ship. He had been alone there. It was infuriating to think that something so devastating could happen less than a kilometre away, and go almost completely unnoticed. He knew they would have been unable to do anything to help, but that was of little consolation.

  ‘I’ve got something, sir.’

  Samson stood and walked to her console.

  ‘I don’t think it was the items. I think it was another ship. I’ve got a second energy signature appearing near the Sidewinder. It was only here for a few moments.’

  ‘Another ship?’

  ‘I think so. It’s the most likely explanation. There was a burst of scanning activity, then a high energy discharge, then an explosion, followed by more scanning.’

  ‘Weapons fire?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘There aren’t any ships out here big enough to take on the Sidewinder, are there?’ Samson said.

  ‘Not that I know of, sir. That doesn’t mean to say there isn’t one. There’re more ships and people coming to the Frontier systems every day. It wouldn’t be the first time a corporation made a play for a system. If they knew there was something valuable here…’

  Samson thought for a moment. He wasn’t quite ready to start apportioning blame, but it was chilling to thin
k it had not been an accident on the Sidewinder. ‘If a ship appeared and destroyed Sidewinder, why did it leave us alone?’

  ‘We were powered down,’ Harper said. ‘To a sensor scan we’d have looked like a derelict. Even the life support systems were off. Unless they did a deep sensor scan, they’d have had no reason to fire on us too.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Samson said. ‘Even more so if they’d achieved what they came here to do. Whatever that was. Get as much information on the energy signatures from the mystery ship. I want to know everything we possibly can about it while there’s still a trail to follow.’

  The others arrived on the bridge, led by Price. He had a puzzled expression on his face.

  Samson didn’t know of any way to dress it up. ‘The Sidewinder’s been destroyed.’

  Price laughed, but stopped abruptly when he saw the expression on Samson’s face. ‘She’s been what?’

  ‘When we powered up the screens and scanners, there was nothing left of the Sidewinder but a debris field. There are no survivors.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We’re trying to work that out at the moment. We’ve completely scanned the wreckage, and I can confirm to you no one survived. We need to think about our own survival now. We’ve powered up, and sent out comms and scans, so whoever did this might realise that we aren’t a derelict hulk after all and come back to finish what they started.’

  ‘Whoever did this?’ Vachon said.

  ‘Our initial scans suggest a second ship’s energy signature, and a weapons discharge.’

  There was a moment’s silence as they all dealt with the shocking news. They didn’t have time to dwell on it, however.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ Samson said, ‘and quickly. As soon as Lieutenant Harper has completed her sensor scans, we’ll make all speed for the unmanned naval depot orbiting Capsilan 2. This ship only has a local comms system. We’ll need to use the Galactic transmitter at the depot to report back to command.’