Christopher Nuttall - Democracy's Light

“Interesting,” he said, without committing himself. She expected him to have the answers, but he was more than a little baffled. The crew might have replaced their old drives with newer units, but that would have been a job for a shipyard, which would have been costly. No one in their right mind would just insert newer drive units into a starship and hope for the best. They had to be properly secured or the ship would shake itself apart. “Run a more focused scan. Let me know if there are any other discrepancies.”

He found himself caught in a blind. It could be innocent. He’d seen plenty of freighters and even warships that had been modified in decidedly non-spec manners, even to the point of posing a danger to their crews. There were no legal grounds to have the freighter boarded and searched, not yet, but he had the authority… in theory. The local merchant unions would protest, loudly, if he searched a refuelling ship just on suspicion. For a moment, he considered asking her to place the request, passing the buck, but he liked to think he was a better officer than that. What sort of lesson would that teach the kids under his command?

“Contact them directly,” he ordered, finally. “Order them to heave to and prepared to be boarded. If they protest, explain that we’re running a standard exercise and that if they cooperate, they will be given a major discount on their fuel.” He paused, waiting for her to complete the first task. “Now contact the gunboats and inform them that I want two of them in position to intercept the freighter, with a Marine shuttle following to board her and ask a few questions. Apprise them of our suspicions and tell the Marines to be careful.”

She blinked. “Just careful, sir?”

“Just careful,” Roberts confirmed. Junior officers rarely learned how to delegate at first; it was something that came with experience. The thought of her attempting to tell Marines what to do was amusing. “Trust in the man on the spot to know what he’s doing.”

He smiled, a smile which, a moment later, vanished from his face. “They’re not stopping,” he said, seeing the freighter altering course, as if it intended to climb back out of the gravity shadow and vanish. Its ponderous bulk would take at least a minute to even change course slightly, let alone reverse entirely, it was even staggering towards their position. They had to be insane. A single brush with the fortress’s weapons would vaporise their ship. “Contact them again and order them to cut their drives, now !”

“No response, sir,” the tactical officer said. Her hands danced over the console, attempting to bring up newer readings, ones that might explain the paradox. “They’re still trying to reverse course.”

Roberts found himself thinking quickly. If they were smugglers, or had something else onboard that they didn’t want the Marines finding, they had acted in a manner that made no sense. Refusing to obey orders from System Command was a major offence; the Captain would be lucky if he wasn’t summarily arrested and dispatched to a penal world. The fines alone would probably wipe out all the profit from the run… and it was so futile. They couldn’t escape.

“Contact the gunboats,” he said, regretfully, “and order them to fire into their drives to force them to halt.”

He watched as the gunboats arced towards the freighter, which was still moving, however ponderously, towards the fortress. The gunboats, being much smaller than the freighter, could accelerate to their top speed almost instantly… and, even this close to a planet, that speed was awesome. The freighter could have had a twenty-minute start and it still couldn’t have escaped. The popguns mounted on the gunboats would have no problem dealing with the freighter, even if they wouldn’t have dented an unshielded warship. There was nothing about the entire situation that made sense, unless it was some demented…

“Commander,” the tactical officer snapped, as the display suddenly flared with red icons. It took Roberts a moment to grasp what he was seeing. It was so unexpected. “They’re firing… oh, my god! ”

Roberts flinched himself. He’d seen it, too late. It wasn’t a freighter at all, but an arsenal ship… and he’d allowed it into prime firing range of the fortress. Hundreds and thousands of missiles were pouring out of the hulk, their drives kicking in and launching them towards his station in an endless stream of death and destruction. There were bare minutes until they arrived… and he hadn’t even brought the point defence online. He hit the emergency alert key, knowing that his crew would race to their stations as quickly as possible… and that they would be far too late.

“Focus,” he snapped at the tactical officer. Her eyes were wide and staring, a faint smell revealed that she had urinated involuntarily. “Leave the precise targeting for now; bring the point defence online and authorise the computers to target the incoming missiles!”

She merely stared at him. Roberts pushed her out of the way with the arm of his chair and took over the console, keying up the point defence systems and triggering them with his override codes. Automated systems were never allowed to fire without human authorisation, at least not outside certain very specific situations, a paranoid safety measure that had cost them precious seconds. The point defence weapons hadn’t even been charged and ready for instant deployment. The mere process of charging them would eat still more of their remaining time…

“Hit that ship,” he ordered, tightly, as the missiles started to enter terminal attack vector, bringing up their drives to full power for their final suicidal attack. There was no point in targeting the arsenal ship, not now, apart from revenge, and that was all that he had left. The enemy ship had sat right under his missile launchers and he hadn’t even noticed! The government down on the planet wouldn’t had had any warning at all. “Take them down, hurry!”

The tactical officer looked at him, her composure completely shattered. She really was as young as she looked. “We’re going to die,” she said, flatly. “Aren’t we, sir?”

Roberts refused to lie to her. “Yes, Fran,” he said, surprising her. She hadn’t known that he’d known her name. It was written all over her face. “We’re going to die.”

The first missiles lanced in towards the point defence zone and passed through, barely touched by the weapons as they closed in on their target. The fortress’s shields had snapped up, at least, but they were still going to take a pounding. The massive structure shook, time and time again, as the missiles hammered away at it, the shields finally collapsing and allowing the missiles to lash into bare hull. The fortress was armoured heavily, but the sheer weight of missiles ripped through the armour and started to detonate inside the structure.

Roberts barely had a moment to realise that it was over before the power plant finally blew and vaporised the fortress, along with its crew. They’d barely managed to destroy the arsenal ship before it killed them.

“Decloak us, now,” Katy ordered, watching as Hell itself was unleashed on the orbital defences of Schubert. The planet was alarmingly close to Cottbus itself, with a small network of orbital defences, and targeting it had been one of the hardest decisions she’d had to make. Taking out the defences might be worthwhile, but it would inflict little damage on Admiral Wilhelm’s fleet and prove costly. “All ships, engage at will.”

It had taken nearly a week to slip into the system without triggering any alerts, but they’d managed it, sneaking an entire task force right up to Schubert. The defenders had had no warning at all when she’d sent the arsenal ship into their midst, the crew’s sacrifice having cleared the way for her ships. A single freighter, refitted to serve as an arsenal ship, had blown the command fortress away and inflicted severe damage on other facilities. If nothing else, Admiral Wilhelm’s people were going to be extremely paranoid about every other freighter that arrived, travelling on its own…