He frowned down at the console, stroking his chin, as the tactical officer leapt to obey. In theory, it was impossible for a starship to be intercepted between the stars, but in practice it was fairly easy to do so, given a degree of luck or sometimes foreknowledge. The Empire rarely used convoys, but Admiral Wilhelm had organised a convoy system for the Cottbus Sector, although most of the escorts had been called off to the war front. The planet’s government had been worried about the possible economic downturn caused by the war, but Roberts’ concerns were simpler. If a freighter was travelling without an escort, what had happened to its escort?
“And ask them for an update,” he added. If nothing else, it would make for a welcome change from the boredom of tracking the STL craft that mined the asteroids and gas giants in the system. “I want their full details as soon as possible.”
The thought made him smile. A military crew would have answered at once; a freighter crew would tend to delay as long as possible, either to make their official oppressors annoyed, or just because they didn’t have anyone on the bridge when the signals were transmitted. It was a permanent point of friction between the civil and military communities, a cause of considerable bad feeling. Personally, Roberts didn’t really care, but the Imperial Navy as a whole had found it annoying. They would have preferred freighters to follow military discipline at all times.
“They’re identifying themselves as the Star of Humber,” the tactical officer said. The name meant nothing to Roberts. Freighters tended to carry all kinds of names, rather than the strictly-formalised nomenclature of the Imperial Navy, and a single name meant nothing. It was quite easy to alter an IFF beacon to send out a false signal and nothing short of an inspection tour would reveal the truth. A freighter rarely had its name engraved on the hull. “They’re claiming that they had no escort; they came directly from Driscoll and that they’re carrying farming machinery.”
Roberts smiled. That explained the lack of an escort. Farming machinery was useless to pirates; indeed, shipping it on an interstellar freighter was normally a waste of money. Basic farming equipment could be produced at any local industrial node, unless it was destined for a newly-settled world… and there were several third-rank worlds in the sector that would pay through the nose for farming gear, even when every freighter in the sector was supposed to be serving the war effort.
“Understood,” he said, calmly. The Mars-class ships were old enough to require frequent refuelling from an orbital facility. Schubert, it so happened, had a good reputation for cheap fuel. The four gas giants in the system provided enough fuel for the entire spacefaring community, military and civilian. Mining them was a well-understood practice after two thousand years in space. “Clear them for docking at one of the stations and pass their communications code to the station manager. They can see how much the crew is willing to pay for a fuel load.”
He turned his gaze back to the display, watching the freighter advancing ponderously into the gravity shadow, heading down towards one of the commercial stations. They would, he noted absently, be passing fairly close to his fortress and considered using them for a tracking exercise, before dismissing the thought. The freighter crew might have come to his world in hopes of a cheaper deal on refined spaceship fuel, but that wouldn’t excuse scaring hell out of them when their ship was lit up by military-grade targeting sensors, suggesting that they were about to be used for target practice.
“They’re not moving quite rightly,” the tactical officer said, puzzled. She would have been a pretty girl under any circumstances, but right now she was frowning. Roberts ordered his chair to hover over to her position, allowing him to peer over her shoulder and down at her display. “They’re moving as if they’re holding back some of their drive field…”
She stopped, unable to explain what she was seeing. It took Roberts a moment to see it and he had to admit that if she hadn’t seen it, without knowing what she was looking at, he might well have missed it. The freighter was holding a fairly low speed, roughly a third of what such a ship should be capable of in a gravity field, but it looked as if it were ready and raring to run. It would have committed several breeches of orbital manoeuvring regulations if it had sped up, but the drive field was flickering as if they intended to move much faster… and if they had more power to burn.
“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.