Democracy's Light

Chapter Thirty-Five

Commander Irving Roberts looked up from his report as the near-planet orbital monitor chirped a warning.

“Report,” he ordered, looking over at one of the tactical officers, operating her station and showing her inexperience with every movement. Schubert had been stripped of all, but a small cadre of experienced officers for the war and it showed. Roberts himself was the most experienced officer on the fortress and, if he hadn’t been suffering from a rare degenerative nerve disease that kept him trapped in a hoverchair, he would have been taken from the planet as well. Admiral Wilhelm had stripped the sector bare for his fleet.

The tactical officer’s voice showed her excitement. “I have a single Mars-class bulk freighter just flickering in from Cottbus,” she said, as the display automatically downgraded the threat level by a degree. A single Mars-class freighter might be used as a warship by a particularly poor or desperate pirate group, but no one in their right mind would try to take it up against a single gunboat, let alone a million-ton fortress. “They’re transmitting an IFF now, sir.”

“Very good,” Roberts said dryly, trying to keep his amusement out of his voice. It was heart-warming how hard the newly-trained crews tried to impress him, seeing him as a sophisticated officer and role model. They would have been less impressed if they had known that his handful of combat missions had all been against pirates, rather than rebels or alien threats. “Hail them and demand to know what they’re carrying and why they’re not being escorted.”

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.

“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…

“Order the other arsenal ships to take out the remaining two fortresses,” she ordered, calmly. There was no need to force them to volunteer for a suicide mission. Now that the gloves were off, they could use the arsenal ships to their best advantage without worrying about the cost. The fortresses wouldn’t be able to stand off the missiles while trying to kill the empty ships. “Keep us on course for the main industrial node.”

The display updated as the superdreadnaughts, their true nature now exposed to the enemy, slid through space, diving into the gravity shadow at an thoroughly insane speed. She’d been tempted to issue the same warning as she’d issued to the other worlds she’d hit, telling them to evacuate their industrial stations before it was too late and she destroyed them, but Schubert was different. It was just too close to Cottbus to waste time. They had enough time, by her most pessimistic calculation, to close with the orbital defences, destroy them and the industrial facilities, and beat a retreat. They could not wait for the facilities to be abandoned.

“Incoming fire,” the tactical officer said, grimly. The display lit up as the orbital missile pods opened fire, unleashing a swarm of missiles towards her ships, which reacted to the threat as they’d been trained. Someone on the other side had clearly realised that if the missile pods weren’t expended, now, they would lose them without having a chance to hit something worthwhile. Any halfway decent industrial node could turn out hundreds of missiles; Schubert, clearly, had been doing just that. “Point defence is engaging now.”

Katy nodded, clutching the sides of her command chair as the red icons started to wink out, one by one. Schubert’s defenders were in a state of shock and, as long as she kept pounding on them, they wouldn’t have a chance to recover. They still commanded awesome levels of orbital firepower, but they just didn’t have time to coordinate it into a single unit. They could have beaten her off, or forced her to accept intolerable losses, but they just didn’t have the time.

The superdreadnaught rumbled as it unleashed another swarm of missiles, sending death racing through space towards the industrial facilities. Schubert had been a wealthy world once, if not quite up to first-rank status, and it had actually built a major orbital industry. That industry was dying now, blown apart by her missiles and reduced to flaming embers, floating down towards the planet. The defenders fought as best as they could, trying to save as much as possible, but they didn’t have a chance.

“Signal from the planet, Admiral,” the communications officer said. Her voice was almost beseeching, but Katy couldn’t understand why. “They want to discuss terms of surrender.”

Katy clenched her teeth. The Shadow Fleet had always given quarter when it was requested, but she couldn’t accept a surrender, on any terms. How could she? She couldn’t garrison the planet, nor could she wait for them to abandon their orbital facilities. By now, a destroyer or a courier boat could be halfway to Cottbus, warning them that her fleet was in the area… and they would have a clear shot at destroying it. They couldn’t afford to be caught in the gravity shadow, not now…

“Ignore it,” she ordered, and pretended not to see the looks of shock on some of their faces. Their innocence had died back at Cottbus, when the 2^nd fleet had been ambushed and reduced to a third of its strength. “Continue the attack.”