Zen and Robert were already back in the X3 with the hatch closed shortly after Amelia's discovery, on the way out of the freighter Zen had snatched the vessel's blackbox which should prove useful for future investigation.
Robert quickly moved toward the sensor display while skillfully removing himself from the air supply. Effy and Amelia had already disconnected and removed their mask while Zen was still struggling to remove his, zero g made a lot of things easier but also a multitude of everyday tasks exponentially difficult.
"Report?" Robert grumbled.
"Singular contact, just out of visual range, 20 kilometers out." Amelia read out the display monotonously.
"I don't trust them. I'm going to hail them." Robert walked toward the comms and started hailing the contact. "Unidentified ship, this is the Protection Force. Come in."
Only static greeted them for a solid minute, then without warning the comms sprang to life.
"H-hello? Protection Force? This is civilian transport ship. Responding hail, over"
The connection was shabby at best, not ideal but a conversation could be had.
Zen finally free of the air supply drifted towards the rest, this was highly suspicious. Another ship this close to the crime scene, 20 kilometers in space could be compared to being neighbors on solid ground.
Robert grabbed the comms and responded once more. "Civilian vessel, this is the Protection Force. You're closing in on an active crime scene, please divert course at once." they hadn't officially made it a crime scene, but that label was only one call to have it applied with the scene Zen and Robert saw previously.
The comms crackled to life. "Roger that, averting course. Good luck with your findings, out"
Robert seemed to notice something was off as well as he hailed the vessel one more time. "Civilian vessel, you said you're a transport ship. What are you transporting?"
Zen noticed what he was getting at, according to the sensors the ship came from deep space. It also came from a different direction than any established hyperlanes, simply put it had no business being anywhere near here.
The comms stayed quiet for a good while but then finally came back. "At the moment we're transporting parts to the colony of Oreallis." Robert looked at Effy "Effy you should be knowledgeable on this, how many times do fresh parts come to Oreallis?"
Effy took a while to think about it. "Maybe once a month. And the last one was just two weeks ago, but we could always take a quick look." Zen looked at Effy. "wouldn't that scare them off if they're guilty?" Effy just laughed back "And what? Outrun the X3? No way in hell they'd be getting away." Zen just looked troubled.
"People that have something to hide can be quite tricky to deal with, let's just wait and see how they will react." Zen had more than one chase that ended badly because the suspect saw no end in sight. Thus resulting in him acting irrational, and crooks acting irrational was not something Zen intended to cause. Desperation usually only resulted in severe escalation of the situation, which in space was something they could not risk.
"I'm with Effy on this one." Robert said "Amelia, disengage boarding. We're going to take a look." Zen wanted to interject, but it wasn't like the ship was doing anything wrong. Just potentially. 'Let's just hope they won't do anything crazy, from them and us.'
The ship shook as it disengaged the airlock and set course for the civilian transport ship.
"Civilian vessel, we'll be coming closer for a standard visual check. Maintain course and velocity." Robert sat down in his chair once more and strapped him in, being loose in zero g was not fun. Zen and Effy quickly stored the floating air supplies and took their seats as well, just then a response came from the comms. "Roger, maintaining course and velocity."
Compared to the first few responses the sender sounded almost resolved, less emotion came from the message than the others. It could simply be another person on the comms, or their mask had slipped.
20 Kilometers was nothing for space travel so within minutes the cargo vessel came into view, it was of similar make as the one they just boarded with only some minor differences. It was painted a dark red with dark gray accents, of course painting wasn't illegal just highly impractical. Usually the color the ship rolled the factory out with was the color it would maintain until it reached the scrap yard, some enthousiast painted them themselves resulting in some undoubtedly cool looks.
However it never lasted long in space, making the whole ordeal just extremely expensive. Definitely not something a cargo vessel would normally have, especially one so far from the rich center core planets. Besides that there were no external giveaways that should make this ship suspicious, but Zen had been an investigative officer long enough to know some neat tricks.
Robert, Amelia and Effy were discussing their findings on the external features of the vessel, but besides the uncommon paint job they couldn't determine anything.
"Amelia, could you get behind them?" Zen asked "Yeah, I can, but why?" Amelia still didn't like Zen much but atleast contained it to only her tone and not her words anymore.
Zen ignored Amelia for a second. "Robert, could you request they accelerate by ten meters per second?" Robert just huffed. "I could but could you say what that would accomplish, kid?" Zen just turned to Effy. "Effy, check their engine output," Zen ordered. She looked confused but nodded. "On it."
Zen looked at the three of them. "Do any of you know the formula for acceleration?"
Effy was the first to spring upright, accidentally launching herself upwards towards the ceiling. "Of course! If we ask them to accelerate a certain amount, measure the thrust they put out while monitoring their speed to make sure they're not cheating. We can determine their mass! And with some files we should have on board we can check if they're indeed carrying cargo, but not what kind."
"If my hunch is right we won't need to guess what kind of cargo they're carrying." Zen reassured.
Robert and Amelia both thought it over. "It couldn't hurt, let's do it." Robert signaled to Amelia to move behind the vessel while he started hailing them again. "Civilian vessel, request. Increase speed by ten meters per second at once, over."
This time the response was immediate. "Copy that, increasing speed by ten meters per second." They sounded confused, which was good. 'If they knew what we were getting at and were guilty they'd haul ass' Zen hovered behind the trio each preoccupied with their own task.
The vessel did as commanded and accelerated by ten meters per second, Effy took note of the force expelled by the thrusters and presented it to Zen. 1.6 million newtons of thrust, which with a simple formula mass = force / acceleration equaled a mass of roughly around 160.000 tons. "Effy found the file on the specific vessel yet?" Zen asked.
Effy scrolled to some folders on the ship's computer and settled on one after a while. "Yes got it! It's a Mule class transport ship, weight without cargo… 160.000 tons." Effy fell into silence. The ship was indeed as good as empty, give or take because of the rough calculations.
"So? Do you want to arrest them now?" Robert still clutched the comms ready to subject the ship to boarding.
"No. Not yet, they probably have more somewhere else. Else they would've already emptied the vessel and wouldn't be flying towards it. Boarding as of now is also not advised, we don't know how many of them there are and if they're armed. For all we know they could have set a trap for us if we announced our boarding."
"we're going to let them go. For now at least." Zen sighed he hated to let them go now, but the risk was too big. For all they knew they could have twenty armed men and women on board, after that it doesn't matter if you were military trained. You just die.
He recalled a previous experience from when he was just a rook, one of his superiors had ordered a boarding of a suspicious vessel. It turned out the vessel was a yacht of a crime boss, thus heavily manned and guarded.
Zen and twenty others entered and only seven made it out, the gang members left no room for arrest so everything on that ship ended up getting wiped out, including the crime boss. Resulting in the promotion of his superiors who condemned twelve of Zen's comrades to nameless graves.
Robert was not happy with the situation but Zen could see he at least agreed with Zen's train of thought. Grumbling Robert grabbed the comms. "Civilian vessel, no remarks. You're free to go on your way" The response was instant "Understood, safe travels."
Zen was not happy with letting them go, but he would be crushed if his decision to board would have resulted in him losing someone. 'This shit sucks, but. It beats the alternative. Besides, I think I have an idea that might just work.'