Force G - The lost command

[El_Phil]

Time for some more? I think so!

Call To Arms

"Incoming distress signal."

Those three words were enough to push the entire Loxford Base command complex into full alert. The communications officers triangulated and traced the signal, the sensor crews checked their networks for contacts and the liaison officers scrabbled to find their readiness lists.

"Who is it and how bad?" Commodore Langford was senior officer present.

"An independent merchant. They've got an unidentified contact on an intercept course." The non-com at the comms station replied.

"Confirmation?" Langford knew that emergencies weren't the time for long speeches. Keep it short and simple.

"Confirmed." Came the reply from the sensor crew. "Looks like a modified Tidespool being chased by a heavily modified Javelin."

'That could be a close fight, depending on the modifications.' Langford thought to herself. 'Probably come down to crew skill and tactics then. With a pirate crew verses merchants that makes it a massacre, unless we can get there.' Out loud she asked. "Time to intercept?"

"Assuming current speed and course interception will occur in 30 minutes." The chief of the sensor crew answered.

"How long till the QRF launch and intercept?"


****


The QRF, or Quick Reaction Force, is a feature of any organisation that has to escort convoys or patrol too much territory with too few ships. At it's most basic a QRF is a group of ships at their home base kept ready to depart.

A more advanced method is too keep a force patrolling out around the main trouble areas. This roving force can rapidly divert to any problem or emergency far faster than a docked QRF, as its engines are already started and its crew at their stations.

Sadly Force G lacked the ships for the second method and had to make do with the docked ships method.


****


"Captain Newton swears that he can get Turbulent launched within 3 minutes. Interception would be 35 minutes after that, assuming the speeds don't change." The QRF liaison officer replied. "Kingfisher and Hardy were on 15 minutes notice and haven't been alerted."

'38, more likely 40 minutes' Langford though to herself. 'Close, but they'll be too late. Even so Turbulent might be able to catch those pirates, if not save the merchants.'

"Order Turbulent to beat those times." She told the QRF officer. "And have Kingfisher and Hardy step up to 3 minutes notice."

Turning to the convoy liaison officer she asked "That convoy is over stuffed isn't it?"

The officer nodded, it was standard practice to over protect the monthly convoys to discourage pirates.

"So, if an escort was to peal off and intercept could it make it to the Tidespool i time?"

The officer had got the drift before Langford had finished speaking and was tapping away at her console. She looked up with a grin "If you diverted one of the frigates they'd make it in 28 minutes."

The whole mood in the centre, which had been falling through the floor, suddenly lifted. There was something they could do.

"Then what are we waiting for? Comms, signal the convoy and order one of their frigates to divert." Langford wasn't immune from the mood change. A ship that had been doomed now had a chance, and they might bag a pirate ship as well.

"Captain we're picking up a general distress signal. It's from the Tidespool." The call came up from the comms desk.

"Ohh f...."


****


The first mate of the Night Star hated giving his captain bad news. He tended to take it quite badly. And then take that out on whoever was nearby, normally the person who'd just given him the bad news. Still it was his job, and if the Cap'n found out he hadn't told him it would be worse.

"Cap'n, the prize has just sent a general distress signal." He announced, angry, if not surprised, at how much his voice was trembling.

"Damnation and NovaFire! That's just what I didn't want. Calling the navy, fine! But not that!" The cries of rage echoed off the walls of the bridge.

Captain Hayles was not a happy pirate.


****


"Loxford base contacted and distress signal sent Captain." The communication officer onboard Tidespring reported.

'OK that's all the bases covered.' Captain di Matteo thought to herself.

She had, in fact, covered too many bases.

A great yell, almost a scream, cut across the bridge. "Captain! Sensors are showing multiple hostile contacts swarming out of the asteroid belt, all on an intercept course!" The sensor officer was almost in hysterics.

The world suddenly started to swim around Captain di Matteo. Nothing seemed real. It couldn't be. No-one got attacked by swarms of pirates, it just didn't happen.


Then some long forgotten words of wisdom, dispensed by a dead former captain back when she was a young second officer, came back to her. 'When in pirate country never, ever, send a general distress call. It's like blood to sharks, but worse. Far, far worse.'

[narf poit chez BOOM]

CR check on Pirate swarm!

[El_Phil]

Page 3? I have been busy clearly.

The Devil's Alternative.

'Paths that end in trouble are all the same. They only appear different when you don't know here they lead." The Cheshire Cat


"Senior crews to The Cell." Langford called out and strode off to 'The Cell', a separate command room designed and equipped for any serious situation.

As she walked through the blast doors and down into the harsh red glow of the central pit her mind flashed back to the last time she'd been here. The 800 Squadron incident. 'This is nothing like that.' she told herself.

The room quickly filled with the technical cream of Loxford Base, all the best in their fields if not the highest in rank. In the main control complex the replacements took over and tried to ignore the entire Tidespool situation.

A loud crash marked Petty Officer Shearer's entry and, as always, Langford marvelled that anybody that clumsy could be so skilful at using the ultra delicate sensor networks. 'That should be the last of them.' Langford ran a quick mental checklist 'Comms, Sensor, Intelligence, QRF, Convoy Liaison...' Close enough.

"Comms, get Tidespool on the link. Get their course changed to the best intercept. QRF, I want Kingfisher and Hardy out and gone in five minutes. Sensors, how many pirates, what size ship, everything. You know the drill, liaise with Intelligence and give me a best guess what we're facing." Langford, who had been barking orders like a rotary rail gun, suddenly stopped and called over the convoy liaison officer.

"How close is that convoy to safety?" She asked.

"Still a couple of days from the warp point. You're not suggesting..." Lieutenant Commander Draxton asked.

"Yes I am. One frigate and an armed merchantman wouldn't have a prayer against that lot." She waved her arm at the 3D tactical display glowing red with unclassified contacts. "But if we pull Broadsword off.. Well a cruiser, even a light raider like a Battleaxe class, could tip the balance. The convoy will still have a carrier and the rest of the escorts for protection."

"But regulations..." Draxton started.

"This isn't a discussion, this is an order. In any case, as you and I both know, it’s the only option." Langford stated flatly and turned away.


****


Onboard Turbulent Captain Hayles was professional and terrified in equal measures. Getting a ship ready to leave ahead of QRF time was a challenge and required speedy but thought out actions. However this wasn't a generic ship, this was ORS Turbulent a ship with a past to match her name


****


Turbulent had been first laid down in space dock as a test bed for the Devonshire class of heavy cruisers, specifically the hull building methods and reactor systems. There were several problems with the hull building, but these were solved, more serious the reactor didn't work, or more accurately, worked too well. Turbulent was massively overpowered for her onboard wiring and power distribution systems. Despite this there was a most undignified scrap for this impressive ship. The Admiralty was almost beside itself trying to solve the problem.

At this stage Rear Admiral Flynn of Trials Command had stepped in and announced that there was no problem, Trials Command hadn't finished with Turbulent. Over the following years she was used to test dozens of experimental systems, from gravimetric sensors to improved life support.

Her primary use ,however, was as a weapons test bed. Her turrets were ripped off and rearranged so regularly the gunnery crews got lost looking for their stations. During her final years at Trials Command the engineering crews stopped uninstalling the old systems when the testing cycle was over, as a result the rat’s nest of under strength power cabling got worse and worse. Finally Flynn realised that his engineers and scientists were spending more time getting systems fitted to Turbulent than testing them and released her to the fleet pool.

By this stage the Devonshire class had entered the fleet in large numbers and nobody wanted a high maintenance and probably problem filled ship. Yet she was too expensive to scrap and too large and powerful to waste on system patrol. The solution, as for so many of the Admiralty's problems, was to dump the ship on Force G.


****


Captain Hayes knew his ship's past, or as much of it as had been de-classified to his clearance, but hadn't been able to turn down the captaincy of a heavy cruiser. After all, he'd reasoned, it couldn't be that bad or fleet would have scrapped her.

As he checked the status display showing half his rail guns offline and engines at 80% he thought perhaps things were that bad. A light flashed green as the Tri-Cobalt torpedoes tubes confirmed as loaded. 'Oh no, I was wrong.' he thought to himself savagely. 'The torpedoes that no other ship in the fleet uses, because the detonators are unreliable, are ready.'