[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.'