cmdr Niples "Shipping channel"

Commander Niples' quarters
JMC Blue Dwarf -in asteroid field
Shipdate 3.10.2100
11.00PM
 
Seymour sipped his coffee and stared hard at the computer screen, he looked at the image and pressed his remote to move on to the next picture.
 
The next picture showed a military scout ship, Niples shook his head and moved onto the next picture, it was a JMC Orbital mining centre. He shook his head again and moved on.
 
He was trying to match the pictures with what he had seen a few days ago, he knew he wasn't going crazy because everyone else in the drive-room had seen it as well.
The ship seemed to hover over them for a few seconds as if looking at them and wondering what to do next. At the time, Niples was sure it was going to attack or at least make a threatening move as the ship seemed so sinister and almost evil. Jet black ships with spiky tendrills never gave him the most confidence.
 
He got to the last picture and threw his remote down in anger, "Its not any of these ships!" he shouted, but didn't hear himself as he had cotton-wool in his ears from having to listen to the new sensor operator Kayn all day.
 
But if the ship wasn't included in the Human fleet-archive, then who built it? Aliens?  The entire idea of aliens was proposterous!
How could the bizzarre freak of nature that created us happen on more than one planet in the galaxy? The odds were bad, but not impossible.
 
Captain's quarters
11.05PM
 

Cannon sipped his coffee and stared hard at the computer screen, he looked at the image and pressed his remote to move on to the next picture.
 
By a strange coincidence he was looking at the Human fleet-archive too, but he was paying more attention to the women modelling the vehicles.
 
Next morning
9:00AM
 
Niples caught the lift down to main engineering where he found Lt. Smegg fixing the engines so they purred like a classic car.
 
"Smegg, when you were away in the Starbug we saw something.... a ship."
"yeah," said the engineer screwing something with a spanner before oil leaked out of the power inversion matrix into the plasma coupling cylinder tanks. (Wow this is getting technical!)
"some people told me about it, some people are even calling it a ghost ship because we dont really know if it exists."
 
"Thats exactly it, we cant prove it exists- but I SAW it, and I'm not going to rest until I find out what kind of ship it is and where it came from.
 
"Why does it bother you so much?" asked the engineer.
"I think...." Niples' voice lowered to a whisper. "I think its alien."
"ALIEN!" shouted Smegg, a few heads turned to look at him.
"Theres no such thing!"
 
"I know, I know" said Niples, "thats what our governments and scientists have said for ages, but its a very large galaxy- and an even bigger universe. There must be other life somewhere!"
 
Smegg began quoting things he read in a space-core manual somewhere. "4080- It is finally proven that mankind is all alone in the universe. No other intelligent life exists anywhere in the universe."
 
"But we're exploring the new frontiers of space now, we're boldly going where no man..."
"or woman" shouted a female technician.
"Or woman yes..... erm, what was I saying?" said Niples
"I think you'd finished." said Smegg.
"ok."
 
There was a pause as Smegg got back to work, Niples stood and watched.
Jason looked up at him after a while.
"Was there something else?"
"erm..." said the commander, deep in thought. "Yes there was actually- did you say you had equipped the Starbug with a new kind of weapon?"
"Yeah, the 'Gaussian shotgun,' its a prototype." said Smegg, "it fires a spray of neobium magnets which...."
Niples cut him off before he got a complet information overload.
 
"Good, we'll need it to clear the asteroids and get out of this asteroid field and carry on our way."
 
With that, Niples walked out of the greasy engineering room to find someone stupid enough to risk his life shooting asteroids with a prototype weapon.
 
(Who wants to shoot some asteroids? Anyone can join in)
==================================Lt. David "Onion" BallAssistant Helm officer/ Pilot  USS Endeavour-ACommander Seymour Niples  JMC Blue DwarfWWW.Geocities.com/BlueDwarf2000Are you being paid for being online? I am! http://www.alladvantage.com/home.asp?refid=IJU209==================================