**Action** "End of the line?"

The J.M.C Blue Dwarf
Orbiting Earth
 
A sparkling shiny metal ship approached the Blue Dwarf and landed in the huge dirty-blue ship's rather weathered docking bay. The rusty doors grated slowly to a close again.
 
On the shiny new ship was General Anders, a top Official from the Space Core. He had a reputation as a no-nonsense man who always had a straight-to-business attitude. Rumours about the man having an actual social life were just that- only rumours.
 
The general grunted at the docking bay technicians who he had expectd would at least have rolled out a red carpet for him. He didn't even have a welcome party waiting for him, no chauffer driven golf-buggy to escort him up to the Drive-room. What was Captain Niples playing at? By the General's first look of the ship it seemed that Captain Niples had really let the ship slip. He wiped his hand along the wall and looked dissapointedly at the amount of dust.
 
He walked over to a rough looking engineer with a soggy fag in his mouth and handed him his jacket.
"Here, make yourself useful and take my coat." He snapped.
The engineer grunted and as the General left the room, the coat was thrown on a pile of oily rags.
 
 
***Drive-Room**
A new face walked into the Drive-room. Captain Niples was busily looking over everyone shoulders at various computer reports about the robots that seemed to be invading Earth. He had been reviewing the updated crew roster and was expecting Larry Tajarsarataravital.
 
But he was damned if he could pronounce his name. He went over and shook TJ's
"I'm Captain Seymour Niples. Welcome to the crew Mr. Tajarsa....jarsara....tar.....TJ.""Glad to be with you, Sir." Larry smiled.
"We're monitoring the progress of the Plebian robots that have crashed into Earth. Would it be possible for you to form a security team and go down to earth and stop the robots from reaching the civillian population?"
TJ looked a bit confused, as he hasn't been on the ship- he didn't really know what was going on.
 
He didn't get chance to say much more as General Anders burst int othe Drive-room.
 
"Nippels! Nipples, this ship is a shambles! I was not formally greeted in the Drive room as per instruction of the space core directive #243A, the corridors smell of curry, the crew need showers, I almost stood on a rat in MacDonalds and was mugged by an old lady in the promenade!!!"
 
Niples rolled his eyes, having met Anders before.
 
"With all due respect General, how do expect me to cope when you put me in charge of a dirty mining ship with a non-military crew, don't announce you are coming, provide no rat-poison because of cut-backs. And I'm very well assured that the smell is actually 'spring blossom' pot pourri!"
 
The general scowled at Niples.
 
"Okay Nipples what are you doing about the threat of the Plebian robots which are currently crawling their way around earth killing, gutting and maiming innocent civillians?"
 
Niples flinched at the mis pronunciation of his name. "That's Niples sir, with a pronounced 'i'. And from our reports from our high tech computer monitoring system we have not had any reports of any killings yet."
 
"Not yet Captain, but if there are then I hold you personally responsible, you were on Plebe when the missiles were launched, you could have stopped them but you didn't."
 
"They had an entire army of robots to distract us, sir." he said the last word with a bitter spit as he didn't like the thought of the stuck up General being higher in the chain of command to him."And what are you doing now? How do you expect to get us out of this mess now Nipples?"
 
"We're monitoring..."
 
"What practical actions are you taking to defend Earth? Our mother land and home to millions of innocents."
 
Seymour was lost for words now, he hadn't actually ordered anyone to do anything just yet. Although a few of the crew were already on the planet, a call came in from Jay in the Phoenix saying he had to set down on Earth.
"We have a few people working on it...." He said.
 
"NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" Yelled Anders. "You got us into this mess, YOU GET US OUT OF IT! The space-core military isn't going to clean up your mess after you this time!"
 
"You mean the military isn't going to help?" Seymour said, shocked that it was all up to him. Surely Anders was just bluffing? He wouldn't make the crew of the Blue Dwarf do it on their own. Maybe he did, maybe Anders wanted to get rid of Niples after the Blue Dwarf had causedd a lot of trouble so far already.
 
"You're on your own." General Anders said with squinted eyes like daggers. He turned on his heel and walked out, tutting at the flaking paintwork on the door.
 
"JOLLY GOOD! WE CAN SAV EARTH WITHOUT YOU ANYWAY!" Seymour couldn't control his Plebian-converted arm any longer, it whipped up and middle fingered the general.
 
If Anders has just waled away, he wouldn't have seen the offensive gesture. Unfortunately he turned around to ay "Another thing..."
Niples couldn't put the arm down, he tried, but it resisted. He startedto get embarassed, he was never usually rude to anyone, but now his uncontrollable arm was showing him up.
 
Anders was genuinely shocked at how Seymour could do thi to a superior officer. He started fuming, others in the drive room thought they could genuinely see smoke coming out of the Generals ears.
 
"How dare you insult a superior officer!
......Especially a general
......Especially ME!!!
I can have your job for this Nipples!!!"
 
"Terribly sorry sir. ...But my name is pronounced Niples!!"
 
Then his Plebian arm completely lost control, it retracted back to his shoulder and whipped out and punched General Anders square in the jaw.
He staggered backwards, bent double holding his bruised jaw. He cursed so much that Efof covered his ears and climbed under his desk. The other members of the Drive-room crew were stunned into silence.
 
Niples was the most shocked, he was usually so polite and reserved. Especially to superiors.
 
"That's it Nipples, pack your bags because you are no longer Captain of the Blue Dwarf."
 
SILENCE.
 
"YES YOU HEARD ME!" Anders pressed the intercom as he shouted "CAPTAIN SEYMOUR F. NIPLES IS NO LONGER IN COMMAND OF THE J.M.C BLUE DWARF. I AM DECLARING SHIPWIDE SHORE LEAVE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. The Dwarf will stay in orbit around Earth and therefore will stay under rules and regulations of the Jupiter mining corporation which means that crewmembers can go to and from the ship and Earth as they please."
 
The entire crew heard the message, it was even broadcast to all shuttles including the Pheonix.
 
Seymour Niples' expression was one of a rockface. He walked calmly out of the drive-room, trying to keep his proud face.
 
 
 
People packed their stuff, ready to move down to Earth to see their families and friends. Some people were staying, some were getting ready to go down to Earth and battle the robots. Little did they know that just about everyone on Earth would have an experience with the robots. They would get into every city, every town. The spider-shaped mechanoids were setting up nests and replicating themselves out of metal they found. They were evolving, some made wings to fly, some adapted themselves to dig underground. They infested everything, getting into sewerage systems and tube-stations to get into most cities.
 
They needed to be stopped.
 
 
**A few minutes later, Captain's quarters**
 
Katrina looked up from the sofa as Seymour walked in. "Everything alright hun?" she said.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to move out of this apartment." he said gravely.
"Why? What's wrong?" she rushed over to him and held both of his hands for comfort.
"Because they're 'captain's' quarters and I'm not a Captain anymore."
"What? Why? How? Where will we go?"
 
Seymour sighed and looked out of the large curtained window at the bright spinning blue/green globe.
 
"We'll take the Space Eagle down to Earth."
 
 
To be continued.......
================================David "Onion" BallCaptain Seymor Niples, J.M.C Blue Dwarf================================Alota was ordeing something from a vending machine. She kept asking for A Bannna Milkshake, but it kept giving her raw liver.. (Chris Kentlea, BlueDwarf.co.uk)====================================