**Action** - "Monster at the gate"

Who: Captain Jed Calvert
Where: Captain's Quarters
When: While the BD is still at Jupiter Station
Jed was a rough and ready kind of man.
He was the type of man who was always on the move. He always carried
very little possessions, only his genuine cowhide boots, his tattered
clothes, his pistol, and of course his trusted cowboy hat.
Which is why moving all his possessions into the Captain's Quarters
took literally no time at all.
Various crewmembers (who were obviously after a promotion) had visited
his quarters to drop off some `moving in' presents. Various domestic
items which he might have needed, a new kettle, an iron, a vase, a
reading lamp, bedsheets, a tea-towel, a cutlery set and few bottles of
wine. He'd shooed them all away of course, Calvert was far too
stubborn a man to accept gifts from stranger. Especially domestic gifts.
He wasn't a domestic type of man.
Of course he'd accepted the bottles of wine gratefully, and the
bedsheets. But that was only to use to make a temporary tent in the
middle of the room.
Jed didn't actually like using beds. He thought they were too soft,
and a real man shouldn't need anything more than the cold hard dessert
floor beneath him. Or on a spaceship, the cold hard metal floor.
He laid in his tent, gulping the wine straight from the bottle. He
also wasn't a classy sort of man, which is exactly what Seymour had
though when he had come round earlier to deliver his present of a ming
vase. Which Calvert took with a disgusted look on his face, before
breaking it over Seymour's head and throwing him out.
He thought about their upcoming mission. The Space corps had ordered
the Blue Dwarf into the "Nouveau Terran" sector of space, to the far
west of Space Corps space. It was an area where the most paranoid
humans from Earth colonised, after fleeing Earth. Different nations
landed on different planets. He thought about New Texas, the planet
that he had grown up on. He didn't really want to go back there – Jed
Calvert was the type of man who didn't make friends very easily. In
fact he made enemies with just about everyone he met.
And a lot of those old enemies were still around on New Texas. They
would probably want him dead if they knew he was coming back into
their region, and they probably wouldn't' mind if they took the entire
Blue Dwarf out just to get to him.
Jed shrugged it off. He was the kind of man who didn't really give a shit.
There was a chime at his door and Callum Kotchanski came in. "Sir,
we've finished all repairs and undocked from Jupiter station. We've
charged up the wormhole drive, so we're all ready to go."
Jed crawled out from inside his `Western Frontier' styled tent, that
looked out of place in someone's living room. Jed scratched his
stubbly chin and glared at Callum.
"And?" Said Captain Calvert.
"And… I thought I'd better let you know." Callum said, Calvert's
deadly glare making him feel uncomfortable.
Calvert nodded. "Have a whiskey sent up to the Drive Room, I'll be
there in five minutes."
"With all due respect sir, I'm not a waiter!" the Scottish Chief
Engineer said.
"No, but you're mah staff. Which makes yer mah bitch!"
Callum stomped out, and Calvert grinned.
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Who: Jed Calvert, Phil Febuggure, Peter Marwood and Mike Gostuk
Where: Drive Room
When: 10 minutes later
Calvert finished off his dirty bottle of whiskey and smashed it on the
floor before entering the Drive Room. He was so tolerant to the
effects of strong alcohol that a bottle of liquor for breakfast was
merely a light refreshment for him. Some people could be worried that
excessive drinking would seriously affect your judgement as Captain,
but with Calvert – it wouldn't matter either way.
He clapped his hands together and grinned as he entered the Drive Room.
"Howdy pardners!" he said cheerfully. "It's good to be back on the
bridge of a mighty fine starship!"
He shook Phil's hand. "Good to see ya me ol' bucko. Ready to stop
beating th' devil about the stump an' get thus `har mission underway?"
Phil nodded, not quite understanding what Calvert had just said, but
hoped it was positive.
"Take us away from Jupiter station". Said Phil to Peter Marwood who
was sat at the navigation computer.
Marwood keyed in the speed and then whispered to Mike Gostuk at the
Communications computer next to him. "Psst. So what do you think this
Captain's Catchphrase is?"
"Ho do you mean?" Mike whispered back.
"Every Captain has a catchphrase, like Picard's `Make it so!' or
Janeway's `Do it!' "
"Like Nelson had `Kiss me Hardy' ?"
"Well, that's not quite the same, no."
Callum Kotchanski's voice came over the comm.. "Wormhole drive charged
and ready!"
Captain Calvert turned to Peter at Navigation.
"Punch it feller" he said.
Peter Marwood engaged the wormhole drive and from the viewscreen they
could see a swirling wormhole form and suck them in.
Within mere seconds, the Blue Dwarf had crossed the vast expanse they
had to travel and arrived at their destination, near the entrance to
the "Nouvau Terran" sector.
"That's a rubbish catchprase!" Said Mike. "Its more like a dodgey
western sentence."
"Yeah, maybe that's not it." Said Pete.
Calvert took off his cowboy hat and looked closer at the viewscreen.
It all looked far too familiar to him. It was a sight he vowed he
would never want to see again.
"Where are we?" Said Phil.
"Near the entrance of the Nouvau Terran sector sir. Its as close as I
could get with the Wormhole Drive, theres some kind of disturbance
around that means we'll have to continue the rest of the way on engine
power."
The entire area of space they were heading to was a thick cloud of
green and blue. It stretched for light years and light years across,
and looked as thick as pea soup. Lightning occasionally lit up small
sections of the cloud.
"We're really going in there?" asked Phil.
"Yeah. The entire sector is completely surrounded by that nebula, its
so thick and dangerous that ship get lost in it for days."
Phil sighed "And typically we're going in right?"
"Are yer joking man?!" Said Calvert. "If we step hoof in thar, we'd be
Cold as a wagon tire before you can say `Catawampously!'"
"Say what?"
"You `eard. See that lightning? It'd destroy this boat in a blink of
an eye. No ships can go through that wall. Its like a natural defence
for the entire sector."
"So how do we get in? We can't wormhole jump in because of the
disturbance."
Jed pointed. "Thar. That'd be the only place. It's a gap in the cloud
just big enough to fit this ship. It's called the `monster's gate'.
It's the only way in or out of the sector."
Jed put a hand on Marwood's shoulder. "Full engines, giddy up!"
"Aye sir!"
"Anything else we need to know?" Asked Calvert's first officer.
"You know about the monster right?" said Calvert.
"Monster!"
"Yeah. In the gate. Why it's called Monster's gate!"
"There's a monster in the gate? What? … a big one?"
Jed nodded. "'Bout as big as this boat."
"By monster you mean space dwelling life form?" said Phil.
"Call it whut you like. But it's a large monster that eats sheet like
us for breakfast."
"Then how do people get in and out?" asked Phil. He could see the
Drive Room crew starting to look nervous.
"They don't usually. The people `round these parts are quite private.
They don't take kindly to strangers. But that suits them – hell, it's
why they decided to live in such a cut-off part of the galaxy I
reckon. But its one hell of a good security system."
Phil though about this for a moment.
"Bu you're from this are of space, so how did you get out?"
"Had a small and fast ship, sped right past it. I'm not one for
avoiding a fight, unless its with a several-mile-long space creature!"
"Can we do the same?" Phil asked.
Marwood butted in here. "We're a 5 mile long ship that manoeuvres like
a cow. I doubt it!"
Captain Calvert looked at the screen. "There it is! The ol' monster
guarding the area."
The monster they were talking about was a large wormy creature,
several miles long, which was sat in the hole they needed to enter. It
seemed to be aware of their presence, and moved its wormy head in
their direction. There was no way the Blue Dwarf would be able to slip
past the creature.
"Battlestation! Jack, Jack Febuggure to defence positions. Get all
turrets ready now, we're going to need some defence!" said Phil over
the comm., as Jed stared intently at the viewscreen with a large grin
on his face.
"Shouldn't we slow down as we approach?" said Pete.
"No, faster faster!" Said Jed. "Can we do a skid?"
"A skid?! Have you forgotten that thing I just said about us being 5
miles long…?" said Peter.
Jed shot him a nasty look and Peter was quiet.
"I want us to turn, very close in front of it, so we can have the most
turrets facing the bitch."
"We're going too fast! This ship has a turning circle of 4 light
years, it'd takes a fortnight to do a turn like that!" Said Peter.
"Well turn. Turn… NOW!" Jed yelled.
Peter's fingers flew over the keyboard.
"All hands prepare for emergency stop!" Phil shouted over the comm.
Peter grabbed the comm microphone from Mike and yelled into it.
"Callum, give me as much power as you absolutely can into port side
engines."
Callum heard and the reverse engines roared on one side of the ship,
whilst the starboard engines pushed them round in a tight circle.
All around the ship there was a groaning sound as walls and bulkheads
buckled under the strain. The badly built Mining ship was never built
for sharp turns. People too all over the ship were thrown to one side.
After the longest skid in history, the Blue Dwarf came to a stop right
in front of the surprised looking space monster.
Calvert grabbed the phone.
"Now Jack, this is what you're department is for… TWAT IT!"
"Now that…" said Peter. "is a catchphrase."
<OOC- Tag to anybody, I've not got any plans for how we get past /
defeat this creature, so I'll leave that all up to someone else, it
could make an good opportunity for a JP if some people want to work
together perhaps? >