**Action** The Big one!

OOC- This is the BIG ONE! everyone needs to read this, it is vitally important to the mission and to the sim. There will be important changes because of this post. Sorry if it's so long, print it and read it at bedtime if you have to!
 
RPG-
 
JMC Blue Dwarf
***Drive room***
 
Commander Niples and the rest of the crew in the drive room looked up as Captain Cannon walked in. Allie Fletcher was watching the sensor screen for any of the Piks'e gelf's ships. They knew that not all of the Gelfs were in the base, that was just somewhere they had captured. Sor of like a home away from home. they must have had a larger base somewhere.
 Niples hoped that if they could find one ship, it might lead them to the Gelfs home base.
 
"Where have you been?" asked Seymour as Cannon walked up to the sensor monitor and looked it over. 
"I had an appointment with the dentist." Cannon said matter-of-factly, looking at every computer screen in the room, rather than at the person he was talking to.
 
"Well, while you were 'away' we had a situation down on the planet. The building the Gelfs were in unexpecedly blew up. Killing all the Gelfs inside."
 
Cannon raised an eyebrow.
 
Niples continued. "And furthermore, the Piks'e's who were not in the building blame us and now they're going to kill as many people on the planet as they can just to piss us off."
 
Cannon turned to face Niples and shrugged. "Well it wasn't our fault, how can anyone blame us?"
Niples raised his voice a decible. "No, it wasn't our fault. But it happened, and we are going to help. And if we don't then innocent people are going to die!"
 
Cannon shrugged again, displaying the least emotion that Seymour had ever seen. The commander was annoyed at how Cannon didn't care about anything. Niples dragged Cannon to one side.
 
"Look, we may not have asked for this mission, but we're here now and people are in danger. I don't know about you but I'm going to do EVERYTHING possible to solve the situation between the Gelfs and the colonists of Argus prime PEACEFULLY!"
Cannon sighed audibly. "You're getting too stressed about this Seymour!" Cannon said, his voice coming out with a sharp laugh that dug straight into the commander like a knife.
"This mission is not even important, they just gave it to us because no other ship wanted to do it!" continued Cannon. "We're a mining ship, of course they're not going to give us any decent missions. So what if a few people might die? they would only have died anyway! If this was important, they'd give it to a well trained Space-core task force. The point is, we're here- none of us want to be here, so lets get it over and done with as quickly as possible. They've given us a missile launcher for god's sake! We could use it and be finished by tomorrow!"
 
"What are you saying?!" asked Niples. "That we just bomb the Gelfs and be done with it? What about the civillians that might get caught in the crossfire? What about the mission to CAPTURE the Gelfs? I don't want to be responsible for murder!!"
"They're just animals! Genetically engineered creatures constructed in test-tubes in a backwater science lab!" Said Cannon, keeping his anger contained although Niples could see it in his eyes.
 
Niples paused as the last sentance from Cannon triggered alert bells inside of his head, there was something about how he said it, there was something else...
"You've got something against them...." said Seymour slowly, probing to find the reason.
 
Cannon was taken aback by the sudden question. "I... I don't know what you mean!"
The entire drive-room crew who had been partly listening to the officer's conversation were now fully entranced and wanted to know what was going on. Someone mumbled "this is better than Eastenders!"
 
"They did something to you..... they hurt you.... or someone close to you....."
Cannon edged a few steps back trying to escape his first officer's questionings. He noticed the crew were watching him intently. Lt. Bestrom had moved between the Captain and the exit in case he suddenly made a break for it.
 
"It's not true!" Shouted Cannon, now fearing the truth. It had been locked in his head for so long, emotions locked up where nobody could get to them. But now Niples was finding out, he had the key to unlock the truth.
 
As the pressure on Cannon was building, he was about to crack. But just at that moment, Allie Fletcher sat at the Sensor console souted out as an alert light started flashing.
"We've got a fix on a Piks'e ship closing fast!!!" Allie shouted. The crew occupents of the room suddenly spun around at their workstations and started to get back to work. Allie plotted the ship's tragectory. Alotta tried the comm signals and Kayn got back at the helm station ready to move the ship in case the ship was on a kamikaze course.
 
The Piks'e ship flew up to the Dwarfstar ship at high speed, and quickly turned as if it didn't realise that the huge 5 mile long Blue Dwarf was there. It sped off at a tangent.
 
"Where's it going?" Asked Niples. Allie pulled up the flight path on screen, "it's heading towards an asteroid orbiting the planet," she replied.
"That must be where the main base is" said Niples, "Kayn, take us closer. Alotta, get Febuggure on the comm and tell him to see if we can get a better scan of that asteroid before we get there."
Then the voice of Cmdr Smegg came through the intercomm. "Do you want me to power up the missile launcher Sir?"
"no, it's no threat." replied commander Niples.
 
Everyone did as they were told until Cannon, who was still standing in the Drive room, looking deeply into his own thoughts, suddenly shouted out. "NO!"
Everyone looked at him.
"Turn the ship around, head back to the edge of the system and wait there."
 
"But!" Kayn protested. "That's miles away from the base, we won't be any use over there!"
Niples continued the argument against Cannon's outburst. "We must complete the mission, people's lives are at stake here. And the away team are still on the planet, we'll be out of sensor and communication range."
 
Cannon stared at chief navigation officer Kayn forcefully. "I have many friends in high up places in the J.M.C, I can make it not only very difficult for you to get a job on a starship again, but also get you thrown in prison for not following Captain's orders during a crisis.
Kayn gulped, thinking about prison showers and turned to Niples.
The commander looked back. "Do as he says" Seymour said solumnly. "I don't want anyone to go to prison."
Kayn slowly plotted the course to take the Blue Dwarf away from the Gelf asteroid base.
 
Cannon smiled manically. He had the look of evil in his eyes, Seymour saw the look of revenge and instantly knew what Cannon was going to do before he left the drive room.
 
Niples followed the Captain down the service stairs to the flight deck, the Commander arriving through the double doors just in time to see a Blue Midget flying down the runway and out of the landing bay doors.
Niples looked around, the flight bay was desserted- which was not unusual for this time of day. He quickly located where the SpaceEagle fighter was and climbed aboard, only to realise that the fuel guage showed "empty".
"Dman!" Niples muttered. Cannon obviously didn't want anyone to use the SpaceEagle's superior engines to catch up with him.
 
It took the commander a few minutes to find an empty Starbug and climb aboard. This one only had half of the amount of fuel it could carry, Seymour hoped it would be enough.
 
Thrashing the Starbug's engines into full power almost immediately, the Starbug lost one leg when getting through the opening flight-bay doors. Seymour felt the jolt in his seat, but pushed on- his finger firmly on the max thrust button.
As the inky blackness of space enveloped him, he could see Cannon's Blue Midget far in front, so far away it only looked like a spec of light. Heading towards the asteroid where the main Gelf base was.
 
The Starbug-Class wasn't as fast as the Blue Midget shuttles, but hopefully Chief Engineer Smegg had enhanced the engines somehow. He needed some way to catch up with Cannon before.... before..... before what?
 
What was he actually going to do? Niples knew that he wanted revenge, he cursed to himself that he hadn't seen the signs before. When the crew had been overcome by the virus, Cannon had been paranoid about the "pixies". Piks'e's, Pixies, why didn't he see it to begin with?
And then there was Cannons speech about just blowing them up, to be done with it. he didn't care if anyone else died in the crossfire. Niples tried to imaging how Cannon felt, his family, his wife and his daughter had been killed by a race of genetically engineered beings. Maybe he too, would want revenge. But at what cost? Would he go to any length just to make sure they were dead?
How many people would you have to kill before your thirst for vengeance is quenched? How many guilty, or how many innocent.
 
The loudspeakers in the Starbug beeped and then crackled before the voice of Engineer Steev MAckenZyyyyyy came through.
"Commander Nipples?"
"Niples here" he said, ignoring the extra 'p'.
"We've just checked the warhead silo for the missile launcher.... Someone has stolen another one of the warheads...."
"I guessed as much" Seymour sighed. "It's Cannon."
"And sir.... it's not any normal warhead, it's a nuclear warhead."
 
"Pants."
"pants?"
"Just an expression"
"Oh dear..."
The connection cut off, leaving Seymour alone in the shuttle. The huge shining planet Argus prime on one side of him, Cannon and the Piks'e asteroid base ahead of him.
 
How does he expect to get away with this? Seymour wondered, but he knew the answer. The Blue Dwarf had been ordered to go out of sensor range, no-one else is in the area, so nobody would know.
Of course, people would speculate, but they wouldn't be able to know the real truth because there was no evidence. Cannon would just make a story and no-one could disbelieve him.
 
But Niples wouldn't let it come to that, he got to the asteroid just as the Starbug's fuel cut off.
The Starbug's front landing legs dug into the soft sand on the asteroid and immediately snapped, the round belly of the green ship hit the ground and dug in, sliding a few metres and throwing asteroid dust in the air. The ship rolled, throwing Niples over the back of his chair- landing on his back.
 
Seymour came too about 20 seconds later, hearing the tell tale hissing of escaping air that meant the Starbug had split it's side in the crash. He quickly stood up, feeling the bruises down his side and felt around in a storage locker. he found the space suit has was looking for and quickly put it on, bringing the airtight helmet over his head.
He saw a bazookoid lying up against the locker. Reluctantly, Niples picked it up. he didn't want to kill the Captain, but he always liked to be prepared.
 
***Half a mile away***
 
Will. D. Cannon armed the nuclear warhead. It was a sawn-off cone shaped with various coloured warning signs on it.
Cannon had located a small crack in the crusty surface of the asteroid and pushed the bomb inside. He had seen a Starbug follow him, so didn't want the evidence to be seen quite so easily. He sweated inside of his spacesuit at the hard work.
 
He heard a sound behind him. He grabbed his weapon and spun quickly.
"Hello." said a clear voice, with an educated tone to it.
Cannon wasn't at all surprised to see a man shaped figure with green scaly skin and fishy ears, wearing a helmet which supplied him with oxygen. Obviously the Piks'e's didn't need bodily protection against the cold of space, as this one was only wearing normal clothes.
 
"I was hoping I'd meet one of you." said Cannon, his weapon firmly aimed at the gelf's upper body. The gelf was doing the same.
"Really?" said the Gelf. "now why is that?"
 
"You don't know do you? You don't know how much suffering you've caused. Killing innocent people. My wife and my daughter!! you killed them you murderous bastard!!"
"Well, admittantly- I have killed quite a few people in my time, so I will not be certain of the individuals you speak of. But we only kill to make a point."
 
"Well, you killed my family- so I'm going to kill you! I'm going blow up this asteroid and kill you all!!"
"Ahhh, right. And how do you do that then?" said the Piks'e non committantly.
Cannon showed him the nuclear missile timer.
"Well, that's one way I suppose. But it's one thing to kill people with a bomb from a distance, but to kill people up close with a weapon is another." Cannon blinked. "To kill them face to face, to see their blood spurt out of their veins, to watch as their internal organs spill out of their sliced gutt while they are still alive. To see them panic while they unsucesfully try to stuff their entreals back into their bleeding body. The screams...."
 
"Enough!" warned Cannon, holding his gun closer.
"Go on then, kill me!" encouraged the green figure that had snook up behind the Captain. "I killed your daughter. So kill me. That's what you want."
Cannon felt his weapon hand shaking, his jaw was trembling so he clenched it tighter.
"I lied when I said I didn't remember your wife or daughter. I remember them now, your wife- long dark hair, I split her throat. Your daughter, blonde hair, about this tall, I hung her up and watched her blood drain out of her body. She screamed so much, it was so funny to hear her..."
 
Cannon clenched his jaw tighter, he felt his grip on the trigger tighten too.
 
"You bastard." he said, with intensity in his voice.
"Then kill me. You can't do it because you're weak. Weak......"
 
The Gelf died a few moments later.
 
***A few moments ago, a few metres away***
 
Seymour watched the Gelf and the Captain talking from a ridge above them. The look in Cannons face was one of so much pain, he was facing a very difficuly decision. If he shot the Gelf, he would be admitting he is a murderer, and would probably live the rest of his life in prison- wondering why he did it.
But on the other side, if he didn't shoot him, he would spend the rest of his life wishing he had killed the murdering bastard when he had the chance. This drive for vengeance would continue to eat away at him and probably push him to even higher levels of insanity.
 
Commander Seymour Niples did the only thing he could. He took aim and he shot the Piks'e.
 
Cannon watched in confusion as chunks of the Gelf flew past his head and then Niples jumped down next to him.
"Why are you here?! This is my fight, my battle, my choice!"
 
Seymour stood a few metres away from Cannon, the two looked at each other, their weapons aimed at each other. Cannon still seemed to have a trembling in his arm, the realisation of his actions was setting in.
 
"It doesn't have to be like this Will"
"They must die, they all must die! What they did to my daughter..."
 
"There can be another way, we can negotiate- threaten them if we have to- but this is just slaughter! You don't even know hown many Gelfs live on this asteroid. There could be billions of innocent people living in caves under the surface."
Cannon looked at his timer. Less than one minute until the warhead explodes.
 
Seymour took this as his last oppertunity to stop the bomb. He rushed Cannon, barging into him elbow first to grab the timer. But Cannon hit back, kicking Niples in the ribs and then throwing him against an outcropping of rocks.
Seymour felt the glass of his helmet crack. It didn't shatter luckily, but was very close to breaking. Another punch and his face would most likely explode due to the change in air pressure.
He ducked as Cannons fist flew past his face, hitting the rock.
 
"We have less than 30 seconds, either you get back to your Starbug or you stay here and die with me!" said Cannon, panting from the exercise.
"I'm not going to let you blow up this asteroid!" said Seymour, getting to his feet. He glanced once at the planet which was looming impressively overhead.
 
"What about the colonists? If the bomb blows up the asteroid, the debris will rain down on them. Huge chunks of asteroid will fall on them, destroy their cities."
 
Cannon, now furious with Niple's meddling, rushed at him. All of the anger and pain he was boddling up went into this powerful dive towards his first officer. it was a shame that Niples ducked.
Cannon flew past him and landed at the feet of his Blue Midget, he skidded until his face was staring down a crack. The same crack that he had deposited the warhead.
The timer was counting down.
3...
 
2...
 
1...
 
Cannon's head was the first thing to be vapourised by the explosion. The force of it was mainly pointed downwards, but enough escaped to cause a huge tower of red fire shoot out to the sky. Inveloping anything in the immediate area, including the Blue Midget shuttle.
 
Seymour was already running for his life, he could feel the vibrations underneath him, the asteroid was tearing itself apart from the inside out. He didn't turn around to see the explosions that ripped through the cracking surface behind him. He just kept on running.
 
"Now would be a really good time to be rescued...." The commander said to no-one in particular, feeling that there wasn't much time before there was nowhere left to run to.
 
Just then, his prayers were answered, in a big way. And to be honest, it couldn't have been much bigger.
The five-mile long mass of slightly rusted and space-worn metal named the Blue Dwarf moved over the dying asteroid like a cloud that blocked out the entire sky, Niples looked up as the reflected light from the planet Argus was blotted out by the huge flat bottom of the mining ship.
 
Realising there wasn't long before the asteroid split into tiny pieces, Seymour knew there was only one thing to hang onto. The Blue Dwarf had moved so low that he could actually grab hold of one of the small struts that protruded from the patchwork of blue metal plating. As he clung on to the ship for dear life, it moved away- letting the asteroid explode in a fury of stressed rock. As Seymour clung there watching, he was certain he saw the bodies of Gelfs fly out from the inside of the explosion iteslf, and burn up in small self-proclaimed fireballs.
 
The asteroid had split into two parts, one part was small and crumbled into small pieces, while the other hurtled towards the planet. As if it was a final threat from the Gelfs, but this time it was Cannon who had forced them to this final assault.
 
Seymour felt the hull he was clinging onto, there was a small hatch just next to him which surely led to an airlock. he yanked it open with his space-gloved hands. It hinged and he swung inside- already feeling the gravity of the ship.
 
***Drive room***
 
"A huge chunk of rock is falling to the surface!" Allie screamed from the sensor computer.
 
Kayn, as if not already too busy piloting the ship close enough to the asteroid to allow Niples to climb on, and moving them quickly away again before the asteroid blew up- now turned to Alotta at the communication speaker.
"Get Smegg on the radio, tell him to get the missile launcher ready as soon as he can, we want to blow that asteroid up before it wipes out the colonists...."
Alotta immediately connected the correct wires and gave Smegg the message.
 
***On the planet Argus***
All over the planet, the entire civilisation of human colonists (and Dirk Bell) looked up into the sky as the huge chunk of asteroid could be seen coming towards them.
 
<<OOC- I warned you it was a long post! Everyone else can carry this on, we need to save the planet, rescue the away team and get everyone back aboard ship.
Niples will debrief everyone on Cannon's actions, and then take command of the ship :-)
And he will also need to decide on a new first officer......
==================================Lt. David "Onion" BallAssistant Helm officer/ Pilot  USS Endeavour-ACommander Seymour Niples  JMC Blue DwarfWWW.Home.JMCBlueDwarf.com==================================