**Action** Back to the mission... well, nearly

**Action**
Captain/Commander Seymour Niples
Drive Room
4th March, 1300 hours
 
Niples took a deep breath.
"Are you ready sir?" asked Alotta.
Seymour ran his hands through his hair. "Okay, I'm ready."
 
Alotta connected through the normal communication channels, redirecting through some interstellar telephone poles all the way to Jupiter Station where a realtime link was established with General Anders. The face of the Space core general appeared on the widescreen monitor in the Drive room.
 
"Hello Niples." he said.
"General, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Captain Cannon is dead."
The General didn't even bat an eyelid. Niples continued.
"...The mission was a failure, Cannon sought revenge for the murder of his family and destroyed the Piks'e asteroid base with a nuclear warhead from our missile supply."
"That is unfortunate." said Anders, who didn't seem too dissapointed. In fact he seemed to be trying to hide a content smile.
 
"You don't sound too surprised..." said Niples, trying to figure out why the General wasn't barraging him with questions. Like when? Where? and How did it happen?
"I expected it to happen sooner or later." said Anders. "Cannon was an unstable man. In fact this mission was a low priority, we knew that Cannon would disobay orders and seek revenge some time of another, I just wanted it to be sooner and in a situation we can control...."
 
"So that's why you allowed Cannon to continue as Captain even though you knew he was unstable!" Niples summed up. "So you used us! I don't like to be betrayed..."
"you were not betrayed... we just decided not to tell you..." Said the General, twisting his words- but it seemed to make sense.
Niples let it pass.
 
"So what are our orders? Do we have a new and exciting mission to go on? More adventure...."
Anders looked down, apparently checking a mission roster of some sort.
"Nope, just carry on with your original mission, to find the Red Dwarf. The Boffins at hubble say they might have seen a red object heading in the coordinates 852 8254 direction 246. I think you should check it out, we still need that ship found as soon as possible.
 
"Yes sir!"
 
"Oh and Commander.... I almost forgot...." Anders said with a smile. "I am proud to announce that you are the new Commanding officer of the JMC Blue Dwarf, and I officially upgrade your rank to Captain."
 
Everyone in the Drive room clapped and cheered, secretly hoping for promotions themselves. "What about a first officer?" asked the new Captain Niples.
 
"We have nobody in mind for the job at the moment, and I think it should be the Captain's preference. I'll leave the decision to you."
 
"Thank you sir!" Niples said as the screen turned to static and blinked off.
 
***Later***
Because of the change of command, and the finish of the last mission. Niples felt that the crew needed a short break, so he arranged for party to be held in cargobay 2.
 
Owen Numan seemed to relocate his entire bar to the cargobay, and Steev MAckEnzyyyyy and Phil Febuggure were put in charge of arranging the disco lighting and sound systems to be set up.
 
"Do we have anyone onboard who plays a musical instrument?" asked Chris Zodar, the engineer who was put in charge of putting tables around the room for the drinks and snacks to be served from.
"I don't know" said Josh Barnes who was putting banners up around the room. "Shall we see if we can find someone to play?"
 
Jacob Stone was setting up the music system along with Stewie Mackenzie (the sound system having come from Stewies shop of course), they plugged the decks in and tested them with a record of "YMCA" which was one of the items that James Johnson had left behind when he left with his 'friend'.
 
"It's not working" said Steev, who was checking everyone was doing their jobs correctly. He went over to one of the huge industrial speakers and saw that the fuse had gone. "This is a job for SUPER ENGINEER!" he said, but by the time he had finished saying that, Jacob Stone had already changed the fuse and plugged it in. And deafened them with the sounds of the village people.
 
**Elsewhere**
Chief of security Major Harris had himself organised something for the Security officers to do while the party took place, except he didn't know that most security officers (except him) wanted to go to the party too.
 
He had found that one of the Starbug hangers had suddenly become vacent (as Kayn had probably dismantled the shuttle to build a robot for this Robot Wars competition that was going to take place at the end of the month.
So Harris called upon all of the security officers and ordered them to attend to a "staff training exercise, which was basically just going to be a short paintball challenge, but sounded less interesting.
 
**Time- 8:30ish**
Cargobay 2
 
The party started off very weakley, as people wanted to be 'fashionably late', and all of the Security officers were at Harris' training mission in the one of the empty hangers.
 
Niples walked into the cargobay and saw what a good job the crew had done of sprucing the place up. A DJ had been found and Niples noticed that a band had been put together, they weren't particularly any good, and they were singing songs from the 'Shirehorses: The worst album in the world ever' CD, but it was the best they could do in the given situation.
 
After the first hour the Security officers realised they were missing something important, so came to the party still dressed in their away mission uniforms (as issued by Stewie) and supporting their paintball guns they had been using to train with. Although having used up most of their paintballs, some of them found that small pieces of cake, and grapes from the (now overly spiked) punch, they found fun in shooting the band.
 
Drawing to the middle of the night, Niples called for the music to be cut. The lighting crew dimmed all spinny lights and trained a single spotlight on the Captain as he walked up onto the stage area.
 
He took centre view and held the microphone up to his lips. After an electrical squeek from the speakers, he said:
"As you all probably know by now, I have been appointed the new Captain of the Blue Dwarf. It has also been my duty to choose a new first officer to take the command seat when I am absent. At first I looked for an officer who was dedicated, hard working, someone who is good at his job and would be fit for command. And then I decided there was no-one like that aboard so chose the best possible canidate...."
 
He waited for a few giggles to come from this last sentance, but even fewer did than he expected. Someone shot a piece of lemon merangue past his shoulder instead.
 
"...Anyway.... I decided that all of you with important positions on the ship as department heads were good candidates, but you are in the best possible positions already, so I didn't want to mess any of you around. So the person I chose to be promoted to Commander and to be the new first officer will be....."
 
The crew were silent, eager to know who the next commander would be, but also because they wanted the music to be put back on again. Someone yelped as he shot a grape into his foot.
 
"Your furry friend and mine, WHITEWOLF!!!!!!!"
The crowd cheered, unsure why a 6 foot 1 inch hamster should be promoted ahead of them, but they were all very much drunk so they didn't yet care.
 
Whitewolf scuttled up to the stage, ready to say a few words.....
 
 
<<OOC- Ok everyone should have something to do, everyone has been invited to the party, the security guys have turned up a bit late- but not missed much.
A few things I've left open ended for you all:
>What does WW say in his speech?
>Does Harris attend the party, or does he hate everyone?
>Who is in the band that sings?
>Who does the DJ stuff?
>Who does Niples dance with?
>Do the security officers shoot any more food pellets at anyone?
>Who will team up with who to make the robots for the competition? 
 
And everyone congratulate Commander WhiteWolf as our new 1st officer
 
==================================Lt. David "Onion" BallAssistant Helm officer/ Pilot  USS Endeavour-ACommander Seymour Niples  JMC Blue DwarfWWW.Home.JMCBlueDwarf.com==================================