Cmdr Niples "Strange goings on"

Commander Seymour Niples
Onboard Proxima orbital poultry facility
Stardate 2/9/2100
 
The commander walked along the engineering deck of the rather foul smelling space-station (please excuse the pun- I havn't been well).
He was actually looking for somewhere to eat as the MacDonalds on the Blue Dwarf was still being rebuilt.
 
He ascended some stairs and found himself in an alley with many restaurants on both sides of the street. The floor was still covered in rubbish and chicken feathers as it was on the rest of the orbital facility, obviously any attempt to keep it clean had failed many years ago.
 
Seymour quickly noticed that every restaurant seemed to serve chicken of some description, this was obviously the wrong place to come if you wanted a hamburger- unless it was a beef flavoured chicken burger.
At the end of the alley, standing in the illumination of many industrial spotlights above was the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant he had ever seen in his life.
 
Being urged on by his rumbling stomach, the commander walked up to the front door and looked at the menu. A huge picture of Colonel Saunders looked down at him from the sign above the door, complete with cybernetic implants.
 
It was an odd fact that 50 years ago the KFCC tried to clone the famous Colonel who had been the face of chicken for hundreds of years. Unfortunately not everything went according to plan and the cloned Colonel Saunders was created with certain defects. These defects had to be rectified with cybernetic implants which were grafted onto the Colonel's body.
Unfortunately the new 'cybernetic' colonel went beserk while on a photoshoot with some small children and ran amok in New York, trashing cars with his super human cybernetic limbs.
 
Saunders was eventually captured by using warm chicken as bait and was exiled to a mining planet where he works with many other terrorists from the chicken-liberation front.
 
By this time, the entire KFC advertising campaign had been changed to picture the new Colonel with the cybornetic implants, so that is why all Kentucky fried chicken restaurants have pictures of the half-clone, half-robot mascot.
 
The commander walked into the oversized KFC and was supprised to see that it was empty, only one spotty teenager stood behind the counter to take his order.
As the assistant slid around on the grease in the kitchen to put together his meal they talked about the space station.
 
"Its ok here most of the time" said the assistant in a squeeky voice. "Apart from the smell, but you get used to it."
"I was thinking about taking a tour of the facility..." started Niples. "just to stretch my legs, I'm also curious what kind of stuff they do here on this floating factory."
 
There was the sound of falling pans from the kitchen and the boy came out with a pale face. When he spoke, he had fear in his voice. "Don't walk too far.....only keep to the above decks."
 
Niples was curious "Why do you say that?" he said. "What's down below?"
"I don't know." said the boy, his voice getting quieter and he moved closer to the commander. "but I've heard of people disapearing on the decks between the processing factory and the research labs."
 
Seymour frowned. "Why would they need research labs on a chicken factory?"
The boy glanced from left to right to make sure nobody was watching their conversation, nobody else was in the room and the only thing in the allyway outside were chicken feathers being blown about by the rusty air turbines. 
"I've heard they're experimening with new breeds of chicken.... cross breeding and genetic engineering, stuff like that. But that doesn't explain the mysterious disapearences though..."
 
There was an eery silence which followed his sentance, they both jumped when the oven in the kitchen behind made a 'ping' sound to indicate it had finished.
 
Commander Niples recieved his meal and ate it in silence, wondering what could possibly be going on here. When they fisrt came he had just assumed that it was an innocent waypost which happened to farm chickens..... but now he wasn't so sure. Why did they have a research lab? and who was responsible for the disapearences?
 
He promised himself he would discuss the situation with Harris when he got back to the Blue Dwarf.
 
*********************************
2 hours later
Back on the Blue Dwarf
Personal quarters.
 
Niples walked into his quarters and collapsed onto his bed, too tired to do much else. He took off his uniform jacket and walked towards the cupboard, opening the door. He put the jacket into the cupboard where it was taken by a hand.
"Thank you." said Seymour.
 
A few moments later something clicked in his head and he went back to his cupboard and dragged a figure out.
"What the frell are you doing hiding in my cupboard?!!!" he demanded.
 
"Hi," said the figure rather pathetically. "I'm Steev. The new assistant engineer..."
 
<<Do you want to continue this Steev?  As for the "mysterious disapearences" plot, anyone can carry that on. I havn't planned anything yet.>>
 
==================================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==================================