[JMC_Blue_Dwarf] Day One

<For those that weren't here from the beginning.>
Colonel David Green's office
Earth
"Send him in." Colonel David Green ordered over the intercom.
The door slid open and in strolled Major Frank Harris, as otherwise known as 'Nutter', with an armed MP on either side of the Major.
"Major Harris I wanted to speck to because." The Colonel noticed the Major was crewing something. "Spit that out at once, Major!"
The Major spat out some gum onto the Colonel's desk and Green gave the Major a dirty look.
"What the hell do you want?" Harris snapped. "I was having a nice nap in my cell."
The Colonel lifted a fat file from under the desk and dropped it onto the table. He opened it and pulled one sheet. "Commander Frank Harris, demoted to Major and six weeks in the brig as for the assault on one Captain Alan Morris. Included are details of a case of GSH?"
"Grievous Scutterily Harm, Sir." One of the MPs commented.
"With a file with yours I could throw the book at all and have you thrown out the core!" The Colonel snapped.
"But?" Harris asked not really giving a toss.
"You have a choice, Major." The Colonel told the Major. "You can leave the Core or." The Colonel paused for a moment and then continued. "Or you can stay in the Core and become the chief security of the Blue Dwarf."
"Chief security aboard Blue Dwarf." The sides of Harris' mouth turned up in a grin. "Someone has got to be taking the piss!"
"That's what I was thinking, Major." The Colonel told him. "But someone high up believes that you deserve a chance to redeem yourself."
"Or has something against the Captain of the Blue Dwarf and wants to assign a psychotic Chief of Security to get back at him." Major Harris commented, giving the MP to his right a dirty look and making him very nervous.
"That too." Colonel Green commented. "So, Major Harris, you have a choice. Leave the Core and most likely go to jail or join the crew of the Blue Dwarf?"
Major Harris crossed his arms across his chest and asked. "What's the mission?"
"The Red Dwarf has disappeared and the Blue Dwarf is being sent to track it down." The Colonel told him.
"A mining ship is being sent to track down another mining ship." Harris couldn't help but snigger. "Which idiot throught of that?"
Onboard Blue Midget 02
Sol system
The Blue Midget shuttle streaked accross space towards it's new home. Onboard was Commander Niples, the new first officer of the JMC Blue Dwarf, this was his first assignment as Commander- the Blue Dwarf was a bit of a letdown for him, he had expected a battleship- not a Mining ship. But he hoped that if he did a good job at this command, he would soon be given a position on one of Earth's better starships.
The Ship was now in view, the huge mass was docked at the Jupiter command station. The swirling mass of the planet below made both the ship and the station look small in comparison, but Seymore knew that they were both the size of small cities. The Blue Dwarf alone had over 1000 people on board, some crew, some service engineers, some were even shop keepers and chefs.
The commander was an expert pilot, he swerved around the Jupiter command station and flew along the full lenght of the Blue Dwarf. The ship was fairly new, but the blue hull already had a weathered surface.
After having a good look at his (hopefully temporary) home, he expertly landed the shuttle in the landing bay.
Coming in from this entrance did not particularly give a good impression of the ship, as technicians were still welding bits together. Most of them ignored him, but a few ripped off a mock salute as he walked past.
An oily technician removed a dirty fag end from him mouth and put it behind his ear as the commander approached.
"'Ello sir" he croaked.
"Ah, hello my good man!" replied the superior officer. "How's the work going?"
The man scratched his stubbly chin. "Well, to be honest Guv....... it may take a while yet. We're working our fingers to the bone here. We need more tea breaks to refresh us and speed up the task."
Seymore nodded and smiled to himself. "I'll see what I can do." he said
With that, the commander left the landing bay. Taking the lift to the promenade area.
The promenade was the area on the ship that housed most of the shops, bars and restaurants. It was a single walkway going almost the full length of the ship. A monorail above travelled the full length of the promenade.
Seymore walked out of the lift directly onto the promenade, there was already a lot of people walking along and having lunch. He smiled when he saw the 'MacDonalds' restaurant, they get everywhere. He once wnt on holiday to 'New Hawaii' on the border of Earth space- they even had a Macdonald's there.
He went in and ordered a big mac and fries. "Ah, this is what space travel is all about!" he said to himself, enjoying the burger.
Unfortuantely, the restaurant was still only half decorated- so he had to put up with watching the service robots paint the walls a peachy colour. They seemed to be getting more on themselves though.
After his snack he looked around the rest of the promenade and then caught the lift up to the drive room to find the captain.
The drive room was a buzz of activity. Crewmembers were testing the computer systems and many people were running around with clipboards. Some peach coloured service robots were trying to fix a computer console but had ended up tangling themselves in the wiring systems.
Seymore walked straight to the door to the captains office and knocked on the door........
Captain's Office
Blue Dwarf
The Captain was sitting behind his desk, he had been there for some hours. Having not been able to sleep the night before, he caught an early flight on a supply shuttle, and had been there since 8am.
He arrived at the platform, and climbed down from the shuttle, the first thing he noticed was the engineers, the ship was crawling with them, they were supposedly doing the last minute checks, but a sense of urgency was in the air, like half the ship had collapsed and everything was running smoothly.
Apart from the engineers, no other crewmembers were onboard; they were scheduled to arrive at 7pm, apart from the commander, Seymore Nipels, who was to arrive at 5.30.
The Captain had a history with the Commander, and hadn't seen him since the two parted on non-speaking terms. Of all his commands, he new this would be the trickiest.
After taking a stroll around the ship, the captain went to his office, as he stepped through the door, the computer terminal at his desk ordered, "You have 2 new messages." Followed by a message, that had obviously been dubbed by a technician, with a strange accent, " Are you gonna listen too 'em or wot??"
You could distinctly hear sniggers in the background as the heckle was recorded.
William walked around the giant marble desk and fell into his leather chair, he knew after today, he probably wouldn't get another chance. He tapped the screen, the computer barked, "Message one", The image of a man appeared on the screen, he started moving and talking, it was the assistant who had helped the captain get through his checking in
procedure back on earth. " I just wanted to let you know, that your luggage will be with you at 12 noon."
There was a short pause,
" Oh yes, and BoBoh will be with your luggage, ok? Thanks bye."
As soon as the man said BoBoh, William corrected him,
" It's BoBo, not BoBoh!?"
It was a recording, so the man couldn't hear him.
He tapped the screen again, and again the computer barked, "Message two." It was Williams's wife, holding up his young son, "Say hello to daddy" she said, "dida" the young child gurgled,
Will smiled, " I just wanted you to know, everything's alright, our flight's at 5.45, so we'll be there at platform 5 at 6.45, ok c'ya later honeybun." She blew him a kiss,
He smiled again, as though she could see him, he caught the kiss and blew one back.
As he went to end the message his wife announced, "Oh yeah, that man rang again, he said they're still looking for a shrink for you," Will's smile dropped, the message ended.
It was 11.50am, Will received word that his luggage had arrived and was being taken to his quarters, as he stood up, he noticed how clean the room was, it was like one of the rooms he had seen in the brochures when he went to join the JMC Corp. He thought to himself, " By tomorrow, I won't be able to see the color of the table, for all the paperwork."
He paced towards the automatic door, he noticed through the glass panel, there was an engineer kneeling by the side of the entrance, William held his head high, and forced his shoulders back, he would show the crew, he wasn't
one to be trifled with.
He then realized the man was fiddling with the electronics to the door, but it was too late, he hit the door and fell to the floor, bounced five feet back. He rubbed his head, opening his eyes, he saw standing at the now open
doors, a huge man with a screwdriver in his hand. The man hadn't reacted in anyway, so William stayed quiet while he thought of something smart to say, which would hopefully pull back a little respect, and maybe even some
admiration.
Before he had time to say anything, the man proclaimed, "You didn't want to do that see"
The voice had a strong Welsh accent, and didn't seem to fit this huge colossus standing in front of William. "You see, the door was jammin' so it was, so I had to fix it didn't I."
The voice seemed condescending as though it was one engineer talking to another.
"I had to turn off the power to the door, so I did, so I didn't get me a nasty shock."
William stood, he wasn't wearing his uniform, so the man didn't notice who he was talking to, so he was dismissed. William could have disciplined the man, but after this incident, and the sheer size of the man, he didn't think he had the face to do it.
He set of again, towards his quarters, he stopped when he reached the doors, just in case. The doors opened, giving off that strange hissing sound, like he'd heard on those old Star trek videos.
The room was huge, as he walked in, scanning the room, a huge window greeted him, stretching most of the way across the wall. Through the window, he could see earth, the giant planet stood proud for him to gaze upon. He stared at it, as though he wasn't to sure when he would next see it, or if in fact he would.
His luggage was set down next to the leather sofa, which was strategically positioned, like the rest of the furniture. Will liked the layout of the room, but new his wife would change it within a week, she was fanatical about feng shui. He smiled when he remembered the time she tried it on the garden, and ended up flooding the house when she burst a water pipe, digging a hole for a wind-chime support.
He counted the bags of luggage, picking up one of the small carry cases as he did so.
"All present and correct", he said to himself.
There was a rustling on the table behind him, he turned to see a steel pet cage, and walked towards it, looking at the bag he had picked up. He placed it on the table, next to the cage, unzipping it, he said, "Hey up BoBo, and how are you today?"
There was a small screech, which Will took to be a full sentence.
"Good, good, happy to hear it."
He folded the top of the case back, to reveal a number of different designs of Chinese worry balls, they were all in sets, with a heading above each pair.
Office, Home, Spare time, Emergency.
Each pair had a backup pair, and there were some extra, for special occasions.
Will spent the next four hours unpacking his bags, and getting to know his new home. He was making himself some dinner, while watching the TV, the news was on, he turned to take something out of the fridge, as he did so, the TV changed, the figure of Colonel Green appeared. "Captain Cannon?"
Will didn't hear him.
"Captain Cannon!?",
Will jumped to attention, banging his head on top of the fridge at the same time. Will new Colonel Green, he'd been taught by him when he was in JMC college.
"Hello David", he replied.
" I have some good news, and some bad news."
Will drew a look of anticipation.
"Go on" he insisted.
" The good news, I've found you a chief security Officer."
"Oh brilliant, and the bad news?" he started to smile,
" It's Major Frank Harris."
The smile dropped.
" The man responsible for the assault on Alan Morris??", he asked, "Oh great, so now I've got a Commander who probably won't talk to me, and a security Officer, who lists one of his past times as breaking noses. This
is going to be a right mission this is."
Colonel Green smiled,
"Just thought you should know."
He disappeared, and the news came back on.
Will picked up the worry balls marked 'HOME' and collapsed into the sofa, the only sounds which could be heard were BoBo scratching about in his cage, and the relaxing hum of the worry balls.
It was 5pm, Seymore would be arriving in half an hour. William put on his uniform. Before walking through the door, he picked up the cage BoBo was laying in," Come on BoBo, I'll show you daddies new office."
BoBo squeaked.
Will arrived at his office, he noticed the door had been fixed. He set BoBo's cage down on the marble table, and opened the gate. He walked around the table and once again sank into the leather chair. BoBo crawled out of his prison, and started to explore the table. Will tapped the screen in front of him, it lit up.
He started to search through the crew files. The first he came across was Seymore. Seymore Niples, he smirked, "Nipels, Nipples more like"
He started to read through the file, he found it was Seymore's first assignment as commander.
He glanced over at the clock, 5.15pm, he then glanced at BoBo, he had a tendency to disappear.
The next file he brought up was Major Frank Harris, AKA, the Nutter. His file read more like a police record than a crew file.
He then went on to Mahok Yolandon, a 95-year-old scientist, who would be joining the crew. He picked up that Mahok was born on a Gelf Planet, and was considered to be one of the great minds of his planet. William had had run ins with the Gelfs in the past, and wasn't surprised to hear this.
He was just about to tap for the next file, when the screen went blank. The power had gone, He looked round, "BoBo!!"
He could see a pair of hind legs, sticking out from a hole, where the screen stand went into table. He stood up and ran around the table, he grabbed the legs, and started pulling, he could feel BoBo pulling away, so he started
yanking the legs.
"Come on BoBo, Come on Baby!!"
There was a knock at the door, will didn't hear it, but the computer misheard the captain, and the doors slid open, in walked Seymore, greeted by the back of Captain Will, pulling back sharply and shouting,
"Come on Baby, Come on!!".
"Captain" Seymore announced.
William heard the voice and jumped to attention, letting go of the legs.
"Ah, Commander Seymore, how are you, it's good to see you."
The commander stared at him,
"Fine thank you sir"
"It's a little dark in here isn't it sir?" he asked, trying to make a tricky moment more bearable.
" Yes, well, I couldn't find the light switch." The captain said, trying not to look to stupid.
" That's because there are no light switches sir, look",
At that moment he shouted, " lights ", There was a bang, and BoBo flew out of the hole, and through the air towards the commander. Seymore caught the creature, without even flinching.
The captain smiled, nervously, "good catch"
The commander handed over the miniature beast, and replied, "I'll be in my office"
Captains office
Drive room
1735 hours
Seymore knocked on the door to the captains office, he knew this would be a difficult reunion as the Captain and he had a few troubles in their past. But the Commander was prepared to be a good first officer- and hopefully it wouldn't be long before he got transferred off of this pile of junk.
When the door opened he walked in proudly.
It was dark inside but Seymore could just see the figure of the captain bobbing up and down in an unusual fashion.
"Come on baby, come on!" shouted the captain.
Seymore shocked by what he was seeing, he felt a little embarrased as he said "Captain?"
The captain spun quickley. "Ah, Commander Seymore. How are you, it's good to see you." he said, a little nervously.
His first officer stared at him curiously. "erm....Fine thank you sir."
An awkward silence followed, "It's a little dark in here isn't it sir?" inquired Niples, trying to make the difficult moment more bearable.
"Yes, well I couldn't find the light switch." answered the captain.
Seymore considered this a moment, then frowned. "That's because there are no light switches sir."
He demonstrated how to use the voice-activated light switches.
Suddenly there was a bang and a small rodent was launched from behind the captain rocketing straight towards the Commander at light speed. The unflappable Niples instinctively held out a hand and caught the supersonic mouse. He then held it out to his commanding officer. "I presume this is yours."
"Nice catch." complemented Captain Cannon.
"I'll be in my office." said Niples, turning on his heel and walking out of the door.
Seymore walked into his office and sat down at his desk. he sighed and put his head in his arms. "How am I going to survive this?" he asked himself. "I've got a madman as a Captain, how can I work under these conditions? If I screw this up I'll never get a post on a battleship. He looked at a poster on his wall, it showed a photograph of the UMS Vigilant- the flagship of Earth's military. Seymore desperately wanted to be stationed on her, he wanted the power of a military ship- not this old bucket of bolts.
As he escaped into a world of fantasy the lights dimmed. "What the..?" said Seymore.
The face of Holly came onto the screen in his office, and on all the other screens on the ship.
"Emergency, emergency!" the disembodied head announced. "We have a code 347 in progress, Emergency! please abandon ship, women and children first!"
Seymore was puzzled for a second. Throughout the ship people ran screeming down the corridors. "Code 347?" inquired Seymore. "Alien invasion of decks 5 through 9. Are you sure Holly?"
Holly gave him a wide-eyed expression. "Erm..... No, I mean we have a power failure in section 32."
"Oh," smiled Seymore. "That's code 237 section two, paragraph four."
"Sorry- My mistake!" said Holly over the audio speakers throughout the ship. "No cause for alarm."
Security Office
Blue Dwarf
Major Harris settled back into the chair behind the desk, there was a loud squeaking every time he moved and it was really starting to get on his nerves and he muttered. "Bet the Captain doesn't have to put up with a bloody squeaking chair!"
He arrived late, after most of the other had arrived at 1900 hours he had arrived at 2015.
"Hey!" Came a disembodied female voice.
Harris groaned and clicked a button on his watch, the image of a woman with long red hair appeared on the screen mounted in the wall opposite of his desk.
"It's about time, Dave." She moaned.
"My name isn't Dave, Jill!" Harris snapped. "It's Harris!"
"Oh, stop moan, Darren." Jill told him. "How long were you going to keep me in that watch?!"
"You are bloody obsessed with the letter D!" Harris snapped.
"Oh, that's good from someone who's addicted to chewing gum." Jill replied.
"I should of let you be rubbed!" Harris said.
"Go on then, I've got a itch behind my left ear." Jill told him.
Harris groaned and put his head in his hands. "Why the hell did I decide to save you?"
"Because you are in love with me and want to have my downloads." Jill commented.
Harris gave Jill a dirty look.
Jill was the computer from his last ship who was meant to have the IQ of 40,00 but only appeared to have the IQ of twenty gym teachers instead and she was about as insane as Harris was after her core program had became corrupted. It was then decided to delete her but he had to save her for god knows what reasons and kept her with him ever since. She did provide to be useful sometimes, but rarely.
"Jill, see if you can bring up the captain's and first officer's records." Harris told her. "And do it quietly, I don't want you getting caught!"
"Oh, and I thought you didn't care about me." Jill told him.
"I don't." Harris replied.
Jill stuck her tongue out at Harris and then her image disappeared.
Harris began to drum his fingers against the desk. This mission was doing to be hell he could feel it. This or jail, at least with jail you could get out but depending on how lost the Red Dwarf was, he could be struck here forever and with the deranged computer, he could be driven over the edge.
Jill reappeared and told him. "Got them and you're not going to like it!"
"Why?" Harris asked, dreading the answer.
"Captain William Cannon has served on two other ship before and by the end of his command on those ships they needed some major repairs." Jill explained. "I also took a goosie at his last two psychiatric reports."
"And?!" Harris demanded. 'Took a goosie' Harris throught shaking his head.
"The Captain got this posting because command throught it would be more relaxed then most of the other posts." Jill explained. "If he was stressed out too much he could go over the edge."
"And Commander Nipels?" Harris asked.
"The Captain and the Commander went to the JMC together until the Captain was offered a ship straight out of training while the Commander was offered a much lower posting." Jill told him. "The Commander was responsible for setting up a independent state for those terrorist Furbys."
"Should have nuked the bloody lot of them." Harris muttered. "Good work, Jill."
"I'm gong back in the watch. Aren't I." Jill commented.
"Yep." Harris answered before tapping the button on his watch and Jill was transferred to the watch.
"Just remove that hairy piece of chewed gum before you put you hands in your pockets." Jill told him from the watch face.
"Was looking for that." Harris commented and removed the piece of gum from his pocket and started to chew it.
Security Office
Some time later
"Shut up!" Harris snarled at Jill.
"What?" Jill replied. "All I said was that."
"I don't give a damn about what you think!" Harris told her. "The ship will not run better with you in control and as far as anyone cares you have been deleted!"
"What are you saying, Darren." Jill demanded.
"You are demented!" Harris snapped.
"Oh, that's good coming from Mr 'lets encase our commanding officer in jelly'." Jill commented.
Harris snarled, threw open a desk draw and throw in the watch and slammed it shut over and over again.
"Problem, Major?"
Harris almost let out of his skin as only then he noticed Commander Seymore Nipels standing in the open doorway with a bemused look on his face.
"Never heard of knocking?!" Harris snarled. "What you want, Nipels?"
"Just seeing how you were fitting in." Nipels answered.
"He isn't!" Jill shouted from within the desk draw.
"What was that?" Nipels asked.
"What was what?" Harris asked.
"Someone just said 'He isn't'?" Nipels told Harris.
Harris spun round in his chair and looked at the air vent. "That bloody rat of the Captain's must have gotten into the air vents. Heard that loony was trying to teach it to talk."
"But it sound like it came from your desk?" Nipels said sounding bemused.
Harris gave the Commander a look like he was mad.
"I did hear something!" Nipels told Harris.
"You did!" Jill shouted.
"There it is again!" Nipels said.
"Great, the Captain's mad and so is the First Officer." Harris muttered just loud enough for Sipels to hear.
"You didn't hear it?!" Nipels demanded.
"Push off and stop wasting my time!" Harris snarled.
Nipels gave him another confused and then left the office peering over his shoulder at Harris as he left and as the door slide closed Harris grabbed hold of the draw handle and starting slamming it again.