**Action** "Taking to the skies"

Outside the Blue Dwarf
 
The four huge engines had been strapped to the exterior hull of the mining ship, two at either side at the front, and two at the back. The thrusters were facing downwards in order to provide lift to get the huge ship out of the ocean, and up to the level of the spacegate, Katy Roskev was fairly confident that the Blue Dwarf's own engines would be able to carry them forward and allow a bit of manouverability to move them through the circular gate which had let them crash into the ocean of this planet.
 
The engineers working on the strap-on engines all walked back to the roof hatch in a long line. The Captain stood next to the hatch thanking each one.
"Great job kind fellows!" he said. A few grunted at him and one man passing wiped his oily hands on the Captain's tweed jacket.
"Oh thankyou, well done!" He shouted back, unable to find out which man it was. He wiped his silk hankerchief on the oily patch and made a mental note to send the jacket to the dry cleaners early this week.
 
The Aeron workers who had delivered the engines took off in their flying construction ships. Niples politely waved to them, he had given them the co-ordinates of the Eniram base about an hour ago.
Seymour felt a prescence behind him, he turned to see Katrina. "Hi." she said sheepishly.
"Hello dear." he said warmly. He felt guilty, not having seen Katrina much over the past few weeks. He put his arm around her, "I'm sorry if I havn't been there for you lately." He said. "Have you been alright?"
It just didn't seem as easy to talk to her as it normally did, she felt like a different person to him. Even as he held her they just didn't feel as close as they had once done.
 
The sun was starting to set and Seymour draped his oily jacket on Katrina's shoulders, discretely trying to wipe off the oil as she wore it.
"So what happens now?" Katrina asked.
"Well we go home hopefully, Katy wanted a few hours to drain the engine rooms and Harris is hopefully going to make sure we have no more Enirams hiding aboard."
"No, I mean what happens to the Aerons and the Eniram, how long will they fight for?"
"Ahh, well" Seymour said pompously. "I gave the co-ordinates of the Eniram base to the Aerons, so they said they would go and disarm the missile. They will probably still go on fighting, but at least they won't be completely annihalating each other's cities in one missile blast." Seymour revelled in the fact that he might have saved millions of lives. He proudly saved a race from destruction.
"I think I'm going to go and have a nice aromatic bubblebath..." he said, but Katrina cut him off.
"So the Aerons were going to disarm the missile?"
"That's what the general said, yes..."
"So why is there a missile launching into the sky?"
Katrina pointed and Seymour looked. She was right, a missile followed by a plume of fire and smoke rose up past the setting sun.
"The Aerons must have failed!" said Katrina with compassion in her voice. "Will they be able to evaacuate their base in time?"
 
Something was wrong, the Captain could sense it. "Hang on, this isn't right... The Eniram base isn't in that direction...it's in that direction... GOOD LORD! That isn't the Eniram missile- that's coming FROM the Aeron base!"
"What does that mean?"
"That means that the Aerons used my co-ordinates to aim their own missile at the Enirams! They used me!!"
"What about the Enirams?" Katrina asked.
Seymour spun around, in the other side of the sky, another missile rised out above the ocean horizon.
"Good lord, they're both going to massacre each other! Are these people that arrogant?"
 
With that, the Captain practically dragged katrina in through the hatch at the top of the Blue Dwarf and sealed it from the inside. He excused himself and ran as fast as he could to the nearest lift and rode it to the Drive-room.
 
***Drive-room**
The drive room was a mess, bits of debris littered the floor and half eaten take-away meals littered the computer keyboards.
Kayn stood twiddling his thumbs, putting his feet up on the chair next to his.
As Captain Niples entered, he smacked Kayn's leg -making the Chief Navigation officer jump and sit to attention.
"We need to get out of here now!" yelled Niples. Commander Whitewolf's head popped up behind the furthest row of computers, he had been attempting to tidy the place up.
"What's wrong Captain?" he said.
"There are two missiles in the sky right now, I don't want to be near any of them when they strike their targets. And i definately don't feel like being around when the Eniram figure out who gave the Aerons the co-ordinates of their base."
"good point." said Kayn.
"Look at this place, it's a mess!" Niples moaned as he brushed a pile of ehalf empty pizza boxes from the Communications console.
"Ensign Fletcher, please report to the drive room immediately!" Niples said over the ship's tannoy system. In a few minutes, Allie turned up looking a little shaken. Niples pointed for her to sit down. The captain started barking orders at everyone.
"Mr. Bestrom, can you control the new thrusters?"
"Erm...Yes sir. Just give me a second to engage them."
"Miss Fletcher, call Katy Roskev in engineering and ask her if the Blue Dwarf's engines are all ready to start."
"yes sir." Allie started talking over the comm.
The ship started to shake slightly as the four huge thrusters hiccuped into life. Outside, a large beltch of flame came out of each engine and pushed the ship upwards. Slowly, the large ship started to raise out of the ocean, the water pulled it down but the big blue ship paised above the water, tipping slightly upwards.
 
Back in the drive room, Allie said "Roskev says that the engines should be ready now, she's just warming them up."
Down in engineering the huge engines roared into life, trapped water squirted out of the huge mechanical columnular pistons and the engines glowed.
Katy Roskev put her ear protectors on as the sound got too loud.
"Engines are working!" she shouted through the comm panel.
 
The Dwarf lurched forward in mid air. From the surface of the ocean, it must have been a fantastic sight to see a five mile long starship raise into the sky and hover there for a few seconds. The gargantuan piece of metal panels, bolts and duct-tape spun around so that it was facing the Space gate.
 

Back in the Drive-room Kayn fisted his hands "We're moving!"
"Can we straighten up?" Niples asked, holding on to the wall as the ship dipped.
Kayn balanced the thrusters and the ship headed vertically, he had to make sure the ship was high enough to get above the cliff, but low enough to fit through the circular gate.
Allie watched through the Drive-room's forward window. "But the gate isn't open..I mean..there's no shimmering. Shouldn't it shimmer?"
"You're right." said Whitewolf. "To open it we had to hum a code, much like a
"Can you remember it?"
Whitewolf groaned, wanting never to have to have repeated that section of his life. He grabbed the microphone and stitched it to exterior broadcast.
"Boom badda boom badda bim bam boof"
Allie, Kayn and the captain tried to hide smiles.
"Boom badda bim badda boo bim bam boof" Kayn laughed out loud at the Commander. but then his smile dropped as he realised they were hurtling at the gate at a fair speed now and it wasn't working.
"Look, it wasn't me that did it last time" admitted Whitewolf, "it was Mike Mackenzie."
As his name was mentioned, a pile of rubble, newspapers and fried fish trays moved to one side and Mike popped up out of it.
"What are you doing down there?" asked the Captain in astonishment.
"My quarters were ruined so...."
"Quickly Mike" said Whitewolf. "The code!"
"Code...oh... Bum badda bum badda bim badda ::chikky chikky:: bum. I think"
They all watched the gate ahead, suddenly the air in the middle of the gate started swirling like water in a bucket.
 
The huge mining ship went straight into the gate. Everyone in the Drive room ducked as they saw the top bar of the ring coming towards them. Miraculously, the Drive room- being at the top of the ship passed just inside the hoop unharmed. The four thrusters which had lifted the Blue Dwarf this high stuck out too much, they were ripped off the sides of the ship viciously.
 
**Meanwhile, The Eniram base**
The Eniram supreme leader flopped around on his water bed and watched the radar screen in front of him.
"Flob!" he said in delight as the missile was nearly at the Aeron base. His number 2 man had dissapeared somewhere and hadn't come back.
"Floob..." he said in dismay as another blip appeared on his radar screen. There were screams of panic through the base, Eniram were looking upwards. The leader tried to move his head upwards, but being a fish out of water he couldn't see very well. There was a dull cracking noise, followed by a huge explosion of rushing water. The walls shook from the explosion and a tidal wave of water washed the bodies of hundreds of Eniram soldiers into his chamber. The water did not subside however, it continued with more strength. It hit the fish leader with as much force as a train.
"Floooeee!" said the leader as he was swept away by the water. The walls of the base crumped and a whatever air remained trapped bubbled to the surface.
 
**Back in Normal space**
The Blue Dwarf burst through the gate and into normal space.
Seymour looked out of the window, he was actually glad to see stars, the freedom of space travel. But then he put his hands on his face.
"I just remembered."
"What?" asked Whitewolf.
"Those Spider ships are probably waiting for us... could we stand up to any of their weapons fire?"
Allie checked with Katy Roskev in engineering through the communications microphone.
"Roskev says that the hull has been badly damaged, and has been patched up a lot but the ointment might give us a bit of protection.
"That's good to know...." there was a crash which cut the captain off.
"Its the spider ships! They're back!" Yelled Allie, sliding her chair quickly to the sensor screen.
"What a surprise." said Niples nonchallantly. "Get us out of here Mr. Bestrom, as fast as you can."
"Hang on... they're moving away. Something else has got their attention." Whitewolf said curiously.
 
Out of the windows, the crew members of the Blue Dwarf watched as hundreds of small ships came through the space gate.
"Its the Aerons! ...They took my advice and evacuated after all, they're saved!"
The shadows started picking off the ships, they all exploded in tiny insignificant fireballs.
"...oh." said Niples.
 
The Blue Dwarf sailed through Sector 27 Gamma, back into safer space. The ship was a mess and they needed to repair very badly.
 
*****************************************************Captain Seymour Niples, JMC Blue Dwarf   www.geocities.com/bluedwarf2000Lt. cmdr David "Onion" Ball, USS Endeavour   www.TheEndeavour.com*****************************************************Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
 
Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989 --------------------------------------------------------------"Global warming could make England as hotas ibiza.... lets make it happen!"       (Ali G)---------------------