Niples "So posh"

Ambassador/Acting-Captain Niples + Dean
JMC Blue Dwarf,
After Dean reports the Ambassadors are arrested
Ambassador Niples followed Dean down to the brig where the Ambassadors were
being held. A guard by a rusting prison entrance door stamped his foot and
saluted, this disturbance making cockroaches scutter away. Seymour didn’t
know the conditions were as bad as this in the brig, not something he wished
for the common criminal, especially not some top-notch posh Ambassadors.
Water was leaking from above, and as this wasn’t a strategically important
part of the ship, it didn’t get a very good electricity quota so it was very
dimly lit. Seymour remembered how the old security chief Major Harris used
to live down here. It fitted his personality quite well.
Niples stepped forward, Dean now followed sheepishly, knowing the
Ambassadors wouldn’t be too pleased.
“Right I’d like you to apologise immediately, these are very important
people as they are to negotiate with a very dangerous alien race very soon
we do not want to insult them and make them leave.”
Dean nodded.
“They might want to press charges, in which case you’ll probably be shipped
back home for a trial, inquiry, and so on but the fine wont be too high,
you’ll probably be let off with about 2 thousand, your pilots licence
revoked and your JMC contract terminated. I just hope they don’t think it
could be my lax leadership that lead to this unfair arrest and drag me down
with you.” Seymour said rather selfishly thinking of only himself.
Phil gulped.
A guard swung open a cell door. The lighting was bad and the smell was
rancid. The walls of the cell were stained crown with rust….or hopefully
rust. Seymour could see them between the flashes in the dodgy lightbulb.
They were huddled in a corner playing chess with dead insects and coins.
Phil gulped, ready to face the shouts.
“Ahh Its Seymour…”
“Ho yes! How are you my dear chap?!!”
“Quite a splendid accommodation you have here, very authentic did you have
it put in yourself so the commoners think you live in places just like
them?”
“Yes so they don’t call you a …’snob’” The other ambassadors guffawed at the
crass word.
“Splendid!” commented a few other ambassadors.
Seymour and Dean exchanged a quick confused look.
“I’m sorry….” Started Dean.
“Yes, yes!” Seymour butted in front of Dean. “”Its all part of the tour,
these are my public quarters. I hang around them so that the crew don’t
think I have a background so high in society.” He lied.
He beckoned for all of the Ambassadors to leave, and they got up, walking
out of the cell marvelling at the place.
“What’s going on?” Asked Dean. “These aren’t your quarters, you’ve got
flippin’ HUGE quarters! Why do they think you want to live in a shithole
like this?”
Seymour waved his hands in Deans face to get him to quiet down in case the
Ambassadors heard.
“Remember Dean, these people are not just posh, they’re…..well they’re VERY
posh….”
Dean didn’t seem to be following.
“They’re so posh….” Seymour continued. “that to gain their respect like I, a
fellow ambassador am obligated to do, I must also aspire to their level of
poshness. And they’re so posh that they don’t eat mere caviar, or mere Dom
Perignon 95, they can get away with eating ham sandwiches and crisps without
fear of loosing their high level posh status.”
Dean rubbed his chin. “So ……by …..pretending to be poor, you’re actually
showing yourself to be ……posher than posh……?”
Seymour squeezed Dean’s upper arms. “My dear fellow, there is hope for you
yet. When the Ambassadors are gone perhaps we could enjoy a good Sauvignon
in my quarters!”
Seymour followed the ambassadors leaving Dean shocked.
“Isn’t sauvignon a meal made of puréed Italian snake?”
**Later, Ambassador Niples quarters**
Seymour had found the Ambassadors some proper accommodation, they were now
living in a seedy hotel off the Promenade. They had told him they thought
the stained sheets and tacky wall hangings were ‘delightfully lower class’.
After his duties as acting captain, he now got back to his Ambassador
duties, writing a weekly report of the Blue Dwarf’s events for the Queen. He
finished typing the last paragraph.
‘So with Whitewolf, Jay and Phil on the planet Tattooed Ian, (apparently
named after the guy who discovered it) I have to make sure the Ambassadors
are ready for their possible “negotiation” with the Hymenoptera. I’m not
quite sure what the Space Core had in their minds, did they read the report
I sent about the Hymenoptera? They’re brutal conscienceless killers, despite
having a simplistic insect way of looking at the universe which normally
consists or eat, expand and conquer- which should have been more than enough
to make them a dangerous enough species to avoid, they also seem to possess
a high level of collective intelligence. And how are the Ambassadors going
to talk to them?
As far as I know I am the only person to communicate with them directly, and
that was by having some kind of spine jabbed into my spinal cord.
Many events have pointed to the Hymenoptera being a very dangerous and
adaptable foe, for example the fall of New Ibiza to a frozen sect of
Hymenoptera ground-soldiers. These insects were a few thousand years old,
having been concealed in ice and they still devastated an entire planet. And
the Hymenoptera of our generation are even more destructive, with the
ability to construct their own ships in hours using only regurgitated
proteins and the sickening use of organic brains. Making their fighters far
more powerful than a simple Blue Midget or Starbug. The whole essance of the
Hymenoptera seems to confirm a natural existence for war. The planet
Citadellia and various others have fallen to the Hymenoptera growth. The
species has no art or culture we know of, merely a wish to expand, using
huge colony ships that traverse space and spread eggs of soldiers, behemoths
and workers on target planets. So will negotiations with these….monsters
work? And what if negotiations fail? What if this is some kind of trap? They
would be able to wipe us out in a second! Using the crew’s brains for their
fighters, and mine for their superior destroyer vessels of course.’
Seymour saved the file on his computer and copied it into an e-mail program.
He watched as the percentage bar indicated the message had sent to the
Queen, turned off his computer and went to bed.
In the darkness of Seymour’s quarters he got into bed, bloodcurdling insect
scratchings and high pitched clicks filled his dreaming head. Once he had
been invited into the Hymenoptera hive mind, and now he never seemed to be
alone.
***Dream sequence***
Seymour opened his eyes. He felt light, very light. In fact he was floating.
All he could see was white mist all around, he had been here before. This
was the mind of the hymenoptera. Hundreds of spiderlike soldiers and workers
were watching him, he couldn’t see them but he could feel their beady little
eyes staring at him from just out of sight in the thick white fog. He could
hear their tendrils chattering and antennae rubbing together.
Seymour tried to move through the fog to see the insects closer, as last
time he could never see them. The closest he could get was seeing many
moving shadows being cast at him through the glowing fog. With no gravity,
no right or wrong way up, Seymour spun uncontrollably.
A voice glowed at him in a way only a VERY ominous voice can actually glow
through a fog. It was a thick sphere of light and cloud, with gaps of
density pulsating around the glowing white orb, making light beams and
shadows dance outwards of the source.
“SEYMOUR NIPLES!”
“Why am I here again? Is this a dream?” Seymour shouted.
“AMBASSADOR SEYMOUR NIPLES!”
“That’s Ambassador and Acting Captain Niples to you!” Seymour pointed an
accusing finger at the glowing giant orb.
“WE KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU SEYMOUR. AFTER YOU VISITED US FOR THE FIRST TIME WE
NEVER REALLY LET YOU GO. YOU THINK WE ARE ANIMALS, ACTING ON BASIC
INSTINCT.”
“Well you seem to kill and grow with no conscience.”
“TRUE, TRUE WE FOLLOW PATTERNS AND PATHS OF LESSER INSECTS, BUT WE ARE SO
MUCH MORE. WE ABSORB BRAINS OF YOUR SPECIES TO CONTROL OUR SHIPS, YOU MAKE
EXCELLENT FIGHTERS.”
“Is there any actual point in me being here or can I go to sleep now?”
The glowing orb seemed to go a little red with impatience.
“WE WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT WE ARE EXPANDING TOWARDS YOUR WORLD, AND WHEN
WE GET THERE WE WILL CONQUER…..”
“Ahh okey dokey. Can I be permitted to leave now? I have a rather pressing
engagement with my bed.”
“DO NOT TAKE OUR THREAT LIGHTLY!!!!”
“Indeed, yes well…I am not one for threats really. Especially ones as
unoriginal as this. Possibly try Efof, he’s very naïve and seems to see
things through the eyes of a 7 year old. He might possibly be scared as
everything seems new to him.”
The Hymenoptera conscience didn’t seem to know where to take the
conversation further so let him leave.
“WE ARE COMING SEYMOUR!!!”
“Okay, see you soon. Bye bye!”
The Hymenoptera might be the most dangerous insect known to mankind but they
had very little conversation skills.
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David "Onion" Ball
WWW.BlueDwarf.co.uk
My Online CV: www.hud.ac.uk/mmvr/ball
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"Hows it hanging?"
"Its hanging off, I've just had three of 'em round the back"
(Pheonix Nights)
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