**Action** \"Ore\"

OOC- Things have been a bit...chaotic over christmas as you probably already know and now everyone seems to be writing their own subplots which are starting to get very confusing , although very well written and very original, well done everyone.
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, but for now- back to work!
 
**Action**
Date 5.1.2101
JMC Blue Dwarf
"Ore"
 
The battle scarred Blue Dwarf limped through space, for the first time in almost a year it was heading back to Human space for a repair.
 
****Commander Niples' office****
An oily overall clad Steev MAckEnzyyyyyyyy waltzed into the first officer's room and slammed a piece of greasy piping down of the desk. The new technician Aron Dek Hares followed him in quietly and tried to look inconspicuous in the corner.
 
"Make it quick, Robot wars is on in 5 minutes" said the commander and slowly looked up from his computer screen and regarded the twisted piece of metal with mild curiosity.
 
"And this is?" Seymour enquired.
Hares threw Steev an oily rag and he bagan to wipe his hands on it. "This is a very important part of the Blue Dwarf's engine safety mechanism. Without this the engines could blow at any time and nothing could shut them down. Even drive plates as thick as both Beckhams couldn't stop a reaction that powerful without the safety mechanism."
 
"I see," said Niples slowly. "And why are you telling me this. Can't you just fix it?"
 
"We've been to see the Captain about it. Commander Smegg is currently busy fixing the leaking lager tanks so tol us to sort it out. But the Captain wants us to go to the nearest Space Service station to get them to sort it out. But I don't think we'll make it there in time. And every second we have the engines burning, the more we are at risk. We need to shut down the engines to repair them."
 
Niples openly sighed at the stupidity of the Captain. The man couldn't make an intelligent decision even if his brain was wired up to a planetwide computer system.
 
"How bad is the damage?" the first officer asked. 
 
Aron Hares spoke up this time. "The entire unit is destroyed, we would need to make our own replacement parts but we don't have the metal."
 
"None at all?"
 
Steev shook his head. "The titanium plating in storage will be needed to patch up the hull before we loose all oxygen."
 
"But where can we find metal in space?" asked Aron sucking his finger slightly.
 
Niples grinned at the younger man who wasn't entirely too bright. "We're on a mining ship aren't we? Lets get mining!"
 
****2 minutes later, in Captain Cannon's personal quarters****
Will Cannon looked from the display of robot carnage on the TV screen to Commander Niples, who had just barged through the door.
 
"Good grief man, don't you ever knock?!" asked an astonished Cannon. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
 
"A bit jumpy sir?" enquired Seymour with more than a touch of sinesism. "Someone after you perhaps? Someone who wants some over due debts paying?"
 
"I don't know whatever you mean!" replied Cannon with acted honesty.
 
Niples decided now was not the time so instead changed to the more immediate subject. "You have to order the engines to be shut down, or we will all be blown to hell." stated Niples bluntly.
 
Then Niples' attention was drawn to the TV screen. 'International Robot wars.'
"Are the British beating the Americans into a metallic pulp again?" asked Seymour.
"You betcha!" grinned Will Cannon as Seymour sunk into the seat on the couch next to him.
"Popcorn?" asked Cannon.
 
****Next day*****
Kayn Bestrom finally got his hands on the SpaceEagle as he took it out to scout for any asteroids with metallic ore which could be mined into essential raw materials to fix the Blue Dwarf. In the cockpit of the SpaceEagle with him was Phil Febuggure who was operating the scanner.
After 2 hours of flying they found a reasonably large asteroid in a small belt within distance of the Blue Dwarf. They reported back to base, now came the tricky bit- the actual mining part.
 
The experienced miner Stromile Keegan led the mining operation, Nik Florentyn flew a Starbug packed with mining equipment and a small mining team to the asteroid Kayn and Phil found. Nik managed to land the Starbug on the small planetoid so that the mining team could strap on their space-suits and start to mine for ore.
The mining team (consisting of Keegan, Doom Harbinger, Drusilla Belladonna and Aron Hares) used laser cutters and huge industrial drills to create a shaft down into the core of the huge chuck of rock.
After a few minutes of digging, Stromile Keegan wished he could wipe the sweat from his brow, but realised the huge spacesuit helmet got in the way. He and Drusilla were digging together when suddenly the rock floor beneath them gave way, causing both of them to fall downwards through the hole they had just created.
 
As the asteroid dust cleared, Stromile stood up on his shakey old legs and looked around him. Phil Febuggure wasn't wrong when he said this asteroid was rich in ore, it was rich in just about every kind of metal he had seen before- as well as some glowing green stuff thet he didn't recognise.
Stromile heard a groan behind him and as he slowly turned his head he saw Drusilla Belladonna was laying on the ground where she had fallen.
 
The elderly miner knelt down by the female security officer (his knees clicked as he did do) and tried to help her up.
"Careful" he said, noticing her protective spacesuit was caught on a jaggy crop of rock. As she stood to her feet, the material snagged and ripped.
"Oh bugger" exclaimed Keegan as he saw the air leak into the vacuum around them.
"Oh shit" exclaimed Drusilla, knowing that if the air escaped too fast, she would de-pressurise and most likely explode. She grasped the rip, holding it together with her bulky spacesuit gloves which slowed the air oxygen leakage, but not by much.
 
Unseen by enyone else, a small bacteria slipped through the gap in Drusilla's space suit and passed through the pores in her skin.
 
"Is everyone alright down there?" came the voice of Aron Hares from the top of the hole they had just fallen through, his space-helmet clad face peared down from the top of the hole.
"HELL COMETH TO THOSE WHO FALL DOWN SMALL HOLES IN ASTERIODS!" shouted Doom, also pearing down over the edge of the hole.
 
"I have a hole in my spacesuit- I'm loosing air" said Drusilla. Immediately Aron extended his hand down to her so that Drusilla could clamber out of the small cavern onto the surface. Aron helped her to get back to the Starbug.
 
Meanwhile, Doom jumped down into the cavern with the Mining chief. Despite all of the spacesuits being exactly the same, Doom still managed to retain his dark and sinister appearence. He stared at Keegan with cold eyes.
"Well get to work then!" The mining chief said. Doom quickly made himself busy.
 
***Inside the Starbug***
Drusilla tugged the spacesuit off by her legs and poked her finger through the hole. "Damn cheap JMC material!" she grumbled.
She stood up and put the suit into a locker, and pulling a sweater out as she did so.
She put the sweater over herself as the Starbug seemed colder than usual, as she spin on her heel heading towards the cockpit to talk to Nik Florentyn. Suddenly her leg felt felt like it had turned to jelly and she stumbled to the floor. Looking at her shin she noticed it looked a bit bruised. She ignored it and walked up to the cockpit.
 
"Problem?" asked Nik, playing 'snake' on his mobile phone to pass the time.
"A hole in my spacesuit" said Drusilla, snatching the phone off Nik.
He looked up "Hey! I was doing well on that!"
 
Drusilla gave him a sideways glance and started playing herself. After two minutes Drusilla gave the phone back to Nik and went to lie down in the back, complaining of a headache.
Some small microbes that had been passed onto the phone from Drusilla jumped into Nik's skin.
 
***2 hours later***
The Starbug took off from the asteroid, loaded down with several types of ore and headed back to the Blue Dwarf.
 
The ore was taken down to the mining ship's ore processing plant where Lt. Cmdr Smegg, Steev, Phil Febuggure and Zack Jarvis used the plant's heavy machinery to turn the ore into something useful.
 
"Is there any more?" asked Steev from a ladder at the top of the large ore processor. 
"Just one." Zack Jarvis said and picked up the last chunk of ore from the rusty conveyor belt in was resting on. He passed it to Phil who tried to climb up the ladder to put it in the machine.
 
A few minutes later they all wondered why they had a strange rash on their arms.
 
"Hey, what's that big pink tree doing jumping down the corridor?" said Steev feeling a bit ill.
 
(OOC-heres something we've never seen on a mining ship before- actual mining! I hope everyone has fun with this plot, the virus should infect everyone before Dr. Keto finds a cure. The virus could be similar to the cold that Lister got in series 1 that made his hallucinations actually appear.)
 
==================================Lt. David "Onion" BallAssistant Helm officer/ Pilot  USS Endeavour-ACommander Seymour Niples  JMC Blue DwarfWWW.Home.JMCBlueDwarf.com==================================