Cmdr Niples "Evils of command"

Commander Niples
Date: 17/1/2101
Time: 3:20pm
 
****Promenade****
 
Niples looked around. A pink tree was parading an army of vegitables down the upper walkway. A few tomatoes nibbled at his feet. Parmasan Cheese seemed to cover the far wall, and a few other shops and there was a commotion in the Burger Tzar- some people were walking out with sticky feet. He saw Steev cramming him jaws with greasy burgers, Niples stopped to question him- but Steev only tried talking with his mouth full.
 
There was also a burned chair stood in the middle of the promenade, with what seemed to be a scorch-mark trailing off down the stern side.
 
And then he spotted one poor girl who was trying to clean up all of this mess. The mess left by everyone else's hallucinations. Imagination had never been so much trouble. He started talking to the girl, he had never seen her before- not usually having time to speak with every single crewmember on the ship. On other ships the Captain might be the only one to have met the entire crew. Some captains felt that knowing everyone gave the ship a more friendly atmosphere and only then would people start working as a team.
Niples laughed at the thought, Captain Cannon had never brought the crew together as a team. He could barely bring himself to his own duty shifts, and never socialised with anyone except for his pet rat Bobo and probably a drink or two of something strong. Niples often wondered if Cannon actually talked to his wife back on Earth any more.
 
"This is absolute chaos!" screamed Niples. The rather attractive girl with the less-than attractive job agreed and said;
"The Captain should really get this sorted out. Can't he get the security officers to come and shoot all of the hallucinations?"
 
"That'd probably cause more harm than good." Said Niples. "The redshirts are a crazy bunch of psychos normally, imagine what they're like infected with a hallucigenic virus!"
"Valid point. But there must be something YOU can do." said the cleaner, who's name was Katrina. Niples could tell this because it was on her name tag on her cleaning overalls.
 
Niples thought for a moment. "It would be insubordination if I took actions against the Captains orders, rules state that I must check with him first....."
"Lets go then" said Katrina dropping her mop and standing up.
"Where?"
"To the Captains office divvy!"
Niples was struck back by the word she called him, she wasn't an officer so she didn't have to conform to the JMC rule: 'No senior command staff should be called a Divvy at any time'. But even if she was, Niples might just have let it go, just because of the girl's playful and friendly smile. He smiled, "lets go" he said.
 
 
****Captains office, 10 minutes later****
 
Niples hit the floor as Katrina dived back out of the door. The shotgun blast had narrrowly missed his face.
The office was dark and there seemed to be burned patches and bullet holes all over the place. It seemed that Captain Cannon had quite an arsenal at his disposal. "Its only me!" yelled Niples from behind a desk.
 
"Who!?" yelled back an aggrivated Will Cannon.
"Commander Seymour Niples!"
"But are you really? Or are you just one of those pixxie people in disguise? They're everywhere you know..... they take no prisoners, so this time I'm going to get them first, first, I'll get them, yes I will, and nobody will stop me, yahhahaha! Are you still there?"
 
"Yes"
"...Yahahahaaa!"
 
Niples stood up, Cannon trained his shotgun on him. It was a fairly old shotgun, almost antique by todays laser, plasma, and energy weapons.
 
"If I may sir, can I ask where you got that weapon from?"
"No you may not." snapped Cannon. Seymour could see that Cannon was looking very rough, there were bags under his eyes, days-old stubble on his rounded face, greasy-unwashed hair and dirty clothes. This was probably the worst Niples had ever seen him.
 
"Lets just say I need it for protection. The pixxies who I owe money to, and the tall fellows I also owe money to. They don't like me you know, they, they..."
 
Katrina Swete peered around the corner of the door, wondering if it was safe to enter.
Cannon saw her. "Is she a pixxie?" he demanded, waving the shotgun unsteadily in Niples face. One slip from Cannon's shaking finger and Niples would need a new head.
"No, she's a cleaner" answered Niples.
"Just as bad."
 
"look Captain, this is getting out of hand. The entire crew is having hallucinations, it is affecting the entire ship. We must put an end to this once and for all. We need a reasonably sane security force to maintain order throughout the ship. We also need the guys in the science lab to get researching the disease, how it spreads, what it is, and then we can get the medical staff to hopefully get working on an antidote. It's simple- but we must start now!"
 
"Stop...stop trying to blind me with your monkey-ear-snivvel crap!" said Cannon wiping the foam from his mouth.
 
"Now lets go and take a walk!" Cannon marched Niples and Katrina out of his office and into the xpress lift, forcing them to put their hands on their heads. But to make it interesting he told them to put their hands on each others heads.
 
"Where are we going?" asked Niples in the lift, being careful what he said as Cannon had aimed the gun directly at his codgers. He smiled to the other occupant of the lift, a small green dwarf with a cabbage on his head. The cabbage man politely smiled back.
 
Cannon didn't answer until he had taken them into the Engineeering control centre. Most of the crew were either sleeping, counting their toes or playing paper scissors stone with some figments of their imagination. So it was easy for an armed madman to get in without raising too many suspicions.
 
As the Captain started pressing buttons on a control panel frantically, Cannon told them his plan.
"I'm going to blow out the four main carbon dioxide tankers at each end of the ship by causing a power surge through the life support system. This should cause a huge fiery shockwave to burn any living thing on the ship. That will get rid of those dammed Pixxies!!!"
 
On hearing the plan, Niples wasn't too happy. He ran forward and tried a move he'd alway wanted to on Cannon. It was a move he's seen Captain Kirk do once.
He tried to grab Cannon from behind, pressing on his upper arms. Cannon wasn't amused and quickly shrugged Seymour off him, grasping the shotgun firmly in his hand and thrusting it upwards towards Niples face.
Niple froze, the barrell staring him in the face. The pair stood like that for a few seconds.
The rage the two men had for each other bubbled to the surface.
"You can't stop me Seymour" snarled Cannon.
"You won't get away with this!" snapped back Niples. "Hallucinations or no hallucinations, there is no excuse for what you're doing!"
 
Katrina almost had to hold Seymour back in case he did something stupid like try to attack the man again. This would most likely result in him being shot. And Katrina would probably have to clean up the blood.
"You're a bad Captain." whispered Niples loudly between clenched teeth.
The comment did not even seem to affect Cannon. It passed harmlessly over his head, either he already knew or he just didn't care about his job and livestyle being insulted.
 
"I'm the only chance you'll get a good reference." said Cannon. The tone cut deep into Niples and seemed to shock him with the reality. Niples had always wanted a good reference so that he could go on to be a Captain of his own ship, especially a millitary cruiser. Cannons cold words cut off Niples visions of the future, of all his hopes and dreams. Cannon had removed all hope he had of a better life.
 
"You bastard!" shouted Niples, ready to rip Cannons throut with his teeth if thats what it took to kill the madman. Katrina held him back, his rage grew and grew.
 
The tension between the two could have been cut with a blunt serated knife. Only one thing caused the Captain to turn in a fit of rage and pull the trigger of his shotgun.
"Excuse me" said a small voice. It was one of Phill's 21 small dwarf people who had just stopped to get out of the marshmallow car to ask for directions. The shotgun hit him directly in the face.
His lower torse stiffened and fell to the ground like a small plank of wood. His face was spread mostly on the walls and partly splashed on Captain Cannon. Who just looked in morbid amusement as the other 20 gnomes leaped out of the car to check the faceless guys pulse.
 
Now was Niples chance. He leaped onto the Captain, taking him down to the floor. The shotgun skittered across the greasy Engineering floor out of reach. Eventually Niple had tied the Captain up with some pink shoelaces.
 
Just before Niples and Katrina could head off to the science labs to lend a hand, a pink robed figure with a scythe walked through the door and started doing his business around the dead dwarf. Whitewolf who was following the Reaper man just clasped his clawed hands behind his back and tried to avoid eye contact with the commander until Death had done his job and they both walked away again.
 
Niples turned to one of the hallucination dwarves and pointed at him. "Come with me" he said, and they all went to the science lab. Taking a prime specimen of a hallucination with them.
 
*******************
 
Has Cannon really gone mad this time?
What will the science officers do with the 'specimen'?
Will Dr. Keto find a cure before the entire ship goes mad?
Will the new nurse Tara Cleavage be useful in any way apart from looking pretty?
 
Find out....blah blah blah, you know the drill!
==================================Lt. David "Onion" BallAssistant Helm officer/ Pilot  USS Endeavour-ACommander Seymour Niples  JMC Blue DwarfWWW.Home.JMCBlueDwarf.com==================================