The Fall of Endymion

[clip]
Please Note: Keyholders are responsible for the safe maintainance and
upkeep of the vehicle. Please use withing prescribed parameters at
all times. Display and Use of furry dice is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.
Idwal handed the signed plastrip back. "Just get the mining bay
space access door cleared for take off!" he said as he headed for the
machine he had just signed for.
[end clip]
Who: John Keats, Idwal Everett
Where: Hanger bay - Space
When: Ehh.. sometime after the away mission and just after Idwal
signed the thingy i guess!
John was ticked... He was hoping for fully fledged mission against
the Hymies. Lasers frying the insects, the smell of his cockpit, the
vibration of the joystick when he pulled up to hard.
"Those inconsiderate BASTARDS!" He shouted in the middle of the busy
corridor. It quietend.
"Ahh.. sorry..." He hurried off to his room.
Still, he was annoyed, not only had he been denied for the away
mission, but to rub salt and vinegar onto th wound and package him as
a grab-a-bag pleb, they gave him an escort mission.
"An Escort mission.. what do they take me for Quil?" He queried
Quilibet, his pet MAG in ferret form. It nuzled his chin.
The thing that ticked him off, is that he'd been asigned a mission to
escort a small mining ship with some wet behind the ears miner into a
debris field to scan for ore and bring back some samples in
completely unhostile space. He might as well not go, but he had to
fill his quota. He grumbled all the way to the cargo bay with the
mission plan in his hand.
[Cargo bay]
John looked around, the place was almost empty asides from a large
mining shuttle and a heavily tanned man kicking a can nearby. He
approached.
"Hey.. im your designated fighter escort for this mission.. your name
is?"
"Idwell Everett Friend! Pleased to meet you, i see from your pips
your an officer!" He spoke with a large smile and infallable smile
that made Keats think he was about to be sold something.
"Uhh... its a formality.. much like this mission... ok... so you know
the outline for the mission? Go in, scan and bring back samples, in
and out in a few hours, if it goes well il buy you a drink
afterwards, sound good?"
"Sounds liek a plan!"
He unfurled his arms to shake Johns hand, each arm was coverd in a
carapace of tattoes, John reluctantly shook his oddly clean hands and
they parted ways to commence the assignment.
[Out in Space]
Quilibet was asleep on the dashboard, unsuprising really because so
far the most interest thing that had happend was a couple of failed
communication atempt from Severn.
"I really need to get a nano booster..." He activated the comms unit
"Idwal, everything ok down there?"
"No problems here, sir. Expected arrival time in 14 minutes"
"Well whoop... ok.. see you in 14 minutes i guess"
John hung his head in his hands, well, he would of, but in his ship,
a converted MIG, their was less in the way of space and atmosphere,
so he wore a space suit. He looked outside and into the big unknown
of space and sighed. A light flicked on his scanner, then off again.
He turned and looked at it. He watched it with curiosity for a
moment. Nothing... it read the debris field and Idwal's ship. Nothing
else.
"Quil... re-run the last 2 minutes of scan on the secondary monitor.
Note any peculiar occurances and mark them."
Quil woke up, there was a lead running from him into the ships CPU.
The scanner came up, it showed exactly what he'd seen before.
absolutely nothing. Then, a blip, it was on the scanner for no longer
than half a second before dissapearing.
"Odd... Quil, was that a scanner fault?"
"Ummm.. No John, the ship picked up a blip of indeterminable size
approximatly 10 klicks from our position at heading 346-162"
"10 klicks infront of us eh... Idwal!"
"Yeah?"
"I picked up a blip on the radar about 2 minutes back... can you
confirm?"
"Yeah.. I recieved the same, the CPU registerd it as a scanner
malfunction. Whats your take on it?"
"I dont know... i cant see it visually, but my scanner picked
somethign up just on the edge of my sensor array"
"Ok sir.. il keep an eye on my scanner and report to you anything i
find, ok?"
"Yeah.. by the way, my names John, but everyone calls me Keats, ive
never been comfortable with ranks"
"Ok John, comms out"
Keats set the scanner to record. All data from now would be sent
directly back to the Blue Dwarf, hopefully someone there could
analyse any feeds that come through.
The scanner blipped again, this time, for barely a fraction of a
second, but it definatly appeared. Keats started to get nervous when
the comms opened again.
"You get that one Keats?"
"Yep... i dont know what the hell it is, ive sent the data back to
the 'Dwarf to analysis, sugges you follow suit"
He opend new communications to the Dwarf.
"Hey, anyone gettting this?"
"Hearing you Endymion, whats the trouble?"
"Are you getting my feed?"
"Uhh.. no, no feed, we have two registerd transmit failures from you
and the shuttle, what were you trying to send?"
"Some interesting ata from our scanner, we picked up a.. well, we
dont know what we picked up... Il try it again.."
"Hmm.. nope,its not transmitting, save it to your CPU and we'l
analyse it when you get back. Out"
John sat back again. He wonderd what it was that was on his scanners.
It was if it was stalkign them, just outside the range. It blipped
again, this time behind them. He wonderd if the 'Dwarfs long range
scanners were getting this.
"John, i dont want to alarm you, but were entering the Debris field,
there are small bullet meteorites heading this way"
"Hey there Idwal.. no worries, we have shields, they can stop them"
"Are you sure sir? You dont appear to have yours activated.."
John checked his button. It was blue, it was on when the shields were
active, off when they wernt. It was currently on.
"Im sure there Idwal. Dont worry"
"Umm, actually John" started Quilibet
"Yeah?"
"Umm, the shield battery appears to of been.. umm. removed..."
John froze. Without the shields his ship was sitting in open terrain.
"Are you sure Quil.. i mean, the lights on..."
"Yes im sure.. i dotn knwo why.. but..."
A small hole suddenly appeared in the front screen, followed
nanoseconds later by another in the console to the right of his head.
He felt the sudden pull of vaccumed space as another hole appeared,
this time shooting out the weapons control module on the side.
"Idwal! Open your airlock.. NOW!"
"But why sir?"
"Im taking damage, you were right, my shields arn---" The line cut.
"John?"
Another bullet meteortie shot the communications, setting it into a
frizzling electrical fire. He had to ditch the Endymion... his pride
and joy... He wrestled the control stick and headed towards the
Freighter.
"Quil... stick to me, were going to eject!"
"But we have no shields either"
"Still, we have a better chance out there, were gonna get onboard the
mining shuttle"
As the Endymion grew closer to it, he readied on the Eject button.
The vacuum of space was tretcherous, nto to be taken lightly, but
still, his only chance was to get into the now open airlock. He hit
the eject button and instantly, the tug of vacuum lifted as he was
sent towards the airlock. The Shielding on the freighter stopped any
furtherbullet meteorites, but the Endymion was lost and it hurtled
without control towards the dead planet. John watched from the
closing airlock, a tear in his eye.
[tag]
over to you Mr. Everett, use my guy as you see fit, and i hope i used
yours ok to!
In hindsight this isnt the best post ive ever done.. i dunno how well
it reads.... still...