This is the sequel to 'Caterpillars and Butterflies' - Rimmer's first adventure as Ace. For this fic, I've borrowed character canon from the novels Backwards and Last Human. The idea of GELFs, symbi-morphs, dolochimps, Axis-Syndrome holograms and simulants belong to Grant Naylor.
Seven years after leaving the Red Dwarf posse and becoming Ace, Rimmer is not having the best of days. Rated for sexual references.
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Galactic Bazaar was a strange place. But Rimmer loved it all the same.
Located in Dimension 357 and orbiting Argon 5, Galactic Bazaar was the galaxy's equivilent of the motorway services. After several thousand years of existence, the rundown space station had evolved into a cobbled-together, metallic monstrosity. It was a melting pot of different creatures, races and species who all flocked there for the same reasons - refuelling, bartering, drinking and sex.
And after the week he'd had, Rimmer was in medical need of a stiff drink.
It had been seven years since he'd left Starbug and become Ace. He'd ditched the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert flight suit long ago in exchange for a stone grey jacket, thin white cotton t-shirt, khaki green trousers and buffed, black boots. But Wildfire's computer had badgered him into retaining the stupid, floppy blonde wig. And after countless dramas, adventures, battles, risks and sexual encounters, he was a very different man.
He wandered through the bustling crowds with a small, satisfied smile on his face. He could see up the road ahead that the main marketplace was in that strangely wonderful transitional state between the manic shouts and bartering of the day, and the neon-lit, music-pumping sordidness of the night.
Rimmer was about to make a beeline up into the square to his favourite bar - Edge - when a rough pair of hands grabbed his left arm, and hauled him into a side alley. He grimaced as he was slammed against the wall, the pain shooting up and down his spine, and he glared at his attacker with barely-concealed contempt. Despite the snarling, gorilla-like GELF in front of him, arms thrust against the metallic wall either side of him to block off his escape, Rimmer was unimpressed.
The GELF leaned into his face menacingly. "You owe me money, human," he growled.
Rimmer's brain was creating a flurry of wonderous ideas of how to cause this creature as much pain as physically possible, when it finally twigged. Noticing the tell-tale, deep violet eyes, Rimmer looked away quickly.
"Hi Juno," he replied flatly.
The GELF blinked in surprise. A wind rippled across its body, shifting its appearance back to a dark, lightly-matrixed, female humanoid form, whilst still retaining the deep, violet eyes. Juno was a symbi-morph. Symbi-morphs were usually tied psychically to a host, using their ability to change their physical form to please their host's every desire. Juno, however, had broken her psychic link. Cast out of the dolochimp service on Cyberia, she had eventually found her way to Galactic Bazaar; prowling the streets, using whichever violent and sexual methods she could conjure to line her pockets with jewels and credits.
"How did you know it was me?" she asked, with a silken voice.
Rimmer kept his eyes steadfastly away from hers. He'd been duped before. Twice. "Let's just say trouble seems to follow you around like a bad smell," he retorted bluntly, pushing past her.
She stood in front of him quickly, blocking his path. Running a finger down his chest, she pushed her body against his. "Oh, Ace. Did you miss me?" she purred.
Rimmer blinked a couple of times before tearing himself away. "Like a hole in the head," he mumbled, pushing past her once more to leave the alley as quickly as possible.
A warm wind swirled past him as he heard her morph behind his back. He slowed then stopped, interest piqued, and Juno latched onto this quickly.
"Arnold," a painfully familiar voice called to him softly.
Rimmer closed his eyes softly. He knew who she'd become even before he turned back to see her face to face. The perfectly-coiffered red, bouffant hair, petite sexy curves, and warm, loving smile were unmistakable. The only difference was the violet eyes.
"Nirvanah," he breathed sadly.
Smiling like a cheshire cat, Juno slinked towards him, running her hands up his chest until they linked behind his neck. "You want to come back to mine for a drink?" she whispered in his ear.
Rimmer's heart raced as his eyebrow and trousers twitched. "D-Drink?" he asked, his usual 'Ace' voice slipping.
Juno smiled prevocatively, pressing her finger against his lips. "Just the one drink," she replied slowly, each word dripping with seduction.
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Two orgasms and one hour-long sex coma later, Rimmer was back on the street heading towards Edge. When he'd awoken, Juno had long gone along with three of his credits; probably to sink her claws into some other desperate bloke with too much cash and too little sense. However, Juno had retained a soft spot for Rimmer over the years they'd known one another, and she had at least had the decency to leave him one credit behind. One credit. Enough to buy the one precious drink he so desperately desired.
The blinking ship guidance lights from outside the glass dome above him reflected in the oily puddles on the marketplace floor as he crossed the square with an eager pace. Even before he'd entered, he could hear the music thumping from the bar - a strange, evolved mix of Garage and Drum & Bass. Swinging open the door, all eyes fell on him before losing interest just as quickly. Rimmer smiled. This is what he loved about this bar. The gaggle of semi-regulars all vaguely recognised his face, some even knew who him by reputation, but very few really seemed to give a shit. It was just what he was after.
He squeezed past a table of dolochimps, creatures half-chimp, half-dolphin in facial appearance, who were animatedly discussing the latest sporting games they'd been laying bets on. Striding up to the bar, his boots ripping like Velcro on the beer-spilt floor, he pulled up a free stool at the panel-beaten metallic bar next to a lone Axis-Syndrome hologram who acknowledged him with a silent nod, and made himself comfortable.
Rimmer leant forward on his arms happily and glanced down the bar. The voluminous backside of the bartender wiggled back and forth, dancing along to the bass of the music, as he bent over, stacking the fridge with a variety of strange and colourful bottles of booze.
Rimmer smirked. "Oi, lard-arse!" he hollered over the music.
The bartender wrenched himself upwards and stared across at Rimmer. He was a GELF, around six feet tall, and mostly rhinoceros in appearance, bar the elongated ears that hung down behind his shoulders. Originally his kind had been created for the grunt work when it came to planet-terraforming during the time that human race expanded further into the galaxy, creating new worlds. Hundreds of thousands of years later, his species was mostly known as hard-working lower-class types.
Darka's grey, wrinkled face pulled into a grin as he wiped his hands on his once-white, grimy apron and waddled up to Rimmer. "Hey, human," he growled affectionately.
Rimmer had tried on many an occasion to explain to Darka that he was a hologram, similar to the guy currently sitting next to him. But with the marked absence of the tell-tale 'H', Rimmer was deliberately designed to appear human for the sake of consistency, and he'd given up on correcting Darka long ago.
"The usual?" the GELF held up a bottle of purple liquid, the label flecked with gold and emblazoned with a series of symbols – an alien language that Rimmer didn't understand.
"Please," Rimmer nodded gratefully and watched as Darka fetched a short, stumpy glass from the shelves behind him. He had no idea what that booze was but he'd quickly developed a taste for it after his first visit to this dimension. Unlike the mind-buggeringly strong GELF moonshines that Darka specialised in, this one went down smoothly and produced a minimal hangover the next day, which was all that Rimmer required.
Darka grinned impishly as he poured. "You've been busy today, haven't you?" he winked.
Rimmer's cheeks flushed involuntarily. "Darka," he began with the air of a saint, palms turned up in innocence, "how could you possibly intimate -"
"Don't give me that bunk, Earthman," Darka interrupted with a shake of the head. "You bloody humans, I can smell it on you a mile off." Satisfied that Rimmer wasn't going to put up a fight, he smiled. "Who's the lucky lady this time?"
Rimmer sighed, defeated, sharing Darka's smile. "Juno. Again," he admitted.
The movement was almost imperceptible, yet Rmmer still noticed. Darka was an impeccable bartender, yet even he almost missed the glass when he heard her name. He shot Rimmer a strange look before returning to the glass to pour once more.
"You need to watch that one, human," he replied quietly. "I hear she's been mixing with the wrong crowd, these days."
Rimmer was going to ask what he'd meant, but Darka had deliberately ended the conversation, turning his back to replace the bottle to the shelves and moving on to serve a Kinitowawi at the other end of the bar. Frowning, Rimmer grabbed the drink sat before him and was about to take a slug, when a delicate yet firm hand stopped his drinking arm from reaching his mouth.
"Are you who I think you are?" purred a voice to his right.
Rimmer turned to the voice, his eyes moving from chest-height upwards to her face. Terrible habit, he really had to stop that. A female GELF, most likely from the Blerios 5 region judging from her cat-like appearance, had slipped onto the stool next to him and was flashing him an incredibly suggestive look with her emerald-green eyes.
Rimmer smiled winningly, unable to help himself, as he moved closer to her without breaking his gaze. "Depends on who you're looking for?" he flirted back, as her tail curled around his right leg provocatively.
Without warning, his world span. His bar stool was whipped around to face the stomach of a very, very tall GELF, who then promptly hauled him out clean out of his seat by the lapels of his jacket to bring him inches from his face. He was the same type of GELF as Darka, he noticed, only a good foot taller judging by how high his boots were from the floor, and built like a brick shithouse. He growled in Rimmer's face, releasing a horrific blast of halitosis.
Hanging onto the GELF's trunk-like forearms, Rimmer grimaced. "Can I help you with anything, shorty? Like a Polo mint or something?"
The GELF growled again, tightening his grip on Rimmer. "You coming onto my girlfriend there, human?"
Bugger.
The GELF was certainly an ugly creature. He sported the same long ears as Darka, but his were nicked and ripped from bar brawls. A long pink scar sliced across his right eye, drool dangling from the corner of his snarled lip and pooling on Rimmer's hand.
Rimmer tipped his head to the left so that the female GELF slid into view. "Seriously?" he asked, incredulous.
The female GELF simply shrugged, hands held aloft, before surreptitiously shifting her hands, purposely maintaining the foot-long distance between them, indicating the size of her boyfriend's package.
Rimmer blinked in surprise before pursing his lips. Fair enough.
The tank of a GELF shook him roughly to gain his attention once more. "You wanna fight, human?" he growled.
Darka had now spotted the pair and hurriedly shuffled over waving his arms, gesturing to the GELF from behind the bar for calm. "Keano, drop it, please!" he cried. He knew all too well what Rimmer was capable of.
Rimmer's eyes lit up. He couldn't resist a bit of action. "Really?" he asked the GELF carefully, keeping his smirk in check.
Darka shifted his pointing finger from Keano to Rimmer. "No! Don't you even think about it," he growled.
Rimmer however was enjoying this far too much. He cocked an eyebrow at Keano. "Love to," he smiled.
Without warning, Rimmer swiftly brought his knee up sharply into Keano's epic package. The GELF dropped him immediately, bent over and nursed his battered genitalia, whimpering. Rimmer immediately followed up by windmilling backwards his fist, catching him clean on the chin, snapping Keano's head back and concluded with a hard, fast sidekick to the solar plexus. Keano flew back across the bar and landed square on the Dolochimps' metal table, shattering it onto several pieces and sending the drinks flying.
Rimmer winced. He'd been aiming for the door. As the Dolochimps stared at the comatose GELF in shock, Rimmer swivelled back to Darka, biting the tip of his thumb.
"Yeeeeaaaah," he began slowly. "I'm gonna pay for those."
Darka's open-mouthed gape quickly hardened into a repromanding frown. "Yeah sure," his voice rumbled, unconvinced, "like the tables you broke when you were here last time?" He shook his head. "Damn it, Ace, if it weren't for the fact that you've saved our necks more times than I can remember, you'd be getting the bill in the post."
The air was now a mixed sound of the drum 'n' bass and the GELF's soft groans, as Rimmer slid apologetically back into his seat. What was it with him? Trouble seemed to follow him around like a lost puppy. His eyes dropped back down to his untouched drink and he exhaled happily. Hopefully now he could enjoy some peace and quiet.
The cold glass had just touched his lips when a blast of electronic feedback lanced through the bar, silencing the music instantly and causing everyone to thrust their hands over their ears, grimacing with gritted teeth.
A loudspeaker crackled into life with an all too familiar voice. "Ace Rimmer."
Rimmer groaned. Simulants. Perfect.
More electronic feedback. "Surrender yourself or we'll torch the bar and everyone in it."
Darka shot him a pointed look. Rimmer knew that he didn't have any decent insurance. With a great deal of difficulty, he replaced the glass on the bar and sighed, sliding himself off the barstool.
"Keep that cold for me, would you?" Rimmer called over his shoulder, as he stepped over the moaning GELF, pushed open the door and stepped into the searchlight.
Rmmer strode out into the now deserted market. His shining, buffed boots squelched over the oil-slicked street as his eyes flicked left and right, carefully tracking across the line of snarling simulants. He stared down the gunbarrels as he moved across, watching in ill-concealed amusement as the gun sights slowly mirrored his slow, confident walk. Finally slowing to a stop, he stood legs apart, arms by his sides. He kept his head angled low, his eyes cast into shadow by his long fringe.
He gave a small nod. "Gentlemen."
A simulant stood forward from the rest of the group and glared at him, one humanoid eye of piercing metallic blue, the other socket harnessing a glowing red light. Hawking back, he quickly leant forward and spat on Rimmer's right boot.
Rimmer's eyes flitted down to the offending spittle before calmly returning his gaze back to the simulant. Years ago, he would have ran screaming for the hills. Nowadays, even simulants seemed about as intimidating as a kitten wearing a sign around its neck emblazoned with the word 'Boo'. A mocking smile inched across his face before pursing his lips into a kiss.
Enraged, the simulant cocked his gun and thrust it towards Rimmer's forehead. "Son of a bitch," it snarled.
"Stand down, number one."
A deep voice, edges distorted by electronic feedback, echoed around the marketplace. Rimmer didn't even need to look to the source of the voice. Still keeping his unflustered eyes locked with the simulant before him, he merely cocked an eyebrow.
"Pizzak'Rapp," he threw his voice out into the cold, night air. Just like aganoids, stimulants had each been blessed with a less than flattering name by their human creators. The humans may be dead and gone, but their sense of humour wasn't.
A low growl rumbled from the simulant in front of him before he reluctantly pulled away his gun from Rimmer's forehead. Without breaking his look of daggers, the simulant backed away slowly, revealing Pizzak'Rapp's seven foot form.
"Good to see you, Ace Rimmer," Pizzak snarled in delight. Half of the prosthetic skin on his face had melted away to reveal the charred, metallic skull beneath.
Rimmer surveyed this, lip curled. "Sorry, Pizzak but I really can't return the flattery with you looking like a stack of shit," he shot back with as straight a tone as he could keep in check. "You should be dead," he added, matter-of-factly.
Pizzak snarled. "So should you," he echoed, with much more venom.
Rimmer rolled his eyes. There was far too much Stilton in that last line for his liking. "Jeez, Pizzak, drop the lines. How did you find me?"
Pizzak's snarl morphed into a grin. "I know you too well, Ace Rimmer," he replied. "You can never keep a low profile in this dimension." He flashed a row of jagged metal teeth. "Or your dick in your pants," he chided.
Rimmer's lip flinched as he stared back hard. Mentally he smacked himself round the head for his stupidity. Juno was working for Pizzak and the simulants.
"Wow," he announced, "Juno's standards must really have dropped if she's on the payroll with your ugly lot nowadays." He cast his eyes down to Pizzak's flat crotch plate before returning his stare. "Shame you're hung like Action Man Jr, otherwise I'm sure you could show her the true meaning of job satisfaction."
Rimmer flicked an eyebrow and smirked. Pizzak's own smirk retreated into a murderous snarl.
"Ace Rimmer you are formally charged with the murder of one thousand, one hundred and twenty-two simulant brothers, the destruction of the simulant ship SSS Balthazar, my attempted murder, and the theft of the Jadestone - "
"Er, which technically wasn't yours in the first place and you know it."
Pizzak pressed on. "The penalty for which is death," he spat.
Rimmer scoffed. "Death?" he shook his head. "Bought the T-shirt from the gift shop on my way out the first time around, thanks."
There was a flurry of loud clicks as the eight surrounding simulants all loaded their guns simultaneously. A playful grin tobogganed across Rimmer's features. This was more like it. Energy coursed through every inch of his being as his fingers waggled, readying themselves for action.
Light flashed across Pizzak's exposed metal skull as he laughed. "Are you going to come quietly, Ace Rimmer?" he mocked.
Drawing in a deep breath and releasing it steadily, Rimmer slowly raised his hands and brought them behind his head in surrender. He'd noticed with a rush of confidence that each and every one of the simulants, despite training a loaded gun on him, had all jumped imperceptibly at his single movement. He smiled quietly to himself.
They were terrified of him. To them, he was a mass murderer.
They just didn't get it, did they? Mind you, in the seven years that he'd been Ace, it had only been relatively recently that he'd worked it out himself. He was no superman. He was no brave hero. The riddle was simple. With no ties to family or friends, coupled with a near-indestructible hard-light body, he was simply a man who had nothing to lose.
His eyes flitted quickly and expertly over each of them, locating the pressure points on their necks, before dropping humbly to the oil-slick street. "Oh Pizzak'Rapp, you know me," he soothed with a voice of melted butter. His hands slowly inched their way down from behind his head until his fingers made contact with the cool, smooth metal of the two guns he stashed in the harness across his back for such occassions. His eyes suddenly snapped back up to meet Pizzak's. "I never come quietly."
The cold night air erupted into a loud flurry of gunfire, which silenced just as abruptly. As the smoke cleared, only one man remained standing.
As the cold, bitter wind howled through the dark market, the tinkling of the spent bullets resonated like tiny bells as they rattled slowly across the street. Two separate clangs sounded by Rimmer's boots, each with a splash from the oily water puddles on the floor, as the two spent cartridges were released from each of his guns.
Panting, guns still held aloft, Rimmer's eyes flitted over each of the stimulant bodies lay strewn across the market. They weren't dead, simply stunned. It was a trick that Rimmer had learnt long ago. One direct hit to the pressure points of the neck where the organic matter met metal, and they went down quicker than a $£20 Titan hooker.
Satisfied that his work was complete, he let his arms fall back to his sides and immediately hissed through gritted teeth. Glancing down he noticed that one of the stimulants had scored a direct hit to his right shoulder, which flickered and spasmed as his light bee fought to restore normal transmission. Ever the perfectionist, he growled angrily to himself, annoyed that he'd allowed them to land a single mark on him.
Swivelling, he noticed as the various life forms slowly emerged from the bars, clubs, and shops, staring blankly at him. Not even bothering to return his guns to his holster, he strode quickly and purposefully through the market back towards Wildfire, his face like thunder. He didn't even need to steer his eyes from his course. The crowd parted for him quickly, like a flock of birds changing direction midflight. Symbi-morphs, dolochimps, Axis-Syndrome holograms, even seven-foot GELFs; all stood to one side in a combination of fear and reverence to allow him to pass.
Throwing his guns into the cockpit, he thumped himself back into the pilot seat and exhaled forcefully.
"Take-off procedure initiated," the computer stated curtly, as the ship's engines roared into life.
Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Oh, computer, don't give me that tone," he huffed, like a hen-pecked husband, as he grasped the controls and guided Wildfire out of the space station and back into deep space.
The disembodied voice from the dashboard sighed. "Ace, why do you do it? You knew you'd stir up trouble."
Ace leant his forehead against the cold glass of the cockpit as he stared into the mass of twinkling stars. For a fleeting moment, he'd have given up everything to be his old self again. The face in the crowd.
"I only wanted the one," he said, to nobody in particular.
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.....and finito! Hope you enjoyed it guys, please review and let me know what you think.