Same Old

Written for Writers Anonymous Locked in a Room Challenge

Beta Read by VStarTraveler

Coming across derelicts had become commonplace in the current section of the galaxy; it was a very pleasant change after a number of years of not coming across another spaceship at all, even if the majority of the spaceships currently being encountered were deserted. The ones that weren't deserted were almost always home to simulants, GELFs or mad droids. On finding a new ship, the boys from the Red Dwarf would then explore it to scavenge supplies on which they were in short supply and to combat boredom from being in the same environment all the time. Usually, the ingredients that they scavenged were those needed to make vindaloo since that was what they ran short of on a regular basis; it was, after all, the only thing Dave Lister, the last known living human, seemed to eat.

"So what do we have?" Lister asked, really wanting to get off the ship. He had been cooped up far too long since the last time they'd been able to leave the ship. That had been on a small planet with water, where they'd spent an entire week fishing and getting drunk despite there being no fish in the water.

"The ship is called Destiny," reported Kryten, a series 4000 mechanoid, to the small crew. "The ship is low on everything. The hull is breached in several places, and everything is slowly decaying and falling apart from the exposure. Very limited power remains. It is low on oxygen with very little food and no water. Nothing that would be useful to us in the slightest."

"If there is nothing useful, why are we going on a ship that is a death trap?" enquired Arnold Rimmer, the ship's hologram.

"I don't care if the whole thing is overrun with simulants and GELFs, I just want off this ship," Lister told everyone.

"There are no simulants that the scanners could detect," Kryten informed them. "What the scanners did detect is that all remaining power is going towards maintaining stasis pods. About 80 stasis pods, all human, from Earth."

Cat perked up. "Are there any women?" he asked with hope.

"There are in fact women," Kryten confirmed. "Women ranging in age from early twenties to late fifties. Ranging in race, build, hair colour, eye colour, and," said Kryten, going into one of his rants, "even what you consider the most important for some absurd reason, bust size. Honestly, I have no idea why humans find that so appealing."

"Why didn't you say so? I must get ready. First dibs on the shower," claimed Cat, who then stalked off. They all knew that they wouldn't see the creature evolved from domestic cats for many hours.

"Are you sure they aren't prisoners?" asked Rimmer, always one to be on the more cautious side.

"No, Mr. Rimmer, sir, they all seem to be scientists or military," Kryten continued. "I can't make out everything in the ships log. From what I can determine, they somehow managed to get themselves trapped on Destiny with no way back to Earth. They were put into stasis for three years to cross between galaxies. Something went wrong with the crossing and they've been in stasis ever since. They also must be from a different dimension than our own since they are from a far earlier point in time than both of you, from before the Space Corps program even existed. They are from a subdivision of NASA and the Air Force in America called Stargate Command. This simply does not exist in any form in our times past."

"Well, let's get going, we need to save them," Lister told them, grabbing his bazookoid.

"Mr. Lister, I suggest that you stay behind and allow myself and Mr. Rimmer to go. It is simply too dangerous," Kryten told Lister.

"So it's too dangerous for him, but it's not too dangerous for me?" complained Rimmer.

"I want to know why I can't go," Lister complained. "You get to see the women before I do."

Rimmer perked up at the mention of the ladies in stasis. It had been a long time since they'd seen a woman; in fact, the last had been Kristine Kochanski, who was from another dimension and who was technically Lister's mother. She was no longer with them.

"Most of the ship has no oxygen and the space suit has been leaking for the past couple of years. We really need to fix that before you and Mr. Cat do another spacewalk. So much wasted oxygen," Kryten reminded them.

- Red Dwarf -

It didn't take long for Kryten and Rimmer to find the first lot of stasis pods. Lister had remained behind in Starbug, and the Cat was still aboard Red Dwarf getting ready for the ladies. There were twenty pods to a room. "Oxygen levels are fine in this section sir, and along the hallway to the airlock. Mr. Rimmer, sir, you can begin waking them up and walking them to Starbug," called Kryten. "I'm going to check the condition of the pods in the next room."

Rimmer looked at all the pods, but found very few women in the room. He was wondering if Kryten had exaggerated the number of women present; after all, when he'd been aboard the Nova 5, he'd exaggerated the living condition of the women from the crew. They'd all been dead for a couple of million of years!

Continuing to search, he found a pod with a dark haired woman. She was pretty and looked around his age. He decided that this would be the first pod he activated. He'd activated stasis pods before, but this time was different. The already low power surged in the room as he activated the stasis pod to wake the woman. The emergency lights flickered off so the only light was what was coming from his projection. The door slammed closed and two pods opened up, just not the pods that he was trying to open!

- SGU -

Rush opened his eyes. Everything was wrong; Destiny was not supposed to be this dark. Something must have gone very wrong when they'd gone into the stasis for the crossing.

"Eli?" he called out. Oh, God, Eli had remained behind. "Eli?" He pushed himself out of the pod, going through an odd shimmering light.

"Here," a weak voice called out.

Rush stumbled towards Eli's voice, finding the young man collapsed on the floor. He was outside of the previously broken stasis pod.

"You got it fixed," he asked with slight relief, only slight. Eli was still alive but looked half starved from what he could see projecting from the odd light.

"Only just, found more stasis pods in one of the sections with no atmosphere. They didn't work, but had what I needed to fix this pod." Eli started to explain in detail what he had done.

"Save your energy." Rush told him, placing his hand on the young man's shoulder. "We need to work out what is wrong with Destiny, she's only released us instead of the whole crew. Power is also out."

"Destiny, can we have some lights?" Eli asked.

The lights flooded on, allowing both to see a man they didn't know standing in the room. He was wearing a bright red outfit with an "H" on his head.

"Who are you?" Rush asked, standing up from where he'd been kneeling next to Eli.

"Why should I introduce myself, you haven't introduced yourself?" The stranger questioned.

"I'm Eli and he's Dr. Rush," Eli introduced them, before Rush could start an argument.

"Arnold Rimmer. I come from a ship called the Red Dwarf, we're here to rescue you," Rimmer replied, trying to keep his voice steady but failing.

"We don't need rescuing," Rush replied. "We are capable of saving ourselves."

"Don't need rescuing?" Rimmers pitch rose. "I don't agree. Your ship has been breached; you have very little air remaining. All your power has been going towards maintaining the stasis pods and there's not much in the way of supplies. You're just a little bit up the creek without a paddle," Rimmer replied.

"What planet are you from?" Rush asked, with a lot of mistrust.

"Technically, I come from a moon, not a planet. Jupiter's moon, Io. My parents both originally came from Earth," Rimmer replied. "England, originally."

"People don't live on the moon or planets besides Earth in our home solar system," Eli replied.

"Well no, your ships computer told our ships backup computer that you come from 2011," Rimmer replied. "I came from 2255."

"You expect me to believe that we are over 200 years into the future?" Rush asked him in a disbelieving tone."

"No, you're over 3 million years into the future," Rimmer replied with a shrug.

"Three million years. We were only meant to be in stasis for 3 years!" Eli commented in a panic. "Destiny, is what he says true?"

The console in the corner lit up showing:

3,000,672 years into the future.

No longer in home universe. In another dimension.

That disappeared and was followed by a string of short messages.

No planets with Stargates, no planets with atmospheres nearby.
No food or water supplies. Cannot wake crew till now.
No power to wake rest of crew.
No power to open doors.
All power going towards keeping crew alive.
Red Dwarf can help. They have excess supplies.

Finally, it added,

We have the means to help them.

Rush ran to the door. He found he couldn't open it; just as Destiny had indicated, it was stuck. He was trapped in the room with Eli, who needed medical help, and a man from the future, and they were in a different dimension.

The console displayed new lines,

Hull breached, you will die if door is opened.

Power required to wake Eli Wallace and Nicholas Rush weakened already weak shields.

"Destiny is correct, we seem to be trapped," Rush announced.

- Red Dwarf -

Rimmer didn't like being trapped. Despite being a hologram for well over 800 years, he often forgot that he could walk through walls. He usually chose to not do so in the beginning because it reminded him of the fact that he was dead. He didn't like thinking about that fact since it reminded him that he wasn't really real. He flipped himself to soft light intending to walk through the wall to inform Kryten what had happened, that he'd opened two stasis pods, but trapped the people he'd woken in the process. He made a move to step through the wall, only to find he couldn't pass through it.

He leaned against the wall again, trying to push through, but still nothing happened. That usually only happened to him with the outside walls of ships and floors. He couldn't walk through the outside wall of Red Dwarf or the floors in most places. There were a few spots here and there where the holographic system was malfunctioning aboard the Red Dwarf; the situation had become worse ever since Holly was flooded.

"You're not going to get out that way," the grumpy older man, who he remembered was called Rush, said to him. "The wall is solid. You would have a better chance of pushing against the door. Not that it will do any good, it will kill us if the door is opened."

"That wasn't what I was trying," Rimmer snapped back. "I was not trying to push the wall in, I was attempting to walk through it."

"You can walk through walls?" Eli asked, intrigued.

"Normally, yes. Something must be broken." Rimmer walked up to Eli. He considered trying the grumpy old man, but he looked too angry for Rimmer's liking. He ran his hand through Eli.

"How did you do that?" Eli asked.

"I'm a hologram," replied Rimmer with a shrug.

"Wow! So you're not a real person?" Eli asked. "How do you work?"

Rimmer began feeling along the walls, but still could not place his hands through them. "I'm an electronic representation of the real Arnold Rimmer, who died many years ago. I have his looks, memories, and personality." He couldn't believe he was having to explain what he was. He'd never come across someone who didn't know before, but these people were from an earlier time than himself, before holograms of the dead became common.

"So you look like he did when he died?" Eli asked.

"No, I was in my thirties when I died. I've been aging myself to help preserve Lister's sanity," Rimmer replied, flipping between hard light and soft light. "Dave Lister, he's the only surviving crew member of the Red Dwarf."

"What happened to the rest of the crew?" Eli asked. He was slowly getting some colour back in his face.

"Radiation leak. Lister was in stasis at the time for smuggling a cat on board. That is how I died, killed the whole crew. The radiation leak that is. All because one little drive plate wasn't sealed properly."

"Is the whole crew holograms now?" Eli asked.

"No, Holly, the ship's computer only had enough power for one hologram. He chose me," replied Rimmer. "I've actually seen a whole ship before that was run by holograms. It was an incredible sight. Wish I could've stayed with them."

"Why didn't you?" Rush asked.

"Maybe I will after ..." Rimmer didn't finish his sentence. As much as he complained, his time with Dave Lister and the Cat was short, only a fraction of his life ... death. Then it would be just himself and Kryten unless they somehow managed to get Holly fixed and upgraded to have more than one hologram.

"You being a hologram means that you won't be able to help us get out of this room," Rush pointed out.

"I can help. I can go between a soft light projection which can't touch anything to a hard light projection," Rimmer informed the man.

"In that case, you can help Eli stand at the computer console while I work on trying to force the door open," Rush replied, not at all phased.

Rimmer nodded and helped the younger man stand. Eli felt really light, just skin and bones. He started flicking through the console faster than Rimmer could keep up, and in a different language as well.

Rush had found a tool kit that was near the stasis pod from which Eli had emerged. Dr. Rush soon was taking apart the panel near the door.

Rimmer felt useless, these people would be fine without him. All he'd done was awaken them. Woke them up to die according to how things were looking at the moment. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time he'd woken someone up to die. A young man from Nova 5 had died when he woke him up from stasis. The stasis pod had malfunctioned and only his upper body had been preserved, his legs being skeletons. The man had died of shock upon seeing the condition of his legs.

"This is not good," Eli exclaimed. "I can't redirect any power. If I do the other stasis pods will start failing. We also have an issue with the shield losing integrity in the corridor; the atmosphere is escaping into space. If we open that door in this current state, we will suffocate."

"So we're definitely trapped?" Rimmer asked, trying to prevent himself from hyperventilating.

He let go of Eli. As the young man fell over the top of the console, Rimmer moved to the door and started banging on it, yelling for Kryten, hoping that the mechanoid would hear him.

He heard some banging on the other side of the door a short time later, but couldn't hear Kryten speaking.

"It's in Morse code," Rush replied.

"I don't know Morse code," Rimmer replied with a frown. Kryten was always doing that, communicating in means that he didn't understand.

"Mr. Rimmer, sir," Rush repeated slowly. "Big hole in the hallway to space. Did you get any stasis pods open?"

"Yes, two," Rimmer shouted back. "You need to patch the hallway up. Otherwise they will die when the door is opened."

"Understood sir," said Rush, translating Kryten's knocks.

Rush continued working on the door so they could open it when they were able to leave. Eli was taking an inventory of everything on the ship so they knew what work they had to do to get Destiny operating again.

"What was your job on your ship?" Eli asked.

Rimmer was tempted to lie but had been caught out one too many times in the past about his lies. "I fixed vending machines," Rimmer replied.

"You're all the way in space, and you fix vending machines?" Rush asked in disbelief. "Do you have any other qualifications?"

"Well, no," Rimmer replied. "I wanted to be an astronavigation officer, but to pass the exam requires you to be good at mathematics, which I am not."

"We certainly come from two very different times," Rush replied. "Everyone here has many degrees behind them. Except for Eli."

"I was living at home with my mum and spent my days playing video games," Eli told Rimmer. "I'm only here because I solved this puzzle the government embedded into a computer game. I mean I could get a degree if I wanted. I'm rather good with computers and at maths. But I didn't want to be known as math boy forever."

"Do you know anything about fixing computers?" Rimmer asked. "We sort of lost Holly a few years ago and haven't been able to fix him." He went into a story about the bath that had been left running which flooded the computer room which housed Holly. "We didn't even know the backup computer existed till that point!" he added, finishing the story.

"I might be able to fix it," Eli replied. "But I wouldn't be able to say for certain till I have a look. I don't know how your computer systems differ from our systems."

"How do you still exist if you don't know anything about what you are doing?" Rush ranted. "From what you mentioned, it seems like you're just stumbling around."

"Like you can claim to be doing any better," Rimmer replied. "You'd still be drifting around in space in stasis if we hadn't found you. You should be glad you weren't found by the GELFs or the simulants."

"The what?" Rush asked.

"GELF stands for Genetically Engineered Life Form, and Simulants are mechanoids that are hell bent on destroying humanity," Rimmer explained.

"So what is Earth like 3 million years in the future?" Rush enquired.

"I don't know, I don't even know if it still exists. Lister wants to head back to Earth and find out, but it's been twenty-eight years since he woke from stasis, not counting additional time spent in stasis while crossing dead space.

"What about you, do you want to return to Earth?" Rush asked.

Rimmer shrugged. "I didn't grow up on Earth, so I have no attachment to it, nor to Io where I did grow up. Red Dwarf is my home, and it has been for a long time. It was my home for fifteen years before the accident, and has been for over twenty years following my death, though there was a small incident when we lost the ship for a few years."

He explained to them about the nanobots that had stolen the ship. He was rather disappointed that they knew what nanobots were considering he'd never even heard of nanobots until after he'd returned to the decaying ship and its nanobot crew.

- SGU-

Eli had fallen into a restless sleep. Rush had worked out how to open the door, he was just waiting for Kryten to inform them that the hallway was safe. Rimmer and Rush had been telling stories to each other to pass the time, though Rimmer didn't understand most of the things that Rush was telling him. Science and ancient history and languages didn't interest Rimmer, and Rush had no interest in what Rimmer was talking about even though he understood about military history after working for the military for many years. He also had no interest in playing Risk and thought that having a hobby of collecting twenty-first Telegraph pictures was quite strange.

"Mr. Lister and I have patched the hole, sir," came Kryten's voice through the door.

"Oh thank God! So it's safe to open the door?" Rimmer yelled back.

Just hearing Krytens voice was proof enough that the pressure had been returned to the hallway.

"Well, I haven't died yet," Lister called back.

Rush opened the door, revealing Lister and Kryten. Rimmer was relieved that he wasn't sucked into space or suffocated when the door was open despite the fact he was already dead and would survive in that instance.

"Hi, Dave Lister," said Lister, introducing himself.

"Rush. He's Eli, and he needs medical treatment," responded the older man.

"Good meal and sleep, I don't need the medical bay," Eli replied.

"What happens with the rest of them?" Rimmer asked. "Do we wake them yet?"

"We wait," Rush replied. "I need to work out what we can do for Destiny and wake them on an as needed basis."

"Surely your ship is damaged beyond repair," Kryten said to the man.

They made their way to Starbug, with Lister helping Eli to walk. Rush and Eli were both taking in the damage.

"I will never abandon Destiny. I will fix her by myself if I have to. Then I will work on getting us back to our dimension and time," Rush told them firmly.

"Destiny means a lot to us, we've been through a lot together. She is our home now," Eli added, "even if we never get back to Earth or our own time."

"Just like Red Dwarf is our home, even if we never get back to Earth or our own time," Rimmer told them as they walked past a window where his ship was visible.

"I've never seen a ship like that before!" Rush exclaimed.

"We've never seen a ship like Destiny," Lister replied.

"Even with all her problems, we will remain here till we get back to Earth," Rush told them. "I would die with Destiny before I abandon her."

"Then you have a lot of work to do if you're going to travel on this ship again," Rimmer pointed out.

"This is a situation where we help each other. Destiny said I can help you and that you can help us. She's never been wrong yet," Eli said. "I'll see if I can fix your broken computer, and you can give us supplies that we need."

"As long as it's not my curry or lager, we have a deal," Lister replied.

"We have a deal, you can keep your curry," Rush replied, smiling at the work he had ahead of him.