In response to my first Ace fic Only the One, I had a request to write a fic detailing our Rimmer's first adventure as Ace.
A fic-gift for Psychobikerjunkiewhore (she's much nicer than her name intimates, dear readers), and she's the only one that needs to like it. (Plus, I only knocked this up in an hour and a half, so go easy). My dear, I am a woman of my word. ^__^ Enjoy.
"What does that button do?"
"That's for the auxilliary power."
"And what does that one do?"
"That's for the coolant system."
"And how about this one?"
"Leave it alone, Arn! Don't touch it!"
"Sorry."
The computer sighed with the breath she didn't have. This was going to be a tough one to crack.
Mind you, she'd trained worse. The Ace that had just died had been terrible at first. He'd been the pure definition of a coward, to the point that he would have made Mr Bean look like a tough cookie. Yet with her guidance and encouragement, he'd come far. He'd not lasted overly long though - a mere eighteen months - but he'd achieved things that she'd never thought possible. He'd even managed to secure the precious Jadestone from the simulant's dangerous clutches. The Jadestone was the stuff of legend. It was told that it had existed long before humankind, and had the power to bring light to the universe or to wield great destruction. The simulants had planned to use it to power their latest invention - a laser canon capable of destroying whole civilisations in one single blast. The perfect toy for a race built to kill.
Just before he'd rescued the Princess Bonjella, the last Ace had mounted a daring mission to snatch the Jadestone from the simulant ship SS Orion in Dimension 1579. When he'd realised that he was fatally wounded, he'd told the computer that he would have to hide the Jadestone where he'd hoped the simulants would never find it - on a tiny, green, inconspicuous little ship in Dimension 23101986K - reality's equivilant of the arse end of nowhere.
And it was in this final, fatal trip, that Ace had died and recruited his replacement. The butterfly was gone, replaced with the caterpillar once more.
"So what does Ace do all day?" Rimmer scoffed. "Does he swan around various dimensions, filing his nails and trying to find the best place to get his highlights done?" He blew the annoying dangly fringe out of his eyes. "Computer, do I really have to wear this stupid, floppy excuse for a doormat?"
"No!" the computer cried. "I mean, yes! I mean - " she clicked her modem and did her best to keep calm and collected. "No, he doesn't just swan around and get his highlights done, and yes, you do have to wear the wig, OK?"
"Fine, fine," he soothed. If they were going to spend the next few years together - and he certainly hoped it would be years and not minutes as the job description intimated it could be - he needed to try and keep his snidiness in check. "I'm sorry, I'm listening, really I am. What do you want me to do?"
The dashboard sparkled as red and white lights rippled across the surface. "Well, I think the first thing you need to do, Arnold, is hang on tight," the computer replied silkily. "The first time you dimension jump it can be a bit of a rough ride."
Rimmer rolled his eyes. "I've been in a ship when Lister's been drunk at the helm," he said haughtily, blowing the fringe out his eyes once more - a habit that was beginning to grate on the computer. "I'm sure I'll be fine."
If the computer had a face, it would be sporting a rather evil grin. She programmed in the roughest jaunt she could think of - the leap to Dimension 357, the home of Galactic Bazaar. "Prepare to jump," she announced coolly.
Then Rimmer's world turned inside out. His whole body was wrenched back into the cushioning of the seat from the G-force of the jump, the edges of his vision flashing red and black. It was an incredibly unsettling experience; seeing the entire universe, everything that there has ever been and ever will be, dance teasingly in his peripheral vision and whipping away into nothingness, as Wildfire wrenched him away from everything he'd ever known.
The ship juddered to a halt just as suddenly as it had blasted free of his home dimension. As Rimmer's pulsing, blurry vision slowly returned to normality, he clamped his lips together as a horribly familiar lurch came from his stomach.
"I think I feel a Jackson Pollock coming on," he mumbled, looking decidedly green.
A small, red warning light flashed urgently up at him from the dashboard, accompanied by a persistent bleeping. Rimmer blinked. "Erm, computer. What does that flashing light mean? Flashing red lights are never good news, are they?"
"Something's not right," the computer mused. "Something wrenched us out from our dimension jump as we passed through a certain reality." She ran through some cross-checks of her own, hoping that she hadn't screwed up in front of the new boy. But no, everything in her calculations had been binary perfect. For some reason, they'd been forced to stop in Dimension 1579.
Rimmer glanced around the cockpit, his vision still retaining a red tinge. "Computer, forgive me if I'm being thicker than the offspring of a supermodel and a 21st Century banker, but wouldn't you say we were caught in some kind of ship's guidance beam?" He shuffled around in his seat to locate the beam's source. A dark black ship hung silently against the distant stars, growing larger and larger as they were pulled in. "SS Orion? What's their beef?"
Oh smeg.
The computer panicked, attempting to straighten out her programming into some form of logical plan. She never usually let her new recruits within ten dimensions of simulants in their first six months for fear that they'd be squished like the caterpillars they were before they'd had their training.
"Arnold, listen to me. Did Ace tell you where he hid it?"
Rimmer shook his head, confused. "What? Hid what?"
The computer sighed in some degree of relief. "Good, it's best that you don't know right now, Arn. Trust me, it's for the best."
Rimmer's brow furrowed. "Computer, what the hell are you talking about?"
The computer's voice dropped so that it barely registered through the speakers. "SS Orion, the ship that's bringing us on board. They're simulants, Arn."
At the very word, Rimmer's body began to shake. "W-what?"
"They're not going to go easy on you, Arn, I'm so sorry. But you need to be strong, OK? You need to remember that you're Ace now."
Rimmer's jaw slowly dropped as he shook his head loosely. "No, no - don't call me that. I don't want to do this anymore. You - you can take me back now," he whimpered.
"I'm so sorry, Arn. But please don't say anything about where you've come from. Please. Just keep remembering why you're doing this, whatever they do, OK?"
In the last few minutes of freedom he had as Wildfire was pulled, juddering into one of the landing bays, Rimmer closed his eyes, gripping the handles of his seat until his knuckles turned white.
"For them," he told himself shakily.