Author's Note: I've been wanting to write a Red Dwarf / Doctor Who crossover for some time now, but I couldn't think of a decent plot to make it work, but recently, this little plot-bunny set up camp in my head, and since I have a little time, I thought this'd be fun. What if Rimmer's escape pod in "Rimmerworld" had instead taken him to Trenzalore, right when the Doctor's arrival on Christmas starts, and he ends up becoming his companion for the next 900 years.
Rimmer desperately got out the last thing he would say to his crewmates for at least another eight lifetimes. It was absolutely vital they know exactly what he thought of them.
"You are total, total, complete and utter, total, total, complete and utter bunch of bastards!" he snapped.
He wasn't sure whether or not the whole message had gotten through. Their smirking faces had dissolved into static and interference. The escape pod began to shake and wobble as it expected the usual turbulence from the wormhole. How they hadn't noticed the wormhole last time they were here was beyond him. The shaking started getting worse, so he strapped himself in, gripping the armrest with one hand and grinding his Chinese Worry Balls with the other.
This was all Lister's fault, the miserable goit. He'd been sneaking around their backs and lying to them for a week, hiding the fact that Starbug had a damaged reverse fuel tank so he wouldn't cause any alarm. The way he'd admitted it – like it was the most obvious course of action. Lie to your crewmates about the ominous danger they were in instead of discussing the matter and working out a slightly more sane course of action that didn't involve endangering everyone's lives by trapping them in a collapsing Simulant death ship – of course that's what you do, Listy, you simpering walking undergrowth. You're such a wonderful hero, Listy. Now I'm stuck on an escape pod traveling through a wormhole, destined to spend at most six hundred years on my own, stranded and likely to go stark raving mad, you fetid son of a whoremonger's bitch.
Rimmer didn't want to admit this was his own fault. He'd had a perfect opportunity to save his crewmates from that Simulant. Just fire the bazookoid and blast it apart. Instead, he'd spent his time trying to get into the escape pod. Still, the ship-quake caused during its launch had given them the distraction necessary to escape with the teleporter – which, okay, Rimmer hadn't really planned, but he didn't care one way or the other – so he didn't see what they'd been so snippy about. As far as he was concerned, he'd saved them from death.
The pod continued to groan and shudder the entire trip through the wormhole, and all he could think about was how massively unfair this was. His would-be "heroics" had only gotten him, as Kryten would put it, up Diarrhea Drive without a saddle. That rotten droid – it was his fault, too. He should've put his foot down with Lister and refused to let Rimmer onboard the Simulant ship. Then the others would've all been killed by the Simulant, and he'd have been able to escape in Starbug. It was just so unfair that he'd been stuck in this mess.
The rumbling and vibrations got worse, and he wasn't sure how he'd be able to endure all this. But then there was an even louder rumbling that bounced him around, making him wonder if this is what a pinball feels like when the pinball machine is being put through an industrial-sized tumble dryer. He managed to keep his innards on the inside – not that he had any – before managing to look at the tiny monitor that passed for an onboard computer. The end of the wormhole was coming up. It was almost time to enter normal space. Just a few more seconds to go and…
The shaking finally ceased into a low rumble, and he continued to grind the balls to calm his nerves. He couldn't see anything outside. The pod had no windshield. Swallowing heavily to keep the bile down, he reached over and tapped a couple of commands on the monitor. The pod was designed to home in on the nearest S3 planet. He wasn't hopeful, but maybe he'd luck out and find a planet with life.
To his surprise, however, when he opened the monitor, he saw that there was some sort of transmission trying to get through. Was someone on the planet trying to contact him? Feeling a surge of excitement, he stabbed the transmission button. "Hello?" he asked hopefully. "This is Arnold J Rimmer of the Jupiter Mining Corporation transport vehicle Starbug. Am currently in an escape pod about to crash land on the planet's surface. Please assist. Over."
Releasing the call button, he pressed the one next to it to hear the return transmission. The reply was not what he thought it would be. It was a very strange ghostly noise. Three tones gurgling away in a repeating cycle. His eyebrows collided in confusion. He had no idea what it was, but something in the pit of his stomach told him to be very scared. Pressing a few buttons here and there, he deactivated it and checked out the navigation computer to see where he was going.
There was definitely a planet ahead, and the transmission was definitely coming from it. He looked closer and saw something that made his stomach do backflips. There were other ships surrounding it. Lots of them. And from what he could determine, most of them were armed to the teeth. What would they make of him puttering by in his one man pod? Maybe they'd mistake him for a small family traveling to Sunday mass?
A few zoomed around him, but none attacked him. No one was fighting. They were just parked in orbit. What was that about? He couldn't figure out who they were. The pod couldn't scan for ident details, so he didn't know if they were hostile or not.
Moot point. He was now accelerating towards the planet. Crossing his fingers he'd landed in something soft, he clenched the balls and closed his eyes.
There was a loud crash as he was violently tossed around. He held on tight and yelled out in a much undignified manner, tumbling like a bowling ball. He lost his grip on the balls and settled for just hugging himself until he felt he might dislocate his shoulders in the process. After a few more seconds of rolling, he finally came to a stop, the pod having come to a rest on the planet, wherever it was.
He decided it was safe to open his eye.
When he did, he found that he was upside down. Grumbling to himself, he reached over and slapped the door button. Once the computers decided he was in a safe location, the pod doors slid open, revealing a night sky filled with fascinating stars and a blizzard sweeping across the ground. Without thinking, he undid his safety harness and promptly fell headfirst into the snowbank.
Staggering his way out into the night air, his teeth chattering from the cold, he hugged himself tightly for warmth and climbed out of the pod into the woods he'd arrived in. He tried to see if there was anywhere to go, but there didn't seem to be any sign of life. He looked back at the pod. He poked his head inside and saw the worry balls sitting on the floor. Looking at them disparagingly, he nevertheless scooped them up again.
He threw a glance at the transmitter again, and he saw the message was still coming. Irritated, he turned it back on, hoping maybe it had cleared up, and when he listened, he was very startled. The ghostly wail had now become a male voice speaking perfect English.
"Doctor who…? Doctor who…? Doctor who…? Doctor who…? Doctor who…?"
Rimmer just stared at it blankly. What on Io was it gibbering about?
After waiting about a minute to see if anything else would be said – and there wasn't – he switched it off and decided to get walking. He had to get out of these woods and see if there was any sign of civilization. Maybe someone could help him repair the pod and get back through the wormhole? Clapping his arms for warmth, he staggered out of the pod and back into the woods.
Author's Notes: Just a little something to get us started. Going to develop this more in the weeks to come. I imagine once the next semester starts up, I'll be looking for distractions, so hopefully, this'll help me.