Author's notes: Yes, well, here's my first fanfic independent of Swing in about a year. Yes, this here's my latest in what I hope will later be many Red Dwarf fics. Seriously, I can't be the only one Back to Earth inspired. Many will say that with new Dwarf, what's the point of making your own? To them, I say, "Bah! Lightweights!" So here's my first attempt.
This takes place between Pete and Only the Good.... If there's one thing I liked about Series VIII, it's the Lister/Rimmer combo we got. The two have finally come to terms with each other, bonding over pranks and whatnot. I'll be honest, when I first heard about Back to Earth, I was rather hoping the Series VIII Nano-Rimmer would be used. Not that I'm not glad the old one was brought back, but still, this relationship deserved to be explored a bit more thoroughly. And I wanted to write something about it.
I recieved much of the inspiration for this story from the opening scene of one of my favorite movies, The Road to El Dorado, a brilliant movie if I do say so myself, and it just seemed to work. So, I put together a little story, slightly utilizing the gambling scene from the "lost episode" Identity Within, and made something that I'm quite proud of.
Then again, it's the middle of the night and I'm tired, so I might feel different in the morning, so let's get this sucker up now before I come to my senses.
Oh, and I own nothing and deny everything and all that bull-smeg. Read and Review!
The Canaries all lined up in their main meeting area. As per usual, Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski were lined up in the front of the group, seeing as how they had proved to be the most competent prisoners during these little expeditions (and that was saying something).
Warden Ackerman sauntered slowly down the stairs to greet the group.
"Alright, Canaries?" he shouted theatrically. "We have a new assignment today!"
"Oh God, don't tell me we have to find his glass eye again," Lister mumbled to Kryten. "We spent three hours with that chewed gum and dental floss last time."
"Today, our superiors have located a strange life sign coming from a crashed starship on the nearby moon, Glazier."
"Glazier," Kochanski repeated. "It's a moon just less than three million years away from Earth. Who's gone and named it?"
"With a name like that? Probably Hollister," Rimmer replied.
"You shall be investigating this crash-landing, looking into what caused it, and then tracking down this life sign so that we may learn more about it," Ackerman continued, not noticing them.
"AND THEN WE GET TO KILL IT!" Kill Crazy shouted madly, causing many of the inmates to inch away from him.
"If you're good, then yes, you may kill it," Ackerman replied, as if he were a patient parent of some sort.
"YEEEEEEESSSS!!"
"Is he immune to aneurisms? What's with this dude?" the Cat muttered.
"Alright, Canaries, let's move out! Hup, two, hup, two, hup, two!"
The marching orders were rather ignored as the Canaries all sort of rolled their eyes, shrugged and sort of shuffled out.
"Excellent! Off you go! Hup, two, hup, two! There we go!"
"He's just like a middle school band teacher: clinically insane," Rimmer mumbled to Lister.
Lister shrugged and headed for the shuttlecraft with the others.
A few minutes later, they were all strapped into the white Canary Shuttle.
The entry about the shuttle in the Canary Handbook had been bleak.
"To prepare you for the toughest hell-holes in the universe, the Canary Shuttle offers cramped, awkward conditions for your short journey from your mothership. Tickets will be issued for departure, but need not be retained for a return journey."
So they were all sitting uncomfortably close to each other in this tiny white craft that was jetting all the way to the crash site on the small moon in the distance.
Kill Crazy was practically bouncing up and down in his seat.
"It's been weeks since I've had a chance to kill something! To take a big heavy gun and blow something up! I want a big gun! The biggest gun money can buy! I want a gun so large that I can blow it to Kingdom Come!"
Everyone sat silence for a moment.
Rimmer cleared his throat and spoke. "So, Kill Crazy, what's your favorite kind of car?"
"Oh, I really like those lime-os," he said.
"You mean limos?"
"Yeah, that's it!"
Rimmer nodded with a false smile before leaning over to Lister. "About what I figured."
Lister snickered.
"Did you remember the cards?" Rimmer continued.
Lister unzipped the pouch on his uniform and pulled out a deck. "You need a deck of cards? Bob's your skutter. Got your stuff?" he whispered back.
"Right here," Rimemr replied, patting his vest pockets.
"Excellent. If nothing happens after fifteen minutes, we break them out."
And Lister put the deck away for later.
The craft landed inside of the pulverised landing bay of the crashed ship.
The doors slid open and allowed the Canaries to pour out. They moved shiftily, swinging their guns about cautiously.
Lister was the first of the Dwarfers to step out, holding his gun unsurely, he quietly brought his wrist to his mouth.
"Hol, what do you think, man?"
"I think you need to brush more. It's like a bin full of shredded paper in there," Holly replied, looking very disgusted by the contents of Lister's teeth.
Lister sighed and pulled his wrist a little further away. "Look, we need you to check out this ship. There's supposed to be a life sign here. Any chance you can take a look?"
"There should a USB port somewhere around here. Try one of the old computer banks. Some of them might still be working."
Lister checked around the room as the others gathered around him. He noticed a small computer screen a small distance away and approached it, aiming the watch in that direction.
Holly appeared on the screen. He sat there for a moment, his eyes flitting in several different directions before he finally seemed to get something.
"Okay, about ninety-five per cent of the ship's computers are still workable. Half a tic," he said.
There was a pause as they all sort of stood there, waiting for an answer.
"Okay, I've got nothing."
"Business as usual," Rimmer sighed.
"No, I mean I'm not picking up any traces of a life sign. The ship's clear. All's safe."
"Then why did the officers on Red Dwarf think there was something down here?" Kryten asked.
"Maybe they had a glitch?" the Cat suggested optimistically.
"Whatever. It means we can leave," Kochanski said with a sigh of relief. "Let's round up the others and get out of here."
"Kill Crazy's gonna be peeved. He had to hoist around a big gun for nothing," the Cat sighed.
They made to leave, but Lister and Rimmer stopped them.
"Not just yet," Lister said, deactivating Holly again. "There's something we've gotta do first."
"Sir?"
"What could you possibly need to do here?" Kochanski demanded.
Lister reached into his pouch and pulled out the deck of cards.
"We've got credits to win back," he said, waving it about in his hand.
"Last week, Baxter and his cronies attacked us and stole half our credits," Rimmer explained. "We're about to win them back."
"And then some," Lister added.
"Win?" Kryten asked.
"Yeah, I'm gonna play Poker to get them back."
Kryten looked uneasy. "But 'win' them, sir? Please don't take this the wrong way, sir, but on a scale of gamemanship from one to Chris Ferguson, you rate a little worse a colorblind mongoose."
"We've worked a system!" Lister assured him. "We're only gonna play against Baxter. Rimmer's gonna be facing away from him, but he'll be able to see the cards he's playing with from a distance with a mirror."
Rimmer pulled out a small mirror from his pocket.
"You're gonna waste a perfectly good mirror on this?!" the Cat demanded, throroughly disgusted.
"Trust us, man!" Lister assured him. "We've been working on this in the cell. We've got it sussed."
Krtyen shook his head dispairingly. "Sirs, really, all this for want of a few credits. They get renewed with every excursion we make. You'd make up for it by the end of the month."
"Kryten, it's a matter of justice!" Rimmer said defiantly. "Those credits were ours, and he had no right to take them!"
"He also had no right to leave you alive," Kochanski pointed out.
Rimmer seemed a bit stumped for a comeback to that, so Lister covered for him.
"Look, stop being such a bloody schoolmarm. We'll get our own credits back and no more, okay?" he said.
Kochanski and Kryten looked at each other with doubt, but in the end they relented.
"Oh alright, we'll give you one hour to pull this off," Kochanski said sternly.
"Yes'm," Rimmer said smugly.
"C'mon, let's go find Baxter," Lister said.
Lister and Rimmer paraded off in search of their opponent.
Kochanski faced Kryten and the Cat. "They called me a schoolmarm," she said.
"So?" the Cat asked.
"You don't think I'm a schoolmarm, do you?"
Kryten looked like a deer caught in headlights for a moment before his CPU beeped and he turned away. "Engage innocent whistle mode." And he marched off down a corridor, whistling.
Kochanski stared and then looked at the Cat. "Well…?"
The Cat was naturally more inclined to answer. "Well, you are pretty strict, but your hair ain't up in a bun, you're not wearing blue, and your butt's not quite big enough."
And flashing her a grin, he headed after Kryten.
Kochanski watched him leave for a moment before she twisted around to glance at her rear end. Sighing to herself, she followed after.
A few minutes later, Lister and Rimmer managed to track down Baxter. He was working with Kill Crazy and some of the other prisoners on digging through a lot of the wreckage.
"Oi, Baxter!" Lister shouted. "Find anything yet, mate?"
Baxter looked from clearing aside some fallen computer modules. "There's nothing here," he grumbled. "We've been searching this whole room for at least five minutes and ain't found nothing yet!"
"Yes, well," Rimmer sighed, "we can't say you didn't try."
"Oh blast it!" Kill Crazy shouted, kicking a wall in frustration. "I was lookin' forward to tanglin' with the beastie thing! I was promised a beastie thing! I wanna beastie thing!" he wailed, waving his gun around the room maniaclly.
Several of the Canaries backed away from him cautiously.
"Kill Crazy, you ever think of switching to decaf?" Lister asked, inching away.
"I DON'T LIKE COFFEE!"
"Wow," Rimmer said quietly. "He's just naturally that aggressive."
"We should probably have him fixed," Lister said.
Baxter tossed a filing cabinet aside, sending it crashing on the floor. "This is useless," he growled. "There's nothing here. And we've probably got several hours to get by."
Lister glanced at Rimmer, who nodded in return before walking away and surreptitciously leaving the room.
"So Baxter, you up for a game?"
Baxter glanced at him through narrowed eyes.
"What sort of game?" he asked.
Lister held up the deck of cards with his most winning grin.
"Poker?"
Forty minutes later, several Canaries were gathered around the pair.
Lister and Baxter were seated opposite each other on two metal crates with a large one in the middle. On the one in the middle was a stack of cards and two separate stacks of credit cards. The two opponents were looking determinedly at their cards. It was clear to all watching that Lister was on the offensive, having several credits piled in a stack next to him.
Across the room, away from the crowd, Rimmer was seated on another crate at an angle, facing away from Baxter. He had secretly slipping the small mirror onto the screen of a small electronic device, and was pretending to be using it, when in actuality he was using it to see what cards Baxter had.
Right now, he saw that Baxter had a very bad hand, as far as Rimmer could see: a four, a six, a jack, a two and a five. Once he was certain that was correct, he went to make the sign that would say "Bad Cards". He set the device down on the floor and picked up his book and pretended to be reading it.
Lister stole a quick glance in Rimmer's direction and then readdressed his cards. Now knowing that Baxter had a dog of a hand, he prepared his own strategy. He had a fairly decent hand: two pair. He mentally figured out what to do.
He placed a couple of the credit cards in the middle of the playing crate.
Baxter saw his bet and doubled it.
Lister managed to halt a smirk threatening to seep through his face, and he met the bet and doubled it as well.
Baxter looked up at him angrily. "You're bluffing," he growled.
Lister merely smiled back in return. "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. You want out?"
"No way."
"Okay then, you want to tell me what you've got?"
Baxter looked between him and his cards before he finally sighed. "Fine, what've you got?" he asked.
Lister smiled and put down his cards. "Two pair. Can you top that?"
Baxter threw his cards aside in disgust.
"That's a 'no' then, is it?"
Cackling to himself, Lister drew in the credit cards.
From his side of the room, Rimmer smirked to himself.
Kill Crazy knelt down beside Baxter. "Mate, he's wiping you out! You gotta do something!"
"Get your face away from me or lose it from the nose down, Kill Crazy!" Baxter growled.
It was unclear as to whether the threat effected Kill Crazy because Baxter just went ahead and pushed him away.
"One more round!" Baxter said, redirecting his attention to Lister.
Lister looked across the room to Rimmer, who was now watching the exchange, pretending to know nothing. He only needed to win one more card if he was going to get their full amount of credits back. He figured they were doing spectacuarly so far, so what the smeg?
"Alright, Pee Wee, you're on," he said slyly, picking up the cards and getting ready to shuffle them.
But Baxter stopped him. "Hold on just a sec," he said.
Lister ceased shuffling, looking confused.
Baxter swivelled around towards the entrance. "Oi, you! Rimmer!" he shouted.
Rimmer jumped at his name and jerked his head around, looking very surprised. "Yes?!" he squeaked.
"Get yer bony arse over here and watch your mate lose a game!"
Lister's eyes noticeably widened with dread.
Rimmer tried his best to think fast. Never was one of his strong suits.
"Erm, well, I was just sitting here reading…," he said, hoping he could stall for an excuse to come to mind.
But Baxter was already suspicious. "You got a problem?" he growled.
Rimmer was officially stuck, so he leapt to his feet, tucking his book away into his vest's inner-pocket.
"No! Not a problem! I'm coming!"
Baxter turned away and nodded to Lister.
Lister smiled a sickly smile as he watched Rimmer approach until he was standing off to the side, almost next to the crate, between Lister and Baxter.
They both felt ill inside.
"Ready?" Baxter asked.
"Ready," Lister replied, hoping he didn't sound too much like Betty Boop. He proceeded to shuffle the cards.
While he was shuffling, he looked over at the other side of the room where Kryten, Cat and Kochanski were watching them with very distressed expressions. He returned their lack of faith with a nervous shrug and watched as Lister finished shuffling.
Just as Lister was about to deal, Baxter stopped him.
"How about we let him deal?" he suggested, motioning to Kill Crazy.
Lister smiled cheerily in return to conceal the fact that he was throwing up inside. They were already quite thoroughly smegged. Did this need to be made worse?
He handed off his cards to Kill Crazy, who shrugged and began to deal them one at a time until both players had five. He then slapped the deck down onto the crate.
They both looked at their sets of cards.
Lister stared at his without letting a hint of expression trespass illegally onto his features. No one could tell what he was thinking.
Baxter, feeling very confident, took five credits and placed it down on the crate.
Lister felt his brow spasm slightly as he accidentally let a small trickle of worry appear for all to see.
Rimmer squeezed his eyes shut as if he were in pain.
But Lister went ahead with it and put down five credits as well.
"I can't watch," Kochanski muttered, looking away.
"Too bad. It's pretty intense," the Cat commented.
Baxter put down two more credits.
Lister winced rather accidentally before he met the bet as well.
"Alright," Baxter said, "that's as much as I'm willing to put down."
"Seven credit cards…," Lister said, letting out a heavy sigh. "Smeg, this could really hurt me."
Rimmer bit his lower lip, considering grabbing whatever he could and legging it.
"So…," Lister continued, "what've you got?"
Baxter grinned and laid out his cards.
"Three of a kind," he said proudly, showing his cards.
Lister's eyes widened as he stared at the three fives accompanied by a queen and a ten. "Smeg…," he breathed.
"So what've you got, Pigtails?" Baxter asked smugly.
Lister heaved a rather reluctant sigh as he laid his cards out on the crate.
Everyone leaned over to stare at them.
Rimmer's eyes widened.
Kochanski still wasn't looking. "What's happened? How bad is it?" she whimpered.
Kryten's eyes zoomed in on the cards. "Goodness me!" he gasped.
Baxter's entire face seemed to collapse.
Royal Flush.
An Ace, a King, a Queen, a Jack and a Ten all looked teasingly back up at him, almost mocking him.
He looked up at Lister's grinning face.
"He won…," Rimmer gasped. "He won!"
Lister couldn't stop grinning. "Sorry, Baxter. I'll be taking those." And he scooped up all the remaining credits on the crate and began to take them in his arms.
Baxter, in a fit of fury, punched a great big dent in the metal crate before just plain old collapsing into his arms in frustration.
"Better luck next time, pal," Lister said, getting up, trying to hold onto all the credits as he headed towards Rimmer. "Rimmer man, here, get yours back."
"Thank you," Rimmer said with a cheerful smile as he began to pick a few of the cards out of Lister's arms.
But a few of them dropped on the floor.
"Oops, sorry man," Lister said.
"It's alright. I'll get them," Rimmer said, far too pleased to be annoyed by something trivial for once.
But as Rimmer reached down to collect their remaining winnings, his vest hung open and his little fake device fell out. But he concentrated on pocketing his retrieved credits first before going for it when another and much hairier hand swooped down and grabbed it first.
"What's this gizmo?" Baxter asked, looking it over curiously.
Lister and Rimmer gulped as they managed to stand next to each other, shoulder-to-shoulder.
"He was holding that for awhile before you called him over," one of the inmates said.
Baxter looked at the little mirror in the screen. "What's it do? This just has a mirror in it."
"Heh-heh, maybe he was checking his make-up," Kill Crazy chuckled.
Rimmer threw a scowl in his direction before he motioned for Lister to make for the door. Lister nodded and they began inching away.
But Baxter was already working it out in his head. He looked over at where Rimmer had been sitting and then at the mirror. Then it came to him. He nearly lost about three brain cells.
"You bloody cheaters…," he said. "You were cheating with this thing!"
Lister and Rimmer halted and froze like Kinkos employees who'd just been asked to help someone.
There was a silence as they tried to figure out what to do about the ten strong and burly inmates that were now angrily encircling them.
Then Rimmer suddenly jumped from Lister and pointed an accusing finger at him.
"I told you this would never work!" he shouted.
Everyone stopped advancing and stared in confusion.
"How could you get us into this mess? You forced me to cheat!"
Lister looked angered as he began to approach Rimmer. "Hey, don't pin this on me, man! This was all your stupid plan!"
"You're the one who wanted revenge! You're the one who suggested the cards! They should beat you up!" he said, giving Lister a foreful shove.
"You're the one who wanted to cheat! They should beat you up! You tricked him and took his credits!"
"Oh, now I'm the thief?"
"Yes!"
"Take a look in the mirror, meladdo!" Rimmer snatched the cheating device from the confused Baxter and held it up to Lister's face for emphasis.
Lister scowled and headed for the wall nearby. "You'd better return those credits to Baxter, or I'll…"
He trailed off as he looked around for something. He saw a long thin pipe was dangling from the ceiling. He ripped it down from it's home and thrust it forward at Rimmer like sword.
Everyone stared in shock.
They were even more stunned when Rimmer merely laughed in reply.
"Very well, Listy, have it your way!" he replied. "I shall give you the honor of a quick and painless death!"
And he wrenched another pipe from off the wall.
Or at least he tried to. Only a small part of it broke off in his hand. He stared at it in bemusement for a moment before tossing it aside.
"Not with that…," he said, gritting his teeth as he pulled harder on the remainder of the pipe and wrenched it off, now getting the whole thing. "We're going to fight fairly."
They both jumped towards each other and came face-to-face, their "swords" clanging as they drew near.
"Any last words, smeghead?" Rimmer snarled.
"I shall cut you to ribbons," Lister replied tightly.
And they were off.
Their pipes were swishing and clanging off each other as they faught, mostly backpeddling their way to the entrance to the room.
For good measure, Lister jumped up on top of some of the crates as he tried to circle Rimmer, but that just seemed to put Rimmer on the offensive now as he forced Lister backwards and out of the room.
Several Canaries began to follow them, intrigued by the fight.
"What the hell do they think they're doing?!" Kochanski exclaimed.
"I believe, ma'am, that they're trying to pull a Bob Hope," Kryten replied.
The "sword-fight" took Lister and Rimmer into a nearby storage room.
They were taking swings at each other, shouting obscenities at each other.
"Come on, you wussy smegger!" Lister shouted. "Show me what you're made of!"
"Such mediocrity," Rimmer sneered. "Let your pipe do the talking!"
"It shall precise and to the point!"
And Lister made an attempt to get Rimmer in the chest, but Rimmer dodged it and leapt onto a box.
Rimmer then took several swipes at Lister, but Lister jumped onto some disused metal crates and began to run along the tops of them, beginning a backwards climb up to the top of the pile.
The other Canaries watched this scene unfolding as they tried to watch merely from the safety of the doorway.
"They're nuts!" Baxter exclaimed.
"They're insane!" Kill Crazy added, and that meant something coming from him.
Rimmer soon had Lister backpeddling all the way up to the top of the crates, and soon, they were both dueling with their pipes at the top, taking swipes at each other madly, hurling angry insults at each other the whole time.
Finally, however, just as it was about to get boring, a crate that Rimmer was standing on suddenly slid out from under his foot, tumbling down the pile. With nothing to balance himself with, Rimmer suddenly toppled over backwards, gripping the pipe tightly, trying stay in the fight.
Lister kept getting closer and closer to him, almost getting Rimmer in the face a couple of times, until he finally, they were in a lock, with the two pipes pushing against each other until at last, Rimmer lost his grip, and his pipe went sailing out of his hand, through the air and, by what some could only call "dumb luck", Lister caught it in his free hand.
After taking a moment to get over the surprise of catching, Lister pointed both swords in Rimmer's direction, who lay prone on the crates in equal astonisment.
The Canaries suddenly began shouting with excitement.
Lister and Rimmer looked at them, and then at each other.
Finally, after a pause, Lister pulled back and gave Rimmer room to get up. Then they both turned and addressed the crowd like stage performers.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we've decided it's a draw!" Rimmer announced.
Lister threw to two pipes down on the floor, where they imbedded themsleves in into the steel panelling.
The Canaries stared incredulously.
"You've been great, see you at the next show! Tip your molestors! Wash behind your ears!" Lister added.
And with that, they jumped behind the crates and vanished.
Everyone stared in utter bemusement.
Finally, the Cat managed to speak what was on everyone's minds.
"What the hell just happened?" he demanded.
Everyone gave a collective shrug and shuffled out.
Lister and Rimmer had landed safely on the floor behind the crates and were now sneaking out a rear entrance. They walked along the corridor with their newly-regained credits in hand.
"Congratulations," Lister cheerfully as he pocketed them away for later.
"No, you were fantastic," Rimmer said praisingly.
"No really."
"Really, that was excellent."
"Yeah… How the smeg do we get out of here?"
"Erm… Mabye it's this way."
Rimmer saw a door and immediately pushed the activation button on the side.
The door slid open and they went inside, but there was no sign of the Canary Shuttle anywhere.
"Hmmm…," he said. "Guess this isn't it."
"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR…"
They felt a hot breath on the backs of their necks.
Naturally, they were both a bit startled, so they slowly turned around to face whatever it was they had found.
A gigantic, hairy, angry-looking creature of some sort was glaring at them, standing at about a foot-and-a-half taller than them.
"Nope, this definitely isn't it," Lister squeaked, backing away.
"Hmmm…," Rimmer said, biting his lip to hold back a scream. "We should've kept those pipes, don't you think?"
"Might've been a good idea, yes…"
This rather tense staring contest continued.
"Didn't Holly say he couldn't detect any lifeforms?" Rimmer asked.
"Yeah…but only in the ninty-five percent of the ship that was working," Lister reminded him.
"Ah, so then this would be remaining five percent."
"Thereabouts, yes."
The creature glared at them for a long throbbing moment.
"What do we do now?" Lister asked.
Rimmer thought about this. "Okay, I think I've got an idea," he said at last.
"I'm listening."
"Okay, here's what we do… You…pet him…"
Lister looked at him incredulously. "You serious?"
"Just trust me on this one. You pet him…"
"…Okay, fine, I'll pet him. What are you gonna do?"
"Well, as you're petting him, I…will…R-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-NNN!!" he screamed while turning and running off further into the room.
"I DON'T SMEGGING THINK SO!" Lister shouted in return as he turned and followed him.
The creature gave a loud howl and began chasing after them on all fours, growling and snarling.
Lister and Rimmer did a full runner all the way around the room, leading the creature away from the door. Once their escape route was open, they fled the room, Lister slapping the door button on the way out.
The creature simply smashed through it, sending bits of twisted metal everywhere.
Running as fast as they could, they made their way through the winding corridors of the derelict, hoping to find their way to safety.
As they were making their way through the corridors, they saw at the end of the hall were Baxter and Kill Crazy.
"There they are!" Baxter shouted.
Thinking quickly, Lister and Rimmer split apart and slammed their fists into door buttons on the two parallel walls, ducking into the separate rooms.
Baxter and Kill Crazy looked at both entryways, momentarily confused.
Suddenly, two doors on the walls behind them opened up, and Lister and Rimmer came out and continued running.
"Look out for our friend!" Lister shouted, pointing back down the corridor past them.
Baxter and Kill Crazy then noticed the creature hurtling towards them.
"What the hell…?" Baxter breathed.
"At last…," Kill Crazy whispered before nearly going thermonuclear, "AT LAST, SOME ACTION! LET'S KILL THIS SUCKER! YEA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-AHH!"
And with that Kill Crazy pulled his very big gun (which he wasn't using to compensate for anything, no sir) and opened fire on the creature.
After a few more minutes of running, because really, you can never be too careful, Lister and Rimmer finally managed to locate the room where the remainder of the Canaries was already filing in.
Kryten, Cat and Kochanski looked up when they came in.
"Oh sirs!" Kryten exclaimed. "We were so worried! Where have you been?!"
"Oh, made a new friend, then we went for a jog," Lister said, catching his breath.
"Yes, we heard Kill Crazy's demonic yell a couple minutes ago," Kochanski said. "Dave, what made you two think you were going to get away with that?"
"What are you talking about?" Lister protested. "Everything went exactly as planned!"
"Right," agreed Rimmer, before he paused in contemplation. "Well, except for being chased by the deranged creature. That, we had to improvise."
"Yeah, we just can't plan that kind of a con in advance."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up!" the Cat exclaimed. "You mean to tell me the whole thing was set up?!"
"You bet!" Lister said. "We'd been planning this for the past couple of weeks."
"That whole pipe thing had been a fallback plan," Rimmer said. "I set them up while Lister convincing Baxter to play."
"We put mirrors in all of Rimmer's props."
"And we spent at least three hours a day working out that whole fight."
But the others were having trouble processing this.
"Wait, you've been… All this time, you've… you've been planning…," Kochanski was having a big problem coming to terms with this.
Lister shrugged. "Hey, two guys in a prison cell all day… You come up with a few things."
Just then, Baxter and Kill Crazy came staggering out of the hatchway into the room.
Everyone stared at them.
Both their Canary uniforms were bloodstained, and Kill Crazy was cheerfully toting around a large furry arm.
"This little bastard's gonna look right decent in my cell!" he was saying, positively delighted. "Put a nice little doily on it, it'd make a nice coffee table."
Baxter nodded, slightly perturbed by his friend's habits, and then he noticed Lister and Rimmer.
"Right, there you two are…," he growled.
"Yeah, cheers for luring this little mite out of its hidey-hole," Kill Crazy said cheerfully. "I tell you, without killing nothing, I was bound to go spare. Great form of stress relief."
Baxter approached them, cracking his knuckles.
But Lister already had a plan in his head. "Now, now, guys, wait a minute, there's no need to mention us in the report! You can tell them you both caught and bagged that thing yourselves! Right, Rimmer?"
"They can?" Rimmer asked, looking confused, but thankfully he clued in. "Oh! Yes! Of course you can! You can claim all the credits for this one! In fact, if you'd be willing to give a small sample of that arm to the research lab, I'm sure you'd get at least… How many credits, Kryten?"
"Oh, I'd wager at least sixteen between them, sir," Kryten supplied.
"There! You see?" Lister said, clasping his gloved hands together. "We get back the credits you stole from us, and you get some extra ones of your very own! Everyone wins! We square?"
Baxter stopped approaching and contemplated this.
"Alright, we're square," he said begrudgingly. "But don't ever pull something like that again, or your teeth will be joining Ackerman's glass eye down the drain, understand?"
"Understood!" Rimmer said nervously.
"Yeah man, totally understood!" Lister added.
"Right. Come on, Kill Crazy. That thing's starting to smell."
"Aw c'mon!" Kill Crazy cried. "It's just getting a bit of character!"
And they lumbered past into the Canary Shuttle.
There was a silence.
"Man, my nose hairs are doing summersaults," the Cat grumbled, climbing into the shuttlecraft.
"Nice one, man," Lister sighed. "Let's get the smeg outta here."
Rimmer nodded, feeling very tired.
And they both climbed into the shuttlecraft.
But Kochanski was still blown away about it.
"Kryten, I thought they hated each other. How is it now that we're in prison, they're suddenly like best mates pulling a prank on a schoolyard bully?"
"Well, I'm just hypothesizing, ma'am," Kryten said, "but my best educated guess would be that with Mr Rimmer's memories reset to before the accident, being jammed into a jail cell together for several hours, and with neither Mr Rimmer no longer in place to keep Mr Lister sane, they have become partners in crime, as it were. Down here in the Tank, we have become people who are, in a way, on his side. He has chosen to accept Mr Lister."
Kochanski nodded as she headed for the shuttlecraft.
"So by just accepting him, it's changed things between them?"
"Well, obviously not extremely, ma'am. Mr Rimmer hated Mr Lister because Mr Lister hated him. But he hates being low on the chain of command even more, so down in the Tank, where for the first time he's free of those restraints, he has the chance to bring the officers down a peg or two."
Kochanski smirked. "After that basketball game, it'd be quite more than two pegs," she grinned, stepping into the craft.
Once Kryten was inside, he activated the auto-pilot, and the shuttlecraft took to the stars back to Red Dwarf.
"We're on our way, everyone. Good work, sirs and ma'am. No fatalities today. Excellent."
Everyone nodded in approval as the mech went to sit with the Cat.
Kochanski plomped down next Lister and Rimmer, both of whom were going over some diagrams of some sort.
"What are you two boys up to?" she asked wearily. "Plotting another con?"
"Nah, going for something a bit more basic," Lister replied.
"What's that then?"
"Well you know that parole hearing we've got on Thursday? Rimmer's gonna apply for a job working for the Captain. Being his personal assistant and whatnot."
"What's that going to do?"
"Well, he's got that Yellow Fever, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, since he's reeling from that, Rimmer can distract him while Bob and I reprogram the candy machine in front of his quarters to dispense carrots instead of chocolate bars."
Kochanski stared at them. "That's your plan."
"We'll put in an override so we can get chocolate for ourselves."
"Yeah, so long as the damned machine doesn't try to rat us out," Rimmer muttered, still going over the diagrams.
Kochanski couldn't help but smile as they looked like to eager kids going over designs for a fort. She mused on how your best friend could be right next to you and you might never even know it…
END