Disclaimer: Anything from Red Dwarf or Monty Python do not belong to me. My apologies to any fans of either series.
"I'm bored."
Cat was lounging at his pilot's station aboard Starbug, poking at a pair of fuzzy dice he'd installed on the rear-view mirror. "Ain't nothing to do on this hunk of space junk. No ladies, no small things to chase, no shiny things..."
"You're bored because you want to be bored," Rimmer answered smugly. "Those of us with keener intellect can find things to keep ourselves occupied in even the dullest situations."
Lister rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it takes an absolute genius to press a scan button every few seconds to look for derelict ships." He sighed and threw his magazine down. "Cat's right. This is boring. Why don't we pop down to the VR room and play a game?"
"What, and just leave Starbug on auto-pilot while we are incapacitated?" Rimmer asked. "What if something happens?"
"Tell me, Rimmer, you've probably scanned for ships 40 or 50 times in the last minute. How many did you find, exactly?"
Rimmer huffed. "Well, nothing in close range. Or long range, precisely." He pressed the button again. "As of this moment, this exact moment, the nearest ship is...5 light years away."
"Right," said Lister. "Let's go."
"How about this one?" Kryten asked. "Better Than Python! Sounds like great fun!"
"What's a python?" Cat asked.
"It's a programming language, used to run shell scripts," Kryten answered.
Cat looked at him with a puzzled expression, then looked to Rimmer. "What's a python?" he repeated.
"A python is a giant, man-eating snake," said Rimmer. "I suggest we play this one - 'Morris Dancing Revolution.'"
"No it isn't," Lister said. "Python is part of 'Monty Python,' the comedy team from 20th century Britain. This particular game is about the movie, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is a comedy about the medieval legend of King Arthur. No snakes, no programming, no smegging Morris dancing. We're playing this one." He popped the game into the reader and the character selection screen came up.
"King Arthur," said Rimmer. "That's me."
"Sorry, Rimsy," Lister said, diving for the character button. "I got it first." Rimmer made a face and looked over the characters again.
"I'll be Sir Galahad," said Cat, reaching for the button.
"You do realize that's 'Sir Galahad, the PURE,' don't you, Mr. Cat?" Kryten asked.
Cat pulled his hand back sharply. "Did I say Galahad? I meant Lancelot." He pressed the button and entered the game.
"I shall be Sir Galahad," said Kryten as he made his choice.
Rimmer sighed. "And that leaves me with...Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Pure-as-Sir-Lancelot, who had nearly fought the Dragon of Agnor, who had nearly stood up to to the vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill. Sounds about right." He pushed the button and joined the rest of the crew in the game. "So what do we do now?" he asked.
"I think," said Lister, "that since we're on multiplayer mode, we've skipped the first bit of the movie. We've just burned a witch on the charge of being made of wood." Rimmer gave him a strange look. "And we're on our way to Camelot."
"So we're on some kind of medieval spaceship?" Cat asked. "I didn't know the Dark Ages looked just like Starbug!"
"It didn't," said Lister. "There must have been some kind of malfunction. Let's reload and start again." He clapped his hands to deactivate the VR visor. Nothing happened. "Smeg, not again!" he cried.
"What is going on?" Rimmer asked in a panicked voice.
"It appears the game has malfunctioned," Kryten explained. "We are trapped inside until we come to the conclusion of the storyline."
Cat looked like he was going to pass out. "You mean I'm stuck in tights and a burlap sack until we can find a way out of this?"
Rimmer ignored him. "So how do we get out of here?" he asked.
Lister grinned. "Finish the game. Find the Holy Dwarf."