Reunited
Chapter 1 – Missing you
Ace Rimmer drummed his fingers on the control panel in front of him and hummed an irritating tune that he just couldn't get out of his head, it had been stuck in there for three days now and he didn't even know what it was. He had no idea what the words were, so he just kept humming the same line over and over again.
'M mer m mer m mer mer, m mer mer m mer mer'. It was driving him crazy. He had spent the last few weeks failing to find any dimension that was even remotely interesting, he had nothing to do. He was bored.
'M mer m mer m mer mer, m mer mer m mer mer'
He had to find something to do and fast or he was going to go insane. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he missed Lister, Cat and Kryten. When they were around at least he had someone to talk to even if all he did was insult them. It was better than this. Alone in deep space in some other dimension with no one to talk to except a computer that worshipped the ground he walked on. At first he'd found it flattering, then it become slightly irritating. After three months he was at the point where he would happily rip out it's circuit boards and drop them out of an air lock just to shut it up. It would give him something to do at well. Killing two birds with one stone.
Unfortunately he needed the computer to take him from dimension to dimension so he could do one heroic deed after another, get showered with praise by thankful people and have lots of sex with beautiful women. Boring boring boring. Where was the fun in all that if there was no one to show off to about it. During the last three months he had had more sex than he would have had in hundreds of his lifetimes. Probably more than Lister had had, definitely more than Cat and he had no one to show off to about it.
It was crazy, he knew that. He had everything he had ever wanted. He was successful, desirable, heroic, handsome, and best of all he didn't have a fairly large metallic letter 'H' on his forehead advertising his status as 'dead man' to anyone who glanced at him. But what was the point in all that success if he didn't have someone whose nose he could rub in it? If he couldn't ring up his brothers and tell them of all his heroics, smugly smiling at the thought of their jealous faces?
Ace Rimmer rubbed is eyes with his fingers and stretched theatrically. Ace Rimmer shouldn't be thinking thoughts like that. Ace Rimmer was a hero, he did things because they were the right things to do, not because it made him feel superior. He let out a long, loud sigh. 'That is because', he told himself, 'you aren't Ace Rimmer. You're plain old Arnold Rimmer and you just aren't cut out for this kind of thing. There's a reason why you were always such a failure, why your brothers were better that you at everything, why you failed the astro navigation exam so many times, and that reason is because you're a useless goit.' He sighed again, his mind was right. He may have finally perfected the Ace Rimmer voice, he may have got used to caring more about his appearance than the Cat, but deep down he was still the same old snivelling coward he had always been. He would never be Ace. Not really. He couldn't imagine the Ace Rimmer that had saved the Cat's life after crashing into Starbug having thoughts like that, nor the Ace Rimmer that had given his last hours of existence to train Rimmer to become his replacement.
'M mer m mer m mer mer, m mer mer m mer mer'. It was still there
'To Ganymede and Titan…' That was it! That was the song that had been plaguing him for three days! That irritating tune Lister used to hum constantly back in the old days, back on Red Dwarf.
He decided to go for a visit.
Somewhere in another plane of existence, a man called David Lister looked sadly out of the viewscreen of Starbug. They had lost a quarter of their crew compliment three months ago today and he missed her. He missed her so badly it hurt. He missed her more that when she had broken up with him three million years ago, before he had died. At least then he'd known that she was safe, he'd been able to see her, even to talk to her.
He missed being with her, holding her, making love to her and he would do anything to get her back. Fate was so cruel, he thought, It had taken her away from him and into the arms of another man, it had put her into stasis for not reporting his bringing Frankenstein aboard, then it had killed him along with the rest of the crew and had him brought back as a hologram, doomed to the torturous fate of seeing her every day without being able to touch her. He had existed in that hell for almost six years before he got his hard light drive, but it had been worth it because he had become the happiest man in the universe and she was the happiest woman. It was a cliché, but when they were together there was nothing they couldn't do, they completed each other perfectly, and now she was gone and he was alone and it hurt more than any of the other things that fate had thrown his way.
Tears threatened to fall from his eyes and he angrily retreated to their sleeping quarters. The sleeping quarters he shared with Kristine, where they had spent countless nights together. Everything on the ship made him think of her. Sometimes he felt as though his head would explode, he wanted… he needed to know where she was, that she was all right. Lister curled up in a foetal position his bunk and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
"Your home dimension is one of these two, Ace," said the computer, "I can't tell which one until we get there, it seems both dimensions linked temporarily and it's led to some problems."
Rimmer nodded, worried, "They're both stable?" he asked in his Ace Rimmer voice. The computer assured him that they were. He stared at the two sets of co-ordinates on the screen, it seemed that the two dimensions were closely linked, but there was a big difference. One was home, the other wasn't.
He took a deep breath, it wasn't a major problem, if the first one he chose was wrong, he could simply go to the other one, but he really, really wanted to get home first time. He surprised himself how anxious he was to get there and see how Lister, Kryten and the Cat were getting on without him. He hoped they were falling to pieces so he could turn up and put everything back to how it should be. He'd have the chance to be the hero to people who actually knew him!
"OK," he said, "Ip dip sky blue, who's it? Not you" On each word he jabbed at the screen with his finger. "We'll try this one first," he told the computer, pointing to the other set of co-ordinates.
"Your wish is my command," said the computer in its sexiest voice and engaged the engines, ready to travel to the selected dimension.
"Something doesn't smell right, bud," said the Cat as he ran into Lister's sleeping quarters. "I don't know what it is, I've never smelled anything like it before."
Lister opened his eyes groggily, "Does it smell dangerous?" he asked.
"I can't tell yet, you'd better come have a look."
Groaning, he forced himself to get up and follow Cat into the cockpit. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, "there's nothing showing up on any of the sensors."
The Cat looked insulted, "Don't you know better than that yet?" he asked, "These nostrils could smell someone taking a dump in the next galaxy. Nothing gets past them, I don't make mistakes."
"Well, if that's all it is I don't think we'll have to worry"
"We could be in trouble here and all you can do it make dumb jokes?"
"Hold on, there it is." said Lister, "I'm reading it, go and get Kryten." Cat turned to go but before he had the chance to leave the cockpit, Starbug began shaking. He and Lister fell to the floor and scrambled to find something to hold onto. The ship continued shaking for several minutes. Once it was safe, Cat and Lister got to their feet and a concerned Kryten rushed in wearing an apron. "A ship's appeared right next to us." Shouted Lister. "I've never seen anything like it before"
"The pilot's trying to communicate." Kryten told him.
"Patch him through, then." Said Lister, hoping it wasn't Simulants.
Kryten pressed a few buttons and a man's face appeared on the screen. His lips were moving but no sound appeared to be coming out.
"Smeg," said Lister, "looks like the comm. system was damaged." He looked at the man on the screen. He looked familiar. In fact he looked very familiar. The hair was different, he looked more confident but there was no denying that if he wasn't looking at his old bunkmate Arnold Rimmer, he was looking at his twin. "Oh smeg." He whispered.
Rimmer's face faded from the screen and was replaced by blank whiteness. Words began to appear as if they were being typed out.
"Looks like I've knocked out some of your systems. Sorry, about that. Permission to come aboard?"
"Who are you?" typed Lister in response. There was no way he could really be Rimmer.
"Prefer to explain face to face. I'll help you out on those repairs at the same time. Permission to come aboard?" Rimmer typed.
Lister glanced at Cat and Kryten, neither of them knew who he was, luckily for them they'd never had the pleasure of meeting Rimmer. Cat shrugged, "We could use and extra pair of hands of some of these repairs." He said.
Lister nodded in agreement. "Permission granted," he typed.