My Third re-write of this story (due to crashes and missing disks) and I've finally finishedafter first starting sometime in 2003!And Miles shorter than the lost original.
Garry2rs 03/07
A Red Dwarf Story
Chapter 1
In space no-one can hear you scream, unless you leave the lid off the salad cream then your in real trouble. It all started when it was The Cats turn to pick the activity to do to break the monotony of traveling aimlessly in space. Choosing to investigate a region that shone and sparkled like one of his many suits, the Jupiter Mining Corporation vehicle 'Star Bug' flew straight into an area that made the craft plummet down to crash into a desert on some unknown greeny-blue planetoid, it was either that or the string holding together the left thruster had slipped its 'granny knot' and the whole thing had gone kaputski.
"So Kryten, what's the situation?" asks Kochanski adjusting her top
"I have checked the state of the engines and they are operational, but"
"But what?" says Rimmer butting in.
"As I was about to say Sir is as Star Bug has crashed and been repaired more times than Evil Knevil, that almost all the spare and replacement parts have all but gone"
"So what's left?" asks Lister
"The only items left are several deck plates, a couple of circuit boards for the air conditioning unit and a whole box of replacement elastic bands for the next time the fluffy dice fall apart,
we will have to go out and trade with the local inhabitants in the vain hope that their level of evolutionary technology is higher than that of the average Skoda, in fact if they had a Skoda we would probably get all the parts we needed out of that"
"Out and trade?" moans The Cat, "It's the gelf fiasco all over again"
"Gelf fiasco?" inquires Kochanski
"Yeah" says Lister replying, "All O.G. units, facial orifices and weddings and stuff"
"Oh! Your wife! Anyway don't you remember your Space Corps training in situations like this? No, you were probably too busy logging on to www dot big juggs to pay any attention. In an emergency situation, you must use any needs necessary within the home planets bylaws to purchase slash barter for the items required"
"Sirs, Ma-am, we should also be grateful of the fact that we crashed on an inhabited planet and not ended up endlessly floating in space like the toilet on 'C' deck that just won't flush, at least this way we have an outside chance of surviving" Kryten then starts pressing buttons at his work station.
"Kryters? Did you just launch the distress beacon?" asks Lister
"It 'is' standard procedure Sir"
"Oh no,no,no"
"What's the matter Listy? Are you mourning after that poor excuse of a weather balloon as you have some secret inflatable rubber fetish"
"Well erm, kinda"
"What do you mean kind of?"
"Let me put it this way, when the original balloon burst way back, and I could only find one erm other 'inflatable' object to take its place"
"Ingrid!" Rimmer calls out in anguish
"Hey I'm not a real monster, at least I filled her up with helium and reattached the distress beacon, ok maybe it wasn't a distress beacon"
"What was it?"
" Ok don't be mad, but the only thing I could find that produced a signal was the radio from the store room. I did at least tune it into Jazz Fm"
"There's always something else. Something to smeg my smegging day up!"
Kryten looks up after finishing his work,"I've just finished my preliminary scans of the surrounding area"
"What's the verdict?" asks Kochanski, "Is it bazookoids at the ready or does Lister have to get hitched to King Kong's uglier sister again?"
"Baggsy its Rimmer!" shouts Lister
"Second!" calls out The Cat
"Hey!" moans Rimmer
Kochanski waits for the boys to settle down before asking Kryten to carry on.
"You were saying..."
"As you know, Star Bug has come down into a desert on the Western continent. The scan shows there is a small town several miles south of our present location but our best bet would be to head East to the nearest road that leads into the town and see if we can't hitch a ride, I'll set Star Bugs cloaking device so its invisible to the local inhabitants" and he goes over to one of the ships computer terminals and enters the code to initialize the cloak.
"Fan-smegging-tastic." Says a dejected Rimmer "Ok lets get a move on then and get it over and done with" and with that he goes over to the airlock and presses the release button. The door psst's open and as Rimmer walks forward, the outside door opens and steps automatically lower down to the hot desert floor.
Hot and sweaty, the gang makes their relatively short journey over to a well worn beaten track of road that shimmers in the heat and disappears into the distance whatever way you looked down it. Old styled vehicles rattle passed as Lister runs up the road a few yards to read an old battered road sign, he wipes the face with the outside of his cuff and reads what he can see.
"For what I can make out, It says 'OSWE' 33 kilometers"
"Where's OSWE?" asks The Cat mopping his brow with a neatly folded handkerchief
"Perhaps we are in pig world" laughs Kochanski
"Eh?"
"Don't you get it OSWE, O.S.W.E it's an anagram of sow, you know a female pig? Ok so it's not quite right but you know what I mean"
There's a pause whilst the magnitude of that joke sinks in.
"Anyhow" says Rimmer breaking the silence, "How are we going to get into town? Do you expect me to walk all that way? I'm not Paula Radcliffe"
"Well, you are fond if Lycra" says The Cat who's starting to get upset, "Come on, Come on, lets get a move on" and starts pacing off the down the road.
"What's got into him?" questions Rimmer
Lister calls out after him, "Cat come back!" slightly frustrated
"Why should I?"
"Because, this truck is going to give us a lift!"
And at that moment, an old rusty green open backed truck with the obligatory caged chickens on the back and white bearded bib and brace wearing, twin of Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazzard old man driving it, pulls up and stops next to where Lister and the rest are standing, he leans over knocking the gearshift and calls out of the open passenger window.
"You fella's need a lift into town?"
"Yes we..."
"What the hell are you boy?" The old coot says roughly pointing in Krytens direction.
"My name is Kryten, I'm a Four Thous..."But before he could finish, The Cat had come back and cupped his mouth with his hand.
"Oh don't mind him" says Lister coming up with a cover story, "He only looks like that because he's been standing out in the desert too long and it's sandblasted his face"
The coot seemed quite happy with this and beckoned the crew aboard his truck.
"My name's Jack, by the way, Hey and what the hell are you!" he calls out
"I'm a woman!" says Kochanski indignantly with hands on hips. Lister offers his hand to help her up onto the back of the truck and she sits down roughly knocking one of the chicken cages causing the birds to get agitated. "Oh, cluck off".
"I'd cover your eyes 'till we hit town if I were you, it can get awful dirty out there, you don't wanna be getting any sand in them"
With a crunch of the gear stick and a jerk, the truck pulls off again and on to the road, the gang obligingly cover there faces which in hindsight of what was going to happen to them was a bad mistake as they didn't see the convoy of green trucks heading in the opposite direction, if they had, it would have been a lot easier than its going to be.