Dejection
Written for The Rooms 2016 PROMPTAPALOOZA. Challenge 3: Grey Morality
Wildfire was concerned; she had never seen an Ace get like this before, depressed and unresponsive after a successful mission. She'd taken him to a quiet dimension amongst the stars while she waited for him. They usually had a few teething problems in the early days during the transition from Arnold Rimmer to Arnold 'Ace' Rimmer, but it was after a mission had gone seriously wrong. Today had been a good day, they'd achieved what had been set out to be achieved. Usually, once all the training was complete and they had been in the role for a year or two, they were fine. This one had done a complete revert to the man he had been before he became Ace.
"Ace, what is the problem?" Wildfire asked, sounding like a soothing mother.
"Don't call me that, I'm not Ace," the man before her hissed in a nasal voice. A voice that did not belong to the hero Ace, who had a deep soothing voice.
"Yes you are, you've been him for the past seven years, and you've been doing an excellent job, Ace." Wildfire reminded him, hoping that would be enough to boost up his confidence. "Your last mission went so well, I'm really proud of you."
"Oh yes, that last mission was all tickety-boo," Ace replied in a heavy sarcastic tone. "I am not Ace, I hate Ace, I don't want to be him anymore, I never wanted to be him in the first place, I hate him and I hate Lister for talking me into being him. I bet Lister didn't believe I could actually do it. He was just trying to get rid of me, probably thought I would die on my first mission. Why did Ace have to die, the original Ace? Why burden this on me and all the others that followed him before me?
"I am not him, I never was. I am Rimmer. Not Ace Rimmer. I am A. J Rimmer, Second Technician on board the JMC mining vessel Red Dwarf. The A does not stand for Ace, it stands for Arnold. I fix vending machines for a living, I'm not a Commander in the Space Corps. I couldn't get into the Space Corps if I tried. I should know, I did try and I couldn't get in. I failed on more than one occasion. It always made me bitter that I couldn't get into the Space Corps when my older brother could. I can't do this, I'm not cut out for this."
"Ace what has ..." Wildfire started to ask.
"Rimmer." Ace interrupted. "I'm am Rimmer. Don't call me Ace." He threw the wig at the console revealing his curled hair that never sat right.
"Rimmer, what has got you so upset?" Wildfire asked with concern. "You haven't been this upset since you were still training. What happened on your last assignment to trigger this? You rescued the princess and her daughter, only one life was lost. It was a rather prosperous and peaceful expedition."
- Red Dwarf -
Rimmer was getting ready to return to Wildfire after his assignment had been completed. It was a simple rescue mission.
"Thank you Ace, you are my hero," the woman replied. She gave him a passionate kiss out of gratitude. One that he had not returned, he wasn't sure how the other Aces were able to be so intimate with someone they'd just met, merely because they'd rescued them. It wasn't meaningful in the slightest. He found himself craving meaningful relationships, but that was impossible to have when he didn't stay in any dimension or time particularly long. To be able to talk to someone about how his day went, to have a conversation with someone he knew, who knew the real him. Knew when he was sarcastic and could tell when he was putting on an act.
"Ace Rimmer," he heard his name called out in the high squeak of a young man whose voice hadn't finished breaking. "If you don't hand over the Crowned Princess, I will kill her daughter."
The teenager had a toddler in his arms who didn't look like she could be older than three. He was so young, too young to be fighting in this war. Children shouldn't fight, children should not get hurt because of adult conflicts.
"Amelia," the Princess called out, taking a step forward with Rimmer holding her back. He'd just saved her life, he couldn't have her throwing her life away even if it was for her daughter.
"Mama," the child cried out.
"Let Princess Amelia go, young man. The battle has already been lost by your side," Rimmer said as he took a step closer.
The young man pushed a gun into the child's temple. Seeing her child in danger, Wendy fell to her knees.
Ace stopped walking, pulled his weapon and fired before the young man could pull the trigger.
- Red Dwarf -
"I killed him like it was nothing. One minute he was alive, holding a gun to that child's head. Then he was dead, at my own hand." Ace sounded haunted as he told Wildfire what had happened.
"You've killed before," Wildfire reminded him.
"But it wasn't the same. They have all been simulants and GELFs. They aren't people, it's just like crushing space weevils, or destroying a computer. They're not real, even if they look and act like people. I've never killed a human before today, if you don't count accidently killing the crew of the Red Dwarf, but I killed myself in that incident. I didn't hold a gun to anyone's head, they died because I didn't repair the drive plate properly, I didn't know that would kill anyone let alone everyone. That young man, he was human, he was still a child himself, only a few short years away from being an adult. I am old enough to be his father. I should have found another way. I wasn't even aiming for his head. I missed, I was aiming for his shoulder. I just wanted to disarm him, I didn't want to kill him. It was a civil war, neither side was wrong or right. After this conflict was over, he could have had a long life, he had his whole life ahead of him. What would have happened if I hit the child I was trying to save instead?" Ace replied with a whimper in his voice. "I can't do this, I don't want to do this. I want to go home, I want to go back to Starbug, with Lister, Kryten and the Cat. I should have never left them. I can't do this anymore, I don't want to kill another person."
Wildfire watched as the man in front of her curled up into a ball and started weeping and rocking back and forwards on his seat in the cockpit.
"I want to go home," Ace - no Rimmer cried. After all, this was behaviour that Ace would never show. He wouldn't have a breakdown over taking another life to save an innocent person. She'd seen the occasional Ace get upset because they had been too late to save someone.
"Rimmer ..." The computer paused for a moment. "Arnold, that child is alive because of you. He would have killed her."
"No one calls me Arnold, not even my own mother. She only ever said my first name when I was in trouble, always combined with my middle name. I should have found a way to save them both. I bet Ace would have saved him if he was still around. Perfect perfect Ace who can do no wrong. I bet mother in his dimension used his actual name instead of calling him Rimmer like she did with me." Rimmer went into a rant about his childhood and speculating on the differences between himself and the first Ace.
Wildfire listened as he ranted about his parents and his brothers plus all his flaws. Compaired himself to the original Ace and the Aces that came before him; how he could not live up to the legacy as Ace. She watched as he cried again for the young man he had killed.
- Red Dwarf -
"Kryten would be horrified to know that I took a human life, it's against his programming to kill a human," Rimmer said, startling the computer. He'd been silent for a number of hours and had not responded to her trying to give him another mission to get his mind off things. He'd reverted his image back to how he'd looked when he had left Starbug. In the end, she had chosen to just sit and wait. "Cat, he'd ask why I didn't kill myself instead, he really does not like me. He'll be very vocal about not wanting me back if I go home."
Rimmer then went silent again. No sobbing or crying, no blaming himself for everything. No comparing himself to Ace. Just looking into space, looking lost. She'd never seen any of her former Aces looking so lost before.
"What about Dave Lister, your Dave Lister. How would he react to knowing you saved a life by taking another?" Wildfire asked.
She didn't think that Rimmer would respond at first when the silence dragged on.
"He'd want to know the full story," Rimmer finally replied. "He'd let me know I did the right thing in his own way. Tell me that he would do the same. Then he would insult me and try to move the conversation back to familiar territory to make me forget. Tease me about Yvonne McGrudder, or all the times my projection glitches, or his favourite times I failed an exam or our shared experiences."
"You're homesick." The computer was surprised. In all her years she'd never seen any of the Aces be homesick.
"How can I be homesick when I don't have a home," he snapped.
"Yes you do, you said it yourself, your home is with Dave, Kryten and Cat," Wildfire replied.
"Not anymore. I'll never see them again." Rimmer replied with a sigh. "In the future, can we stay away from missions involving humans? I don't like killing people."
"We'll stick to GELFs, simulants, mechanoids and other threats. No more missions that may end in killing humans." Wildfire readily agreed. She didn't know that taking a human life would affect this Ace so much since it had never affected the others like this. Maybe, this one would get to go home. His mission as Ace ... Arnold's mission was not over yet.