The Red Dwarf crew had been running low on meds and food for the last two months. They've been looting ships and getting handouts however they could. Lister was all too proud to be petty, but for Rimmer it was nothing new.
"We must've been to every ship, every planet by now." Lister sighed aloud. He sat in the common room, staring at what may be the last bit of curry he had.
Alarms began to wail. Red Dwarf's autopilot had found something on their radar: Something new. Everyone piled into the drive room and assumed their usual positions.
"What the smeg is that?" Lister wondered.
"I'm not sure, sir. The readout says 'Dreadnaught'." Kryten replied.
The name alone already had Rimmer's stomach in knots. It looked like an abandoned station just floating out in space. It was partially destroyed. There was no telling who or what did it.
"Never heard of it." Lister said.
Over the last few weeks they've discovered loads of planets and stations that weren't even on the map. This was the twentieth one so far.
"I think maybe it was meant to stay that way." Rimmer said to Lister. "Either way we should keep moving."
"Now hold on! There might be something left on it."
"Lister, look at it! It's tattered, there's no way even a microbe of food made it through whatever happened on there!"
"There is a beacon, sirs. There could be survivors on board." Kryten told them.
"See?" Lister said as he looked back to see Rimmer giving him that same stare of contempt he always gave him. "We're going."
He hopelessly shook his head. "Nope. We're staying on course." He firmly stood his ground.
"Rimmer, don't argue with me." he chided.
"As your superior—"
Lister sighed exasperatedly, "Here we go."
Rimmer glared at him once more before retrying his futile attempt to pull rank. "As your superior, what I say goes. And I say... we're not going!"
Lister took a deep breath. "Show of hands: All in favour of staying alive?" He and Cat raised their hands. "All in favour of dying a slow, needless death?" Then they put their hands down. "Two to zero. We win."
"Well, of course Bog Bot and I won't object! We can't die of starvation!" he exclaimed.
"That's not exactly true, sir. Since you and Mr. Lister are connected, in a way, if he dies of starvation or say of an untreated infection, you'll also die."
Rimmer looked dumbfounded as Lister just sat there and grinned.
"Human: One. Hologram: Zero." Lister smugly said.
Rimmer sighed. "Fine, but I'm staying here. I'm not setting foot on that thing."
"Even better." He grinned.
The three of them left on Starbug to go aboard the station, leaving Rimmer by himself on Red Dwarf like he insisted. He decided he'd stay on Red Dwarf, manning the radio in case there was an emergency. It wasn't often that he had time to himself, sharing a bunk with Lister and living with two other unbelievable gits. He felt like he was back in his childhood days, feeling totally and utterly alone. As much as he couldn't stand their company, he couldn't stand their absence either. He sat at the cockpit's radio console, slowly becoming bored and staring at the walls. It felt like hours had gone by when, in actuality it had only been thirty minutes.
"How are you holding up, sir?" Kryten asked over the radio.
Hearing his voice in the dead silence startled him; he jumped out of his hologrammic skin. After he caught his breath from irrationally panicking, he replied, "I'd be better if we got moving. How much longer?"
"You wanted to stay behind, Rimmer. That's on you." Lister chided. "Anyway, we'll be back soon. Just making one last sweep before we go."
Rimmer sighed as he fell back in his chair. If it weren't for the fact that they needed the supplies, and if everyone else wouldn't be cross with him, he would've left them behind a while ago. Plus that one minuscule fact that he, too, would die if anything happened to Lister. On the other hand he was trying to be less of an asshole, less of a coward, and more noble.
He leaned over the console and spoke into the radio, "Lister, if you're all not back in fifteen minutes..."
"I told ya, we'll be ba—" Then there was static.
Fear washed over Rimmer's face. "Lister?" He started to panic. He tried again. "Anybody, do you read me?!" But there was still no reply.
Out of nowhere something struck the side of Red Dwarf, causing it to rattle slightly and lose power for a short moment. Rimmer screamed out and hid under the desk. When he found there was no imminent doom, he crawled out. From what he could see on the glitchy monitors, there didn't appear to be any structural damage to the ship or meteors in the area. He smacked the console to make the monitors come in clearer. Still nothing. He grabbed a hold of the stress toy Kryten recently gave him; it squeaked with every squeeze.
"What the hell was that?!" he demanded to no one.
Suddenly, he heard a knocking sound. It seemed to be coming from the air lock. "It couldn't be them already." he thought. He mustered up the courage to head to the air lock and see what it was. Although it wouldn't be much of a weapon, he brought his stress toy along with him. At least, by throwing it, it would make for a distraction.
Cautiously, he made his way to the air lock. Every little noise or shift in the ship's structure frightened him. Even his own footsteps sent his heart racing up until he realised it was only him. He rolled his eyes at how ridiculous he was being.
The knocking continued the entire way there. Suddenly, it stopped just seconds before he got to the door. Looking completely perplexed, with one arched eyebrow and while crinkling his nose, he peered into the window of the door. Nothing was there.
"Great, I've gone space crazy." he thought aloud.
A being shot up into view. Rimmer screamed in terror and stumbled backwards, all the while putting his hands up as if he were going to do some sort of karate. He backed up so far that he wound up hitting the corridor wall. He grasped the wall, which scared him a bit as well. When he stopped to get a better look he began to calm down. He was more confused than anything else. It was a human: A female human.
"Well, are you letting me in or what?!" she asked. She spoke with a Welsh accent.
"What?" he asked, incredulously. He didn't understand how she got into the airlock without anyone else opening it.
"Let.. me.. in!" she snapped.
He was more or less asking from being lost about the whole situation, not asking her to repeat herself. He could hear her just fine.
"A-are you dangerous?" he quivered.
"Does it look like I am?" she sarcastically asked.
This is why he somewhat hated the Welsh. They were always so rude. Although maybe he just had a knack for bringing it out of them.
He walked up to the door again to get a closer look at her. The name on her suit read Harkness, but he wasn't sure how credible that was. For all he knew she stole it from someone else. It wasn't a normal space suit either. It looked like it was meant for combat. It wasn't military grade, at least not the military he knew of. She was carrying some technology he'd never seen before as well. The main thing he noticed was some kind of leather wrist brace.
"How do I know you won't kill me?" Rimmer asked.
She tilted her head slightly. "Judging by the giant H on your forehead you're already dead, right?"
He was about to go on a tangent about how his death three million years ago was better than someone whom had lost all control of their bodily functions. She took her helmet off, finally revealing her face, which distracted him. He was somewhat stunned to see how gorgeous she was; medium brown hair, bright blue eyes, skin like a porcelain doll. She looked into his hazel eyes, knowing that gaining his trust wouldn't be easy. He'd just have to take her word for it.
"Look," She held out her arms. "I'm unarmed: I'm harmless. Unless you flush me out of the air lock. In which case you'll be in for a world of hurt."
His face scrunched up as thought about letting her in for all but a second. "You'll have to be more compelling than that. Sorry." His hand was hovering over the open button.
"Wait!" she yelled. He stopped. Frantically, she tried to think of something compelling. "I— hang on." She ducked down for a brief moment. The sound of electricity buzzing; a blue glow emitted from the air lock. She popped back up. "I've got holographic pizza. Just for you."
His eyes darted from the pizza box to her, back and forth for a few seconds. "What kind is it?" he asked with a look of perplexity. He was beginning to wonder how she got it without going anywhere. She opened the box to show him. It was a pepperoni. "Too bad." he thought. His favourite was quattro formaggi with extra olives. However, with Legion giving him a hard light drive, he felt everything a living person would, including hunger. He was starving, and food was food.
He shrugged. "Good enough."
He opened the air lock door, and she waltzed on in, looking up and down the corridor. He snatched the pizza box away from her, and proceeded to eat. He watched her come inside; he had a big mouthful of pizza. She extended her hand to shake his. He quickly shoved the last big bite of pizza into his mouth, practically gagging on it, and shook her hand.
"Aria Harkness." She looked him up and down. "And who are you?" she asked, flirting with him right off the bat, even though he was hardly sexy at that particular moment. He was fraught and greasy from the pizza.
He swallowed his food, and stood tall. "Arnold J. Rimmer, Senior Officer of the JMC mining ship, Red Dwarf." Out of habit he saluted her.
She gave him a confused stare. "At ease, soldier." Aria chortled. She didn't know how else to respond. "You're going to be interesting." she thought to herself. Regardless, she was grateful to even be on the ship. "Thank you for letting me in." she sighed as she began walking away.
He hurried after her, just to make sure she wasn't going to off to misbehave. "Ah, excuse me?"
She stopped walking and turned around.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.
"Drive room is up there, yeah?" She pointed ahead.
He nodded.
She looked at him; her eyebrows raised, and she quickly smiled. Then she turned back around to head for the cockpit. He still followed her. She felt uncomfortable, but she knew why he was closely stalking her. He didn't trust her enough to be meandering about on her own.