For once, things had almost gone their way.
The planetoid they had come across was essentially a giant beach. It was hot and mostly composed of sand and water, by the looks of things. Ideal for a holiday, Lister had thought, choosing to ignore the fact his life was already one long slog-fest.
And for a while, it was good. The atmosphere allowed him to breathe without much discomfort and the gravity was excellent for volleyball, given that it allowed him to jump double what he could manage usually. The water was cool and was apparently devoid of any kind of dangerous marine life. Lister had thought, perhaps foolishly, that he would be more than content to live out the rest of his existence on the planetoid. It was everything he had ever wanted. It was paradise.
But there was no such thing as paradise, of course. Not for them.
Kryten was contentedly sweeping sand off Starbug's metal stairs. Rimmer was sat in the shade of a palm tree attempting to read a book on astrophysics, his brow creased with utter confusion. Lister and Cat, the former dressed in a horrific Hawaiian shirt and the latter in a gaudy swimsuit, were taking advantage of the weak gravity to build impressive sand sculptures. Cat's, of course, was a grainy effigy of himself. Lister's was vaguely shaped like a curvaceous woman.
Neither of the pair felt the blast. They continued shaping and sculpting quite contentedly, occasionally exchanging competitive remarks. However, Kryten and Rimmer, both being entirely electronic beings, were unfortunately subject to the sudden electro-magnetic force that pounded the planetoid mercilessly for a few short seconds.
Lister leapt to his feet when he saw Kryten awkwardly stiffen and topple down the staircase into the sand below. Thinking that the heat had fried the mechanoid's circuits a second time, he grabbed his bucket of water and raced over to where his friend was prone and twitching.
"Krytes? Can you hear me, man?" he asked quickly, chucking the water down onto Kryten in an attempt to cool him off. It didn't seem to help, as the poor robot suffered several sparks of electricity out of his spinal column as a result. Aghast, Lister grabbed him by the shoulders and managed to pull him into a seated position. "Kryten!"
"Mi mi mi mi mi mi," the mechanoid managed, his head twitching violently at each malfunction in his artificial voice box. He flopped backwards, purposefully slamming the rear of his head onto Starbug's bottom step. "Mister Lister! Something has disrupted a portion of my brain! Something is emitting electro-magnetic pulses."
"Blimey," Lister said, disturbed by the news. He wasn't booksmart but he had long learnt to avoid anything in space that would mess with their equipment. Apparently, they had missed any sign of danger when landing on the planetoid the day before. "You gonna be all right? D'yeh need me to open you up again?"
Kryten held his rubber head in his hands for a moment. "Running diagnostics. My sense of direction is apparently malfunctioning – more specifically, my ability to tell left from right. Thankfully, the pulse wasn't strong enough for my systems to conduct a full shut down. I would be more concerned about Mister Rimmer."
Brow furrowing, Lister quickly turned to where Rimmer had been sat mere moments ago. All that was left of him was his light bee, which had dropped quietly onto the grass and moved no longer. He might have actually been concerned if the tiny projection unit belonged to anyone other than the smeghead he shared sleeping quarters with. Regardless, he made his way to the base of the tree and recovered the light bee, turning it about in his hands and then shaking it.
"Hey, guys, I've got good news. This holiday just got ten times better!" he called back to Cat and Kryten, smirking. "Is he gonna come back on, Krytes?"
"You could certainly force a reboot if you turn that little black switch to the left – no, the right – oh, I don't know!" Kryten responded, quickly becoming emotional as his sense of direction failed him. "If he was fortunate, the unit shut itself down to avoid any major damage, in which case you will have to turn it to the … to the ..."
To avoid any more upset on the mechanoid's behalf, Lister moved the black switch on the light bee to the right, then tossed the unit outwards so that Rimmer could reform. He didn't. Instead, the bee plopped back into the sand uselessly. Lister grabbed it and tried turning the switch the other way. Still nothing. The projection unit was apparently dead, and so was Rimmer's hard-light form along with it.
"Alphabet-head is dead?" Cat surmised enthusiastically, adjusting his diamanté sunglasses. "Where's the champagne?"
"Technically, he has always been dead," Kryten responded, his body jittering as he attempted to get himself back into working order. "We can simply load him into one of Red Dwarf's spare light bees. Without this modified unit, however, he will lose the ability to touch and feel and will once again be incorporeal."
Lister shook the light bee again with a sigh. "He's gonna be mad as hell. I almost don't wanna bring 'im back."
"Then don't!" Cat offered. "C'mon! Can't we just enjoy our holiday without listening to him whinin' about what a waste of time it is?"
The hologram had certainly been … whingier, as of late, choosing not to partake in any other activities other than reading and, well, whinging. He hadn't entirely consented to their trip, but he had come along, regardless, likely not wanting to be left out or left alone with only Holly for company for days on end. Nobody had known what his deal was, and nobody had asked, preferring to let their self-appointed First Officer sulk underneath the few trees scattered about the resort-like planet.
Lister almost took heed of Cat's words. Almost. Certainly, a large part of him did just want to leave the hologram switched off. They could even switch him out for somebody else. Hell, it wasn't like Rimmer was going to find out and complain when he didn't know what was going on.
The Scouser sighed again and made a face, reluctantly opening up the light bee to take a look at the damage. The device's inner workings were far too small and intricate, however, for him to figure out properly. He mentally told himself he would try to fix it. Eventually.
"All right. We'll leave it for a bit. We've gotta skedaddle, anyways, Cat, before another pulse comes and messes with Kryten's brain some more."
Once the mechanoid had regained control of his limbs, the group gathered their things and scuttled back into the safety of Starbug. They all did so with relative disappointment, of course. The planet was quite possibly one of the nicest they had ever come across, but of course there had to be something wrong with it.
"Any ideas where that pulse came from?" Lister asked as he slipped into one of the piloting seats and buckled up.
"Given the direction from which it blasted my spatial awareness into orbit, it came from the moon," Kryten suggested as he bumped into the doorframe and stumbled into his seat. "It appears I can't turn left." Indeed, he was forced to spin in his chair almost three-hundred and sixty degrees to the right just to face Lister and Cat, who were previously positioned slightly to his left.
"The moon?!" Cat questioned. "Man, I'm so tired of all this magic mumbo-jumbo messing up our trips!"
"The moon, sir. It suggests there is some sort of artificial device there designed to destroy any nearby technology, whether in space or on this planet. It seems to have lost its edge over a period of time and releases its energy in short spurts. Whatever the case, we are better off leaving before we find out just who put it there."
"Starbug's still gonna work, right?" Lister asked tentatively, flipping several switches in an attempt to bring the spacecraft to life. Nothing happened. His heart sank.
"I don't understand, sir. Starbug was switched off at the time of the pulse. It shouldn't have been affected."
Both Lister and Kryten looked at Cat, who at least had the decency to adopt a somewhat sheepish look. Fangs bared in a submissive smile, he slowly lifted up some straightening irons that were plugged into the craft's console unit.
"It was just for five minutes! I musta put the ship into standby instead of powering down!"
What was the point in shouting at him? Similar mistakes had happened more than once. It had never led to something quite this serious, but Lister was jaded to the point that he simply rolled over and accepted that they were quite possibly stranded on this beach-planet with no way of getting back to Red Dwarf. Within a few days, they would run out of food and water, and then they'd be well and truly stuffed. Was it the real deal this time? Were he and Cat actually going to slowly starve and leave Kryten to face the mysterious terrain alone?
Before he could verbally lament his situation, something jolted in his pocket. The light bee. Unbuckling himself from his chair, he made for the next room over and closed the door behind him. He didn't want Cat or Kryten to be exposed to Rimmer's fury when he learnt of their predicament.
Taking the light bee out of his trousers' pocket, he observed the small device as it shook and sparked and made various noises as the hologram inside made repetitive attempts to free himself from it. Eventually, the bee settled into a steady hum, which was Lister's cue to throw it and activate the projection. It hovered in mid-air for a moment, and was then concealed as Arnold Rimmer's tall figure manifested in a flash of glowing particles.
Something was clearly wrong, however. His image didn't want to remain consistent. Instead, it jumped about and fizzled like a TV with poor reception. It even flashed on and off repetitively, forcing Lister to blink a couple of times to ease the strain on his eyesight.
"What the smeg is going on?" came Rimmer's nasally tone of derision. Despite the hologram's distortion, it was easy to make out his abhorrent expression of sheer disgust at what was happening to him. Before the other man could reply, he continued, "I could hear everything you were saying out there, you know. Were you really going to leave me switched off?"
Lister rolled his eyes. "No. It was just gonna be for a bit. You don't even like the place!" Shoving his hands into his pockets, he muttered, "I thought you couldn't hear us."
"Well, I could. After everything we've been through, Lister? You'd just leave me off and not even ask me beforehand? How would you like it if it was the other way around?"
"We've got bigger things to be worryin' about than this, Rimmer!" the Scouser shot back, pinching the bridge of his nose. Immediately after saying it, he knew it had been wrong to even suggest the idea, given the sudden flaring of the other man's nostrils.
"That you're stranded on a paradise-planet is worse than you essentially ending what remains of my life? Do you ever think before you speak? By the by, I've just forced my light bee into activity, not only to ensure you don't kill me by leaving me off, but because I assumed you might need my help at some point."
Lister closed his eyes incredulously, both annoyed and slightly resentful of Rimmer's accusation.
"I wasn't gonna leave you off, man. I promise. Look, you need to power off or you're just gonna damage your bee even more."
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Listy? Nevermind what I want. I said it would be stupid to come here, but did anybody listen? No, you didn't, and now look at this pile of cow dung you've landed us into! You were just blinded by your own selfish desires, as always, but it hardly matters, does it? Not when the other two worship the very ground you walk on."
"Rimmer!" Lister interjected, smiling in sheer disbelief. "What's your beef? None of us knew what was gonna happen, not even you! I admit that stuff never goes right for us, but ..." He folded his arms and sighed. "I just thought it would be good for us guys to have some fun for once. All right, we should've sent a probe or somethin' down first, like yeh said, but it looked just like a beach from Earth. I couldn't help meself."
The hologram's image fizzled violently, enough to invoke a physical reaction from him, but he stood up straight and pretended that nothing had happened.
"You're an utter gimboid," Rimmer said. "You've doomed us all. I hope you enjoy the remnants of your holiday."
Frustrated by both the situation and the other man's behaviour, Lister made a sound of irritation and plonked himself down at the table in the middle of the room, arms still folded defensively across his chest. He knew he had done wrong, and he knew he deserved the hologram's snappy tone, at least in part, but he hadn't meant for anything to go awry. True, his idea to land on the planet had been somewhat selfish, but he had meant for all of them to have a break from the mundanity of Red Dwarf.
"I just wanted to have some fun. Ya know? I'm so bored, Arn, I can't take it anymore. I had to do somethin'! I hate the ship, I hate Space, and if I have to eat one more stale curry from the vending machines, I'm gonna go loopy."
"You're not going to go loopy," Rimmer retorted, though the contempt that had laced his tone beforehand was now gone to be replaced by something Lister couldn't entirely figure out. "We'll think of something." He held up a finger as an idea struck. "If Kryten and I are still functioning, that must mean the electro-magnetic pulse was weak enough that a machine the size of Starbug must still have some life in it."
Lister folded his arms on the table and lowered his chin onto them. "It wouldn't start up."
"Right. Kryten's sense of direction has been buggered and my projection drive has gone all wonky, but we're still working to some degree. It might be that it was only Starbug's ignition that was damaged."
All right, maybe the guy wasn't a useless idiot all the time.
Lister almost apologised for considering leaving the man switched off. Almost. Apologies weren't often difficult – it was only when Rimmer was involved that they very thought of it made him want to gag. After turning and meeting the hologram's gaze, he abruptly turned back and grunted, giving no indication that he was grateful for the advice, or that an apology was forthcoming.
"Well, what're you waiting for?" Rimmer urged. "Get us back up to the Dwarf before my light bee burns out!"
He wasn't quite sure why, but he remained sat. Maybe it was revenge for all the snide comments and callousness on the way there. Maybe it was because the guy was always trying to order him around. Maybe it was because he was trying to help and Lister wasn't entirely sure how to process that information. It had to be, he thought, because Arnold was frightened of burning out and that he wouldn't get turned on again afterwards. Fear was usually was the only thing that encouraged him to actually talk any sense.
"Nah," Lister said, smirking to himself. "I might just wait for you to smeg off, first."
Silence. He had really just meant it as a joke, intent on winding up his supposed superior. When he looked around, Rimmer was facing away from him with his fingers steepled anxiously at his mouth.
"Oi, I'm just kiddin'."
"Well, stop it!" came the sudden rebuttal. "Stop playing with the lives of your comrades and do something before another pulse comes and finishes us off, you useless lump. We can't waste any more time. Get up!"
Maybe it was a mixture of extreme boredom and frustration, but Lister's temper had been on edge, lately. He was usually pretty good at concealing his anger, saving the worst for the guy he hated the most – coincidentally the guy that was digging at him at that very moment. In a show of spite, he lit up a cigarette from his pocket and lobbed it between his lips before aiming a puff of smoke in Rimmer's direction.
"You know who you sound like, Rimsy? Your old man. Or at least, what I imagine he would've sounded like. Why doncha cram it and stop bossin' me around, eh?"
He barely had time to register the look of hurt that crossed the hologram's face. No sooner had he spoken, Rimmer was grabbing at his own chest as if in pain, quickly plunging a hand into his hard-light body to presumably hold his bee. His projected image again became distorted, whirring about and struggling to settle. Regardless, and much to Lister's surprise, he blurted out no petty insult, nor even any form of argument.
The father comment had been a pretty low blow, even by the Scouser's standards. He immediately regretted it, knowing full well how the guy felt about his dad. Still, apologies never came easily, and if Rimmer was feeling more himself, he'd have something equally as mean to lambaste his crew mate with.
Any moment now.
Nothing. When his form returned to normal, Rimmer removed his hand from his innards, positively glared at Lister, then vacated the room in favour of the cockpit.
Lister was almost impressed.
He hated the guy.
He hated him, didn't he?
It served him well to continue reminding himself of his contempt. That way, he could be sure he would never enjoy his crew mate too much, because enjoying somebody meant that you actually liked them. He had long since banned himself from even considering liking Rimmer, for such a thing would suggest that there was something remotely likeable about the man in the first place.
Well, there were some things that Lister allowed himself to like. Things that didn't count.
Things like the way every inch of the guy smelt like washing powder, despite his hologrammatic form. It was nice.
Things like the smoothness of his skin, the firmness of the body that was consistently hidden beneath garish uniforms. He liked it when he was allowed to touch it, usually during those times both of them were angry or frustrated and there was nothing else for them to do but take it out on each other.
It became something of a routine, actually. One of them would make a snide remark. The other would immediately retort. They would then argue, and argue, and argue, sometimes for hours, making something of a game of it. They both would watch the other, just waiting for them to snap, and sometimes that took hours, too. It was okay, though, Lister had convinced himself to think. Rimmer was really just a computer program stuffed into a projection unit. He was just a bunch of code designed to emulate somebody who was no longer alive. It was okay, then, for Lister to turn their games into something else, something that quickly became adopted as the next step of their routine.
The first time had been a bit weird, admittedly. Neither of them had really expected it to happen, and neither of them really acknowledged what they had just done until they were both panting beside each other in Rimmer's bunk, sweating and fumbling awkwardly. They didn't speak of it for weeks. They barely looked at each other in that time, because, of course, they hated each other, and people who hated each other weren't meant to do the things that they had done.
It was okay, though, Lister always reminded himself. He hated Rimmer, who wasn't entirely real, which meant the things they had done hadn't actually been real, had they? He may as well have been fondling thin air.
But then there were the things he liked. It wasn't just how his crew mate smelt, or the surprisingly lovely form he hid. It was how he felt. It was the way he had clenched his teeth down onto the pillow and unleashed a muffled moan. It was the fact that after those few weeks of despising each other more than ever, Rimmer had come back.
The hologram was actually the initiator, usually, though the set-up was designed so that Lister appeared to be the shameless one. He would give the unsuspecting Scouser what could only be described as a look, and it only ever lasted for a fraction of a second. That was Lister's cue to sidle on over and make a nasty comment, to which Rimmer would angrily retort. Then, as previously described, one thing would lead to another. It was their routine.
It wasn't their routine just this once. They had returned to Red Dwarf once Lister had eventually decided to hotwire Starbug and allow their escape back to the ship. The two of them had returned to their sleeping quarters and sat in silence. Rimmer stared fruitlessly at books, and Lister became bored and pinged elastic bands at the back of the other man's head - earning himself a second frightful glare.
"Bloody hell," Dave burbled that night, body taut with bliss. He slumped down onto his side and spent a moment in serene silence, eyes closed, rather enjoying the sensation of having somebody next to him in bed - somebody who was made up of billions of vibrating photons, but still. Glancing to his side, he smiled.
Rimmer looked rather ridiculous for a moment, still in the same position he had been in moments ago, apparently in a state of shock. Lister smirked and patted his back encouragingly.
"Did yeh finish?"
"No," the hologram bit back immediately. With that, he clumsily shuffled until he was on his back. Weirdly enough, his tall form was glowing resplendently in the darkness, like he was filled to the brim with fireflies. Lister thought it was rather poetic, actually, and took it to be a hologram's version of an afterglow.
"And what did I say about talking when we're done?"
"God, you're such a prig. We en't done, are we? Settle down."
Lister strategically prodded his partner right beneath the ribs, causing him to jump slightly. It elicited a buzzing sensation in the tip of Lister's finger, as he supposed touching a solid being composed entirely of light would.
"Yeh feel like somebody's rubbed balloons all over you. And yeh look like you're tryin' to ward off ships from crashin' into the coast. That thing that happened to your bee couldn't have been good, could it?"
"On the contrary, Listy, it feels better than it's ever felt, so stop acting so concerned."
"I en't concerned," Lister grunted adamantly. Out of an odd sense of spite, he adjusted himself so that he was pressed against Rimmer's body, daring to issue a number of kisses to the pale skin of his partner's neck. One, two, three, four. No sloppiness. The only time he used his tongue was to press it into the ... Oh, yeah. Holograms didn't have pulses. Instead, Lister nuzzled his way past and chose to nibble on the soft earlobe he came across.
He followed Rimmer's head as it turned into the pillow. The man's body was slightly arched and delicious. Lister was already raring to go a second time, but something was playing on his thoughts and holding him back.
"You gonna be mad at me after this?" he asked, walking his fingers down the other's chest like they were a pair of legs.
"Mad?" the hologram enquired breathlessly.
"Yeah. You always get mad."
"Don't you want me to be?"
Right. Because they hated each other.
"I dunno."
Rimmer subtly rolled his eyes. "Well, that's that cleared up, then."
"Will yeh stop rollin' your eyes at me while I'm tryin'ta get you off? It's killin' the mood."
"I will when you stop blabbering nonsense."
There they went again. Bickering like an old married couple, as the Cat often put it. Lister didn't want to be an old married person any more. With a hefty sigh, he removed his hand from Rimmer's body and rolled away to face the wall, furiously reading the various newspaper clippings there that featured Arnold in extremely minor news stories. Why he was feeling so agitated all of a sudden, he had no idea. Normally, he would have just rolled his eyes right back at his partner, and then clambered back into his own bunk to leave the man festering below without an orgasm in sight.
Boy, 12, discovered at the bottom of a well after attempting to rescue his pet gerbil, Miss Saigon.
Arnold Rimmer, president of the Ionian Junior Trainspotting Club, pushed in front of oncoming train before amused onlookers.
"What the hell are we doin', man?" he asked quite unintentionally, the words finding their way out of his mouth before he could stop them. Who was he, really, to question what they were doing when he had more than happily gone along with it whenever it happened? Maybe it was that he just really missed having this kind of relationship with someone, lying next to them in bed and talking about inane things, sweaty from a few hours of passion. Those someones were usually girls. Well, always girls, actually, save for now.
Why he was doing the nasty with Rimmer, he hadn't the foggiest. He missed girls, of course, but that was about as far as it went, these days.
Because of those stupid things he liked about the hologram.
He expected silence on the other end. Arnold wasn't the best at facing up to problems, whether his or somebody else's. What he got, instead, was a hiss of pain and a sudden violent twitching behind him. Lister quickly turned back around to see the hologram biting his own knuckles, doing his utmost to avoid vocalising whatever the hell was wrong with him - but Lister could see it as plain as day. Rimmer was glowing like the end of a red hot poker, illuminating the room, and it was evident there was little he could do to alter whatever was happening.
Lister sat up so quickly that he slammed his head on the bunk on top of them. It had taken him a moment to realise that the other man's form had become so hot that it was literally burning everything around him, including the poor Scouser, who was forced to awkwardly clamber over him and nurse several small burns on his chest and legs. There was little time to worry about that, however, for no sooner had he crawled his way out of the bed, the bedsheets were bursting up into flames. Rimmer had nothing to fear from fire, of course, but it was still rather alarming seeing him engulfed in it.
He was glowing so brightly that it hurt to look at him. Lister had no idea what to do. Fearing that the hologram was about to explode or burn away, he seized the nearest fire extinguisher from a small cabinet in the wall and began spraying all over the bunks, concealing them in a cloud of white and brown. He sprayed and sprayed until a low hissing signalled that the metal cannister was empty.
"Rimmer? Are you all right?" he called tentatively into the white flakes raining down from the dissipating clouds. He received no answer, and he quickly discovered why: Rimmer was gone. All that was left of him was his light bee. Suspecting it would be hot to the touch, he wrapped his hand in a piece of burnt cloth and then picked it up to inspect it. The small, metal device appeared scorched on the outside, and it occasionally twitched as sparks of electricity indicated that something had just gone very wrong. Very, very wrong.
He acted on his very first impulse. He dropped the light bee into his fish tank.
After yanking on a pair of curry-stained long johns, he hammered on the black screen set into the wall nearby with his knuckles.
"Holly! Holly!"
The face of the ship's computer manifested on the screen with an extremely reluctant expression, one that consisted of her squeezing her eyes tightly shut and curling her nose in distaste.
"Are you two done yet? Which part involved you muckin' about with my power supplies? I've had to up the ante and put us into back-up 'cause of you!"
Lister pointed at his fish tank, which was now boiling over with dirty water and robot fish.
"You can look, Hol. Rimmer's light bee is overheatin', that's what. He's just set fire to his bed!"
Holly opened one eye and peered about the room. "Oh, yeah," she said, quite nonchalantly. "Well, I'll have to switch him off, then. If he tries to come back, tell him to bugger off until we figure out how to fix him. It's either that or I load him into one of my spare soft-light units."
"You've got spare units?" Lister asked hopefully.
"Oh, well, hold on. I'll just check." Holly's face vanished into the darkness briefly. She returned a couple of seconds later, again with her eyes tightly shut. "Now I remember. All of them were damaged in the radiation leak. His one was the only one I could get to work. Sorry, Dave. We'll have to think of something else."
"That's just bloody brilliant. We were all meant to go visit the next planet along 'cause it kind of looked like a beach, too, according to Rimmer. He said he hated it but I know he was actually lookin' forward to it, the daft beggar." Waiting for the water to stop boiling, Lister grabbed the small net next to the tank and carefully fished out the light bee. It had cooled down, thankfully, enough that it no longer burnt his hands when he touched it, but what good was touching it going to do? The idiot had burnt himself out and all because of some stupid trick he had taken advantage of his hologrammatic form to experiment with.
Well, it hadn't been entirely stupid at the time. Lister was still tingling pleasantly, but it was probably wrong for him to be acknowledging it at a time like this.
He pulled on the first pair of leather trousers he came acoss, then a garish, Hawaiian shirt he had found in Captain Hollister's locker. On a ship that was several miles along and wide, it could sometimes be a bit of a pain in the arse trying to find the other two crew mates, but he knew them well enough by this point to be aware of their most frequent haunts. Beginning what he expected to be a long search for Kryten, he first checked the laundry rooms, and was surprised to find them vacant. This time of night was Kryten's favoured time to do laundry and iron Lister's clothes over and over until they were like cardboard.
Oddly enough, he found his friend in the drive room, gazing up at various scanners and tapping his chin thoughtfully with a rubber finger.
"I told yeh me pants would scare you off this time, Krytes," Lister greeted, approaching the complicated units with the pretence he knew just what he was looking at. After a few seconds, he gave up and gestured at the navicom. "All right, what's that blobby lookin' thing? Doesn't like like a ship I've ever seen."
"It is certainly a ship, sir," Kryten reassured him. "And probably what issued that electro-magnetic blast earlier. It was once known as STS Memento, and was one of the first attempts by hologrammatic humanoids to form their own independent crew. It went missing in the year 5012."
"Another holoship?"
"Of a sorts, but not computer generated like the one we encountered. My best guess is that the ship was piloted via means that didn't require touch, such as speech or gestures. Not being able to touch anything on your own ship does come with certain drawbacks, however."
"Yeah, like not bein' able to grab the steerin' wheel when the mainframe goes loopy! What were they thinkin'? D'yeh think they had nice kitchens and parlours installed so they could stare at all the food they couldn't eat? They may as well've had bogs and nice cutlery, all that stuff that's nonsense to a hologram."
Kryten anxiously tapped his fingers on his midriff. "The holograms were actually all convicts, sir. They were arrested during violent attempts to acquire better rights for the dead. It seems they committed mutiny and took over the ship for themselves, as it's one of the few designed to sustain more than one of them. They were no better than pirates. Whatever it is that happened afterwards, it decimated their ship, and it has orbited this ocean moon for the better part of your lifespan."
Lister reached into his breast pocket and pulled out Rimmer's light bee. Since Holly had switched it off, it had ceased sparking and twitching, and now remained fixed in an almost sad silence.
"Will they have somethin' on board to fix smeghead?"
Sometimes, he really hated derelicts.
Of all the smegging derelicts out there, this one had to take the cake as the most derelict of all bloody derelicts. If it weren't for the fact he was hoping to find some sort of cool gizmo that would help them get back to Earth, Rimmer could shove his light bee up his own arse and let it stay there. Lister would make it possible.
First of all, he had to wear a space suit. He hated the damned things. They were heavy and he could only ever see what was directly in front of him. Unfortunately, the ghost ship they had perilously just landed Starbug on was filled with holes and great missing chunks, meaning there was no way he could take advantage of the old oxygen recycling unit, if there was even one at all. His one comfort was that Cat was similarly burdened, only his friend had chosen to spruce his suit up a bit before allowing himself to be dragged on board.
Said feline was scrabbling manically at the rotting floor as the lack of gravity threatened to pull him through the gaping hole in the hangar leading to outer space. His gaudy ribbons and glitter and general fabulousness couldn't save him, this time. That was the job of Lister, who grabbed hold of Cat's tether and yanked him back to where he and Kryten were stood waiting by the door.
"Cat, I told yeh to put on the weighted boots so you don't go flippin' floatin' off!" Lister snapped, holding onto his friend like a child would hold onto his favourite helium balloon. Despite Cat's lack of proximity, he could still see the look of utter torment that passed the other man's face.
"But they're just so ugly. I'd rather die! Let me go!"
"Krytes, we've gotta go back and get his boots," Lister sighed, attempting to rein in the Cat, who was now attempting to swim towards the hole and to certain death. Kryten gave him an urgent look - or a look that was as urgent as a mechanoid could manage, resulting in something that was more of a rubbery grimace.
"Sir, consider the fact that this derelict currently rests on its side. Its mainframe is supporting a high dysfunctional and weakened artificial gravity. There may be some things we could use Mister Cat to reach for us when we can't do it ourselves. All the more, the psi-scan has calculated the time until the next electro-magnetic pulse. We have little more than thirty minutes."
That was all Lister needed to hear. He nodded towards the hangar exit, pulling Cat along with him and purposefully bumping him into the top of the tall door frame when he passed underneath it. The poor creature attached to his tether whirled about helplessly, making crude gestures towards whatever direction he thought was downwards.
The Flying Dutchman really was like a ghost ship. It was dark and coated with some weird kind of green stuff, almost like mildew, and it was moist all over. Drops of water or some other liquid floated off the rotting metal and splished against Lister's visor every now and then. It even rocked like an old, wooden ship would, setting the guy on edge despite the fact it clearly was no longer habitable by, well, anything. Despite the danger the derelict posed, however, he feigned fearlessness and led the way, hopping over crumpled or ruined pathways, or using the pipes lining the walls to push himself across large holes.
There was only one thing left to make his bad mood worse, and that was the realisation that they didn't have the time to explore the ship as he had wanted. There was no time to find gizmos, not unless they prioritised that over everything else. This trip had been an opportunity, as Cat had mentioned earlier, to leave the hologram switched off for good. Lister didn't see it as an opportunity. More of a ... compromise. Yeah, a compromise, because surely Lister getting back to Earth safely was more important than the life of a former crew member who was already dead and existed only as a sad remnant of something that once was.
Lister pulled a face at himself. It was easy to see holograms as mere ghosts, but they weren't that. Unlike ghosts, they weren't doomed to live out memories or walk the same four walls for the rest of eternity. They could learn and live near normal lives. And despite his frequent taunting, saying that holograms weren't real people, he had only ever said it to get the other guy riled up. Anything with sentience was a person in Lister's eyes, no matter what they were made of or what they looked like. Therefore, he was obliged to put aside his and Rimmer's differences and do something about the broken light bee.
After all, he had never finished getting Rimmer off. That was the largest wound in his pride, honestly speaking.
And maybe the fact it had been his idea to go to the beach planet in the first place.
Shining his torch on the floor, he followed the signs to the infirmary, forced to jump or climb into corridors thanks to the messed up gravitational pull. It would have been easier if there was no gravity at all, but there was little Kryten could do without finding the drive room, and there was no time for them to split up. They just had to find a way to get the light bee repaired, and then they'd be on their merry way back to Red Dwarf, safe and sound.
"Cat, climb up there and open that door against the wall up there," Lister said, gesturing to the corridor that was over their heads. Old lights attached to wires swung threateningly to and fro. "You're more agile than either of us two. See if there's anything inside while we climb up."
Cat, cursing under his breath, attached himself to the wall and began using the pipes to pull his way up.
"Can't believe I'm risking my life for goal-post head," Lister heard him mutter.
The ship rocked suddenly.
Lister grabbed onto the nearest pipe to stop himself getting flung off the wall he had been climbing. As a result, it meant he accidentally allowed Cat's tether to slip free from between his fingers. Despite his desperate attempts to grab hold of it again, poor Cat was sent flying as the ship slowly rolled, and instead of falling back in the direction he came, he was forced to float upwards and past the door to the infirmary.
"The artificial gravity is shifting!" Kryten announced, seizing hold of the back of Lister's space suit. From where they were, all they could do was watch helplessly as Cat tried to swim through the air back to them, but to no avail. His form grew smaller and darker as he vanished up into the darkness of the corridor above.
"Cat!" Lister called, despair engulfing him. He couldn't lose two friends in one smegging day! Bounding upwards, he used the adjusted gravity to his advantage, finding it easier to climb in this particular direction now. A few minutes later, his fingers grasped the side of the infirmary door.
But what was he meant to do? Did he go after Cat? Or did he attempt to save Rimmer? Whatever the case, he was going to have a death on his hands sooner rather than later. With a moan of indecision, he looked down at Kryten for advice.
Kryten was gone.
There was no time to consider why and how the mechanoid had decided to leave. Lister was alone, now, and probably going to die alone, too. Nothing terrified him more. Without thinking, he balanced his feet on the door's control panel and reached for the pocket attached to his thigh. From there, he retrieved Rimmer's light bee. With it there, in his hand, he wasn't really alone, was he? Even if what was inside was just an endless stream of numbers and complicated code. It didn't make Arnold less of a person. It didn't make him any less real.
Why had it been so hard to accept that until now?
It was, he supposed, because it meant that the things they had shared in, the things they had done ... that was real, too.
It wasn't the time to think about it.
"Thank god you pulled me out of there, Lister. I thought I was about to be doused in fear-aggravated bowel movements."
Of course he'd show up.
"Me hand's still inside you," the Scouser observed. He was pretty much holding the hologram aloft, but he wasn't as heavy as usual, probably because his form was broken and wasn't settling, much like before. Still, the hard-light was working well enough that Lister couldn't pull his hand out of the hologram's chest. It was like he was holding onto the man's heart, only it was smaller and more metal-y, and slowly growing hotter by the second.
"Yes, and it's very uncomfortable," Rimmer retorted dryly, communicating via Lister's radio like Kryten had. "I'm going to switch off in a second. I want you to toss me into that room. I'll search for any devices that might help. Meanwhile, you find Cat and Kryten before another electro-whatsit comes and kills Bog Brains. I'll meet you back at Starbug."
Lister couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What, you're gonna search that place on your own? You?" Despite the situation, he actually cackled.
"Yes, actually," the hologram said with a sneer. "I've just been felt up by the ship's mainframe. Well, fondled might put it more aptly. It wasn't taking no for an answer."
"Oh," Lister said lightly. Even though he was scared out of his wits, winding up Rimmer came with strange ease. "I thought I was the only one feelin' you up."
Rimmer glanced down at the forearm sticking unceremoniously out of his chest.
"Delightful joke, Listy. Hilarious, even."
"Well, what's yeh point? About the mainframe?"
"My point is that as it was learning something about me, I learnt something about it, too. Does it seem like I have time to explain, you great lummox? Just lob me in there and find the others. That's an order, Lister!"
Before any arguments could be made, Rimmer vanished in a spurt of light particles. It was for the best, really, because the light bee was now so hot that it was searing Lister's skin. It was enough that he dropped the small projection unit, albeit accidentally and not out of choice, right into the infirmary door, where it floated down into the darkness inside. For some reason, he hadn't even noticed the heat when Rimmer was actually there.
And then he was alone again. He hadn't even had the chance to tell Rimmer that there was no chance they were going to meet each other by Starbug when the light bee was on the verge of burning out. If the hologram refused to acknowledge that, however, then there was little that Lister could do, other than go searching for the others before Kryten's insides were destroyed outright by whatever it was that had damaged him before.
He reluctantly pushed himself away from the infirmary door and resumed climbing the vertical corridor above him, again using the pipes as leverage. Cat had vanished in that direction, so with any luck, he'd find the poor guy, and then they could sniff out Kryten.
Lister doubted things would go so smoothly. When did they ever?
Lifting himself upwards for several minutes, he came across a large, black screen set into one of the walls. It seemed to be one of the few things aboard the ship that was actually working, given that something was manifesting upon it, though what appeared made Lister feel highly uncomfortable.
It was a face. Probably the digital manifestation of the mainframe's AI, like Holly, only this particular face was a disgusting amalgamation of hundreds of faces, distorted enough that whatever it was looked something more like a Picasso painting. It stared at him with two disfigured eyes, one brown, one blue.
"Hi, er," Lister began, clinging onto the opposite wall and shining his torch onto the screen. "You haven't seen a cat in a spacesuit float past here, have yeh?"
He heard a sudden crackling in the radio set into his suit.
"The living have no place aboard the Memento," the AI informed him, its voice high and raspy and formed of several different intonations, like a group of both men and women were speaking together. "Allow us to rectify your condition."
What a great start.
"Look, I haven't got time for this!" Lister insisted. "I've gotta find me mates. Sorry if we're trespassin', we were just lookin' for somethin' -"
"As were many others before you, and they have since joined our ranks. Thank you for providing us with the hard-light technology we require. As a show of gratitude, you may join us. Allow us to rectify your condition."
Lister made to verbally express his confusion and bewilderment, but he received no ample opportunity to do so, for his intake of breath was swiftly interrupted by a vision of such horror that it stole the words straight out of his mouth.
He had just happened to look down, fortunately, in an attempt to seek out the means by which the mainframe was going to attempt to rectify his condition. He hadn't been expecting to see somebody floating up towards him, a woman of unnaturally pale pallor and rather translucent, disturbingly enough. She had all the outward appearance of what Lister imagined a ghost would look like, complete with wispy tendrils surrounding her white, rapidly fizzling form. A hologram, for sure, given the shards of a light bee he could see swimming about her body. The device was barely managing to project her image, shattered as it was.
Seeing a ghost glowing up at him from the darkness below was enough to terrify poor Lister, and rendered him briefly incapable of reasoning with himself. After releasing a rather embarrassing squeak of fear, he resumed pulling himself up through the ship, hoping to out run the thing at least.
But the thing wasn't actually a ghost at all, was it? At least, not one in the classical sense. It was a hologram, a digital spectre that was significantly less scary than the works of Charles Dickens, and it couldn't touch him.
He looked down. The hologram was right there, peering up at him with blank, white eyes. It reached up to grab his foot, and Lister was stupid enough to laugh at the thing - at least until he saw a light bee shard in the palm of its hand. If it impaled him with that, he'd lose all the benefits of his space suit, and that really wasn't the kind of death that Lister had imagined for himself. Out of panic, he kicked his foot and managed to send the metal shard straight out of the hologram's body, forcing her to pull back her hand and open her mouth in a silent scream.
"Sorry!" Lister blabbered. Looking up, he spotted a doorway set just ahead. He pulled himself up to it and inside before slamming a hand on the lock to close the door. Feeling somewhat safer than moments previously, he turned and shone his torch on the rest of the room to try and figure out where he was.
To his utter joy, he spotted Kryten stood by a massive computer that was positioned in the centre of the floor - the floor now being, of course, the furthermost wall. The mechanoid made a show of relief upon seeing his comrade, hands flinging up into the air and rubber face crumpling with guilt.
"Mister Lister! Oh, I'm so sorry, my sense of direction glitched! I meant to follow you up into that corridor, but instead I ended up here! Mind you, it was rather fortunate that I did."
Lister moved forwards and grabbed Kryten by his metal shoulderpads, shaking him slightly.
"Krytes, we gotta get outta here now! This place is haunted by freaky holograms! The mainframe has gone nuts! You remember what I said, right? Remember when I said there was nothin' they could've done if their mainframe went loopy? Well, it only went and happened!"
"A decent guess, sir, but the truth is rather more sinister. I've been looking through the ship's database -"
"There ain't no time for any of tha'! C'mon, we've gotta get you back to Starbug before yeh get turned into a fruitloop."
Kryten gently eased Lister's hands off his shoulders. "I appreciate the concern, but I have some rather alarming news. Is Mister Rimmer's light bee still in your pocket?"
"Nah, he turned on and insisted on goin' to look for somethin' to fix his bee on his own."
Lister didn't particularly like the mechanoid's expression at that moment. Kryten had long since mastered the emotion of fear, and had also learnt when and where to use it appropriately. Now was one of those times, apparently. The only difference in regards to his expressions of fear was that it usually involved his head involuntarily spinning a full circle until he physically stopped it with his hands.
"What's wrong?" Lister asked reluctantly. If he could have reached through his visor to pinch the bridge of his nose, he would have. They were all going to smegging die, weren't they?
"I've managed to command the device issuing electro-magnetic pulses to cease until ordered to fire. It's a bomb that was shot into the hull millennia ago, presumably a weapon against the holograms that once commanded this ship. The holograms managed to wire it up to their system in an attempt to stop its timed blasts, but it seems their projection units were ultimately destroyed before they could succeed. They were destroyed physically, but of course, their minds and personalities remained within the ship's systems, and with the bomb damaging the mainframe with each of its blasts ..."
"They managed to take it over for themselves," Lister realised.
"Yes. However, their control of the ship is weak. There are certain things they cannot abuse or override, which explains why the bomb is still active."
"Aw, yeah, I spoke to 'em and they thanked me for providin' 'em with hard-light technology. They must plan to use Rimmer to kill us and fix this damned ship. I never should've let him go on his own!"
Kryten turned to the computer and reached up to tap several times on the small keyboard present on the unit. The screen was glitching constantly, flickering and changing letters and numbers around, but the service-bot still seemed to be able to glean something from the information provided.
"This vessel was always something of a legend, sir. In space-time folklore, it was said the convicts imprisoned here were charged with guarding an ancient, alien artefact that was said to restore life to anyone who touched it. It was a cruel irony, seeing as they were all, well, dead. Of course, no such artefact exists, but no doubt the mainframe managed to trick Mister Rimmer into believing it possible. His light bee is currently being tended to by a machine in the infirmary."
"Surely they ain't gonna be able to load themselves up on it?"
"They cannot wipe him but they can certainly force his unit to host more personalities than it was designed for. I remind you, sir, that his hard-light form is indestructible and possesses far more strength than a human. We must find Mister Cat before we're all murdered and forced to become part of this hivemind."
Lister glanced nervously back towards the door he had come from. The infirmary was a simple dive downwards, but the way there was now guarded by a vengeful and terrifying woman who had long since mastered making a weapon out of her soft-light body.
"What about these ghost things floatin' around? There's one out there. If we can get rid of it, I can get Rimmer's light bee back."
"Their units were broken but it seems they're still able to manifest a feeble and broken projection of themselves so long as the shards remain in relative proximity. I swatted two of them aside on my way here. They're nothing more than echoes, sir. You have no need to fear them."
"Rimmer's gonna be more than an echo if we don't stop 'em from possessin' him. What do we do, Krytes?"
Kryten shot him an odd look. "Like I said, we should find Mister Cat and vacate this -"
"No, I meant about Rimmer. Can't you stop whatever they're doing?"
"I tried, sir, but it's too late. I didn't want to tell you."
Surprised and angered, Lister squared his shoulders a little. "I can handle it! Why d'yeh think I can't handle it, Kryten? He went and smegged off, so he can suck up the consequences." Pausing awkwardly, he scuffed one of his feet against the floor. "Anythin' else we can do?"
"We could initiate the electro-magnetic bomb and alter its power to eradicate all electronic life on this ship once and for all. Of course, that would run the risk of destroying both myself and Mister Rimmer."
Fantastic. Their options were to run away like cowards and abandon their crew mate, or murder. While he was almost certain the other two wouldn't object to either option, Lister had major issues with both. What was he supposed to do to help, though? He was just a guy, he wasn't smart or strong, but he had just enough compassion to absolutely hate the idea of these dead men and women making a weapon out of one of the Dwarfers. He hated this ship full stop because it was a hologram graveyard, plain and simple, and if he had things his way, he'd blast it out of space and put all those ghosties to rest.
"Is there really nothin' we can do?" he asked, approaching the computer that was fixed into the wall and reaching up to experiment with the software a bit. After a few clicks, he found the hastily created software designed to control the bomb embedded somewhere in the ship's walls.
"I don't think so, sir."
"Right, then power off. I'll set the bomb off and take out the holograms with it. I'm guessin' they designed the mainframe to power down whenever the thing was set to blast? Then I'll make sure it stays on, too."
"Well, are you sure? That would involve rendering Mister Rimmer's light bee totally defunct."
Lister didn't look back at the mechanoid. He felt too ashamed to make eye-contact with his friend. In fact, he could scarcely believe the decision he was making, but didn't want to allow himself enough time to think about it, because he knew what the right thing to do was.
"Look, Rimmer wouldn't want to be a weapon. He'd rather be the brains behind using 'em, know what I mean? All his strategy games and whatnot. He might be a smeghead, but I ain't leavin' him like this."
Kryten nodded, at least possessing the grace to pretend to be remorseful. His lie mode had truly blossomed as of late.
"Very well. Initiating shut-down in three, two, one."
And then Lister was alone again. He was starting to think that being human wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He couldn't turn himself off when things were getting tough. He couldn't reboot to get rid of physical problems, and he definitely wasn't going to live past sixty. And for some reason, he was always the one who had to make the difficult decisions. He was always the one who had to say goodbye to his friends.
It felt horrible.
His fingers hovered above the keyboard. A couple of strokes and it would be done.
He hated the guy. It was what he always told himself. He tried to tell himself it again, just to give him the strength to push those buttons. But it wasn't because he hated him, was it? If he hated him, the option to run away and leave the hologram behind to suffer would have seemed far more inviting.
It was because of his grudging respect that he was even considering what he was about to do. A respect that lingered at the very recesses of his mind, the dark places that weren't often reached, but it was there nonetheless. Along with all the things about the hologram he liked. His smell, those rare times he actually, genuinely smiled. Their arguments, because they kept him sane. And because he knew where they could lead.
Lister clenched his fists. Don't think about him, don't think about him, don't -
He felt the floor vibrate beneath his feet. If he could hear anything in the vacuum of space, he knew he would have heard some sort of crashing or booming sound.
Then it happened again, and far more violently. Something was indeed approaching, and it should have been the indication to set the bomb off and end the ship's shenanigans once and for all. But he couldn't, because he didn't want to go back to Red Dwarf and start missing the guy. He didn't want to reluctantly load Rimmer into a damaged soft-light projection unit just to hear his scathing remarks again. They would only both be miserable as a result. All he wanted was for the four of them to go back to the Dwarf, for all of them to be home again.
Out of the blue, the entire ship was knocked again. The slight artificial gravity shifted to make up for the change in position. Dazed, Lister opened his eyes to find himself on what was supposed to be the ceiling - and the computer was now above his head and out of reach. Cursing, he began fumbling with his weighted boots, but the straps were designed to be difficult to remove, especially with his suit-clad fingers.
He recalled that the vessel had been set amongst a shimmering ring of rocks and dust that surrounded the moon. The larger rocks must have been striking the ship. He knew, however, that a rocking vessel was soon going to be the least of his problems, for the floor and walls were vibrating violently again like something incredibly angry was heading his way.
The radio within his visor crackled again, and a faint voice sounded.
"Allow us to rectify your condition ..."
He was about to grab Kryten, who was now sprawled lifelessly nearby, and force him to reboot. Before he could, the metal door above slid open to reveal Rimmer.
It was him, but wasn't quite him. He was carrying himself differently. He bore not a look of disgust or indignation, for once, but a blank expression that was far more unbecoming. His eyes were white and glowing, and his holographic form was altering constantly, his various parts changing to look like somebody else's before flickering back.
"Arn? You in there?" Lister called tentatively. Though a part of him was glad he hadn't been forced to destroy Rimmer's light bee, he wasn't exactly looking forward to his very probable death. "Shake 'em off, man! I promise I'll look at your photo collection of 20th Century trains! I'll start usin' nail clippers and I'll make sure the bits don't land in your bunk anymore!"
Rimmer pushed himself away from the door and downwards. It was by sheer fluke that Lister moved his head in time to avoid a punch that destroyed the metal where his face had been previously. Finding himself trapped beneath the hologram's impossibly hard body, Lister attempted to struggle his way out of the cage of arms and legs whilst Rimmer tried to pull his hand from the hole he had created.
"Not right now, Arn. I've got a headache!"
His crew mate didn't seem to appreciate his inappropriate joke. Rimmer freed his hand from the floor and then seized poor Lister by the neck to easily fling him against the wall. The Scouser's head snapped back and slammed hard into the surface, enough to hurt a lot and start making him angry. He wasn't angry at Rimmer, however, because the guy couldn't have known what he was doing, if he was even conscious at all. He was angry at the maddened ghouls that had done this, and he was angry at himself for dragging the crew to the beach planet in the first place.
Once he was back on the floor, he rolled up to see the hologram now with his fists embedded into the wall, again where Lister had been situated a split second ago. Rimmer sneered and pulled his hands back, his awful, seething eyes fixed upon the Liverpudlian. It was a look that Lister might have actually enjoyed in any other situation.
"Yeh've gotta stop, Arnie, or these things are gonna own you forever. If you pummel me 'ead in, who're you gonna poke fun at anymore?"
His answer was to be once again flung across the room. He landed heavily on his side and gasped as all the air was knocked out of him. With a moan, he tried to push himself upright, but something slammed into his ribs and crushed him into the ground.
A strong pair of hands gripped his neck and forced him to look upwards. Through the condensation gathering on his visor, he could only see Rimmer's gelled mess of brown hair, which was occasionally flickering in and out of existence. Dammit. He could barely see, he couldn't breathe, and he definitely couldn't move. All the guy had to do was smash his visor and that was it, Lister would be a goner and Kryten and Cat would be left to fend for themselves.
He wasn't expecting to be at peace with his end. While being murdered wasn't his choice of death, the fact it was Rimmer had to be accounted for. At the very least, he could look at his face, and when the condensation began to fade, that's exactly what he did. He stared up at his crew mate and realised how good he looked in blue. He looked at his face, long and smooth, just begging to be touched in some way. He felt Rimmer's hand taking his and it almost felt like a loving gesture, like he wasn't about to crush all of the bones inside of it. Lister calmly braced himself for the pain.
Instead, he felt the brush of cool metal against his knuckles. Managing to cast his gaze away from the hologram's face, he saw that the other man had guided his hand into his midriff and towards his light bee.
Lister instinctively grabbed it. When Rimmer's hand left his, his own was once again lodged inside the hologram's body, clutching the projection unit within - only now for a very different reason.
"Don't make me, man," Lister begged, trying to reach up with his free hand to touch Rimmer's cheek, only to be met with a blow to the forearm that was hard enough to break the bone within clean in two. He yelled out in agony and squirmed desperately beneath his friend. "Agh! Yeh bloody bastard!" he howled, violently kicking his legs in an attempt to free himself. What was that he had thought about being at peace with things?! What a load of utter bollocks!
Arnold's expression was no longer blank but was changing rapidly, matching up with the hundreds of emotions flooding him. Anger, fear, hatred. Briefly, there was something encouraging about the way he looked at the man beneath him, but that couldn't have been the real Rimmer, could it? The same guy who was terrified of being switched off or left behind? The same guy who was a downright coward at the best of times? Had it been him who had forced his possessed body to allow Lister's hand into his torso and endanger the precious light bee within?
No. Just no way.
In agony and now controlled by adrenaline, Lister crushed the light bee with a shaking hand. He saw the pain and terror on Rimmer's face, and so closed his eyes so he didn't have to see it.
He clenched his hand harder. Light bees were fragile things. Metal splintered beneath his fingers and wires split in two. The weight on top of him eventually vanished, and Lister was free to move.
Sitting up, he allowed his hand to fall to his side and stared at the floor for a moment. Particles of light were still raining down upon him, fresh from Rimmer's last moments. He sniffed and tucked the remnants of the light bee into his pocket.
With a pained grunt, Lister dragged himself over to Kryten and switched him on via the panel inside the back of his head. The mechanoid jittered several times, gained his bearings, then sat up with a confused look as he regarded his human companion.
"Mister Lister, you look like you've been trampled by a hippopotamus."
"Nah," the Scouser mumbled back, appearing severely downcast. He cradled his broken arm to his chest. "We've gotta go. Can yeh use the psi-scan to locate Cat?"
"No need, sir," Kryten responded, and he gestured up towards the ceiling.
Cat was cowering there, apparently having floated in at some point during the fight, sharp teeth bared towards Lister.
"Blimey, Cat. Thanks for the help!"
"Like I was gonna butt in on that. You're on your own with brawls, buddy! You're ruthless!"
Resenting that, Lister pushed himself to his feet and grabbed Cat's tether to tie it around his own waist.
"Drag me up through the door, will yeh? I can't do it on me own right now."
With Kryten and Cat's help, Lister was dragged back through the ship, and though it took them a while to find their way back to the hangar thanks to Kryten's lack of left and right and Cat's general lack of caring, they did eventually find their way back to Starbug. The small craft had been anchored to the hangar floor, meaning it hadn't suffered any damage during the various impacts and rolls the Memento had endured. Even the ghostly holograms didn't seem to want to bother them, probably because their one hope of gaining the ability to manipulate their environment had been destroyed.
It was tragic, really. Lister didn't only feel sad for himself. He felt sad for the entire ship, all the memories locked inside the mainframe who were once real people, now maddened by eons of loneliness and fear.
As his friends encouraged him up the steps towards Starbug, he noticed something painted on the hangar wall. It was faded and in a language Lister didn't understand.
"It was the motto of the Memento," Kryten explained, following Lister's stare. "Vita donum est. It means: Life is a gift."
It was a gift that Lister intended to give back. He knew Rimmer would be gloating if he were still around, and he hated the thought.
So he took out books from the library. He actually read. He read technical books on holograms and their technology, and he read up on the theory of hard-light. While he was pretty much certain he would never replicate Legion's technological feat, he could sure as heck try.
Slowly and painstakingly, he put the light bee back together, piece by piece. Anything too damaged, he had to make again himself. It was difficult, of course, but worse was his lack of patience. He got bored quickly, and then always realised that Rimmer wasn't around to argue with and alleviate his boredom, which left a gaping hole in Lister's chest. So he continued working on his project every day and only felt satisfaction when the diamond-shaped device actually started to look like he hadn't crushed it within his own hand.
Eventually, he soldered his last circuit and screwed the last tiny screw into place. He knew the thing wasn't perfect, because it wasn't shaped correctly and it rattled a bit when shaken, but he was sure he had done everything correctly otherwise.
"You ready, Hol?" he asked, entering the sleeping quarters to test it out.
"Feels like it could work, Dave. I'll just load him up," Holly said. After a minute or two, she then continued, "All right, lob it and give it a go."
Lister threw the light bee. As desired, it stopped in mid-air and began projecting layers of light around itself until the recognisable form of Arnold Rimmer appeared. The hologram looked dead-eyed for a second, then flinched as his database presumably kicked in, memories and personality and all. He glanced down at himself, then at Rimmer, then at their surroundings.
"How long has it been?" he asked.
"Ehm, like a year?"
Rimmer stared at his crew mate, flabbergasted. He then reached out to touch the table, finding it solid. Lister couldn't help but smirk as he chewed on the end of one his dreadlocks.
"But I'm hard-light. I don't understand, Lister."
"It's no biggie, Arn. There's some business yeh left unfinished, so I fixed your bee."
"But you could have loaded up anyone. Kochanski, Peterson - why did you choose me?"
Lister moved forwards and held onto the other man's arm, drawing him towards the door.
"C'mon. I'll show ya."
Red Dwarf hadn't changed location in the year Lister had taken it upon himself to fix the light bee. Not too far away was the beach planet, the ocean moon, and the Memento. The Dwarf had only moved to follow them in orbit. Lister informed Rimmer of this as he took him towards the ship's drive room. There, Kryten and Cat were waiting, stood to the side of the command unit.
"I didn't wanna do anythin' to that ship. It didn't feel right. I wanted to ask someone who might better understand, y'know? Like a hologram. Kryten's developed remote control of Memento's mainframe. We can detonate the bomb that's on board proper and end the misery of the people trapped there, or we can leave 'em to their own devices and carry on."
Rimmer didn't seem to be capable of anything other than disbelief at that moment, gaping at Lister like he had just slapped him.
"Want us to leave yeh alone?"
"No," the hologram responded immediately. "It's just ... I've just never ... You're really letting me make this decision?"
"I think it's for the best, man."
Rimmer slowly approached the computer and stared at the screen for a moment. Their target was blinking at them from the navicom. All he had to do was push a button. Lister could see him weighing up all the options in his head, but the speed at which the man came to a decision surprised him.
With little hesitation, Arnold reached out and pressed one of the keys. Just like that, their target was presumably wiped clean of it haunted mainframe. With even less hesitation, Rimmer abruptly turned and left the room, straight-backed and stiff.
Lister had the sense to leave him alone for a while. Such a decision had likely come quickly, but not easily.
Some hours later, he found the hologram in one of his favourite places; Red Dwarf's observation deck, which consisted of a clear, rounded dome that had once allowed the mining ship's crew to gaze out into the cosmos. It was a rather lonely place, these days, but then again, so was the rest of the giant vessel they called home.
Rimmer was cross-legged on the floor. Beside his right knee, a small candle was burning, lighting the dark deck in a gentle, warm glow. The deaths of space crew were usually marked in some way, and Lister supposed that this was Rimmer's. He had, after all, felt all of the emotions and seen the memories of the Memento's former inhabitants. He had known them more personally than anybody ever should have. Lister looked up through the dome and saw that the cursed vessel had been obliterated in the blast, and was now shining amongst the lucid ring surrounding the ocean moon nearby. It was a fitting end, he thought, to become a part of the Universe itself.
"Yeh did the right thing," Lister murmured, moving to sit down by the hologram.
"Yes, I think so," Rimmer agreed amiably. "To become a machine is one thing. To lose your humanity is something else."
Lister raised his eyebrows. Reaching forwards, he placed a comforting hand on the other's knee.
"Look, I didn't just bring yeh back 'cause of the ship. There's somethin' I, er," he scratched his nose, "wanted to say."
Rimmer looked at him anxiously. "What?"
"Sorry. I made some comment a while back, comparin' yeh to your dad. We're all like our parents in some ways, aren't we? But I don't think your old man would've shoved someone's hand into his own gut to make sure somebody came out of a situation alive. And I don't think he coulda handled makin' the decision to end the torment of those crazy holograms."
Rimmer's ears turned bright red, and he appeared startled by the praise.
"I brought yeh back 'cause you deserve to be here," Lister continued. It genuinely pained him speaking kind words to Rimmer of all people, and it likely sounded in his voice, but he still meant them. "You're one of us, all right? I'm never gonna switch you off or swap you out for someone else, even if you are a right smegger."
A brief silence. They both turned to observe the glittering stars and moons in the distance. Lister felt the soft weight of the other man move to rest against him, and his heart suddenly leapt into his throat.
"I don't know what to say, Listy. You rebuilt an entire hard-light unit by yourself. How am I supposed to call you an utter gimboid now?"
Lister leaned in and coaxed Rimmer's head to rest against his. His lips turned to the hologram's ear.
"Then don't say nothin'. Jus' be proud of me like I'm proud of you, aight? But if any of this gets mentioned to Cat or Kryten, I'll toss your bee into the garbage disposal."
He saw Rimmer's slight smug grin in the corner of his eye. He sighed gently.
"Actions speak louder than words, Lister, and you built me so I could live again. I don't need to mention anything to them, you goit, because one of your weaknesses is your blatant lack of subtlety."
"Weaknesses can be be good things! And what the hell are you implyin', man? That yeh think I've fallen for you or summat? You?"
Rimmer's smirk didn't leave his face. Lister moved his head slightly as the hologram turned and pressed his mouth against his. The cool buzz of energy that vibrated against his lips was amazing, but better was the way Rimmer clung to the leather of his jacket, eagerly pulling him deeper into the kiss. It was enough to cause a significant hot flush on Lister's part. Once they were done, he pressed his forehead against Rimmer's temple and held him close, surprised by the strength of his gratitude at the fact the man was back and amongst their small crew again.
For all their faults, they made a good pair when the time called for it.
"Now, I think you made me a little promise, Listy."
"Wha's tha'?"
"To observe my entire photographic collection of 20th Century trains, if I remember correctly."
With a groan, Lister shoved the man away from him and scrambled to his feet in order to dive for the ladder leading out of the observation deck.
"Rimmer, you're a bleedin' smeghead!"