I can't begin to tell you how much I didn't like Anakin. He was just so full of himself. He kept going on about how he could sense traps and people with "the force," because he was a Jedi. He said that was how he'd found us. He didn't ever talk to be helpful, just to brag about himself. I guess he could sense how pissed I was with him, too, because he ignored everything I said and did. I don't even think he looked me in the eye, not for more than a second. The Doctor said later that there was no real reason for me to hate Ani, but he was just so, so, so… I'd need to invent a new word to describe it. Anyway, he was a smug little prick.
But just because I didn't like him didn't mean he was bad. He could be rude, but he wasn't a total bastard. He did save our lives, and he grabbed me from falling into another gravity-messed room, after a while. He was still a smeghead, but I preferred running around in the cube with him than with Rimmer. Rimmer, now that guy's a piece of work. If he were here, hologram or human, he'd have ditched me and The Doctor at that trap to save himself. At least Anakin didn't do that.
Anyway, I remember that we were taking a break in this green room (it's always the green rooms where anything happens) with my eyes starting to water from the brightness. I was trying to smoke my second cigarette, when Anakin silently plucks the thing out of my mouth and douses it against the wall. What a prick, right? I only had two cigarettes left. I tried to take it back, but he held it over his head and dangled it, like a bully holding schoolwork.
"Come on," I whined, "that's not funny, Ani."
"These deathsticks aren't going to help."
"It'll help me keep my fist out of your head."
"Dave," The Doctor sighed.
I waved him off. "Look, that's mine, and you can't just take it."
"We'd be better off using these for something else," he pointed out.
I laughed. "Right, for what? A fire? A barbeque? Smoke signal?"
"Just don't, okay? I don't want your secondhand smoke infecting my lungs."
I rolled my eyes. "Then go to the other side of the room. Come on, just give it back."
"You should quit these anyway."
"Don't tell me what to do, alright?"
"So you'll listen to The Doctor and not a Jedi?"
"Enough with the Jedi shite." I made a half-jump, but he moved away as if he'd known I'd do it. "Are all Jedi's such smegheads?"
"Stop it, both of you," The Doctor scolded. "Anakin, it's his, give it back. And don't say that word, Dave. You don't know what it means."
"What, smeg means something?"
He raised an eyebrow, as if I was better off not knowing. I waved him off again, moving to the other side of the room, flashing my lighter to start my cigarette again. I knew The Doctor was probably as annoyed as Anakin, about my smoking, but at least that was because he cared and not because he was a prick. Besides, he didn't say anything about it. I was hungry, I was tired, and all I had was this. I think he got that.
After a minute, Anakin turned his head, like he'd heard something. This dark look came over his face, and he started for my side of the room.
"Oh no," I said, backing away, "you just leave it, alright?"
"Not you," he said, brushing past me, "I sense something."
He said this like it explained everything. He still had to figure out that we didn't know a bloody thing about Jedis. He jumped onto the ladder in a rush, opening the door. Just as he opened it, we all heard a blast of sound, of words.
"You damn browncoats are in on this, I know you are! Talk!"
The cigarette dropped from my mouth, and I ran for the room, The Doctor just behind me. Anakin was already inside, his lightsaber on, over the throat of some old bloke holding a gun. The old bloke looked like he'd fallen out of a western movie, the gun some shiny pistol to match. Another guy was on the ground, his head beaten red, his coat big and brown, like The Doctor's.
"Put the weapon down," Anakin said slowly.
The old bloke looked at me, then at The Doctor. Just as he did, I realized he might have a problem with The Doctor's coat. He did, and raised his arm to point the gun.
With a flick of his wrist, the Jedi tore through the bloke's arm like butter. The man made a noise, but not a loud one, and he didn't scream. He just went pale, and then fell over dead. There wasn't any oozing blood, no squirting arteries—most of where Anakin had cut him was ash. I took a step back from it all, in shock, and reminded myself not to tick this guy off.
The Doctor was ticked off, though, his face livid. "Was that necessary?"
The Jedi looked nervous, like a kid caught playing around with something he shouldn't. "He would have killed you. I didn't mean to kill him."
"Right, you just meant to cut his arm off."
"What else could I do?" He turned his lightsaber off, his voice defiant, but his eyes on the floor.
The Doctor shook his head, then calmed down, noticing that the guy with the bleeding head was still conscious. He helped the bloke up, and while their coats matched, the man's red shirt and suspenders didn't. His short brown hair stuck up funny with the red stuff in it, dark grey eyes still skeptic of us. He looked like a western man too, like a straight-up cowboy. He wiped blood off his head with his sleeve, wincing as he scraped over the cut.
I didn't like seeing all that blood. I tore off the corner of my shirt (it wasn't in very good shape anyway) and held it out to the cowboy.
He nodded, "Thank you kindly," as he put the shirt bit on his head. He then looked into the corner of the room and called, "You alright, Delenn?"
I turned. A woman was getting up, but looked a bit wobbly on her feet, shaking all over. She had long brown hair, which shifted through some crown type thing on her head, a gray bone that crept up from her temples. She had a bump on her temple, too, and I bet she'd been knocked unconscious. She wore these purple robes, looking otherworldly. Well, I guess sort of Asian, but not like... I dunno. They were alien clothes. She had a bone crown instead of eyebrows, so what else could she have been?
"Thank you," she managed to say, though she still seemed scared out of her mind. "That man, he might have…"
"He was after me, not you," the cowboy said. "I wouldn't've let him hurt you more than he did."
She was still shaking, but gave him a gentle smile. "That was what worried me."
The man smiled back, then turned to us. "Name's Malcolm Reynolds, friends call me Mal. That there's Delenn. Don't mind her looks, she's just alien, apparently."
"Alien," The Doctor cried, grinning as he rushed over to her, Delenn jumping like I would have. "What species?"
She shyly glanced at the floor, then back up at him, straightening her shoulders. "Minbari. I suppose you haven't heard of it."
"No I haven't, but I'm glad I have now." He buzzed his screwdriver at her, but it died again, making him frown. "Never mind, I should save that for doors. Can you open the doors, Delenn?"
She shook her head, "No, I cannot. I was stuck in another room for hours, when Mal—" she nodded to him, "came and found me. He has been opening the doors for me since then." She shook a bit less, and eyed The Doctor. "Who are you?"
"Well, I'm The Doctor," he said brightly.
"Yes, but doctor who?"
"Nope, just Doctor."
"I'm Anakin Skywalker," the Jedi called.
"Dave Lister," I added, giving them a half-wave.
We got Mal and Delenn up to date. Well, by 'we,' I mean The Doctor started rambling at them. Delenn seemed to ease up when she heard The Doctor was an alien, and Mal seemed to tense when we discussed the lightsaber. They were real different, Mal being a weird soldier type, and Delenn turning out to be an ambassador. They were still friendly, in their own ways. Friendly enough for me to like them, unlike Anakin.
"Hold on," Mal said, "I'm not the only one who's gone through the stars and not seen aliens, am I?"
I raised my hand. "News to me, too."
"No aliens?" Doc was baffled. "That's impossible. Well... not likely. Have to be very, very different dimensions than ours. Ones where human society evolved faster, or... something."
"It feels impossible to me, too," Delenn said, "we had countless species visiting Babylon Five..." She rubbed her forehead. "I can't remember how I got here, no matter how hard I try... I just remember Sheridan saying... saying 'call me John.'"
Anakin scuffed his boot against the ground. "Master Obi-wan was reminding me not to lose my lightsaber."
"I was telling Jayne off for shit," Mal muttered.
"I was going to sleep," I said, "Holl was saying goodnight."
There was a pause. I looked at The Doctor, who seemed to want to stay in the pause. After a while, he finally spoke up.
"I was in the TARDIS. Just standing there, by the console. Wet, from the rain. Alone."
I didn't know what to say. No one did. So no one said anything, until The Doctor perked up again in his way. "Right then, let's get moving, everyone. Ani, can you scan the rooms we pass by and look for others?"
Anakin nodded, "More or less. I haven't met anyone before today, though."
"I was with a couple people yesterday," Mal said, "but they got killed in a trap."
Delenn's eyes went wide. "You've… you've all been here for days?"
I wanted to say something funny and stupid, so that she'd calm down, but I couldn't think of anything and just rubbed my temples. Days, days, they've been here for days. How long had I been here?
"You alright, Dave?" Doc asked.
"Yeah, I'm just tired."
He nodded. "I understand. Look," he clapped my shoulder, "let's just push through a bit more, then we can rest. Okay?"
"Okay, sure."
We went through some rooms. And more rooms. And more. It hurt my eyes, my head, my fingers numb from cold ladder rungs, my throat felt dry and I was starving. I kept trying to push, but it wasn't the push that got me. It was the monotony. The same drill each room, red, green, hot pink, blue, which door, left right, anyone home, no let's go, red, green, hot pink, blue…
"Dave," Delenn was saying suddenly, helping me up from the ground, "are you alright?"
I rubbed my temples again. "What happened?"
"You passed out," Doc said, then said louder, "he's dehydrated."
Mal handed me a canteen. It had some weird insignia on it, a weird bird or something. It was scuffed up, but I could make out "BSG" written on it. I took just a quick sip, even though it felt like there was a lot in there.
"Where'd you get this?" I asked.
"A friend," Mal said, eyes on the ground, "one of the ones I lost yesterday."
I just sort of nodded, and took another half-sip.
"Leave some for the fishes, Listy," Mal added, as if I hadn't been careful with it. I had a grudge against the name he called me, but he had water, so I didn't complain.
"Dave," Doc said, walking up beside me, "we can stop now, if you want."
I shook my head. I didn't want to drag these guys down. "I'll be alright."
"I dunno," Mal said, "you look like hell."
"Perhaps we should rest," Delenn added, "five minutes or so."
"No, if I stop now I'll pass out again."
Anakin didn't say anything nice. He just glared at me, arms crossed, prowling around in the sidelines. Something about it made me want to push on even more, prove to him that I wasn't just another "death-stick" smoking git.
"Let's move again."
We did. More monotony. More smegging monotony. I had to get away from it, somehow. I remember something Holly once said, and I remember it like I remember his goodnight; "As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?"
If I could laugh about something on Red Dwarf, I could laugh about something in the cube. I just had to find something to laugh about.
"Doctor, Delenn, if you're both aliens, how do you know about humans?"
"I live on a space station co-funded by the Earth Alliance," Delenn replied. "I deal with humans every day."
"I've travelled all over the universe in my TARDIS," The Doctor said, "but I always find myself back on Earth." He nudged elbows with Delenn. "Humans, eh?"
"What's a TARDIS?" Mal asked. "Never heard of a ship model like that."
"TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."
"Sooo, it's a time machine?"
"And a space machine."
Mal whistled. "Sounds magnificent."
Doc beamed, starting up a ladder. "Oh yes, it really is. You should see it."
"What does it look like?"
Doc frowned. "Well… it's a little blue box. But it's bigger on—oh, no, you'll just have to see it."
Now that was a laugh. I chuckled, at the idea of travelling around the universe, around time, in a little blue box. That didn't sound bad. Not bad at all.
It was the next room that it all happened. A green room, of course. The Doctor came out last, just behind me, and he kept staring at the room number as he went down the ladder. Then he dashed, through the room with a spurt of energy, spinning around, walking backwards, scanning. It was as if he expected to see something different on the green walls, something strange and new. He saw nothing, and for the first time, fear crossed over his face.
"No."
"What is it?" Anakin asked.
"This is the room I started in."
"Maybe you've been going in circles," Mal suggested.
"I haven't," The Doctor said, "I've been careful not to. Oh," he slapped his palm against his forehead, "I should have known, I should have known sooner than this. The room with space distortion..."
I shrugged, trying to act clueless, though I had a feel of what was wrong. "What's going on, Doc?"
The Doctor faced us, looking grim. "The rooms are all lined up in a basic structure, but they're also looping, overlapping into each other. We won't find an edge to the cube going straight, we'll just wind up at the beginning again." He paused. "It all fits together. I've heard of plans to construct something like this, but I never thought…"
"Construct what?" Mal rushed him, "where the hell are we, what is this?"
"I assumed this was a cube, made of cubed rooms pressed on top of each other. This isn't just a cube, though."
He looked at us with intense eyes, and I'll never forget that chilling tone of his. I didn't understand the word, but I understood its power.
"This is a tesseract."
