Chapter 10

Let' s find The Ace

Lister allowed The Cat to pilot the Starbug on advice that his other self had earlier given him earlier. Lister felt confident that his "Better self" as he dubbed his dopple ganger, knew what he was doing, and the Cat's flying ability seemed to prove him right. After several hours of sneaking about, radar jamming and dodging, the Cat was able to pull off his first special hand brake landing. Unfortunately there was no applauding crowd, which led to his disappointment.

Blue Midget swooped in low with it's cloaking device activated, searching for survivors. Shortly after the dogfight Kryten and Holly scanned the wreckage while Spanners Lister, Dave Lister and the Cat were reading the salvaging equipment, and loading provisions into the ship.

Before Lister and the team headed planet side, he took a minute to check on his children. He looked into the stasis tubes where his sons sat nestled together for comfort, frozen in time until he could get them home to their own universe.

He whispered, "Dad'll be home before you know it."

He pressed his middle and index fingers together, kissed them,
and pressed them to the glass of the very stasis pod he once occupied,
so long ago. Then left.

Rimmer hadn't been heard from for the last three hours. His disappearance coincided with the announcement, by Holly, that another vessel has suddenly come onto his scanners. Then another. Then another. In the end there was a count of six ships in all, which were in pursuit of the first ship which disrupted the fabric of the space time continuum, causing the crew of the Dwarf to panic.

"Where are they headed now Holly?" Spanners asked.

"Well they all seem to be fighting about," Holly stalled, "but the general direction in right about generally, towards us."

"Is that the best you can do Hol?" Lister asked.

"How much more do you want?" Questioned Rimmer. "They're heading this way, in our general direction. We have to take action. I say we go to blue alert. Immediately, if not sooner."

"Holly can you put it on visual?" Asked Spanners.

"Think I can manage that."

Before Holly finished his sentence the view of the impending ship filled
the drive room's giant monitor. They were first awe struck by the bizarre and various designs of the ships, no two were the same. As if each were plucked out of a different world, all banned together to fight a common enemy.

Without taking his eyes off the screen Spanners vocalized that several of the ships fighting were of designs that he was familiar with.

Due to late night study sessions on Space Corps Proposals and Future Projects. Three of the ships were of a design made for battle Simulants.
Mechanoids designed for a war that would never happen. They were designed with two primary functions.

Survive and kill.
Two of the others were unfamiliar and the third was what he called
a Gelf Fighter.

"Yea I've read the ships design blue prints. They're supposed to be piloted
by a Genetically Engineered Life Form. Something to do with taking the DNA strands of an eagle, turkey buzzard, and a frog, to make a super pilot with
superior reflexes and flying abilities."

"A frog Mr. Spanners sir?" Questioned Kryten. "I can under stand the eagle for its eye sight, and a turkey buzzard for it's nasal capacity. Though I do question it's abilities in space."

"But a frog? Correct me if I'm wrong sir but my data banks define a frog as warty, green, webbed toed, bulgy eyed amphibious insect devouring pond
hopper. With the fantastic abilities to hop up to record lengths of 28 feet.
Spending most of their time sitting on lily pads in ponds looking oh so cute, until the misses walks by and the frog jumps in and the misses dress gets all wet and then what am I supposed to do." Kryten seemed on some sort of a breakdown.

"Kryten what the smeg are you going on about." Asked Lister.
Kryten slammed the side of his head with the palm of his hand. "Sorry," he said embarrassed. " I guess I was caught in an odd loop, that sent me into some disused trash files."

"It's OK," soothed Spanners. "The reason for the frogs DNA was it's ability to strike a target moving as quickly as an insect at one gee gravity. Relatively compared to a ship moving through space, it's almost like there standing still."

The lone fighter's design was one that Spanners was very familiar with. Hell he should be. He practically built the damn thing.
Sure there were extras added on, the ship had obviously been upgraded, and he was towing something. But the battle scorches hiding the ships Space Corps markings couldn't fool those mudd brown eyes. Nor could the mastery of his flying abilities.
It was Ace's.

The path that the small garrison was on was suddenly altered by a barrage of various forms of fire power from the pressing ships. The lone
blackened craft expertly zigzagged his way around the on coming blasts,
causing his tether to be cut by a blast from the simulants ships, and
his prize to swish off in the general direction of a local class M planetoid which was still still a good distance away.

While the dog fight ensued a final ship appeared on the very edges of Holly's scanners, very close to where the first ship had disrupted space and
popped into their reality.

Immediately the newl ship zoomed to the aid of the blackened
craft. Within minutes the odds were turned and the few remaining battle fighters thought it prudent to regroup and fight another day.
The Final ship's design was also familiar to Spanners. It was a ship made from the design he now carried in his pocket.
The design for a craft that was never built.

"What the Smeggen hell!" was all that escaped from both Listers'
mouths when the lone black ship, shortly after it was rescued, turned
and fired on it's rescuer. As the attacked ship plummeted towards the planet below Spanners yelled, "put a track on it, he's still got some life in him!"

It was true enough, the ship half disabled and on fire and Ace was still
somehow controlling the aircraft as it dove for the planets atmosphere.
But the Lone Black ship fell into it's wake and the pilot steadied
his hand and took aim, he himself was attacked by a second wave
of fighters and was forced to limp away with six fresh fighters on his tail.
Even with this respite Ace's ship was still in a death dive.

Three hours later the Blue Midget set down in an isolated cove, within a
few hundred yards of the ships last known position.

"Kryten are you getting any sort of read out on the locals?"
Asked Spanners.

"The scanners report of no life signs in the general vicinity sir.
Though I am getting readings of large life forms. Some sort of large cats I assume."

"Here that gents." Said Spanners. "Keep them pealed."

"OK here's the score," announced Lister taking his cues from Spanners, like a younger brother.

"We'll split up into two teams. Kryten you go with the Cat and to the west, me and Spanners will start to the east, working in a clock wise direction. And I want to do it fast, I don't like the kids up there alone, the quicker we can get through this the better. Any questions? "

"Dave, perhaps I should accompany the Cat. With his keen sense of smell
and Kryten's sensors it wouldn't be fair to us would it." Spanners winked good naturally to Dave.

"Yea your right. If you and I teamed up they wouldn't have a chance."

"Come on, lets get started," said the Cat. "The quicker we find Golf
Post Head's double, the sooner I can get back to the ship and take a bath."

"Mr. Spanners sir," said Kryten as he and Spanners made they're way down the gantry. "Do you really think the pilot had a chance? Not
that I wish the poor bastard any misfortune, but the fire. It was so
extensive."

Spanners stopped and looked directly into Kryten's eyes.
When Kryten saw the moisture building a pinging went off in his head, warning him of a possible guilt overload. He had to tread
carefully or risk an auto shutdown sequence.

"Look Man. I've been building ships for a good five years now. I've
seen test pilots come and I've seen 'em die. But after all I've seen,
I know one thing.

If any pilot in any universe had half a chance of surviving, it was Ace.
With that Spanners turned and started walking. He shouted
over his shoulder. "Are you coming or what?"

"Right away Mr. Spanners Sir."
Kryten would have to learn how to control his questions more closely.
It wouldn't do for him to shut down due to a guilt overload when one of the crew needed him. "Why, who'd do the laundry?"
Kryten waddled after Spanners completely unaware that their
movement, since before they landed, had been observed.
Observed by life forms, life forms which were definitely non human.