Chapter 15 – Flashback
Everything had gone to smeg. That was the only thing that Dave Lister knew for certain. Red Dwarf, his ship, his home, the last refuge of humanity had suffered a number of incidents over the last three million and something years but it had always been there. Even when it had been reduced to a microscopic size and stolen by Krytens nanites it had been there, in his mind at least. It had become more than a ship, more than a home to Lister, it was a symbol of normality, of survival and now it was overrun with monsters.
Everything had happened so fast, Holly had reported a discrepancy in the food stock, a problem that should have been solved when the ship had been re-built as the nanites had stocked the ship for the resurrected crew. A vast quantity of food was reported to have disappeared and the water tanks were showing a large loss. Scutters had been sent down but none of them had returned so, eventually Listed and Kryten armed themselves with bazookoides and laser cutters and made their way to the storage bay. They made it as far as floor thirteen.
The prison level had been sealed ever since the virus had been stopped and Lister's hand shook as he pressed the door release button. The door hissed, clunked and began to open, it hadn't gotten halfway before something shot through the gap knocking Lister off his feet. Lister's vision was filled with shapes flowing through the still opening doorway. The shapes were so varied in form that is was impossible for him to tell what was going on, some seemed to be flying, some walking and others jumped, something landed on him, it's weight pushing him down but when he looked all he saw was a set of wind up plastic teeth. The teeth sat still for a minute and seemed to stare into him then their winder began to turn with any aid and the teeth chattered off.
"This way Sir, we can make it through the door." A pink, plastic hand reached down and Lister look it, helping himself off the ground.
"Thanks, Kryten. What the Smeg is going on? What are all these things?"
"I'm not sure Sir. It looks like some old junk has come to life. Probably something left down here from the prisoners."
Lister looked a Kryten and was about to speak when a word seemed to float through the air, "Lying…"
"What was that? Kryten did you hear it?" Lister asked.
"Oh, it was probably one of the items, I'm sure I saw a radio amongst them."
"Yeah that makes sense. So, what is it, have we experienced anything like this before?"
Kryten stood and thought for a minute, Lister thought he saw an expression of panic cross the Mechanoids face. Suddenly Kryten grabbed Lister and pulled him to one side, a heard of computer chairs rolled passed nearly knocking to down.
"This way sir. If we keep moving, we can stay out of their way and then make our way back up to the flight deck." Kryten suggested.
"Thanks man, I don't know what I'd have done without you. There's so many of them you know but your giving me hope, that we can sort this out." Lister said
"Well that was the plan Sir" The last word seemed more of a sneer but, before Lister could say anything Krytens bottom jaw cracked open and a feeding tube shot from the gap, the last thought that went through Lister head before he passed out was 'Oh Smeg'.
"Kryten to Holly. I've found Mr Lister."
Lister had no idea how long he had been unconscious and it took a few minutes for his mind to catch up. The he remembered the feeding tube, he'd seen one a couple of times and both times it had ended badly. The he saw Kryten, he shuffled back until he hit the wall and he felt for his bazokoid until he remembered that he had dropped it when the creatures, which he now realised were polymorphs, had burst through the door. He had never felt so hopeless.
"Stay away, I know what you are. Your one of them aren't you? A polymorph."
"No sir, it's me, Kryten."
"No, you're not. You're the one that jumped me."
"No sir, I shot that one. Look it's over there."
Lister looked to where Kryten was pointing, the body of Kryten lay there, bleeding in a totally non mechanoid way.
"Then you're another one." Lister said.
"I can assure you sir that I am not a polymorph."
"Ah but that's what a polymorph would say." Lister Said
"That's true Sir. However, a polymorph can only mimic, it cannot know things that happened in your past, like the fact that you finished your curried kippers from last night for breakfast this morning."
"Ok, that true. It's still hopeless though, we're trapped down here and the polymorphs are running all over the ship."
"Well now sir, you are only feeling like that because the polymorph took one of your emotions. I would guess at hope." Kryten said.
"That doesn't make it any less true though, does it?" Lister said.
"No sir but we have been in any number of hopeless situations before. Remember when you were attacked by your own curry?"
"Which time. No, it doesn't matter. Let's get back to the flight deck, we may be doomed but we don't need to stay here."
The trip back to the flight deck was surprisingly un-eventful, all the polymorphs had seemed to have fled the confines of floor thirteen and had spread through the huge ship.
"Hay guys what's happening." The Cat had greeted them as they entered the flight room.
"Yes, where have you been? We've been trying to contact you for over an hour now." Rimmer asked
"We were attacked by polymorphs. I had to temporarily shut myself down so I didn't attract their attention. Mr Lister was not so fortunate. He has lost all hope I'm afraid."
"A polymorph, where did it come from? How did it get on the ship?" Rimmers voice began to shake with fear.
"Not 'a' Polymorph. Lots of polymorphs. There must have been hundreds." Lister said
"Oh don't exaggerate Lister we'd have known about hundreds of anything aboard." Said Rimmer.
"I don't think he's exaggerating." Cat said from the scanners. "I'm getting lots of blips on the internal senses."
"How many?" barked Rimmer
"One hundred, no five hundred, six, seven, nine. There's over a thousand."
"How can we have missed so many of them?" Rimmer asked.
"We stopped monitoring the storage bays some time ago." Kryten said.
"Why would we do that?" asked Rimmer.
"Because we kept picking up space weevils." Answered Kryten.
"Ah, "Said Rimmer. "Well there's nothing for it then we need to try to boot up Holly and get full control of the ship."
It had only taken a couple of hours to put Holly back in the main frame using a backup of his old program that had been hidden in a watch but, by that time Red Dwarf had been overrun by the shape changing creatures. Realising that the only food was the small group of creatures in the flight deck the polymorphs had begun to fill every corridor, walkway and vent around the area, fighting with each other to get closer to the intoxicating taste of fear coming from the small room.
"The Ship is over run and we have no way of knowing where these creatures are, or what they are." Holly said.
"So, we're smegged." Lister said
"No, we just need help." Said Holly
"Which we can't get. We don't even know what happened to the crew." Said Lister
"There is one chance I can think of." Said Holly. "We Holly Hop." As he spoke two scutters placed a box on the desk, the box was a red cube with a yellow label saying 'Holly Hop Drive', on top of the box was an elevated grey area which had a red and a green button on the top. The red button was labelled Stop and the Green Start.
"That old thing." Said Rimmer.
"Yes, this old thing. Look we need help and we won't get here so we hop and we keep hopping until we find a universe with the tech and resources to help us."
"And then what, even if we can find help, we can't get in touch with any one." Said Rimmer
"Yes, we can. I've briefed the toaster on the situation and uploaded his program into one of Rimmer's spare light bees, he can relay the message to anyone who can help."
"Great." Murmured Lister. "Our fate is in the hands of a bread obsessed moron and a box labelled Stop/Start. We are smegged."