Chapter 18 – Blue
The two scutters had finished the destruction of the nest and had headed up to help Bob in the main drive room. Wires were sticking out of all the consoles some of which were sparking. Almost every time Bob fixed one panel something blew else where. With the help of the other two scutters, Bob soon managed to regain control of the situation and two images flickered onto the screen and, after making a few final adjustments one of the images faded out, leaving the image of a middle aged, balding head.
"What's up scutters?" The face said, Bob blinked and sent a data burst to Hollys main frame.
"Oh, well we better find the others then..."
The console exploded, taking out one of the scutters, the screen flickered and Holly fought against an encroaching static.
"You can fix this? Can't you?" he asked Bob, the little scutter shrugged.
"Well we can only hope."
Something clinked and a small ring floated into the air and moved towards the damage.
"Holly, you have carried the hope of humanity for over three million years. Welcome to the blue lantern corps." The ring landed in the broken circuit board and flooded the system with blue light.
"What the smeg is that thing?" Lister shouted as they ran down the narrow passage, pursued by the huge Polymorph.
"They were originally called 'nest busters." Emma explained.
"So, it'll help us?" asked the Cat
"No, not really. They were another failed human experiment." Emma paused and sighed. "when the humans decided to get rid of us polymorphs, they tried a number of methods, all of which failed. Eventually they decided to fight fire with fire, they took polymorph DNA and made the nest busters, polymorphs made to hunt polymorphs."
"So, what went wrong?" Asked Cat
"The nest busters sided with us, they are part polymorph." Emma stopped and thought. "It does give us one advantage though. The nest busters can't handle a lot of emotion in one go, a modification the humans made to try to control them."
"So how does that help us?" Asked the Cat
Emma Sighed, "You all have weapons powered by emotion, just aim at it's mouth."
The rest of the group let out a collected "Oh", charged up their rings and all let loose with streams of light weapons. The nest buster roared and raised itself to its full height, bringing rocks and rubble down around it.
"Keep it up." Emma shouted.
The group continued firing and, eventually the nest buster fell to the ground blocking the passageway. Almost instantly the smaller polymorphs began to slither, ooze and slime through
every gap. The tem headed back down the tunnel and found themselves in a large cave filled with squished, shiny polymorphs. Rimmer was running around, chasing polymorphs. More and more polymorphs streamed into the cave, there shear number pressing the group back against the far wall. Barriers made out of ring light did little to hold the advancing hoard back, Red Floofs gun drone was soon over whelmed and the number of polymorphs made physical force ineffective. The creatures kept advancing.
Something sizzled, smoke started to rise off one of the monsters, then off another and another. A stream of blue light was raining down form the cave roof. As the group watched blue rain began to melt holes through the cave. As the blue rain hit the ring bearers, they began to feel empowered and strengthened. The polymorphs stopped their advance, their attention drawn to the hole in the roof. Red dwarf hung in the sky encased in a blue aura.
"That ship is dripping in hope, it could feed them for years." Emma gasped.
A polymorph grew wings and took off. Before it had even left the cave, it was shot down by blasts of orange light. Lister turned to the very back of the cave, where they'd left Rimmer only to see three men he recognised, all of them seemed to be made of orange light.
"What is happening?" Asked Lister
"It's the power of the orange lantern, the ring can recreate anyone the wearer has killed. Although I'd be surprised if this bozo has killed many people." Dex-Starr said.
"I think this cave about to get very full then." Lister said
"Why." Asked Dex-Starr
"Well Rimmer holds himself responsible for the death of the ships crew. He was the one who didn't seal the drive plate." Lister said.
The cave started to fill with orange replicas of the red dwarf crew all armed with pistols, bazookiods or knives. Most of the polymorphs began to fly up towards the red dwarf but the orange replacers followed them. Any remain polymorphs were taken care of by Lister and the others.