Red Dwarf: What if the crew survived?
Authors notes: The idea is a collection of stories based on episodes, based on the idea of the whole red dwarf crew surviving. I know Rimmer and Lister are acting out of character, I'm having trouble capturing the mannerisms of younger Lister and Rimmer. And I know I've changed Kryten a bit.
Chapter 4: Stasis leak
J.M.C mining ship Red Dwarf, location: Deep space.
Logbook:
This is the video log of Frank Hollister, captain of the Jupiter Mining Corporation ship the Red Dwarf. It's been 4 months since we awoke from stasis following a leak of cadmium 2 radiation. In those 4 months, we've encountered a new humanoid life form descendent from the domesticated cat, a mechanoid built nearly ten thousand years after we were apparently killed and obtained faster than light engines. Unfortunately, the mass of the ship makes it unsafe to travel at light speed due to time dilation effects so therefore we've rebuilt our White Midget scout ships into remotely operated faster then light scouting ships. As for the mechanoid, his name is Kryten and his primary function is that of a sanitation droid, but appears to be programmed to be able to cook. Peterson has requested to allow Kryten to assist in the kitchens. In other notes, the ship apparently is safe to travel at 90% of the speed of light without suffering echos, the return to Earth should take less then 10 years.
As moral is a little low, we're taking shore leave on a nearby planet that is Earth like, all indications state it's safe so the crew will get some R&R in rotations.
End of log.
In the bunk room belonging to Rimmer, Lister and Cat, Rimmer sat at the table in deep thought as he thumbed the pages of his old diary, Lister was having a shave and Cat was lying on his bunk reading a Starbug manual. "It couldn't be true." he thought, as he read the entries in the book.
"Good book?" Lister asked
"Just my old diary." Rimmer replied, "I'm just reviewing some old entries from before the Cadmium leak, back when we were still vending machine repair men."
"Why're you trying to depress yourself?" Lister asked. Rimmer rolled his eyes as Lister continued, "You know, imagine if you could go back in time though, what would you say to your past self?"
"Radiation leak in 3 weeks time, inform Holly about ship wide stasis field." Rimmer said.
"What're you talking about Nostrils?" Cat asked. Rimmer's nostrils flared outward, then he smirked.
"Nothing Dwayne." Rimmer said. Cat winced as though he'd been stabbed.
"Hey man, don't call me that." he said.
"Any time you call me nostrils, i'll call you Dwayne." Rimmer said, "You'll get smegged off quicker then me Mi'laddio."
"Guys, knock it off." Lister sighed, "Cat, please call him Rimmer. Rimmer, please call him Cat."
"Okay, deal. Can I still call you Dormouse cheeks though?" Cat asked
"Whatever." Lister sighed, "Rimmer, what did you mean about the stasis field?"
"My diary entry here, the day after you cooked us breakfast." Rimmer said
"Oh, that was your birthday right? When I did us the fried breakfast and I accidentally cooked us those Titan Mushrooms?" Lister asked
"Titan whatshrooms? Cat asked
"Titan mushrooms, it was Rimmer's birthday so I went to the kitchens and asked Peterson if I could do me and Rimmer a breakfast. Found some mushrooms in the back of the fridge, fried them too. Turns out they were Titan mushrooms, a powerful hallucinogenic." Lister said
"Hallucination means you see things that aren't real." Rimmer said, "We both got into trouble initially, but the captain thankfully realised we'd accidentally eaten them." Rimmer said
"He ran half naked through the ship and shoved a pencil up the captains nose and Todhunter caught me in the airlock about to take a spacewalk without a spacesuit." Lister said, "They medicom fixed us."
"I wrote here that I saw us and a man with a funny shaped head talking to Holly, warning him about a radiation leak and that we'd travelled via a stasis leak to the past." Rimmer said, "I thought it was an aftereffect of the mushrooms, but now I'm suspecting something else. Stasis leak on G deck. We should check it out."
"Okay, Cat can you find Kryten for us?" Lister asked
"Sure Dormouse." Cat said, doing a sarcastic Rimmer salute and leaving.
"We should report to Hollister about this." Rimmer said, "I'm assuming your bringing Kryten along as a science adviser?"
"Yeah, he may know more then Holly." Lister said. On the flight deck, the two technicians approached the captains office.
"What brings you two here?" Frank Todhunter asked, he was sitting at Hollisters desk.
"Todhunter." Rimmer said, respectfully saluting, "We need to speak with the captain."
"The Captains not on the ship at the moment, he's on the nearby planet taking shoe leave with some crew, you boys are scheduled for shore leave next week." Frank said
""We're here on a matter of potential...uh..security I guess." Rimmer said
"Security?" Frank asked.
"Okay, it's hard to explain. Do you remember when I accidentally cooked those titan mushrooms and me and Rimmer ran amock?" Lister asked
"I remember stopping you from killing yourself, yes." Frank replied
"Rimmer was reading his old diary from the time, he recalled something unusual about then. He described an hallucination where he saw himself, me and Kryten talking to Holly." Lister said, "We don't believe it's an hallucination though, Kryten mentioned a stasis leak to the past."
"A stasis leak?" Frank asked, "So...you're saying us being alive is a paradox because you went back to warn us?"
"Looks like the gist of it, yeah." Rimmer said.
"Okay, as acting captain I'm authorising you to do whatever you need to do to keep us alive. Use the leak but don't do anything else to mess with the timeline." Frank said.
"Yes sir." Lister said. A little while later, Cat, Lister, Rimmer and Kryten were onboard an express elevator going down to floor.
"Please state your desired floor." The elevator asked.
"Floor sixteen please." Lister said
"Ugh, this thing takes ages." Rimmer muttered.
"Welcome to X-Press Lifts, descent to floor sixteen. You will be going down two thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven floors and, for a small extra charge, you can enjoy the in-lift movie "Gone With the Wind." A video hostess said
"What's this?" Cat asked
"Emergency warning video." Lister said
"If you look to your right and to your left, you will notice there are no exits. In the highly unlikely event of the lift having to make a crash-landing, death is certain. Under your seats you will find a cassette for recording your last-minute testament, and from above your head a bag will drop containing sedatives and cyanide capsules." the hostess said.
"These things freak me out." Lister muttered
"To take the cyanide capsule, simply break open, like so." The hostess said, breaking the capsule "And place under the tongue." She said, placing the capsule in her mouth before collapsing.
"Creepy." Cat muttered.
"This will take 3 hours. Kryten should recharge in that socket on the way down." Rimmer said
"Do we get the movie?" Cat asked
"No, you wouldn't like it." Lister said. When the lift finally stopped, the 4 passengers disembarked.
"Thank you for using X-Press lifts, we apologise for the delay." the elevator said
"You should apologise for the chicken, first time I've ever ate a meal where the container tastes better then the food." Cat muttered. The crew approached the Stasis pods and noticed a strange glow.
"Is this the thingie?" Cat asked, "Okay Dormouse, what exactly is it?"
"It's a rent in the space-time continuum." Lister said.
"Oh." Cat said, then turned to Kryten "What is it?"
"Oh, well Mister Dibley sir, the stasis room freezes time, making it stand still. The leak seems to preserve whatever it's leaked into and it's leaked into this room." Kryten said, "This is a singularity, a point where normal space-time laws don't apply."
"Ah...what is it nostrils?" Cat asked Rimmer.
"It's a gateway to the past Dwayne." Rimmer said
"A magic doorway...hey, don't call me Dwayne!" Cat said. Rimmer smirked at the disgruntled look in Cat's face.
"Okay, let me just look at this." Lister said, touching the portal cautiously. A few seconds later he jumped inside. After several seconds, his arm emerged from the portal and beckoned them to follow.
"Cool." Cat said, as the group entered the portal. The group emerged into Red Dwarf over 3 million years in the past.
"So this is the past?" Cat asked.
"Yeah, we're in a cargo hold." Rimmer said.
"Sirs, I'm detecting a non humanoid life form nearby." Kryten said
"You're detecting me." Cat said, rolling his eyes, "You're supposed to be the smart one Mech."
"No, it's not Mister Dibley. It's another lifeform and it's close." Kryten said.
"Are you sure this is the past?" Rimmer asked, his voice wavering slightly. Lister shone his flashlight towards where Kryten was detecting the lifeform and relaxed.
"It's okay, it's Frankenstein." Lister said
"Wait...you mean she's the virgin mother?" Cat asked, watching the small cat in fascination.
"She's your ancestor." Rimmer said, cracking a slight smile at the look of astonishment on Cat's face, "We can't disturb her though, but I had an idea, could we bring supplied to the future?"
"We could try." Lister said, "But only from outside the cargo room. Their is a lot of food here, but the cat race uses it."
"Oh right, we could create a pair of docs." Cat said
"A paradox you mean Mister Dibley." Kryten said
"Cat, can I ask you a question man, while the name Cat suits you, why do you hate the name Dwayne?" Lister asked
"It's complicated. We cats usually don't do that family thing you guys do. My parents didn't name me, it's tradition for a preacher to name children. Dwayne was a name given to a son if the father was a jelly brain. Apparently their was a cat lord called Dwayne, he went crazy. Jelly brain is an insult for a crazy cat, Cat tradition decided to call the children of Jelly brains Dwayne because it rhymes with Jelly Brain." Cat said
"Smeg, look I'm sorry for calling you that name then, I won't do it in future." Rimmer said, "If you annoy me, I'll address you as Dibley, unless that's an insult too."
"Nah, that's not an insult. Dibley was the name of the old blind preacher who raised me, the nicer one of the preachers, my parents died when i was a kit." Cat said, as the group exited the cargo hold, "He kind of became like a father to me, so I took Dibley as my name."
"Okay, we could link up to Holly here." Kryten said.
"Technicians Rimmer and Lister." Holly said, "Wait, who are they? Intruder alert will sound in 10 seconds unless you have a good reason for being here."
"01001111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110010 01101001 01100100 01100101 00111010 00100000 01001011 01110010 01111001 01110100 01100101 01101110 00100000 00110010 01011000 00110100 01000010 00100000 01110101 01101110 01101100 01101111 01100011 01101011 00100000 01001010 01001101 01000011 00100000 01001000 01101111 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000 00110111 01000101 00111000 01001110." Kryten said rapidly. [Override: Kryten 2X4B unlock JMC Holly 7E8N]
"You have my attention now Kryten. You know the security codes which only I know, which means I told you them." Holly said
"Hol, we're not Lister and Rimmer from now, we're from 3 million years into the future." Lister said.
"Time travellers huh? I'm guessing you arrived via a stasis leak?" Holly asked
"Yes, how did you know?" Rimmer asked
"I'm aware of the stasis leaking, it's been leaking for 20 days now. When we arrive to the spaceports, the area would normally be decontaminated." Holly said, "Stasis leaks are safe if cordoned off. As for your friend, I'm guessing he's a highly evolved feline from the future?"
"Yeah, I'm a cat." Cat said.
"Hol, we need to build a ship wide stasis field generator. We all survived a radiation leak because of a shipwide stasis field generator, apparently you built it just in case, but now we figured it's a predestination paradox." Kryten said.
"Okay, let's get cracking." Holly said, "So three weeks to a radiation leak and we need a stasis field generator built?"
"What the smeg?" A voice behind them said, the Rimmer from the past was standing with his mouth hanging open.
"Nothing, we're just mushroom hallucinations." Kryten said.
"Prove it." Past Rimmer said.
"What's wrong with you Mi'Laddio?" Kryten asked in Rimmer's voice. Past Rimmer laughed.
"Okay, just mushrooms. I'd better get back to Medbay." he said.
"Let's hide before I comes back." Rimmer said.
"Wait, I just thought of something." Cat said, "We've built multiple field generators in the future, couldn't we bring them here from the future?"
"Smart thinking Cat man." Lister said. A few trips to the future later, the stasis field generators were built and operational. As expected, the past Rimmer snuck back a few times, but after a prank involving a dinosaur which was in reality MacIntyre changing his body form, the trip ended without disaster and the Rimmer from the past was in the medlab sedated to cure his hallucinations.
"Did everything go as planned?" Frank asked
"Even better, I was able to save me guitar by moving it out of the cargo hold I hid Frankenstein in and put it back in me room so the stasis field saved it." Lister said
"Oh smegging hell." Rimmer said, facepalming.
It's cold outside, their's not kind of atmosphere
I'm all alone, more or less.
Let me fly, far away from here. Fun fun fun, in the sun sun sun.
I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh Mango juice.
Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes.
Fun fun fun, in the sun sun sun
Fun fun fun, in the sun sun sun
Copyright Grant Naylor
Copyright BBC