preamble:
Commander Ace Rimmer pushed a button. He was going to jump in three... two... one.
After a few minutes of disorientation he looked about. A ship. The Red Dwarf floated serenely in front of him, he hailed them, not certain what to expect.
and the rest of it:
They would later find out that the tuna in the tuna salad sandwiches had been off. And if anything, that was what was to blame.
Joseph Richards had chosen a tuna salad sandwich over the hamburgers and fries that were the special of the mess that day. He wanted something light.
Joseph Richards was one of two men in charge of the boilers that heated the Io base. He worked twelve hours of the day, the other man worked the other twelve. Yes, it would have been prudent to have more people in the field, but there weren't so they dealt with it.
Joseph was currently thinking about the twelve other hours of this day he's have once his shift was over at 9pm. His wife was at home. He had a present for her in his office. A gift so considerate it would almost certainly lead to sex.
Unfortunately, later that evening, at about eight in the evening he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. Then another. Joseph stood up and ran to the bathroom where he was violently ill. Very violently ill, so violent that there was blood in his vomit violently ill.
He had been food poisoned. Badly food poisoned. Not thinking enough to consider what would happen to the boilers he headed to the med lab for something for his stomach.
The boilers meanwhile weren't working as well as he would like to imagine they were. In fact, they were doing quite the opposite. At this very moment, several of those sweet little safety dials were speedily climbing into the danger zones.
And then it blew. And all the others blew. And before anyone really knew what was happening, the Io base exploded into the vacuum.
And everybody died.
Except for the junior A class of Io house, who were on a field trip to Ganymede. All thirty seven students, including young Arnold Rimmer were now orphans.
They couldn't find Arnold older brother John, his last surviving relative, but, in retrospect, a test pilot probably wouldn't have made a very good guardian, so they sent Arnold, along with fifteen other children to be placed in foster care on the planet Earth.
Little Arnie Rimmer was scared. His mum and dad and brothers (except John) were dead. He was being sent to a new planet to live with strangers.
Strangers didn't like him.
He was nine years old. And his life had taken a strange turn.
Upon reaching the foster home he was to stay at, Arnie was more scared than he had ever been in his life. He was told he'd be sharing a room with another little boy. He nodded mutely, and followed the woman to his new room.
"Dave," she said. "This is the new boy, Arnold. He's going to share the room with you, okay?"
A little chipmunk like face peered from under the bed, big smile. "Y'alright." It said, the woman left. Arnold stood still carrying his school bag which contained all his possessions. A few pencils and a couple notebooks. "Hey, Arnie," the little boy said. "C'mere."
Arnold shuffled over, clinging to the straps of his bag.
"Put down your bag and come play with me." Arnold was shocked. Noone ever wanted to play with him. He was Arnold Bonehead Rimmer. Little kids hated him, big kids hated him, kids his age hated him. "Come on! It's a spaceship. We can pilot it together."
Arnold dropped his bag and crawled under the bed.
The little boy formally introduced himself as David Lister ("But you can call me Dave, Arn, you're my friend.") and he and Arnold got along well. Dave was a bit younger than him, but he was very understanding and.. well, nice. Which was something Arnold wasn't used to.
The home was a bit crowded and while they had to share a room, a small room, the also had to share a bed. Which was good and bad. Bad because Dave had some really horrible nightmares, of course, so did Arnold and good because the boys could comfort one another after having woken up in a cold sweat.
Dave could never remember what his nightmares were about. Sometimes he was in a space ship and it blew up around him while his friends (who didn't look like anyone he'd ever met) died around him. Sometimes he was just stuck in a box. Arnold, however, dreamt of Io blowing up. Frequently.
Growing up Arnold and Dave stayed close. They got moved around, but never separated. Neither really knew what they wanted to do with their lives, but they figured they'd cross that bridge when they came to it, wouldn't they?
For Dave's twentieth birthday, Dave, Arn and another couple of guys had a bash, neither remember exactly what happened, but they woke up together on Mimas, both wearing rubber boots and very nice hats. They wanted to go home.
They joined the Jupiter Mining Corporation together. Figuring they'd pool their wages to get home. It was perfect. They even got to room together again. Nothing new. Although they couldn't play under the bed, which was the first thing Dave had pointed out. Arnold had laughed. They were the bottom of the ranking pile Technicians. Whatever. Then Dave had gotten the cat. Frankenstein, he called her.
Arnold didn't really like cats. Of course, he had never met a cat that hadn't wounded him in some way. And he was cross, because the cat hadn't been quarantined and could thus kill them all.
However, Franki had walked over to Arnold, sniffed him and purred. His heart melted and he agreed with Dave. They were keeping her.
They loved that little cat, when they learned she was pregnant they were both rather surprised. How? When? ...Whatever.
Then Dave blew it. He got a picture take with him, the cat and Arnold. And sent it to be processed in the labs.
And so they got called to the Captain's office. First together, then separately. Arnold, having grown up with Dave, was marginally braver than the Arnold Rimmer whose parents had not been blown up to itty bitty pieces.
They were sentenced to stasis for eighteen months and a suspension of wages. Before they got put into he booths, Dave mentioned that at least they would definitely get back to Earth this way.
Without technicians, there was noone to fix the famous drive plate that nuclear winded the crew of the Red Dwarf to hell. Holly booted out of the star system until it was safe for the remaining crew members to emerge from stasis.
And so thus David Lister and Arnold Rimmer, the last humans alive and the Cat, a descendant from Frankenstein, a hologram of the ship's psychiatrist, and later Kryten adventured through space.
One particularly uneventful day as Dave and Arn were lazing about the drive room, uncertain what to do, they got a message. Someone was contacting them. Someone pushed the button to open communication channels and a familiar and unfamiliar face smiled back at them.
"Hello chums," it said. "D'you mind if I pop in?"
"Yeah, sure." Dave said with a shrug, opening doors to a landing bay. He and Arn exchanged a puzzled look before gathering the Cat, the 'Doctor' and Kryten and scooting off to meet the newcomer.
"Ace Rimmer," Arn repeated, looking at Ace, wowed. "Cool."
Ace sighed, relieved. He almost wanted to know what had happened in the man's life to see where there paths diverged. No. He didn't almost want to, he did want to.
"Very cool," Dave agreed. "Pity didn't happen for you, eh, Arn?" Arn threw him a sweet-n-sour (that was the only description for it) look and mock punched him. "Course, then we wouldn't be adventuring' through deep space and the like, right?"
"And it'd be just you, the Cat, Kryten and the Doc. Ha. Sucks to be you." Arn and Dave wandered off.
Ace followed Arn and Dave out the door to their quarters.
The sat around the table as Dave and Arn recited their pasts, which after that one meeting point were entwined from then on.
"Big difference between us, Arnie." Ace said at the end of the story. "I got held down a year in Io house. Here Io was destroyed and you spent your childhood, adolescence and adulthood with Davey-boy. Hell of a difference."
"So there's more of us out there?" Arn asked many hours later. Dave had fallen asleep at the table a good forty five minutes before. Arn had moved him to the lower bunk without thought or much effort. He and Ace had stayed up talking. "Have you met any miserable ones?"
He had meant this in jest, but was surprised at the answer.
"What? A hologram?"
Ace woke up all at once, as he always had. It was just how he functioned, he became aware of the fact that he didn't remember falling asleep, and that he appeared to be on a bunk. If the view was any judge, the top bunk. He quietly rolled off and landed softly on the floor, facing the bottom bunk. The bottom bunk, where his counter part and Dave were curled up together like kittens.
But, Dave wasn't asleep. He was looking at Ace with sleep blurred eyes. "G'morning," he murmured. Ace goggled. Like kittens. "Kryten'll be here with breakfast soon. I gotta get dressed. Or have a shower. Maybe both." He yawned, stretched and disentangled himself from his bed mate to stumble to the shower. "Shower it is."
Ace just watched his retreating form. His eyes returned to Arn, who had been awakened by all the jostling. He said something akin to "Agebazua?" and he groped the floor blindly. After a few minuted he found what he was looking for. A shirt. He sniffed it, winced and put it on. He climbed out of bed and stretched. "Morning."
"Morning." Ace said. "So.. are you guys-? Do you do that-?"
"Have done since I was nine. Our foster house was crowded, we roomed together and slept together. Good deal, because we both had horrid nightmares." Arn knocked on the door that lead to the shower. "You in there Dave?"
A muffled affirmative noise was his answer.
"Where are my shirts?" Arn said loudly, enunciating slowly, a muffled response. "The clean ones, you goit." A pause, something that Ace didn't hear. "Thank you, Dave."
He crossed the room and pulled up the bottom sheet of the top bunk. Revealing a large amount of shirts. Picking one at random (a nice light gray number) and pulling it on he sat across from Ace.
"So. You were saying?"
afteramble:
Ace pressed a button or so, accelerating away. Arn and Dave. Wow. It still boggled Ace's mind, but three million and twenty odd years together, they were going to be close, weren't they?
Another button.
"Well, old girl, let's go somewhere else."
a/n: Yes... ending? Bad. Sorry. And yes, the bits 'preamble', 'the rest of it' and 'afteramble' are absolutely required. Don't like it? Tough kittens. They make me happy. So let them make you happy. Then we can all be happy.