Disclaimer: I still don't own Red Dwarf or any of its characters.
Chapter Twenty-two
A slit of light cut its way through the darkness. It slowly telescoped into the main screen onboard the bridge, the abandon ship command still flashing. Nirvana rubbed her eyes and looked around. Everyone was gone.
"Well at least abandoning ship wasn't too menial for them," she muttered, and stood up. "Cancel the alarm, Stocky. Give us visual."
The alarm screen melted away and was replaced by a field of murky green. Nirvana recognized it immediately. She ran over to the main consol and tried to get her fingers to work as quickly as her mind was.
"All engines reverse!" she cried as she continued to work out the calculations. The thrust indicator light came on, but the read-outs claimed that the ship was still moving forward. Nirvana hit the consol.
"Didn't you hear me, Stocky? I said all engines reverse thrust!!"
"Reverse thrust is engaged," it replied, sounding rather bored.
She looked back at the screen, then the read-out. She tried not to panic. "How long do we have until the ship is pulled into the rift?"
"Three minutes, 47 seconds."
She put her hand to her forehead and was sure she felt her heart pounding inside her head. The ship shifted violently, and she was thrown out of her chair and against the wall below the screen. The two-dimensional green mist swirled overhead, drawing any ideas of how to save the ship out of her head and into its endless reaches.
Another quake propelled her against the captain's desk, and a purple bruise began to eat up her forehead. "Oh, enough!" she sighed, and picked herself up off the floor again. She noticed someone moving from the corner of her eye. Without thinking, she rushed into the figure and pinned him to the ground.
"I've had just about enough stress for one day, thank you!" she screamed, and raised her hand to scratch out the stranger's eyes, and stopped. She felt herself beginning to get drawn into them.
She knew those eyes.
The entire face came into view and she abruptly let Rimmer go. Her head cocked as she asked, "Now which one are you?"
He put his arm around her waist and pulled her forward. "I think you know the answer to that." He leaned forward, but another powerful jolt sent them sprawling across the bridge. They both hoisted themselves up and ran to the controls.
"Nirvana, we don't have much time."
"Don't you think I know that?!"
"Kryten said we have to set up another frequency to cancel out the initial one. Do you have any idea how to do that?"
She put a thoughtful finger to her mouth, then started entering information. "I think so. It'll take a minute or two. How much time exactly is left?"
Rimmer looked at the panel. "One minute, 34 seconds." He ran to her side, but tried to keep out of her way as she worked. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to adjust this tuning fork of a ship to another key." Her fingers danced across the controls, managing to land exactly where they were supposed to without missing a beat despite the abuse the ship was taking.
"Check if anything's happening yet," she said, and he ran back to the panel.
"No, not yet. You'd better try something-"
The lights went out as main power finally failed. The emergency lights blinked on a second later, filling the room with an eerie purple glow. Nirvana continued to furiously punch in the calculations.
The ship began to rumble. "Approaching the outer limits of the rift," Rimmer reported. "Um, I don't mean to rush you, but--"
"There!" She pushed the final button with flair and joined Rimmer at the panel. "That ought to do it. How much time do we have left now?"
"Twenty-eight seconds."
"I hope it's enough." They looked at each other and pulled into an embrace as the rumbling increased with each second. They tried to ignore the noise of bending metal and grinding gears, while some small monitors exploded behind them.
Suddenly a high-pitched whine flooded their ears, forcing them to their knees they tried to use their hands as earplugs. They looked at the main screen and waited for the end to arrive.
Then, just as the last second ticked by and all remaining hope was lost, everything became quiet. It was as if time itself had decided to quit moving. The Universe waited impatiently for Time to make up its mind, and with a shrug, Time decided it had nothing better do, and started moving again.
The ship literally screeched to a stop. Rimmer, Nirvana, and everything else that was free standing flew forward as noise that sounded something like water through a drain made its way through the ship. They peeled themselves off the screen, then watched as the green swirl reversed directions and disappeared. The entire ship sighed with relief.
Nirvana ran up to Rimmer and buried herself in his arms. The main power switched back on and soon the ship was completely back on-line and stable.
"Hard-light drive activated," Stocky said with a yawn.
"Alert all the escape pods that it's safe to return," Nirvana ordered. They turned to leave but Stocky told them to wait.
"Incoming message, commander. Audio only."
"Play it, Stocky."
"Ace, I hope you receive this." It was Diane's very worried voice. "Your friends have been captured again." She paused. "I heard Gambran mention something about an airlock. It doesn't look good, Ace. Not good at all."
"I wonder if this is a trick," Rimmer said aloud.
"You'll probably be thinking this is a trick, and I promise you, it's not," she answered him. "Just get over here soon! I don't know how much time they have. Hurry, you might still be able to save them."
Nirvana turned to get going, but Rimmer pulled her back. "What are we waiting for?" she asked.
"We need a plan. Things are worse than I thought."
"What do you mean? The message said you had to get over there right away!"
"I know it did, but that wasn't Diane."
"Who's Diane?"
"The computer on my ship."
"How do you know it wasn't her?"
"Firstly, Diane didn't use our secret code word-Plexiglas--to assure me that it wasn't a trick. Secondly, that voice was far too calm to be my Diane. In a situation like this, she would have been screaming her virtual lungs out. Thirdly," he paused and played the last part of the message over again, "she used three overly-dramatic and unnecessary lines at the end."
Nirvana understood. "So the Timlars sent it?"
"Most likely, which means they know that I was the one that left the ship. So much for having the upper hand." He looked at the screen again. "I do believe that the others have been recaptured, but I also think it's obvious that the Timlars will be waiting for us."
"So what are we going to do?"
He thought for a moment, then ran to the main console. He punched in the handshake, and soon Holly's face appeared on the main screen.
"Oy! It's about time one of you lets me know what's goin' on. I hate it when you go off and leave me in the dark like this."
"Holly, shut up and let me explain. We need a distraction for the Timlars. A big one. Think you can handle it?"
Holly nodded. "Don't worry, I'll come up with somethin'." He blinked off the screen.
"Come on, back to Starbug," said Rimmer as he turned around again, then noticed her shy smile. "Nirvana?"
She walked over and frizzed his hair through her fingers. "You know, I like it much better this way," she grinned, and walked out of the room. Rimmer smiled and dashed off to rejoin her.