THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RED DWARF

PART 10

(A/N: sorry about the typo last part! Should have been Part 9, not Part 8! More thanks to the reviewers at the end of this chapter, so stay tuned!)

When they got to Parrot's, however, all the curry was gone . . .

"Guess who's been here again," Kochanski said. "I don't suppose buffalo wings and mozzarella sticks will do?"
They did very nicely, as it turned out.

"I don't suppose anyone would be interested in a game of Risk?" Rimmer ventured.

"NO!"
"You don't have to be that way about it," Rimmer sulked.

"Perhaps you could give us a story, Mr. Frodo?" Sam ventured hopefully.

"I suppose I could at that."

Rimmer cast Frodo a jealous glare. "I still say we should have gone with the telegraph pole slides."

As Frodo began telling some story about an Elf and a mortal woman in love, Boromir snuck away, on a very sneaky mission.
He wanted to find Kochanski's diary, and read it.
Seeing as how she was a hologram now, and unable to write anything in it, there wouldn't be anything about him, but there would be some useful background information about her, as well as potential ammunition for the fights that would precede their eventual breakup.
The problem was that Boromir was mostly unfamiliar with female bedrooms, and had no idea where she'd keep her diary.
Under the mattress? No, though it did yield four copies of "Stud Muffins of Mars", a beefcake magazine full of men with very little clothing. Put that in the "ammunition" file.
The dresser drawers yielded nothing but spare uniforms, neatly folded, and pristine white undergarments.
It was then that he spotted a book on the night stand. Clever, hiding it in plain sight! And disguised as something called "Lord of the Rings", too! (That sounded more pornographic than "Stud Muffins of Mars.")
Boromir opened the book to about the middle . . . and got the shock of his life.
It wasn't her diary.

It was something else entirely.

What had caught his interest was seeing his own name in print. He read a little further to see what whoever had written this book had to say about him.

Three chapters into the book, he felt dread in the pit of his stomach . . .

Who could know so much about him and his comrades, and their dark mission? Every detail was here, as if someone had been there taking notes.
No wonder she acted as if she knew us, he thought.

The question was, how to act on that discovery?

Five minutes later, Krissie felt hot breath on the back of her neck. She looked up to see Boromir standing there, holding out a book.
"What is this?" he demanded.
The room fell silent.
Kris looked down at the book and immediately felt a sense of dread creeping through her. Oh, no . . . not THAT book!
"Well?" Boromir persisted. "Explain this!"

All Kochanski could say in response was "Oh,smeg."

"What is that?" asked Legolas, who had the bad luck to walk in on them at that moment.

"Take a look." Boromir thrust the book at him, open to a particularly relevant page.

Legolas started reading . . . .

After a long while, he looked up and exclaimed, "But how can this be? How can this book know about us?"

None of them noticed Gollum skulking down the corridor behind them . . .

"Must find lager," he hissed to himself. "My precious wants drink!"

He wandered all over the crew quarters till he came to Selby's old cabin. He went in and rummaged through Selby's things until he found Selby's emergency wine coolers.

He opened one of them, took a swallow . . . and spit it out. The wine coolers, bad enough when they were fresh, had gone sour.

"We hates this!" Gollum said tossing the bottle away in disgust and resuming his search for his beloved lager. "It only good enough for Hobbitses!"

Kochanski attempted again to explain just what was going on. It would have been easier if she actually had any idea, but she didn't.

And as if things couldn't get any more awkward, Lister showed up a few moments later. "What's goin' on?"
Boromir leapt on the new arrival. "Did you know about this?" he spat, practically throwing the book at Lister.
Lister looked down. "Yeah, man, everyone knows about this. It's a real famous book! I've even started readin' it a bit. Course, I'm only in the second chapter, but--" 

Boromir blinked in surprise. "Does everyone here know this book?"
"I don't," Cat offered helpfully. "I've seen the movie, though. You are much better-looking than that guy."

"Cat!" Lister hissed. "You're smeggin' embarrassin' me!"

All of this left Kochanski in a very awkward position. "It's not that I was deliberately keeping secrets from you . . ."

"Well, you didn't exactly go out of your way to tell us the whole story." Legolas grumbled.

"Look, if I'd told you, it would have messed up history. Your future history. It's very important that things happen as they happened, or . . . everything could get completely smegged up."

Gollum, meanwhile,was still ransacking Selby's cabin in his search for more wicked strength lager. "We must haves more lager!" he kept saying. "We wants it!"

He didn't find any lager, but he found magazines that made Lister's Playmates look like Sunday school books.

"Hmmm. My precious wants to read this."

"Read" was perhaps the wrong word, as this particular type of magazine contained very few words, but lots and lots of pictures.

Nevertheless, Gollum was intrigued.

"Why don't we just forget this whole thing?" Krissie exclaimed. "Forget you ever saw this!" She snatched the book away and tossed it in the air. "There! It's gone!"
"Ow! No it isn't, it just hit me in the head!" said a very annoyed Cat.

"Oh. Sorry."
Just then, who should come in but Gandalf. "I thought you should know," he announced, "that Kryten and I have made considerable progress toward finding the portal. We're in the neighborhood, so to speak, and should have it sometime in the next few days."

"First thing that's gone right in hours." Kochanski said to herself.

"Wait a minute," Cat said. "I don't get it."
"Oh, big surprise there."

"Who asked you, Goalpost Head?"

"Just a minute!" Kochanski tried to maintain some order, but it was hopeless.

Fortunately, though, Kryten came by at that moment. "I have some good news and some bad news," he announced.

"What is it, Krytes?" Lister asked.

"Well, which did you want first?"
"Start with the good news."

"Very well then,sir . . . We have finally located the long-missing portal, and it should open within six days."
"That is good," Aragorn said. "So what's the bad news?"
"Look out your window, sir."
They all looked out the nearest window.
"See that little blue-green planetoid down there?"
"The one that looks blue, green, and planetoidy?" Pippin quipped. He was bored, and he really wanted to go ride some skutters, but they were still hiding.
"That would be the one."
"It's down there?" Lister asked.
"On its largest continent. Well, to be precise, on its only continent."
"Has it got an atmosphere?" asked Rimmer.
"Yes, quite suitable. But that's not the main concern."
"Well, what is? Get to the point, Eraser-Head, I'm missing my grooming time!"
Kryten almost hated to tell them this, seeing as how they'd just had such a narrow escape just a few hours ago. "Well, sirs, and ma'am, that planet is full of, erm . . ."
"WHAT?" they all demanded.
"Those creatures," Kryten said, in a whimper. He hated being shouted at. "The ones that were on the Andrea Bocelli. They're all over the place."
"Oh, is that all?" Legolas said, picking up his bow. He looked around at his companions. "Let's go hunt some orc."

(As promised . . . a special thanks to my reviewers.

Louise: glad you like it.

TigerBabe: yeah, you were right. It works, in a weird sort of way.

Rufferto: more hilarity to come! Might want to get your sides reinforced.

Wynjamor: thank you for your words of encouragement!

GreyLadyBast: disturbing? Maybe, but entertaining as well, I hope.

Erkyah: hope you liked Legolas saving the day in the last chapter.

Iz: I think we've had enough drinking, but maybe we can squeeze in more Cat.

DemonGirl: :D

Serendu: Thank you, I will!

Marina_Arwen: More craziness to come! Stay tuned!

I'm glad to see so many people actually like this. This was just a weird idea that occurred to me, but apparently weird is good. Or maybe it's just that this hasn't been done before. Anyway, keep reading, and reviewing—you're great!)

(P.S. Wanna see some smegups?)