Chapter Six: Battleships

Rimmer was still sorting through his memory-embedded items when the explosion occurred. He was thrown onto his collection of special edition Risk games and a few of the pieces found their way into several layers of his skin and flesh. He wasn't sure whether to be glad to feel pain or to cry from it. Mace dashed in. "Arnie, we need help up in the drive room."

Rimmer groaned. This was going to be one of those hero-moments rife with peril and agony. He looked out of one of the windows. "It's a ship! Aliens!" he gasped, shocked that one of his theories was right.

Mace looked out too. "Oh no... It's a Gelf ship."

"Gelfs?"

"I ran into them a while ago when I ran out of fuel. Let's just say I had to make a trade with their Queen for some fuel."

Rimmer raised his eyebrow.

"The Prince took a shine to me."

Rimmer's face screwed up in distaste, "Ok, don't finish the story. I'm figuring it out for myself."

"Nothing happened! Just the wedding. I ran off with the fuel before the honeymoon." Mace gave him an apologetic smile.

Rimmer sighed. "What do we do now, Princess Mace?"

"We need to fight of course. I'll take my ship, you take Starbug." She began to march out of the room when Rimmer dragged her back.

"I can't fight the urge to sneeze let alone an army of aliens!"

"Ok we'll both go in my ship. Should be enough room. You can navigate."

"But-!"

"RIMMER. NOW." she snapped. Rimmer scuttled out of the room towards the cargo bay. He was beginning to prefer Ace. At least he didn't shout at him. Mace smiled to herself. She knew the Gelfs were stupid and easily beaten with a good offence and smart flying tactics. But it'd be a good ego boost for Rimmer. She decided not to tell Lister where they were going. "He may try to stop us," she muttered to herself as she collected a few missiles for the spaceship's guns. "What he doesn't know won't hurt us."

As soon as Lister saw the small spaceship flying towards the Gelf mothership he began to panic. Rimmer was useless, Rimmer was a coward, Rimmer was going to get them all killed. He was sure of it. "Smeg..."

"Don't worry Mr Lister, sir. Miss Mace knows what she's doing."

"Rimmer's on the ship with her."

Kryten's face malfunctioned as it tried to find the perfect formation for terror. The Cat pressed his nose against the window. "If that guy gets Mace killed before I get to have sex with her, I'll kill him.

"They'll both be dead, Cat." Lister turned his attentions to the radar instead.

Holly popped up in the corner of the screen. "Not looking good. They're dodging the attacks so far but their navigation seems off. You'd think a high class ship like that would have an onboard computer to do it for them."

"It does."

"Oh. Well looks like Mace has gone space-crazy and switched it off." And Lister bet he knew why.

"We're going to die, we're GOING TO DIE!" Rimmer bellowed into Mace's ear.

She knocked the visor of her helmet up. "Just calm down Arnie and help us avoid those beams. If we get hit we're in trouble with a capital smeg." She flicked a few switches and brought the nose of the ship down as they headed in. "We'll have to go under and attack the belly of the mothership. That's its weakest point. But it's also where the guns are."

Rimmer glanced at the radar. "What does a big red blob mean?"

"Where is it?"

"On the radar," Rimmer scoffed.

Mace bit her clenched hand in irritation. "WHERE on the radar?"

"Erm, over the tiny red blobs and to the right of a greenish blob."

"Brilliant Arn! That means their shields are down in that area. What's the grid location?"

"Erm..."

"Oh for Caesar's sake, it's like in Battleships. Read the top numbers, then the side letters"

Suddenly the radar screen made sense to Rimmer. Battleships. War games. He could handle that. "799 by AAB" he said, a little confused by Mace's similar appreciation for Caesar. Mace inhaled sharply and fired.

Back on Red Dwarf, Lister clutched Kryten's arm as they watched the missile hurtle though the blackness of space, silent and set on its course. The Gelfs began to panic. One muttered to the Queen that he knew he should've fixed that broken shield instead of going for his tea break. As the missile exploded and the ship was thrown off course and captured by a planet's orbit and headed into its surface, that same Gelf was slowly being strangled by the Queen. Lister watched as the mothership became a mere dot floating against the blue planet's surface as it went further from them and closer to it. And he smiled.

In Mace's ship, Rimmer was yelling "We sunk the aircraft carrier!" and hugging her so hard she was forced to elbow him in the gut so she could holobreathe.