Disclaimer: None of the characters/places etc. in this fic belong to me. I am making no profit with this story.

A/N: And here's the second part of the fic:D I hope you're enjoying it so far! I'd like to say a big thank you to smegginitlarge and cazflibs for reviewing the story! Your comments really mean a lot to me! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much as the first! I'm going to split it up into more parts now – it's going to cover more ground than I originally thought! So without further ado, let's move onto chapter two!

-Visions-

Chapter Two

Dark clouds of smoke poured from Blue Midget's engines as it rose from the landing pad. The lights in the docking bay flashed a brilliant white, indicating that it was safe to take off.

"Okay everybody," said Lister, his hands clenched tightly around the ship's controls. "Here we go!" He pulled the steering apparatus sharply forward, causing everybody to jolt backwards into their seats. Blue Midget shot speedily out of the great jaws of the cargo bay, faltered a little, and steadied itself as it drifted into space. The craft was so utterly cramped that it was difficult to move, but it did have its advantages. It was easy to control, although the steering was sensitive, and small enough to allow a great deal more manoeuvrability than Starbug's bulky frame.

"Link us up." Lister kept his eyes focused on the two pinpricks of light which were Starbug's engines. He furrowed his brow. "Let's see what the smeghead's up to." Kryten turned to the keypad and punched a number of buttons in perfect sequence. Immediately, the video screen lit up to reveal Starbug's interior.

Rimmer's gaze had been fixed on the alien craft which loomed mysteriously nearby, and he had been thinking of nothing else. Perhaps his previous judgments had been wrong. It should be closer by now. But the craft appeared no larger than it had a whole half hour ago. Being so preoccupied in his thoughts, it came as a great surprise to hear Lister's voice.

"Rimmer," it called from the monitor, "Rimmer, where're you going, man?" Rimmer started, and jerked his head toward the screen. Seeing who it was, his face brightened.

"Listy!" he exclaimed. "Back, are you? How was your trip?" His voice was unusually cheerful. Lister's expression, however, did not change.

"Leave it out, Rimmer," he spat. "We're on your tail. Kryten's set a course to follow you. There's no way out." Rimmer's gaze turned acid. Why are they tracking me? He glanced back at the alien ship, and then back at the monitor. His stomach turned. It had been this way all his life. Whenever anything was beginning to retain the slightest glimmer of hope, he was always served that same, piping hot bowl of Gazpacho Soup. He had made up his mind; he would not let it happen again.

"You want to get there first, don't you?" He felt his fist begin to clench. "The one time I get a lucky break, and you want to steal it from me!" He thrust his finger at the screen.

"What're you talking about, Rimmer?" Lister was growing impatient. Perhaps Rimmer was more delusional than he had originally thought.

Rimmer scoffed. "Don't give me that, you curry-headed gimboid." His voice escalated into a higher pitch. "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Well I'll tell you something." He stood from his chair and waved his finger at the monitor. "In all my life, I have never had a chance to live up to what my father wanted me to be; to what I wanted to be. It was all very well for my brothers – rich, successful – but oh, no!" he exclaimed, "Nothing left for poor old Arnie J. This ship," he continued, "this ship gives me a chance to be someone. To encounter an alien race; to be the first to contact an entirely different species. And I'm going to take that chance."

"Rimmer-" Lister started, only for the video connection to abruptly disappear. "Smeg," he sighed, "he's cut the link." He slammed his fist against the controls.

"So what do we do now?" said Cat, leaning back in his seat.

"I fear the situation is worse than we had previously imagined," Kryten replied. "If my calculations are correct, Mr Rimmer is not acting upon his own senses at all."

Cat rolled his eyes. "Tell me something I don't know."

"What do you mean, Kryte?" asked Lister, turning to face the mechanoid. Rimmer's comments had indeed seemed nonsensical – the radar indicated no ships of foreign construction, and yet Rimmer seemed utterly convinced in his words. Kryten shuffled forwards.

"I believe that Mr Rimmer is witnessing what are called space mirages, sir," he explained. "This is what is what is driving him to pilot Starbug, and causing him to hallucinate the craft he described."

"Space mirages?" Lister repeated, his brow creasing.

"Yes," said Kryten. "Now, a normal mirage is caused by refraction. But space mirages are different. They prey on the emotions one experiences in space – loneliness, depression – and take the form of the object the sufferer would most like to see."

"Hence the alien ship!" said Lister, raising his hand to his forehead.

"Precisely," Kryten replied.

"So we just tell Alphabet Head he's seeing things, and get the heck outta here!" Cat seemed pleased with his deductions.

"Not so simple, sir," Kryten corrected him. "If we inform Mr Rimmer that he is in fact hallucinating, this will cause him to fall deeper into his feelings of misery, and will further accentuate the effect of the mirages."

"So what you're saying," Lister said, "is that we need to somehow convince him that what he's seeing is real?" The concept boggled Lister's mind. He was thankful that Kryten had a way of explaining things in such simplistic terms. Even Holly had struggled with that premise.

"Exactly," replied Kryten. "In order to release Mr Rimmer from the effects of the mirages, we must eliminate the emotion which is causing them. We must play along, so to speak, with his hallucinations."

Smeg, thought Lister, what's he got us into now? Wherever Rimmer went, trouble seemed to follow. And to make things worse, he would never stand up to the consequences himself. Lister had lost count of the number of times the hologram's persistent cowardice had put both him and the rest of the crew in danger. For him, this was just one more occasion. He sighed, "So, Kryten, any ideas?"

"Just one, sir," the mechanoid answered. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

Rimmer was poring over Starbug's radar. He would pace to one end of the control room, turn on his heels and walk back, each time expecting to see the "blip" of an alien craft appear on the screen. But there was nothing save for a tiny speck of green - Blue Midget, steadily tracking Starbug's path. Rimmer wished it away. Deep down, what remained of his hope told him that maybe they would give up, let him be. But the resounding voice of bitterness once again prevailed, silencing any thoughts of good fortune. They would not give up tracking him. They would not give him this opportunity. They wanted it for themselves.

He was so deeply entwined in his own thoughts that he was unaware of his teeth beginning to clench. His brow was deeply furrowed, his face twisted into a scowl. He would have pounded the control desk, were it not for the fact that his fist would have fallen right through it. Instead he strode to Holly's screen.

"Holly, what's wrong with the radar?" he asked, his voice tinged with impatience. Holly let out a computerised sigh. Her glance turned upwards.

"Nothing, Arn," she said. "The radar is fully operational." Rimmer jerked his head to look back at the machine. There was no reading, and yet he could still see the alien craft, there, just out of reach. He scoffed.

"Yes, well it might be, Holly, if operational happens to mean 'doesn't work'." He took a seat in front of the main window, buried his head in his hands and groaned: a long, deep, remorseful sound. Holly tried again.

"Everything on this ship works, Arnold," she said. "Radar, lights, engines…even the machine that puts the little marshmallows in your hot chocolate. Everything works."

"Well," he spluttered, evidently bereft of a suitable comeback, "check it again. There's a ship the size of an asteroid out there and it hasn't even registered." He cast his gaze back to the radar. It took his mind a second to realise what he was seeing. Something was moving. "Holly," he inquired, "what's going on?" With each circle of the sensory equipment, Blue Midget appeared to edge further and further away from them, until it was barely in visible range.

"Well don't ask me why, Arn," Holly replied, "but they're turning around!" Her voice exuded genuine surprise. "They're heading back to Red Dwarf!" Rimmer slapped both his palms across his legs, stood from his seat and beamed a wide grin of satisfaction.

"They've given up!" he exclaimed. "I've outwitted them! And they said I wouldn't make a good general." He adjusted his hat and assumed a suitably noble posture. "Leave it to the winners, that's what I say."

"Well in that case, we'd better turn back too," Holly said dryly. Rimmer shot her a defensive look, his expression of pride rapidly deflated.

"I'll have you know," he said, "that I received quite a few awards back in my boarding school days." He paused, his mind deep in reminiscence. "I remember this one time; it was the final of the junior one hundred metre hurdles race. The finest young athletes in the school, all lined up, ready to pit themselves against each other in a daring display of physical prowess. Unfortunately, this was one week after my ill-fated encounter with the septic tank. Nobody came near me for days." He sucked in a short, thoughtful breath. "Nevertheless, I turned up. Porky Roebuck had given me a replacement pair of shoes to compensate for the ones he'd destroyed; I was wary, but I trusted him. What I regrettably failed to notice," Rimmer held his hands loosely around his back, and began to pace towards the front of the craft, "is that they were in fact rocket-powered jet boots, which he'd undoubtedly nicked from the school store cupboard. One flick of the controls and I was catapulted across the sports field faster than you can say 'Napoleon Bonaparte'. My heels were wedged so firmly into the ground on landing that they had to prise me out with a crowbar." He looked back at Holly. "I won a gold medal for that."

Holly had struggled to pay attention to Rimmer's lengthy account, but was genuinely perplexed at his last remark. "How'd you win the hurdles when you didn't jump any of 'em?" she asked.

"I didn't," Rimmer replied. "I won the javelin."

As if on cue, the main console began to beep, and one of the buttons flashed a bright red. Holly looked at Rimmer. "We're getting a signal." She paused to process its origin. "It's from Red Dwarf." Rimmer smirked.

"Ah," he said, raising his finger to his lips, "come to apologise, have they?" His mind relished in the thought of savouring the spoils of this most delicious situation. He lowered the microphone from the rim of his hat. "Punch it up."

The screen lit up to reveal the bunkroom in which Lister was standing. He held a can of Leopard Lager in his right hand. Grinning, he raised it to the monitor. Rimmer's smirk melted away as he saw the expression on his shipmate's face.

"What are you so happy about?" he asked angrily. He could hide none of his bitterness at the denial of a perfect chance to gloat.

Lister chuckled, taking a sip of the lager, and Rimmer watched with disgust as it spilt from the can and trickled down his chin. "We've made contact," he said, wiping the froth from his mouth.

"Made contact with what, you goit?" Rimmer hissed, his voice growing ever tenser. Lister was clearly enjoying the ambiguity of his statement. He moved closer to the screen. Despite being so far apart, Rimmer could almost smell the alcohol on his breath.

"The aliens," he replied. Rimmer's eyes widened.

"What?" he spluttered. "But how? That's impossible!" He racked his brain for some sort of reason, some explanation that would turn the situation in his favour. A thought suddenly dawned on him. What if they'd tried to make contact when I'd cut the link? He bit his lip. Once again, things were beginning to turn against him. He gazed out of the main window. The alien ship was still there, just as before. But he had seen no scout crafts, no pods; nothing had shown up on the radar. How did they pass without detection? Lister could see the bewilderment on the hologram's face.

"They beamed on board a few minutes ago," he explained. "They sent us a signal on board Blue Midget." He took another sip from the can and grinned. Rimmer scowled in response.

"Fan-smegging-tastic," he spat, turning away from the monitor, his hands on his hips. "I leave the link down for ten minutes and this is what happens." He turned back around. "Obviously they're more interested in Indian cuisine than what I have to offer."

Lister tried desperately to stifle his laugh. "What's that then?" Rimmer shuffled nervously for a moment before waving his hand dismissively at the screen.

"It…doesn't matter," he said hurriedly, brushing off the question. "I don't have time for this." He glanced to Holly's monitor. "Take us back to Red Dwarf."

A/N: Please RR:D All reviews are much appreciated!