Author's note: Dedicated/Disclaimed in the prologue. And if you were curious as to where I was... well, it's a long, long story. Longer than I can comfortably fit in an Author's Note, anyhow.

*****************************************

When people are under a lot of stress, they can do things that are loopier than a roller coaster.

The human brain under stress is an amazing study in color. It's true. Get someone who's having a stressful day under a CAT scan, and (ok, little brain, say cheese!) take a picture. It's a rainbow of color, the electrical impulses flowing like water, colored water, oil slicks of insanity and improper thoughts rippling across the pond of the mind. Have you ever seen a soap bubble? The way it shimmers with green-reds and blue-yellows? And just as the colors begin to fade, *POP* goes the bubble?

When the colors fade in a human mind, it's usually called dementia. It's the sign of a mind that has lost all control. Sociopaths' brains are usually one flat color, with teeny little splooges of a different color around and about for variation.

The variation is important here. Without some variation, the mind will shut down, caught in a positive feedback loop of it's own devising. This is why some people in comas can have an otherwise active and healthy brain, and yet still remain in a coma. The variation is gone. A healthy brain needs many different paths to follow. Redundancy systems, and so forth.

This is also why, when in the mid 21st century, "telepathic" software was introduced to the market, people went into comas at a prodigious rate. The software was written to devise a potential customer's spending habits, favorite colors, inseam, preferred prophylactic, mother's maiden name, and so forth, simply by scanning the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. It worked by downloading itself from a few key web sites, without the user's knowledge, and then used miniature wireless cameras to do the actual scanning. CamWhores were the first to fall.

The code monkey who dashed off this bit of sloppy reasoning neglected to put in any sort end to the program. Eventually, the scans became so intrusive that they actually overwrote the natural pathways inherent in the victim's mind. The victim became, literally, a one track mind, with giant, blinking, neon Nikes permanently dancing through their heads.

Spam had become deadly.

The American government slammed down on the particular company (which produced a popular caffeinated soft drink) that invented this software. A little like locking the barn door after the 30 foot tall mutant horse had escaped. The death toll was in the hundreds of thousands. The CEO of the company called it, "A bad investment." But the government now had it's hands on the software. A tool that could totally overwrite the human brain. The experiments began. Military uses were, of course, first on the agenda.

It was discovered that species who had less of a sense of individualism, like honey bees, ants and prairie dogs, responded well to the scans. Granted, the scans had been designed for the human brain, but they responded fine after some minor tweeks. In fact, in the six beehives scanned with the software, the bees produced more honey, better tasting honey, than their non-scanned counterparts. The ants began building. Temples. With sugar cubes. The prarie dogs invented their own sewer systems. They were the first rodents with flushing toilets. Side effects were mild, and included fatigue, nausea and dry mouth. Many theories abounded as to why. Then, one brilliant boy right out of a college, and not associated with the government, discovered what was actually going on. But before he could publish his findings, he vanished, along with all of his research.

You see, that bright boy discovered that this particular piece of software was, ironically enough, inducing telepathy in its victims. Real telepathy. Not just reading minds, but able to send their thoughts out, able to fool people with illusions so perfect that reality looked fake. And mental processes that grew in leaps and bounds to accommodate this new talent. Las Vegas was out of business within a year. The government slowly realized that there was a fox in the henhouse, began tracking down the survivors of this technological plague. By that time, most were locked up, vegetables, unable to do anything but drool on their jumpsuits. But a very small percent of these so called Homo Cogitos were out there with their brains intact, able to wreak whatever havok they had in mind. They were rounded up. And, when the extent of their abilities were discovered, they were killed. In the name of national security. 500 people in all, and not all Americans. Oh, there were a few that jumped up on soap boxes, hollered about the rights of the dead, but soon it was forgotten. A new reality show premiered soon after all this, and everybody settled back into their lives. What were a couple of hundred thousand dead, after all, when Keiley DelTorrance was due to be the next World Idol?

But one girl escaped. She managed to hide her new abilities from those that hunted her. She had hidden herself well, among a very populous city in China. So she lived. She survived. And she did not go mad like those vegetables in the loony bins.

At least, not at first...

************************

But we digress. We were talking about the effects of stress on the human mind. Right now, Hippolyta was extremely stressed out. If being on a teeny little space ship three million years in deep space with an obsessive compulsive 'droid, a humanoid cat, a thirty year old woman who calls her teddy bear Boo Boo, the love of your life who you need more than air but are currently on the outs with, and another man who's body you currently happen to be habitating in isn't stressful, I'd like to know what is, Mr. Clever Dick.

So kissing her own body can be forgiven, at least a little bit.

Lister and Hippolyta seemed to realize what they were doing just as the strange buzzing of the overhead lamps stopped. They stopped smooshing their lips together at the same moment, their eyes flying open, pulling away from each other, a lovely strand of spittle forming a shiny bridge between their mouths.

Their mutual embarrassment and silence was broken by Hippolyta saying, "You kiss like a Pez dispenser."

Lister, with goose bumps raising on his pretty naked skin, gaped at Hippolyta. "I what?"

"You heard. Get dressed." She turned away from him, picking up a discarded bra from the floor. "I believe this is mine."

Lister snatched the bra out of her hand and began to put it on. He fumbled with it unhappily, while saying, "I do not kiss like a Pez dispenser!"

Hippolyta shook her head, and turned Lister around to help him get the thing hooked right. "Your head goes back, and you insist on covering my lips entirely. And your tongue is like a slab of meat loaf."

Lister blinked in consternation. "It is not!" He pulled on the t-shirt, followed by the underpants.

"And, Lister, for God's sake, put some backbone into your lips, too. Nothing worse than a pair of lips like two week old jello." Hippolyta turned back to the punching bag and slammed into it with a limp fist. She hissed as she heard her knuckles crack. "Also, you're in the worst shape ever. I hate you."

"Steady on, now! I've never had any complaints from Krissy! And she would know."

"She's in love with you, Dave. She wouldn't complain. Besides, did it ever occur to you that she's just settled for you?"

Lister finished dressing, his newly pale skin turning a lovely shade of red. "Shut yer gob, Hollister."

Hippolyta grinned like a cat. "So we can go back to being slightly indifferent towards each other?"

Lister snorted. "Just don't tell Krissy about this little session, eh?"

"Right. Like this whole situation isn't awkward enough, I'll just let her know that I used your body to kiss mine, but don't worry, I didn't enjoy it one bit if that makes you feel any better..."

"You can be quite the little bitch if you put your mind to it, you know that, right?"

"No, I didn't know," sneered Hippolyta, her voice dripping sarcasm. "Oh, please, allow me to apologize. I hope I didn't hurt your delicate quasi-male ego, Lister."

"Quasi?! Bite the weenie, 'Polyta."

"With relish."

With that, she turned on heel, and strode out the door to the hydroponics bay, totally forgetting her promise to herself to remain in there in a fit of pique. Guess who was waiting right outside?

"Rimmer."

She stopped short, pronouncing his name with a flat snarl. Rimmer, who was crouched on a nearby intake pipe, unfolded his lanky body in one quick, awkward motion.

"Hippolyta. You came out." His voice was practically giddy with relief.

"Don't flatter yourself, Rimmer. I didn't come out because you were here. Or even that Lister told me to. I forgot about your existence entirely. Satisfied?" She had the brilliant plan to stride away after seeing the effect her words had on him, her head held high, her eyes conveying contempt and cold cruelty.

Instead, she felt her right leg slip on something, her borrowed trainers squeaking against the laminate deck, her hips twisting painfully, and she landed in an ungainly sprawl.

"Um. Ow." Lister was giggling maliciously from the doorway, while Rimmer stared at her wide eyed. She puckered her lips, and took a deep breath through her nostrils. "A little help, guys?"

Both men reached for both of her arms, and she was pulled into a standing position. She put a hand on her injured bottom. Lister was still giggling. "I hope you get a bruise, Lister," she huffed, rubbing herself.

"Nah. Don't bruise easily."

"I do. Watch your back, jerkface."

"It is your back, you know. Don't get any ideas."

"Shit."

Rimmer, meanwhile, was watching them bicker like an old married couple. He got the vague and suspicious notion that something had happened between them in the 'ponics bay, something that caused them to snipe and snark at each other. Before, they were chummy, having a lot more in common than originally thought. Now, though... Rimmer put it down to the fact that she was still rather ticked at Lister for the whole swap thing, and dismissed it from his mind.

"What the hell did I slip on, anyway?" Hippolyta crouched down, looking for whatever it was that caused her fall. She discovered a puddle of wet. She dipped a finger in it, and sniffed. It smelled suspiciously of greenery and rot. "Water?"

Rimmer, who was closer, crouched down next to her to inspect the puddle as well. His eyes, trained over the years to find glitches in maintenance systems, followed a thin trickle of water to a pipe on the bulkhead nearby. There was a drop of water beading on the side, and as he watched, it fell to the deck, not even having the courtesy to make any sort of noise.

"Think I've found your culprit," Rimmer stated. All three bent to inspect the pipe. "This is not a good thing." Rimmer always had a knack for stating the obvious.

Lister peered closer at the pipe. "This is one of the recyke pipes." He paused for a moment. "We've been drinking this."

"Definitely not a good thing," repeated Rimmer. "Judging by the size of this puddle," he gestured at it, "it's been leaking for at least 48 hours."

"Why didn't the computer notify us of this? This is definitely a Life Or Death situation." Lister addressed this to Rimmer. Hippolyta, unnoticed, bit her lower lip, and shifted her eyes away from the leak.

"Let's get Kryten to run a diagnostic."

"Good idea, Rimmer. You coming, Hippolyta?"

Hippolyta didn't answer for a moment, her glance fixed on the wall opposite, her eyebrows forming a cute little consternated V. On Lister's face, it just made her look like she had air between her ears.

"Uh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming." She shook her head briefly, distracted. She walked down the corridor, Lister and Rimmer exchanging a confused glance as they followed.

*****************************

"Well sirs and ma'ams, I've discovered why the computer didn't tell us about the leak. It's been disconnected from that area of the ship," said Kryten, holding a paper printout of the diagnostic up to the light. (He didn't really need to, what with his android infrared vision, but he found that reading in the dark had the tendency to alarm his human counterparts.)

"What?! How did that happen?" Kochanski had her hands resting lightly on the operations interface, her fair skin reflecting the computer's reddish glow of something gone horribly wrong.

Hippolyta sat in a hunched posture outside of the cockpit. She was unconsciously biting her fingernails, a habit that Lister had when he was feeling nervous. She waited for the android to pronounce her guilt.

"I'm not exactly sure, ma'am."

Hippolyta exhaled in a whoosh, a deep sigh of relief. She had a reprieve. Kryten continued, however, causing her to hold her breath again.

"It appears that that entire portion of the ship, from mark 955 to mark 1015 is currently off limits to the self-regulatory routines."

"In English, Kryten?" sneered Rimmer.

"Somebody put the Hydroponics bay and the surrounding corridor in a computational blind spot. One of us hacked in and, basically, screwed the pooch."

There was a pause, while everybody thought about that information. Then, as one, they turned to the person sitting outside.

Hippolyta looked at them all, catching the anger and frustration on their faces. She lowered her hand from her mouth. "Fuck me," she said simply.

"Already have done," exploded Rimmer. "What were you thinking, Hippolyta?! How could you do that?"

"Not to well, it would appear," sniffed Kryten, forestalling Hippolyta's excuse.

The Cat looked confused for a moment, and said, "Wait a minute. How is the plant place still working if she shut it out of the thingo?"

"Because I made sure of it," said Hippolyta. "I thought I'd got the code right for the other thing, too." She paused. "I'm sorry, everybody. I goofed."

"No, really?" Rimmer strode out of the cockpit, stood over Hippolyta. He looked furious. Hippolyta couldn't blame him, really. But she was just as furious at him, for everything else. Rimmer had a funny looking vein throbbing on his forehead, and Hippolyta had gathered Lister's big hands into tight fists. The rest of the crew gathered round. This was going to be a show stopping row. They were all so entranced with the WWE-like action that they failed to notice the buzzing coming from the cockpit.

"Rimmer, don't start with me..." she threatened, looking him right in the eyes.

"That's the problem, I already did," he spat. "You've done nothing but put me down for the last month and a half, and I'm not going to take it any more!"

She stood up, placing her nose inches from his. "Put you down?! Oh, right, your standard excuse when things don't go just your way. You smeghead." She turned away.

He grabbed her shoulder and turned her back. "That's what I'm talking about right there! Calling me names! Damn it, Hippolyta, why won't you let me be a man?"

She took a step back, and jabbed a brown finger in his solar plexus. "Because you're not one! You're a sniveling little cowardly smegger, who throws books at people he claims to love!"

Lister and the rest exchanged a glance, fraught with meaning. This was going too far. This was going to come to blows if they didn't...

Oops. Too late.

With a scream torn from the bottom of hell, Rimmer leapt on Hippolyta, knocking her over the chair, and wrestling her to the deck. She managed to roll out from under him, and then it was just a blur of legs flailing, arms waving, and cussing. Lister, not even aware of what he was doing, jumped into the melee, trying to get a grip on either one of the combatants. The thought foremost in his mind was to stop it, but when he felt a fist jab into his left thigh, he gave up on that thought and just started beating on whoever he could get his hands on. He managed to get a hold of a shirt, which gave way with an audible rip. He wasn't even sure if it was Rimmer's or Hippolyta's. He peripherally noticed Kryten tenderly trying to split all three of them up. The android was torn. He couldn't actually hurt the humans in his care, but when they were fighting, his programming went right out the window. His pleas for calm were skipping like a badly scratched LP.

The Cat, meanwhile, had found a bag of popcorn from somewhere, and was watching gleefully while munching away.

Lister suddenly felt a cascade of ice cold water sheet over him, which had the effect of causing all three of them to freeze, almost literally. They looked up, and saw Kochanski standing over them, a bucket in her hands, which was dripping slightly from the lip.

"Are you all quite finished?" asked Kochanski, one perfect eyebrow raised delicately. Her voice was considerably milder than her expression. She looked ready to spank each and every one of them, resembling nothing so much as an old maid school teacher who had just received an apple with a worm in it. And the worm had been pulled from a tequila bottle.

The three on the floor looked terribly embarrassed. They all got to their feet hurriedly, brushing themselves off, dripping sadly. Rimmer's shirt was torn in half, Hippolyta was sporting a nosebleed, and Lister's borrowed hair was knotted and mussed where it wasn't dripping with water.

"Panic mode cancel. Engage blow dry." Kryten stood near the three doused crew members and began swooshing them over with a hair dryer that popped out of his abdominal cavity.

"Aww! Officer BeeBee! Why'd you stop 'em? That was classy entertainment!"

"Shove it, Cat." Kochanski put the bucket down on the countertop nearby with a vexed thud. "The next, and I do mean the VERY next person to do something stupid will be locked in the brig for a month."

Kryten raised a hand and said, "We don't have a brig."

Kochanski glared daggers at Kryten. "I'll MAKE one." The others pondered this physical impossibility for a moment, then all began babbling together, trying to explain, excuse, question her authority. She slapped her palm down on the counter. "Shut. UP." Instant silence. Even Kryten's blow dryer stopped whirring at her tone. The crew could hear the echoes of the ship, the pistons firing, every little sound. Kochanski tilted her head to the left and seemed to be listening intently. Lister, Rimmer and The Cat blinked at her.

"Krissy..." Lister began.

"Shh. Listen." The others imitated her, cocking their heads around, trying to hear what she did.

"That's what's been bothering me. That damn buzzing! There it is. Don't you hear it?" Kochanski now began walking in little circles, leaning towards various appliances, biting her upper lip.

"Damn. It's stopped. Kryten, I think the blender's on the fritz."

So close, and yet so far, Miss Kochanski...

"All right. Since some of us here are behaving like children, then you'll be punished like one. Rimmer, latrine duty. NOW." Rimmer, conditioned by a lifetime of obeying a superior officer's orders, skittered away quickly, without question, his metaphorical tail between his legs.

"Lister..."

"Aw, Kriss..."

"Don't 'Aw Kriss' me, chummer. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. Get me?"

"Yes'm." Lister shrunk away, wondering where this side of Kochanski had been hiding all this time.

"Start scanning for an asteroid or planet nearby with fresh water. Or frozen will do. We need at least 40 cubic decaliters to flush the system out. Move." Lister moved.

"As for you, Hollister..." Kochanski let her voice trail off threateningly. Hippolyta waited for the sentence.

"You put everybody's life on board this ship in danger, for no better reason than a modicum of privacy. It was wreckless, stupid and above all else insane." Hippolyta nodded, but didn't look the least bit repentant.

Kochanski continued, "You have precisely 1 hour to fix your shitty coding. And when I say 'fixed,' I mean put it back exactly as it was before. If it can't be done, then you have that same hour to code up an entirely new system. If that can't be done, then you'd better pray to God that Lister's spacesuit doesn't leak."

"What?" shrieked Hippolyta, not believing what she'd just heard. "You wouldn't DARE space me!"

"No, you dizzy bitch. You'll be Outside, installing new plumbing by hand. Clear?"

"Crystal," snarled Hippolyta.

"So what are you waiting for? Your hour started 2 minutes ago."

************************************

At the end of 45 minutes, Hippolyta stopped trying to debug the system, and instead simply went and checked Lister's spacesuit for seal leaks. She'd come to the obvious conclusion that no programming whiz, no matter how cocky, could fix this system within an hour. For one thing, the programs were set up in such a way that it took at least ten minutes to verify access, and then another ten to verify the verification. That's twenty minutes gone right there, and not a scrap of coding had been done. Then, another twenty to pour over the current system, looking for the precise location of the piece of code in question. There's forty mintues. When she found the code, finally, she realized that she'd done such a good job of making 'ponics bay off limits, that the system wouldn't even acknowledge that it existed.

Ah, schadenfraude.

This was a weeks work, at least. It had taken her about as long to screw it up in the first place. Kochanski was right. An entirely new recyke system would have to be brought on line. That meant replacing a good deal of the hardware first. Then duplicating the software, minus the bad code of course, to get the computer to run it.

And she had to do it all by herself.

Resisting the urge to cuss mightily and at length, she stomped down to the storage closet in the bathroom and began suiting up. The modern space suit was a marvel of engineering, roughly on par with an SUV. It was bulky, hard to maneuver in, and took up way too much space when not in use. Still not entirely sure how the plumbing on a man's suit worked exactly, (wait, that poke-y thing goes WHERE?!) Hippolyta fiddled and futzed and snapped and re-snapped for a good ten minutes.

"Hippolyta? What are you doing?" He sniffed at the end, a habit of his that, until recently, endeared him to her. Now she thought he sounded like an anteater with a sinus infection.

"I'm putting on a space suit, genius." Her back was to the door, and she hadn't noticed when he came in. She didn't turn to face him, knowing that if she did, she'd punch him.

"What for?"

"Because I could use the excersize."

"What?"

"Shouldn't you be scrubbing that urinal, Rimmer? Idle hands are the smeghead's playground."

"Ah. Then you're to be dragged behind the ship in a suit as punishment?" He turned and began scrubbing the implement in question with a stiff brush. "I approve. Say hello to the vaccuum for me."

She snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye, noting his bucket of cleaning supplies, his bony back bent over his work. "Considering that it's taken up permanent residence in between your ears, I'll let it know that it owes you rent."

Rimmer stiffened. "Shouldn't that rent be paid to your heart?"

Hippolyta bit the inside of her cheek, closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten in Esperanto. "If so, then there's a lot of vaccuum out there. I'm rich. I wonder what I'll do with my money? Oh, I know, I'll buy you a pair of balls. Every boy should have some."

Rimmer flared his nostrils and gritted his teeth. "That's wonderful, Hippolyta. While you're at it, find yourself a Thighbuster. Or, better still, a case of Slim-Quik."

"I'm telling Lister you think he's fat."

Even in his ire, Rimmer had to smile at this last. "Well, the smegger is, rather."

"You know, he can't even go upstairs without getting winded?"

"Once I saw him get a stitch in his side while playing the guitar."

"And he gets runner's high from getting out of bed in the morning. It's made the last few days an adventure in altered states of consciousness for me."

"He's such a slobby goit."

"When I'm myself again, I'm going to..." she trailed off. "If I'm myself again, he's getting..." She stopped, overwhelmed.

He put down his brush, turned to her for the first time. "Hippolyta..."

She held up a gloved hand, requesting his silence. He knew this signal of hers by now, and out of habit, he obeyed. She still had not turned to look at him, this whole conversation done without so much as eye contact.

"Rimmer, why did you throw that book at me?"

Caught in the oncoming freight train of her question, Rimmer panicked and did the only thing he could. He told the truth.

"Because I'm not gay!"

Hippolyta was genuinely startled. "I never said you were!" She finally turned to face him, her eyes wide with confusion.

"You did! You said that you being Lister and us being in love..."

"Would make us... oh." she finished lamely. Then she added, "Who was it, Rimmer?"

A wild, animal look. "What? Who was what?"

"Who was it that made a pass at you? A schoolmate? An Io Scout leader?"

Rimmer didn't answer for a moment. "How did you know?" he asked finally, simply, not denying.

"Because you were worked up enough by that offhand remark that you chucked a book at me, you dork."

"Oh," he said. "Er. That. Yes. I don't want to talk about it now, really."

He flinched, waiting for the inevitable explosion, which hit whenever he put her off like this. But she just sighed. "Alright, Rimmer." She picked up the helmet of her suit and tucked it under her arm. "I'm off. Keep a couple reserve tanks in the air lock for me, ok?"

"The Cat's supposed to do that," answered Rimmer, keeping his silly regulations firmly in place even as his dignity fell to pieces around him.

"I know that. That's why I asked you to do it." She turned and walked to the door.

"Hippolyta. Please, be careful."

She smirked at him over her shoulder. "Plumbing's not so heavy in zero-gee."

"But a tear in a suit is fatal."

She nodded. "Ah, but that vaccuum owes me a lot of rent."

He actually blushed at this. "You started that, not me."

"Do we have to care who starts it, Rimmer? Can we just care about finishing it and moving on?"

"Does this mean we're speaking to each other again?"

"I thought that's what we'd been doing for the last fifteen minutes."

Rimmer rolled his eyes and grinned again. "Right. Although maybe the first five shouldn't count."

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't had a good snark-fest in a while." She walked back to Rimmer and put a gloved hand on his shoulder. "Let's get me back into my body, first. Then we'll work on us." He nodded, looking down at the ground, not trusting himself to keep his emotions in check.

And with that, she was gone.

*******************************

Outside. In space, no one can hear you tinkering. Usually, Hippolyta enjoyed going Out. But when you're Out, trying to balance a 15 foot long pipe in one hand and an extentible waldo in the other, trying to get the latter to grab the former, not to mention that the slightest ill thought movement could send you bouncing away from your perch and scatter your tools away...

Pain in the arse, is what that was. That's why that sort of work was usually done by 'droids. And while the ship was in dry dock. (As opposed to wet dock. In space. Riiiight.) But punishment duty was supposed to be a punishment, not a smegging walk in the park.

When she finally managed, after two hours sweaty labor, to get the first pipe into its designated spot, she checked her air supply by looking up and to the left of her faceplate. Thirty minutes left. She was on dead man's time, now. Careless, stupid, inattentive... oh smeg. She placed her tools back in their magnetic box (including that stupid spanner they took from that stupid derelict, stupid Lister...) and crawled her way back to the air lock, some forty meters away. Above her and to the left, she could just make out the bulk of a ratty old asteroid. She could see some ice glistening on the surface. Stupid Lister apparently found their next water source, and had camped out here, waiting for her to get the new plumbing on line.

She hoped they had a card game or something going, because it was going to be a while.

*****************************

"Good job, Dave. Any thing else on the radar?"

"Not so much as a chicken, Krissy."

"Excellent. Now, if Hollister would kindly get her borrowed arse in gear, we'll be back to maximum capacity in no time." Kochanski said this last into the radio that connected Hippolyta to the interior of the ship.

******************************
Hippolyta snorted. "I'm going back to the airlock now. Can't do any more without a fresh tank." Then Hippolyta muttered under her breath, "You bitch."

******************************

"I heard that, Hollister. You brought this on yourself."

******************************
Hippolyta was about to make a rude noise very near the radio, when a shadow fell over her. Thinking at first that the asteroid had floated in front of the star that was giving light to the sytem, she turned to look. The asteroid was still firmly to her left. Something else was casting that shadow. But she couldn't see anything. No thing at all could possibly be making that shadow.

******************************

"Sir! Ma'am! Proximity alert just went bonkers!" Kryten slapped the signal that sent the ship into red alert.

******************************

Rimmer looked up from his tenth toilet, starting at the alarm.

A moment later, all that was left in the bathroom was a pair of yellow rubber gloves and a gently wobbling scrub brush on the floor."

******************************

"What? But all that's nearby is..."

"They were hiding behind the asteroid! Using it's gravity to mask their own!"

******************************

Scrambling now, Hippolyta switched off the magnets in her boots, running oh so carefully, but as fast as she could, toward the air lock. She was about 6 meters from it when the thing making the shadow revealed itself.

******************************
"It's a ship! It was invisimode-ing!"

"Identify!" snapped Kochanski, swinging herself into her navigational console. "Kryten! Identify already, God damn it!"

"Bring her about, Krissy! Get us away from that thing!"

"Officer BeeBee, they've got their cannons on us!"

"Cat, get the garbage cannon ready. Hollister, report! Where are you? Evasive manouvers in ten seconds!"

******************************

"KKKSSSTHHHPPBB-*static*-wheeeeeeee...."

******************************

"Damn it, why doesn't she answer?! I can't do anything until she's inside!"

Of course, this was when Rimmer made it to the bridge.

"Hippolyta's still out there?!" He grabbed the transmitter from Kochanski. "Hippolyta!"

"Ri....er.... shit... som.... ind.... of tractor beam... CAN'T MOVE!" This last came blasting through the system, as Rimmer had turned the gain up as high as it could go.

"External camera 17 on!" Kryten flipped a toggle, and their viewscreen was filled with a gut wrenching sight. Hollister was prone, spread eagled on her back, the dented green exterior of the ship making her stand out like a reverse snow angel. Then, a second figure moved into view.

A large, hairy second figure. The creature was suited, but stood at least 8 feet tall. Whisps of greasy brown hair had burst out of the suit, making it look like an over-grown Chia pet. It bent down over Hippolyta's borrowed form, tilting its head to one side. They could see its lips moving, as spittle spattered the inside of his face plate.

"GELF. It's the smegging GELF!" Kochanski snarled. Her hatred of the Genetically Engineer Life Forms was almost as long as Lister's. They were the ones who prevented her from going home to her own dimension.

Lister, meanwhile, had gone a peculiar oatmeal color. "Oh shit. No smegging way."

"I think the monkey's about to wet 'em."

"Shut the smeg up, Cat!"

"Kryten, you're the only one who can get out there without a suit. Move!" Kochanski shouted this order, while Rimmer and Lister both stared slack jawed at the screen.

"Certainly, ma'am. After all, I'm only a cleaning 'droid, with no weapon. I'll be sure to win against an eight foot tall mutant with perpetual halitosis."

"MOVE!"

But it was too late...

The GELF bent over, scooped up Hippolyta in a fireman's carry, and signalled to its ship. With a tiny, final shimmer, they both vanished.

And the GELF ship opened fire on the Starbug.

*******************************************

Author's note: So was it worth the wait?

TO BE CONTINUED