Dave & the Dragon

by CyborgGarfield

Dave Lister's destiny comes screaming in like a squadron of supralightspeed fighters! AGAIN! That's about all I can say without giving too much of the story away, although the title pretty much does that anyway. Oh well, what the smeg!

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The gallant, err… reluctant explorers hadn't gone more than 100 feet into the cave when Rimmer yelled "just wait one smegging minute!"

"What? What is it Rimmer? What have you…?" yelled back Lister, jumping around with his bazookoid aimed randomly and erratically.
"Kryten, turn around and shine that peeper on the Cat" Rimmer ordered.

"Yes, Mr Smee.. I… I mean Mr Rimmer" said Kryten who was wanting like nothing else to swear at the stupid hologram but couldn't do it. 'Damn my programming' he thought.

With Kryten's light shining directly into the Cat's eyes, Rimmer said 'You! You're a cat!"

"Of course I'm a cat, H for brains" said the Cat, holding his hand up in front of his face to prevent blindness.

"He's a cat, Rimmer! What's your point?"

"I thought cats could see in the dark!" said Rimmer pointing an accusing finger at the dazzled moggy.

"I never thought about that" remarked Lister, as that confused, blank look returned to his face.

"Maybe a million or so years ago cats could see in the dark, but don't forget; I'm the product of three million years of evolution! Natural selection! Survival of the fittest, that's me! Oww Yea! Yea! Yea!" and he did a little dance.

"You! You're the reason for the introduction of mandatory laws to de-sex your pets you stupid moggy!"

This ticked off the cat to no end and he lifted his hands to make himself look big.

Lister jumped in between them and held out his hands. "Alright, you two gimboids, that's enough. Rimmer, the Cat can't see in the dark; get over it! Cat, Rimmer is a smeg-head; get used to it! Now let's go!"

They hadn't travelled more than another 50 feet when Kryten stopped and said "Err… Mr Lister Sir?"

"Kryten if this is about the Cat I'll..."

"Umm, no sir it's not. But do you remember that cave we went into?"

"You mean the one we're in right now, Kryten?"

"Mmm, sort of."

"Yes Kryten, I remember the cave. What about it?" said Lister wondering if Androidicide was a crime.

"Well, it's not a cave any more!"

"What do you mean it's not a cave anymore?

"Well, Sir… You see... It's sort of turned into a tunnel, Mr Lister."

"And the difference is?"

"Well, sir; the cave was made from rock, the tunnel is… sort of… not."

"Not what Kryten? Spit it out man!"

"Not rock, sir. Look!"

Dave moved next to the babbling mechanoid and looked at what he getting all spooked about. The rocky, natural appearing cave did indeed stop being rock. In fact it looked like it was metal; shiny, smooth, and black metal.

"Smeggin' hell!" exclaimed the man who could hold six snooker balls in his cheeks.

The Cat and Rimmer joined him and both uttered words way to rude to reveal here. It suffices to say that poor Kryten blushed so much he thought his head would pop like a week old pimple.

"Shall we keep going, Mr Lister sir?"

"We've gone a whole 150 feet Kryters. We might as well keep going" said Lister, sweating profusely. "But let's keep our bazookoids at the ready, shall we chaps."

The Red Dwarf possie continued to make their way down the dark corridor in a brisk but cautious fashion. Kryten made some remarks about there not being any seams, weld marks or rivets in the material the tunnel was made from and thought that it must have been made by a very advanced race. Rimmer made some smart-arse remark about them probably being smug gits who were too smart for their own good and nuked themselves into oblivion. Lister on the other hand began to have feelings of foreboding, like something weird was about to happen.

And then it did.

"Umm… Mr Lister, sir!"

"What is it now Kryten?"

Dave moved up next to Kryten. What he saw wasn't totally unexpected, but a surprise never the less.

"A door?" said Lister.

"A door?" said Rimmer.

"A door?" said the Cat. "Press the bell and let's see if anyone's home!"

"It's not that sort of door, you demented flea-bag!" shouted the man who was so anal he sewed name tags on his ship issue condoms.

"There's not a bell Cat; but there is a keyboard. Any suggestions Kryten?" said Lister.

"Yes sir, as a matter of fact I do. Try keying in 2X4B-523P."

"Hang on! That's your model number, isn't it?"

"Err, yes sir it is."

"What makes you think that that particular series of numbers and letters will open the smeggin' door?"

"Well you could call it a hunch sir, but you'd be wrong."

"And why is that Kryters, me old mate." Lister said, starting to get a little ticked off at his mechanical friend's lack of 'getting-to-the-point!'

"I'll show you" and he pointed his light to a panel just below the ceiling.

Lister and the others looked at what Kryten was indicating and they all gasped in shock. Gouged into the metal in characters a foot high was '2X4B-523P'

"Have you been here before Kryten?" Lister asked.

"No sir I haven't, at least… I don't think I have!"

"You overpriced vacuum cleaner! Of course you've been here before" said Rimmer angrily. "Who else would carve '2X4B-523P' in a wall above a keyboard?"

"I… I… I!" stammered Kryten.

"Leave him alone goal-post head. If my man Kryten says he's never been here, then he's never been here" said the Cat before whispering to Lister "you think maybe his CPU is playing tricks on him?"

"Look!" said Dave, waggling his finger at Rimmer and the Cat. "I think Kryten would know if he's been here or not. Besides, the letters look like they've been carved into the metal by a claw or something; Kryten's lettering would have been much neater, right Krytie?"

There was no answer.

All of a sudden Dave got the point he was making and the four of them just stood ridged and looked at the carving like they would a Steven King film. They were scared out of their minds.

Minutes passed feeling like hours and nobody moved an inch until Lister said "Well, it's now or smeggin' never. If we don't go through that door then we'll probably never get off this smeggin' rock" and he walked over to the keyboard.

The others, shaken into reality by the sound of Lister's voice moved next to him, silently praying that they weren't going to encounter a Polymorph nest or a GELF colony on the other side.

Dave keyed in '2X4B-523P' and the door opened.

"Smeggin' hell" was all they said.

What the guys saw was, to say the very least, one of the last things that they would have expected to see 3 million years into deep space.

"It looks like one of the smeggin' cargo bays in Red Dwarf" said Lister, riveted to the spot and eyes bulging like he was wearing a Polymorph for shorts again. "Smeg! Look at this!" he gasped pointing to a crate.

"This… this is impossible" said Rimmer, trying not to do what was supposed to be impossible for holograms. "All of these crates have 'Jupiter Mining Corporation on them!"

"Kryten find a computer terminal and try to find out what the smeg is going on here" "Y… Y… Yes Mr Lister" stammered Kryten.

"Cat, Rimmer, lets look around and see if we can find any survivors or food or… well, anything that could give us any smeggin' clues or… ah just look around guys, ok?"

Kryten found a terminal and discovered that the computer still had power so he interfaced with it and studied the contents. The others searched crates and found a lot of 'not-much' that would be useful except some clothing, camping gear ("smeg knows why that's here" said Lister), dozens of bottles of marijuana gin (which was out of date but might come in handy as paint stripper or athlete's foot lotion) and a whole crate of Zero G Football Videos.

Slightly disappointed at their treasure hunt being a bit of a flop (although Dave was happy about the football vids), they tried to go open some doors and all of them appeared to be locked except one. They were just about to go through it when Kryten said "Sirs, I think you'd better come and hear this before you go in there."

Lister, Rimmer and the Cat came over to the computer where Kryten was and Lister said "What is it Kryten?"

"The computer is damaged so I can't access all of its information. The A.I. is not here, probably wiped. What I can tell you is this ship is the Red Dwarf III. It was commissioned 200 years after our Red Dwarf."

"Red Dwarf III?" said Lister. "You'd think they'd come up with better names for ships in the 24th smeggin' century. OK, go on Kryters."

"Umm, thank you sir. Yes, it was dedicated to the crews of Red Dwarfs I & II. It says that the first Red Dwarf was never found, obviously, because we have it, don't we sir?"

"And…?"

"Well, it says Red Dwarf II was ripped apart by a freakishly powerful solar wind just before it was due to make a stop on Ganymede. The same wind apparently destroyed 2 colonies there as well. A very large loss of life I'm sorry to say sir."

It was a terrible event and the mood of the whole group dropped quicker than an elephant from the Empire State Building. (Yes, I know a joke is a bit callous at this point but this is supposed to be a comedy, remember?)

Lister wiped his eyes and said "Anything else Kryten?"

"Yes sir, this cargo bay, a tractor beam room, the environmental control room and the room you were about to enter are the only bits that survived the crash. It doesn't say anything about how or why it happened though. I think that information might be in some of the corrupted files I've located. I can download them into my memory bank and try to decipher them later if you wish sir."

"Good idea, man. So what's in the other room?"

"It's a very large stasis chamber sir."

"Smeg!" said Lister. "Is there anyone in there?"

"Well…"

"Come on condom head" said the Cat. "Spill it!"

"Yes, G.I. Joe groin, tell us who's in there?" said Rimmer.

"It's not a 'who' sirs."

"But it is occupied, right" said Lister.

"Yes sir it is I…"

"Spit it out man, what's in there? Just tell me it's not one of those psychotic simulants"

"No sir, it's not a simulant, but… are you sure you want to hear this sir?"

"Kryten, just smeggin' tell us!"

"Sorry sir but… I… I… It's… a dragon sir."

"A dragon?" said Lister.

"A dragon?" said Rimmer.

"A dragon?" said the Cat, scared at first, but then a smile came to his face. "Is it male or female?"

"What does that matter you freaked-out fur ball?" said Rimmer with a look of disgust on his face. "It's a dragon!"

"So what, a date is a date!"

The others looked at the Cat with a mixture of worry and nausea. Trying hard to hold down last night's curry Lister said "Does the computer say anything about this dragon, Kryten?"

"That really depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Whether a message from the dragon in question counts."

"Say what?" they all gasped in unison.

"There… There appears to be a message from the dragon on the computer, sirs. It must have got loose, entered the message it left in the computer then put itself back into stasis."

"This is smegging weird! Why would a dragon leave a message, who would it leave a message for?"

"Well, sir, I… I… I… the message… it's for you sir! Actually, it's for all of us!"

Dave Lister, the last human being alive, a man who was never lost for words and always had a smart-arse comment to say about every one and every thing just stood there; eyes bulging and jaw hitting the ground. The other's looked at him waiting for him to say something, anything.

"Is it written or recorded, Kryten?" Lister said, trying to appear like he had composed himself.

"Err… both, sir."

"Well, can we hear it please?"

"Of course sir" said Kryten and hit a few keys on the computer.

"OK, where to start?" said a disembodied voice that sounded like Alec Guinness with a lisp (Think Parcel Mouth/Tongue from Harry Potter). "Well, I suppose saying hello would be in order. Welcome Dave, Arnold, Cat and Kryten to the remains of Red Dwarf III. Yes, I know who you all are. David Lister, curry fanatic and all around smart arse: Heard from the twins lately? Arnold Rimmer: Underachiever and hologram: How's the hard-light bee going Iron Balls? The Cat, descended from Frankenstein and a big black tom on Titan: Has Red Dwarf run out of Chicken Marengo yet? Last but never least, Kryten 2X4B-523P: Service android and all around nice person. I must admit Kryten; I think I liked your face better before Dave put you back together after you crashed that space bike."

Silence! It was so quiet you could have heard one of Rimmer's dandruff cells hit the ground.

"Come on lads, say something, cat got your tongue?"

"I wouldn't go anywhere near their tongues scale brains" said the Cat.

"Cat, it can't hear you man. It's a smegging recording!" said Dave, still in shock.

"That's right Dave. This is a recording. And if you want to know anything else, you need to let me out of stasis" said the dragon, stunning everyone again. "I promise I won't eat you or anything. I'm actually a vegetarian."

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