Addendum: I promised my niece I would make the chapters shorter, so here goes nothing…

Chapter 3:

"Well, that settles that" said Rimmer, turning to leave.

"What do you mean, 'that settles that,' Rimmer?" said Lister. "Where the smeg are you going?"

"What do YOU mean 'where am I going?' Where in the smeg do you think I'm going, Pluto? I'm off back to Red Dwarf as quick as my light-bee can get me there of course. All I have to do is figure a way to disengage that tractor beam and whoosh! I'm out of here, like a rat out of an aqueduct!"

"But what about the Dragon, grease stain?" said the Cat. "Don't you want to find out if it's male or female?"

They all gave Cat that look, you know the one, the one where they think he's being totally gross and he thinks it's normal.

"Forget that pile of smeg, Cat" said Lister. "Rimmer, don't you want to know how a smeggin' Dragon in stasis on a Red Dwarf made 200 flippin' years after ours knows who we are and what's happened to us 3 million smegging years into deep space?"

"No" smirked Rimmer.

Kryten jumped into the fray and said "but sir, aren't you in the least bit interested in any of this?"

"Said the spider to the fly" said Rimmer. "It's a trap! Don't you mentally incompetent gimboids get it? We let Mr or Mrs or Miss, friendly dragon out of stasis; it decides its hungry and fries us alive with its fire breath and then gobbles us up, innards and all, like pigs on a spit roast! Call me crazy, but…"

"You're crazy, man" said Lister.

"You're crazy, goal-post head" said the Cat.

"Well sir" said Kryten, almost apologetically. "I think I'm going to have to side with the others on this one, you are a little… umm… a lot…err… …wacko…. if you don't mind my saying so, sir."

"You're serious!" said Rimmer, nostrils flared so wide you could park White and Blue Midget in them, side by side "You guys are completely deranged; do you really want to let that creature out of stasis? Have you no sense of self-preservation, any of you?"

"Well sir, the dragon did say it was a vegetarian and it promised not…"

"And you would take the word of a dragon, a complete stranger? Are you mad?"

The arguing went back and forwards for about 30 minutes. Each life-form putting their ideas, suggestions and fears onto the table and it was mulled over by all.

In the end, Rimmer said "Well, stuff all of you. If you air-heads want to let it out, do it without me. Just let me get back to Red Dwarf and then you can do what you want."

"That's it, sir. My goodness, you're a lot smarter than you look; well, you'd have to be because you're such a smeeeee…"

"Do you really want to finish that sentence, Kryten?" said Rimmer angrily. "If so, let me know before hand so I can get some really long jumper cables and attach one end to the power back on Red Dwarf; you can guess where the other end is going to go, ok?"

"Sorry sir, facetious mode on stand-by. Bringing up embarrassment mode, I… I… I…"

"Just get to the smeggin' point Kryten" said Lister, who by now had found himself a chair and had made himself as comfortable as he could, despite the circumstances.

"And make it fast, metal mouth" yawned the Cat wearily. "It's already way past my pre-breakfast snack and nap!"

"Sorry sirs" muttered Kryten. "Well, what I was going to say was maybe before we do anything, we should go back to Red Dwarf and consult with Holly about it. He does have an IQ of…"

"6000" said Rimmer.

"6000" said Lister.

"What 'IS' this IQ thing that you guys are always going on about?" said the Cat.

They all looked at the Cat, amazed as usual with his lack of anything even resembling an IQ.

"Yes, well; anyway, that's what I think we should do, consult Holly" said Kryten, meekly.

"I think you might be right, Kryten" said Lister, picking up his bazookoid and hoisting it onto his shoulder. "If nothing else it'll give us time to take in all of this smeg. And there's a heck of a lot of it to absorb!"

"At last" said Rimmer, rolling his eyes and sneering. "I was beginning to think I was the only sane person here."

"Yea, right, nostril-hair" said the Cat, retrieving his own weapon. "You're as about as sane as a one-legged man entering a butt kicking contest."

Rimmer went to say something, but the others just walked away and headed back to the Dwarf

"Just as well" he said to himself. "I was about to say something so cringingly insulting and mind-bogglingly nasty that even Napoleon Bonaparte himself would have fallen to his knees and cried like a blubbering baby!"

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