Chapter 4:

Back at Red Dwarf, the group of friends… err… mates… umm… acquaintances, yes that'll do, acquaintances; anyway, they got back to Red Dwarf without another argument and once back in Holly's field of supervision they began filling him in on what had transpired. Kryten then downloaded the corrupt files from RD III and Holly set to work on repairing them.

By the time the got to the drive room, Holly had repaired what he could.The vid screen in the drive room came on and Holly's cheerful face appeared with a smile you could melt titanium with.

"What's with the smeggin' smile Holly, you been thinking about Hilly again?" said Lister as he tucked into a mutton vindaloo.

"Yea, chrome-dome" said the Cat as he slurped up a bowl of Crispi's. "What's got you all happy-like?"

"I know something you don't know" said Holly in a facetious singing-like voice, wiggling his ears in a gesture of defiance.

"Oh, here we go" said Rimmer, arms folded and nostrils flared. "He's going to go all smug-git on us and make us guess what he found or something."

"That's right, Arnold. You have to guess what I found" said the AI who once pretended to gets his star-charts from a children's book.

"Could you give us a clue please Holly" said Kryten as he did some ironing while they spoke.

"No clues, you have to guess."

They all looked at each other and the prevailing thought going though most of their minds was 'how in the smeg have we survived this long with a computer with advanced senility and a flare for the ridiculous.'

Everyone except the Cat, of course; the only thing going through his mind was the thought of whether the dragon was male or female and, if female, whether she'd prefer he wore a lavender or cream suit on their first date.

"Holly!" screamed Rimmer, whose face was turning so red they all thought his light-bee was going to explode. "Just smegging tell us what the smegging smeg you found or I'll... I'll…"

"You'll what, Arnold" asked Holly. "Hold your breath until you turn blue? You forget, mate! I control your hologram."

And with that he proceeded to turn Rimmer's face a whole lot of different colours one after the other. First it was chartreuse, then indigo, then avocado, then… Well, you get the point.

"OK, Holly, that's enough" said Lister; "I think he's learned his smeggin' lesson."

"OK Dave" said Holly and returned Rimmer to his natural colour.

"Holly, you're a goit! A smeggin' ugly, bald, ugly goit!" said Rimmer abusively.

"I'm a what?" asked Holly.

"You heard me, you iPod wannabe!"

Holly didn't answer back, he didn't have to. Rimmer knew he had pushed Holly too far and now it was just a matter of waiting to see what Holly would do to him.

"OK" said Holly. "So you're not going to guess; you guys are really boring, you know that?"

"Just smeggin' get on with it Holly. The dragon, Red Dwarf III! Why did they crash? Where did the dragon come from? How the smeg does it know all about us?" said Lister, head in his hands, frustrated.

Sorry, anyway; the ship didn't crash; it was pulled into the moon by its own tractor beam."

"Oh dear" said Kryten "That was a bit of bad luck."

"Bad luck had nothing to do with it. It seems a second technician aboard the ship was supposed to replace a porous circuit on the TB and…"

"TB" said the Cat, face scrunched up in disgust. "Isn't that a disease or something?"

"It's the tractor beam Cat, now shut up and let him finish!" said Lister.

"Thanks Dave. Anyway, this second technician apparently put the circuit in backwards and it turned itself on with full power as they were passing the moon and the got pulled into it. Unlike us, it hit the moon so hard it caused a crater the size of Ireland!"

"That's terrible Holly, what happened to the crew?"

"They all got off using their smaller ships, that is, except for this particular techie. Apparently they tied him to the tractor beam machine and left him behind.

"Serves him right; the stupid gimboid. Imagine not being able to replace a simple porous circuit properly!" said Rimmer smugly.

"Yea, imagine that" quipped Lister. "Why that's almost as bad as not being able to fix a drive plate properly and nuking a whole ship!"

"Yea, you're right; imagine th… Wait a minute!" said Rimmer, all of a sudden realising who Lister was talking about. "You bastard, you're talking about me!"

"Well DUH!" said the Cat who had finished his Crispi's and was now combing his eyebrows.

"That wasn't my fault! If you hadn't gone into stasis I…I…"

"Hey!" said Lister, pointing an angry, accusing finger at the hologram of the man who had to hypnotise women to get a date. "That's a load of bollocks that is! You screwed up, face the smeggin' facts!"

"You…"

"Please, sirs, I think we have more important issues to discuss right now. The fact that Mr Rimmer killed the whole crew is totally irrelevant to this conversation" said Kryten.

"Kryten, you're a goit" said Rimmer.

"Keep going Holly" said Lister.

"Anyway, they all left the ship and when it crashed all that was left in-tact was the cargo bay, a stasis room, the atmospheric control room, the traction beam room and a second technician. Although I'm not sure about the techie, but I suppose you'll find that out when you go back."

"So what about that smeggin' dragon, Holl, what's its story?" said Lister.

"Yea Mr 6000 IQ, whatever that is; what about the dragon; is it male or female?" said the cat, curling up in his favourite spot on top on the navicom, where it was nice and warm.

"Well actually Cat, from what I can gather from the files Kryten downloaded, dragons are androgynous."

"Andy who? Do you mean like Captain Clean? It's a robot?"

"What's that mean Holl?" asked Lister.

"Androgynous means they are both sexes and neither sex. They have the bits of both male and female and are usually able to produce young without a partner" said Holly.

"Sound boring" said the Cat with a look of disgust on his face, which quickly turned into an evil looking smile and he sat bolt upright on the navicom. "But then again, if I was this Andy person, I could make all of my dreams come true."

"You really are disgusting, Cat" said Lister.

"That's a bit judgemental Lister" said Rimmer with a huge smirk on his face. "After all, how many of us here have actually had sex with themselves?"

All heads turned towards Lister with knowing glances. Poor Dave went all red in his chipmunk-like cheeks and he said "hang on; she was a different person… that is… it's not the same."

"Listen" said Holly all impatient like. "Do you blokes want to know about this dragon or what?"

"Sorry Holly" said Kryten apologetically. "Please continue."

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