Red Dwarf characters owned by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor and Blackadder characters by Richard Grant and Ben Elton. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! Also thanks to Sunrise of the tango factory, Cazflibs, Cmar and Radar-fox for the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome!

Chapter Two – The Red Adder

Lister wiped the condensation off the front of the stasis pods to peer inside. The glowing red light above them showed they were still active… Frozen in time for an eternity.

"Are they babes?" asked the Cat hopefully.

"Not unless you like beards…" said Lister.

"In the Cat race whiskers are a thing of beauty…"

Lister looked in Baldrick's stasis pod and recoiled back. "No way that thing could be regarded as beautiful…" He looked at the label again to confirm that Baldrick was in fact human and not some strange hybrid. Nope, definitely human.

Blackadder looked like a fine distinguished officer but there was definitely some indefinable element of weaseliness about him…

Kryten waddled over to the controller. "Well, let's release them, shall we?"

"Hang on, Kryters," said Lister. "We don't know what they've done! There might be a good reason they are in stasis!"

The communicator crackled. "Everything alright, Listy? I'm keeping the engines running for you!"

"We're fine…"

"Last time you said that, that genetically mutated bowl of spaghetti tried to force its way on board… Your idea of fine and mine are so far apart you could fit Jupiter between them, no, bigger than that - your bottom… Can I talk to Kryten?" Lister handed the communicator over.

"Kryten?"

"Yes sir."

"Don't press any buttons."

"No sir."

"Don't release any slathering creatures!"

"No sir."

"Don't find any new inventions and think, I don't know why this device is surrounded by skeletons but I'll try it out anyway!"

"No sir…"

"Just get back on board!"

"No sir, I mean, yes sir."

Lister shook his head and took back the communicator. "We can't leave these people here for an eternity, man, I'm letting them go."

Rimmer started speaking again. "According to the ship's computer they are there due to breaking Space Corp Directive 24534."

"What's that? Wearing blue out of season?"

"Actions relating to the utter destruction of the planet Earth…"

"Woh!" said Lister. "I bet they used that a lot!"

"Only the once, according to this," said Rimmer. "You see we should really keep them…" There was a beeping sound. "What's that noise?"

The Cat was busy pressing various buttons.

"Cat, man, what are you doing?" asked Lister.

"That officer dude is wearing some smart clothes, I wanna ask him who his tailor is…"

"Oh, it's only the Cat," said Rimmer. "He wouldn't be able to turn off the stasis field, he's too stupid…"

"Stasis field raising." said the computer.

"Oh smeg!" said Rimmer. The sound of Star Bug's engines could be heard as Rimmer started revving them up.

"Rimmer, you stay here, man!" said Lister. "Kryten go and stop that cowardly smeghead!"

"Certainly sir!" He bustled off in the direction of the cargo hangar.

With a hissing sound the two pods opened.

Blackadder smiled at Lister and the Cat. "Thank goodness the Space Corp is showing some common sense." He looked about. "I take it the common sense is due to the lack of General Melchett. His moustache finally made a bid for freedom and strangled him, did it?"

"No."

He looked about at the other stasis pods. "This place really is filthy. You aren't the cleaning staff, are you?"

"No."

"How long were we in stasis for?"

"Three…"

"Days?"

"No."

"Months?"

"No."

"Years? My football cards must be worth a fortune now!"

"Three million years."

Blackadder paled at this. Baldrick just took this in his stride. Mainly because he couldn't count above ten unless he took his shoes off…

"Oh bugger… So we're stuck three million years from Earth… Joy! I couldn't be happier if my house had just burnt down and my wife had just run off with the house insurance documents and the firemen. So we're stuck?"

"Yes."

"Where is the Earth, by the way?" asked Blackadder.

"We were going to ask you that same question," said Lister.

"Balders?"

"Yep!"

"You know those creatures you released?"

"What, the fluffy ones?"

"Yes, the fluffy ones with the big teeth."

"What, the fluffy ones with the big teeth that ate rock?"

"Yes, the fluffy ones with the big teeth that ate rock and were impervious to blaster fire and practically immortal. Basically the genetically engineered mining GELFS that, due to a small flaw, are practically invulnerable, can live in the vacuum of space and breed like it's a Friday night…"

"Yes."

"Where were they headed when you last saw them?"

"The Earth."

"Brilliant! Brilliant! You have been responsible for the utter destruction of the Earth and probably this section of the galaxy. You have also trapped us three million years from Earth. Well done, Balders, you've excelled yourself!"

"Don't worry sir, for I have a cunning plan to get us back home!"

"Let us not forget, Baldrick, that your last cunning plan has seemingly led to the utter destruction of the human race."

"A mistake any half witted bungling incompetent could have made, sir. This one will work though!"

"I don't think I'll jump and down with joy, remember you solved your mother's leaking tap problem by burning down her house."

"It dried it out, didn't it?"

"Yes, it also led to the Second Great Fire of London. Do you know the Germans gave you an Iron Cross for destroying more of London than they managed in Two World Wars?"

There was the sound of someone being forcibly dragged down the corridor towards them and Rimmer was frogmarched in, accompanied by Kryten.

When Rimmer saw an officer, he immediately stood to attention and saluted. "Good morning, sir! May I say what an absolute honour and delight it is to finally have a Space Corp Officer on board, sir! I have been looking after this ship for the past four years, sir!" He looked at Baldrick. "By the way sir, what type of genetic mutant is that with you…" He simpered to Baldrick. "No offence!"

"You cannot offend those without a brain."

"Urrr?" said Baldrick as his one remaining brain cell, which was dying of loneliness, tried to translate this while keeping him standing up… It failed.

Blackadder looked over the four Red Dwarf crewmembers. "Do I take it that the human race now consists of us?"

"Yes," said Lister.

"Well it's hardly a race now, more a waddle. Okay, Balders, let's hear your plan for saving the Earth and more importantly, me?"

"Well, the way I see it is we are three million years from the disintegrated remains of the Earth."

"Yes."

"What we need is a time machine, go back in time and stop them eating the Earth!"

"Brilliant! Brilliant! Well, I'll look over here for a time machine whilst you…"

"Actually sir," said Rimmer. "We do actually have a time machine, but it's never been too much help to us because we don't know where the Earth is or was or have any way to travel there."

Blackadder raised an eyebrow; he decided to raise two since it was quite an important moment for him. "And you are?"

"Rimmer, your officerness."

"And your rank is?"

"Second Technician, your eminence."

"Second Technician, so you are responsible for vending machines perchance?"

"Yes, your worshipfulness."

"Forgive me not jumping up and down for joy, Zimmer but what does a second technician in charge of degunking chicken soup machines know about time travel?"

"We found one," said Lister.

"And you can operate it?" asked Blackadder. "Forgive my scepticism, but you look like you came from the same gene pool as Balders and that pool is so shallow that an ant wouldn't get its feet wet."

"You're beginning to get on my tits," said Lister. "Yeah, we can operate it."

Rimmer started to salute Blackadder (as a side note, in the time taken for him to salute, an intelligent society formed in Baldrick's armpit, discovered fire, water and had just reached the philosophical milestone of 'I stink therefore I am' when Kryten in a bid to stifle Baldrick's smell sprayed deodorant on him and wiped them out).

"What is it, Brimmer?"

"We have attached it to the Starbug, your beardfullness. If you give us the co-ordinates we can return to Earth! There is only one thing I ask in return…"

"Yeeesssss?"

"Make me an officer!"

"Rimmer?"

"My friends call me Arnold."

"Rimmer, if you get us home I will do everything I can to make you an officer," Blackadder turned to walk up the corridor towards the Starbug. "The day Baldrick becomes Space Admiral," he muttered.

Blackadder had somehow managed to make himself at home in Starbug and somehow (no-one was entirely certain how) managed to take over the running of the place. He was just so suave and debonair it seemed stupid to refuse him. Even Lister, who, with Baldrick, was playing guess the smell, let him carry on with few comments.

"So Holly, you're the ship's computer then?"

"Yep."

"Tell me, how does this time travel thing work? Surely the only way to punch a hole through the space/time continuum is the fine control of nano black holes?"

"Yep."

"Isn't that extraordinarily dangerous?"

"Not for a computer like me," said Holly with a smug grin. "It's unpossible for me to make a mistak." As he said this he somehow bumped his head on the glass screen.

"Right, right…" said Blackadder, fixing him with one steely eye. "And if you do, and I'm squashed smaller than a weevil's wedding tackle, I want you to know one thing."

"What's that then?"

"It'll have to wait Rimmer's coming in, actually if he starts to salute again I'll write that series of novels on the Crimean War I've been meaning to start…"

"Excuse me sir," said Rimmer. "We are ready to go now, your officer-ship, we just need the exact co-ordinates of the Earth."

"Certainly," said Blackadder, getting to his feet. "I've studied the navigation computers and we are standing where, if the Earth still existed, Mrs Miggins' Pie shop would be…"

"Hang on, what about causality!" said Holly.

"What about causality?"

"Well, I don't know," admitted Holly. "It's just if someone talks about time travel you have to mention that and not killing your grandfather or something."

"Why would I want to do that?" asked Rimmer. "I quite liked the old duffer."

"No, but if you travel in time and kill your grandfather you might not be born!"

"Well, I don't know about you, Holly," said Rimmer. "But I'm not in the habit of killing old people just to test out some weird law!"

"Yes, but if you accidentally…"

"Holly, apart from me accidentally killing the entire crew of Red Dwarf, and that incidentally was the Captain's fault for giving me such an important job, I have never killed anyone! Why would I start now?"

"Yes, but the theory states…"

"If I travel back in time the first thing I'd do is find out the lottery numbers; it won't be to find old people to kill! You're weird!"

This from a man who puts his underpants on clothes hangers, thought Holly.

Kryten looked up from the screen. "Co-ordinates loaded and stored, let's go home…"

Blackadder reached an arm over the console and pressed the button…