Epilogue

"Are you sure you won't stay with us, Mr. Ace, sir," Kryten said and wrung his hands, staring up at the Wildfire's cockpit with Lister, Cat and Kochanski as Ace Rimmer went through his pre-flight check-list.

"Afraid it's not up to me, Kryters, old friend," he said. "Much as I've enjoyed our little reunion, there's a multiverse out there that's crying out for a hero. And I have a duty to heed that call."

"Well, if you gotta to, you gotta go," Cat said. "See you 'round, bud!"

Lister shot him a look.

"Yeah, fine, that's fair enough," Lister said. "But, where's it say you've got to heed that call alone?"

"Pardon?" Ace said, pausing to blink at him.

"Look, you've proved you can handle it, OK," Lister said. "Bein' Ace. I mean, you faced your family, helped your brother and them GELFs, exposed a giant conspiracy it'll probably take that lot back there years to sort through. But, it's like the Wildfire said. You may have learned the ropes, but you're not the same as all the other Aces that came before. You're different!"

"What are you getting at, Lister?" Ace said irritably.

"I'm sayin'... I'm sayin' you're not like some adrenaline-junkie, James Bond loner!" Lister said. "I'm sayin' you're one of us! Hero or not, you belong here. An' deep down, you know it."

"He has a point, Ace," Kochanski said. "You didn't untangle that mess on your own. You had our help – the support and backing of a team."

Ace pursed his thin lips.

"I think I understand where this is coming from," he said. "And I appreciate the sentiment, I truly do. But you all know the legend. Ace Rimmer works alone."

"Actually, sir, that is not technically true," Kryten pointed out.

"What do you mean?" Ace asked.

"Well, sir, Ace doesn't work alone. You never have. You're teamed with the Wildfire computer."

Ace blinked.

"Kryten's right," Lister said. "An' if you've already got one teammate, what's to stop you adding more? Building a new legend of your own?"

Ace frowned and turned his gaze to the Wildfire's controls, a realization slowly starting to dawn.

"You've been talking together, haven't you," he accused. "Behind my back, you've been scheming to—"

"Don't blame her, Ace," Kochanski said. "Even your brother Frank noticed how lonely you seemed."

"Think about it, Ace," the Wildfire said. "Isn't this what you've always said you wanted? The chance to step out from behind the mask you were given and make the legend your own?"

"Yes, but…" Ace stopped and furrowed his brow. "Now, wait. If I stay here, on Starbug, wouldn't that be a step backward? You saw yourself when I first arrived how this lot never respected me, never wanted me around. Why, if it hadn't been for Holly—"

"Lister would never admit this on his own, Ace," Kochanski interrupted, "but he's missed you terribly. In fact, after you left, his nightmares got so bad, he actually—"

"Actually, it was fine here without you," Lister broke in, shooting Kochanski an angry, embarrassed glare. "You're right. You should go. If you stay here, we'll jus' drag you down."

"The monkey makes a good point," the Cat said. "If Goalpost Head comes back to stay, it'll be just like it always was. All those pranks and insults, and playin' catwalk mini-golf down in the cargo hold. Who wants that?"

Ace rubbed a hand over his face, then paused, sliding his hand down to his chest, where his lightbee buzzed like a beating heart within his hardlight image.

"Legion…" he mumbled, speaking so softly even the Wildfire had trouble hearing him.

"What was that?" Lister asked.

"I said, 'Legion'," Ace repeated. "The gestalt entity who gave me my hardlight drive. Do you remember, Listy – Legion was an amalgamation of our personalities: mine, yours, Kryten's, and the Cat's. The sum total of our strength and cleverness working as a single mind."

"What of him?"

"Sir," Kryten said, "If you'll allow me, I think I know what Mr. Ace is getting at. You see, a 'gestalt' implies something greater than the sum of its parts. Like the Beatles before they broke up, or that famous painting by Georges Seurat: a scene made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny, individual dots. As Gestalt Theory would have it, the whole of an object or scene or, in this case, a group of individuals, is more important than its individual parts."

"So, you're sayin' that's us," Lister said. "That we're better together than we'd be on our own."

Kochanski looked thoughtful, her gaze shifting between the Wildfire and Lister.

"Why don't you give it a try, Ace," the Wildfire prompted. "Just for a while. A trial run, as it were. I still have my full link-up to Starbug's computer system. I could DJ us all from right here. And, if it doesn't work out, we can leave and go back to the old Ace formula. It's up to you."

"Kris?" Ace asked, noting the conflicted look on Kochanski's face. "Your thoughts? After all, I did promise to take you back to your home dimension."

"Oh, we can still do that," she said, and slid her eyes to the side. "Eventually."

"Krissie?" Lister asked, his brow furrowed.

"Don't read into this," she warned him. "But, I think Ace is on to something with this gestalt idea. You were different down on Io. Better, somehow. I think we all were. It was because we had a goal. A mission to bring us all together. If we joined up with Ace, or vice-versa, as it were… Well, just think. We'd be traveling with a purpose for once. And if we ever do want to return to our homes…to my Dave, or your Earth… The Wildfire could DJ us there, just as she brought Ace back to Io."

"Indeed, ma'am," Kryten said. "With the Wildfire hooked into Starbug as she is, why, we could go anywhere. Anywhen, In any dimension we please!"

"You mean, we could go back in time?" Cat asked. "Or, to another dimension where the Cat people were never scattered or destroyed?"

"All quite possible, sir," Kryten said.

Cat wrinkled his nose.

"Forget it," he said. "I like bein' one of a kind."

"Well, I don't," Lister said. "An' I say we go for it. Ace? What do you say?"

Ace worked his jaw, his nostrils flaring and his leg jiggling like mad beneath the control console.

"All right," he said at last, and the Dwarfers let out a genuine cheer. "All right, I'll stay. But I'm the ranking officer here. If there's any funny business – if I ever feel I'm being demeaned or diminished or pushed down in any way—"

"Aw, c'mon, it won't be like that," Lister said. "You're Ace now! Besides, I've matured quite a bit since you've been away. Ask anyone."

He looked to his friends, who all made a point of looking somewhere else.

"So, it's decided, then?" Kochanski asked. "Ace Rimmer will be leading the Dwarfer team?"

"It's decided," Ace confirmed. "For now."

"Then, this calls for a celebration," she said. "Kryten?"

"I'll start preparations right away, ma'am!" the mechanoid said, happily strutting out of the landing bay.

"Ace, you coming?" she invited.

"Soon," he said. "I may not be leaving just yet, but I still would like to finish this check."

"Whenever you're ready, then. I think we still have a few bottles of that pink champagne Kryten nicked from that party. I'll set it out for us," she said, following Kryten and the Cat out the door toward the corridor.

Lister started to head out too, but Ace called him back.

"Lister," he said, climbing nimbly down from the cockpit.

Lister squinted at him.

"I thought you wanted to finish that check."

"That was just to get them out of the way," Ace said. "I want to talk to you."

Lister snorted.

"What about?"

"If I'm to be staying here again, I want to be sure we get a few things straight between us."

"Yeah?" Lister smirked. "Like what?"

"Like, I don't want you talking me down in front of the crew," he said. "For example, I want none of your far-fetched stories about the early days on Red Dwarf. You always make me out like some kind of uptight, incompetent prat, and I won't have it. Understood?"

"Ah," Lister said. "You mean, like that old gazpacho soup story. About how, the one time you were invited to dine at the Captain's Table, you didn't know the stuff was meant to be cold, and you went and told the waiter to take it away an' bring it back hot!" He laughed.

Ace was not amused.

"Yes, Lister. I mean that. Now, I want your promise. You won't dredge up the past or in any other way embarrass or torment me. Will you swear?"

"Sure, I'll swear," Lister said, and surprised Ace with a swift, sudden hug. "I missed you, man," he said.

"Well," Ace said, and seemed to sigh. "The truth is, Lister, I missed you too. In fact, I think I'm actually sort of glad to be back here with the old crew again. So, ready to head to the party?"

Lister beamed, and clapped Ace on the shoulder.

"That would be souper," he said.

Out beyond the Kuiper Belt, echoing through the dark matter of space, a strange resonance can still be discerned…a furious cry that can be traced back to that very day:

Lister!

References Include - Red Dwarf: Blue; Legion; Me2