A/N: Thanks for your review Bialy! Here's another chapter for you :D
"A few hours," Lister said contemptuously, "A few hours you said," He was sitting moodily in the cockpit with the Cat, Holly and Kryten, still kicking himself over what he had said to Rimmer earlier; sure, Rimmer drove him mad sometimes, kept him insane instead of sane, but even so, he hadn't deserved that, and Lister hadn't meant it.
They had been waiting for well over a few hours. None of them had really moved much either; Lister had moved from being fed-up, to being totally and utterly cheesed off, Kryten had moved from being apologetic to being melancholy, Holly had moved from being bored to really smegging bored, and the Cat had moved from being awake to being asleep.
"Sorry Dave," Holly answered, "I had a case of Weathermen's Prediction there,"
The Cat opened one eye drearily, then sat up altogether and asked from the left pilot seat, "Weathermen's what?"
"Weathermen's Prediction," Holly repeated, "You know, I tell you one thing; the other happens… you go out dressed for a heat wave when you should have dressed for a monsoon…"
"Well we're stuck here till it clears," Lister said grumpily.
Rimmer scooted in, looking quite nauseous due to the effects the power scarcity was having on his light bee, "What on Io's going on?" he grimaced.
"We're sitting here and vegetating, Arnold," Holly said as if it wasn't obvious enough.
Lister met Rimmer's affronted eyes, tried an apologetic look, to which Rimmer's eyes didn't change, and then tore them away and looked at his boots.
Cat, who was watching them and sensing the tension, made an irritated face, "You know you guys are really beginning to put my back up…"
"Agreed," Holly said, "If I had a back, it would be up,"
Kryten just gave a tut, trying not to make a fuss.
"How can a dust storm last this long?" Rimmer said, looking away from Lister.
"Well it has Arnold," Holly said simply.
Lister sighed, reached out, and caught Rimmer's light bee as he faded out altogether. He thought for a minute and then said to Kryten, "It is possible to go out in a dust storm, isn't it?"
"Well, yes Sir, but certainly not one this powerful," Kryten replied.
"Soon as it calms down a bit, I'm goin' out there," Lister decided. What better way to apologise to Rimmer than to find out what had caused the power drop and fix it so that Rimmer could use his hard-light drive and feel more like a human?
They hadn't the first clue to why power levels had suddenly dropped on Starbug, all they knew was that everything had been going normally; Rimmer and Lister had been at variance, Kryten had been ironing, the Cat had been re-doing his hair… and then they had suddenly lost power and had to find somewhere to land.
The only strange thing had been that the Cat had smelt something, but nothing had shown up on their screens, and they didn't have any readings.
Lister had checked the ship and found no sign of the cause, so they had concluded that it was on the outside.
Eventually, when the storm subsided enough, Lister braved the outdoors.
"Can you see anything?" the Cat asked over the transmitter.
"Yeah," Lister replied, "Just about… there's some sort of tracker on the side of Starbug…" he prised it off the side with difficulty.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! The power's back!" Cat yowled.
"Brutal!" Lister said triumphantly, glad he could finally get back to the safety of Starbug, "Let me in!"
"So what d'you think it's come from?" Lister asked moments later, when they had taken off and he was settled in his usual seat in the cockpit. He took Rimmer's light-bee, placed it on the ground, away from him, and Rimmer materialised, in his hard-light form. The first thing he set eyes on was Lister, who looked back at him, opening his mouth to say something and then shutting it again as Rimmer gave him an indignant glare and then left in silence.
After a pause, Kryten, who had been inspecting the strange devise, spoke up, "Well… I've never seen anything like this before...my guess is as good as yours, Sir,"
A/N: Hope it was good, I was a little unsure... let me know, and visit my forum! :D