Thanks again for the lovely reviews - especially garfieldodie, MaxEvelyn, RagingRambo and Andy who never fail to leave me with their thoughts - hummingbird, who drops me such wonderful reviews by email and Daydreaming-with-Ink whose excitement and enthusiasm for other people's work never fails to make me smile. Thank you.
Just so you guys know, I've updated my profile page so that it now includes a plot summary of the Ace Chronicles in order that newcomers are able to understand what the hell is going on in each of my fics! (I know that reader's enjoyment/appreciation really does depend heavily on having read and understood the back story - thanks to those of you that have read them all!) I've also included a couple more Ace Chronicles fic premises that I've been working on over the last few weeks so you know about the upcoming episodes as t'were. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Right, let's kick it up a notch shall we? Where the hell is the gunp0rn at...? ^__^
The news had spread like wildfire; the excitement and impatience building with flurries of whispers. That morning, the Colony had woken up to the best news they'd heard in months.
A new ship had appeared on the long range scan. The SS Constantine.
It was finally a chance to restock on precious food supplies, gather electronic upgrades and medical information, and perhaps even welcome newcomers to the Colony.
And this is how it came to pass that Rimmer and McGruder - the universe's answer to The Odd Couple - now found themselves stood silently in the claustrophobically small airlock to the derelict. The chilly air resonated with the odd metal churn and hiss, the only sounds to pass between the pair.
Rimmer took a deep breath through flared nostrils and McGruder regarded him through one eye in expectation, only for Rimmer to release it with an impatient sigh.
A distant, steady drip echoed across metal walls. Rimmer began to tap the steel cap of his boot against the floor. McGruder's jaw tightened.
"This airlock is taking forever," Rimmer huffed eventually, perhaps more to break the silence than to make a point.
Still licking his wounds from their chat the previous evening, McGruder growled under his breath. "I'm sorry," he replied tightly. "Unfortunately I don't follow your mantra of 'Oxygen is for Losers'."
Rimmer blinked in surprise at the tone. "And what's eating you, sunshine?"
There was a final clunk and hiss as the airlock released and the heavy metal door creaked open. McGruder ducked through the low doorway and stepped into the still, silent ship. "Nothing."
"Hmm," Rimmer mused, not entirely convinced, as he followed suit.
The pair walked in silence through the maze of unfamiliar corridors, the sound of their booted footfall echoing across the lonely walls.
"Is this because of what I said about your ship?"
McGruder slowed and stopped, glancing over his shoulder back to Rimmer. "What?"
Rimmer shrugged, defeated. "Why you've been so shitty with me ever since we left," he probed. "Because I said it was as slow as the service in Little Chef?" He regarded the floor for a moment before returning his gaze. "Look, I'm sorry. I guess I'm used to zipping around in Wildfire and travelling interstellar. Flying in anything else feels as speedy as the losing team in the Eastbourne Zimmer Relay Championships."
McGruder bit back a helpless smirk. He'd certainly sulked at having to leave his precious Wildfire behind when he'd insisted on taking his own clapped out ship, Benetar, because it had more storage room for bringing back the spoils of their mission. And seeing Rimmer's genuine look of concern succeeded in drawing forth a relenting sigh.
"Yes, Ace," he nodded exasperated, rolling his eyes. "I was offended at your jibe. Now can we get on with the shopping?"
Rimmer seemed appeased by this. "First things first," he insisted with a proud grin. "I've brought a present along for you."
"Ahh, you shouldn't have," McGruder replied playfully as he walked back to join him.
Flicking up the back of his jacket, Rimmer pulled his spare pair of guns that he'd stashed in his belt and proffered them to McGruder.
The smile drained from McGruder's face. "No really, you shouldn't have," he insisted bluntly.
"Oh come on - "
"Ace, I'm serious," he reprimanded. "That's not how we work, we're a peaceful Colony. We don't just wander onto other people's ships armed and dangerous. We operate a non-offensive approach. No weapons."
Rimmer seemed unimpressed. "Sure," he mused aloud. "So for protection against simulants, you just use 'Bob'."
McGruder scowled. "EDD."
"Whatever."
"It saved your arse not too long ago," McGruder quipped back with a challenging eyebrow.
Rimmer snorted in amusement. "Touché."
McGruder chuckled to himself, shaking his head. "Besides, I didn't bring it with me." At Rimmer's look, he shrugged. "I can't use it without frying you anyway. I thought it best to leave it on the Colony."
Rimmer proffered the guns once more with a wicked smile. "All the more reason then, right?"
The guns sparkled in the low light, winking invitingly at him. Giving into temptation with a relenting sigh, McGruder accepted the offer, taking just the one at first. It had been so long since he'd last utilised his weaponry training during his SCM years, and something about taking up arms once more awakened a host of fear and adrenaline all in one breath.
"You know how to handle them?" Rimmer pressed.
With expert dexterity, McGruder flipped the gun back in his palm, musing aloud like he was sampling a fine wine. "Heckler & Koch," he glanced down the sight, "Match range." He unclipped the magazine, hardly giving it a second look before snapping it back into place. "18 rounds if I'm not mistaken." He snapped back the slide and loaded. "I'm sure I'll manage."
Helping himself to the gun's partner, McGruder tucked the pair into his belt and strode away with a barely-concealed smirk, leaving Rimmer to stare after him. A grin split his features. Now here was a guy after his own heart.
*************
"I don't get it!" McGruder cried angrily as he kicked the console. "They should be here!"
The pair had spent two hours trawling through the ship, only marginally bigger than Starbug used to be, and had found nothing. No food supplies, no clothing, zip.
Rimmer remained silent as he glanced around the Drive Room where they now stood. He knew how big a deal this was to the Colony; if they lost this, they could lose everything. He watched out of the corner of his eye as McGruder spurted forth clouds of angry breaths that curled before him in the chilly air. The air remained undisturbed around Rimmer. He didn't even need to breathe.
McGruder hammered desperately at the keyboard, booting up the mainframe once more. The room began to hum into life, pulsing out flurries of dust into the air. "See?" he jabbed a finger at the screen. "Six months it says. Food supplies on the last ship inventory stood at six months."
Rimmer would have put forward the premise that logs on derelicts were about as reliable as British Rail timetables, but thought it best to keep quiet. After all, the inhabitants could have bailed out when they saw another ship, taking everything with them. Eaten the last of everything and eventually starved, too weak to bother updating the system.
It was then that Rimmer noticed it. His eyes narrowed as he studied the far corner of the Drive Room where the metal grated walls met the ceiling; lengths of wires hanging loosely in a tangled mess. Where the security camera should have been.
His stomach plummeted. Turning back, he crossed to join McGruder at the mainframe. "When was the last log in?"
McGruder's brow furrowed, too distracted to follow. "What are you talking about? What use - ?"
"Find out the last log in!" Rimmer barked urgently.
McGruder blinked twice in surprise before pummelling at the keyboard. A date flashed up on the screen before them. "Three days ago - " he breathed.
Rimmer's trigger finger instinctively twitched in readiness. "It looks like someone or something beat us to it," he announced grimly. "And I'd lay my last bet on it being simulants."
McGruder swivelled to face him, panic building in his clear, green eyes. "Simulants have never entered this sector before," he mumbled quietly. "We're only 150 clicks away from the Colony. That's way too close for comfort."
Rimmer nodded, understanding. "I've heard that Scarper City is lovely this time of year." He backed up towards the exit. "Care to join me?"
McGruder needed no further encouragement. The pair left with a brisk stride, tracking back through the ship and heading back for the airlock. If they headed back to the Colony and operated on silent running for a few weeks, chances were that the simulants would cross by as close as 60 clicks away and not even notice them.
The ancient lighting in the Science Room flickered as if in distant panic as they entered. A room which, once upon a time, would have been a hive of activity was now still and deathly silent; the remnants of experiments and research still waiting in expectation exactly as they'd been left.
Noticing that the second set of footsteps had slowed and stopped, Rimmer turned back to see McGruder rifling through the papers and chemicals. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked impatiently.
"The SS Constantine was a Space Corps medical research ship," McGruder explained hurriedly as he continued to rustle through the spoils, folding and pocketing the odd choice specimen. "If we can't leave here with food supplies I can at least bring back some discoveries for Ellie and her team to work on."
Rimmer sighed. "Five minutes," he relented.
The lighting continued to flicker as Rimmer massaged his temples, trying to conjure up a far more relaxing scene. The sunsets of Blerios 5. The snowy fields of Adelphi 12, those not ruined by the gathering onslaught of the industrial revolution that had tightened its grip on the planetoid. He opened his eyes. The glass partition to the adjoining Observation Room reflected back his tired, drawn face. He may be a hologram, but his years as Ace were arguably beginning to show around his eyes.
The lighting died in a flicker, and just for a moment, Rimmer's reflection faded to reveal something else staring back in stark clarity before his image returned. His massaging stopped dead as his eyes strained to peer through the glass into the dark room.
"Lights," he called, barely audible enough for the voice recognition to pick up on. The incessant flickering of the main overhead lights ceased immediately, the room now picked out by the distant glow of the table lamps at each of the lab desks. Rimmer's chest froze. It hadn't been an illusion.
"McGruder - " he mumbled.
"Ace, please, let me finish." McGruder sighed raggedly. "Two minutes, ok?" he bargained. "Two."
"McGruder!" Rimmer insisted once more, his voice now hissing urgently through gritted teeth.
Swivelling to face him angrily, the scowl immediately melted from McGruder's face as he noticed Rimmer standing stock still, staring through the glass partition between the Science Room and Observation Room with a distant wariness in his eyes. Slowly turning to follow his gaze, he too froze once he noticed what Rimmer had been staring at.
"Ah."
Stirring in the further reaches of the darkness in the Observation Room, a faceless, spider-like robot was regarding them silently. The once-smooth, silver panelling, now damaged with dents and scorch-marks, flickered in the distant light as it pushed itself up to its full, seven-foot height, its servos straining and buzzing at the effort.
Rimmer pursed his lips in contemplation. "DefenceBot?"
McGruder nodded wordlessly. He'd known from previous encounters that Space Corps derelicts from the 25th Century onwards had often been supplied with DefenceBots to protect human crews from any potential nasties in their exploration of Deep Space. A fantastic premise in theory.
Unfortunately, DefenceBots were discovered to be a little too over-zealous in their readiness to use their defence mechanisms, following their programming to the binary note. In effect, if any unregistered entity set a single foot on their ship, they were to be destroyed. Which didn't make the human race overly popular with GELFs and the like, where a diplomatic meeting of two species would end up resembling a censored scene out of a horror movie when the DefenceBot got a little overprotective.
"Okey dokey," McGruder began calmly. "I suggest we move slowly and quietly to the nearest exit so that we keep Mr D.B. here from kindly providing us with a demonstration of why he was designed."
The DefenceBot's single camera 'eye', which sat near the top of its body, studied them intently. The aperture closed in over the lens as if narrowing in suspicion. "Intruder alert," it announced in a sullen, monotone voice etched with a buzzed distortion, muffling through the glass between them.
"Sorry to disturb, fella," Rimmer soothed. "We didn't mean any harm."
The camera 'eye' suddenly illuminated red, thrusting out a thin red beam of light through the glass that scanned up and down the contours of the unfamiliar figures before retreating once more into darkness.
"Weaponry detected."
There was a sigh. "And whose bright idea was it to bring the guns?"
"Um - "
McGruder cocked an un-amused eyebrow. "Hmm."
"Threat Level Four."
Rimmer snorted as he waggled the fingers that hovered above his guns in earnest, a playful smile tobogganing across his face. "Four?! Please, I must be at least an eight - "
An aggravated growl dragged across McGruder's vocal chords. "A bit of perspective, please?!"
"Sorry."
The DefenceBot's servos whirred and clicked as it copied Rimmer's defensive stance, its huge claw-like fingers wiggling with buzzing readiness.
McGruder's eyes narrowed as he studied the droid carefully. "The thing's taken a real beating from the simulants," he murmured warily as he clocked the scorch marks and dents from rapid gunfire peppering the silver surface of its body. "It looks pretty pissed off."
"Come on McGruder," Rimmer rallied. "It's two of us against one droid. We can take him."
The DefenceBot paused in thought before straightening resolutely, its programming conjuring the most aggressive form of attack. A panel slid away from its right upper forearm to reveal a rocket launcher, aligning it towards the pair and loading with an almost gleeful enthusiasm.
"Terminate targets."
The edge of Rimmer's confident smile twitched nervously as the rest of his face fell.
"Oh sh- "
The force of the blast threw them both back across the room; the flaming air exploding towards them with a thousand shards of shattered glass.
Did I mention how much I love cliffhangers? Reviews/thoughts, please and thank you.