Chapter 8/9
Kryten - Some assembly required

Kryten this is your self repair unit talking. Listen you half crazed driod if were going to get out of here you've really got to start paying attention.
It was true. Due to recent events in Kryten's life, and consequently not having the software to cope with them, his attention span wasn't what
it had been.

What with having only recently discovered that the three female officers he had served faithfully for thousands of years, were in fact pretty much,
well...shall we say, on the deadish side of the dessert menu.

Soon after Kryten's short but learned stay aboard one of the JMC'S finest crafts, that are still in service. Compiled with his more consequential meetings of Mr. David Sir, Mr. Arnold Sir, and Mr. Cat Sir.

The shock of his rebellion and his newly won freedom. Borrowing Lister's space bike Kryten 2X4B sailed out of Red Dwarf's cargo bay doors and into the big black, the whole of his future ahead of him.

"For now" he thought "I'll cruse around on my hog and bask in the glow of my newly won freedom, see if there's any thing to do in this burgh."
To his strange surprise and to his utter dismay his realization that he had missed one minor detail during his said rebellion and rather dramatic exit.
The detail was that Kryten didn't know how to ride a space bike.
Then the inevitable crash.

All things considered, paying attention was a bit on the difficult, but far from the only consequence of the crash. Truth to tell Kryten couldn't blow his nose at the moment. The reasons for this was that he was currently unaware of it's whereabouts. Early on in the crash his entire head had gone missing, from then on things had become more and more dodgie to recall.

The last thing that went through Kryten's mind, just before the crash, was the handle bars of Lister's Asteroid hopper as it was better known to
the space beatnik community, due to the asteroid hopping you would do in it.
First introduced on several of the hipper moons of Saturn in the late Twenty third century, Asteroid Hopping was the Rage.

The Asteroid belt situated between Mars and Saturn was, at first, a hazard for space throughways and freighters bringing supplies into the newly inhabited moons of Saturn. Once all the asteroids were mapped out this was no longer a difficulty. Later the unbelievable space freight traffic jams became more of an obstacle than the belt had been in the first pace. At least with the unknowns of the belt you would either make it or die trying. It was rumored that people caught in some of the more major space jams were know to disappear from known space. Entirely. These disappearances were never explained.

Originally the actual mapping of the belt was difficulty. Each of the larger Asteroids in the belt had to be plotted, noted, tagged, and then returned to the wild, unharmed. Once done a computer could do studies and plot course paths to learn their future destinations. This would pinpoint rogue asteroids, which would eventually get to close to shipping lanes, and
be marked for demolition. In some cases an asteroid could be dealt with decades, and sometimes centuries ahead of an inevitable mishap.

Hoppers were introduces for this job, and only the toughest Astos could handle them. Twice the size of an earth motorcycle, enclosed in a plexiglas bubble and rocket powered, dozens of these Space cycles would enter a section of the field and start working on tagging the larger, and more dangerous of the asteroids. Landings were difficult and many of the early Astros were killed by the difficulties in landing on an asteroid moving at you ten times times faster that your moving at it. Finally after a good number of men became permanent stains on some of the more wily of the asteroids, large retractable hydraulic legs were added to the Space Cycles and the Asteroid Hopper was born.

The "Domesticated Hopper," as a quick Ionian used Hopper dealer coined,
which came later for young adolescents to go joy riding on, were made of two detachable parts. The First is the small low to the ground cockpit, with all the controls, levers gages and what not, could be used by the owner when he was land bound for local riding. The exo-hull was the second part.

Usually kept in the garage when not in use the exo-hull, with jet engines, plexiglas dome and retractable hopper legs was designed to be driven into, by the ground cycle, driver and all. Automatically locking into place, the cycles gages would be turned into an Asteroid hoppers gauges, and the driver could take off almost instantly. Quite a useful devise to be off before the locals arrived, sonic pitch forks in hand.

The Domesticated Hopper that Dave Lister had found in the Dwarf's landing bay and soon after loaned to Kryten, was currently in 347 pieces on an uncharted asteroid floating aimlessly in deep space. Mindless of its rider, the asteroid was also mindless of a great many other things, one of which is it's place in the irony of mankind's survival. It's survival which was directly tied into the survival of a service mechinoid, which now also resided in slightly less pieces than said space bike, on the unnamed asteroid. If it were to have a name it would probably be Fred.

Kryten this is your Auto repair systems.
"What happened?"
"There has been an accident."
"How? What? And where has my head gone off to?"

"Kryten I have rebooted your CPU
Auto self repair unit function ability .0073%
Advise. Please."

"Shut down all excess functions and activate self repair unit.
Time for repairs to be completed Susan?"

Approximate time for complete repair 3 years 4 months 11 days 7 hours
and 4.735 seconds.

"Thank you Mr. Auto repair unit. Whoops! Where's my fribble?"

Kryten, your CPU is excess.

"I understand completely."

Must shut down CPU for power to send out S.O.S. homing beacon.

"Send out S.O.S. homing beacon."

Beacon sent

Kryten If repairs are not completed we will not have enough power to reboot
your CPU. You will effectively cease to be. Thought you'd like to know.

"I'll squeegee that floor right now Ms. Tracy"

Shutting down CPU

Then the screen went dark all except for a tiny spot in the middle. Kryten remembered the green of his garden just as the little light faded away. His final moments extended a nano second due to a microscopically thin, blue flicker of left over static electricity arching for a final time across his CPU. Allowing him to ask a question which was destined to be left unanswered.

"Will I dream?"
Then nothing.