Chapter 2
Dave Spanners Lister

Earlier that same day, but in another dimension.

"I got to go after him. It's my fault He needs me."

"How can you help Ace?" Questioned Peterson.

"How can I help Ace?" Lister echoed the question. "I practically built that
create, except of course for the Dimension drive itself. As for your standard engineering nuts and bolts, she's all mine." Lister practically leered as he said it.

Dave Lister now had two passions in his life. Kris Kachanski and super powered ships. His original knack for space bikes had blossomed into a desire to build space ships With the encouragement from a bunkmate his life was completely different from where it had started. Now he was the best on Europa. No space jock would dream of going up in a create without the OK from Dave Spanners Lister.

"So your plan is to rebuild the craft, the one that landed three days ago, steal a dimension jump drive and some how meet up with him in any one of an infinite number of dimensions." Don't you think that plan has a few holes in it Davie boy." sneered Peterson before he downing a pint.

"Sure, it has several dozen I can see right from here. But what else can
I do. I was watching the transmission, I saw Ace get fried. Now he's wandering around out there in another dimension dead." Under his breath "A software ghost."

"So there's nothing you can do Davie lad. Why go on killing yourself
over it?" Said Peterson while simultaneously flagging down the waitress that was doing her best to ignore him.

"Well for one thing I could use one of the small prototype dimensional
jumpers to try and pinpoint Ace." Lister mind started racing.

"Then?" asked Peterson not actually paying attention to what Lister was saying.

"Then?" replied Lister.
"Yes that I believe is the question I asked. Hold on I'll be right back,"
and Peterson went off to the bar for six pints of bitter. When he returned
he found Lister drunkenly punching in figures into his personal lap top.

"Here." announced Peterson triumphantly, placing his booty of foams not so neatly on the already beer soaked table. The music was just a softness in the background.
When Dave hadn't looked up from his lap top Peterson peered over his shoulder.

"What you playing at?" he leered.

"It's what you said earlier. What's the use of finding Ace if we can't help him. So before I go and find him, I'm gonna have something for him when
our chance to help him comes up."

"With what are you gonna do that"
Lister looked over his right shoulder into Peterson's blearily eyes and pushed a button. "With this."
With that a series of images and calculations started scrolling up Spanners' palm top.

"What the smeg do you call that?"
"I don't know. How about soligrams?"

From the moment Dave Spanners Lister boomed into existence he knew he was in the wrong universe. For one there was no class M planets within scanning range. Two there was no sign of Ace or his ship, the only thing that was on his scanners was large red and directly in his path.
But Dave was a survivor first and for most. Minutes before the impending impact he hit his illuminated emergency button and three things happened.
One, an emergency beacon, a general distress call goes out on all frequencies. Not only alert the ships which are impending, but any other's in the area, for assistance .

Two. Put on all retro brakes emergency or other. This attempt to stop the craft dead in its tracks. A specialty recently improved on by Dave himself.
Third and final; Airbags deploy themselves as the seat belts lock in place. Another modification, this one though Krissy his beloved wife, had thought up and later insisted on.

Several hours earlier Dave Spanners Lister had been drinking with a dear old drinking buddy Olaf Peterson. In an bar, which only seems appropriate, on Mimas, which may or may not seem appropriate. On The Space Corps base, which made it rather inappropriate.
Never the less he explained to his old friend his doubts.
His fears.
And again his doubts.

"What are you worrying about old friend?", shouted Olaf between generous gulps of whisky, at some point their drink of choice changed. "He'll be all right. Even as a hologram."

"I Know Ace will be all right". Lister looked off for a moment as if remembering something and said. "Hell, he's always all right."
Then with some light-heartedness over a somber moment. "He's
like Titanium."

"How?" Questioned the confused Dane.
"You can't break him."

Earlier that day Ace Rimmer boomed out of this Universe into the unknown in a ship that Spanners had given his OK on and his blessing to a ship he knew had a flaw, to what he considered. a great man.
Now he couldn't live with himself.

Spanners got up and shouted over his shoulder. "Come on."
Peterson drunkenly obeyed, hesitating only momentarily to decide which of the three bottle of half full whisky to take with them.
He decided on all of them, and attempted to gather them up in his arms like children, but was only able to hang on to one of the little tykes.
The middle one.

Peterson then toasted the non existent crowd, and chased after Spanners who was already half way across the car park. Peterson didn't catch up with him until Dave had already entered the research area.

Noisily he jangles keys which, by taste, he attempted to discern from one another. By the time Peterson had caught up Lister had already found the coffee flavored key and the Hanger Office door hung open.
While Peterson attempted to regain his breath Dave opened a locked closet, and pulled out a strange and alien looking device.

"What the smeg is it?" asked Peterson between gasps for air.

"It's the dimension jump drive." Spanners answered, taking the bottle from Peterson's hand. "Well the latest prototype anyway." Lister looked
away and added; "Just like the one Ace flew off in."

"It's so small. Is it to scale?"

"Yea, one to one and all that. The Wildfire had to be so structurally strong because of the friction between dimensions. If it wasn't the pilot would be char broiled." Lister took a big gulp from the bottle and passed it to Peterson.

"But you said something about a flaw. In the ship, or in the Drive"

"Both and neither" was Lister's answer.
The look on Olaf's face was meant to be quaint. It didn't come off that way.

"I'll drink to that."

"No, don't you see, it wasn't in the ship or the drive. It was in the technician. I have the plans for new ship. One that I could practically make with the existing ship he has, and a sonic screwdriver, and this." Lister said
as he pulled a cover from over something that looked like a space sleigh.

"If I could find Ace I could rebuild his ship, and with the help of this," Spanners held out a blueprint disc. Lister smiled at Peterson instead of finishing his sentence.
Peterson smiled back, unsure of why they were smiling.

"I could make the Wildfire a transit instead of a one way. We could map out the whole of the universe and simply number the dimensions as we go."
Olaf got up out of the swivel hard backed chair he had been occupying
and said. "That sound great to me Davie boy, let's do it." He drunkenly stood up at attention. "I got nothing I particularly need to be doing for the next couple of decades."

He added, "But first I gotta pee." And started stumbling to the head.

"If you get tired of waiting just start without me."

When Olaf emerged from the lavy he immediately noticed that something was amiss. It took him nearly twelve minutes to surmise that Dave, the Prototype, the sleigh and part of the hanger bay was missing. This discovery
was only second to the discovery, two minutes of his leaving the lavy, that the bottle of liquor was missing.

"This was bad, bad for Peterson", he thought in third person.
As he scrambled to get away from the scene of the crime, and all of the sirens that were suddenly all around him, with only two things on his mind.
What is he going to tell Krissy. And where is he going to get a drink at this hour.

Dave Spanners Lister Born November 2057, Beloved Husband, and Father of two and responsible Space Corps engineer, on a foolhardy move while in a state of what can only be called unsober, mashed one button too many and sent himself on a one way trip to oblivion.
Well close enough.