Chapter 34
Out of Control

Kryten was at a disadvantage from the very beginning.
If Ace had had enough time to finish downloading the appropriate files,
Kryten would have had the software and the able bodies' assistance of Spanners to aid him. In most probability he wouldn't be in a smoking disabled transport craft spiraling to the surface of Cat World completely out of control.

If Lister hadn't hot-wired Blue midget and elected himself to be the scout party, things might have come off a tad smoother.
But jumping into the fray like a drunken sailor into a fist wasn't exactly Kryten's idea of clever.

"Some days it just doesn't pay to come back on line," he thought as he wrestled the controls. Which were uncontrollable.

"Mayday Mayday. This is the JMC Mining ship Star Bug two. I seem to
be out of control. Please advise. Anyone." Then in a small voice, "help."
The transmission reached the existent and the non existent ears of
Ace Rimmer.

"Come in Kryten old Chum. In a bit of a scrape there?" Ace's
voiced reached out to Kryten.

"Can you help me Ace Mum?"
"Already working on a remedy for your condition." Ace swooped in across
the nose of Kryten's careening ship barely nudging it, causing sparks to leap from both crafts.

"Just as I thought. You were caught in some kind of magnetic tractor beam." Though the scanners didn't pick up the kind of energy reading that would be needed to power a beam of this size." Ace wondered. "Still
now that I've broke the connection power should be returning to your craft."
Ace was wrong. Kryten was out of danger only temporarily.

The magnetic coils of Starbug Two's rear engines had been depolarized by the tractor beam.

'"Ms. Ace Mum" I seem to be down to fifty two percent power. Also I am reading major circuit and computer outages. Conclusion I will need to land for repairs within he next forty two point seven minute or risk losing of
control of my vessel again. Advise."

"I'm reading a clearance at 327 mark two. There should be enough room in that valley to land a fleet of Starbugs old Friend." Ace reassured the mechanoid.
When Kryten and the Starbug were safely on the ground, Ace's voice said.

"OK old fruitcake, you get to work on the damage, while I run a few errands. I'll be back before sundown."

"Very good Ms. Ace Mum."
With that Ace and the Wildflower took off and soon were out of scanning range.

"Forty minutes later Kryten was outside his craft working on repairing
a disconnected fuel line when some one approached him from behind.
Kryten was startled when he heard a sound behind him and spun, as well
as a mechanoid can spin, on his heel.

"Oh it's you." was all the startled mechanoid could get out of his mouth
when he was shot full in the chest by a medium sized harpoon which had a wire lead attached to it.

While his surprise chip wrestled with what to do in his turn of events
the air around the wire, which was attached to the harpoon protruding from
the mechanoids chest, crackled with energy.
Kryten was suddenly filled with enough high voltage to light up the Queen Mary. His body stiffened and smoke escaped from the openings of his joints. Like a redwood he fell backwards on to the hard ground.

A tall dark figure holding a harpoon launching weapon stood over him and
looked down. Kryten lay twitching on the ground, the damage to his recognition units must have been bad indeed because he couldn't be seeing
what he thought he was seeing.

Before he could speak the figure pulled the trigger again and filled Kryten with another charge. His metal body did it's best imitation of a herring out of water then stopped as suddenly as it started.
This time the mechanoid was out for good.

When Kryten woke he couldn't see anything. All was pitch black. Nothingness. Zilch. Nada. For a moment he wondered if he was on line at
all, so he tried to move. He found he couldn't, he seemed to be tied to something. "This wouldn't do at all," he thought.

Just as Kryten was about to illuminate his chest light a voice cut through
the darkness. It was more of an echo than a voice, as though he was at the end of a long cavern and someone was talking to him from the entrance.
He could distinctly hear words, but he couldn't get a reading on his voice
indent. chip. "Very strange indeed."

The unidentifiable voice asked Kryten a number of questions the mechanoid was compelled to answer. Then at some point the questions stopped, and all was silent again.

Ace had met up with Spanners and Rimmer. Throughout the day they had done a planet wide search of Cat World and found no sign of Blue Midget or of Dave Lister. All had feared the worse but none voiced it. It was a long and difficult search. When the sun dipped beneath the horizon on Cat City Ace left Rimmer and Spanners to do what they could to locate Lister and the Cat. She would have to meet up with Kryten at nineteen hundred hours, when the estimated repairs should be completed.

Once Kryten was as sure as he could be in his current state that he was alone, he attempted to force his bonds. A futile gesture. Whatever
he was bound with was more durable than the mechanoid. Kryten went through all the files he had access to on his RAM that had anything remotely
to do with captive situations. Nothing. Unless of course he could somehow manage to win the favors of a metal eating rodent, and convince it to
eat his bonds, he was sunk. When Kryten's self-confidence level was almost
to low to be measurable he heard another voice.

The voice got clearer as it seemed to get closer. Now the voice was
almost within range for his ident chip to get a reading. It was Ms. Ace Mum.
"When you weren't aboard Starbug, and the repairs hadn't been completed
I came looking for you old Blub. Good thing for you your power source was traceable or it may have taken days to find you. Then you would have
missed all the fireworks. I know you wouldn't forgive me for that."

"Thank you ever so much Ms. Ace Mum. I regret that I was unable to finish he repairs to Starbug Two before being captured."

"Pay it no never mind. You expect this kind of thing in my line of work.
Any who let's get back to your craft and onto the next stage of the plan."

"Yes Ms. Ace Mum."