"Hold it Cat! Hold it Cat! Hold it!"

"I am! I AM holding it!"

"Keep it still, for smeg's sake!"

It was safe to say that this was, indeed, harder than Lister thought it was going to be. What particularly convinced him he was underestimating the power of these whatchamacallit shards was when this one kicked him squarely in the bottom of the jaw. But what cemented it was when it managed to climb up his back and repeatedly stomp on his head.

Now he was determined to stab it.

"Hurry up! HURRY UP!"

Finally, after great difficulty, the duo managed to get it still enough for Lister to drive his knife deep into it. He had tried previously to get quick jabs at it whilst it was flopping about all over them, but he seemed to nip Cat much more than he managed to lay a scratch on his intended target. So it came with a great relief when the leg gave in and popped, it's physical form bursting into a flurry of cloud-like, sparkling smoke with a great bang. Lister then realised how literal the term 'poofing' was.

In a frantic hurry, Dave managed to grab the blue gem shard from the cargo bay floor and shove it into one of his socks.

He looked at Cat. Cat looked at him. They shared a glance equivalent to what Lister would envision two losers of a fight club would give each other in the back alley of the venue. They looked rough. Cat's lip had been split and he had a bruise the same shade as a rotting aubergine on his left eye. Dave looked like he had managed to fall into the back of a steamroller. Both were not entirely pleased with how this seemed to be going.

"So," Cat began, breaking the silence, "How many are we up to?"

"Erhm," Dave clutched the sock, "One."

Cat looked ready to murder him.

"Well. Well, well, well," came Rimmer's voice from Lister's watch, "When you were describing your plan to me, Lister, as daft as it was, I was, you know, actually expecting you to use it."

"Smeg off, Rimmer."

Rimmer could say, with upmost enthusiasm, that he was enjoying this. And he hoped they'd manage to tackle themselves into the security cameras' vision more often – although that proved difficult when the majority of the cargo bay was fitted with heat radars instead. Albeit not many.

For such as massive ship, you would have thought they'd put more expenses into the security. But if you were more familiar with Red Dwarf, you would begin to question other things along the same lines – why were the uniforms so prone to tearing? Why did various computers and machines seem to malfunction and break down so often? How is it that it was so easy for the entire crew to be wiped out by one faulty drive plate? The answer to all of those questions are simple – for as big as the Dwarf was, it was cheap. Cheaply made, cheaply ran, cheaply staffed. It was less of a miracle that Dave and Arnold were employed by the JMC, and more a testament to how deep the veins of corruption would embed themselves.

And, although no one during the design process likely stopped to consider how someone could, theoretically, hunt down and stab a broken alien creature made of gemstones with a kitchen knife through the depths of the cargo bay, Rimmer still was annoyed at the lack of intuitive planning. If they did stop to consider that, maybe he'd be watching and enjoying Lister being decked in the face more often than he currently was.

"Holly has been checking all the cameras in the area – they've passed a few of them, but none of them are within her supervision field. The closest one to you was last seen on Cam789, which should roughly be where the ore is kept. If you want my advice, before you head down there, I'd look for a football to keep it occupied so it doesn't aim for your face again."

"Very funny."

The legs were hard enough. They certainly kicked hard enough. After this, he was truly wondering how difficult the arms would be. If Cat's eye looked like a rotting aubergine, then his neck looked like that same aubergine was left out of stasis the entire time Red Dwarf drifted aimlessly through space.

This was going to hurt.

They were now two down – at the expense of Lister's back molar and Cat's slightly split open head. They were both holding cloths to their face as they traversed down the immeasurable number of bridges and pathways through Section 12 of the cargo floor. They had been lucky enough to find the other leg, which put up just as much of a fight as the previous, but thankfully Lister actually adapted to strategy – it didn't like to be touched.

Granted, it made wrangling it a fair bit harder in some respects. Cat was glad to stay back and watch Lister do the dirty work, but it was the equivalent of trying to basket a fish without reaching down to tackle it. Lister briefly wondered if a fishing pole would be useful, but then quickly remembered that they were three million years into deep space and were unlikely to be stocked for a fishing trip. And then he thought about the practicality of trying to lasso a sentient, severed leg with a fishing hook and then dropped the idea altogether.

This one took significantly less time than the other, but it certainly fought back more – like it was aware of what happened to the other leg. A swift kick between Lister's legs seemed to communicate what it felt about them.

"But why can't he do this?!"

"He can't," Dave grumbled, clearly not eager to argue, "I told you, he was in a right state when he woke up."

"I don't care what state he's in! He could have been dead for all I care – I'd still force him down here himself!"

Lister had been filling Cat in on the events he missed as they stalked the halls. It was clear, and in usual Cat fashion, that he didn't care less about the intrigue of a magical space boy rocketing into their orbit and more about how long it would take for his face to stop swelling. Which was fair enough, Dave quite liked his teeth and didn't want to lose them. But it wasn't like this was a matter that could forgo being put on the back-shelf – unfortunately it was going to be dangerous, which was why it was urgent.

But he knew Cat wouldn't care about that, so he dropped it and hoped that he wouldn't be too catty to the boy when they finished.

"Can't order a cat around and make 'em do your dirty work, no sir," Cat murmured angrily to himself as they walked, "What am I, a dog? I ain't no dog at all…"

"Hey, Cat," said Dave, changing the topic, "I wanted to say that, y'know, I'm sorry for not believing all the stuff you were telling me earlier. That something was wrong and things didn't feel right, we should have listened to ya'."

"You think I need an apology from you?" he rebutted.

Dave sighed, "Just sayin', just sayin'."

"Never listen to a damn thing I say anyway…"

It was clear that Cat was going to be worked up for a while, so Lister opted to focus on getting to the pantry. Apparently it was likely that the rest would be there. Lister, although only being qualified enough to degunk the clogged-up food dispensaries on the ship, had never been down to the pantry before. It was a highly sealed off area, as you'd expect for something that was meant to store enough food for 11,169 employed members of the JMC from anywhere between 4-6 years. A significant chunk of the power on the ship went to enforcing the massive stasis-shield in the pantry – all sorts of meals, lunches, breakfasts had already been cooked before the Dwarf took flight, making the need for a qualified chef only necessary to boost up the snobbish atmosphere in the officer's quarters. Any sort of leak would ultimately destroy the amount of food to feed the equivalent of a small country.

Lister tried to assure himself that this pair of highly agitated, independent thinking hands wouldn't be resentful enough to deactivate it.

Thankfully, he had upgraded his flimsy kitchen knife to a first-class pickaxe which he found overflowing from the equipment hold. They were polished, waxed, untouched, primed for mining a moon which they never stopped at. Lister would never have gotten to hold one of these if Red Dwarf navigated it's mission like it was planned to. Not just because he was stuck in the stasis booth for the remainder of his flight, but because he was the lowest ranked member of the ship. He could barely qualify for the bar discount, let alone be considered competent enough to mine.

'Any idiot can swing a pickaxe', he thought, 'How was Petersen more qualified to hold one of these than me?'

Then again, whilst that was true, he dually realised that he wasn't keen enough to risk his life collecting precious minerals which he'd never be able to afford in his life. The most precious stone he would have mined up would probably be benefiting some faceless trillionaire who'd wouldn't know which end to hold a pickaxe by. Red Dward was supposed to be easy money for Lister, he didn't care how that would make him look in the long run.

'And look where that got you.'

Lister shook his head and gripped the tool tightly.

They had entered the pantry bay with a shudder. The past acres of the cargo floor were broken into jittering pathways with towering stacks of misaligned boxes, but this was the equivalent of an empty country field. They might as well have been sitting ducks wandering out into the middle of this.

"Careful, Cat," he said, "It'll be easy to spot them but harder to run for cover."

Cat muttered something under his breath.

Lister looked around as Cat followed. The pantry was absolutely massive. The width of two supermarkets and the height of at least six. It was completely metal and rectangular, the edges needing to be covered with some sort of foam pipe you'd find if you crawled through a ball pit, presumably to dull the sharpness. Stood opposite was a water tower, double, triple the size of what you would find in a regular city, pipes of all shapes and sizes poking in and out of the silo and carrying water off to all areas of the ship. And near the bottom of it was a pathetically small tap, incase anybody passing needed to get a quick drink – it was easy to get lost down here without being picked up on Holly's monitors.

The side of the pantry they were on had no door. Lister hoped the way to get in was difficult enough to thwart the efforts of a creature with no discernible eyes from breaking in, but his thought abruptly halted as he caught sight of something else.

"Awww…Cat…"

There was a dispenser near the corner of the pantry. As if activated by them walking past it, it plopped out an open can of tuna. It cluttered down to the floor, and Lister couldn't help but smile like an idiot.

"This must be where Frankenstein got her nibbles from!" he said ecstatically, "And her kittens! And her kittens' kittens, and the kittens after that! This is what sustained your species for…millennia, Cat!"

They watched as a scutter came and swept the tin away from them. Lister's heart melted when he saw that it was covered with what must have been thousands of little claw marks.

Cat didn't seem too enthralled by witnessing the discovery of the salvation place of the mother of his species. Or perhaps he and his species already knew this entire area inside out and it didn't come as the same surprise. It was hard to tell with Cat.

"How'd she even get it to dispense that?"

Lister shook his head and shrugged, beaming. The wave of relief he felt momentarily took him out of the dread of being in the situation that he was.

Clever girl.

His bubble popped when he heard something shuffling behind him. Shuffling loudly. Dave and Cat pressed their backs against the pantry's walls. They looked out.

A flash of blue glared through the bay with a dull hum. Lister watched as two gem shards dropped to the floor and skidded closer to them. Almost immediately, they lifted again. Trepidation gripped him as he watched them take form – their body of light flickering and glitching as it tried to take a humanoid shape. Starting with the arms, the light travelled up their body, the gem shards lingering on their back as it tried it's hardest to take form. For a moment, it held it. But suddenly it burst again, shards clattering back down to the floor.

If he could just grab them whilst they were just their shards. He could save the hassle of wrangling them and be done and dusted with it, end of. It didn't seem to know they were there.

Lister took his chances. He beckoned Cat to stay where he was and he slowly began to stalk closer to it.

He was very gentle with his feet. Ever so slightly pushing himself against the ground as he got closer and closer. He wasn't making a single sound, bare the rising beat of his heart. He tried hard not to sweat. There was no need to panic. He had this. He had this in the bag.

He was so close now. Right on top of her. He didn't hesitate. Very slowly at first, he went down to scoop them into his hands. Then at the last minute, he swiftly went down to yank them.

Instead, he was lifted off the ground. A horribly tight hand squeezed the life out of his, and he was swung back into the cargo bay by his arm, which twisted and cracked both whilst being tugged and on impact to the floor. He landed on his shoulder. Hard. The shock didn't numb the pain, but the adrenaline did. Before he could check to see if he could still move his arm, he felt himself being shoved further down the cargo bay.

He could barely get himself together to fight back, only getting a chance to roll away when a blast of energy soared past him, missing his face by mere inches. Cat was finally pushed to use the bazookoid – either not realising or not caring that he almost hit Dave in the process.

He scrambled to hide behind a box. He watched as it tried to reform again, seemingly desperate to get back together. Somehow Cat managed to quickly join him in hiding, followed in pursuit. The thing crawled and grappled with the ground, thudding towards them with anger audible in every step they took.

"Smeg, Cat, you almost hit me!"

"Maybe I should have!" he spat.

"Shhh- sh!"

"Maybe I should have just aimed for the water tower instead!"

The thudding stopped. Realisation flooded everyone. Lister looked at Cat with such broad, deep distain. Cat smiled sheepishly.

"Ohhhhh, Cat…" he said, "I could just kill you."

The effects were instant – Lister finally realised what Steven had meant. Trying to take form again, the gem raised her arms, and with it a stream of water poured from the small tap and was raised in the air in a massive ring around her.

Lister could have laughed. Lister could have cried. He couldn't believe what was happening. He couldn't believe it.

But he was forced to when the water suddenly smacked down between him and Cat, quickly dispersing before it could strike them. For a moment, the water lost shape and puddled. The shards dropped down to the ground again, her body seemingly glitching away once more. But it didn't take long to regain herself, and she aimed for Lister again.

It was an odd sensation – being drowned whilst being held up by the throat ten feet in the air. It felt calming. As he felt the air leave his body, he had sudden memories of playing around in his grandmother's inflatable garden pool back on Earth. He never expected death to be so…comforting.

But it didn't last long – the water puddled yet again and the gem collapsed to the floor. Lister dropped ten feet down to cargo bay floor and landed on his other shoulder with a sharp crack. But that wasn't as painful as feeling the sock tumbling out of his pocket, the shards skidding out into the open. In less than a moment they traversed back to the rest of itself, all four shards trying desperately to interlock and become one again. Lister watched, powerless, as their form flickered and glittered. And, for a brief moment, he saw himself reflected in a pair of bitter, glassy eyes. They lost form again.

Lister crawled to the nearest cover. Somehow, by some miracle, his arms were not broken, and the gem was now focused on getting back into one piece.

He searched every possible crevice of his mind on what to do now, what could possibly get this thing to burst for good. Okay – what powered them? Where did their energy come from? Smeg, he should have asked, he should have asked Steven when he had the chance. How totally moronic of him to try and fight a monster whilst knowing nothing about it.

It's power can't just come from it's gem. He thought back to Kryten, he thought back to when he explained it was like a battery. Batteries eventually die unless they get recharged. But what could it be drawing energy from? Light? Life? Oxygen? Water? It couldn't be the sun, there wasn't any sun. Unless…could the ship's lights be powered to mimic the sun? He could have sworn he read something, somewhere, somewhen, about how early space travel was greatly hindered by ricket outbreaks. Going so far from the sun for so long was incredibly detrimental for human health, so they made it so the next generation of ships emitted the vitamins you needed from the sun itself, a great step up from vitamin supplements.

Lister legged it down to the depths of the cargo bay once more, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him. He only stopped when Cat caught up with him.

"Cat, I have an idea, but you NEED to stay there and distract her, yeah? Trust me, trust me."

He left before an answer could be yelled.

"No! Lister, there is no way in hell that I'm turning off the power to the entire ship so you don't have to get your hands dirty! Just tackle it or something!"

"Not the entire ship you smegging moron!" Lister almost yelled, exasperated, "The lights, I need to power down the lights!"

"Oh! Well, yes, I can help you with that. Silly me."

Lister was pacing around the cargo bay furiously. They lost connection to Rimmer long before they entered the pantry, but even the possibility of being able to cut off her power supply was so vital that he had to run back and do it.

"Can you do that?"

"Yeahhhhh, afraid not. You'll have to do it yourself."

"Oh, Christ alive, how?"

"You'll need to power down the lights at the source."

"…Where?! Where is it Rimmer?! I'll tell you what, I know you are really smegging enjoying this, but you are just taking the piss now, come on! We could seriously die down here!"

"Shame," his emotionless, crackly voice stated from his watch.

If his fists weren't so sore, he could have punched a hole clean through the thin metal of the walls. His patience for the hologram was running thin.

"I'm afraid they're back in the pantry room, Listy. You'll have to jog right on back."

Lister had barely regained his breath, but still found himself trudging on back. What a day. What a smegging smegged up smeg show of a day.

He wasted no time trying to locate the power source – he couldn't miss it apparently. Frustration amounted in him once again as he realised that Cat's great tactic for distracting the alien was to disappear entirely. Of course – why did he even trust him?

So Lister was left to deal with this alone. If his vague, hollow epiphany actually worked, it would be fine. It would be fine. But if it didn't, he couldn't see what else he could do on his own. He could tell she wasn't at full power – making the thought of what she could do at full power absolutely terrifying – but she was still much stronger than he could have ever hoped to be. It all felt a little pointless now, but Lister stubbornly marched on.

It turned out Rimmer was right – he couldn't miss it. A big red box of all sorts of circuits and wires was stationed on the ceiling of all places, thankfully easily accessible by going up the suspended metal walkways. It didn't take him long to get up there, and he surprisingly didn't find himself ambushed.

But his luck seemed to run out when he reached the power source and realised that nothing was labelled. He was never trained to deal with faulty lights – that was all on Rimmer. He realised why he sounded so painfully smug now. What a bastard.

Before he could even make an attempt to discern what coloured wire meant what, he felt the blast he was expecting. A jet of water sent him careening down the walkway, almost toppling over if it wasn't for the loose chain handrail that he desperately latched onto.

Lister watched as certain death approached him, in all her glitchy, flickering form.

"Look," he began, cautiously holding his hand out as she approached him, "Look, I know we've kind of, uhm, got off on the wrong foot here, yeah? And I probably should have just talked to ya', but I don't know if you know that it's a bit difficult for, well, anyone of the human species to have a serious heart to heart with an aggressive foot."

She collapsed again, picking herself up much faster than before. Lister scurried backwards.

"You don't deserve this – I can see that. I can tell you're…upset, confused, angry. But we don't want to hurt you! We just want to get you in a bubble-thing."

She tried to say something at that. Strange, indiscernible sounds admitted from her, something completely incomprehensible, but Dave was wise enough to tell she wasn't happy about that.

"I can see you don't want that. Steven probably doesn't want that either."

Suddenly, she stopped. The mention of Steven seemed to do something for her. Dave quickly grabbed his chance.

"Yeah, Steven, I know Steven. And I can tell you do, too."

She was listening.

"Look, he's really- he's really been worried about ya'. I only just met him, but I'm down here trying to collect you up for him. He just wanted to make sure you're safe – that we're ALL safe."

The ominous hand of water hovering above her suddenly dissipated again. This time by obvious choice. Dave could now feel his heart beating in his throat, something he was far too scared to notice before. He continued.

"Listen, lets call off all this violence, yeah? I can tell you want to get back to him. I can take you back to him. Then, you don't have to worry about anything. Trust me, you'll be completely safe and-"

There was a loud scream – it struck Dave as a war cry. And before he could register it, a long, sharp, metal pipe was stabbed through the gem's chest. She looked completely stunned. But then she glared at Dave. She glared at him with cold eyes filled with hatred, enough to make Dave's skin break out into goosebumps.

And then she poofed.

Her shards clattered noisily onto the walkway. Behind her stood a beaming Cat, holding the pole which cut through her form.

"Yeahhhhh!" he grinned, "How was that for cool and heroic, huh?!"

Dave leant over the railing and puked half his guts up.

"Guys!" Steven exclaimed.

They walked in the room with the humiliation of being beaten in a fist fight with a washing machine. Rimmer trailed in behind them with a face like he'd won the lottery. Steven had rushed up to them as quick as he could, but stopped dead in his tracks when he realised how hurt they actually looked. The drenched, ripped clothes stained with an uncomfortable amount of blood instantly made Steven sick to his stomach.

"Oh my goodness! Are you both alright?" Kryten asked, scurrying over to check on them.

"Peachy," Dave lied.

"Even better than that!" Rimmer didn't.

"Here you go," sighed Dave as he handed the sock to Steven.

Steven held it in his hand, stalling. There was a lot he wanted to say, but it all seemed stuck in his throat. He wanted to say he was sorry, so sorry, so so so sorry, but he felt like nothing he could say would make up for this. He wanted to instantly go up and heal them, but they looked like they didn't have the patience for Steven to explain that his spit had healing properties.

Instead he locked eyes with Lister, who gave him a nod. Neither knew what exactly he meant with that nod, but they took it in solidarity anyway.

He shook the remnants of the gem out into his hand. He paused, making everyone inhale sharply as they waited for it to suddenly reform again, because of course it would. But it didn't.

A soft pink bubble, about a fraction of the size that Steven arrived in, blanketed around the gem. It seemed that doing that took something out of him, as he dropped back down to his knees.

"Hi Lapis…" he said quietly, "I'm…You're safe now. You'll be ok. I promise."

He hugged her to his chest, looking close to tears. Lister rubbed his neck, giving Cat a sharp elbow as he had been glaring at the boy the minute he entered the room. Rimmer, however, had certainly chippered up. He gave Lister a quick look, one which, not subtly in the slightest, effectively communicated: 'You know what? I'm beginning to grow on him'.

"Is it okay if I leave her in here? She won't get out again as long as she's in here."

"Of course, Mr Universe," answered Kryten, tenderly patting his back.

Steven could see it was clear that he had gotten off on the worst foot imaginable. He wouldn't be surprised if most men in the room already hated him. But he was here now – and the only way to go was up.