Chapter 5: Queeg

Teresa

Grunting and confused mumbling at the other end of the bunk woke me up from my dreamless sleep. Running a hand over my face, I tried to wipe away some of the sleep, and the sweat from being in bed with another human. A large hand touched my leg, running curiously up the smooth skin of my shin, jolting me even more awake.

'Oh smeg,' Lister said tiredly and I turned my head to the side, trying to wake myself up a bit.

'So you're awake then,' Rimmer commented and opened my eyes with a squint, staring straight at one of his flared nostrils. He looked furious and the tone of voice was much more like the Rimmer I was used to.

'Well it's a bit hard to sleep with you talkin' man,' Lister replied groggily. 'And be quiet or you'll wake Teresa.'

'Too late,' I groaned, pushing myself upwards on the thin mattress until I was sitting upright.. 'If it wasn't for the confused mumbling, and exploration expedition up my leg, I'm sure you're arguing definitely would have done it.'

'So you've done it then, well I must say Listy, you do work fast,' Rimmer said irritatedly. 'I can't believe this. She's been onboard less than a day and you've already taken her for a trip up shag mountain, population; a greasy, fat, monkey, and some papadam crumbs.' I snorted. Pulling the cigarette packet off the shelf in Lister's bunk, I grabbed one out and lit it, helping myself to a smoke. Not that he seemed to mind.

'Rimmer, what the hell are you talking about?' I asked, sitting up, bare legs handing over the edge of the bunk. Flicking the lighter wheels, the tip of my dart lit up cherry red.

'You've slept with him, haven't you?' He asked, turning on me. 'You've slept with him. You've gone and done it, and just because he's alive too.'

'Well I don't exactly make habits of shagging corpses, as it goes, Rimmer,' I started, smirking and blowing smoke in his direction, much to his distaste. 'But if you must know, no, I haven't slept with Lister.'

'What?!' He replied shocked. It was almost amusing, he seemed more upset I'd denied it than he was when he thought I'd done it.

'You seem almost outraged,' I laughed, shaking my head at him.

'What gives man?' Lister asked, eventually sitting up beside me. He pulled out his own cigarette and lit it. 'First you're mad I've slept with her, and now you're mad she hasn't slept with me.'

'He just can't handle being wrong,' I answered. 'Poor guy, he's in permanent agony.'

'Oh shut up you gimboid,' Rimmer scowled and pointed at me. Smirking, I ignored his insult, comfortable now he was back to his normal self and not being nice or sweet. And thank god he wasn't being funny or considerate.

'I'm not sure what you were expecting, Rimmer, I'm not the ship's bicycle,' I said, leaping off the bunk. 'Holly, if you see the skutters, could you please tell them to come and find me.'

'Of course, Teresa,' he replied. 'I'll get right on it.'

'Why do you just do as she says? You do everything she asks without question,' Rimmer rounded on Holly, aggressively pointing at the monitor while I padded out of the room.

Walking into my temporary room, decks below my actual sleeping quarters, I stripped the moment the doors closed behind me. Turning on the shower I started scrubbing my skin down, even though in my body's physical time I hadn't showered since yesterday, yesterday was three million and three years ago. It was a little hard to wrap my head around. Regardless of how much time it had been since I last showered, I still felt greasy, sweaty and slimy and needed to wash away it all. My bath loofah wasn't here, it was such a weird, unimportant thing to miss, but these weren't my quarters, so none of my stuff was here. It was just regulation soap, not the Swarfega that I usually used to cut through the mech grease.

After what was probably too long in the shower - but who cares, because there's a large amount of crew members no longer requiring their water rations - I stepped out of the frosted glass tank to find three of the ship's skutters waiting patiently in my room. One of them was holding a towel for me and I tried not to scoff in surprise, simply accepting the towel with a short thanks instead. They never ceased to amuse me, between their better union and the Clint Eastwood fanclub, the simple machines had more personality than Rimmer. Admittedly though, that wasn't hard.

Quickly drying off and dressing, I asked them to follow me to the Machine Control Room to work on Holly and find out what's up with him lately. It was my current theory that he had an issue with his processor and perhaps needed to be re-calibrated, and his RAM filtered and cleared. But that was assuming it was a simple problem, but, as I had learned working on Red Dwarf as long as I had, it rarely was just a simple problem. And there was no telling how long it had been since his OS had been restarted. There must have been thousands of updates to download.

'Holly,' I asked as soon as I walked in. The mess surrounding me was nothing short of overwhelming. System shelves had masses of loose and tangled wires falling off of them, the room was lit with an ominous red lighting, and there was a quite strong smell of burning dust.

'Yes Teresa?' He replied, popping up on screen almost instantly. He was always pretty instantaneous with me, and from Rimmer I'd gathered this was not his normal behaviour as I had previously assumed.

'What the fuck?' I asked, wrinkling my nose and staring at the computer horror story that surrounded me.

'It's been a while since I've had a servicing, I'll admit,' Holly replied, looking a little bashful as he floated there. 'I've done a lot of it myself with the help of the skutters while you've been away. It's a bit of a mess really.'

'I'll say,' I sighed, rubbing my hand over my now clean face. Still unsure of where to start, I spun on the spot, taking in all the chaos in the room. 'This'll take smeggin' ages, Hol.'

'Well at least it'll keep you occupied for the next three million years,' he told me and I snorted, reaching my hands up to rest behind my head. This.. was a nightmare.

'You could say that, yeah,' I agreed.

Shortly thereafter, I'd sent the skutters off on supply runs. Coffee, cable ties, and velcro straps to organise, and then coffee, my tool kit, and an old rag to sob into while I worked on repairs. Some more coffee. And then more coffee, and you couldn't forget the coffee.

Dark, unlaced boots came into view as I lay under one of the consoles like a car mechanic on a backboard. Holding the flashlight I was using in my mouth, I decided to keep working until Lister decided to start talking to me. Zip tying a few cables together, I shifted slightly, sliding over with some non reusable cable ties for the next cluster of cables. These ones did not need to be moved or changed any, so they were fine with single use cables.

'I wondered where you'd got to,' Lister said eventually. Dropping the torch from my mouth, I scooted out from under the computer console and sat upright for the first time in nearly an hour.

'Holly's slow, and I wanna know why,' I replied with a shrug, looking up at him from the floor. He shot me an empathetic look, hopping up onto the bench I'd been working under. He sat there comfortably, swinging his legs slightly while I watched him. When he again didn't speak right away, I went back to work.

'Look, you're not taking this whole, forgotten about thing, personally are you?' Lister asked, looking down at me when I stayed kneeling, working away on different wires. I hadn't crawled back under the bench, instead I worked on stripping off the casing on some of the wires where it looked like rats or some kind of animal had chewed through. This would all have to be replaced or repaired.

'No,' I replied with a shake of my head. 'While I am upset I got forgotten about for 3 years, I know it's not Holly's fault. I could never blame him for that. But something needs to be done, or something really bad could happen. So I'm going to do something, in fact, I just might be the only person who can.'

'It would be nice to have meteor warnings before we get hit by one. There's one embedded in the side of the ship,' Lister told me, looking like he was considering things as he sat there, not doing much work himself. Mind you, everyone was dead, why did he need to do work? 'It's huge, I could show you sometime if you want.'

'That'd be nice, I never really got the chance to go outside much before all this, I was usually in the drive room,' I explained. My old job had been dreadfully boring, it was no secret I hated it. Going to space always seemed so romantic when I was growing up, because it was advertised that you could make a living exploring the known universe. Except, we didn't. I had ended up making a living staring at a boring computer screen all day. 'I was so happy to become the ship's mech just to have something less boring to do.'

'Rimmer makes me do the stocktake with him,' Lister said, shrugging slightly. 'Being out here in space, it's mostly all boring, you know? There's nothing to do, ever.'

'Eugh, way to make me feel better' I replied and then I thought about his roommate. 'Why's he wound so tight anyway?'

'I don't know, I don't think people are born smegheads,' Lister started, tilting his head to the side. 'But with Rimmer, there's always an exception to the rule.'

'Let's grab lunch, I'm starving,' I climbed up off the floor. There was only so much of this I could do before my head started spinning. This was so strange to me, yesterday I had a life, a job and I was surrounded by people. Granted, I hated the job, the life, and the people, but in the blink of an eye, in one sleep everything was gone.

'Two chicken vindaloos, half rice, half chips,' Lister cheered, walking with me back to the ship's cafeteria. He dropped an arm over my shoulders, guiding me to the lift we had to take to get there.

'Mmmm, I haven't eaten in three million years,' I hummed, thinking about how good it would be to have a hot curry. He snorted at the joke but I wouldn't be lying if I said I was hungry enough it felt like I hadn't eaten three million years either. At this stage in the game, the ship's cafeteria was mostly unused. And it was definitely mostly unclean. Not that again, Lister seemed to mind. Leaning next to the automated machine, I waited for Lister to type in his code and order the food.

'So tell me somethin',' Lister said, grabbing the steaming curries right from the mouth of the machine and walking towards his favourite table. He put the tray down in front of us and his feet up on the table. Following suit, I had one foot up on the chair, the other resting on the lip of the table.

'Mm?' I asked, poking at my curry with my fork. Looking up at him, I found he was staring across the table at me with a fascination he hadn't before. When I'd met him, while he seemed a little surprised I was nice to him, even in public, he'd been so infatuated with my sister I could have died in front of him and he wouldn't have noticed.

'Reading Rimmer's diary, that's what gave us the idea to go to floor 16,' Lister explained and bit into his papadum. Nodding, I prodded my tinfoil container a little further. There seemed to be a question coming, one I wasn't sure I was going to like. 'Did you really kiss Rimmer?' He looked disgusted. A small blush crept up my neck and I looked back down at the food. Biting my lip, I thought about my answer. There was no denying it, I had. In fact, despite it being Rimmer, I wasn't sure I wanted to deny it.

'Yeah I did,' I replied eventually with a strong sigh. 'I don't really understand what happened, why I did it to be honest, that smeghead drives me up the wall. There was just something different that day.'

'What, did you have concussion?' He asked and I laughed, actually digging into my food. Despite being hungry, the line of questioning due to come my way had made me momentarily uncomfortable. I felt like I was going to get the barrage of angry questioning I'd gotten when I first confessed I wanted to change careers. But then I remembered this was Lister, not my parents and sister. 'That happened to Yvonne Mcgruder once, she kept calling him Norman.'

'No.' I shook my head. 'It was just a heat of the moment kind of thing... Do you really wanna know?'

'Well yeah,' he told me honestly. I suppose there wasn't much else going on. 'It's a morbid fascination of mine, I wanna know. And you know you can tell me anything, right? You're like me kid sister.'

'And you want me to tell you all the gory details of me kissing Rimmer?' I snorted and watched his face screw up. Most siblings didn't want to know about each other's dating life.

'Well, no,' he told me, tilting his head from side to side as he considered it. 'And yes. I don't want to know any sexual fantasies or anythin' weird,' he said and I started laughing again.

'I promise if I develop any, I'll keep them to myself,' I giggled.

'Good,' he went back to his curry, dipping poppadoms into his gravy-covered rice, waiting for me to tell him. Licking my bottom lip, I thought about how to explain this sordid detail of my life. I'd wanted to tell him three million years ago, but I was worried he might judge or be angry with me.

'Had to help Hollister with his chicken costume, he was worried about him. Or probably the amount of paperwork Rimmer going bananas would cause him, that's why I went to go see him in the medibay. And I kinda thought he was a mate of yours. And I know, he drives you up the smeggin wall, he does the same to me, but y'know.'

'No, but keep goin,' he replied, making me smile. Thinking back to that day a few weeks ago, I remembered how enamoured he'd been with me, what he'd looked like with no shirt on, and how his lips had felt against mine. My breathing picked up and my blush got stronger.

'Are you blushin'?' Lister asked, disgusted and I shook my head. 'Aye yeh are, I can see it. Don't even try to blame it on the curry.'

'Todhunter, you know he fancied me. A lot of the guys did when I was in Astronav but once I left, they all kinda got bored of me. Todhunter was the only one who didn't, and I later realised it was because he thought with no friends I'd be easier to shag. But not Rimmer,' I explained. Chewing nervously on my lip, I thought about my parents, my family. 'Kochanski is… it's a good name. It has a reputation that comes with it, and career expectations. No dirty jobs. So until I changed careers as a single woman, I was a hot commodity… not to sound stuck up.'

'No,' he shook his head, assuring me that wasn't the case. He sipped his beer milkshake, something that didn't cease to disgust me. While Lister and I'd interests aligned sometimes, this wasn't one of them. 'It was pretty common erm.. locker room talk. Lots of guys wanted to shag yeh.'

'Gross,' I said, biting down on a forkful of chips. Although from what I'd overheard at George's funeral afterparty, most of his mates did, so it wasn't very surprising. 'Anyway, Rimmer didn't treat me any different when I changed jobs, and when I was helping him get dressed he just looked at me like I was so pretty. And just… it wasn't a slimy, "this pretty little thing could get me this" or anything, it was this gentle adoration. You know?'

'No? I thought if anyone'd want a lift up the corporate ladder it'd be Rimmer,' Lister commented and I nodded vigorously. He had that reputation, I'd thought the same as well.

'I just dove forwards without really thinking it through, it felt really nice to be wanted and that day, he wasn't being a smeghead, he was just sweet and even a little bit funny,' I continued. Lister scoffed, shaking his head as he sat there.

'Rimmer, funny?' he asked, pulling out a cigarette from his packet and lit it up. I nodded, it had been strange to witness.

'Then I realised what I'd done, who I was kissing and I felt awful. It was like I was Florence Nightingale, I'd just helped spoon feed him and now I was kissing him? It was awful, I was filled with so much shame,' I explained, glancing over at the cafeteria door. I thought I'd just seen someone but I guess I was imagining it. 'I screwed up that day, I don't know how I'm ever gonna forgive myself.'

'I'll say,' Lister agreed, trying to joke and lighten the mood. He was the one who'd asked. 'You kissed Rimmer.'

'He seemed pretty upset about it actually,' I commented. 'First he accused me of playing a joke on him, and then when I told him I didn't want to take advantage of him he got really confused, as if he didn't think I could.'

'Would you have done it again, if you had the chance?' He asked. 'I mean, when he's not just had a stomach pump.'

'We're three million years in the future without a body, it wouldn't be possible,' I told him, not wanting to entertain the idea. He'd changed completely since that day as well, or rather, he was back to normal. 'It wouldn't be possible.'

'But if it was?' He prodded, almost finished his lunch. Shaking my head from side to side, I couldn't think about it. The first man who'd shown an interest in me, real and proper, was nuts at the time and dead now.

'I don't know,' I sighed. Pulling out my own cigarette, I lit it and sucked in a deep drag. 'It's too weird to even think about.'

'Yeah, I suppose it is,' he nodded, blowing smoke in my face. 'It's just weird knowing that you of all people have kissed Rimmer.'

'That was three million years ago,' I laughed, waving him off with a flick of my wrist.

'In the past,' he smiled, taking a sip of beer milkshake. 'Ancient history.'

'Yeah,' I nodded, smiling sadly as I looked down at my curry. 'Ancient history.'

Rimmer

Racing down the corridor my heart hammered against the bones of my ribcage, tie flapping in the wind as I rushed to make it to the cafeteria while she was still there. When I'd asked Holly where she was, he'd told me she was in the canteen and I was determined, finally working up the courage to take her up on that offer of a cup of tea. She was real, that kiss we'd shared in my bunk was real. The way she'd kissed me back, she'd wanted me, and I could have her, if I was only kind to her. If I was just brave enough to have one cup of tea, I could have the woman of my dreams.

'I screwed up that day, I don't know if I'm ever going to forgive myself,' Teresa said as I walked through the door, and I wondered if I should back up and enter more loudly. Clearly she was admitting fault, and from my own experience, that wasn't an easy task.

'I'll say,' Lister agreed, sounding amused as if she'd told him some sort of joke. 'You kissed Rimmer.'

My temper flared. That smegging git probably believed that just because she wasn't interested in him, that she could never be possibly interested in a guy like me. But then, she'd said she couldn't forgive herself. Perhaps she didn't fancy me after all. Leaning against the doorway, just outside I listened in. Surely there had to be something I was missing.

'Would you have done it again, if you'd had the chance?' Lister asked her and I couldn't hear the conversation over the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. I was a damn hologram, why was this simulation playing so loudly?

'It's too weird to even think about,' she replied and I felt a sharp pang in my chest. She didn't want me. Perhaps she never had.

'In the past, ancient history,' Lister said as I peeked around the doorway. She was looking down with a cigarette in her mouth, nodding.

'Ancient history,' she agreed.

I'd been a fool. As if someone as beautiful as her would ever fancy me. Joining her now for that cup of tea had been too little too late. She'd never fancied me, and all my chances with her, lost. Dead and gone, just like my body. She'd be with Lister now, they'd always had a good relationship, and he was alive. I went to kick the wall beside me, wanting to destroy something but my leg shot right through it. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

Teresa

Somehow we'd moved on from curry and milkshakes to straight up day drinking. There was a slew of crushed, empty larger cans and a couple of empty wine bottles beside us. Somehow he'd convinced me being the only one on board that drank wine, I didn't need to use a glass, and I was drinking it straight from the bottle as we chatted and smoked. It was nice actually, not having to act with the utmost decorum all the time, it's why I liked Dave and his mates so much.

'So are you gonna go back to working on Holly after this?' Lister asked, crushing another larger can. Shrugging I took another swig from my wine bottle.

'I should,' I sighed, shaking my head at the thought of that computer suite and the state it had gotten into. Although now I'd drunk this much, I might do more harm than good.

'Why? I mean, you've got the next three million years to fix Hol,' Lister said, advocating on behalf of a good skive. 'When was the last time you had some time off?'

'Three million years ago,' I laughed, that joke was probably gonna get old real quick.

'Exactly,' he grinned cheerily. 'Bunk off for a bit.'

'We should go down the disco tonight, you know, for old times sake,' I said, an idea suddenly popping into my head. Going down there could be fun, especially since there was definitely no Todhunter to try and make me dance with him or kiss me.

'Brutal,' he cheered. 'That's the spirit, I'll get the gang together and we'll have a party.'

Getting ready to go dancing when I was already this drunk was proving difficult but given that I didn't have access to any of my old party dresses or makeup, it was at least a little easier on me. Hard to worry about what to wear when you literally owned nothing. Still, I managed to pinch an eyeliner from Cat's things and when he caught me dolling myself up, he offered to help me out with an outfit. Given the selfish reputation he had, I could only assume it was because he wanted to see me in said outfit.

Going through the vents, he showed me a secret stash of female cat clothing and while I'd had to forgo certain clothing items on account of not having six breasts, I did manage to find something my style. He left me to it because he got bored once he realised I wasn't going to change and try on outfits in front of him. Unfortunately this did mean I had to get Holly to send in a skutter to come find me and get me back out of the vents. Dropping out of the vent just above Lister's dining table, I hit the laminate with a thunk. He turned away from the mirror where he was shaving to raise an eyebrow at my getup.

'Well don't you look nice,' he teased, wooing and cheering. Doing a little spin, I showed off my black and pinstripe miniskirt to my pretend crowd. I'd managed to get a tight black waistcoat too and wore it without anything else underneath, making my cleavage and bare arms look great. The only downside was I had to wear my work boots, but with the job I'd managed with the Cat's eyeliners, it went with the grungy look I was sporting.

'You almost ready to go?' I asked him as he washed the leftover shaving foam off his face. He nodded at me, walking to the wardrobe to pull on a Hawaiian shirt, same one he always wore to go dancing. Cat yowled, skating into the room at that moment, showing off his digs.

'Wow baby, you look great,' Cat cheered, looking me up and down. Grinning again, I gave another twirl, showing off. It felt nice to be appreciated.

'Would you get off that table, those boots are filthy and I'm not taking you to the medbay when you fall off,' Rimmer huffed and I just noticed he was laying in his bunk, glaring up at me. Of course there was always someone wanting to send you crashing back to earth when you were happy, made sense it was him.

'I don't see why you're complainin',' Lister commented, coming over to grab his half-drunk larger can. 'Not when you've spent the last ten minutes staring right up her skirt.'

He offered me a hand down and I climbed, trying not to expose my crotch to Rimmer, if that was in fact the case. He let out a huff and rolled away from us, deciding on giving up. Probably because he didn't have a good comeback. Still, I was trying to have a good night, so I ignored him and followed the guys down the corridor towards the lifts. Rimmer didn't get to ruin things for me, no one did.

Clutching my pounding head, cracked my eyes open the bare minimum. Wincing at the level of light, I rolled over, burying my face into the carpet. It probably wasn't very sanitary, hiding my face in the floor of the Officer's Club, but I was far too hungover to care.

'God,' I groaned, clutching my head. Somehow I summoned the strength and pushed myself up off the carpet, stretching slightly before crawling over to the bar. Reaching over the side, I got myself a glass of water and some paracetamol someone had decided to start keeping behind the till. I thanked whoever it was for the several million year old drugs, and their practically genius forethought.

Sighing, I gulped down the last of the water and decided to make my way back to my room. Although I had to wonder how I got here. I'd started out the night going shot for shot with Lister and the Cat. How I'd gotten here was a mystery to me. Perhaps the day drinking was too much. Figuring it would eventually come back to me, I shrugged. If not I could always ask Holly. Deciding against going back to bed, or to bed if you didn't consider my nap in the officer's club bed, I headed down the decks towards Holly's Control Room instead. It seemed like a good idea to keep working on what I'd started yesterday, feeling all too ill to eat anything. And knowing if I went to sleep again, I'd probably just regret it or spend the morning watching the ceiling spin. The ship gave a sudden lurch and I was launched forwards, smacking into a wall in the corridor. Bouncing off the hard metal wall, I hit the floor with a hard thump.

'Holly?!' I called out. Hearing no response, I hurried up onto my feet and down to the computer suite housing Holly's controls about to go and dig around in his brain. Once in there I looked at what areas of the ship were damaged. We'd been hit by another meteor. Damn. The damage report machine was damaged and I'd have to repair that before I could find out what else was wrong with the ship.

Pulling out the tool kit from under the shelving that I'd been working on the previous day I got to work at once. I didn't know what else could be wrong with the ship, but I suddenly had a flashback to the joke I'd made when I first woke up.

'Seems like everything on this ship is leaking,' I muttered bitterly. 'Radiation, stasis, what's next, oxygen?'

'Cheer up smeghead,' Lister grinned his signature cheesy grin and clapped a hand down on my back, rubbing his knuckles lightly on my head. Sighing, I realised at least for now, I had to play along.

'So what now?' I asked, moving to stand on my own.

Rationally, I knew we probably weren't leaking oxygen, but on this ship anything was possible. Thankfully the bouncing around had only knocked some wires loose and it was a relatively easy fix. I re-soldered the motherboard once I noticed that it was loose too, and closed her back up. Wasn't how I wanted to spend my hangover, repairing random pieces of machinery and surviving meteor blasts but it figured. The machine blinked back to life and a report printed out.

'Great,' I muttered. 'The Holo-Suite is on the fritz.'

Which meant that Rimmer was running around somewhere going bonkers. Well, more bonkers than he usually was. Not at all how I wanted to spend my hangover. Not that I'd planned much, no one ever plans to be hungover. But if I had an idea way to spend it, this.. this would not be it. I weighed up going to go and find him before I repaired the damage or after and shrugged, he was everyone else's problem. I would fix it and hope he goes back to normal. Or, what was normal to Rimmer.

Eventually, I managed to get things back into what would be classified as working order aboard the Dwarf and pushed up off my bare knees. At some point I had to go back to my temporary quarters and put on some real clothes, instead of my slutty party gear. As I got closer to the Holo-Suite I heard what sounded like yowling which I would have assumed was the Cat but it sounded a little bit like Rimmer, which piqued my interest. What kind of damage could cause Rimmer to turn into the Cat? Or was he simply mocking him, and doing one of his impressions.

'Shouldn't this plug into something?' Lister said just round the corner.

'Oh yeah, that joins up with the white cable,' Holly replied.

'The white cable?' Lister confirmed, clearly doing something just out of sight.

'Yeah,' Holly agreed.

Suddenly I heard electricity and strangled cries coming from him and ran the rest of the way down the corridor into the Holo-Suite. Getting there just in time to see Lister be fired over the console in an explosion, I powerslid across the floor on my knees. Smoke billowed out from the area and I stared up, jaw dropped.

'Or was it the yellow cable,' Holly replied. 'Yes, I think it should have been the yellow cable.'

'What the fuck Holly?' I asked as I looked around. Pushing up off the ground, I made my way over to where crispy Lister was laying.

'You are a total, total,' Rimmer stopped for a split second thinking. 'A word has yet to be invented to describe how totally whatever it is you are, but you are one and a total, total one at that.'

'Alright everyone, keep your hair on,' Holly replied.

'For some of us, that'll be easier than others,' I commented, looking at my charred friend. Kneeling on the floor beside him, I helped him up and propped him in a chair. He was regaining himself a little, as I continued to kneel at his side. Patting his knee softly, I nonverbally asked if he was alright and he nodded at me.

'I'm lucky if I can keep my legs on with you in charge,' Rimmer grumbled, which I expect I'd get an explanation about later.

'Yeah he's out to lunch, man,' the Cat said, jutting out his chest angrily.

'He's out to lunch, breakfast, dinner, tea, supper, the lot!' Rimmer grumbled. 'He's not in for a single meal if you ask me.'

'Hey, who's that?' The Cat pointed to the other head on the console behind the counter.

'Aliens!' Rimmer said excitedly and ran in front of the console waving his hands about. I'd also like an explanation for that, but I didn't see it coming soon.

'Queeg,' Holly said.

'Who's Queeg?' Rimmer asked, having got up off his knees.

'I'm Queeg 500, the Red Dwarf backup computer. All vessels of the Jupiter Mining Corporation Fleet are obliged to carry a backup computer to replace the primary computer, if the primary computer contravenes article 5,' the face explained.

'Shit,' I hissed.

'I am therefore assuming control of this vessel,' Queeg told us.

'No,' I replied, outraged. 'You can't do this.'

'This is mutiny, Mr Queeg,' Holly said from his tv screen. 'I'll see you swing from the highest yardarm in Titan Docking Port for this day's work.'

'What's article 5?' Rimmer asked, glancing between us.

'Gross negligence leading to endangerment of personnel,' Queeg answered and I sighed.

'It's not his fault,' I said, resting my hands on my thighs. Feeling guilty, I looked at my lap. I'd known there was something wrong with Holly, and I'd skived yesterday rather than working on him.

'Hang on,' Lister said, getting up from his chair. 'You can't do this, Holly's got an IQ of 6,000.'

'Yeah, right on,' Holly cheered.

'Is that what he told you?' Queeg asked.

'Well what is it then?' Lister replied.

'It's got a 6 in it but it's not 6,000,' Queeg answered.

'What is it?' The Cat leaned forward in his perch.

'6,' Queeg replied.

'6? Do me a lemon, that's a poor IQ for a glass of water,' Holly replied indignantly.

'How come he knows all the answers to questions about science and space and stuff?' Lister challenged, crossing his arms over his chest and arking up at the backup.

'He consults a book,' Queeg answered simply.

'What a slime ball,' Holly growled, looking more irritated than he had previously.

'He gets all his information on astronomy, phenomenology and physics from a single reference book,' Queeg said.

'Oh god,' I rubbed my head. The hangover was doing me no favours but my new headache was caused by me knowing exactly where this was going. Or from slamming into the wall. Probably both.

'What's the book?' Rimmer asked.

'The Junior Encyclopaedia of Space,' Queeg answered. 'It's the only one he could find that had pictures.'

'How do you know that?' I asked, crossing my arms. Queeg was only just turned on, he shouldn't know that.

'That's slander that is,' Holly said.

"I know all,' Queeg replied. He better not know about my secret shower time…

'You'd better find yourself a good lawyer guy,' Holly continued.

'So that's why he was never on the case!' The Cat cried accusingly. Oh how quickly he'd switched sides. Disloyal creatures, that's why I much preferred dogs.

'I am on the case,' Holly argued. 'I'm sharp, I'm kicking bottom.'

'How come he can navigate us back to Earth?' Lister defended, peacock-ing like he'd caught Queeg off guard.

'He can't you've been going around in circles for the last fourteen months,' Queeg replied.

'You what?' Lister and I turned to the tv screen beside us at the same time. Given how much was going wrong in here, it was entirely possible this was happening by mistake, but I wasn't going to be so quickly persuaded. For all we knew, Queeg was a trojan virus masquerading as the ship's backup computer.

'That's a load of Tottenham that is,' Holly told us. 'That's a steaming pile of Hotspur. I'm onto his game, he's turning you against me so he can take over.'

'It's not going to work Hol,' I patted the top of the tube tv comfortingly. 'I'm on your side.'

'This is not a matter for discussion. The decision has already been made, your terminals have been bypassed, you've been retired,' Queeg told us.

'Not by us!' I argued. 'Were the surviving members of the crew, if we decided to keep Holly that's on us.'

'You being the senior member of the crew would put you in violation of Article 5 as well,' Queeg warned me.

'I'm in my prime,' Holly told him.

'You will be given light duties, night watchmen. From now on, Red Dwarf is run by Queeg 500,' he told us. 'Kochanski Teresa, if you continue to resist you will be placed in the brig for your negligence.'

'You can't do this,' I told him.

'It's alright Teresa,' Holly told me. 'We'll get 'im. Just get on with things for now.'

Sighing, I headed out of the room. He could fix the damn Holo-Suite himself, screw Queeg. Holly might have forgotten about me but it was his processor or something. He wasn't neglecting the crew, that was stupid.

'Teresa,' Lister called after me. 'Wait up.'

'What?' I asked as I turned around.

'We'll sort this, it'll be alright,' he told me.

'Look, between you and me,' I started and then looked at the computer screen beside me in the hall. 'Never mind,' I sighed. 'I'm heading back to my room to nurse this hangover.'