Author's Note: Ehh, 2023, 2024 - what's the diff? Time is an illusion, I never left, I'm actually early for 2025, etc. I pretty much suffered burnout last year, and then I had other things to work on, but I feel like writing this again, so we'll see how I fare now that I've gotten a few more chapters done! Enjoy, won't us?

Rimmer stepped into the cockpit feeling very relieved. His body had returned to its original state, complete with a new arm, and he felt like a whole new man, ready to take on the universe. Unfortunately, the universe decided to throw a gigantic Red Dwarf at them. It never rains but it pours.

"Red Dwarf is shrinking around us!" Kochanski shouted from her console. "Must be something to do with their molecular process!"

The ship began to rock as Rimmer and Cat grappled with the controls.

"We're being sucked into a vent!" Cat shouted. "Can't fight it!"

They just barely avoided being sliced to ribbons by the spinning blades beyond the vent and went shooting down the air duct.

Holly appeared on the screen. "All right, dudes? Anyone fancy a game of charades using just your nose, or is this a bad time?"

"Holly, we're about to be crushed to death!" snapped Rimmer. "We need direction!"

"Oh, if that's what you're after, try turning left when you get to the hydro-unit. Should shave two minutes off your overall journey."

"Sounds good to me, sir," said Kryten.

"Then let's kick it!" Kochanski declared, already plotting a course.

The engines kicked in, and they zoomed at full speed down the slowly shrinking shaft. They had a few near misses along the way - including one very embarrassing collision with a rat - but they succeeded in making the necessary turn, taking them back to the landing bay. They smashed through the grill and shot forwards down the corridor. It shrank around them, and with a huge jolt, the entire rear section jammed in a doorway and got left behind, sending the rest of the ship skidding across the floor.

Then, a smaller hatchway ripped the mid-section from the cockpit bubble, and they went skidding and bouncing into the landing bay until they settled in the middle of the room.

Rimmer peeled himself off the console as his considerable nostrils briefly inhaled just a bit too much smoke. Taking a moment to cough furiously, he wiped the haze from his eyes and spotted Kryten tending to the Cat, who looked a little out of it but still more concerned with his zebra-print coat than any physical injuries.

He tried to find Kochanski, but she seemed to have vanished entirely. Then, he tripped over her unconscious form on the floor as if she'd just come out of nowhere. Chalking it up to his panicking brain, he knelt down and tried to rouse her. Not much time before the fires got to the fuel tanks.

"Kris, come on – we need to go before the whole thing goes up!" he said, urgently shaking her arm.

Cat frowned. "I thought Officer Bud Babe couldn't be knocked out!"

Rimmer considered the feline's rare moment of insight before exchanging an uncertain look with Kryten. In her hard-light form, she really couldn't be rendered unconscious. He wiped Kochanski's hair from her face and saw a blank forehead. Her 'H' had vanished. Gently, he took her wrist. It took a few seconds – he was terribly untrained to check for a pulse – but he found it. The heartbeat. The drumming of life. He held out the wrist to Kryten to feel for himself. The mech complied, and a couple seconds later, he did a double take, looking between Rimmer and Kochanski's wrist.

"But… how?!" Rimmer demanded.

"How what?" Kochanski groaned.

They looked down to see she'd regained consciousness during their discovery. She saw the mechanoid holding her wrist.

"Kryten? Are you walking me down the aisle?" She rubbed her forehead, wincing in pain, before noticing what they'd noticed. No 'H'. She looked between the three men gawking openly at her with growing apprehension. "Am I…?"

A shower of sparks rained down from the ceiling, making them all remember they stood in a ticking time bomb. Making sure Holly had been transferred back to his wristwatch, Rimmer helped Kochanski to her feet.

Getting the hatch door open, they all fled the cockpit and scurried across the massive hangar until it exploded in a bright orange fireball. They dropped to the floor as debris flew overhead, covering their ears until the explosion finally died away to nothing.

Then, silence.

Rimmer nervously looked up, hoping it might finally be over, but what he saw made him realize - it was only just beginning.

Two men in yellow plastic raincoats and gas masks walked up, carrying a giant hose between them to fight the fire. They stood over them, then removed the masks to reveal two human men with shocked expressions.

"Rimmer?!" said one.

Rimmer squinted at them, trying to figure out who they were. Then - it hit him. "Selby? Chen?! Is it really you?"

Chen looked at Selby in confusion. "Is it really us? Hang on, I'll check." He patted himself down. "Yeah, I think it's us."

Rimmer got to his feet, dusting some of the black soot from his ruined clothes. "My God. I don't believe it."

"You know these people, sir?" asked Kryten as he and the others stood up.

"Know them? I've found these idiots passed out drunk in my bunk with no clothes and partly painted green! This is the Red Dwarf crew, Kryten!"

Cat's eyebrows met in a confused head-on collision. "How?"

"The nanos must've resurrected them along with the ship," said Kochanski, frowning thoughtfully.

Rimmer began to feel a little excited. He hadn't been around other people in a long time, seeing these two goits felt actually kind of normal. "This one's Chen," he said, pointing to the one on the left. "Works in the kitchen, always drunk. And that one's Selby - he's always drunk, too." Then, he noticed something. "Isn't there usually a third one? Petersen?"

Chen shook his head. "He couldn't make it," he replied before smiling broadly. "He's drunk!"

Kochanski ran her hand against her forehead, a broad grin splitting her face. "Oh my God," she gasped, patting herself down. "I'm not a hologram! They resurrected me, too! I'm alive!" She began to laugh with joy as she enveloped Kryten in a bear hug. "How'd they do that? I didn't feel a thing!"

Rimmer looked between her and the crew, feeling better than he'd felt in years. No longer the last man alive, it felt as though a great amount of pressure had been released. His mouth emitted something very rare – a laugh of joy.

But then, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder shove him away from Selby and Chen, and he turned to see who it had been. He saw the bland emotionless face of Thornton, one of the MPs, and Captain Hollister looking none-too-impressed.

"Mr Thornton," he said. "Read them their rights."

Thornton approached Rimmer. "Arnold Rimmer, you are formally charged with stealing and crashing a Starbug. You are also charged with having no pilot's license and smuggling two stowaways on board along with Navigation Officer Kristine Kochanski. Anything you say now or do not say now may be used in a board of inquiry against you. Do you require any form of aid?"

It took a moment for Rimmer's brain to catch up with current events, but when it did, the only thing working was the sarcasm tendant. "First aid, lemonade, hearing aid, an arcade, a barmaid, a mermaid if you can find one - oh, and a housemaid, if only to clean up all this mess. That'll suit me fine."

He enjoyed the startled look on Thornton's face, as well as the disbelieving look on Hollister's, and even Chen and Selby looked like they were trying not to laugh. They were up smeg's creek anyway - might as well have some fun.

Rimmer's lungs protested angrily as Thornton frogmarched him down the long winding corridors to his quarters. His old quarters. The ones he'd shared with Lister. They stomped their way into the dull gray room with two bunks, a small sink, the cupboard, the tiny blue seats by the tiny porthole and tiny study area. So many bad memories, so little time.

When allowed to stop marching, Thornton ordered him to raise his arm. When he did so, the officer placed a security bracelet around his wrist.

"At ease," Thornton grunted.

Rimmer doubled over, almost vomiting all over the other man's boots before he caught himself.

Chuckling nastily, Thornton and the MPs left, allowing Rimmer the privacy to get his breath back. God, it felt weird being back in here. Even the robot goldfish continued to swim in their tank as if he'd never been gone.

He pressed a stud on the watch, and Holly appeared on the screen. "All right, dude?"

"Let's just keep you a secret for now, Holly," Rimmer said as he rubbed his temples. "What happens if the board of inquiry finds us guilty?"

"They'll probably have a pot of tea, a bit of a chat and go home, I suppose."

"What happens to us, you goit!"

"Well, if you lose, you'll probably get a couple of years in the brig."

"What brig?"

"The brig on Floor Thirteen."

"There isn't a Floor Thirteen."

"Yeah, there is. It was classified. A need-to-know-only basis."

"So, who knew?"

"Well, all the officers, and anyone who's ever watched the Twilight Zone."

According to Holly, the brig existed as an old-style penal establishment with about two hundred prisoners en route for Adelphi 12 - all, no doubt, resurrected as well. If found guilty, the foursome would be locked up in there with all the deranged slobbering neanderthals.

Rimmer pressed the stud on the watch and slumped down into the lone chair by the table. He put his face in his hands and silently began to curse everything and everyone. His parents, his brothers, his teachers, his classmates, even the shoe salesman who'd overcharged him when he was twenty-six. Out of the frying pan, and into another frying pan. Fan-smegging-tastic.

Then, a putrid smell filled his nostrils and made him cough briefly. He turned to face the source and found himself looking at…

"Oh smeg."

Lister.

He buried his face in his hands again, if only to block out the hideous Hawaiian shirt his ex-bunkmate wore. He listened to the Scouser walk around their quarters, his cigarette smoke trailing behind him.

"Gotta say, Rimmer," he drawled, "for a gutless, spineless, gormless, direction-less, neurotic, underachieving, sniveling, cowardly pile of smeg, you've got the biggest balls known to man."

Rimmer dared to glance at him. Same dreadlocks, same stagger, same chirpy gormless grin - Good God, he's back.

Lister continued, waving his cigarette around as he talked. "I mean, just imagine the nerve of you! Not only do you steal, crash and burn a Starbug - not only that - but you somehow convince my ex-girlfriend to go along for the ride with you! I mean, I always knew you were a bastard, but I never thought you'd stoop so low! I figured you'd have some standards!"

Rimmer frowned briefly before the realization set in. Kochanski… "Oh, that's why you're so upset."

"Upset?!" Lister balked, almost laughing. "You think I'm 'upset'? Yeah, sure, the man I hate the most in the entire universe, made off with my ex, so I'm 'upset'."

"Lister, enough. I didn't 'make off' with anyone."

"Then what the hell was she doing in Starbug with you?" he demanded.

"It's a really long story, and I don't have time to tell it."

"Oh yeah? 'Cuz that bracelet on your arm says different. The minute you walk through that door, you'll get enough voltage up your jacksie to light up the whole of Bootle."

Rimmer wearily got to his feet. "I did not miss the sound of your voice," he muttered as he headed for his bunk. He looked at it. The revision timetables, the newspaper headlines, the paper thin bed sheets - he missed his double-wide bed in his old officer's quarters already.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Lister asked, looking him up and down for the first time. "I've never seen you out of uniform before. Even your pajamas have insignia."

Rimmer looked down at his dark blue blazer, orange sweater vest, and blue button down shirt with dark blue trousers. "They're called 'clothes', Lister. Perhaps you should try it sometime. Either get out of your Hawaiian getup or starting greeting people with a lei of flowers."

Lister briefly glanced at his own clothes before looking again, and after a double take, he leaned in close. "What's that on your chin? Stubble?! I saw you shave only this morning!"

Rimmer blinked, and then a thought struck him. "What's the date today?"

"It's the twenty-second."

"Of March?"

Lister smiled incredulously. "You forgot what month it is? What, did you mix up your revision timetables again?" He snapped his fingers. "Oh wait, is this all just to get out of taking your astro-navs again?"

Rimmer crossed his arms and considered his options. He glanced at the security bracelet and sighed. "Okay…," he said at last. "I have to tell someone. Might as well be you."

"Totally honored," Lister deadpanned. "Tell me what?"

"Lister… You and the entire crew have been dead for three million years, killed in a radiation leak. I survived because I was in stasis. Then, all these nanobots rebuilt the ship, and for better or worse, brought back you and the crew."

"Nano-what?"

"Subatomic self-replicating robots."

Lister sneered. "Get outta town, Rimmer. You've totally flipped, man."

But Rimmer paced the room, moving on to another train of thought. "Gonna need those nanobots if this story is going to hold up. It's our only hope. Lister, I need your help."

Lister looked taken aback. "Are you serious?"

"I don't have a choice. I'm confined to quarters. I need someone out there helping me. Please?"

Lister still looked unmoved.

Rimmer's mind race. He needed his slob of a bunkmate to cooperate if he wanted to get anywhere, but he had to admit - he probably wouldn't buy this story if the shoe was on the other putrid foot. What would move this moron? "I should point out that Kochanski is in the same mess as me. If you help me, you'll be helping her, and that's bound to impress her."

Lister seemed to consider it, but he still crossed his arms. "I'm still not sure I buy your story."

"Then don't trust me. Go to Kris. She'll tell you everything."

"Since when do you call her 'Kris'?!"

Rimmer rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to remain patient. "Since she and I are friends."

"Oh, no. No way. Out of everything you've said, that's the thing I find hardest to believe – you having friends? What, did you program that sanitation droid to be friends with you? That's just cruel, man."

"Go to her, Lister. She'll back up my story." He gave him a meaningful look. "You'll be her hero."

Lister looked at him for a long hard moment. Then, shaking his head and tossing his cigarette in the sink, he turned and walked out of the sleeping quarters.

Rimmer slipped out of his jacket and slumped into his tiny little bunk, almost smashing his heel against the metal bunk wall. Be it ever so hellish, he thought to himself, there's no place like home.

Kochanski turned Boo-Boo over in her hands, along with some of her other stuffed animals. A plush unicorn came in handy right now - two toys at once helped. She glanced across her old quarters. She had a roommate again, but her officerhood gave her more space than the technicians, including her own bedroom. She dreaded to think what would happen to the others.

She took a deep breath of that recycled air and marveled. She was alive. How the hell did that happen? That hadn't been part of the plan. Maybe it should've been, now that she thought about it, but still – she hadn't bargained on all of this. It didn't feel all that different from being hard-light, but the sensations felt so much more right. She grimaced as a thought occurred to her – she'd have to use artificial sweetener now!

She heard a knock at the door. Knowing that Thornton wouldn't bother to knock, she got up and answered it.

"Tim?!"

Her ex-boyfriend, Timothy Duncan, Catering Officer, stood in her doorway with a look of great concern on his stupid face. "Kris, what happened?"

Kochanski stared at him in shock before the question got through to her gray matter. "What?"

"They're saying you stole and crashed a Starbug in the hangar just now with two stowaways and Rimmer! That you're going to go to prison for it! What the hell is going on?!"

Kochanski briefly wondered what possessed her to get with this idiot. "Tim, look, things are a bit… complicated right now."

But now Tim frowned. "What happened to your hair?"

"What?" She remembered how she'd changed her hairstyle over the years. "Oh, I just…"

"And when did you get those clothes?"

"I've changed styles recently, okay?"

"And have you gained weight?"

Kochanski opened her mouth to say something, then stopped mid-breath and changed course. "I'm possibly about to go to prison, locked in a cell for at least two years, and you're hung up on the fact I've got love handles?"

"I just saw you last night, and you looked completely different!"

"Well, 'last night' was a long time ago for me!" Kochanski snapped, walking away from him.

Tim walked in after her. "What the hell is going on, Kris? Is something going on with you and Rimmer? I mean, seriously - Arnold Rimmer. The 'I am a fish' guy?"

Anger flared in her gut, and her glare hardened. "Oh, smeg off, Tim. You're hardly Mr Perfect yourself, you know."

Tim balked. "Since when do you say 'smeg off'? You're like a totally different person overnight!"

"While you, sadly, are the exact same person you were three million years ago." Off his bewildered look, she started guiding him back to the door to her quarters. "We're through, Tim. You'll find out the full story in time, but for now, I know you're only dating me because whats-her-name in engineering dumped you. I'm nobody's rebound nor their second choice. So kindly smeg the hell off and don't talk to me again." She probably shouldn't be this harsh with him, but she really didn't want to put up with a guy who she'd been over for so long.

Tim looked incredulously at her for a long time before shaking his head pityingly. "Whatever you're going through, good luck," he grunted. He turned and headed for the door.

Now that he had moved aside, Kochanski could see someone else in the doorway - Lister.

"Sorry, am I interrupting?" he asked sheepishly.

Tim simply brushed past him with a disgusted look. "Not anymore." And he left.

Lister watched him leave before looking at Kochanski with confused concern. "Kris - what happened? Are you okay?"

Kochanski felt so many emotions playing in her mind. Unlike the last Lister she'd met in the alternate timeline, this one had gone through none of the growth, especially in the fashion department if that tacky Hawaiian shirt displayed his current level of sophistication. As slobby as she remembered, and yet, that sweetness, that genuine concern, that hope that all things could be achieved… She remembered that, too.

"Dave…," she breathed, unable to contain her joy. She ran across the room and pulled him into a hug. He stank of second hand smoke, but she didn't care right now.

Lister briefly didn't return it, obviously stunned, but he awkwardly put his arms around her and stroked her back. "Kris, what's happening? Are you okay?" he repeated. "It's all anyone's talking about - you and Rimmer and two stowaways." He pulled away and looked worried. "He didn't drug you, did he?"

Kochanski let out a laugh. "No, no, Dave, it's not like that…," she said, pulling him inside and closing the door. "Look, take a seat, and get comfortable, because I've got a long story to tell."

Lister nodded and awkwardly sat down in one of the chairs. He clasped his hands and gave her his full attention.

Nervous, Kochanski took a deep breath - still getting used to using real oxygen again - and continued. "Dave… we're three million years in the future. The whole crew died in a radiation leak, including us. Rimmer survived because he was in stasis, and so did that cat of yours, which was pregnant, by the way, so nice going there. I was brought back as a hologram to keep Rimmer sane. Then these nanobots rebuilt the ship and resurrected us all again."

Lister's jaw hung open ever so slightly. "Oh smeg. You mean Rimmer was telling the truth?"

Ah. He'd already heard a version of this story. She nodded.

Lister grimaced. "I hate it when I have to apologize to Rimmer."

Kochanski did her best to explain the situation to Lister. She went over her time as a hologram, where Cat and Kryten came from (although she glossed over the part where the Cat People worshiped him for now) and how they'd been trying to find the mothership for years and years aboard Starbug, leading to the crew's resurrection. He looked uncertain by the time she finished, but she hoped he would be able to trust her.

"We need to escape and track down the nanobots," she said. "Otherwise, we've got no defense. God, I hate that all these rules suddenly matter again."

Lister shrugged helplessly. "Well, what do you want me to do?"

"We need to get out of these things," she said, holding up the security bracelet. "You know what several thousand volts does to my hair. And my lower intestine. I need you to find some kind of override code to remove it."

"Where do I get that from?"

"I don't know, but we had plenty of things on Starbug vacuumed sealed, so hopefully they survived the crash. If you can use your technician credentials to get inside, maybe you can find something."

Lister blew out his cheeks disparagingly. "Right, because I'll know it when I see it, yeah? I've never even set foot in a Starbug, crashed or otherwise. How am I going to tell the difference between a flight recorder and a pack of fags in that lot?"

At that moment, the door slid open, and Kryten stepped inside, looking rather embarrassed.

"Kryten?" said Kochanski in surprise. "What are you doing here? What's wrong?"

The mech looked her sadly in the eye. "I've been classified as a woman."

Definitely not the answer she expected. "A woman? Why?"

"Because I haven't got a…," he paused, then continued a low voice, " … penis."

Kochanski tried not to look directly at his crotch and tried very hard not to reduce her brain to that of a teenager.

"It's a Space Corps Directive to prevent gender ambiguity in jail," Kryten continued. "What's the saying? `If you've got nothing to swing, you can't be with Bing'?" In his frustration, he turned and saw Lister sitting nearby. "Oh! Mr Lister, sir!" he said. "How wonderful to see you again for the first time!"

Lister's brow crinkled. "Eh? You know me?"

"Oh, I know a version of you, sir. We met a parallel version of ourselves once, and it was most pleasant."

"Parallel what? What does that mean?"

"Long story," Kochanski sighed. "Suffice to say he knows about you."

"Only naturally, ma'am," Kryten smiled. "Golly, you've talked about Mr Lister so much, I feel I've known him for years!"

Kochanski grimaced as a mischievous chipmunk grin split Lister's face. "Oh really? Been talking about me, Kris?"

"Oh, yes, sir!" the mech said brightly. "She's often mentioned how ashamed she feels for shattering your delicate heart into oh-so-many pieces!"

"Kryten, don't make me order you to shut up," Kochanski said through her gritted teeth.

Lister chuckled. "Hey, it's okay," he said lightly, clearly enjoying this. "I mean, I found the strength to carry on, despite everything."

Rolling her eyes, Kochanski refocused her attention on Kryten. "We need to figure out a way to escape and find those nanobots. Dave's agreed to help, but we need someone to help him."

Kryten pondered. "Perhaps Holly, ma'am. Mr Rimmer should still have the watch."

"Perfect!" she beamed. "Dave – go back to your quarters and see Rimmer. Tell him we told you to lend you Holly?"

Lister stared. "Whatcha mean, 'lend me Holly'? He's a supercomputer that runs the whole ship! Not a digital palm pilot!"

"Our Holly is. Trust me. Go find Rimmer."

Lister made a face at the thought, but he got up and left all the same, leaving Kochanski to counsel Kryten on his new 'gender'.

Rimmer slumped in the chair in the tiny little 'recreation area'. Had these chairs always been this uncomfortable? He heard the wristwatch whistle, and he decided he would need to stand up to receive it. He aimed it at the mirror, and Holly appeared. "What's new, Hol?"

"Kryten's been sentenced to the women's wing due to not having male genitals," the computer replied.

Of all the responses he could've gotten, that one hadn't even breached the top ten. "But he doesn't have female genitals either," Rimmer pointed out.

"No, it's a bit backwards, the Space Corps," Holly said with a 'shrug'. "There's a directive forbidding officers with false teeth from performing oral sex in zero gravity. Also, the Cat's been put in a 'restricted area' for not being human."

Rimmer shook his head. "If it hasn't got at least ten full-length mirrors, he'll make them miserable."

At the sound of footsteps behind him, he quickly deactivated the watch, making Holly disappear from the mirror. He turned around to see Lister walk in, dragging his feet and looking a little sullen, implying he felt uncomfortable.

"So," Lister said slowly, "we've all been dead for three million years."

Rimmer nodded, acknowledging this probably would be a bit of a shock for him.

"And we're only alive again because of some fluke down to a bunch of microscopic little robots."

Rimmer nodded again.

Lister's eyes narrowed. "And you swear you never tried anything with Krissie?"

"I swear," Rimmer groaned. God, this man had a one track mind.

Lister slapped his hand on the door button, and it slid shut behind him. "She says you have a senile version of Holly in a watch. There might be something in Starbug's wreckage that'll help you escape."

Rimmer looked at him for a long five seconds before removing the watch and handing it to him. "Be very careful with this," he said sternly. "It's the only place we can keep Holly for the time being."

Lister looked offended. "Oh, come on, man. Give me a break. I'm not some totally hopeless – whoops!"

The watch slid right out of his hands, but Rimmer managed to catch it in time. He gave Lister a look of utter contempt before regaining his composure. They needed this buffoon-ish git to help them escape. He took the other man's wrist and attached it for him, making it just a little too tight out of spite.

"We're counting on you, you gimboid," he said in a fierce whisper. "Do not screw this up."

Lister nodded sheepishly. "Sir, yes, sir," he mumbled.

The door suddenly slid open behind them, and they jumped at the sight of a guard looking impassively into the room. He looked at Rimmer. "Your inquiry begins in an hour. I am to accompany you."

"Splendid," Rimmer grumbled. He gave Lister one last stern look before accepting his escort.

While the inquest went on, Lister used the Holly Watch to bluff his way into the landing bay. He hadn't been here since he'd first joined up, and right away, it looked so much bigger than it had before. Before, there'd only been one Blue Midget and maybe three Starbugs, but now, both shuttlecraft had fleets. Smeg, things really had changed.

He found the three sections of the burnt out Starbug they'd crash-landed and found several corridors spilling out of them, almost like the three sections held more than should be physically possible. He peeked inside the mid-section and found a galley gone all topsy turvy, and a few sections of sleeping quarters. A few extravagant suits, cleaning supplies, paintings and opera CDs littered the place. He tried to find something useful, but according to Holly, the Sleeping Quarters mostly just held personal artifacts.

He dug through the burnt out cockpit bubble, trying to find something. Holly seemed to only vaguely know where things were. Apparently, he'd been separated from the crew for a long time. Still, he seemed to know where a few things were. He suggested something under the pilot controls. He opened a locked cabinet just as blackened as the rest of the burnt-out husk, and he saw the contents still completely intact. He found a few bits and bobs – screwdriver, jazz CDs, cans of tuna fish – before he came across some vials. He plucked them out and saw the labels.

"Holly, what's this?" he asked.

Holly appeared on a nearby monitor. "Arnold got them years ago from this scientist called Landstrom. They're positive viruses. One gives you sexual magnetism, and the other gives you luck – well, until your natural body defenses combat the virus."

Lister furrowed his brow. "And he kept it up here? In this cockpit? Where Kris usually works?"

Holly tilted his head in a 'shrug'. "Probably. I don't remember them ever using them after Kochanski got that holo-virus. Might have forgotten about them for all I know."

Lister still couldn't shake the disgust. The very idea that Arnold Rimmer, a man with no scruples, might have tried something with his Krissie. Then again, if he had, he doubted Kris would've put up with it, and they wouldn't be the terrific pals they are now. Shaking his head, he pocketed the vials and slipped back through the hatch.

Kochanski fidgeted in her uniform. She hadn't worn this blasted thing since the 'before times'. It pinched in certain places, itched in others and felt entirely too tight everywhere else. She glanced across at Rimmer, who wore the male version of the khaki getup. He managed not to move too much, but she could already see his leg jiggling urgently under the table. She put a reassuring hand on his wrist, and he gave a tight smile in response, reading her silent request to stop before she ripped his leg off and whacked him over the head with it.

Cat and Kryten sat on the other side of her, looking the same as always but incredibly out of place in the legal setting. All four of them crammed behind this long rectangular table made them look like a pitiful version of the Last Supper.

"Why did the nanos land us in this mess?" Cat whispered. "That's what I wanna know."

"They must've contracted some sort of virus," Kryten whispered back. "Hence all the mistakes?"

"Mistakes?"

"Yeah, haven't you noticed?" asked Rimmer sardonically. "The ship doesn't look like a botched child's model out of a kit. Even my old quarters are different. The bunks are actually comfortable, and the chairs are so fancy they have armrests."

Kochanski nodded. "The scuttlebutt is that the ship's been restored to its original design plans," she said quietly. "Apparently, the JMC made a lot of cutbacks back in the day, and we've gotten all these free upgrades. Bio-organic computer networking, deflector shields, karaoke bar – you name it."

"Oh great," grunted Cat. "All these improvements, and we're going to prison where we can't use any of 'em!"

"Not to worry," Rimmer assured him. "I'm sure the nanobots upgraded the prison as well. Only the finest slop-out buckets."

The guard behind them suddenly ordered them to their feet, and they all stood. Kochanski took a deep breath as Captain Hollister entered, flanked by two female officers – Dr Karen Newton, a medical officer, and Security Officer Sanchez – who Kochanski could only recall vague interactions with before the accident.

"All right, sit down," said Hollister, setting a file down on the table in front of him. "Let's get this inquiry underway."

Everyone sat down, and they waited as Hollister skimmed the files in front of him before looking skeptically across at them.

"You have refused defense assistance?" he asked, patronizingly disbelieving. "Is that right?"

Cat held up his pencil to ask for a moment, and he gestured for the others to huddle around him. "Okay, this is what we do," he whispered. "I've seen a lot of TV shows, and we all huddle together like this. It looks like we know what we're doing." He pulled out of the huddle and responded to the Captain coolly, "We intend to defend ourselves." He huddled with them again like a giddy schoolboy. "You see how good that looked?"

Hollister looked at the files again. "We have studied all the psychiatric reports, and we have determined that you are all fit to stand trial except," he gestured at Kryten, "maybe him, but we're going with it anyway."

Kryten looked sheepish but said nothing.

"Are you familiar with the mind scan?"

Kochanski barely listened as Cat brought them into another huddle. She knew all about the mind scan. It involved drugging the accused, wiring them to a mainframe and seeing how they behaved in artificial reality to determine their innocence. Not exactly a pleasant prospect. Still, as long as they went through the motions and kept up the pretense, they could get out of this and return to whatever passed for normal with them.

At the end of the meeting, Hollister had them sign consent forms and seal them in their envelopes, saying they would reconvene tomorrow morning. They licked the envelopes and allowed themselves to be marched back to their respective quarters.

Hollister rubbed his eyes as he returned to his office. Everything had gone all topsy-turvy overnight. Somehow, they'd ended up three million years into deep space with a heavily-modified ship. How the hell did it happen? His top officers remained baffled. What could they possibly do now?

He'd only sat in his chair for two minutes ruminating on this when he received a buzz on his intercom. "Captain – Catering Officer Timothy Duncan wishes to speak with you. Shall I allow him in?"

Hollister frowned. He hadn't ordered lunch. What business did a catering officer have with him? He pressed the button and asked, "What's he want?"

After a pause, the voice returned. "He says he may have useful information concerning the Starbug case."

Hollister considered sending him away, but then, he dimly recalled that Tim had a relationship with Kochanski at some point. He normally didn't pay attention to those things, what with him being Captain to over one thousand people, but word still got around. "Send him in," he said at last.

A minute later, his door slid open, and Tim entered, saluting smartly before standing to attention. "Captain," he said briskly.

"At ease," Hollister replied, allowing the other man to relax. "You know something about the ongoing case?"

"I have an inkling, Sir," Tim replied. "It's just that I saw Third Technician Dave Lister entering Kochanski's quarters earlier today."

That piqued Hollister's interest. "Lister? Weren't he and Kochanski involved at one point?"

Tim made a face but managed to reign it in to stay professional. "For a time, I suppose, but he looked incredibly shifty. I suspect he's involved in whatever is going down in Kris – er, Kochanski's case."

Hollister nodded thoughtfully. He reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. "Okay," he said. "This is what we'll do…"

Author's Note: Part Two is next week!