Author's Notes: Oh man. This episode, man. I breezed through the first two so confidently, and I got halfway through this one and got stuck for months. Seeing as this is a Kryten episode, Rimmer and Kochanski don't have a huge impact on the direction of the plot. Still, I finally managed to get it going again, for no other reason other than to get to the other side. Thank god there aren't that many Cat episodes.

A dainty pinky extended, Kochanski took another sip of tea before replacing the ceramic cup on the tiny plate and smiled at her friends. "It's been an absolutely smashing day, hasn't it?" she asked.

"Absolutely splendid!" said Mrs Bennett.

The other girls all giggled in agreement.

"We must go for another stroll around the forest later, Miss Kochanski," said Elizabeth eagerly. "The weather is so splendid, and it would be ever-so-fun!"

"Agreed," said Kochanski, smiling at her eagerness.

Okay, so Pride and Prejudice World didn't offer up much in the way of excitement, but Kochanski still adored it if for no other reason that she just revelled in the nostalgia of it all. She spent so much time here in school that she had every last minute of it memorized. She knew all the cheat codes, the hacks and the replay button, so she knew exactly how to make the game work in her favor.

Right now, the thing she wanted working in her favor could be seen gardening right about now. Wearing a t-shirt, a bandana, a flat cap and toiling away in the hot sun with a shovel, the Bennett family's gardener took a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. Kochanski knew him to be a background character, mainly to make the game less empty than if it only had the main characters, but he'd driven her wild at age fourteen in Cyber School. Watching him dig with that shovel, his toned arms lifting it with ease…

She began to fan herself. Simply too much excitement to carry on the game like normal.

"Is everything all right, Miss Kochanski?" asked Lydia curiously.

She whipped her head back in their direction, remembering they existed. "Oh, yes!" she said cheerily, absently licking her lips. "In fact, I was just thinking of something…"

"What was it?"

Kochanski brightly responded, "Hack one-seven-three-two - ditch sisters!"

The world around her blinked, and in an instant, the Bennett family blipped out of existence and left her alone in the gazebo.

Taking one last sip of her tea, Kochanski smiled to herself and glanced over at the gardener, removing her bonnett and leaning against the wall. She gazed out at the gardener as he went through the motions. She admired him for a few moments before she called out to him.

"Coo-ee!" She waved her handkerchief daintily. "Excuse me, good sir!"

The gardener looked up, curious, and when he saw her, he smiled and approached. "Can I help you with anything, miss?"

Kochanski smiled and muttered, "Hack two-two-four-nine - gardener flirt hack."

The gardener blinked, and then his smile became incredibly flirty. "I must say, you look very relaxed here in the shade."

"Indeed, I am," she replied, leaning back with an inviting smile. "I don't suppose you'd care to join me."

The gardener smiled. "I don't know if Mr Bennett would approve."

"I think he'd be very glad to know you were helping one of his guests."

With that, the gardener stepped inside the gazebo. "Very kind of you to offer, ma'am," he said, immediately grateful for the shade.

"Please," she said with a smile, moving nearer to him. "Call me Kristine."

"Okay, Kristine… To what do I owe the pleasure of your invitation?"

Kochanski responded by closing the distance between them and planting her lips on his.

Kryten waddled into the AR Suite and found Kochanski frenching the air with a VR mask, gloves and boots.

"Ma'am, I think you should come and take a look at this," he announced. When she didn't follow, he spoke louder. "Ma'am, it really is quite urgent!"

Then, Kochanski began to lean against the railing around the AR platform, almost as if something were on top of her. She began running her hands up and down something. "Oh god, I dream about these shoulders!" she groaned, her tongue wagging about.

Sighing with frustration, Kryten knew the only solution. He picked out one of the three remaining VR masks, slipped on the gloves and boots, and began typing at the wall console. He pulled up the game in question and attempted to enter. A graphic flew up and greeted him.

"Choose your character?" he read. "Oh, honestly! I just want to talk to her! Oh, anything - engage!" He didn't even bother to read the character bio. He just stabbed the buttons and lowered the mask. "So frivolous!"

He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the change of scenery. He stumbled briefly, noting he'd suddenly acquired long gray hair with sideburns, a three-cornered hat, a white cravat, a brown waistcoat, and a dark frock coat. Bewildered at the sudden clothes, he searched for Kochanski.

His eyes fell on the gazebo. He noticed a familiar arm reach over and grip the wood, digging with nails.

Curious, he thought, and he made his way over.

Knocking on the side, he heard a gasp and a muffled grunt before Kochanski popped up, her hair going in every direction. "Kryten?!" she hissed. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

"Ma'am, I've just got the results of the chemical scan, I've discovered minute amounts of millenium oxide in the local vicinity."

"Yes, and…?"

"I believe we've wandered accidentally into a rogue simulant hunting zone. That would explain the devastation on the derelicts where we picked up this very game."

"Kristine?" asked a masculine voice.

A young man with equally messy hair and lipstick on his face popped up, only to leap away from Kochanski in alarm. "Mr Bennett, sir!" he exclaimed, already running out of the gazebo.

Kryten nodded courteously. "Good afternoon, sir."

"I'm sorry, sir! It was this woman! She seduced me! I never meant to become involved with her!"

Kochanski rolled her eyes. "Yes, women always love it when you throw them under a bus," she snarked.

Kryten looked more perplexed than anything before readdressing Kochanski. "Ma'am, you have to turn off the AR console. We have to close down and continue on silent running in order to avoid detection."

Kochanski groaned. "Can't I just wipe his memory and start again? Wouldn't take long!"

"Ma'am!"

"Okay, okay." She eyed the nervous gardener. "I'll finish with you later."

She and Kryten clapped their hands, and they vanished.

Rimmer sighed with relief as the lights in the cockpit went dim. With silent running finally in place, the only early warning beacon they had was the Cat's olfactory sixth sense. Leaving him in charge of the joystick, he set off to the mid-section to check the readouts.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps down the retractable staircase and saw Kryten come down. They exchanged nods as the mech departed to the cockpit, and then Kochanski's footsteps signaled her arrival. He still couldn't get used to her having footsteps.

"You took your time," he admonished. "Where've you been?"

"Playing Pride and Prejudice World," she said.

"Again?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't know if I appreciate your tone, Mr Rimmer."

"You're going to pull rank on me to get out of admitting you're using the game for sex?"

"I do not! I've enjoyed that game since I was a teenager!"

"When the hormones are just getting warmed up?"

Kochanski savaged him with a glare. "I enjoy the stories. Pride and Prejudice is a fascinating look at life as a young woman in the eighteen hundreds."

"Do a lot of the aforementioned 'looking' from the floor, do you?"

"Rimmer!"

"I'm sorry, but if you'll recall what happened last week, I popped in to get something, and there you were, lying flat on the floor. If I hadn't noticed that you were actually thrusting down there, I might've thought someone had knocked you out cold."

Kochanski glared at him, but a small smirk tugged at her mouth. "Well… just for future reference, I don't like it that rough." She winked saucily and headed into the cockpit while Rimmer looked increasingly nauseous.

Kochanski sat down in her navigation seat. "So what've we got?"

"We've wandered into Rogue Simulant Country," said the Cat.

"How come we've never heard of that before?" Rimmer muttered as he joined them.

Kryten ignored him. "Biomechanical killers created for war that never took place," he explained. "Some of them escaped the dismantling program and now they prowl around deep space, searching for a quarry worthy of their mettle."

"Don't suppose anyone's up for, y'know, leaving the zone?"

"If we do, we risk losing Red Dwarf," said Kochanski. "I say we keep going but keep a low profile."

Rimmer shrugged. "Just thought I'd offer the sane option."

They continued for a few minutes until the Cat sniffed the air. "Wait. I'm getting something."

"Powering up," said Kryten, putting the ship at full power again.

As the lights came on, Kochanski saw the results on her radar screen. "Scanners report a battle class cruiser on intercept," she announced.

Switching on the vid screen, they saw the ship in question. It had two large laser cannons mounted on a U-shaped section with the main cockpit and cargo bay in a lower section in the middle, making it look vaguely like a cow skull.

"It's rogue simulants, all right," Kryten confirmed.

"Odds of us outrunning them?" Rimmer asked.

"About the same odds as finding a retail customer without a god complex, sir." Then, his console beeped at him. "Receiving a message."

He stabbed the button, and the screen over him flickered into the contemptuous face of a Rogue Simulant Captain, complete with double-eyebrows and a grumpy-looking mustache. "State your species and purpose," he demanded in a hissing gruff voice.

Rimmer hid his face and tried muttering to Kryten, "Don't suppose you'd be able to talk to him, you not being human and all?"

"Perhaps, sir," said Kryten out the side of his mouth, "but if they work out I'm working with humans, it won't do very good."

Kochanski nodded thoughtfully. "Then we need to make ourselves scarce. Try and keep them talking while we hide out."

"Me, ma'am?! On my own?! But how?!"

"Lie! Lie your metal arse off!"

Kryten squirmed uncomfortably as the others shuffled out the hatch. He watched forlornly as they scurried into the midships, and then he heard a door slam shut. Swallowing heavily, he engaged his lie mode and peered up at the screen to smile amiably at the Simulant Captain that glared at him.

"State your species and purpose," the Sim growled. "Why do you delay?"

"Oh, beg your pardon, sir," Kryten said pleasantly. "Merely had to lock up the penguin after taking it for a walk."

The Sim stared blankly before leaning in close. "Our scanners detected human life on your vessel. Is this so?"

Kryten's eyes widened theatrically. "Humans?! Why, golly gee and whilikers! I haven't seen a human in donkey's years!"

He spotted a female Simulant who clearly whispered something into the Captain's ear. "Must be suffering from droid rot."

Kryten pretended not to be offended and smiled pleasantly. "So no, we have no humans on board. Just searching the cosmos for the nearest service station. Pip-pip!" He cut the video link and went to set the auto-pilot, but when he turned around, he came face-to-face with the Simulant Captain, who held a very large gun on his shoulder and a bored look on his face.

"Through there," he ordered.

Kryten's shoulders slumped disappointedly and walked into the mid-section while the Simulant proceeded to ransack the room. It peered under the scanner table, inside the waste disposal, in the galley, and then up the stairs. It found the ops room and opened a smallish medicine cabinet. Rimmer, Cat and a flickering Kochanski in her soft-light form smiled awkwardly back at it, wedged against each other.

"Sorry," said Rimmer. "No room. You'll have to wait for the next one." He pulled the door shut again.

The Simulant responded by ripping the door off its hinges and throwing it across the room.

Rimmer heaved a sigh as he uncorked himself and the others. "Okay, fine," he groused. "Have it your way."

They stumbled out as the Simulant pointed its gun at them, getting them lined up alongside Kryten. They stood in formation as it marched up and down in front of them, taking them each in.

"Human…," it grunted, glaring at Rimmer before moving onto the Cat. "And a humanoid." It eyed Kochanski distastefully. "A hologrammatical human." It finished with Kryten. "A mechanoid who is a slave to humans." It shook its head and continued to look around. "I had hoped for so much more."

Kochanski rolled her eyes. "My apologies that we aren't worthy of your murderous loathing."

Rimmer nodded. "You should probably be off then. Wouldn't want to waste perfectly good gunfire on us."

"Hell yeah," agreed the Cat. "In fact, why don't you guys head for the next galaxy? Heard there were some really killable humans in there!"

The Simulant seemed to ignore them, too busy looking at the equipment. "Primitive," it muttered. "You'll be no sport at all. I have no alternative."

Without missing a beat, it levelled its gun and picked them off one by one. Rimmer, Cat and Kryten slumped to the floor, while Kochanski's image retreated to her light bee, which clattered on the floor.

The darkness finally cleared, and Kochanski felt herself fade back into existence as her light-bee switched back on. She took in the room and found she had somehow gotten to the cockpit. She looked urgently around and saw the others all in their stations, slowly regaining consciousness. At least the psychotic droids had put them in their seats. How generous, she thought.

"How long have we been out?" she asked.

Rimmer rubbed his eyes and checked the navicomp. "Three weeks," he reported.

Kryten looked at his own screens with growing surprise. "Strange… the drive interface has been upgraded, and so have the engines."

Kochanski looked at her own screens, her eyes widening at what they told her. "And if this readout is correct, we're armed! Laser cannons!"

"They've even got rid of the squeak on the seat tilt control!" grinned the Cat.

"Who would've thought the best way to improve the ship was to hand it over to a bunch of xenophobic genocidal maniacs?" deadpanned Rimmer. "And that's what worries me…"

At that moment, the screen came back on, and the Simulant Captain looked back at them with his condescending boredom, his Lieutenant at his side. "We have made some improvements to your craft. Now at least you may prove to be of some small amusement."

"You have two Earth minutes before we attack," said the Lieutenant, and the link went blank.

Rimmer snapped his fingers sarcastically. "That's why it worried me."

Cat, however, looked strangely calm. "I know this game. It's called cat and mouse, and there's only one way to win; don't be the mouse."

Kochanski frowned. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying the mouse never wins. Not unless you believe those lying cartoons. We don't run! We strike! It's the last thing they'll be expecting!"

Rimmer shook his head. "No, the last thing they'll be expecting is for us to turn into ice skating mongooses and to dance the Bolero, and even though your plan makes about as much sense… I say we do it."

Cat looked at him in surprise. "You're gonna go along with one of my plans?"

"I mean, we can either run around like chickens and get gunned down, or we can at least try and humiliate them."

Kochanski grinned. "Nothing improves your chances of survival like sheer pettiness."

He smirked in return. "My survival mantra: 'be an utter bastard'."

"Then let's get started."

"Agreed!" said Kryten.

Cat still looked stunned. "Are you nuts?! Going with one of my plans?! What happens if we all get killed?! I'll never hear the last of it!"

But the others had already decided, and so they went to it. They acted as though they planned to make a run for it, flying in one direction away from the Battle Cruiser, but Cat suddenly wrenched the joystick around and doubled back. Rimmer immediately took charge of the laser cannons. He had experience with targeting thanks to war games growing up, and he had no trouble firing upon the enemy ship. He punched the air as they flew past, and they watched a small mushroom of smoke bloom under the front of the Cruiser.

"Bullseye!" he triumphed.

"All right," said Kochanski. "Let's double back and make sure we did the job well enough."

"Bringing her 'round," said the Cat.

He had just started to turn the joystick and take Starbug into a one hundred eighty degree turn when Kryten's station started sparking.

"What was that?" Kochanski demanded.

"The navicomp, something's wrong."

Kryten tapped away at his keyboard, but the face of the Simulant Captain appeared on the monitor above them, growling furiously, clearly defeated and prepared to take them down with him. "See you in Silicon Hell," he snarled.

A moment later, Starbug rocked slightly, and they felt the shockwave of the Cruiser exploding from whatever damage they'd managed. They didn't spare them a thought. They simply got on with inspecting the Navicomp.

"Shutdown all network links. The navicomp has been infected with a virus," Kryten ordered.

Rimmer attempted to make use of the controls, but he couldn't get them to respond. "We're locked on this course!" he informed them. "If we carry on ahead at this speed, how long before we hit trouble?"

Kochanski checked her screens. "If you define 'trouble' as a rather large moon directly in our path, about an hour."

Kryten came up with the plan to contract the virus himself, analyze its structure and cure it before it wiped out his core program. Everyone agreed to let him sacrifice himself, so he allowed the virus to enter his software. It overpowered him so greatly that he had to shut down all unnecessary systems so as to dedicate all his runtime to it. He slumped in his seat, just barely having enough time to tell the others to watch his dreams.

Rimmer and Cat monitored Kryten closely while Kochanski kept an eye on things in the cockpit for a while. She tried everything she could to break through, but the virus simply could not be beaten on her own. She retreated to the ops room to see if things had progressed any.

"Life signs are getting weaker by the minute," said Rimmer.

The screen they'd hooked him to crackled into life, and they found themselves looking at an old rustic Western town. Blacksmith shop, local tavern, stables, sheriff's office - the cliches you could expect from a Western film.

"What is this?" Cat asked.

"It must be how his core program is coping with the battle against the virus," said Kochanski. "His subconscious has translated the conflict into a sort of digital dream."

They sat back and observed.

The Sheriff stumbled drunkenly out of his office, slinging back a whisky bottle and getting down the last few drops before tossing the bottle into the streets. He stumbled awkwardly around town, not sure of his destination. He knew he needed to do his rounds. He needed to present the appearance of caring about his town.

He did care about his town, really. The citizens, on the other hand, could sit and spin.

His drunken legs guided him into the nearest saloon - the Last Chance Saloon. Such an appropriate name. He felt like this could be his last chance to make things right, but what those things were, he couldn't recall. Maybe it was his last chance to just forget everything.

Stepping inside, he heard the tinkle of a piano player peddling out some jaunty tune, and the patrons sat at tables, chatting, drinking, playing cards.

One such patron looked up at him as he entered through the doors, and a smug mocking grin split his ugly mug. "Well, well, well, Sheriff," he sneered. "Fancy a man of your sober disposition in a lowdown drinking establishment."

The Sheriff shuffled sheepishly as everyone laughed. "Now, now boys, I don't want any trouble. Just doing my rounds." He started into the saloon, but almost immediately, Jimmy stuck his foot out, and the Sheriff went crashing to the floor, his thud accentuated by the laughter of the crowd. He got back to his feet quickly and turned on Jimmy, a fury surging through him. "You shouldn't ought to have done that Jimmy."

The piano player mercifully ceased playing, and everyone scooted their stools back and made room as Jimmy got to his feet, his hands on his guns. "Why don't you try it, Sheriff?" he mocked. "They say you used to be faster than a toilet stop in Rattlesnake Country."

The Sheriff tried to keep a steady nerve, but it crumbled almost instantly as he remembered his current level of intoxication, plus the knowledge of having to keep up that level of competence. Much easier to just let it go and remain drunk.

"Sorry I tripped over your boot there, Mr Jimmy, sir," he mumbled sheepishly. "Didn't mean any harm by it." As the music resumed and everyone got on with their lives, the Sheriff addressed the woman behind the bar. "Give me two fingers of your best sipping liquor, Miss Lola, and make it the smooth stuff. The stuff where you get your eyesight back after two days. Guaranteed."

Before he could get his drink, he heard Jimmy's voice again, only this time, he sounded frightened. "The Apocolypse Boys is here!" he announced, sending everyone hurtling under their tables in alarm. He looked back and pointed a long finger across the room. "They's asking for you, Sheriff."

The Sheriff, his hat in his hand, felt fear surge in his stomach. "I'll be right out," he said. He took a sip from his shot glass, then a sip from another shot glass, and then grabbed a full whisky bottle and took it with him outside.

Four men sat upon four horses outside, all in dark clothing and wielding guns.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasures, sirs," the Sheriff said politely.

The leader of the group spat on the ground, and it fizzled like acid. "Name's Death," he announced from behind his bushy mustache. "These here are my brothers. Brother War…," he gestured to his monobrowed compatriot who fired flame from his mouth, "... Brother Famine….," he gestured to the plump man eating a chicken leg, "... Brother Pestilence," he gestured to the smirking man with flies buzzing around him.

The Sheriff smiled hospitably. "Well, you seem like a nice neighborly bunch of boys. How can I be of service?"

They responded by shooting a flurry of bullets at him, causing him to dance a frightened jig as they took his hat off and shot out his whisky bottle. When the firing stopped, he cowered at their feet.

"We want your sorry ass out of here," Death growled. "You've got one hour."

He spat another sizzler, this time hitting the Sheriff's boot, and the acid ate a great big hole in the toe. The four horsemen galloped away to the edge of town, disappearing under the overhead sign that read 'You Are Now Leaving Existence', fading like ghosts as they went.

The Sheriff stared after them, then at his discarded hat and the shards of his bottle. Feeling more hopeless than he had in his entire life, he removed his badge and threw it on the ground before slumping back to his office.

"His lifesigns are almost gone," whispered Kochanski. "He's not going to make it."

Cat looked frantic. "Isn't there some way we can get in there and help him? Somehow turn ourselves into tiny electronic people and get into his dream? Isn't there some sort of gizmo lying around someplace that can do that? And if not," he slapped the table, "why not?!"

Rimmer raised an eyebrow at him. "Look, I think we've all got something to bring to this forum, but I think, from now on, the thing that you should bring is silence."

Kochanski, however, felt an idea coming. "No, hold on," she said slowly. "Maybe he's got something."

Cat looked just as surprised as them. "Twice in one lifetime?! When you're hot, you're hot!"

Kochanski looked over at the adjacent AR suite. "If we link up the artificial reality console to Kryten's mind, we should be able to project directly into his dream state like it was a normal computer game!"

Cat grinned smugly. "What'd I tell you? We don't even have to leave the room!"

Rimmer looked at Kochanski. "What about you?"

"We'll shut all extraneous systems and power up my hard-light drive. Come on guys, let's get these wagons rolling."

The Sheriff wandered back to the Last Chance Saloon sometime later. He'd used up maybe half an hour getting his affairs in order. Now he needed trade in his affairs for whatever drinks he could afford them with. He stepped through the crowd - apparently something had taken place during his absence, but he didn't care - and brought a box full of his things to the bar.

"Here Lola, all my valuables are in this here box. You can have it all for one bottle of Mind Rotter."

Lola looked through the box with surprise. She pulled out a pair of guns. "You're trading in your shootin' irons?"

"No use to me. I've got the shakes so bad I'm like a couple of porcupines on their wedding night."

She pulled out a pair of carrots questioningly.

"I'm throwing in my mule, Dignity."

"Mr Sad Git or what?" a voice beside him said, but he paid it no heed as he received his bottle of booze.

A tap on his shoulder made him jump, and he turned in surprise to find a young woman peering up at him from under her stetson. "Kryten, it's us," she whispered.

The Sheriff tried to smile politely so he could get to his booze. "Sorry friend, I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

This seemed to distress her. "Kryten, snap out of it! You're fighting an electronic virus, remember? You're trying to create a dove program that can cure it!"

"I'll drink to that!"

But before he could, another man dressed in black and a sombrero pulled the bottle away from his lips. "The virus is winning. You've got to get your head together and start fighting it."

A loud crack interrupted them, and they looked up just as a bull whip coiled around Kryten's bottle and lifted it out of his hands. The crowd laughed as they found Jimmy on the other end, dangling the bottle mockingly over him.

"Want a drink, Sheriff?" he teased. "Why don't you come and take one?"

"Now now Jimmy, there's no need to be going around making me look foolish," the Sheriff wailed, reaching pathetically for the bottle just out of his grasp.

"Come on Sheriff, jump! You can get higher than that!"

The Sheriff felt a small hand push him back, and he looked down to see the woman had pushed him behind her. "What's your beef, pal?" she snapped. "Your testicles not feeling big enough lately?"

Jimmy glared at her. "Just having a little fun, ma'am," he replied curtly.

She smiled sweetly in response. "The name's Britt Riverboat," she said. "Fastest knife thrower this side of the Pecos. Think fast!"

She threw a knife that cut through the bullwhip, sending the bottle flying back into the astonished Sheriff's hand. She threw another that pinned Jimmy's shirt sleeve to the wall. He went for his gun, but she pinned his other sleeve, too. She then put an apple on her last one and flicked it through the air into Jimmy's mouth.

He spat it out and yelled to his two friends across the saloon. "Frank, Nuke, line his lungs with lead," he ordered.

As his two buddies got up with their guns, the Mexican dressed fellow took center stage with an impeccable sense of cool.

"Who in the heck are you?" Jimmy demanded.

"They call me the Kid," he replied in a thick accent he hadn't had earlier. "The Riviera Kid!" He did a little dance - somehow accompanied by a guitar.

Jimmy sneered. "Well, Riviera Kid, let's see if your shooting is as fancy as your dancing."

His two buddies both fired a single bullet each at him. The Riviera Kid whipped out his two pistols and shot the two bullets out of the air, sending them clattering to the floor in a brief shower of sparks.

The Sheriff, having forgotten his drink by now, grabbed his hat and started across the room. "Well, it's been mighty dandy meeting you folks," he said amiably, "but if I'm not out of here by sun-up the buzzards will be fighting the lizards for my gizzards."

A third man with a trench coat and a black string bow tie started to approach him, but the rest of Jimmy's friends started to attack. To the Sheriff's amazement, this third gent proceeded to demolish the attackers using only his fists, sending them flying away from them. One even went flying over the bar. Deciding to use the distraction as cover, the Sheriff hurried out the door.

As he ran for the edge of town, he heard the voices yelling for him to come back, but he ignored them. He kept running for that 'You Are Now Leaving Existence' sign, only barely aware of a brief guitar strumming behind him, followed by a gunshot, and then a few metallic clinks that seemed to come from all around him before he got hit in the head with the overhead sign, sending him crashing to the ground.

As the other three surrounded him, he frantically pointed to the nearby town clock. "But folks! I've got to leave! Look - it's ten to Death!"

"Okay, we've got ten minutes to sober him up and get him in shape!" said Riverboat urgently.

The other two hooked his arms and dragged him back.

A few minutes later, Britt Riverboat and Dangerous Dan McGrew sat on either side of him in the now-empty saloon. Jimmy and his friends had been cleared out by the Sheriff's three new friends, and they hadn't been in the mood to fight back. While the Riviera Kid had gone upstairs to chat with Miss Lola, the others forced him to eat bowl after bowl of raw coffee.

"Okay, one more time," said Riverboat patiently. "Who are you, and why are you here?"

"I'm some kind of robot who's fighting this virus, and none of this exists, it's all in a fever, except for you guys, who really do exist, only you're not really here, you're really on some space ship in the future. Hell, if that's got to make sense I don't want to be sober!"

The Riviera Kid came back downstairs. "I got his guns back," he said, "but look at the handles! They got little doves carved on 'em! And check this!" He opened the backs of the guns and showed them. "There's no place for the bullets to go!"

Riverboat took the guns. "This is it, Kryten. These guns must be part of it. Doves. Dove program. Is any of this sounding familiar yet?"

The Sheriff took the guns, feeling something, but he couldn't place it. "I don't know… I really don't know…"

As the Riviera Kid went to keep watch by the door, the Sheriff thought hard, studying the faces of the people before him. The woman, with her brown hair and ruby red lips, began to look familiar.

"Something's coming back now," he said softly. "You, ma'am - when I look at you I get an image of enough cottage cheese with pineapple chunks to stop up fifty colans." He turned to the gentleman standing over him. "And you, sir - there's something familiar about you, too. I get a name." He struggled to get it out, but it seemed to stick in his throat. "Smeeeeee!" he attempted. "Smeeeeeee heeeeeeeeee!"

McGrew looked strangely hopeful. "Smeghead?" he suggested.

"That's it!"

"He remembers me!"

Riverboat leaned down close to him, looking urgent. "The guns, Kryten," she said. "Do the guns mean anything to you?"

The Sheriff struggled to bring the memories forward, but he just couldn't. "Something, they mean something…," he groaned. "Ohhh, if only I had more time."

The Riviera Kid hissed from the doors. "We got company," he alerted them.

With no time left, everyone readied their guns. The Sheriff straightened his collar, feeling fear, but also some degree of understanding. He began to recall the names - Mr Rimmer, Miss Kochanski and the Cat. Starbug continued to run out of control. He wasn't the Sheriff - he was Kryten 2X4B 523P, and what a jerky middle name 2X4B was.

And as they stepped out into the open, he saw the Apocalypse Boys lined up at the other end of the street, and the rest of it began to slot into place.

"Well, Sheriff," remarked Death with an amused grin. "Got yourself a little help there."

"Now I remember!" said Kryten triumphantly. "You're a computer virus, travelling from machine to machine, overwriting the core program."

Death smirked. "Have infection, will travel. Let's see if we can't tip the balance a bit." He pointed his arm to the heavens and a lightning bolt emerged from it.

At first, it didn't seem to do anything, but Kryten glanced over at his crewmates and saw them waver slightly.

"What is he doing?" asked the Cat.

"Good question," said Kochanski. "That felt a little… odd." She pulled out a knife and tried to throw it at them, but on the backswing, it slid out of her hands and went flying backwards, and embedded itself in the nearby tavern wall. "Oh smeg," she groaned. "The virus must've got to the AR Unit."

Cat tried pulling out his guns, but he immediately fumbled and dropped them when he tried to do a twirl, accidentally shooting out the window of a nearby building. "Damn!" he gulped. "What the hell do we do now?"

Seeing the Horsemen smirk from across the street, Rimmer leaned over and whispered in Kryten's ear. "Any chance you could cook up that antidote real quick?" he whispered.

"I'm trying, sir," Kryten replied. "But I still need some more time."

Rimmer groaned in exasperation. "Fine. We'll have to buy that time."

Cat frowned. "And we're doing that how, exactly?"

Rimmer responded by grabbing Kryten and forcing him to run. "Follow the Rimmer-shaped blur!"

They all yelped and followed him as he dove behind the saloon. Gun fire went off behind them, sending plumes of smoke and a rainfall of splinters around them as they just barely made it to safety.

"How much time do you need?" Kochanski demanded.

"Roughly one minute and thirty-seven seconds, ma'am," Kryten replied.

"Then we're going to have to give them the runaround for that long."

More gun fire from around them, sent more dust and splinters flying, so they hurried through the rear entrance of the saloon. They ran through the rows of drinks in the back room before emerging in the main dining area. Right away, War came through the entrance with his red hot poker. He took a deep breath and flew a giant flame off it straight at them, forcing them to duck behind the bar.

While below, Kochanski pulled out a bottle of Rot Gut Whiskey and waited until she heard him come closer. She popped up behind the bar, almost prompting him to create another fireball, but she threw the full bottle at him. It smashed, sending the contents all over him just as he started to blow, and the resulting flames ended up setting him on fire. Unfortunately, he didn't seem very affected by this - just annoyed, really. He paused to try dusting the flames off, giving the others time to sneak around him and out the door.

Once outside, they saw Famine riding up on his horse, his gun drawn. They shoved over the wooden bench seat outside the saloon and hid behind it as he galloped past. As he went down the length of the street to make a u-turn, they ran from their hiding place and darted across the lane to the next building - a blacksmith shop. Rimmer and Cat, working together, got hold of a great big branding iron, still red hot after being left in the flames all day. They heaved it, and after waiting for Famine to come back around, they jabbed it forward as he galloped past again, getting him right in the chest, sending him flying backwards off his horse.

Gun fire went off over their heads, and they looked to see Death, Pestilence and a very badly singed War walking towards them, pistols drawn. "Looks like you've still got a little fight in you, Sheriff," Death growled with a smile. "Let's see if we can just snuff that light out."

But Rimmer, Cat and Kochanski formed a circle around Kryten, who continued to do his mental calculations. Just a few more seconds and he'd have it.

"You'll have to snuff us out first," Kochanski replied evenly.

Cat sighed. "I hate it when she gets brave. It's her most irritating feature, if you don't count stealing my earrings."

Death smirked. "Have it your own way." They raised their guns.

Kryten, however, pushed his way through the circle and faced down Death, his calculations complete and a triumphant smile on his face. "That won't be necessary, ma'am," he said calmly. "I believe we have bought enough time for me to complete the software antidote. So, you'll all indulge me for a moment," he turned to the Horsemen and acquired a fierce expression. "Go for yer guns, ya scum-suckin' mollusks!"

The Horsemen responded by firing their guns right at him. Bullets struck him, sending him staggering backwards, but he didn't fall. Instead, he reached into his holsters and drew his guns, but his guns transformed into a pair of doves. They flew across the distance between them, and the Horsemen seemed agonized by their presence. The four computer viruses fell to the ground in pain, slowly turning a sickly green color before vanishing completely.

Not a moment later, the world went dark, and Kryten sat up on the medi-scanner. He looked across and saw the others already removing their helmets, gloves and boots.

"I did it! I created an antidote!" he exclaimed.

Kochanski checked her watch. "Two minutes to impact!"

They shoved past each other out of the ops room, down the stairs, through the mid-section and into the cockpit, hurriedly taking their stations. The red hot lava moon filled the plexiglas viewscreen, bubbling furiously of molten magma and hissing steam.

Kryten feverishly started typing in commands at his wall-mounted super-futuristic keyboards.

"How long will it take?" demanded Rimmer.

"Just a few seconds! How long until impact?"

"Just a few seconds!"

Kryten continued typing away. "Loading it up… it's going into the navicomp!"

Cat began to count down the seconds as he tried to get his pilot's controls working again. "Five… four… three…"

"Oh god," Kochanski groaned, bracing herself.

"Impact!" Cat shouted.

They hit the planet's surface with a shudder. The cabin temperature rose to frightening levels, and they could hear the ship's structure grinding and hissing in reaction. Cat continued jerking the joystick desperately until, finally, it began to work, and they began to pull up. A few seconds later, they came back up and broke through the surface of the lava lake and re-entered the coolness of space.

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-hawwwwwwwww!" they all cheered.

Author's Notes: Next week - Emohawk: Polymorph II