Holo-Man

And Who Are You?

The Red Dwarf crew had been running low on meds and food for the last two months. They've been looting ships and getting handouts however they could. Lister was all too proud to be petty, but for Rimmer it was nothing new.

"We must've been to every ship, every planet by now." Lister sighed aloud. He sat in the common room, staring at what may be the last bit of curry he had.

Alarms began to wail. Red Dwarf's autopilot had found something on their radar: Something new. Everyone piled into the drive room and assumed their usual positions.

"What the smeg is that?" Lister wondered.

"I'm not sure, sir. The readout says 'Dreadnaught'." Kryten replied.

The name alone already had Rimmer's stomach in knots. It looked like an abandoned station just floating out in space. It was partially destroyed. There was no telling who or what did it.

"Never heard of it." Lister said.

Over the last few weeks they've discovered loads of planets and stations that weren't even on the map. This was the twentieth one so far.

"I think maybe it was meant to stay that way." Rimmer said to Lister. "Either way we should keep moving."

"Now hold on! There might be something left on it."

"Lister, look at it! It's tattered, there's no way even a microbe of food made it through whatever happened on there!"

"There is a beacon, sirs. There could be survivors on board." Kryten told them.

"See?" Lister said as he looked back to see Rimmer giving him that same stare of contempt he always gave him. "We're going."

He hopelessly shook his head. "Nope. We're staying on course." He firmly stood his ground.

"Rimmer, don't argue with me." he chided.

"As your superior—"

Lister sighed exasperatedly, "Here we go."

Rimmer glared at him once more before retrying his futile attempt to pull rank. "As your superior, what I say goes. And I say... we're not going!"

Lister took a deep breath. "Show of hands: All in favour of staying alive?" He and Cat raised their hands. "All in favour of dying a slow, needless death?" Then they put their hands down. "Two to zero. We win."

"Well, of course Bog Bot and I won't object! We can't die of starvation!" he exclaimed.

"That's not exactly true, sir. Since you and Mr. Lister are connected, in a way, if he dies of starvation or say of an untreated infection, you'll also die."

Rimmer looked dumbfounded as Lister just sat there and grinned. "Human: One. Hologram: Zero." Lister smugly said.

Rimmer sighed. "Fine, but I'm staying here. I'm not setting foot on that thing."

"Even better." He grinned.

The three of them left on Starbug to go aboard the station, leaving Rimmer by himself on Red Dwarf like he insisted. He decided he'd stay on the ship, manning the radio in case there was an emergency. It wasn't often that he had time to himself, sharing a bunk with Lister and living with two other unbelievable gits. He felt like he was back in his childhood days, feeling totally and utterly alone. As much as he couldn't stand their company, he couldn't stand their absence either. He sat at the cockpit's radio console, slowly becoming bored and staring at the walls. It felt like hours had gone by when, in actuality it had only been thirty minutes.