Fragments of the Reclaimer

Better off a Coward

"How are the readouts now, Kryten?" Aria wondered, attentively staring at him.

"Mr. Lister's heart rate is elevated and... Oh..." he said, starting out fearful and ending in a grave tone.

"What?"

"Maybe you should... see for yourself." Kryten got up from his seat and allowed her to get a better view.

She soon found herself uttering the same thing as Kryten, in the same tone. "Oh..."

At first, there were hundreds of life signs for Rimmer on the readouts, then fifty, then ten; then at exactly nine-thirteen in the morning, current ship time, all hologrammatic life signs had dropped.

In that instant, Aria's entire body and state of being felt laden yet numb. She swallowed hard, eyes darting to each of her crew mates.

"Maybe he's switched off..." Jack suggested rather unconvincingly.

Slowly, she nodded. "Maybe..." However, she knew how bad he was, even before they dropped them off. "Something's wrong, I know it." she thought.

"Taking her in." the Cat announced.

Moments later, they landed behind Lister on the bridge. Despite hearing them come up, he stayed stationary, still looking down at the hard light bridge underneath his feet.

Aria was the first to step out. She ran up to him while the others slowly ambled behind, observing the area. Aria stopped beside him. "Dave?" She looked around, noticing the lack of a certain whiny hologram, which only confirmed her suspicions.

"Where's Goalpost-head?"

He stayed quiet for a moment. He exhaled shakily. "He's gone," he quavered. "He's really gone."

"Gone?" the Cat echoed, then scoffed. "What, is he hiding?"

He mirthlessly chuckled, somewhat amused that the Cat had the same thought as he initially did. Sombrely, he looked down at his feet. "Most of him is down there," he said, pointing at the light bridge.

Kryten staggered about; he was being careful where he stepped in case he'd inadvertently hurt Rimmer.

"I think he only held enough back to get us off the ship." His whole body shook; tears shone in his eyes.

"Sirs, ma'am, according to the psi-scan, the charges are set. We have less than two minutes. Suggest we go into leg-it mode."

Lister shook his head. "We can't."

"But sir—!"

"I am not leaving him here!" he shouted. He looked at him as though he could've killed him for considering it.

"There's nothing left of him to leave, bud! We've gotta go!"

Lister rushed over to the console. "No, there's—" He started pressing random keys on the terminal. He didn't want to give up on him just yet.

"Dave, stop." Aria continuously tried to make him leave, even though it killed her to. She'd never seen him so broken up before.