Rimmerworld II

Reestablished Time

It was quiet on board Red Dwarf — that silence lasted for all but a few minutes until alarms started going off. "WARNING: Airlock doors opened. Life support system failure imminent." could be seen on multiple monitors on the ship.

Kryten happened to be cleaning, as usual, when it happened. "What is going on?" he wondered aloud. He hurried off to see what it was. Halfway to the drive room he was stopped by the Cat.

"Hey, bud!" Cat exclaimed. "Check this out!!" He whipped out a silver yo-yo from his pocket. "I learned something new about this shiny thing!"

"Not now, sir. I have to—"

"Look!" He started twirling it around like it was a propeller, even making the sounds. "If I move it like this..." After a moment of watching it, almost hypnotising himself, he staggered around the corridor. He dropped the yo-yo onto the floor. "Phew! I'm getting dizzy."

"Yes, that's nice, but I need to—"

Just then, he heard Lister calling out for him, followed by Rimmer screaming at him to shut up. Kryten was about to help when the entire ship lost power.

"Oh, smee." Even after years of training in the obscene vocabulary department, Kryten still couldn't fully form the word 'smeg'.

"What the hell's happenin'?"

"I'm not sure," Kryten replied. "but it can't be good."

In a few moments the back-up generator powered on. Both Kryten and Cat ran to Lister's aid, albeit too late. Rimmer's light bee was in the palm of Lister's hand by that point; he stood there, staring at it almost aghast.

Cat took one look at the light bee, severely disappointed. "Aw man!" he griped. "I always miss the good stuff!"

*************************************************************

The events that happened that night occurred all over again except for one small difference. For reasons unknown to Rimmer, rather than leaving he lingered a few moments longer. Instead of Lister waking up to see nothing he saw the hologram standing beside him.

"AHH, SMEG!" he shrieked, voice so shrill it threatened to crack the on-board back-up computer's screens. "Rimmer, what the hell?!"

For all of five seconds Rimmer forgot why he was standing there. "I-I was just... leaving." he said, staring out clear then ended in muttering.

Lister was still able to hear what he said, however. "Why? What, was I snorin' again?"

"N-no, I—" Rimmer's sentence abruptly ended; his light bee made the most upsetting cry, enough to make Lister judder profusely. Then it stopped just as suddenly as it started. Rimmer stood frozen in place, looking as though he'd seen a ghost.

"What's wrong?" Lister hopped out of his bunk and approached the locked-up hologram.

In that instant, the Cat strutted in, twirling and screeching loudly. "Owwwwwwww! Hey, buds!" He stopped when he noticed his human friend being extremely nervous and his hologrammatic non-friend standing still. "What's happening to Waterslide Nostrils?"

"Dunno. That's what I'm trying to figure out," Lister repeatedly waved his hand in front of his eyes, then snapped his fingers. "Rimmer? Are you home, man?"

A loud whir erupted from the hologram. His head twitched uncontrollably, then he was still once more, only for a moment. He then gave Lister a glare that was more icier than usual.

"What? What've I done now?" he asked, his voice cracking, scared out of his smegging mind.

Rimmer picked up Lister's home made guitar — a colander with guitar strings and the neck from the old guitar that Rimmer broke ages ago.