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All Factions have legends about
The Ship red Dwarf and her brave crew, to Quantar she was a mining ship
bringing great wealth to the Quantar Empire, to The Octavians she was a
dreadnought, boldly expanding and defending Ocatavian Space, to the
Soltain she was a great trading ship, boldly seeking out new and
incredibly profitable routes and bringing untold wealth to The Solrain
Empire. Every child in every sector is brought up on tales of
Arnold "Iron man" Rimmer and his irreverent sidekick
Dave "Listy" Lister, not to mention the rather
strange character who is just known as "Cat"! In
some legends and tales he is a genetic hybrid, in others, well, just a
cat! All factions speak in awe of the ships computer Holly,
who in all tales for some reason has an I.Q. of 6000.
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(This simple fact
has caused many TRI scientists to spend years of their lives
trying to find some kind of mathematical significance in the
number 6000. Most end their days with the conclusion,
"well, it's a pretty big number, not the biggest
admittedly, but pretty big")
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Some tales also speak of an
"android" know as Kryten. But tales mention him it
generally is as either some kind of mobile Ironing machine
or talking toaster.
Now, let the minds eye scroll forwards
to after The Great Collapse and focus on those three ships just
there! Go on, stop watching the 100 millionth episode of
Eastenders and look! Take three newly graduated pilots, several
cases of Antarian Extra Strong Beverage and shovel loads of
"some sort of meat type stuff" Vindaloo and there!
You have a disaster waiting to happen. The strange thing is;
It didn't!! This is their story.
Comet101's subconscious went
through the routine that any normal human being does when waking
up, arms equal two, legs equal two (the positive results of these first
two checks give the brain the courage to continue with the startup
routine.) existential dread equals 90% (the normal back ground
level for any living being. Scientist have postulated that this is
because all beings know that death is coming and are therefore born with
this dread "built in" as it were), possibility of instant and
excruciatingly painful death equals 100%. It was this last check
routine that resulted in Comet101....
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His
name? Yes well he doesn't like to talk about it! Oh
very well... It comes from answering the pilot
registration computers, "pleases speak your chosen pilot
name at the tone"......, at the same time as Nerox's
"What room number are we?" His full name is
"Comet101, No You Stupid Machine I Was Talking To
Him!." He uses the shortened form to save
embarrassment .
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...opening his eyes and screaming,
both because of the radars collision alarm shrieking at him and,
although he was sure that he HAD opened hi eyes, he couldn't see a
thing, Reaching up to his face he knocked the "Some Type Of Meat
Type Stuff, Extra Hot Vindaloo Curry" container from where it had
be resting on his face, onto the floor. "Oh no, here we go
again", thought the container. No-one knows why it thought
this, but it just did! One look out of the forward viewing
port resulted in another scream because it looked to Comet, in his
somewhat less than bright condition, as if they had come to the end of
the universe, and the universe ended in a big red wall! A big red
wall that was in serious danger of being decorated with Comet and
friends. It was at this point that Comet's subconscious decided
that, as Comet's brain had shut down in shear horror , it would
take charge of the body, and Comet leaped onto the pilots couch,
shutting down the radar in the process and knocking his carefully
constructed "Beverage Can Pyramid" all over the cabin where
drops of the aforementioned Beverage proceeded to integrate themselves
(rather successfully) into several important looking electrical
circuit boards. Comets subconscious, the brain was still "out
to lunch, dinner and tea", instructed the body to close the, for
some reason, fully open throttle, and apply full reverse thrust.
With the same sort of urgency that a glacier has when conquering land,
or so it seemed to Comet in his horrified state, the small shuttle came
to a stop. But not before it had lost it's shield and 20% of it's
armor against "The End Of The Universe". At this point
two thumps came from the cargo hold bulkhead behind him, at the
same time Comet's subconscious, realizing that the level of
"instant and excruciatingly painful death" had dropped to
background levels relinquished control of the body back to the brain,
which promptly sagged in the pilot chair. "Wow, thought the
brain, I did good! Yehaaa!
Comet was jerked out
of his reverie ( in which tales of his heroic pilot skills had been the
focus) by his two companions, and celebration partners, both
coming through the bulkhead hatch together. This was quite a
surprise to Comet as the hatch is only wide enough for one person.
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This
is possible due to "The Uncertainty Principle" which
states that we can never know the exact position of an atom nor
it's velocity or direction of travel as to observe it we alter
all or one of these parameters. As the process of
observing something alters what we are observing, this
leads to atoms being very uncertain themselves. In the
case of Comet's companions the atoms that made up the frame of
the hatch, being very uncertain as to whether they were
part of a one man hatch or a two, decided, for a
fraction of a second, that as two people were trying to go
through the hatch, then it must BE a two man hatch.
It's probably
Quantum or something!!
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It turned out that the
two thumps that Comet had heard were, in fact, his two friends who had
been asleep against the rear bulk head of the cargo hold, suddenly, and
in deference to the laws of motion, acquiring the same
velocity as the ship had lost when it contacted the "End Of The
Universe", and losing that velocity against the foreword bulk
head just as suddenly. When they were asked, at a later
date, the answer was "what inertial dampers?"
The three companions
looked out of the forward viewing port in awe (always a good way
to look at something) as far as they could see there was only red with
occasional, what looked to them like stripes. "Wow! this'll
keep us in mining recourses for years " remarked Durendal.
"Typical Quant"
said Nerox, "let's explore, there's bound to be some really cool
guns and stuff in a ship that big".
For ship it did indeed
look to be. Comet gingerly applied reverse thrust and slowly back
away a few hundred metres. As he did so it became clear to all of
them what they had found, for outlined in white (well, more of a dirty
grey) was the name Red Dwarf!! They had truly found the very
vessel of legend. There appeared to be quite a lot of damage
to parts of the ship, but other parts were fairly intact. It
was in these areas that the three friends searched for an entry, which
they eventually found in the form of a standard docking tube. All
three ships slowly edged inside......
TO BE CONTINUED...
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