Karma's a Bitch (Red Dwarf)

[warminside]

Hey! Brand new to the forum, this is my first fic. This is based on the British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf, which I’m imagining won’t be hugely popular here, but the first two lines of dialogue appeared in the actual show (season 11, episode 2) and caught my imagination, so I ran with it.

Here’s a smidge of exposition if you don’t know Red Dwarf:

Set in the very distant future in space, there are four inhabitants of a mining vessel whose crew was almost entirely wiped out in a radiation leak 3 million years ago. The lone survivor was Dave Lister, who was in stasis at the time. Dave is a total slob and shit at guitar, but has moral courage. The ship computer created a hologram of Arnold Rimmer, Dave’s deceased bunkmate, to keep him sane. He’s a cowardly, selfish, pompous toss-pot, and despite being dead, is to all intents and purposes alive (also his massive nostrils are a running joke on the show, so …). The third character in this fic is the Cat, a humanoid lifeform that evolved over millions of years from Dave’s pregnant cat who was on-board at the time of the leak. He’s his own favourite person. Finally, Kryten is, simply put, a cleaning android who Lister helped break his programming to gain something approaching free will and human emotion. In this particular episode, they are investigating a crashed vessel, the crew of which are all dead. This concludes our exposition, folks. Hope you enjoy!

 

FIC BEGINS

“Look at this dust!”

“I love dust. After fluff, it’s my all-time favourite type of dirt!”

“I don’t, I’m al … ah …” Rimmer sighed, nose twitching as he squinted through the dust swirling through the air.

“I’m al – huhSCHEW!”

“Bless you, Rimmer. Ah, smeg, stubbed me toe …” Lister rubbed his foot against the inside of his leg.

“HuhSCHEW! Oh, this is typical, this is. Fan-smegging-tastic. I lose at mineopoly, have to put up with you burping Smeg and the Heads’ greatest hits for a week, and now instead of stu … stuh … huhSCHEW … instead of stuffing my fingers in my ears to block out your smeg-awful guitar playing I’ll be rubbing my poor, swollen eyes. Cursed, didn’t I tell you, Lister? Cursed!”

“No need to take it out on me, ya smegger, I didn’t make you such a weed. Here, take this.”

Lister held out a tissue, which snot would probably sanitise after it had been scrunched up in his pocket, and immediately dropped his torch.

“Ah, me foot!”

Rimmer took the tissue, although the tickling had somewhat subsided, and snorted with laughter as Lister hopped ungainly towards a table – a bad move, as more dust flew up his nostrils and he was forced to rub his nose frantically.

“Sir, are you unharmed?” Kryten said nervously, hovering over Lister as he dropped into a chair.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just slipped right outta me hand …”

“In that case, since there seem to be no clues to the cause of the crash here, I suggest we continue exploration of the ship.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll catch you up,” said Lister, grabbing his foot and lifting it onto a chair.

“Oww, not so fast, condom head!” burst in Cat, coming out of the corner where he’d been preening the dust from his hair. “Me first! Did you see the hair on that dead chick? I sure as hell ain’t gonna let you suckers snag any fresh and fancy hair straighteners before me! Yowwww!” He span out of the room, hands held aloft.

“Er – I’ll let you check out any … danger. Should keep the highest-ranking officer in reserve, you know. In case of … danger,” stammered Rimmer, and blew his nose nervously.

“Honestly, Rimmer, if you were any more chicken I’d have you in my vindaloo,” said Lister, shaking his head as Kryten followed Cat into the next room.

“Har, har. Are you ok, Listy?” Lister was prodding his foot gingerly.

“I don’t know, man, those torches are smegging heavy. I don’t really wanna put weight on it.”

“Right, I’ll try to find you some ice, then. Can’t have you slowing me down in an escape, I’ll want your body to throw into the path of a rampaging beast at the last possible moment.”

Rimmer started dusting off the freezer units that lined the canteen walls, unsettled by his crewmate’s pained expression despite himself, but – oh, smeg –

“Huh … asheww! Asheww! Asheww! Huh – huSCHEW! huSCHEW! ASHEWW! Guh.”

Rimmer wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, eyes tearing up so much he could barely see the icepack his groping hand found.

“Smegging hell, Rimmer. Why haven’t you taken allergy shots?”

“Allergy shots? Are you kidding me? Don’t you remember what the Medi-Bot did when you went in to get your ear syringed? I had to use a megaphone to hail you from the bottom bunk for a week. Besides – sniffff – I assumed holograms didn’t get allergies. I mean, who wrote that into the programming?”

“You can’t have the best of both worlds, Rimmer. You can’t enjoy sex and good food and skip the shoddy parts of being alive. You want hard light, you take everything that comes with it.”

“Well, I’m not exactly enjoying the benefits of sex, am I,” Rimmer grumbled. “The closest thing I’ve had to action in three years was when we found preserved watermelons on that derelict.”

“That was a good week,” sighed Lister, eyes glazed over. “Ah –“ he winced as he nudged his foot accidentally – “Come on, man, where’s me smegging ice?”

“Coming, coming,” sighed Rimmer, realising that exploring the depths of an unknown spacecraft might have been a more pleasant option than getting this close to Lister’s feet. He was beginning to consider it a small mercy that his nose was blocked. However, he had barely bent over to put the ice on Lister when the tickle in his nose massively intensified, and he was suddenly –

“haCHEW! ASHEWW! ASHEWW! ASHEWW! kngxt, kngxt, kngxt, knNgxt, ahhSHCEWW! ASHEWW! ASHEWW! Oh, smegging hell –“

Nose dripping, irritated tears running down his face, Rimmer collapsed into the seat next to Lister and desperately resisted the temptation to rub his eyes.

“Jesus, Rimmer.” Lister leaned forwards, concern in his eyes, surprised by the strength of the reaction. “Are you alright? Do you want me to call Kryten?”

Possibly due to his leaning forwards, Lister suddenly lost his balance, and fell spectacularly off his chair and onto his arse. The sight of him flat on his backside and moaning in pain was enough to send Rimmer into howls of laughter, despite his own discomfort. He leaned back against the table, holding his sides until his tears turned into tears of mirth, gasping for breath as Lister struggled to his feet.

“Yeah, yeah, very smegging funny,” scowled Lister, wincing as he put weight on his injured foot. “And how’re things going for you, Mr Dignified of Snotville?”

“I’m feeling much better, thank you,” sniffed Rimmer, and he did, actually – his nose didn’t burn any more, and the air even felt clearer. “Yes, I think your own continuous and terrific failure to act convincingly like the last human alive has put my own misfortunes quite into perspective.”

At that moment, the Cat and Kryten burst back into the room, Kryten’s arms flailing wildly.

“Wait! Stop! You mustn’t be nice to each-other!” cried a panicked Kryten, pulling the Cat’s bow out of his hair, who yowled in response and hit him over the head with a piece of metal pipe.

“Small chance of that, miladdo,” said Rimmer, watching amused as Lister rubbed his sore backside. “Making amends with this cretin is the last thing on my to-do list.”

“No, you don’t understand, sirs,” said Kryten, pushing Lister back onto the floor again, eliciting another cackle from Rimmer as he gave an indignant yelp. “We’ve discovered the cause of the accident. There’s a karma drive on this ship, and it’s been put into reverse. Whenever we’re mean, reality rewards us; whenever we’re kind, we get punished!”

“Well, I’m outta here,” cried Cat, leaping towards Starbug. “If I grace you guys with my presence any longer, I might end up in a neck brace!”

END

Quite short, I know, but I didn't want to drag it out. Do let me know what you think J

[MissBayliss]

Loooooove Red Dwarf. Love that episode. And love this fic ❤️ Welcome to the forum ?

[warminside]

23 hours ago, MissBayliss said:

Loooooove Red Dwarf. Love that episode. And love this fic ❤️ Welcome to the forum ?

Thank you so much :* Can't get enough of the show at the moment, so I'll be posting a couple more