Life Lessons 1
BASED ON: Red Dwarf, set right after the end of Season 8
RATING: PG 13 (It doesn't seem so at first, but it'll get there soon enough)
SPOILERS: The whole hologram Rimmer/reincarnated Rimmer/Ace Rimmer thing might (okay, will most likely) confuse you at first if you haven't watched at least most of the seasons of Red Dwarf, but hopefully I've put in enough explanations to make it more understandable. Also, this is set right after the show's Season 8 finale Only the Good, so there will be lots of references to it.
SUMMARY: Sometimes it takes a child to teach the adults a lesson in life. This is going to be a long one.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, I'm the same Faeshadow as the one from http://www.fanfiction.net. I can post my story in more than one place, right? ;)
DISCLAIMER: Nope, don’t own Red Dwarf, or any of the characters besides Anna (oh and the bullies). Rimmer, Lister, Kryten, Kris, Holly, etc. are the brainchildren of the incredible Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. I can only hope to capture them in a way befitting Grant Naylor’s vision, and end up failing badly, I’m sure.
All right, enough butt kissing...on to the story.
“Well, well...who do we have ‘ere?â€Â
Anna winced. She recognized that scratchy tone anywhere, as it was usually pointed at her. Ever since they met on Red Dwarf in the Teaching Room where a makeshift school was set up for the older children while they and their families traveled from Io to Earth. Having a member of the family in the Space Corps, this made interplanetary travel rather inexpensive, not to mention giving the families at least a fraction more time to spend together. For Anna, however, it was a perfect chance for her parents to fawn over her brother Robert, and forget she was ever born. It wasn’t so bad, really. Now she had a chance to avoid her mother’s chastisement over not being pretty enough, or smart enough, or outgoing enough to ever succeed in anything...even getting a rich husband. Never mind that she was only fourteen. What the smeg did she need to be looking for a husband now anyway?
A booted foot jabbed into her rib, and she blinked up at its owner. Jane Dawkins – self-confessed bully extraordinaire -- was peering down at her, harsh, pale eyes squinting. “Oi, didn’ you hear me? I said get up.â€Â
Gulping, Anna stood, pressing her back against the wall of the corridor, mousy brown hair falling into her eyes. “Wh-what do you want, Jane?†she mumbled, silently praying Jane wasn’t in a violent mood today. She spent two days in the medi-bay with a concussion the last time Jane was in one of her moods.
More of Jane’s friends rounded the corner, slinking up behind their leader with hateful smirks. The larger girl hauled Anna up by her shirtfront so she could look the bully eye-to-eye. “I just want to ‘play’ with ya, kid. Innocent an’ all,†Jane smiled a disingenuous smile, then drug her along down the hallway as Anna kicked and struggled futilely.
“Aw, Janey, what are you doing? This is insane!†one of the other girls hissed in fear as the bigger girl popped open the stasis unit, the much smaller Anna still dangling from her grasp as the pudgy fingers of her other hand poked dumbly at the keys on the side of the unit.
“Janey,†another girl cautioned, “Y’know you’re gonna get yerself in trouble playin’ with the stasis units. What if ya can’t figure out how t’get her out?â€Â
“Then you will be goin’ t’find an officer to get ‘er out, now won’t ya?†Jane Dawkins replied nonchalantly and tossed the girl into the machine, slamming the door shut.
Anna pounded at the walls of the stasis unit, blood pounding in her ears in panic. “LET ME OUT!!†she screamed, but they couldn’t hear. The unit was airtight. Oh God, don’t let me die in here, she thought miserably, hot tears slipping down her cheeks, What if nobody comes looking for me? What if they forget about me? Its not like I’m much to be remembered anyway.
And then, everything stopped.
"Rimmer!" Lister called out into the empty corridor, as the rest hung back in the room they had stepped into the dimension from. "Don't tell me that smeghead ran off and hid," he muttered and called out again, "RIMMER!"
Kryten did a sweep of the room with his hand-held scanner and stopped at a small pile of white powder. "Oh dear," the mechanoid frowned.
"What in the world is that stuff, Kryten?" Kris asked, kneeling down to pick up a handful of the stuff and letting it sift through her fingers.
The mechanoid thwacked the device a couple of times, cursing the thing in binary. "This can't be right, ma'am," he finally said in English, "but the scanner's readings say that its..."
"Its what?"
"Who, ma'am."
Kochanski arched a brow, her eyes threatening Kryten with having his head ripped off and thrown into the garbage compactor if he didn't get on with it. "Excuse me?"
"Well, according to the scanner, that is...you, Miss Kochanski, ma'am."
Holly popped onto the watch screen, smirking slightly. "Yep. Dead, Kris. You're dead."
"What the smeg are you on about, you addled computer? I'm right here!"
Holly rolled his eyes. "Gordon Bennett...never mind. The pile is what's left of you in this reality, apparently. Just enough to grit the path with if it snows." Again, the computer gave a little smirk at his joke, once told years ago – again, about Kristine Kochanski – to Dave when he awoke from stasis.
With a look of disgust, Kochanski shook the remaining powder off of her hand and got to her feet. "That...is...disturbing," she stammered, wide-eyed.
"Wait a smeggin' tick," Lister said as he returned to the room, "There's piles of this stuff all over th' place. Its just like when I got out of stasis! Do ya think...nah, it couldn't be that we went back in time on accident, to when I got outta stasis. Kris was in th' drive room, not in the captain's quarters."
"The scanner doesn't detect your, erm, "pile" in the room, sir," Kryten informed him.
Lister's impish face sprouted a large grin as he grabbed the Cat by the arm and tugged him along. "Then I may still be in there, and will be getting' out soon!"
"Heeeeeeeey!" the Cat yowled as they ran down the corridor towards the section of the ship where the stasis unit was kept, "Watch the silk, man! I'm gonna have a crease now!"