From: cs_d637@king.ac.uk (Paul Neve)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.red-dwarf
Subject: Re: Red Dwarf Meets Star Trek
Date: 21 Jan 1993 17:11:55 GMT
Organization: Kingston University
NNTP-Posting-Host: ceres.kingston.ac.uk
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

AAARRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

I'd already started one of these! I have been posting it to the Star
Trek newsgroups as I went along, and have received a favourable
response there. Anyway, I didn't post it here as I haven't seen
creative material here before...

Anyway... It's not quite like the one already posted; mine is half
serious with all the characters staying in character...

Here goes...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain's Log, stardate 44182.7

We are proceeding at Warp 9 to the Kugos VI scientific colony where 
research is taking place in regards to the creation of artifical worm-holes. 
Starfleet Command recieved a garbled transmission from Dr. Shane Athem, the
otherseer of the colony, approximately an hour ago. He managed to establish
that the colony was under attack; unfortunately, contact was lost before we 
could establish by whom. Since then no further communications have been
recieved with the colony, and the only tranmissions from this area have been 
a strange series of audio tones. It is suspected that the Borg are involved; 
a Ferengi transmission was intercepted by a listening post on the Federation 
border, describing a group of cube-shaped ships passing through the nearby 
Genetia sector and advising ships to avoid the area.
    This information, like any intercepted from Ferengi space would usually
be taken with a pinch of salt at best, but the Borg are never to be taken
lightly. The use of the phrase "cube-shaped ships", plural, disturbs me 
especially.
    Mr LaForge and Mr Data have made extensive modifications to our weapons
since our previous communication with the Borg, but their improvements
remain untested and neither of them can guarantee that they will have any 
effect on the Borg. Mr Data has also written a program that uses the
Enterprise's communication channels to transmit random pulses over the same
subspace domain that the Borg use to communicate, theoretically cutting off
the Borg's collective consciousness. The operative word is "theoretically";
as before, nothing is certain.
    It may be that Kugos VI remains unharmed and that the loss of
communications is a mere technical malfunction. However, if the Borg are
involved, I fear the worst.

***

"Mr. Worf, any changes?"
    "Negative, sir. We are continuing to recieve the same set of audio
tones from the vicinity of the colony, but no coherent transmissions."
    "Analysis of the tones, Mr. Data?"
    "Inconclusive," answered the android. "An unknown source could be
jamming the colony's communications, but if this is correct, they are
using an unknown technique."
    "Mr LaForge, report your status."
    Geordi's voice came up from Engineering.
    "Everything's ready, Captain. The warp engines are ready to transfer
power to the phasers, but I still can't ensure that the capacitors will
be able to take that much power. If it is the Borg, we'll have to take
the risk."
    "The shields?"
    "I can give you a solid energy barrier for around thirty seconds using
Data's new software, but I can't predict how much power I'll need. We could
find ourselves a sitting duck after we've used it."
    "Like you said, Mr LaForge, we'll have to take the risk. Bridge out."
    Picard sat back in the command chair, feeling his apprehension grow
more acute by the second.

***

Athem burst in as the floor quaked under the Borg assault.
    "We've got to get the out of here!" He looked closer at Drassum. 
"What the hell are you doing?" he said. "You've started the tachyon chamber!" 
He swerved quickly to avoid a piece of falling debris, tripping over the 
wreckage of a computer console as he did so.
    Drassum looked up for a second to glance at Athem. He continued to
punch buttons on his console as the attack intensified. As he did so, a
melodic hum began to fill the room, drowning out the sounds of explosions
and weapons fire.
    Athem staggered over to Drassum and peered at the flickering text on
the computer screen. His expression changed to one of horror. "Are you mad?" 
he cried. "You'll kill us all!"
    Drassum pushed Athem away from him. "You don't understand! This is all
I've ever been able to get to work all my life! All my life I've worked on
this, and after years of failed experiments and miscalculated formulae I
finally perfect it, and this happens! Well nobody's going to stop me now!
Not you, not Starfleet, not even the Borg!"
    Athem flew at Drassum, trying to tear him away from the controls.
"Don't you get it?" he screamed at Drassum's face. "Everybody will die!
You'll wipe out everything from here to the Neutral Zone! Don't do it!
We'll all die!"
    "It'll work now, I know it will! This time I've got it right!"
    "Don't be a fool! It's never worked before, why should it now? I'm
telling you, that equation will start a catastrophic chain reaction! Look
at those figures! For once in your life do something right!"
    Drassum pulled away and punched in the final sequence. "That's it!" he
yelled triumphantly. "They'll see! They'll all see now! Mock my research,
did they? I'll show them!"
    The console started to spark and the melodic hum which had been rising
to unbearable levels became a dischordant screeching. Drassum looked on in
amazment.
    "No! It can't be! I did everything right! There's nothing wrong! Why?
Oh, God, WHY?!!"
    He collapsed into a hunched up shape on the floor, sobbing.
    Athem looked aghast as the containment chamber started to vibrate.
The metal was glowing red hot due the intense heat behind it.
    Drassum got up and walked over to the console. He hit it hard, making
a visible dent.
    "Why can't I ever get anything to work?" He punctuated his words with
another thump on the console. "Why won't it work?" Thump. "Oh, please, 
make it work!" Thump. Thump. Thump!
    Athem looked at the man in disgust. He stomped towards Drassum, landed a 
swift uppercut on his chin and ran out of the room.
    The quivering mass that was Drassum remained where it fell.

***

"Captain! Single Borg vessel, firing at the colony!"
    "Visuals." The familiar cube shape appeared on the screen.
    "Mr. LaForge, are you ready yet?"
    "Sorry, Captain," said Geordi. "You'll have to wait a few more minutes,
I'm having trouble recalibrating the shield and phaser neutonals to 
compensate for the power increases..."
    Worf interrupted.
    "Borg vessel has changed the direction of its attack. Now firing at...
Captain, the Borg are firing on a convoy of shuttlecraft!"
    "Hurry it up, Mr. LaForge!" Picard looked at Riker. 
    "Let's give them something to shoot at that fights back," said Riker. 
    "Agreed, Number One. Helm, take us past them at full impulse, then hit 
them with full photon torpedo and antimatter spreads."
    The Enterprise shot past the Borg and let fly with everything it had.
The fireworks that occurred looked very impressive, but the Borg took it
in their stride, and retaliated by unleashing their cutting beam. Picard
was ready.
    "Evasive!" he barked.
    The Enterprise dived sideways, flinging itself clear of the Borg
weapon with mere feet to spare.
    "Missed!" crowed Riker. The Borg cutting beam re-targetted, proving
Riker wrong even as he uttered the word. Picard was almost thrown from
his seat at the Enterprise shook violently. The beam tore right through
the shields and carved a huge gash in the secondary hull.
    "Shields have failed," reported Worf.
    "Geordi, where's that extra phaser power?" asked Riker.
    "It's coming! I'm channelling warp power to the phaser banks... now!"
    Worf watched his console in amazment as the phaser levels climbed to 
impossible levels. He stabbed the controls; a wide beam of energy flickered 
into being between the Borg ship and the Enterprise, engulfing the cube 
shaped vessel in a crackling sphere of energy. The Borg ship shuddered 
visibly.
    "We have breached the Borg's subspace field," reported Data.
    "Hit them again," ordered Picard. "Let's see if we can do some damage."
    Data was just executing the command when the lighting on the bridge
increased to an unbearable insensity. All the controls went dead.
    Then everything went black...

***

At about this time, Kryten was hoping that Starbug's controls would go dead;
after all, a ship with no controls had to be safer than one with Rimmer as 
its pilot.
    "Look Kryten, that asteroid shouldn't have been there, that's all there
is to it. You just can't face being wrong, admit it."
    Kryten considered telling Rimmer exactly what he thought of him, but
decided against in. Mechanoids who use that sort of language never get 
into Silicon Heaven, he thought. He sure was regretting offering to give 
Rimmer flying lessons. It had turned out that Rimmer had never actually 
passed his shuttle piloting test. Upon close examination a large blob 
of Tippex was apparent on Rimmer's Pilot's License, and when this had been 
dissolved it was clear that the word that had been obscured was 
"provisional".
    After a month or so of piss-taking by Lister and the Cat, Kryten had
taken pity on Rimmer and offered to give him lessons. One set of holographic
controls later and Rimmer was in business.
    Or rather, he wasn't. Kryten had actually lost count - no mean feat for
a mechanoid - of how many near misses Starbug had endured with Rimmer at its
holo-controls. He could remember Rimmer narrowly avoiding Red Dwarf itself, 
several gas giants, three stars, two asteroids (this was the third), a 
two mile long Coke can, and a small statue of Elvis Presley, (Rimmer managed 
to find potential targets to collide with that defied sanity) but after this
lot the other mishaps all sort of dissolved into one. Kryten was gradually
losing his patience; another mean feat for a mechanoid.
    "Mr Rimmer, sir, perhaps it would be better if we packed up for today
and continued another time. Mr Lister will be getting worried."
    "Lister getting worried? He wasn't even out of bed when we left." 
    "Well, we did leave at 5 am. I think that's just a teeny bit early."
    "Time waits for no man." Kryten looked confused. "Julius Caesar said 
that, Kryten."
    Kryten was sure he didn't, but failed to see the point in arguing.
Rimmer took his silence as a cue to perform a loop-the-loop, which he
fluffed up miserably, almost smashing into the same asteroid again.
    "Sir, I really must ask you to be more careful!" said Kryten, his face
full of worry.
    "I'm always careful Kryten, you should know that by now."
    "Well, you're doing well for a beginner," said Kryten, not wanting to
hurt Rimmer's feelings, "but if you can't avoid asteroids on your test then
in all likelihood the examiner will fail you."
    "I didn't see it. Anyone can not notice a little bitty asteroid on a
screen. How was I supposed to notice it?"
    "Well sir, how about me shouting 'Mind the asteroid' in your left ear?
Didn't that suggest to you that all was not well?"
    "I didn't hear you."
    "Well, the flashing red alert lights?"
    "What flashing red alart lights?"
    "The loud siren noise and Starbug's navigation system shouting 'alert'?"
    Rimmer looked at the mechanoid through narrowed eyelids. "You're 
jealous!" he exclaimed.
    "I'm sorry, Mr Rimmer?" 
    "You're jealous because I'm a better pilot than you are after just three
lessons."
    Kryten was somewhat taken aback by this. "I don't think that's quite the
case," he spluttered. Not only was Rimmer a slightly worse pilot than Dan
Quayle's grandmother, but they had actually been on 623 lessons. Kryten's 
programming was kicking in now; "don't offend the human, don't offend the 
human," it droned. Kryten wanted to call Rimmer a smeg at unfeasibly loud 
volumes, but that probably came under the category of 'offending the human'.
"I can't be jealous," he said. "After all, I'm a mechanoid."
    "Well Lister's being teaching you how to lie, so how do I know you're
telling the truth?"
    Kryten stuttered incoherently. "Well, sir, er... sir... um... er, sir,"
he declared.
    "What's wrong, Kryten? Got hiccups?" said Rimmer sarcastically, as he 
went back to the controls. Kryten knew that Rimmer had returned to his flying 
without even looking over at him because Starbug started to shudder violently. 
Kryten sat back down, and started to practice saying "smeg". Lister had told 
him to keep practicing, especially when he was with Rimmer. Despite putting in 
many hours' worth of work he still couldn't get it right.
    Starbug started to shake from side to side, meaning that Rimmer was
actually trying to steer the ship in a course other than a straight line.

***

    The lights returned at half strength but only a small number of the
computer displays came back on. The main viewscreen remained black.
    "Damage report, Mr. Data?"
    "Uncertain, Captain. We appear to have been attacked with a precisely
focused subspace pulse, which has neutralised our main computer system. 
I am attempting to compensate using the backup systems."
    "Any other damage, Data?" asked Riker.
    "This is also uncertain, Commander. At the moment I cannot obtain any
accurate data from the computer."
    "What about the Borg? Did they generate the pulse?"
    "Unlikely, sir. They appear to be suffering similar effects to their
systems."
    Data's fingers danced over the controls and the main viewscreen flickered
back into life. The picture was full of static, but it was plain to see that
the Borg were having even more difficulties than the Enterprise. The Borg 
vessel was spinning towards the surface of the planet, hopelessly out of
control.
    "I would hypothesize that the Borg place far more dependence on their
computers than we do; this would explain why they appear to have been
affected more adversely than we have."
    Data's words went unheard as the rest of the bridge looked on in
amazment, watching the Borg spiral ever more out of control.
    "Borg vessel will enter Kugos atmosphere in exactly ten seconds,"
announced Data.
    Before it hit the atmosphere, a strange distortion appeared in the
Borg's path. It crackled with energy, flashing a cascade of swirling colours.
    The Borg vessel span straight into the centre of the distortion. To the
eye, it shrank slowly, then it quickly compressed into a single point, 
vanishing unexpectedly in a burst of blinding light.
    The Enterprise crew maintained an amazed silence for several minutes. It
was Data who, once again, finally broke the silence.
    "Captain, I have achieved limited access to the sensor controls. The
distortion appears to be a worm-hole of some kind, but it is unlike any we
have previously encountered."
    "Have they done it?" asked Riker. "Have the Kugos team actually created
a stable worm-hole?"
    Riker and Picard looked at each other. Both of them remembered at
exactly the same time.
    "The shuttles!" they exclaimed. Riker looked at Data.  "Have you 
got them?"
    "I cannot find the shuttles on any of our operational sensors."
    "Wait!" called out Worf, pointing at the screen. "What's that?!"

***

    "You're not watching, Kryten. You're supposed to tell me my mistakes."
    "Smeeeee... smeeeeeeeeeggggg, smeeeee! Oh, it's no use, I just can't
get it right!"
    "What ARE you talking about? Are you watching me or not?"
    Kryten was lost in concentration and wasn't listening. His whole face
screwed up with the sheer effort he was putting into his work.
    Rimmer quickly swerved to miss a white giant star. Good job Kryten
hadn't seen that, he thought. I can avoid things, if I try!
    In his jubliation at his first major solo success Rimmer completely
failed to miss the big wobbly temporal distortion thingy that had suddenly
appeared and flew smack bang into the middle of it.
    "Er, Kryten?"
    "Smeee, smeeeee.... what have you hit now, sir?"
    "Well... I haven't actually hit it."
    Kryten looked up. He looked at what was going on outside. He looked
over at Rimmer.
    "Well you can't hit something that isn't solid," explained Rimmer.
    "SMEEEEEEEGGGGGG!!!!"
    Suddenly they entered the heart of the big wobbly temporal distortion 
thingy and felt the universe come apart around them and their feet leak out 
of their nostrils.
    Starbug vanished amidst a dazzling array of special effects which would
have been utterly beyond the BBC's budget.

***

Lister knocked on the door.
    Silence.
    He opened the door slightly. "Cat?" he called.
    Still no answer.
    Lister opened the door wide and walked into the room. The Cat sat in a 
trance, unblinking, looking at something with a rapt expression on his face. 
Lister followed the Cat's gaze.
    The Cat was staring at a full-size holographic image of himself.
    "Cat?" asked Lister again.
    The Cat remained entranced by himself.
    Lister tapped Cat on the shoulder.
    Not a peep. Not a single twitch.
    Lister reached down and pulled the mains plug of the holographic mirror 
out of its socket.
    The Cat yowled and jumped five foot into the air. He whirled round to 
face Lister.
    "Don't ever do that again!" shrieked the Cat. "I've never been so
scared in all my life!"
    "What are you going on about? I only turned your holographic mirror off. 
Something's come up."
    "Worth interrupting a mirror session for?" asked the Cat. "Didn't you
consider the trauma that'd put me through?"
    "But Starbug's disappeared from our scopes," said a confused Lister.
    "So?! I'll have nightmares for a month now! Sheesh, some people have 
got NO consideration!" grumbled Cat. "If I don't get at least three hours'
self-admiration time a day, I get all stressed out and panicky!"

***

    Meanwhile, Rimmer had found himself abruptly transferred to the
holographic generation chamber aboard Red Dwarf. Where moments before he
had been piloting Starbug, he had suddenly found himself here.
    He sat on the step for a while, considering the events leading up to 
this. The piloting lesson with Kryten. The narrow miss with the asteroid.
The second narrow miss with the SAME asteroid. The utter non-miss with the 
big temporal wobbly thingy. And he had to admit, as non-misses went, it was 
a biggie. It was a whopper. A giant flame-grilled whopper of a non-miss. 
In fact, it was such a gigantic non-miss even Rimmer begrudgingly had to
class it as a hit.
    Eventually, Rimmer came to a conclusion. 
    "Oops," he declared.
    This just about summed things up nicely.
    He looked around the chamber once more. "Oops," he confirmed.
    Rimmer got up and toyed with the holograph controls. This was a real
control panel with a holographic projection of itself superimposed over
it, which allowed holographic crew members to use the console. Despite
actually being a hologram, Rimmer knew rather less about holographic
hardware than he did about, say, the Norwegian leather industry. He could
name every single recipient of the Hammond Organ Player of the Year Award
since 1926, but did not really know what "Temporal location of alternative
holographic generator identified - translating data for remote execution"
meant. This would have been a rather handy thing to have known at this
time, because this is exactly what had just appeared on the screen.

***

    "Sensors indicate that it is a ship of some kind." said Data. "I cannot
identify its design, as the computers are still inoperative. However, I do
not personally recall having encountered a vessel of this type."
    The small green wasp-shaped vessel continued to drift closer.
    "Is it anything to do with the Borg, Data?" asked Riker.
    "Unlikely, sir. The level of technology is too primitive."
    "Any lifesigns?"
    "I cannot obtain accurate readings. However, there is an Earth-normal
atmosphere aboard the vessel."
    "Number One, prepare an away team," said Picard. "Make sure they're
armed; we don't know what we're dealing with here. Best take Dr. Crusher
as well; there may be casualties."

***

The idea of asking Holly for help had crossed Rimmer's mind, but
that would have been embarassing. A hologram having to ask a senile
computer about holograms? No way, thought Rimmer. He was sure that
he could figure out what "Translation routine complete - ready to
transfer RIMMER.EXE to external system" meant. Arnold Rimmer, BSC
(Bronze Swimming Certificate) could deceipher a sentence of computer 
jargon, surely?
    A largish button marked "Transmit" on the control panel started
flashing and Rimmer hesitated with his finger over it. Then another
button caught his eye; it was labelled "Help".
    Great, thought Rimmer, and pressed it.
    "An alternative holograph generator has been located closer to
the intended potential temporal location of RIMMER.EXE than the
current actual temporal location of RIMMER.EXE," explained the computer.
"Press Transmit to transfer control of RIMMER.EXE to the potential site.
Press Cancel to return control to the default holograph execution system."
    Well that certainly clarified things.
    He noticed that the legend next to the button he had just pressed now
said "Help on Help". He pressed it.
    "Press Help to get help," elaborated the computer.
    "Ah," said Rimmer.
    He bent over the controls, unable to decide what to do.

***

"What the smeg is it?"
    "I'll tell you what that is," said Cat. "That is the most uncool
spaceship in the galaxy!" Having delivered these words of wisdom, the
Cat went back to doing his fingernails.
    "Any lifesigns, Hol?" asked Lister. Holly's face appeared on one
of the screens.
    "I can't tell," said the computer. "The time distortion's blocking
my signals."
    "Where's the two heads?" inquired the Cat, not taking his eyes from
his nail file.
    "What? What heads?"
    "Novelty condom head and Bonehead? Where are they? Are they on board
that flying Rubik's Cube?"
    "Rimmer's in the holographic generation chamber," announced Holly. "I
think he must have snapped back here when Starbug disappeared."
    This was news to Lister. "Rimmer's where?" he spluttered.
    "He's in the holographic generation chamber," repeated Holly.
    "Stay there, Cat!" said Lister. "Keep your eyes on that ship". He 
sprinted towards the Hologram Chamber.
    "Sure thing," said the Cat, once Lister had gone. Then he strolled
nonchalantly back to his room and turned his holographic mirror back on.

***

Rimmer was going to flip for it.
    He had got Holly to generate a holographic coin. Heads for "Transmit",
tails for "cancel". He flipped the coin.
    Tails. Cancel.
    Come to think of it, thought Rimmer, that was probably the most prudent
thing to do. Cancel usually means don't do something, and when you don't 
know what the something is, doing it isn't really a great idea.
    His finger stopped a millimetre away from the cancel button.
    What if cancel meant cancel program. ie, cancel him!
    Best of three, thought Rimmer and flipped the coin again.
    Tails. Cancel. Still.
    Oh, what the hell, thought Rimmer, and made to press the button.
    Suddenly Lister burst in.
    "What the smegging hell is going on here?"
    Rimmer whirled round to face Lister and in doing so, nudged the
transmit button.
    Rimmer had approximately 0.02 seconds to realise what he had done
before his holographic image shimmered, flickered wildly and vanished in
front of Lister's eyes.

***

The away team materialised into a cramped control room. There was not
a single panel that was undamaged; even the chairs that the pilots would
sit on had been torn from the floor and twisted out of shape, almost
beyond recognition. The display screens were all smashed, and the controls
were buried beneath a massive chunk of metal that had fallen through the
top of the craft.
    Riker looked round slowly. He whistled.
    "My thoughts exactly," said Dr. Crusher. "It's a wonder they're still
maintaining an atmosphere."
    Riker looked at Crusher. "Any lifesigns?" he asked.
    She looked up from her tricorder. "Yes... and no. It's not quite
registering as a lifesign, but definitely has organic components."
    "Where?"
    "Through there," she replied, pointing towards a doorway.
    Riker made to walk through, but Worf held him back.
    "Let me go and check first," said the Klingon. "As the Captain stated,
we do not know what exactly is out there." Riker considered, then nodded.
    Worf walked through the door.
    A pause.
    Then an inordinately polite voice said, "Excuse me sir, I'm terribly
sorry to bother you, but would you be so kind as to remove this control
panel from my head?"

***

"What the smegging hell is going on here?" repeated Lister. He walked over
to the hologram controls and looked at the display. Unlike Rimmer, he had
no qualms about asking Holly for help.
    "Hol, what's this going on about?"
    "Rimmer's program's been transferred to an alternate holographic
generator," answered Holly.
    "Why?"
    "Well, because he told it to!"
    "What a prat!" But then, Rimmer's claim to prathood was one that was
firmly established, and this statement was therefore nothing new.
    "Can't we just get him back from here?" asked Lister.
    "No, you've got to send him back from the alternate site."
    "Alternate site...? We've only got the one hologram chamber, so where's
Rimmer gone?"
    "How should I know?"
    Lister considered, then suddenly it hit him.
    "The flying brick! It must be on board that!"
    Lister started to sprint back to the control room, realised that he
was actually EXERCISING by running, and adopted a more leisurely pace.
    When the ship started shaking he started to walk briskly. It was not
until the sound of distant explosions reached his ears that he started
to run again.

***

Kryten looked up into what was positively the worst case of space mumps he 
had ever seen.
    "I am Lieutenant Worf of the starship Enterprise."
    "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Worf. I know a good cure for space mumps."
    Riker and Crusher walked in and gave Kryten curious looks. Kryten looked 
over at Riker.
    "Are you this man's commanding officer? Shame on you! He shouldn't be
working, he should be resting! Can't you see he's ill?"
    Riker looked at Kryten with his mouth wide open.
    Worf spoke up. "I am a Klingon," he explained.
    Kryten looked horrified. "You really mustn't put yourself down like
that!" He glared at Riker. "What have you been doing to this poor man to
break his spirit like that?"
    Riker's chin dropped down another two notches.
    "Worf isn't ill!" said Crusher. "He always looks like that."
    "Why?" asked Kryten. "Were you involved in some horrific accident?
Have you ever thought about corrective surgery?"
    Worf's head filled with visions of pounding this person's strange
shaped head against the floor, but decided that it wouldn't really go down
well with Riker.
    "No, that's what he's SUPPOSED to look like. He's a Klingon, not a
human." Crusher considered the most tactful line of approach, then went on.
"We're a bit confused about how you look, though. What exactly ARE you?"
    Kryten had always thought that the Infomax Data Corporation was so
massive that even the few primitives left untouched by civilisation
in the South American rainforests would have recieved at least one
piece of junk mail from them during their lifetime, so was surprised at
the question. Rather than answer it, he asked another question.
    "Could you please pass my left leg, sirs?" He motioned towards the
limb in question.
    Dr Crusher looked at the leg, picked it up and scrutinised it closely.
She ran her tricorder sensor over it.
    "This is extraordinary," she murmured. "Commander, this ...person... is 
a mechanism!"

***

The Cat looked at the apparition of beauty that was himself.
    The ship shook around him, but nothing distracted him from his task.
He had three hours of self-admiration to get through and nothing was going
to stop him. You'd have to drag him kicking and screaming to get him away.
    Without warning, someone materialised in front of his holographic
mirror.
    "Hey! Get out my way!" burst out the Cat in surprise. "Do your unexpected
materialisations someplace else!"
    The Cat looked at the newcomer closely.
    "Hey man, have you any idea how uncool you look in all that metal?"
    The newcomer did look severely unfashionable. He could beat Rimmer at
being the most unfashionable prat in the known universe, thought Cat. If
he was trying to achieve a futuristic look, he'd arsed it up no end. It 
looked as if the guy had just stuck metal and electrical components all over 
his body in complete disregard to all fashion considerations.
    "Cool is irrevelent," said the newcomer.
    Cat couldn't believe his ears. He couldn't allow that to go unpunished.
He retaliated. "You're so unfashionable, it hurts my eyes to look at you!"
    He turned to face Cat. Then he said it. The phrase the Cat would have
nightmares about.
    "Fashion is irrelevent."
    "BLASPHEMY!" yelled the Cat in a religous frenzy, and launched himself 
at the Borg.
    The Borg swatted him away as if he was no heavier than a feather; he
landed in a heap in the corner. The Borg made towards him. Cat started
to grovel.
    "Okay man, I take it back. You're slick, man! You're cool! You're
positively chilly! Man, is that a fashion statement or what? Where can I
get one of those outfits?"
    The Borg drew nearer. He still looked utterly uncool, it was just
now he looked extremely menacing as well.

***

Picard had seen many strange variations on the humanoid form during his
travels, but this one had to be one of the strangest. The man's head
looked as if all the curves had been removed and replaced with right
angles.
    He struggled to keep his surprise at the man's appearance from showing.
    "I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Welcome aboard the Enterprise." He held
out his hand for Kryten to shake.
    "Have you ever thought about wearing a wig, sir?" asked Kryten. "Wait a
moment... I think I have one in here." He released a catch on his side and
his stomach compartment opened. Then he put his hand in, withdrew something
that looked like an old English sheepdog and plonked it on Picard's
head.
    Kryten stood back to admire his work. He smiled at Picard. Picard stood
there, flabbergasted, with his hand still extended.
    "That's much better," said Kryten. "No-one would ever know that was a
wig." Picard made to speak. "Oh, there's no need to thank me," admonished
Kryten. "I'm just doing what a mechanoid should, serving humans." He
flipped his stomach shut.
    The Enterprise personnel all did perfectly serviceable impressions of
guppy fish at feeding time. Then Picard came to his senses.
    "Mr Worf!" he barked.
    Worf was oblivious to Picard. He was still in a daze.
    "Worf!"
    Worf stiffened. "Sir?"
    "Take this... individual... to the brig!"
    Worf grabbed Kryten's arm and frogmarched him away. Kryten was still 
beaming from ear to ear.

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Well... opinions, compliments, flames, anybody?

Part 3 (this is parts one and two) should be ready within the next
fortnight...

Email (INTERNET): cs_d637@ceres.king.ac.uk
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This post is shareware. If you read  | "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Worf. 
it and like it you are required to   | I know a good cure for space mumps."
send me 5 pounds registration fee.   |      (Kryten, upon meeting Lt. Worf)
-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
                                        Paul "Insanity is an art form" Neve
Newsgroups: alt.tv.red-dwarf