[Smegit]

Simple letters could not suffice to describe the sound I made on waking…

“Mehaooowaaahaiaiaiaiupppp”, after all, I had been asleep for a number of months. Aching limbs stretched in every direction. Joints were tested to their fullest. Damn, it looked like I was waking up.

I hadn’t actually expected to be awakened at all to be honest. I was in such a low state when I went into stasis that I really didn’t want to face normal life again. I had managed a lot to be honest in my time playing with the Red Dwarf systems. Holly (the ship supercomputer) was now about 30 percent operational (not a vast improvement I’ll give you) but he at least could power the stasis unit and wake me in the event if anything untoward happened. Which it would seem it had happened now. Damn my luck!!

I had a good wash and shave, I needed to clear my head of all the murk from the months in stasis. Every monitor I passed by had an image of holly looking concerned, anxious that he needed to tell me something. But he could wait, I needed time to face whatever he was going to tell me.

Finally I felt a little better. I poured a huge mug of foul coffee from the automated vending machine and looked at the image of Holly. “So, what’s up?” I said.

Holly hesitated a little then he said “What’s up dude?” This was his standard opening line, but only when he was starting the conversation, not when asked a direct question. Weird.

“Holly, I just asked you that question”. He shook is head as if to clear it, “Yeah, sorry Smeg, still not 100 percent”.

“No”, I said “more like 33.33 percent. Sorry I can’t do any more with what we lack.”

“I know dude, I know. Half the time I don’t know where I am. Then I remember I steered a mining ship at light speed through an asteroid belt and survived. Sorry Smeg, what did you say?”

“Holly! You woke me! You must know why!!” Yep, I still had grumpy out of bed head on.

“Errrr, yes, we seem to have mislaid Starbugg”

I didn’t flinch, “Starbugg, as in the ship I have attached all the research data we ever had, the ship in fact that I was trying to re-create the jump drive to!”

Holly put his hands to his chin, as though trying to figure something out. He looked up at the sky, then suddenly seem to reach a conclusion, “Yes, that’s the lemon of what I talking about”.

I slipped back into the chair. What else was there? I had lost the last thing that was at least keeping me going in the right direction, although not particularly quickly. I had poured over certain things we knew when we had the jump drive. I had learnt a lot. The one thing I hadn’t however was how to get holly 100 percent operational without the nano-bots. He made the jump drive, although not in his current state. Back when his I.Q. was 12000!

I was slipping further into this black mood, when I half heard something else holly was saying.

“What? What did you just say?”

Holly gave me the look he gave to all people less intelligent than him (potentially everyone) and said, “I have also found starbugg, the pilot not the ship. Piloting Starbugg, the ship, not the pilot”

This took a while to sink in. Holly looked at me like a simpleton. And no wonder, that’s exactly how I was behaving.

“Starbugg has taken starbugg?” I ventured.

“It would appear so” Holly replied, “I don’t think he thought it would be a good idea to leave it here. He appears to be being chased.” That didn’t worry me too much, with its current equipment, little would catch the ‘bugg.

So bugg was out there, keeping our technology from thieves. Meanwhile I had had a huge lay in. This was the time to change all that.

“Holly, ramp up the laser cannons!”

“A supurb suggestion Smeg, with just two minor flaws:-

A)We don’t have any laser cannons, and :-

B)We don’t have any laser cannons. Now I know technically that is only flaw, but it’s such a big one, I thought I ought to mention it twice.”


OK, good point, well made. “Well, ramp up whatever we have and let’s get out there!!”

Holly smiled, “We are kicking bottom! We are de man!”

I sighed. “Holly mate, stop sounding like a smeghead…”