Title: Red Galactica
Author: chaos_eternus
Word Count: 698
Date: 08/11/04
Rating: T
Category: Humour, Crossover
Warnings: Its a Red Dwarf cross... that means, put all drinks down before reading, else your monitor might get wet....
Summary: Galactica meets the Red Dwarf...
Spoilers/Disclaimers: 33 I suppose...
For the record: I do not own, nor do I claim ownership of characters or concepts from Battlestar Galactica or Red Dwarf
“Did everyone make it?” Saul barked striding over to Dualla as the ship shuddered out of jump six hundred and sixty six. An Earth human would, based on the number of the jump alone, be expecting something to happen.
The Colonials hadn't yet figured the Devils number out.
“One second…” Dualla smiled, “all ships… Wait!” the smile vanished, rather abruptly replaced by a frown, “New Contact! Unidentified contact bearing 005 by 006 degrees”
“Christ, they're dead ahead!” Tigh spat out, “General Quarters!”
“Any ID on the contact?” Adama asked quietly, his glasses in his hand as he slowly strode over to Dualla.
“No sir, contact is NOT Colonial…” Dualla glanced up, “but isn't Cylon either”
“Frak,” Tigh commented, “possible first contact, and us in no shape to lay out the red carpet”
“Analysis of the ship please Dualla” Adama asked.
“Contact is very large… easily Battlestar size but no indications of weapons… roughly cylindrical, slightly tapered off at front with only one apparent engine bell at rear… wait… incoming signal!”
“Lets here it then” Adama asked, and the room hushed. Awe filled everyone's eyes as they waited with baited breathe for the first words from a possible alien race, one of the greatest events in human history was happening to them here and now!
Were they friendly or hostile? What great words of wisdom would these beings, whatever they were, have for them?
“You're very large, appear to be a warship, advanced enough to have figured out FTL drive and you brought friends. Therefore as Captain of this ship I have only one thing to say.
We surrender, unequivocally and totally, just please don't kill us…”
“Rimmer!”
Adama watched with incredulous and disbelieving eyes as the Starbug crashed into his landing bay. They even managed to hit both sides of the bay on their way in, something which Adama couldn't remember anyone having successfully managed before.
Except, Adama admitted to himself, for that incident in his youth when they had intercepted a freighter supposed to be carrying contraband only to find out later that not only had the contraband been of the hallucinogenic variety but they had been stored in the ventilation system in containers which hadn't properly been sealed.
It explained how easily the caught the freighter.
Luckily for him, it also got him out of court martial on medical grounds, he had managed to hit both sides of the bay that day too.
Crashed.
There was no other word for the sheer lack of skill shown by the Pilot, they were either high, drunk or in desperate need of some piloting lessons.
“Sorry about the piloting, Cat insisted it was his turn to drive and well, we didn't get rid of the rear view mirrors in time”
Adama decided quite firmly he wasn't touching that one.
Before he could speak however, the one he assumed was Rimmer from Lister's description(Smeghead of a hologram with a large H impressed permanently into his forehead) spoke up.
“Listy, I think Cat better stay aboard ship and there's three good reasons at 3 O'Clock”
Adama glanced around, but didn't spot anything other than Cally, Boomer and Starbuck looking interested at the new arrivals.
Lister on the other hand seemed to notice whatever was wrong.
“Oh, smeg it all to smegging heck. Cat, could you please stay aboard and keep an eye on the wing mirrors for us”
Adama realised as soon as Cat stepped out the door that he was in for a real bad day.
They hadn't mentioned over the radio that Cat was, well, a cat.
“Don't worry about the wing mirrors. See, I brought a spare”
Adama resisted the urge to groan as the mirror was flicked over every inch of the Cats face as he searched, comb at the ready for the slightest imperfections.
“Hairs looking good… Clothes are looking good… Looking Good. I'm looking good!”
They hadn't mentioned a narcissist streak wider than the Galactica herself.
“Hey, are those… girls?”
Adama groaned in time with Rimmer and Lister as the mirror flashed out again, followed by combs, hair gel, the works.
He knew he should have just stayed in bed.
Kara scowled as she saw Tigh walking the corridors, not even bothering to hide the bottle in his hand.
“I think Adama needs that more than you do right now”
“Heh, so do I, why do you think…”
“Brill-smegging-illiant!”
Kara and Tigh glanced at each other as Listers words echoed down the corridor, and reached silent accord. The bottle was opened, and each took as swift pull. If anyone of them was anywhere around, they would need the fortification.
Hell, Rimmer was so bad he had forced two cylons into revealing themselves just so they could be locked away where the strange humans… err… beings from the Red Dwarf couldn't find them.
Kara grinned, the expression on their faces when she had literally dragged a plastered Lister into the cell next to them was utterly priceless, a thing to be treasured and the only time in her entire life she had felt true sympathy for the machines.
“Nice guns”
“Thank you”
Tigh and Kara eyed themselves warily, just Lister being in the area sent their minds to the worst places and right now they were hearing a female member of their crew complement Listers guns just around the corner.
Their eyes crossed, and then they shuddered in unison.
“Yeah, any place around here where I can show how they work?”
“No, not really”
“Ah, but come on, you know they say with these things you can hit the target first time every time”
Muffled giggles assaulted their ears, then the softly voiced reply, “Well, the marine gunnery range is usually empty this time of day”
“NO!” they dived around the corner to see a bemused looking Lister holding up a massive rifle with bazookoid in flashy, but faded writing on the side.
“Aw, but come on, I just wanted to show off my gun”
Tigh and Kara shuddered in unison, and Lister laughed, “Somebody's minds going dirty places hey? Maybe you to ought to get together and get some, relieve some tension.
Kara and Tigh glanced at each other. The female crewmember, who turned out to be Cally took one look at their expressions, and dived for cover, abandoning Lister to his fate. If he was going to suggest that Tigh and Kara get together to their faces, then
Adama stopped, abruptly.
Glanced around the corridor once, rubbed his eyes as if to clear then of some phantom imprint then glanced across once more.
He shuddered.
“Explain to me what exactly do you think you're doing?”
“Well, you asked me to paint this corridor sir, to cover up the burn marks because your crew have never had the chance”
Adama glanced disbelieving at the new colour scheme.
“Oh, the colour scheme, yes, Mr Rimmer suggested it, he said that with so many females among your crew they might like a bit of space that actually looked feminine for them. Cat helped me pick the colours and the drapes”
Adama scrunched his eyes closed, praying to the Lords of Kobol that once he opened his eyes once more, everything would be as normal and this would all have been a bad dream.
Unfortunately for him, it wasn't.
He turned and left, Tigh could deal with that, he didn't want anything to do with it.
When he found Tigh and Kara chasing a fearful and scared Lister along the corridors, he just sighed, grabbed the discarded bottle of ambrosia and headed for his quarters, his mind firmly on one task.
One that involved this bottle, his own small cache of ambrosia and lots of glasses….