Intergalactic Alps

Lister, Kochanski and the Cat were all deemed good enough snowboarders to compete against newbies and veterans galore. They had a day off from the practising, so they thought ‘why not get to know the other boarders’. They went down to the lobby full of riders and proceeded in mingling. For some odd reason, the three humanoids were really nervous about meeting their competitors.
“Well hello there lovely lady.” The Cat made a dumb move in tryina impress Zoe Payne. Especially in front of Psymon Stark, but never mind.
“And who are you?”
“I’m the Cat.”
“You’re a cat? Explain please.”
“Well. I don’t usually do big words, but I evolved from cats. The beginning of my species was the Great Mother Frankenstein who lived over three million years ago, and funnily enough so did my buddy Lister.” He pointed Lister out to Zoe.
“He looks pretty young for a three million-year-old.” Zoe remarked. Lister noticed that Zoe was eyeing him up and walked over, leaving Kochanski to converse with Kaori Nishidake.
“Hey bud.”
“What have ya been saying, Cat?”
“Only how I came into existence.”
“So, um, Lister is it? You’re, like, three million years old, right?”
“Well not really, I’m 25…” And Lister explained about the radiation leak on Red Dwarf wiping out the crew and he was in suspended animation for three million years, and that he just happened to be the Cat’s God, except that Cat didn’t believe he was a God; he was a total slob. And Zoe - as well as Psymon - listened intently but were both reluctant to believe all this, and still listened in spite of this.
“I swear you two are senile.”
“I’m not senile. If anyone’s senile, it was the ship’s computer Holly. He was all alone for that long, his IQ dropped big time.”
And Zoe, as unbelievable as this sounded, wanted to hear more. And she did hear more, much to Lister’s frustration as he didn’t wanna confuse her.

Suddenly there was a crash, bang, wallop that sounded like something big and heavy falling down the stairs and it wasn’t a person. This almost gave Lister a heart attack.
“What the smeg just happened?!” Lister exclaimed with a hint of fear in his voice.
“That will be Nate having a bitch fit. Again.” Psymon answered, rather informatively.
“And this Nate geezer, does he usually have a bitch fit?”
“Um. Yeah. Every time he loses a bet or something. I swear the guy’s crazier than me, and that’s saying something.”
“Damn right. The guy’s a sore loser. Unlike him, the rest of us can accept defeat gracefully,” Zoe agreed.
“Well now… it makes me wonder what I’m putting myself in for dunnit?”
“Oh don’t worry. The competition’s tough but you’ll have the time of your life.” Zoe said as though she were advertising a skiing holiday.

*The first day of racing approaches*

“Come on guys, show us your Übers!!” Zoe called to the Dwarfers as the four of them raced down Garibaldi. Determined to outshine them all, Cat went first. He got to the biggest coming jump, and as he was airborne, he flipped his board so he’d be standing on its underside, on which he did his signature Cat Dance. When he was done, he flipped the board back the right way up and landed with cat-like grace.
“Nobody outshines the Cat.” Cat taunted, which slightly provoked Lister, who incidentally took his turn to show off his signature Über. At the next ramp he jumped as high as he could, so he took his feet off the board, held it like you would a snooker cue and did an air-pot before putting his feet back on the board and landing his trick with that extra style, as much needed for his Snooker Cue.

It was Kochanski’s turn. She believed her trick was the most daring of all, so when she got enough air she took her feet off the board and spun it anti-clockwise around her wrists while she spun herself clockwise 540 degrees before grabbing her board and getting ready to land, which she did with so little air to spare, the guys thought she would wipe out. This trick, she named Sub Zero.

Zoe was impressed, particularly with Kochanski’s Über.
“Wow, Kris, you’re giving Psymon a run for his money there! What made ya think of that?”
“Well, I’ll admit I was mentally designing tricks in my head, and I wanted a daring one and the Sub Zero kinda sprang to mind. For some strange reason it was inspired by Mortal Kombat…?”
“Well even so, it’s a pretty cool trick.”
“Thanks Zoe!”
“My pleasure.”

And the four riders carried on down the track.

Lister soon returned to his cabin, claiming to be dead knackered - but really being a bit embarrassed that he was outdone by his love interest Kochanski - and he was getting himself prepared to relax when he heard a knock on the door, so he answered.
“Hi. You must be Dave Lister.” The brunette said.
“I am indeed. And you are…?”
“Elise Riggs, Ice Queen.” The woman named Elise introduced herself, whilst inflating as much of her already hot air balloon-sized ego as humanly possible.
“So what brings you here, Elise?” Lister asked, fairly suspicious of her outstanding beauty, and sounding rather nervous actually.
“Oh, I never really had a chance to meet you when you joined us officially, and the Cat Man holds no interest to me-” Elise began, before getting interrupted.
“Oh really? That Cat seems to think he’s the best-looking entity in the history of all seven universes, so if you say that to him you have a lot to answer for, mate.” Lister’s voice was quite shaky now… hmm, what could possibly be the matter?
“Hmmm…. Interesting. I’ve never met anyone with an ego as seemingly huge as mine but I’ll give him a shot.” Elise winked.
“Yeah, good idea.” Lister was really playing nervous because as he said this, Elise was playing with his dreads.
“I’ll see you later then, Lister.” She said seductively and left Lister alone in his cabin.