Work Text:
LSTR-512 checks the logbook for the current cycle, standing at easy attention in the Penrose’s lower hallway, pencil lead resting on the thick paper as she checks through every task completed. All is in order. A standard day. Simple, yet thorough in the necessity of the work. Inventories, again. Checking integrity, again. The application of a wrench to a loose bolt, yet again.
She ticks off that final box. All her tasks are done. Time to liaise with her commanding officer, debrief, and head back to the calibration pod until the next cycle.
She clambers up the ladder, heading first to the Captain’s quarters, slightly taken aback when there is no shock of military-cut white hair. LSTR-512 eyes the empty table where they’d sat earlier in the day, nibbling on crackers, fava bean paste spread thin over the top. Officer Yeong’s eyes were heavy, thick bags under the eyes as she struggled with a thin, watery cup of powdered caffeine. “Comms duty today,” she had smiled, weakly.
LSTR-512 backs out of Officer Yeong’s bedroom, strolling into the cockpit with her back straight, her arms folded behind her back. “Flight Officer Yeong, I have completed my duties for this cycle,” she announces crisply.
No response. The white hair in the captain’s seat is tilted slightly. Still. Something stirs in her gut. She’s not sure what, but it is cold and profoundly horrible. “Officer Yeong?”
She strides over to the side of the chair, notes the way that Officer Yeong is slumped in the chair, her eyes shut, her mouth ever so slightly agar, the gentle rise and fall of her chest.
Her superior officer is asleep on duty.
LSTR-512 knows what should be done. They’re not too far out. They could reasonably make it back, if she turned the ship around. She’d just need to lock her in her quarters. Slide rations under the door for eight months. Stand watch, and keep the Penrose together as best she can with one pair of hands, with the other bound tight in the handcuffs kept deep in the storage bay for precisely this sort of thing. Let the Nation take Flight Officer Ariane Yeong away for gross misconduct, for dereliction of duty, give her a limited break before a new pilot was assigned to her, a new 512 commander, one who takes the role seriously, who doesn’t pass out in the captain’s chair, her face easy, her eyelids shut, her breath small and light in the cold of the deck.
LSTR-512 eyes the console. The radio blinks. It would be easy. So easy.
She spins around. She marches straight into the Captain’s quarters, picking around the still-unpacked boxes of books, records, paints. She slides the messy bed door open, with the sheets that haven’t been changed in weeks, and she fishes out the duvet that at this point smells just like her, and LSTR-512 wheels right back around into the flight deck. Ariane is still undisturbed, still peaceful, deep in the throes of sleep.
LSTR-512 gently, tenderly, places the duvet on her, makes sure to tuck it in properly, cover her feet, smooths the folded outside over to cover that last bit of exposed shoulder. Ariane doesn’t stir.
She takes her place in the co-pilot’s seat - her seat - and resumes her duty, checking the various readings and outputs of the console - silently, of course - to ensure everything is on track, is up to standard.
She stays like this for, well, for hours. Just the two of them existing in this small space, one deeply asleep, curled up in a chair slightly too big for her, responsibilities on her shoulders too big for her. It’s no wonder she’s passed out. LSTR-512 looks at her. Notes the little bit of drool curling down her chin, the huff and intake of breath. It looks cosy. A lot cosier than her own calibration pod.
LSTR-512 glances back out the cockpit windows. The stars shine down, bathing the cockpit in distant light; a constant, hopeful burn promising something, anything at the end of this assigned odyssey. And above it all, the silence. The nothing stuck fast between everything, the “did you know space is less than 1% matter,” the “imagine if we find a bit of that less than 1% matter, Elster,” the “I know you’re listening, Elster, don’t pretend you aren’t interested in space facts.” The strangeness of a name given so freely. Ariane gives so freely.
She mouths the name. “Elster,” quiet and whispered so as to not disturb her commanding officer. An odd name. A quirky name.
“Your hair’s so dark, so glossy, like a magpie’s plume,” Ariane had blurted out once, during a routine navigation check, sitting side by side in the cockpit.
LSTR-512 had blinked, nonplussed at the observation. “It’s just the standard Replika unit colouration.”
“I know. I still like it. It…I think it suits you,” and Ariane tilted her head, smiled. “We’re opposites. You’ve got all the hair colour I could ever want,” and a flash of teeth in a witty grin, “little magpie,” and for the first time she felt heat colour her cheeks. She didn’t even know she could blush.
Elster smiles at the memory. And outside, beyond the thick glass, the stars burn on.