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Interacting with Lovelace has two settings—Minkowski decided this precisely three days after the Captain essentially took over the Hephaestus. The standard setting, the one Minkowski, Eiffel and Hera have the pleasure of working with most days, is paranoid and revenge-blind and borderline out of her mind. And not to say Minkowski is in any way a fan of this, but at least she understands how to deal with it. There’s a certain way of tilting the eyes down and a certain cadence to the voice that keeps things even-keeled.
Then there’s the other Lovelace. The one that Minkowski only catches in glimpses. It’s the Lovelace that made a (frankly irresponsible and idiotic) joke about alien attacks on an official log, the one that tells shaggy dog stories while they’re working on the shuttle, the one that refuses to let Minkowski die in an air lock, the one who was probably a damned glorious leader at some point. Once, Minkowski had the alarming experience of listening to Lovelace guide Eiffel through a check of the boosters and she made some flippant comment that pulled a bright, real laugh out of Eiffel, and Minkowski stared down at the mess of wires she was supposed to be sorting through and thought, I think if we’d known each other before, I would have looked up to her.
Minkowski has a harder time knowing how to handle the version of Lovelace that can create thoughts like that. Mostly she ignores it. The woman is still threatening the lives of her crewmembers. Have to keep that in mind.
And then, arguably, there’s a third part of Lovelace, though Minkowski has a harder time pinning down its existence. Sometimes Minkowski catches Lovelace looking at her. And it’s not the hard I-know-you’re-up-to-something look. And it’s not the I’m-the-leader-here-so-do-what-I-say look, either. It’s more naked than that. More vulnerable. It’s not long-lasting either. A few seconds, then it’s gone. Those looks frighten Minkowski. She tries to ignore them, too.
Then comes the day they reset the turbines (right before Eiffel’s lungs give out, but Minkowski doesn’t know about that yet) and Lovelace has that naked, frightened look again but this time for almost a full minute and this time while saying, “Imagine having to be a leader to someone in that kind of pain and fear and darkness for several months,” and Minkowski tries, and she can’t imagine. But she feels like she knows now what has the power to make Lovelace look downright fragile, and she comes very close to pitying her.
***
She almost loses Eiffel. It becomes a little easier to understand what Lovelace asked her to understand. Minkowski doesn’t think she’s quite there. But it’s terrifyingly, horribly easier.
***
Five hours and seventeen minutes after Hilbert declares Eiffel in stable condition, Lovelace looks Minkowski full in the face and says, “You look exhausted. You should grab a few hours.”
Minkowski does her level best to look like she doesn’t know what the captain is talking about, but the bags under her eyes have a physical weight.
“What about you?” Minkowski retorts.
“I’m the blood bank; I need to stick around in case something happens. And in the meantime, I can keep an eye on him.” Her eyes slide to Hilbert, who’s doing that thing where he acts like he can’t hear anyone. “Which means you have an opening to get some sleep. You should take it.”
She talks like she’s Minkowski’s commander. It should rankle Minkowski, just like everything about Lovelace has rankled her. But Minkowski is drained and shaken by how pale Eiffel still looks, and she doesn’t have the energy to deny the fact that it’s nice to have someone else command for a change. Lovelace watches her with that expression that would be cool and unyielding if it weren’t for the quirk in her right eyebrow that hints at the other part of Lovelace, the part that sparks.
“I need to be with my communications officer,” Minkowski tries.
“You’ll be better use to him once you’re rested.”
Minkowski caves.
She doesn’t catch much of the journey from the lab to her quarters. Mostly its watching her hands grab handles, push off, float forward, repeat. In her mind’s eye, blood spews in bubbles from Eiffel’s mouth. His eyes are fixed on her, and there’s nothing but a flat wall of panic behind them.
“Commander?”
“Fine, Hera.”
Hera is silent, but Minkowski swears she can feel her hovering presence. It’s silly because Hera is technically always present, but sometimes her attention feels heavier, like an extra layer of dust. Minkowski swings open the door to her quarters.
“I’m serious, Hera. I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Minkowski almost smiles.
“What the hell did you say to Lovelace?” Minkowski asks by way of distraction, dragging off her jumpsuit. It has rusted red stains on it. She folds it carefully and places it in the laundry chute.
“Sorry?”
“Lovelace. Seems like you talked her over. What did you say?”
“Oh. Not much. This and that.” A beat. “I called her the dumbest person I’ve ever met.”
“Huh.”
“It was very satisfying.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I can recite the whole speech for you if you want.”
Minkowski wants to say that she’s honestly exhausted, but Hera has an edge of strain to her voice and she could probably use a positive distraction. “Sure,” she says. “Hit me.”
Hera launches in with aplomb. Minkowski crawls into her sleeping net and snaps herself in place. And then she accidentally falls asleep three quarters of the way through Hera’s speech.
***
When Minkowski enters the lab again seven hours later, it’s to find Hilbert wrapped up in a sleeping bag in a corner of the room and Lovelace floating alongside Eiffel’s cot. She’s got her elbow braced against the cot’s edge, head in one hand. She jerks it up when the door squeals open.
“Hi,” Minkowski says. She drifts toward the cot and peers at her communications officer. She can pick out blue veins spiderwebbing across his eyelids. His chest rises and falls in a somewhat steady rhythm.
“He’s doing fine,” Lovelace says. Her voice sounds cracked, like she hasn’t spoken in a few hours. She nods to Hilbert in the corner. “He’s secure for now. I didn’t want to place him too far away from Eiffel, but he was starting to slur, so I told him to sleep, too.”
“And you?”
Lovelace returns her attention to Eiffel. “I’m fine.”
“Well, I can take over for now.”
“Sure.” Lovelace doesn’t move, which if nothing else sums up their relationship completely. Minkowski sighs.
“What, you don’t trust me to keep an eye on things?”
Lovelace lifts her chin slightly but doesn’t look over. “I do trust you,” she says.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t need to sound all that surprised, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, sorry, I seem to recall you calling me a coward and incompetent leader a few times over the last few weeks.”
Lovelace’s mouth quirks, and finally she looks at Minkowski. She doesn’t look tired, per se. But she does look washed out, her normally yellow-brown skin now an unhealthy beige. Minkowski wonders how much blood she’s given.
“I don’t think you’re incompetent,” Lovelace says. Minkowski raises her eyebrows. Lovelace rolls her eyes. “I don’t,” she says.
“You just think you’re better.”
“Lieutenant—“
“No, don’t bother. We both know you’re right.”
Silence. Lovelace inhales and speaks in the exhale, “Hera had a point,” she says. “That you’ve got your whole crew alive. And I don’t.”
Minkowski glances at Eiffel out of awkwardness. “Barely. Mostly through luck, I think.”
“Luck only gets you so far.”
Minkowski doesn’t know what to say to that; she doesn’t think there’s anything to say. Lovelace shifts position. “Se—Hilbert has a better handle on the virus this time.”
“Sorry?”
“His serum worked. Right away. Last time—“ Her face shutters, and something in Minkowski cringes. Lovelace brings up a hand to run briefly through her hair. “Last time,” she says in a deliberate voice. “You almost couldn’t tell if it worked at all. Sometimes it would make them stop coughing for a few hours. Sometimes it seemed to be making things worse.” Silence. The ship hums around them, constant and inaudible as the blood in Minkowski’s ears. “I guess,” Lovelace continues. “If nothing else, what happened to them has led to Eiffel surviving. I guess me and my blood coming back to this hellplace, that led to Eiffel surviving.”
Minkowski presses her lips together. “Doesn’t mean any of it is okay.”
Lovelace shrugs. “Yeah,” she says. “I know.”
They float in silence for several minutes, mostly watching the signs of life in Eiffel. Minkowski wonders how familiar Lovelace is with this kind of vigil. She must have spent hours in this lab watching peoples’ chests inch up, inch down, inch up again. Except this time there’s a chance that the person strapped into the cot might make it. Maybe Lovelace finds the change refreshing.
“You really ought to sleep,” Minkowski says.
“I really ought to,” Lovelace echoes. She doesn’t move.
***
Minkowski does not go so far as to call things between her and Lovelace friendly after that. The shuttle is still simmering on their starboard, and there’s still a bomb attached to Lovelace’s heartbeat, so no, Minkowski does not think things are out and out friendly. But most days, they manage to slide past one another instead of grate past. Lovelace is a tad less paranoid and controlling. More willing to talk, more willing to listen. And sometimes, for whole minutes, Lovelace becomes downright cheerful, and suddenly Minkowski doesn’t get a mere glimpse of the woman who made that stupid as hell alien invasion log. She gets an overwhelming burst of her. Eiffel, when he’s around to see it, gets this half surprised, half delighted expression that Minkowski would normally tell him to knock off, but she’s still too relieved at the fact that she gets to see his stupid face at all, so she lets it go.
“See, right now he’s still only pushing me five or six times a day,” Minkowski says to Hera as she directs herself along the central passageway. “When he reaches ten, I’m going to declare him completely healed.”
“Noted, sir.”
“Does Lovelace still want to speak with me?”
“She does, yeah. Waiting for you in the central processor.”
“How is she today?”
“Mostly sunny.”
Minkowski can’t properly reply because that’s when she reaches the processor room. Lovelace is there, crouched over one of their laptops and squinting. Minkowski pauses to watch her, and that’s when Lovelace’s eyes lift.
“Hey,” she calls out. “So, I’ve been working on something.”
“Oh?” Minkowski pushes herself into the room.
“About me,” Hera supplies. Her voice carries a tinge of hesitancy. Minkowski glances at the nearest ocular sensor.
“First time I’m hearing about it,” she says casually.
“Because up until now it’s just been talk,” Lovelace jumps in. “I didn’t want to bother discussing it with you until I—we thought it would go anywhere.”
“This is about bringing Hera with us,” Minkowski realizes aloud.
“We might…might have found a…theoretical solution,” Hera supplies.
“Well that sounds promising,” Minkowski breathes.
A funny expression steals across Lovelace’s face. “I ever tell you that you remind me of my former communications officer?” she says.
Minkowski keeps her own expression neutral, mostly out of confusion. She’s mentally labeled Lovelace’s old crew as strictly off limits, but Lovelace is speaking almost easily. Granted, she hasn’t said his name. She might not be at that point.
“Should I take that as a compliment?” Minkowski asks.
“Not sure.” Lovelace shuts her laptop. “So. The gist of the idea is that we compress her.”
“What, like a zip drive?”
“Umm, a little bit like that?” Hera says. “At least, enough to fit into the shuttle’s processors.”
Minkowski nods once, slowly. “And the consequences?”
Lovelace blinks like she’s trying to be innocent. Hera’s silence is definitely of the ‘you’re going to be mad at me once I say it’ variety.
“Varied,” Lovelace says.
“Potentially completely safe,” Hera chirps.
“Potentially causing long-lasting harm to her personality core.”
“But potentially little to no harm!”
“Numbers, Hera,” Minkowski cuts in.
Another long silence.
“Boiled down, this has about a 35 percent chance of working in my favor.”
“That’s…not the worst odds we’ve worked with,” Minkowski allows. She glances at Lovelace. “Better odds than the human passengers currently have.” Lovelace does not snipe back. She lifts one eyebrow, and damn it all, if that doesn’t come off as almost challenging. Like Lovelace wants Minkowski to get into this with her just to see what would happen. Minkowski wonders what happened to the shouty Lovelace. She thinks she’d prefer that.
“It’s a solution,” Lovelace says smoothly. “It’s the only current solution for getting everyone off this ship, which I’m pretty sure is what you’ve been gunning for the whole time. So unless you have a better idea, Lieutenant.” There’s a little snap to the way she says that last word that makes Minkowski glower.
“Do we really need to have the exact same argument?” she says.
“Sorry?”
“You swoop in to dump a brilliant plan on our poor, pathetic asses because we’re too timid and stupid to do it ourselves. It was old weeks ago, Captain, I’m really not in the mood.”
Lovelace throws her head back and laughs. It’s a full, rich belly laugh that ricochets off the room’s walls and vibrates in Minkowski’s sternum. It’s one of those times Minkowski wishes Hera had something approaching a face so she could exchange a look with her. She settles for glancing at the ocular sensor.
“Ohhh my god,” Lovelace breathes, wiping the heel of her palm against one eye.
“I’m glad someone around here finds me that scintillating,” Minkowski deadpans.
“No, it’s—“ Lovelace interrupts herself with a thick giggle. “You’re not as scared of me as you used to be.”
“I’m not?” Minkowski doesn’t know why she blurts that. It makes her sound like Eiffel.
“You’re talking to me the way…” Lovelace coughs out a laugh. “The way L—my coms officer used to when I would finally push him too far. You straight-laced types are so funny when you snap, you know that?”
Minkowski frowns. “Oh.”
“I just decided that was a compliment.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“No problem.” Lovelace sighs and rubs a hand down her face. “So. Compressing Hera. Best option, long odds, we hope for the best.”
Minkowski stares at Lovelace a moment longer then calls, “And what do you think Hera?”
“Do I like it? Not much, but there’s not a whole lot I like about anything that happens on this ship anymore,” Hera says. “I agree with Captain Lovelace. It’s our best shot.”
“There, see?” Lovelace points to the ceiling. “She gets the final call, doesn’t she?”
“I mean—“
“C’mon, Lieutenant, don’t make me rescind my compliment.”
Minkowski rolls her eyes. “I think I prefer you being angry and revenge-drive to being all…chipper.”
Lovelace blinks. “You think this is me being chipper?” she asks. “Oh, sweetheart—“
“Okay,” Minkowski butts in, “you don’t get to call me that.”
“What?”
“That word. Sweetheart,” Minkowski snaps. “Honestly, Lovelace, what are you doing? Flirting with me until I agree with your plan?”
Lovelace looks blank. Then she looks confused. Then she looks blank again. Shit. Minkowski is desperately, dizzyingly glad for her dark complexion because her face is steaming right now.
“Flirting,” Lovelace finally echoes.
“You know, talking circles,” Minkowski says. “Waylaying.”
Lovelace lifts her head once in half of a nod.
“Just stop doing it,” Minkowski adds, feeling very much like someone shoveling water out of a sunk ship.
“I…yes,” Lovelace says.
“Good.” Minkowski inhales. “I don’t like the plan, but we’ll go with it if we can’t find something better. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Minkowski turns and launches herself toward the exit. She wants to do a lot of things in that moment—most of them involving screaming—but she keeps it to herself all the way to her quarters. And then she merely drives her foot into the nearest wall and says, “Fuck” with deep feeling. She slumps against the wall and peers at Hera’s nearest ocular sensor.
“Hera?” she says.
“Yyyes Commander?” Her voice is way, way too polite.
“What ever you think you saw, you did not see, am I understood?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“And if the rest of the crew gets so much as a whiff, I will lay the blame squarely at your nonexistent, digital feet.”
“So, you mean Eiffel,” Hera said. Minkowski squeezes her eyes shut and suppresses a groan. “Because I’m pretty sure Hilbert doesn’t give a damn about you and—“
“Hera.”
“Right. Yup. Nonexistent, digital lips sealed.”
“Thank you.”
***
Six hours later, Lovelace discovers the consequences of Eiffel’s utter inability to do his job, and they somehow convince Cutter to renew them by the skin of their teeth. Eiffel is clearly back to normal, with all the disaster that implies. Minkowski and Lovelace spit at one another a few times, but Minkowski still doesn’t know what it means.
It’s days like this she almost misses the months of worrying Eiffel’s going to set fire to their ship via contraband cigarette.
***
Lovelace finds her a few days later in the engineering room while Minkowski is cleaning out the main vents. Corners her, more like. Minkowski feels cornered.
“I was just wondering,” Lovelace says a perfectly level voice with a perfectly blank face, “If you’ve given any more thought to alternative plans on how to bring Hera on the shuttle.”
“Yes,” Minkowski says. She cranks at a panel with extra vigor. Silence. “I’m still working on it,” she adds.
“Better work quicker,” Lovelace says. “We can’t wait around forever.”
“I know. We still have a few days, right?” Minkowski finally looks away from the panel to find Lovelace watching her with a tilted head.
“Sure.”
“Okay. So I’m working on it.” Minkowski is sure Hera’s listening in, but she’s not piping up. She’s probably distracted, but Minkowski has the niggling sense that she could also be waiting to see what happens.
“Lieutenant?”
“Mm.”
“Have you been feeling all right?”
Minkowski lets out a bark of laughter before she can help herself. “I haven’t been feeling all right since rotation 156 or so.”
“Not what I meant. I mean, I feel you, but not what I meant.”
Minkowski shoves the panel back in place and is left with nothing to distract her. She rests the cleaner against her hip. “It doesn’t matter. We need to focus on figuring out the shuttle.”
“I know.” Lovelace says. There follows a long bought of silence, and because Minkowski isn’t interested in staring at Lovelace, she finds herself watching Wolf 359 pulse beyond the small observation window. It’s beautiful. She has to admit that, despite all the other bullshit.
“Did you actually think that was me flirting?” Lovelace asks. Minkowski doesn’t move her head at all; she’s impressed with herself.
“God, don’t ask me that. Flirting is one of those things,” she says.
Lovelace shifts in Minkowski’s periphery. “One of those things what?”
“I dislike it, and it doesn’t make sense most of the time.” Minkowski hears a muffled snort. “No, don’t start,” she says. “We can’t all be the cool and funny boss who knows how to navigate every social minefield.”
“Do you think I’m cool and funny?”
“I think you used to be. And you still have your moments between being paranoid and being reckless.”
“Careful, I think that was almost a compliment.”
Minkowski peers over at Lovelace, who’s got a frankly unreadable expression. “See, this,” she says. “This feels like flirting to me.”
“Oh?”
“Why, what’s it feel like to you?”
Lovelace pushes gently against the panel nearest her and floats closer to Minkowski. Minkowski doesn’t move. She’s hyperaware of the cleaner resting against her hip and the scratch of her jumpsuit against her skin. Lovelace keeps coming closer. Minkowski can pick out the individual spirals of her hair and the scattering of old acne scars on her cheekbones. Lovelace pauses with her face a half foot from Minkowski’s; it’s limned in the glow of the star. Her breath is warm when it hits Minkowski’s cheek. Minkowski lifts her chin without thinking. Lovelace shifts forward and for a moment, it’s warm, dry lips on hers. It’s almost chaste.
They pull apart enough for Minkowski to catch Lovelace’s eyes searching her face. For a heartbeat, Minkowski tries to explain to herself why this is happening. She gets as far as a jumble of frightened and lonely and I might die out here before she ducks her head to catch Lovelace’s lips between hers, and Lovelace’s arms are coming up to wrap around her neck, and the cleaner is released to float gently away and the star keeps pulsing and the ship keeps humming and Minkowski's heart beats, beats.