Work Text:
“Stage - three - beginning.”
“Stage - three - complete.”
Violet Liu was in deep stasis now, according to the ship’s systems. Arkady double-checked the Iris’s autopilot on her computer, making sure the programmed flight path had been accepted. Her humming gradually faded away, until everything was very quiet.
That speech to Violet about science, about hope and understanding, had left a bitter taste in Arkady’s mouth. And it didn’t make sense that after all the lies she’d told, this - which had been true, or as close to the truth as Arkady could get while still sounding persuasive - was the thing that she couldn’t stop going over.
“There is no greater expression of sheer, stupid human hope than the study of science. We’re born groping around in the dark but science says, “We can understand this.” It says, “There’s something here to understand and this act of blindly reaching forward is worth it.””
Maybe it was because of the reminder of how futile it all was. Of how much she wanted to believe it herself - but couldn’t quite get there.
“Hey.”
Arkady jerked around to see Sana leaning against the doorjamb. Which meant that at some point it had opened and she hadn’t even noticed. “Captain. …How long have you been standing there?”
Sana stepped further into the room, letting the door close behind her. “I didn’t like to interrupt,” she said, instead of giving a direct answer. Which meant: a while. “I was on my way down to see if you needed some help, after…”
After she’d been made. Honestly, one of the Captain’s motivational speeches probably would have worked better on Violet Liu than what Arkady, cynical mess that she was, could offer. But she hadn’t wanted to risk it - to take too long, to overthink things. So she’d rolled the dice on an appeal to Liu’s scientific curiosity.
“It worked,” she said, nodding to the computer screen displaying Liu’s deep stasis status and the flight trajectory. “She bought it.”
“You saved her,” Sana corrected. “Good work, Arkady. I knew you could do it.”
Something about hearing the Captain’s warm approval made the discomfort Arkady was feeling even more intense. “Can we just - skip to the alcohol, and debrief later?” she asked. “I’m not really in the mood for self-congratulation.”
Sana studied her, and Arkady knew it was showing, how unsettled she felt about - everything. The con, deceiving Liu into trusting her, forcing her to put her life in a stranger’s hands, and keeping the truth from her because she’d never have gotten into the cryo chamber if she’d known she was talking to a smuggler and a killer.
“I’ll get the moonshine,” Sana said. Arkady felt simultaneously relieved and a little wrong-footed; she wasn’t expecting Sana to let it go that easily. She must really look rough.
Sana turned and crossed over to the door, then stopped, looking back at Arkady and the monitor. “I just want you to know,” she said, carefully, as if she was weighing each word, “that what we did today? What you did? It matters. It might not feel like that right now, but - a person is alive right now because of what you were able to do. No matter what happens, I know Violet will thank you for that. And when her ship reaches us, we might even be able to find some answers.”
Her voice lightened, although Arkady could see the lines of exhaustion on Sana’s face as well, visible in the light from the corridor. “So that’s something to be hopeful about.”
She left the room. Arkady glanced back at the monitor herself, showing that the Iris had now rerouted itself and was in transit with its unconscious passenger.
“Right,” she said aloud.
Sheer, stupid human hope.