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He should have known when Hera came to him first. He should have, but he was still high on victory and seeing the Hephaestus burn, still just on this side of don’t-think-about-it-don’t-you-DARE-think-about-it. So when Hera came to him and told him there was a mechanical issue in the port airlock, he didn’t really think about what it meant other than that it was something to do.
God, did he need something to do.
There were a hundred thousand moments he could have – should have known what was coming, and yet it still managed to take him by surprise. The blood still crusted underneath the airlock controls, beyond the reach of even the most abrasive of cleaners and yet not, for some reason, Jacobi’s hindbrain. He could feel the blood, somehow, still.
“Hera,” he said, punching in the admin override on the airlock, “remind me to blow up the Urania when we get back to Earth.”
“This is the sixth time you’ve asked for this reminder, but I’ll note it,” Hera said, sounding cheerful at the prospect. Jacobi suspected she would want to be there when he pressed the detonator.
“A shame,” said the airlock as it slid open. “I thought we’d had fun on this ship.”
“I was never much of a sentimentalist,” Jacobi said, because the banter still came to him like breathing. “Sir.”
Warren Kepler looked uncharacteristically small, crumpled in the far corner of the airlock. It wasn’t like him, one knee pulled up to his chest, his suit wrinkled, determinedly studying the bottle of Balvenie in his hands. Warren Kepler is dead, Jacobi thought, almost experimentally. It was a bad thought. He didn’t like it.
Kepler looked up at Jacobi briefly, and then flinched away from his gaze like he hadn’t been expecting it. “You should close the airlock,” he said. His voice sounded rough, like he hadn’t used it in a while. Or ever, Jacobi thought. This was also a bad thought, but he liked it more.
Jacobi took a step forward. “Hera, close the airlock.”
Something flashed behind Kepler’s eyes. Fear, maybe. Jacobi wondered if it was the same flash that echoed behind his eyes when the airlock closed on him the first (last) time. He’d wondered if Hera would ever let him watch the security tape. Asking for it felt gauche, now.
“This isn’t what I meant,” Kepler bit, like the words were brittle in his mouth.
“Oh, I know what you meant, Colonel,” Jacobi said mildly.
Attention back on his whiskey, Kepler still flinched. “Dead men don’t have ranks, Mr. Jacobi.”
“Funny, you didn’t seem to have a problem with Captain Lovelace.”
Jacobi watched Kepler consider pulling his other knee up to his chest. He watched him, also, consider drinking the whiskey. He could see the wheels turning in his mind: it had to be alien whiskey (Hera had informed him Kepler took the whiskey with him after he spent the first night tearing the Urania apart looking for it). On the other hand, whatever the fuck the Balvenie was made of now was, ostensibly, the same thing Kepler was made of. Kepler tried to put the whiskey down with a definitive clunk, but the bottle only bounced off the floor and floated listlessly. (Jacobi heard the clunk he was trying to make, anyways, echoing off a thousand office walls).
Jacobi sat down, legs stretched in front of him. There wasn’t really enough room, but with Kepler pressed against the outside door and Jacobi’s legs in a carefully calculated V, they barely managed not to touch. They’d barely-managed-to-do a lot. Jacobi tried to think, look where it got us, but the thought didn’t connect to anything. He had no idea where they were.
“Are you going to come inside, or do you want to ride to Earth in an airlock?”
“I thought –”
“Did you, Warren?” Jacobi meant for it to be cruel, mocking Kepler’s denouncement of his rank, but it landed between gentle and sincere.
Jacobi lived and died by the degree of tension in his commander’s shoulders. Somehow, they eased. “Minkowski and Lovelace would have wanted to space me even if I wasn’t dead,” Warren said, “But they would have been democratic about it. They would have dragged me into the brig and held a meeting. We would have had the handcuff debate again.”
Oh, Jacobi thought. Out loud, he said, “You really did think about this.”
Warren paused the requisite half-breath before continuing, but he didn’t acknowledge Jacobi’s words. “It had to be you,” he said, viciously, “It had to be you, because you’re the only person with any sense on this damn spaceship. You – after you – the pod – the other Jacobi –”
“Hera?” Jacobi asked. “How long has he been in here?”
“Colonel Kepler has been in this airlock for 14 hours,” Hera said, and then, before he could ask, “He ordered me not to tell the crew he was here, until 34 minutes ago when he ordered me to tell you there was a mechanical failure. Previous to that, he tried every command code he knew to get me to open the airlock with him inside.”
Warren glared at the ceiling. It was a look that used to be able to kill, not because of any supernatural ability but because of the way it moved Jacobi’s hands. Jacobi’s hands were empty and still, now.
“The other Jacobi was different,” Jacobi said. “How were we supposed to finish the mission if there were two of me? What if it was a traitor? How could I –”
Even now, especially now, Jacobi couldn’t say it. How could I protect you then?
Jacobi said, “Maybe you’re not the Colonel. Maybe you’re dead. Maybe you’re going to try and kill us. But I’m pretty sure Lovelace could kill us all anyways, so who cares. We can deal with this. You know we can.”
“You were already dealing with my death. I don’t see why this is a problem!” If Jacobi didn’t know any better he’d have said Warren was drunk, but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe this new Warren really was different from the old one. Or maybe he’d managed to open the Balvenie before the airlock cracked and been reanimated with elevated blood alcohol levels.
“I wasn’t, actually.” The admission was too soft, in a way that would have been dangerous, before. Jacobi didn’t know if it was still dangerous, now. The not-knowing was bad, objectively, but Jacobi rather liked it.
“So, what? You’re going to put your whole crew in danger because you’re grieving? I thought I trained you better than that.” The frenzied look in Warren’s eyes was familiar in a way it never should have been.
“Yes,” Jacobi said, and Warren, for once, had nothing to say to that. “You trained me better, Warren,” he says, “And then you went and fucking died on me. I have a hundred and one plans on how to get you back to Earth. I don’t have a single goddamn idea what to do if you’re dead. So, you have to live. Easy as that.”
Warren stares at Jacobi, glaring daggers that melt into resignation long before they reach him. “What now?” he grinds out.
“Oh?” Daniel smiles like Warren taught him in a hotel in Montreal, “Now we prove you were right, after all. I'm going to tell the rest of the crew, and we're going to settle this with democracy.”