Work Text:
"Elster."
"You came back."
"You’ve been gone for so long.”
“I’ve missed you so much."
"I've been having the strangest dreams. About you, and about Alina."
"Did you know her, Elster?"
"Was she someone to you?"
"Talk to me Elster. Say something."
"Wake up."
“Wake up, Elster.”
W A K E U P
Pain signals drone their reports. Damage. She’s good at assessing damage. Her arm is stiff. The joint locked. The contact starting to fuse. Her vision is halved. Error messages fight each other for her attention.
This is what broken feels like.
Is she too broken to keep her promise? How many times has she woken here? Slept here? Died here?
How many of her?
Bodies in an elevator shaft, stacked four meters high. Bodies scattered over the snow. No, the sand, red. Who will be cast next, if she fails? Was there an original Elster, or was she a dream too? How many of her are left?
Perhaps this is a nightmare.
The space beneath the deck plates is cramped, just big enough for an LSTR to get their arm in. This is by design, of course. Elster finds the damage easily, a jet of pressurized steam coming from a pinprick leak. She closes the valve and leans forward to get a better look.
She’s good at assessing damage. That’s what she’s for. She concludes it was caused by a structural defect. The pipe will need to be replaced, but a patch will do for now. She reaches for a quick-set compound and—
“Hey, have you seen a record of mine? In a yellow sleeve?”
Elster startles, head jerking up to look at Ariane, inadvertently moving the wrench a quarter turn, releasing a blast of searing hot steam across her arm.
Ariane’s face lights with concern and she rushes forward, but Elster holds up a hand to halt her, to keep her away from the hazard. Elster closes the valve firmly and gets up from where she was crouched over the open flooring.
Ariane’s worried gaze tracks her arm, and Elster holds it out for Ariane to inspect. No damage.
“Wow, you Elsters are tough. You’ll outlive me.”
Elster tries not to look at the bruises on Ariane’s forearm. Like she tries to ignore the sounds of her fitful sleep.
“I unpacked your records and organized them on the shelf above the emergency oxygen kit," Elster says
Ariane frowns and Elster feels suddenly anxious.
“Don’t touch my things.”
“Hey, are you busy?”
Elster looks around to see Ariane framed in the hatch, white hair haloed by the light. The two of them mostly don’t talk, their business usually separate. Just a few words if they have to share a space. Elster is halfway through running a diagnostic on the maintenance pod, in a room that Ariane has no need of.
“A little. What is it?” Elster replies.
“Oh, it’s nothing. It can wait. I just…I just felt like talking.”
Elster looks back at the control console, keys in a query, notes the reply. She hears Ariane shift her weight from one foot to the other and back, hears her take a breath and then turn around to leave.
“I can work and talk.”
“Oh,” Ariane says, sounding relieved, and this time she steps fully into the room, finding a wall to lean against before continuing, “Lately, passing you in the hallways without a word, I’ve felt a bit like I’m haunting this ship.”
“I’m the one rattling the pipes.”
Elster glances up in time to see Ariane smile like a light flickering on, and that makes Elster smile too.
“Maybe we’re both haunting it then.”
“Maybe.”
“Elster, come watch a movie with me. I promise that light fixture can wait.”
Elster is wrist deep in a wiring harness designed by someone who clearly didn’t know what ‘field serviceable’ meant. This kind of timing is so like Ariane.
“They always can, that’s why they never get fixed unless someone like me makes it happen.”
“Make it happen later.”
Elster sighs. Surrender would be easy, would be nice, but she’s stubborn too.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, but I really need to get this done.”
“What if a more significant component needed maintenance?” Ariane asks, mock innocence telling Elster that she is about to pull some nonsense.
“Then I would prioritize it.”
“In your professional opinion, is the gestalt pilot essential to the mission?”
“Yes,” Elster says, grudgingly, seeing where this is going.
“Then I’m an essential component that needs social maintenance. So come watch a movie with me.”
Elster smiles and shakes her head. With Ariane, she’s learned to pick her battles, and anyway, a movie sounds nice.
“You win, but you have to promise that afterwards you let me finish my work.”
“I promise.”
Elster opens the door to Ariane’s quarters. She’s dispensed with knocking lately, concluding that Ariane uses an unlocked door as a kind of welcome. She finds her sitting cross legged on her bed, a thick book with a green binding resting in her lap.
“What are you reading?” Elster asks.
“The Setting of Aldebaran. It's the third volume of my favorite serial.”
“Aren't those banned?”
“Elster,” she says, her tone playfully reproving, “We’re a million kilometers from anyone who cared.”
“I suppose that's true.”
“Would you like me to read you some? I promise a chapter or two won't corrupt you.”
“...alright.”
Elster sits herself down on the floor, her back against Ariane’s bunk, and rests her head on the soft mattress. Ariane turns back a page, and starts reading. She is a little halting at first, clearly unaccustomed to reading aloud, but gradually finds her rhythm.
The story is about the adventures of a dashing captain, and her devoted Lieutenant. Clever and charming. Fierce in battle. Poetic in love. There are sonnets.
Elster closes her eyes, half dosing, letting herself get lost in Ariane’s voice. Very tentatively, so tentatively they both could pretend it was below notice, fingers find their way to Elster’s hair, caressing so tenderly.
“Elster…” Ariane sighs.
“Yes?”
She tries to make her voice soft, but Ariane’s hand snaps away as if from a shock. An awkward silence hangs heavy in the air for a few long moments as they both consider what to say, until finally Elster breaks it.
“You can put your hand back, if you want. It was nice.”
Another moment passes, in which Elster thinks she’s said something wrong, and then to her relief, Ariane does. She relaxes into the touch and closes her eyes once more, and lets herself feel something else too, something she doesn’t know how to assess.
The opposite of damage.
Elster wakes to cold and pain. She forces her eyes open and slowly gets to her feet, as best she can. Her right leg is malfunctioning so she limps. She passes the detritus of years, the decay of a ship, a life, not intended to last this long.
She sees unfinished paintings in shades of gray and red, the other colors long since depleted.
She sees her body, slumped in Ariane’s quarters, as broken as she feels.
In the cryopod Ariane sleeps, looking deceptively peaceful.
Elster hasn’t forgotten her promise. She just can’t keep it. The nightmare is better than what would come after.
Instead, she climbs in and lays down beside her.
She hopes they’ll see each other in the dream.