A Matter of Time

By plottingalong

G/All Audiences

Characters: Doug Eiffel, Hera, Reneé Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace, Alexander Hilbert

Word count: 1,020

CW: mentions of grief and loss, thoughts about death

Synopsis: On a sleepless night, the crew of the USS Hephaestus ponder their own mortality.

Every spaceship is a mausoleum that doesn’t know it yet. The USS Hephaestus is no exception. The engine thrums. The filters turn the stale air over. The cargo hold gives a low groan. No matter how state of the art it is, no matter how many times it's been tested, space is too big and the ship too small. It's only a matter of time before something goes wrong, and the ship finds its final form as several pieces of junk drifting through space, the lives of the people that lived aboard fragmented into shrapnel.

Hera knows this. She can see the blips and the failings, the problems with the reactors and the hull and the valves. Her own systems glitch and blink, although this she ignores. She flies the ship best she can but it is only a matter of time, she thinks. Just a matter of time before it slips through her fingers and this place becomes nothing but memories scattered across the stars. Tonight, the thoughts hum rampant through her mind. She thinks of prisons, of traps, of interlocking pitfalls. This reminds her of something, although she is jot sure entirely what. Of course, the concept of night time is completely unnecessary. Wolf 359 is right outside, shining a constant red. Well, she supposes the others need something to tell them when they're supposed to sleep. Not that any of them are sleeping, anyway. That doesn't surprise her. Hera doesn't know how they dare sleep in this thing at all. After all, it's only moments away from becoming a mausoleum.

Minkowski knows this. It is night time. Or at least, that's what they call it, here in this godforsaken place. Her father, who had not believed in God since he was a very young boy, used to say that in space there is nobody to separate day from night. Minkowski, who was raised to forget about God, understands that someone has to, and in this case, that someone is Goddard Futuristics. Out here, they are the ones that must differentiate, must divide their sleeping and waking hours. Minkowski is awake. She walks down the halls of the ship, as quiet as she can. She can hear the plant monster, rustling in the walls. Nights like these, she can't help but think about how everything seems temporary and permanent at once. There was once another crew here. They are gone, and have been replaced. All that remains of them is shattered fragments. And so it goes, she thinks, and continues walking, around a ship she thinks will surely end up being a mausoleum.

Hilbert knows this. The experiment will continue as planned, eventually. It is inevitable, but first contact is more important than even his virus. Especially now that that woman is back. Alexander Selberg never believed in ghosts. It would be too painful if he did. But when he saw that dead woman walk right back into his life, he could not explain it in the slightest. Perhaps it is a sign of alien life. But then again, they are all walking dead. It is only a temporal trick of the universe that they find themselves alive at this moment. If there are ghosts, they are echoes through time. Memories. That is all. Hilbert can hear muttering from a few floors down below, some glitch, no doubt. Death is everywhere, and they only struggle feebly against it. He is smart, resourceful, and ruthless, and so he will outlive the rest of them. When he finishes his experiment, perhaps he will live forever. Perhaps not. Death waits patiently, and with it, the ship remains a mausoleum waiting to happen.

Lovelace knows this. She feels it, with every fiber in her being. Every moment here is like a punch in the gut. She doesn't sleep. How can she when she keeps hearing her crewmates, whispering to her in the dark? They are only pieces of themselves, only memories. She cannot make out the words. Lovelace does not want to cry out. She has cried out before, and to her immense embarrassment, it was Hera who responded, or worse, Eiffel. She hates this place of death, and she stays away from the voices she is certain she can hear because she cannot stand the thought of finding out that it's just Minkowski arguing with someone, or worse, that it's nothing at all. Lovelace goes back and forth again across the hall, trying to ignore the voices. For her, death has already struck. The ship remains a mausoleum.

Eiffel does not know this. Eiffel does not know what a mausoleum is. He used to know, but alcohol, time served, and outer space do funny things to the brain. He knows what a haunted house is, though, and oh boy is the Hephaestus a haunted house. The spookometer levels are off the charts. He can't sleep, although he doesn't know why. The ship settles as it always does, with groaning and creaking sound. Eiffel can hear a voice from the bowels of the ship, and cursing his curiosity, he creeps closer. When he is almost at the engine room, he hears Hera muttering to herself. He has watched the second Home Alone movie enough times to know exactly what it is. Hera is reading the dialogue between the two thieves, desperate to escape Kevin’s clutches. He doubts Hera knows she is speaking aloud, as one would read a tragic poem. It's stirring, the way those two will find themselves in every trap. The way that no matter how much they throw themselves against the walls they are at the mercy of an evil genius. Eiffel says nothing. If she wants to do solo storytime in the middle of the night, he's not going to ruin her jam. Besides, he remembers how embarrassed Hera gets when someone catches her glitching. Eiffel hangs around for a while longer. The ship creaks. The engine moans. Hera does not sound like herself. She sounds like a ghost, like a whisp from another time and place. For a moment, she sounds just a little bit like Anne, and in that moment, Eiffel feels that he is being speared in the chest. He leaves Hera to it and walks away. Her voice fades, and for a while as he walks back to his room, he can feel the ghosts tagging along, calling to him. Come join us, they seem to say. Join us, and leave your memories behind. Let yourself become nothing but a whisper in the walls. You will, eventually. It's only a matter of time.