Chapter Text
Jayce Talis, engineering officer of the USS Piltover, is a smart man. An incredibly smart man. He’s more adept than most at taking things apart to figure out their circuitry, identify how each notch and gear ticks, and then put them back together. It’s something he enjoys. It’s one of the many perks of being an engineer. He’s smart, and he fixes things.
So why is it that no matter how many things he fixes on the glorified tin can they call the Piltover, for every new panel he screws into place, five more pop open?
A hiss of steam rises out of a nearby vent, and a beat passes as Jayce’s screwdriver comically floats from its place in his toolbox. It’s one of the ones they let him bring up with him, his personal ones, with the name “TALIS” roughly engraved on the side.
Jayce pushes off from the newly closed panel to float across the room and catch it, tucking the tool into his belt as he lets out a pained sigh. The engine room is medium-sized, covered in panels that house the wiring connecting the state-of-the-art VX2 engine to the Piltover, its thermonuclear cores keeping them all safely in a stable orbit around the red dwarf AR-C8N3.
Take a deep breath, he thinks, and simply start again. What are five more panels to re-wire and close? He was only supposed to end his shift rotation… oh, roughly 30 minutes ago. And then… then there’ll be a beautiful, glorious, mouth-watering, genetically modified seaweed sandwich just WAITING for him and him alone.
And- Nobody’s died, nobody’s caught on fire- so by his standards, which presently reside somewhere just above hell, these five panels should be nothing but a breeze. Hopefully. And then it’s sandwich time.
He wipes sweat from his forehead, unzipping the top half of his maroon Noxus Futuristics standard-issue flight suit, tying it around his waist to reveal the crumpled and sweaty t-shirt sticking to his skin underneath. Zipped up, it sits awkwardly on his bulky frame, so he tends to wear the uniform around his waist most days. He begins to work on the panel closest to him- hopefully one of them is the culprit for the uncomfortable warmth permeating the room.
Maybe if he’d had more time to pack before he was shot up into deep space 448 agonizing days ago he’d have packed a better array of shirts- maybe something to wear OTHER than the faded face of Gandalf the Grey, but, unfortunately, it was one of the t-shirts he DID remember, and every time he wears it Powder’s merciless teasing about his ‘Cringey taste in wizards’ became slightly more unbearable. If she didn't happen to be such a genius astrophysicist, he’d-.
He’s always been better with machines than humans. They tend not to blow up at him nearly as often.
Gods, it’s hot in here, he thinks. He looks up from his work.
‘Hey, V1K, can you hear me?”
The loudspeaker crackles. Static. The speakers are in every nook and cranny of the station, accompanied by endless arrays of sensors, hidden in wiring, woven deep into the metallic spine of the ship. A new state-of-the-art Herald Unit, they had said, top of its class, if it wasn’t so… clever and independent. You’ll just love working with the new model, once you…well, once you get used to it.
An artificial intelligence program, designed to ‘Herald’ over the ship’s autopilot functions and keep all systems sustained, from the slightest shift in calculations of orbit down to the degrees Fahrenheit of the engine room, where Jayce was currently boiling in his “Fragile, carbon-based, uncomfortably liquid body,” as V1K-T0R had once so eloquently put it.
Everyone else on the ship calls him by his full name, pronounced “Viktor”, but he tends to let Jayce get away with just calling him “V1K”. “Vik”. “V”. Jayce is unsure why only he gets away with it, or why V1K-T0R even bothers to put up with him sometimes, but for now, he won’t question it. It’s… nice.
“V?” There’s a familiar frustration welling in his heart, but he can’t bring himself to drink the emotion threatening to overflow.
A moment of static, and the loudspeaker crackles again.
“I can always hear you, Jayce. I hear everything on this station. Right now I am listening to you and at the same time, I am running- running- calculations for Dr. Reveck in his lab and also helping Commander Kiramann with the star charts. I am everywhere. Perhaps it would do you some g-g-good to remember that,” stuttered V8K-T0R’s slightly Russian- or was it Czech? Jayce could never identify it- accented, low-toned, and now slightly annoyed voice as it bounced throughout the room.
“The only way I wouldn’t be able to hear you would be if someone st- st- stupidly knocked out the audio functions of my central processor,” He says, “ but the odds of that happening are approximately point- point- point- 0000018756-”
“Alright, V, alright, no need to be so condescending about it” Jayce snaps, attempting to air out his already-soaked shirt. “A simple, ‘Hello, Jayce, how can I help you? What seems to be the problem?” would’ve been fine,” he grumbles, mocking V1K-T0R’s accent.
V1K-T0R hesitates for a moment, hidden processors whirring, before wryly replying,
“Understood, Officer Talis. Hold for a moment while I update my personality core functions.”
Unbelievable.
“V,” he says, “could you please just tell me why it’s sweltering in my engine room?” He finishes replacing the screws, slamming the second panel closed. Nothing seemed wrong with the wires inside but given the track record on this ship? Anything and everything could be what’s causing this overheat. Breathe, he thinks.
“Thank you for your patience in the slight delay. Sarcasm has been updated to 74%.” the AI responds snarkily, “It seems that the temperature in Engine Room 2 is above nominal. How can I help you, Officer Talis?”
There’s a sanguine drip now added to the otherwise robotic voice glitching in his ears. Jayce blinks the sweat out of his eyes. Breathe. Of all the times for V1K to be a menace, he had to pick this one.
“Yes, V. The temperature is above nominal. I hadn’t noticed.”
“How else can I be of assistance to you,” Jayce can almost imagine a smirk there, hiding behind those words, “Officer Talis?”
“By TURNING THE TEMPERATURE BACK DOWN, V,” He growls, “BEFORE the VX2 engine overheats and explodes, killing everyone on the ship.”
“Temperature control is listed among my autopilot functions, yes, but for some reason, I cannot find on my sensors what is behind causing engine room 2 to overheat,” drawled V1K-T0R, derision dancing out of the loudspeaker box, “Have you considered that the root problem may have been caused by human error?”
What? That can’t be right. V1K-T0R controls everything on the ship. Hell, he practically is the ship. Jayce doesn’t have time for sarcasm, or for whatever game V1K-T0R is egging him on to play. He’s got a job to do.
Damn it all. “Whatever’s causing the overheat is outside of your sensor pick-up?”
“So it would seem.”
Goddamn it. Of course, this wasn’t gonna be easy to diagnose. Nothing with V1K-T0R ever happened to be easy, but the turbulence always seemed to fall upon Jayce’s shoulders to fix. Machines tend to follow patterns well, and V1K-T0R was no exception. If you can’t figure out why the output isn’t what you desired, you fix the input. Change the variable.
“Okay, V, let’s start by going through the thermal connectors, wh-“
“JAYCE. TALIS,” a sharp and distinctive feminine voice bursts through the loudspeakers, interrupting Jayce and V1K-T0R in their heated discussion.
“…I don’t know where you’re hiding,” continued Commander Caitlyn Kiramman broadcasting from the comms room, “but I’m sure once I find you, you’d be more than willing to explain why I found your copy of the DSSPPM floating in the hallway still in its wrapper?”
Shit.
If there was a God that Jayce believed in, right now, Jayce would wrap his calloused hands around its throat and strangle it to death.
Breathe.
He’d been meaning to get around to reading his copy of Noxus Futuristics’ 1001 Deep Space Survival Procedures and Protocols manual, but it kept slipping his mind, and eventually, he just shoved it under a panel in a storage hallway hoping to be rid of it.
Caitlyn must have found it. Or whatever bumped the panels open in the engine room must’ve knocked loose the panel where he hid that stupid book.
“I’m sure you also know, Officer Talis, that it was mandatory reading upon our arrival on this space station. Which I’m sure you didn’t forget.” Caitlyn continued, her pleasant and chipper tone betrayed by a fierce unyielding ice that hissed and crackled over the intercom.
Shit, he forgot about that. Caitlyn was a stickler for rules and tended to crack down on the crew. He couldn’t blame her, it was her job to make sure that the rest of their motley lot did what they were supposed to do on this ship. None of that would be important, however, if they all exploded and died in incredibly grisly ways, being ripped apart so instantaneously that it’d be over before you ever knew that your short existence was over because his miserable ass couldn’t figure out why the engine room was overheating. Jayce knows a little too well that because the engines run on thermonuclear energy, they tend to become extremely volatile at high temperatures.
“So, that being said, whenever I find where it is you’re hiding from me, I’m going to take this copy of your book, and shove it so far up your a-“
Not wanting to hear the rest of that threat, Jayce shuts off the comms to the engine room, slamming his fist into the hot metal of the wall. “¡Ay, carajo, I never asked for th-!” he cries out in frustration, hissing and drawing his hand back as the metal burns his hand.
Screw closing the rest of the panels. He might as well hide in here, avoid Caitlyn’s warpath, and let the ship explode. What’s one more burn scar? He can collect some more to match the ones on his left leg. Maybe then he’d be at peace.
He can’t let that happen though. Deep down, he knows he could never bring himself to do that. He’s trying to make a habit of not blowing things up. “Not blowing up the engines that are keeping the ship in orbit around the star, leading to the untimely deaths of the entire crew of the Piltover” was definitely somewhere on his list of resolutions for the new year.
He takes a sharp breath as a blast of hot air hits his face. The thought of failure hits him harder.
“V, you still there?”
“Yes, Officer Talis, I-.”
“Whatever witty comment you were about to make can wait. V, is it just me, or is it getting hotter in here by the second?”
“Unfortunately, yes. My sensors are picking up that the engine room has a temperature of 125 degrees Fahrenheit, and rapidly rising.” V replied curtly.
He begins closing the last panel when yet another blast of hot air hits him in the face. Wait a minute, it dawns on him, that air didn’t hit me from- “V, do your sensors pick up any airflow coming from the thermal vents in this room?” Jayce asks, shifting gears.
“I- Hold on one second. You may be on to something.” V1K-T0R replied, any hint of sarcasm immediately leaving his voice. “Your suspicions are correct- there’s no airflow coming in or out from the vents.”
“Then the excess airflow is seeping in through the ship’s wall panels, which means that-“ Jayce exclaims, overlapping V1K-T0R.
“That’s why my sensors can’t p-p-pick it up. The power outage we experienced last week knocked out my connectors to the outer hull. Whatever’s blocking the thermal vents and causing the reroute of airflow is-“
“-Outside the station.” The two finished at the same time.
A beat. Despite the heat, there’s a chilly dread creeping at the edges of the room.
The reality of the situation hits Jayce with the force of a loose cannon. His throat locks up.
“V, how much time do I have before the engine room reaches critical?” Jayce asks, springing into action as he gathers his tools, pushing them haphazardly back into the handmade toolbox. Collapsible pocket wrench? Check. Screwdriver? Check. “Gimme a ballpark.” He shrugs back into his sweaty uniform, the deep maroon fabric complimenting his tanned skin as he zips it up and rolls back the sleeves.
“By my estimation, you have roughly 33 minutes before the thermonuclear reactors in the engine heat up to a critical point.”
Jayce grunts in frustration, actively abandoning any further consideration of the DSSPPM and Caitlyn’s warpath. He’s got a space suit to get into, a blockage to find, and a thermonuclear explosion to prevent. And roughly 32 minutes left on the clock.
***
Caitlyn huffed. “Ekko, did Jayce just-”
“Manually shut off the comms for the engine room? Yeah, looks like it,” replied Ekko. It wasn’t every day he got a visit from Caitlyn, and if he was being honest with himself, she could be a little intense sometimes. Okay, a lot intense. All the time. It scared him a little.
The communications room on the USS Piltover isn’t large, by any means. It’s got what resembles a desk, covered in sonar and radio equipment, with lots of blinky lights and buttons and little display screens. And while the Piltover is massive in size, this is Ekko’s little slice. Well, that and the greenhouse, where an array of plants and mosses creates, filters, and distributes the station’s o2. But his job isn’t tending to the station’s greenery, as much as he’d like it to be.
It’s peaceful there, tranquil. The greenhouse is his sanctuary, and the comms room his domain.
He flips a couple of switches, turning off the static coming from the engine room.
“Want me to try and override it, and broadcast to the entire station?” he says.
“No,” Caitlyn replied, rolling her shoulders back with a sigh. “I’m going to go find him… personally.” She began grumbling under her breath, “He had *one job*...”
Ekko grimaced, gently taking off the set of headphones he had hooked into the comms panel, and flipped a switch, shutting off the ship’s PA system. Just once, he’d like to have a normal, peaceful day, where he can just sit down and do his one job.
Normally, his job entailed that he scan the heavens for just a hint of a radio frequency, searching for anything and everything that might be out there amongst the stars. And since his job was mostly static, nobody else took it seriously. Hence, Caitlyn took over the PA system to find Jayce.
Ekko is secretly grateful that Caitlyn’s wrath isn’t on him, this time.
“So, uh, anything else you need from me?” he asks, fidgeting a little. His flight suit was a little oversized for his wiry frame, and ever so gently billowed around him in the zero gravity. He’d managed to sneak a few (okay, more than a few) patches up with him and personalized the standard maroon with all manner of edge. Caitlyn let him off the hook, but only just so. She was FURIOUS when she found out.
“No, Ekko. Thank you. I don’t know why he’s being so obstinate about this,” she replied. “I don’t make the rules, I only enforce them. And this was something he was supposed to do at mission launch.”
Ekko could almost feel the ice forming in the small confines of the comms room as Caitlyn made her way back to the door. How one woman could keep such a large ship, especially one as large and faulty as the Piltover, in the air day in and day out, was a question Ekko found himself glad he didn’t have to answer.
He certainly did not envy Jayce’s position right now. Truth be told, he hadn’t spent that much time interacting with the man since they went into orbit around AR-C8N3. Jayce kept to himself, mostly doing repairs around the ship, or hanging out in the engineering room, muttering to himself with his tools or talking to V1K-T0R. Ekko honestly couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a full conversation with him, outside of the few pleasantries they’d exchanged last time Ekko needed a couple of adjustments made to the frequency outputs. Not that Ekko minded. Most of his thoughts lately were taken up by-
The door to the comms room swings open with a deafening metal clang.
“Hey hey heeey, boy savior, have you seen my- oh.”
And there she was. Powder Warwick, astrophysicist, in all her colorful chaos. Ekko didn’t know how she managed it up in space, but somehow she left every room smelling a little bit more like bubblegum than when she entered it. Today, she was sporting her typical set of blue space buns and a shit-eating grin that could only be clipped by finding herself floating face-to-face with the quiet fury of the Commander.
There’s a long pause as the two stare each other down, tempting fate to see who would make the first move. Ekko shrinks in his seat.
It’s his fault Powder’s up here and not in her lab. The two tended to visit each other often.
“I, uh, heard you’re looking for Golden Boy?” Powder started anxiously, pricking at her nails, coming up with the quickest excuse she could muster. .
“Do you know where I can find him?” Caitlyn cooly answered, calling Powder’s bluff, not backing down for a second.
“I just crashed- like, literally crashed- into him outside engineering. He looked sick or something, all sweaty and gross.” she joked back.
“That’s… unlike him.”
“Well, I’d be freaking out too if I couldn’t find my copy of the good ol’ DSSPPM! Hahaha, right, Ekko?” Powder turned to Ekko, her violet eyes searching for any purchase she could get.
“Right!” Ekko rushed to her aid, hoping to ease some of the tension in the room. When it came to Powder, he often found himself caught up in the smoke of whatever metaphorical bomb she happened to set off that day. Caitlyn and Powder had never quite gotten off on the right foot, ever since the burrito incident in their first week. It could’ve happened to anyone, but bad luck seemed to hang over Powder like a cloud. A bubblegum-scented cloud. A bubblegum-scented cloud that made his head spin a little whenever she was near. In a good way. In a ‘Hi, you’re my only friend on this ship out here in the middle of nowhere five million miles away from home, please don’t break down on me’ kind of way.
Caitlyn smoothed a loose strand of her raven hair back into its place in the ever-perfect bun she typically sported with a sigh, conceding in whatever silent battle she and Powder were engaged in- for now. “Powder, would you like to explain to me just why you’re in the comms room and not at your station?”
“I- uhhhhhh.” Powder started, her eyes wild, skirting around the truth.
“Last I checked, you’re behind on your astrological reports. You yourself said that you’ve got, ‘like, so much work to do before the projected solar flare in a week.’”
Powder gulped. “I do, I just-”
“So?” Caitlyn had absolutely no tolerance today for anything or anyone. There were barbs in just about every word that she placed down on the battlefield before her. Ekko had a pretty vivid imagination but hated to think of what she was going to do to Jayce if she managed to find him if she was dogging on Powder this much today.
“Okay, Commander Hardass, calm your tits,” Powder muttered under her breath, before continuing, “I lost the latest batch of meds Dr. Reveck cooked up for me.”
“What was that? Speak up, or move out of my way. I don’t have time to entertain your hijinks today.”
“I said,” Powder continued, “I lost my meds. They’re probably floating somewhere on this tin can. I came to ask if anyone had seen them. I need them so I don’t, like, go crazy, okay?” She griped, barely controlling the fire under her voice.
Ekko didn’t know much about why Powder needed those meds, or why she spent so much time in and out of Dr. Reveck’s lab. Something about bad dreams. Ekko supposes that just about anyone would get bad dreams if they’d been through two consecutive deep space missions. That’s all that she’s told him about it, and she gets extremely defensive anytime he dares ask. So he doesn’t. Meeting her where she's at seems to be the best way to get ahold of Major Tom, according to ground control.
Caitlyn made a move to let Powder continue into the comms room with a wave of her hand as she exited. “I’ll help you find them after I find Jayce. I intend to get to the bottom of this mess. Ekko, for now, see if the two of you can find them … without blowing anything up?”
“You put a burrito in the microwave with the foil on ONE TIME-“ Powder protests.
“I don’t want to hear it! Just- wait here until I get back. One crisis at a time.” Caitlyn retorts.
The two of them nod in unison.
And with that, she’s gone, closing the hatch of the comms room with a gentle thunk.
As Caitlyn makes her way back out into the station, Ekko and Powder both faintly catch Caitlyn calling for Jayce echoing back to them through the long, winding, maze-like corridors.
A beat. The two burst into a fit of giggles, and then a quick burst of laughter.
“She’s really got it out for him today, huh?” Powder wheezes, wiping a make-believe tear from her eye. Ekko could listen to her laugh all day long. It’s not something she does often, but he guesses that her volatile mood today has something to do with-
“Oh my god, Powder, your meds, what happened?” He breaks her off mid-laugh, whipping around to give her a faux smolder that never ceases to make her smile. “Or, were you just coming to see my pretty face,” he winks.
“I really can’t find them! I was hoping I might’ve left them in here. Like, they must’ve floated out of my pocket or something.” She exclaims, getting the last of her laughter out before pushing her bright blue bangs out of her violet eyes.
“Well, let’s find them before Commander Hardass gets back. I’d hate to be her next target- she never misses.” Ekko shoots her a soft smile.
Powder shoots back a shit-eating grin that nearly immediately falters.
“Is it, uh, a bit hot in here? Or is it just me?”
***
Jayce burst into the engineering room (his room? his office? his domain? More often than not, it felt more like a prison built just for him) with the full-blown force of a man on a mission.
Because, well, he certainly was. Blueprints. Blueprints. Carabiner. Steel cord. Don’t forget the tools, you might need those. Breathe. Blueprints…
“V, where are the schematics for the thermal air ducts? The ones leading into the engines, that reroute the excess heat?” he panted, slightly out of breath, running a hand through his dark hair. He was way overdue for a haircut. And a shave, maybe. Not important right now.
FOCUS, Jayce, he thought as he began to tear the room apart, every second counts.
The room was more colorful than one would think it was- blueprints scattered around, some pinned to walls and some free-floating, all schematics for the operations of the ship. There were a few computers inserted into panels of the walls, spare observational equipment, tools, and parts- an engineer’s dream. Jayce’s nightmare.
“I’m pulling them up on the computer to your left. It would appear that the thermal vent leading di-di-di-di-di-” V1K-T0R glitched, shorting out for a second.
“Come on, V, sweetheart, work for me-” Jayce grits through his teeth, panic and frustration seeping into his words. V1K-T0R’s been glitching more and more these days, his condition worsening as time passed. Jayce would have to take a look into his processors later and see if there was anything he could repair.
The computer screen blinked back to life, a little glowing yellow dot on the screen showing Jayce his location and a circle showing the approximate area of the vent blockage outside of the ship.
“-directly to the overheating engine room is roughly 120 feet from Airlock 2.” V1K-T0R finishes, blinking back to life at the same time. Somewhere inside Jayce there’s the tiniest sigh of relief.
Jayce commits the map to memory as best he can, the lights dancing behind his eyes as he frantically searches for a carabiner and steel cord to connect his toolbox to his belt.
“Can you prep the airlock for me while I grab the space suit and helmet?”
“Certainly, Officer Talis.”
Jayce knows that V doesn’t mean to sound so cold or formal. It’s just his programming. He wishes that it weren’t. Just for a moment.
“Great, V, you’re my eyes in the sky. I’m gonna need you to talk me through this once I get outside. How much time do I have?” he pushes out of the room, barrelling towards the arms locker, using any and every leverage he has to fly through the winding halls. He’s already crashed into Powder, and hopefully, no one else. Particularly if they have dark blue hair, his unwrapped copy of the DSSPPM, a face like a sour grape, and happen to be the commanding officer of the station.
“24 minutes and 46 seconds before engine overheat turns critical. Arms locker is on your left.”
If Jayce weren’t so panicked, he would be thinking about how he might have just set a new crew record for how fast anyone’s ever practically flown that far across the ship. He’s got a one-track mind through, right now, and as he pushes into the armory and begins pulling his broad frame into a space suit, all he can think about is-
There it is.
Caitlyn’s Jetpack.
Oh, Caitlyn, I hope you forgive me for this, he thinks, silently cursing as his foot gets stuck in the mag-boot as he laces it, causing him to lose precious seconds as he takes a deep breath and re-adjusts the straps.
“V, time?” he pants.
“Twenty-two minutes exactly. Airlock two is prepared for spacewalk. Don’t forget your tether.”
Jayce grits his teeth, clipping the carabiners for his tether and his toolbox onto the space suit, screwing his helmet onto the suit with a soft hiss.
Let’s do this.
***
As Caitlyn nears the engineering room, the most likely of all of Jayce’s haunts, the ship’s alarms begin to blare, turning the whole world a deep shade of red as the overhead lights flash.
V1K-T0R’s voice begins to crackle and glitch throughout the station. Her eyes narrow, sharpening her frustration into razor blades.
“WARNING. WARNING,” V1K-T0R’s tone betrays nothing but a cool, unfeeling, robotic exterior, with just a hint of alarm. “SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. SYSTEM MAL-MAL-MALFUNCTION. ENGINE ROOM TWO REACHING CRITICAL HEAT SIGNATURE LEVELS. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED.”
Caitlyn could feel her stomach immediately drop, a bowling ball pinning it to the floor right next to her heart. She’s no stranger to things going wrong on this ship, but this? This reaches a whole new level of disaster. There’s no time for fear, though. She swallows whatever trepidation she may have had in an instant, turning towards the nearest wall-mounted communications panel.
“V1K-T0R,” she frowned, attempting to make herself heard clearly over the blaring alarms, “Status report. Now.”
“There is an overheat in Engine Room 2. 200 degrees Fahrenheit and rising, meaning that the engine itself is reaching temperatures that are greatly above nominal levels. Officer Talis has managed to locate an approximation of the thermal vent blockage, which so happens to be out of my sensory view-view-viewpoints.”
“Where is he?! Why wasn’t I informed of this sooner?!” Caitlyn thinks back to Powder’s description of Jayce, frantic and preoccupied, and begins to connect the dots. For all of his smarts, the big hulking idiot was always rushing headfirst into things with no regard for safety or the chain of command. It’s gonna be the death of him if she isn’t careful.
“I’m afraid that the power outage last week knocked out my sensors connected to the outer hull. Officer Talis is-”
V1K-T0R’s voice is cut off by Ekko’s crackling in overtop the channel.
“Uh, Commander? Come to the comms room. There’s something you’re gonna wanna see.”
Caitlyn curses under her breath, turning on her heel.
***
A FEW MINUTES EARLIER, IN THE COMMS ROOM
“What do you mean, ‘is it getting hotter in here?’”
“I mean, like, it feels hotter here than normal. Something’s wrong.”
“I don’t-” Ekko starts, and then he feels it. A small burst of hot air, comes from the left side of the comms room, out from the floor. Right where Powder happened to be currently floating.
“There! Right there!” She exclaims, pointing at it. “I’m not crazy!”
Ekko puts out his arms to reassure her when the ship’s alarms begin to blare from every direction. Powder jumps out of her skin, curling into a ball and covering her ears to shield out some of the sound.
“WARNING. WARNING. SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. SYSTEM MAL-MAL-MALFUNCTION. ENGINE ROOM TWO REACHING CRITICAL HEAT SIGNATURE LEVELS. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED.”
The room turns red. Even in the low light, Ekko notes that Powder’s gone white as a sheet. She’s acting jumpier and even more erratic than usual, and getting worse every moment. Her eyes are wild, she resembles something closer to a ticking time bomb, wound tight as a spring and ready to be set off at any moment.
Shit. How long did she wait to ask for help finding those meds?
“Powder, look at me.”
She refuses to meet his eyes. It's like the lights are on, the door is made of bricks, and nobody's home.
“Look at me, please.”
“...” There’s nothing in her ears but a single high-pitched shrill, the rest of the world silencing as black threatens to suffocate the edges of her eyes.
“What’s a monkey’s favorite month of the year?”
She stops, and he can almost see the mental reboot happening in real-time.
“...Ape-ril.” She whispers, eyes refocusing back on Ekko.
Ekko relaxes, but only slightly. She’s still shaking. There’s not much he knows to do from this point without the help of Dr. Reveck, or the medicine he makes especially for her. He tries to study her eyes in the dim light, but her attention has shifted to something just past him. Ekko wants so badly to be there for her but she just keeps pushing him out. It feels like he’s been repeatedly ramming his heart into a brick wall in the hopes that one day it’ll give.
“Earth to Powder…?” he tries.
She makes a face. Ekko is thoroughly confused until she grabs his shoulders, physically turning him around to face the thick glass windows that he typically uses to look at the star, or out into deep space when he’s bored. There’s a small figure moving in the distance- making its way up the side of the hull, illuminated by the orange light of the dwarf star, tethered to the ship, magnetized boots clunking step by impossible step.
“Is that.. is that fucking…Golden boy?” her voice quivered.
Ekko dove for the comms panel, whipping his headphones over his ears. “Uh, Commander? Come to the comms room. There’s something you’re gonna wanna see.”
***