Chapter Text
“Uhhhhhhhhhh Commander?” Eiffel says, poking his head into the main room of the bridge. “So... I didn’t know how to bring this up, but it’s still happening, so I thought you should probably maybe know... there’s a ghost in the comms room.”
Minkowski rubs her eyes, takes a very deep breath, lets out a very long sigh. She has spent the last hour and a half arguing with Hera over what should have been something very simple. She asked Hera to sort some of the navigational data; instead, Hera deleted it. Minkowski suspects it was either an absent-minded max-efficiency accident or else just a glitch and Hera is being very stubborn about it (“Well, the data isn’t unsorted anymore, is it?”) and between trying to get Hera to explain what exactly happened and trying to recover the deleted data, it has been a very frustrating morning. “Now is really not the time, Eiffel.”
“Okay but I mean it though,” Eiffel says. “There’s a presence in there. There’s a guy. When everything’s really quiet and boring and I’m starting to fall—I mean, just, when there’s nothing going on, I can see him in the corner of my eye, he’s glaring at me, he’s mad. Hera can’t ever see him and he isn’t there when you like, look, and trust me it wigs me out big time, cause that sure isn’t Caspar in there and I don’t know what an angry ghost can actually do to me and I do not intend to find out.”
It isn’t the weirdest excuse he’s ever tried, but it’s up there. “If you want points for creativity, you can have them. Now stop slacking off and get back to your job.”
Eiffel’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “That’s what he says too!”
“Good,” Minkowski says. “Then the comms room ghost is your new shift manager. Tell him hello for me and that I appreciate his work ethic when you walk back to your station, sit your butt down at the comms console, and get back to work.”
“Commander, I don’t think you’re understanding,” Eiffel says. “The comms room is super haunted by a vengeful spirit and I am not going back in there because I don’t want to die.”
She doesn’t even know how to argue with this man. His logic operates on some inaccessible plane of existence. “Hera,” Minkowski says, “is there a ghost in the comms room?”
“Um,” Hera says. “I—I mean, I haven’t seen anything there.”
“Because ghosts don’t show up on sensors,” Eiffel says, like they’re missing something blindingly obvious. “Duh.”
“I have seen Officer Eiffel... react... at nothing,” Hera offers. “That’s happened.”
“React how?”
“Sometimes Officer Eiffel seems to be... ah...”
“Hera. What are you trying not to say.”
“... dozing off at the c̵̨̧͈͙͚̗̦̋͒̅͋̽̈́̕͜͠o̶͙̳̮̹̗̒͂͊̏̽ͅmms console,” she finishes, sounding embarrassed. “And then sometimes he’ll get startled by nothing and shriek.”
“I don’t shriek,” Eiffel says. “I scream, proper Lutz family style getting haunted by a ghost.”
“When was the last time this happened, Eiffel?” Minkowski asks, because whether or not this is a real problem Eiffel seems determined to make it one.
“Um,” he says, and counts quickly on his fingers. “I think... ten days ago.”
“And it hasn’t happened since?”
“Well,” Eiffel says, “it only happens in the comms room, and, uh, funny story, you will definitely get a kick out of this and not get mad, but I haven’t... exactly... set foot in the comms room since.”
“What?”
“I tried! I did! I was all set to be productive and whistle-while-you-work and everything this morning, the comms room looked empty and safe, but the moment I went inside I could feel this aura of ghostly rage and decided nope! This is not how I am going to die today!”
“Have you really not done any of your communications shifts for the last nine days?” Minkowski asks. “Wait—no, I fully believe that. Hera, were you aware of this?”
She hesitates for a few seconds. It’s clearly not a glitch. “... yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Snitches get stitches, Commander,” Hera says primly.
“I—what?” Minkowski whirls to face Eiffel. “Officer Eiffel, were you threatening Hera over this?”
“What? No! I never said that! I don’t know where she heard that!”
“I read books,” Hera pouts. “I know things.”
“I—okay—this is ridiculous,” Minkowski says. “Eiffel, if you haven’t worked any comms shifts, what have you been doing for the past nine days?”
“Things!” he insists. “Yesterday I spent all day helping Dr. Hilbert mix the new fertilizer in the greenhouse! Or, well, he was doing all the measurements and calculations and I was carrying bags of chemicals and scooping out whatever he told me to and dumping it into the various machines and whatnot. That was important!”
“And the day before that?”
He gives her a grin and fingerguns, like he’s actually proud. “All those mandatory spacewalk hours that you were after me about a while ago!”
“Eiffel, you already did those.”
“Oh... ohhhhh right I did, didn’t I. Well. Now I’m double certified. If you need anything done out in nice non-haunted space I’m your man.”
“... sure. And the day before that?”
“Uh, I think I spent that day... on... the observation deck? You know. Observing. For science.”
“For science.”
“Star’s still red,” he offers. “Very big, very red, very, round? And sometimes it goes oooOOOOOooooOOOOOOooo—” he waves his hands around his head, clearly confident he’s communicating something— “and sometimes it goes like pwhhsssSHHHHHH—” he opens his hands and makes a big sweeping gesture with his right arm, indicating... a burst? a solar flare? Minkowski has absolutely no idea— “and sometimes it just kinda sits there going hrnnnmmmmmmmmmmm—”
“So what you’re telling me,” Minkowski says, cutting him off, “is that you’ve been avoiding both your job and me for the last nine days.”
“I wasn’t avoiding you! I was doing very helpful and productive things... in places you happened to not be.”
“Some of them actually were helpful and productive!” Hera adds.
“I see,” Minkowski says. “Officer Eiffel, while you were doing all these productive things, what would happen if, say, last Thursday Mr. Cutter sent us a message on the pulse-beacon relay, wanting to talk to us about something he would insist was very important, and he has been waiting a whole week with no response?”
“Oh,” Eiffel says. “That would be... bad, wouldn't it.”
“Yes, Eiffel, that would be bad. Or, what if a ship en route to the Hermes encountered a problem, got off course, and sent out a distress signal looking for somewhere to make an emergency landing, but no one ever answered?”
“That would... also be bad.”
“Two for two. Very good. And, what if, heaven forbid,” and she spreads her arms, palms up, imploring to the stars, “Darth Vader and his alien army came knocking at our radio-receiver door asking you to take them to your leader?”
“Aha,” Eiffel says, “trick question, Darth Vader isn’t an alien.”
Minkowski had sort of assumed everyone in Star Wars was an alien, or something. “Isn’t he?”
“Well, it all takes p̷̨̦͇͈͊̓l̶̡̩͉̞̻͓̦̖̫͚̗͘͜â̷̏̍͛ce in ‘a galaxy far, far away,’ right?” Hera says. “So they’d all be aliens, even the humans.”
Eiffel finally starts to look like he’s taking something seriously. “I guess, yeah, no one in Star Wars is from Earth, but when you say alien you don’t really mean—”
“The point is,” Minkowski says, “you are potentially putting us or others in danger by refusing to do the job you were sent up here to do. In case you haven’t noticed, we are a very long way away from any other people. Keeping active and open communication lines is critical. Do I need to cite Pryce and Carter at you?”
“Noooo,” Eiffel says, “no need to get that drastic, Commander.”
“Because Pryce and Carter’s tip number 166—”
“We all know what it says!”
“Do we?”
“Yep!
“Do we?”
“We all super definitely know all the Pryce and Carter’s tips and don’t need another recitation and lecture!”
“I’m so glad we’re on the same page then, Officer Eiffel, and so glad you agree on the importance of maintaining a well-operating communications room with an alert and attentive communications officer actually in it.” She pats him on the shoulder. “And now I’m sure absolutely nothing could stop you from returning to your very important post.”
“... right.”
“And,” she says, “as long as you stay alert and attentive, and awake, I’m sure no ghosts will bother you!” She smiles at him brightly. “Just something worth keeping in mind. Dismissed, Officer Eiffel.”
“Okay, but if you find me strangled by my own recording equipment, I just want you to know that it was a ghost and it was your fault.”
“I’m willing to take that chance. Dismissed, Officer Eiffel.”
He finally sulks out. Minkowski goes back to trying to restore the lost navigational data. That should be the end of it.
And then at 1423 hours the composter in the greenhouse explodes, and it becomes a nonstop all-afternoon all-hands-on-deck emergency full of running, yelling (mostly from Minkowski), screaming (mostly from Eiffel), fire extinguishers, gas masks, creative epithets, evacuating baffling amounts of volatile chemicals, and directing every conscious thought towards clearing up this new and exciting disaster before all the oxygen ignites and causes their main source of breathable air to go up in flames.
(Eiffel showed up at the scene suspiciously quickly for someone who was supposed to be all the way over in the comms room.)
By 1700 hours when Minkowski finally pulls off her mask and goggles, and watches singed pieces of her hair float gently away into the charred, shrapnel-shredded, and exhausted-looking tangle of plants, she’s pretty much forgotten about the ghost.