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Station Z

10:23 PM.

Octavia has:

• Cleaned up nearly the entire main floor of the station, which, unsurprisingly, had been trashed again. Her body aches, now; on first thought it is from bending over, resting on her knees and palms to restore the pristine serenity of Station Z’s flawless clean interior. Upon further introspection, however: it’s a result of more than just work. It’s psychosomatic, but that doesn’t make it any less unbearable.
• Calmed down her brother; apparently he, too, is upset over Lilac’s appearance on the station, until he disappeared right into the dark corridors.
• Cooked herself a rather large amount of pasta; food replicators, she thinks, taste of rot, and putting her mind on other things---doing things to benefit herself, a rare occurrence--is cathartic.
• Finally taken off her tight uniform, the uninvited reminder of her routine (wake up, work, sleep, work, on and on like the snake eating itself) and transplanted herself into her lounging clothes. Octavia loves her job. She does. She truly does! Excitement, however, is something that she simply cannot grasp yet.
• Answered the door to her quarters when the incoming call started---

Wait. No she hasn’t; she’s only processing the disturbance now, torn away from her organizational complaints, tainted with obsession.

“Who is it?” she asks, following a gesture at the ship’s computer, telling it softly to pick up the call; she stretches out on her chair, comfortable, dozing gradually into sleep. This always happens. Why does this always happen?

“Me,” calls Vix, his voice--rough, scratchy, yet inexplicably high-pitched--is always recognizable, always a choir in her mind. “And Cedric. Can we come in?”

“Sure,” Octavia says through a sigh, her muscles slow, her muscles tense. Her body quivers from the thick, breathable air of tiredness that surrounds her now.

God. She just wants to rest. Octavia just wants a resting place, some serenity to let the force of her submissive personality melt down, her existence molded like clay on aging hands. She’s tired, she’s tired, she’s tired, and it is more than just physical exhaustion. Octavia has a lifetime of exhaustion, bones weary and her body fragile like bird bones. Octavia just wants. To let down her hair, like a fairytale—-to shed the concrete skin and unsheath vulnerability—-to exist in a way that people shouldn’t. Openly, that is, and loved. Love as the ultimate desire but the weightless goal.

Vix and Cedric enter. Octavia can feel it immediately; the radiation of fear, the anxiety sewn to their faces.

“Is everything okay?”

They sit down across from her, Cedric’s hand brushing against Vix’s for a brief moment before he recoils it into his lap. Octavia cannot swallow any bad news. She has never been able to cope with bad news, her discomfort a mathematical constant through her life. There are so many possibilities, too many potential abhorrent situations.

“The A.O. girl,” Vix says, coherently. “Remember her?”

“Of course,” Octavia responds. “I’m surprised you do.”

“Hey—-shut up. Anyway, she’s, uh, not here to celebrate Aeon’s third Breakthrough Award, that’s for sure.”

“Vix,” Cedric interjects, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. “No one thought she was there to celebrate that.”

“My point is,” Vix says, voice louder in an attempt to drown out Cedric’s protests. “She’s here to investigate my sister.”

“What—why? Aeon’s a saint.”

Vix looks ashamed, ephemeral, and then his face bounces back resilient into his usual smug look. “Yeah. I don’t know. She said she was under orders from a person very high up in the Authority of Operations.”

“Vix explained this to me,” Cedric says. “I asked why an A.O. officer would visit this territory after decades of neglect and silence just to investigate the commander, and he said there’s only one reason for it. It, uh, it’s not great, Octavia.”

“Tell me. I can handle it.” That’s a lie; she can’t handle it, but she’s not going to let them know that.

“They’re trying to shut down the station.”

Octavia’s heart---

Octavia’s heart, so weak, turns a normal pace into a hummingbird-wing flutter, every vein in her body pulsing. The pounding envelops her body like light, the pounding moving her body as a marionette into the white light that everyone sees at the end of the end. She’s walking into it. She should’ve seen this coming.

No one is ever allowed to have a safe haven in this galaxy. Everyone here is pitied by the outsiders, who live in their intricately designed, endlessly large homes. Breaking tradition is like shattering a bone, and holds the same weight as taking a singular brick out of a structure in the process of being built and watching it all crumble.

Conformity, remember. Everyone must conform.

They’re trying to shut down the station! Of course they are.

Station Z is Octavia’s home. They can’t just - rip it from her like this; the station is at the center of Octavia’s being. They can’t do this. They---they can’t.

“Oh,” she says, weak, as her body continues to melt into frailty.

“But we’re not going to let that happen,” says Vix, smiling confidently. He looks up to the ceiling, and to the floor, finally fixing his gaze right into Octavia’s eyes. “We’ve got a plan.”

“We do?” Cedric asks, eyes widening.

“We do. I came up with it just now.”

“Please, share this plan with the rest of us.”

Vix freezes. “Well, uh, Octavia, it kinda requires your participation, so I guess I should ask for that first.”

“I’ll do anything to save the station.”

His face twists into a smile, seemingly sinister; this is never good. “Well, I think you should pay Lilac a visit and talk to her for a while.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I want you to get close to Lilac---”

“Okay? What will that accomplish?”

“You didn’t let me finish. Make her trust you, and then sabotage the investigation if she finds anything that can be used against my sister.”

Octavia crosses her arms. “Vix, that’s not right. I’m not going to do that, I---I can’t morally do that.”

“Oh, so you want to lose the station?”

“Why can’t one of you do it?”

“We’re… occupied.”

“What?”

“Besides, I don’t get the vibe that Lilac would be interested in either of us. Especially not me, after what happened. You’re the most personable, the kindest… you’ve got a charm to you that I don’t think she’ll be able to resist.”

“Well, thank you, but Vix, you don’t get it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing this. I’m not a commodity.”

“No, no, of course you’re not! But you and I both know we can’t just sit back and watch Station Z crumble. We have to do something, otherwise… everyone here will be without a home.”

Octavia sighs. She takes a breath, a deep inhale, holds for ten seconds, and exhales slowly. Vix is right. She has to do something. She cannot let this happen. Station Z is the universe’s haven, at least in her naive eyes, and she has to save it. It is a holy duty.