Nobody volunteered to monitor the maintenance bot that was currently upgrading the hovers, so Irene volunteered herself. It’s not like she was salty or anything; she didn’t have energy to be salty anymore. The hover upgrade was happening in subspace, nobody had specific qualifications to perform that but Robert, and Robert didn’t seem to even care anymore. Irene could have made the NSE engineers responsible for this, but they were the last group of people who didn’t openly hate her, and she wanted it to stay that way. So, instead, she was sitting alone in the corner of the Engineering station on the Sixth deck, three interfaces with various schematics around her and the camera feed of the bot on her personal interface. She wasn’t operating it manually, the bot was preprogrammed to perform its task or stop and request input if something went outside of expected parameters. But Irene sat there and watched, just in case, even if she wasn’t 100% sure what was going on.

She started to realise she needed a break. A proper time off. Not right now, of course. Not on Wells either (they were currently flying there from Colossus). Probably, not even on Jeph. But after that – for certain. Time off work, time off the ship even. She didn’t know where Hopestar headed next but she put “PLAN VACATION” on her to-do list.

Irene tried to imagine what she would do during her time off. First, she would sleep in; wake up a bit later and go to bed earlier. Then, she would probably observe a day or two of fast; it’s been years since her last one, and surely the spirits were getting grumpy with her commitment. Fasting during work wasn’t wise as she needed energy to stay alert, but during time off when she could focus solely on prayer and meditation? A must do. And then… Then… Well. She would do something fun? That wasn’t work? Like… read a book or watch a movie. Check the latest games at the entertainment hub. 

So that’s one day planned.

Irene was about to give in to the strong wave of self pity when the door to the Engineering station opened and the person on the other end gasped in surprise. She looked up to find Grav Ramírez standing there, two interfaces in one hand and a bulky station adapter in the other. For a moment, he looked completely lost for words, unsure how to react. Then he gathered himself and looked over his shoulder and mumbled in a small voice: “Uh, I can just start from the Seventh deck then and-”

“No, no.” Irene pulled all the assorted interfaces closer to herself, freeing a spot of the floor in the middle of the room. “I am not using the station, don’t change your plans. Just ignore me here.” She squeezed herself further into the corner and hugged her knees to her chest. When Grav Ramírez didn’t move, she added: “I just didn’t want to be distracted while I’m monitoring. Assumed it would be quiet here.”

He finally stepped inside and closed the door. After a moment of hesitation, he made another step forward into the empty spot near the station and plugged the adapter into it while balancing the interfaces on top of it. 

“Are you sure? I’ll try to be fast.” Grav Ramírez said quietly as the station started booting up. He was clearly anxious for it to go faster, but software never cared for human perception of time.

Irene glanced at the maintenance bot feed but nothing was much different from a minute ago. “Yes, yes. Work the way you would’ve if I wasn’t here.”

Another minute of awkward silence passed. Grav Ramírez tapped the station screen a couple of times and waited more. With a sigh, he spoke again: “I wanted to apologise…”

It felt as if a valve burst in Irene’s chest. She leaned back against the wall and started talking, fast and passionate, as if she only had a limited amount of time in which she was allowed to speak. “You have absolutely nothing to apologise for! From the moment you stepped on this ship, I had not a single issue with your work! And yes, that one time you decided to ask Robert’s permission in response to my request, for some reason, but I understand being ex-corpo does stuff to how you see the organisational structure here. And I am sorry I didn’t properly introduce you to how things work on Hopestar and you had to figure it out on your own.”

There was so much she wanted to get off her chest, so much that had been kept pressurised in her ribcage, that she could feel almost physical pain getting it out.

“Yes, I was a bit irked at first, but that’s not your fault but just my perception. I’ve never been angry with you, but just in general, about things that were not your fault or responsibility. You just happened to be nearby and I must have acted shitty which led to you feeling like you have to apologise.

“And the whole situation with da Silva simply reached the peak after you got here, but I had issues with the way they perform their duties for months! And it’s their responsibility, not yours! And I want to keep it professional but they treat me like a child even though I understand the majority of the systems so much better than they are! Surely, you can see the issue! It’s not a problem now but it will be! One of those days the smuggled stuff will be toxic and leak into the air system, or the SOI sensors detect something illegal, or any other number of equally shitty possibilities!

“And I don’t care if Robert is the “main guy” here; if we just sit and wait for him to act, Hopestar would sooner self combust than anything get resolved! He appointed me First Class, so I might as well do something!!!”

Irene took a shaky breath and stared at the side of the station as if it was personally responsible for all of it. She even forgot she wasn’t alone in the room, she just needed to let it all out even if it made little sense.

Then Grav Ramírez gently asked: “Are you doing alright?” 

Irene stared at him and struggled to parse his words. “What?”

“Do you think you need a break?” He squatted down next to her, a worried expression on his face. “You look like you haven’t slept in ages.”

Now that they were on the same eye level, Irene suddenly felt like she was back at her childhood house, with one of her uncles and aunts sitting by her side and trying to figure out what was wrong and why she was crying. 

She rubbed her face and grimaced. “No, no, I am fine, I’ve slept enough. My usual 6.5 hours.”

This didn’t seem to impress him. “What about downtime? Do you rest or do you continue working when your shift is over?”

This felt very bizarre. They both were engineers currently on shift, and engineers never worked only during their shift, and it was okay because they were enthusiastic. Irene tried to find an answer but took too long, because Grav Ramírez continued: “You need to rest after the shift. Leave on time and take an extra nap.”

“Noone leaves on time.” Irene said with a small smile.

“I do.” Grav Ramírez replied sternly. “The wisdom of the ‘ex-corpo’, as you phrased it.” He made sure she was taking his words seriously and carried on: “When I got my stamp, I didn’t get fired. The HR didn’t seem to care much as long as I continued doing my job. They didn’t even increase my quarter goals. But I soon learned that meeting the same standards while dealing with all the sudden hostility from the co-workers around you is just unmanageable. So I stayed longer hours just to catch up, worked weekends, and didn't take my days off. And, as you can see, I no longer work there. Because I couldn’t.”

Irene thought about this. Yeah, burn out was a known issue in the corpo world. “It’s not like that on Hopestar. We are not a corporation and there are no evaluations and no goals to reach-”

“Not written ones, no.” He replied and glared at her intently, as if expecting her to understand something obvious. When she didn’t gasp in revelation, he sighed. “There’s a bit of a personality cult in Engineering, don’t you think? Everyone looks at Hoffman, who dedicated his life to building Hopestar, and expects to be like him in their own little corner. And then you, ma’am, are his protege, so you should be like him, right? Wrong. You are not him, and you will never be.” 

She frowned, her pride wounded. Grav Ramírez didn’t let her reply and clarified: “Because you are Irene Koulibaly, not Robert Hoffman. You are not talented like him – you are talented like you. You can’t do everything he does but you can do so many other things. And the same goes to the rest of us.”

They sat in silence for another moment. Irene tried to find something to defend herself with. But Ramírez’s words echoed in her heart with the sole trueness of them. And she felt foolish for not thinking of it this way before.

She took a deep breath. “Everyone still expects me to be Hoffman.”

Grav Ramírez shrugged. “You’ve been quite determined to prove you can be him. I reckon you can apply this energy to convince everyone what they really want is you being you.”

Irene felt her lower lip tremble and she rubbed her face again. “Thank you,” she murmured finally. “For these words.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome. I don’t know how exactly you feel, I am just a lowly Grav Engineer. But I still think I get it.”

He got up with a huff, his knees creaking from the prolonged squatting, and returned to the station. Irene picked up her interface and checked on the maintenance bot. Everything was in order. It would have notified her if something was wrong. Maybe, she didn’t have to sit here and monitor it so closely.

When Grav Ramírez started unplugging the adapter, Irene got up and took a deep breath. “By the way, what I said at the start, I meant it. I will never hold your relationship with da Silva against you, just because me and them don’t see eye to eye.”

He paused and stared at his interface for a moment, then managed a sour smile. “Well… Not a thing anymore, anyways.”

She blinked. “What? But you…”

Grav Ramírez shrugged. “We were. And it was nice. But it started going too fast and too far and… I don’t know. That was too much. And they didn’t want to have it any other way, so we decided to end it.”

Irene squeezed her fingers into a fist and slowly released them. Another thing made worse by her presence. Surely, if she didn’t bother da Silva this much, they would have more patience for their lover. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged again. “It’s okay. These things happen.”

They both jumped when Irene’s comm went live. “Where are you?” Robert didn’t sound angry but he seemed agitated.

She brought the interface closer to her face. “I am on the Sixth deck with Grav Ramírez, at the Engineering station.”

“Can you get back down here? I want to try to plug this filter back in, and I need someone with enough wisdom not to burn themself to hold it for me.”

“Yes, I’ll be there in five.”

Irene muted the call and smiled at Grav Ramírez. “Well, be relieved, I am leaving you to your own devices.”

“José.“ He said with a sardonic smile.

“What?” She blinked.

“My name is José. Nobody else goes by it in Engineering, as far as I know. So you can just call me that. ‘Grav Ramírez’ was fun maybe the first three times but I am honestly fed up with it.”

Irene felt herself blush and smiled widely. “Understood. Thank you again, José.”

He grinned. “Remember to rest, okay? Or I’ll be the one doing the performance evaluation in this case.”

They parted ways, still chuckling.