This started with me thinking SPACE PIRATE NIKOLAI, and then not wanting to have to google a bunch of Star Wars shit to write that AU, and then remembering Mark Watney Space Pirate, and then writing that convo out, and then this whole mess grew from that one scene, and it’s almost 2000 words. So: Space Pirate Zoya.
I know nothing about space or space agencies. I apologise so much.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714387 - AO3 link
----
He talks to her in Russian, over the coms. English is the main language of communication with Earth; it’s what she leaves her logs in, it’s what she got her climatology doctorate in even if, for the most elemental things, she looks out at the night sky and thinks, כוכב, kochav, before she hears the English. نجم, звезда, those come easily, too. And তারকা, she reminds herself. Najim, zvezda, tārakā. You play such games with your mind to keep from losing your grasp on earth, all the way up here.
Russian, though, it’s what her aunt spoke to her in, after she saved her life, in a tiny flat in a smoggy bloc of Petah Tikvah. The current pulls her home.
“Nazyalenskaya,” he drawls over the fritzy connection system, “I want to kill Rietveld.”
She quirks a smile at that; everyone has wanted to kill Rietveld. She would give a lot to want to kill Rietveld right now.
“I think you can spare him another day. If only for all the Van Halen tapes he left behind. And the ridiculous quantity of Indonesian rap.”
“I’m never going to forget about that.”
“Hmmmm, I’d be careful about talking, considering the number of romance novels I’ve found on the system, downloaded by one N. Lantsov.”
-
“In the face of oblivion,” she tells the crew of the Терешко́ва, “the only course of action left is to science the shit out of this.”
-
How does it feel to be the dying goddess of your own planet?
Sometimes, that’s what she feels like, when she pulls water from Rocket fuel. No one around to hear her swear.
It may be on Mars, but growing potatoes in a literal field of shit pulls her from that revery, into some kind of ancestral, rain-soaked Russian field.
She wonders, absentmindedly and only half-jokingly, if she’s gonna be here long enough that attempting to distil some vodka for the pain would be worth it.
No. She’ll pull herself out of this on pure spite alone, if she has to. It’s gotten her out of other tough places. She’ll pull herself out of this mess, and above a dust clogged atmosphere to the sky above, and all the way home. She’ll buy a cheap- no, an expensive one, it’s what Earth owes her- an expensive bottle of wine from a corner store and uncork it with her eyes out to the sea and she’ll drink life down to the dregs.
I am not going to die here.
-
Look at the stars she tells herself, and try not to feel the fear.
The first English poem she memorised through to the end. Sarah Williams, the full version, not the one chopped to a fridge-magnet length quote. Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, -- I would know him when we meet. Considering that in its entirety it’s about a scientist comprehending his own imminent mortality, it is perhaps not the best choice of reading material. You may tell the German college that their honour comes too./But they must not waste repentance on the grizzled savant’s fate; Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
She was a girl, once, and she wanted to get away and leave her old life in flames behind her, and she did. She ran and ran and ran, past national borders and past agencies with long acronyms and past the fiery bounds of earth herself. She ran until, quite literally, she could go no further, until she was a woman in a duct-taped house in a place no thing can live, like some kind of mid 21st century Slavic witch.
-
“Not only am I the best meterologist on earth, I’m the best fucking botanist on this planet. Best surgeon, best cook, best-” she isn’t one to lighten the mood, usually, but what else is there- “best lover.”
-
She points up, through the palm branches of the sukkah’s roof and to the night sky above.
“You can see Mars, right there? See, you can see me. It’s not that far away.”
Lada doesn’t seem convinced.
“You might not come back-”
“You think a few million kilometers is gonna stop me from getting back to my best research partner? Huh. Thought you knew me better than that.”
“A few million?”
“Closer than the nearest bus stop.”
“It’s gonna be years.”
“And so? I’ll expect you to be a proper scientist, when I get back. Or a proper poet, or painter, or chicken farmer.”
“But you’ll come back?”
“There’s nothing that can stop me.”
-
“Nazyalenskaya,” he asks, and in her name is the universe. “How are you?” is not the question to ask a lone crew member stranded literally on Mars. “We got a letter from your family. Gonna patch it through to you.”
“What do you suppose the requirements for building a sukkah on Mars are?”
Not that there’s much of a rule book for this kind of thing, but it’s something she thinks about. Humans, they look at the void and the unlivable planet, and they make it theirs. Genya’s calculations for the direction to face Mecca. The whole crew’s World Cup fervor. The solid week she and Rietveld spent in a subtle face off with the rest of the crew about using the big screen to keep up with Eurovision. The constant, unending, awkwardness of Ghafa and Rietveld, though both were far too professional to act on it.
-
“Red wire to the green and-”
“Lotta fucking duct tape, I know.”
Repairing the rover- that’s a lot of fun. She never really learned how to fix cars, back home. But it gives her something to do, something active, besides staring at potato plants.
She opens another one of her precious rovers for the parts. A weather probe. Says a silent prayer for the death of science.
It’s a long way to Schiaparelli crater. Zoya’s hated road trips for as long as she can remember, both in the environmentalist, fume-hating way, and also in the traffic-hating kind of way. So, she tells herself. Channel that spite into doing what scares you.
-
“Nazyalenskaya,” he says, “I’ve been thinking about the international implications of what you’re trying to do.”
“Mhmm” she says
“First off, I’d like to thank you for being possibly the most diplomatically complicated climatologist alive. Got Roscosmos, ISRO, and the ISA all breathing down my necks.”
“Good. Use it. Play ‘em against each other. This is either the biggest propaganda win or worst failure of their fucking lives.”
“The other thing is law on Mars. There’s an international treaty saying no country can claim anything that’s not on earth. By another treaty, if you’re not in any country’s territory, maritime law applies. So, Mars is international waters.”
Treaties, red tape, diplomatic stuff- that was never her job. Her job was making sure that six other people could breathe in space. Maintaining, linking the systems of the Hab to be survivable.
The storms, though, that was why she was really there. Or at least, that’s what pulled her from earth. The kinds of weather this galaxy had, beyond the limits of earth.
(Once upon a time, Mars had a viable atmosphere. Once upon a time. She looks out at the orange hellscape and wonders: will this be us?)
And then a storm had been her death. She was just biding her time until it happened.
Pessimism. What else was left?
“So?”
“So, Nazyalenskaya, the Hab’s a tripartite effort. ESA, Roscosmos, CNSA. Non-military, but you know as well as I do there’s enough earth-based bitching about who owns it. The second you walk outside, though, you’re in international waters. Soon-”
“No-”
“Soon you’re gonna leave it for the Schiaparelli crater, and you’re gonna commandeer the Ares lV lander. No one on earth gave you explicit permission to do this, and they can’t until you’re back with us on Терешко́ва .”
She realises where this is going.
“Fucking hell, Lantsov, not more with the-”
“So you’re going to be taking a craft into international waters without permission, which by definition makes you a pirate. “
Even she cracks a smile.
“DOCTOR ZOYA NAZYALENSKAYA, SPACE PIRATE!”
She can feel the excitement down the line.
“I better get an eye patch at the end of all this.”
“Nothing less for the best meteorologist on the planet.”
“A ship. Commandeered Spanish galleon.”
“Of course.”
“Crate full of gold bullion.”
“I promise you. I think the rest of the crew’s been planning their first meal back on earth for the last year.”
“Shut the fuck up. You’re not the ones living off potatoes and protein bars.” She’d found a few secreted-away bottles of kecap manis and a jar of sambal oelek in Rietveld’s luggage, which- completely against regulations for cargo by weight, but it’s inadvertently the best thing he’s ever done for her. At least when she eats her dwindling space rations, she can burn her fucking tongue off, due to Rietveld’s stubborn Dutch insistance to never listen to any rules, ever.
“Yes, but. We’ve heard all the drafts of the epic-length poem Yul-Bataar’s written to herald you with on your return.”
“Almost makes me want to die alone on Mars.”
“Hush up. We’ve already had to watch your funeral once. I even wrote a speech.”
“I better get a recording of that when I get back,” she says. “You better have cried. You better have wept over the untimely demise of Earth’s best meteorologist.”
“You better believe it was a speech for the ages. Wait, i can find a draft and read it-”
“Save it. I want to savour my death, after I know I’m gonna live.”
“This is next level Slav gallows humour. How many people get to watch their own funerals?”
Zoya Nazyalenskaya does not giggle, but the thought of all those puffed-up world leaders saying things about her importance, her intelligence, her beauty. (Will men see anything else?) Shedding a few tears about a brown, Jewish, Russo-Bengali meteorologist who’d they’d barely cared to listen to in her life, but here, dead, she’s the ultimate pawn in their games. . . .
It might make her laugh. Slightly.
And then she thinks about Aunt Liliyana and Lada sitting shiva for her in that flat in Haifa. The first thing she’d bought with her earnings after the ESA had taken her on was a nicer flat for the two of them, in walking distance to the sea.
“Lantsov,” she says, although it feels like exposing some part of herself she doesn’t want to recognise. “Lantsov, keep talking. Please.”
“Of course. What about?”
“The crew’s first meal. Back on earth. What is it?”
“Zenik said red-velvet waffles with, quote, “a fuckton of whipped cream. An entire can of whipped cream.” Andreyev like a good Moldovan says it’s gotta be sarmale, and I swore Rietveld lives off coffee and the destruction of his enemies but I know he’s got a thing for nasi goreng and. . ..”
-
This is a dumbass long-shot solution that will probably get them all killed.
It takes a certain kind of long-shot nihilistic self-destruction to enter the airless murder void in the first place, but this is. ..
“The only thing that might work.”
Bo nods and then glares at him to shut up.
The ship’s got a big whiteboard, and Bo’s hands move almost as fast as his mouth does as he sketches, scribbles, draws, talks. They’ve got a direct, illegal, verboten, unknown, lifesaving link through to the CNSA, and as Kuwei’s the only native Mandarin speaker aboard, he’s the main one doing the talking. He’s a chemist, though, - Ghafa’s the pilot, Zhabin’s the chief navigator, and it’s a controlled frenzy of different langauges and disciplines as the crew hashes out the most wild rescue plan in human history.
“How do we know-”
“He’s the best astrodynamacist alive. Also, my dad, but-”
He, Zhabin, Ghafa and Rietveld all independently run the calculations.
Да, Да, हाँ, Ja.
“Who’s ready to go against the explicit instructions of five space agencies to bring the best space pirate alive back home?”
It was never even a choice.
-
“Zoya,” he says, over the link. “We’ll get you home.”
Hi girly, how are you?
I just wanted to know if you know any fics about Aleksander finding happiness? But by himself. So without all the soulmate crap because I’m getting annoyed of that now. My boys an independent king 😌
thank youu 💕
Hey!! I'm good, thanks. How about you?
Unfortunately, I don't have any. I only have Alarkling fics but I totally get the sentiment.
If anyone here knows any type of fic where Aleksander has a happy ending without Alina in the picture, suggest it in the comments freely. 😊
