Chapter Text
Ryland adjusted the camera. He still did the little logs, just for fun. Like that guy in The Martian! Or in Avatar! He sat down while Rocky did God knows what, but the faint clattering meant he was likely experimenting with xenonite again. He took a breath and began to speak.
“So, another day. We’re making some decent progress! Nothing too bad. Still, uh, trying to make it work.” He folded his hands, smiling awkwardly.
“Grace.” Rocky called from the other room.
“But it’s work! Glad we’ve got something to do. Uh-“
“Grace.” Rocky clattered over.
“Nothing new to report- what is it?”
“Yes, new report! Weird moon. Grace look.”
“…what do you mean, weird moon?” He stood up, camera forgotten as Rocky led him over to the cockpit.
“Weird moon.” He tapped his ball against the machine.
“Okay, can you give me a little bit more than that, buddy?” He hung his glasses off his ears as he looked at the panel’s readings.
“Don’t know! Weird moon. Planet. Weird. Weird.”
“How is it weird? Mary, can you run a scan on that?”
“Not rough. Slimy texture.”
“…slimy. Right.”
Mary chimed and sent back a report.
“The moon is made of: water, albumin, globulins, fibrinogen, electrolytes-“
“Electrolytes?” Grace rubbed his face.
“What mean, question? Tell.”
“-erythrocytes. Habitable.”
“How is it habitable?”
“What mean, question? Grace. Grace. Grace.”
“It’s made of blood. How is it made of blood? How is that possible?”
“Blood. Blood moon. Blood planet. Alive, question?”
“…maybe. Mary, is there anything alive there?”
Mary paused. Then beeped again.
“Yes. There is: unidentified alien, unidentified alien, human, unidentified alien, unidentified alien-“ She continued listing every unidentified alien.
“Human?” This baffled Grace even more. How was there a human there? He surely would’ve known if they sent someone all the way out here!
“More Grace, question?”
“Yeah. Yeah. How are they alive? How is that possible?”
“Save other Grace, question?”
“…I mean. Can we risk that?”
“Yes, yes, yes. More Grace, more Grace.”
“Oh, so you do like me.”
“Yes. No. Grace be quiet. Go to moon. Grace go to moon, statement.”
“Okay, I get it. Mary, head over to the moon, please.” He remembered that she, in fact, could not do that. He sighed and sat down in the cockpit.
“Pilot detected.”
Ryland took a deep breath. This was either really smart or really stupid. The ‘unidentified aliens’ didn’t put his mind at much ease, but he slowly tilted the controller forward anyways.
“I wonder how they even got down there anyways…” he muttered to himself. The small red mass was approaching quickly as he eased up on the gas.
“…how do we get them out in the first place?”
“Scan, question?”
“I mean, we can try. We might only get surface scans because of, y’know, all the blood. Mary can’t really x-ray a planet, so we don’t know if they’re alive or not.”
“Grace and Rocky still try, statement.”
“We will still try,” he nodded in agreement.
“Blip D detected.”
“…what.” He climbed out of the chair (Pilot not detected) and pressed his face against the window. When he (obviously) didn’t see anything, he rushed back to see what the ship picked up as ‘Blip D.’ A giant. Iron. Hull.
“The- the cord’s snapped, it seems. Rocky, can you make a new one?”
Rocky eagerly nodded and clambered away. Grace rubbed his face and sighed. How were they even here? There were barely any stars, any planets around here.
Rocky soon came back with a cord.
“Good. Okay. How are we gonna do this?”
“Magnet.” Rocky stated plainly.
“…do we…have one of those?”
“No.”
“Then why would you-“ he sighed.
“Grace go to moon, question?”
“I’m not going out there.”
“Cord float, statement.”
“…wait, really?”
“Yes. Grace stupid, question?”
“Quiet. Okay. Yeah, I mean…I just gotta…walk onto a planet made entirely of blood with creatures out there. And grab a cord. And pull up a hull with a possibly-dead human inside. That’s normal.”
“Grace scared, statement.”
“I’m not. I’m hyping myself up, y’know? Just…gotta believe.”
“Hype, question?”
“Y’know, like…getting yourself motivated.”
“Okay. Grace get motivated. Rocky save other Grace while Grace talk to self.”
“I’m not…well, I guess I am.”
He found himself soon after in a space suit, holding onto a cord tied to the ship as he eyed the surface of the moon for this floating cord. It took him a while. He almost gave up, until he found that little piece of metal. He tied the cord to it and got back into the ship, watching as she pulled it slowly up. Would the hull survive? It has a decent atmosphere, and they were slowly orbiting it, so it couldn’t be that bad. Was the person even alive? What if they were hostile? Or didn’t speak English? I mean, he did it with Rocky. As the ship slowly pulled it up, Grace’s face wrinkled at the amount of blood pouring out. When the ship finally breached the surface, what seemed like a whole gallon of blood poured out of the ship.
There was also a massive tooth inside it, so things weren’t looking great. Hauling it over to the ship, both Rocky and Grace rushed over to see what and who was inside. The lettering on the side read SM-13. With the way that it was built, it was definitely supposed to be one-way. That pulled a frown onto his face. I mean, he was technically also on a one-way ship, but this one just looked…bad. Made out of scraps of metal, with the only porthole being a small cracked piece of glass. Who the hell could survive that much damage, though?
Simon took a gasping breath as soon as the blood began to pour out of the vessel. Delirious and in an insane amount of pain, he sucked in a few breaths before falling unconscious once more. His last thoughts were on how fucked he was.
When he finally came to, he wasn’t in the Iron Lung. He was in a clean ship, with some blonde man staring directly at him. He fixed his glasses and took a step forward. He started talking, but Simon couldn’t hear him over the ringing in his ears. His face scrunched up and he crawled back. He took in deep, panting breaths. He could breathe. That’s good.
“Get- get the fuck away from me.” He hissed out. His mind was spinning, and he’s 99% sure he’s dead. If he’s dead, then why is he still in pain? Is he in hell? He sure deserves it. He’s a criminal, a convict.
“Don’t…touch me..” he muttered as he faded in and out of consciousness. He tries to remember what happened. His arm hurts. His face hurts. His eye hurts. Everything hurts. He fell back into unconsciousness again.
Grace stood there, hands up in a useless position as he stared. They were not off to a great start. The man was drenched in blood, missing an arm, with teeth growing out the side of his face. He looked like a wreck, and seemed extremely hostile. But he spoke English, and he was alive (for now) so those were two things he didn’t have to worry about. He slowly looked over at Rocky. He looked…concerned. For something that doesn’t have a face.
He got Simon cleaned up and into new clothes and set him on a spare bed. He dressed his wounds and waited. Sitting on a chair, arms crossed, he waited. He told Rocky it was best to wait, that he was probably overwhelmed and couldn’t handle seeing an alien right now. It made sense, but he didn’t like it. So he was pouting outside.
It was a few days before Simon woke up. It made logical sense, of course, due to the amount of radiation poisoning and all his wounds and the CO2 buildup, but man, those two were impatient. Mainly Rocky. Grace sat there and talked to him, most of the time. Rocky said it was stupid that he was talking to someone that couldn’t respond.
When he finally came to, he was still extremely aggressive. Just more vocal about it. And loud. Very loud.
Sitting upright, he looked around. His face scrunched in confused anger as he scoped the clean room. This wasn’t the Iron Lung. Hell, this wasn’t even close to Filament Station. He turned around to face the man that was blabbering next to him.
“Hey, it’s okay, man, don’t be afraid-“
“WHO ARE YOU?!” He demanded. He patted himself down for his knife (piece of jagged rock) and found nothing.
“ARE YOU WITH THE COI?!”
“The…the what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. The COI. Eden? Any of those ring a bell in your thick skull?”
“Okay, maybe let’s calm down-“
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
“Alriiight.” He smiled awkwardly and held his hands up. When he finally managed to get his bearings, Grace spoke again.
“Okay, so, I’m Grace. You’re on the Hail Mary. We found your, uh, moon, and then your ship, and we hauled you over so-“
“So you can eat me?”
“…so we can help you. Big difference there. Anyways, you’ve been asleep for a few days now. What’s your name?”
“…Simon.”
“Got a last name, Simon?”
“…what?”
“A last- nevermind. Unimportant. Got any questions?”
“Yeah. Plenty. You still haven’t told me who you’re with.”
“Oh, the government!”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“…you don’t know what the government is?”
“Are you makin’ shit up just to throw me off?”
“No! No, no, I’m not. Honest to God.” Simon’s face wrinkled at the mention of God.
“…oookay. I’ll leave you be. Seems like you need some rest. You ever need anything, just uh, call!” He waved and exited the room. He heard various musical notes, and another voice. He settled back into the bed.
It was comfy. More comfy than he’s used to. It was…nice. He let out a sigh and looked over himself. He did very vividly remember his arm getting ripped off, so that wasn’t that surprising. He turned over to the open doorway, and felt…remorseful, in a way.
“…uh, Grace?” It quieted and he poked his head back in,
“Yuppers?” Simon blinked slowly.
“…I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright! I get it. You don’t know us- well, me, and you’re on our ship now! Weird situation, and with your, uh, wounds there, seems we got there in the nick of time.”
Simon was now thinking about how much of a loser this guy was.
“Right. Thanks for that. Are there…more of you?”
“Kind of. Uh, how familiar are you with aliens?”
“…what.”
“So that’s a no. Good to know. Uh, well, we do have an alien on board. But he’s super friendly!” He scrambled to put out the last bit of his sentence, attempting to soothe him in a way.
“Right. Okay.” He ran a hand down his face. “I’m gonna go to bed now.”
“Right! Right, of course.” He laughed nervously and turned off the lights.
“Goodnight, Simon.” He shut the door and faced Rocky. Simon listened in, just for a little.
“Rocky watch new Grace sleep, question?”
“No. He doesn’t know you, bud. And his name’s Simon. Not ‘new me.’”
“Why Rocky can’t watch Simon sleep, question?”
“It’d probably freak him out. Anyways, we got work to do, buddy!”
Simon laid back down and took a breath. This was nice. He could get used to this.