Chapter Text
“—So of course, my first thought would be to replace it with xenonite, but that didn’t work. I thought about Taumoeba, but considering how the Taumoeba is doing, it’s likely it would just mutate, so I didn’t end up doing that,” Dr. Ryland Grace paced around the room in the spaceship, trying to figure out how to fix a part of the ship that had broken down earlier when Rocky and him were over collecting the Taumoeba at Tau Ceti.
“Rocky and Grace stranded in space, question?”
Grace sighs, then nods his head. “Rocky and Grace stranded, statement.”
Grace goes back to his computer, sitting down and making another analysis on their current situation. A partially working Hail Mary, only about a little food that was meant to last them until they made it to Erid. Unfortunately, with this state, getting to Erid might be a little hard, especially since they were missing that whole about fifth of the ship.
“I don’t think there’s much we can do here, Rock,” Grace mutters, eliciting a soft chirp from Rocky that wasn’t heard over the translator. Grace didn’t bother with it, as it was probably a curse. “We could try to fix it now, but I think it would take a few days…”
“You seem stranded. Initiating distress signal.” Mary’s robotic voice echoed through the ship, which surprised Grace.
“W-wait, distress signal?? What signal?!?!” The scientist called out, recalling that they had never put a distress signal on the Hail Mary since it was expected that they were meant to die in space.
“Rocky install distress signal!” The Eridian chirped at Grace. “Eridians use distress signal when in emergency. Rocky ship had distress signal!”
Grace stared at Rocky in shock.
“Why Grace quiet, question?”
.
“Sorry, pal. It’s just… when did you do that?”
“Rocky install distress signal while watching Grace sleep!”
. . . .
“Um. . . alright. What will the distress signal even do?”
“Distress signal call 🎶🎵! 🎶🎵 make comeback recently.” Rocky excitedly jumped.
“Sorry, Rock, repeat that?” Grace looked over at the translator. “I… don’t think that word is registered in the translator’s dictionary.”
“🎶🎵 is universe legendary defender!” Rocky continued on, before remembering he was working with about a 30-40 year old, which was basically a child in Eridian terms. “They save universe from 🎵🎵🎶. 🎶🎵 make comeback recently, save many planets like Erid from 🎵🎵🎶! The leader is 🎶🎵🎶 and is good friend of Rocky! Grace remind Rocky of 🎶🎵🎶.”
“Woah, woah, Rocky, slow down! There’s too many unregistered words. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of… any of those.” Grace slightly panics, attempting to decipher all of the new words that are being thrown like a brick to his face.
“Rocky will teach Grace all about 🎶🎵!!” Rocky chirps.
Grace sighs once more, as he assumes these unknown words were something Eridian that he has to give an English word later. But, until they can find a way to get to Erid a little quicker, they have to find a way to not go insane. “Fine, tell me all about it.”
————
“Paladins, we’re getting a distress signal from the Tau Ceti system!” Allura calls out, to which half the called groans.
“This is the third one in the past two vargas!” The blue paladin, Lance, complains.
“Well, this is what happens when you’re a universe-saving human.” The green paladin, Pidge, retorts.
Lance scoffs, and Allura chimes in once again. “We’ll be making our way to the Tau Cati system now. It’ll take about a dobosh to get there.” The paladins all make their way to their designated seats, Allura starting the ship to make their way to the distress signal.
Entering the Tau Ceti system, the Voltron ship gets close to the distress signal’s ship, in which the human team notices something a little suspicious about the ship.
“Is… is it just me or does that ship’s design look kind of… human?” Pidge is the one to ask, speaking what was on everyone’s minds.
The paladins all agreed, yet all set out on their mission anyway.
“This is quite a big ship,” Coran looked out through the ship’s windows. “It’s much bigger than any ship I’ve seen!”
The paladins made their way down to the launch site, where their lions were usually resting. Already having their suits on since they’ve had to be on duty for almost the whole day, they all mounted their lions and made their way to the third alien(?) spaceship to save of the day.
———
“Blip-D detected,” Mary’s robotic voice went through the ship once again, startling both Rocky and Grace who were in a deep conversation on 🎶🎵, or whatever Rocky called it.
Grace immediately got up, making his way down to the cockpit where he could make sense of what was going on, Rocky following behind. “Blip-D? Another ship?!”
“Blip-F-through-J detected.”
“WHAT DOES F-THROUGH-J MEAN??” Grace frantically searches the monitor, finding one-too-many unidentified objects on the sensor. Grace counts (why does this bum even need to count?) and finds six unidentified blips.
Grace, in a sheer state of panic, believes he is about to die. May this unknown alien take him and Rocky before he can even learn full Eridian.
Rocky, astonished and excited, believes they are about to get saved. “Grace, look! Grace, look!” He chirps, looking out the window. “They are legendary defenders Rocky talk about!”
“Give me—wait, what?” Grace looks over, and walks to where Rocky was standing. “. . .Those look like… robotic lions.”
“What are… lions, question?”
“Earth animal, we went over this conversation. It’s a cat breed.”
“Right right, Rocky remember. Rocky remember all.”
“Rocky think Grace should let 🎶🎵 save us!”
“Right, sure. Let the menacing space lions enter our ship and help us out, sure, not like I’ve done that before. Rocky, can we think this throu—“
“Opening hatch 4.”
. . . .
“Rocky, what the fudge.”
“Grace very mean to 🎶🎵. Grace show hospitality to Rocky. Grace should show hospitality to 🎶🎵!!”
“I didn’t teach you the word hospitality for this—!!” Grace follows behind a now rolling Rocky who just wants to greet these new suspicious alien guests.
Except.
They were not aliens.
“Grace, look! Legendary defenders are Grace human friends, question?” Rocky chirps, as the paladins were oh-so-kind to make their way onto the ship. Grace backs a little, making sure to stay behind Rocky.
“Uhm.. they’re. Human, that’s for sure.” Grace replied, feeling kind of… awkward? How does it even feel when you’re out in space, with no human contact for years, and you all-of-the-sudden meet humans who are going to save you from your predicament that you managed to be forced into? Maybe that feeling would be… uncomfortable? He’s not very sure.
“Hey, Pidge, you were right! It’s a human, and, uh… this one was called an.. Erudan? I never paid any attention to those lessons Allura gave us on different species of the universe.” Lance exclaims, causing Grace to jolt back even further. English-speaking humans, that’s fun. So very fun.
“Eridian, Lance.” Keith corrects him, making eye contact with Grace. “And he seems scared. Don’t startle him.”
“You, uh… I can speak English,” Grace speaks up, confirming a concern most of them had.
“Yes yes! Grace very good at human language. Grace no see human for ma~any years. Grace make new friends, question?” Rocky chirps, either oblivious to the tension, or teasing Grace just for the fun of it.
“Um, I’m not really sure about that, Rock—“
“Your name is Grace?” Shiro interrupts, stepping in front of the younger paladins.
“Um, Dr. Ryland Grace, sir.” Grace responds, his muscle memory happening to take over.
“Ryland Grace… you were the scientist working on Project Hail Mary, correct?” Shiro asks, having known a lot about Project HM from his Earth days.
“Er, yes,” Grace responds, feeling a bit awkward about the situation. He’d been talking with a space rock (no offense, Rocky) for so long, talking with humans felt kind of weird to him.
“I’m Shiro. I’m with the paladins of Voltron. We got a distress signal from your ship, so we came to help.”
“Yes yes! Grace and Rocky stranded. Ship engines need fixing, but Grace and Rocky engineer and scientist. Not astronaut, statement.” Rocky chimes in yet again, fueling the embarrassment that embedded into Grace’s soul.
“I could help with that!!” Pidge steps forward. “If you don’t mind, that is.”
“It’s, uh. Fine. We need all the help we can get, anyway.”
“Right. Pidge, you can go assess the ship from the outside. Hunk, Keith, feel free to go back to the ship and tell Allura and Coran about our situation. They might like to come down here, considering there’s… an Eridian here. Lance, you’re staying here with me. We’ll make company for Dr. Grace.” Shiro instructs, the paladins already making their moves.
‘Oh my God,’ Grace thought. While it was nice to finally meet humans again, being the human-contact-starved person he is, he was not prepared for this at all. He found this to be quite like when Rocky moved in.
As he watched the others make their way out, Grace made a realization. The word Rocky was saying… could it have been Voltron?
“Hey, Rocky, buddy, could you repeat that word you were telling me about earlier?” Grace makes his way to his computer.
“Does Grace mean 🎶🎵, question?”
“Yes, that one.” Grace types at his computer, Lance and Shiro watching behind him.
“Did you make that yourself?” Lance asks. “You must be pretty smart if you made your own translator. I don’t think Pidge could do that, and she’s the smartest in our group!”
“Well, yes. It was kind of a project I had in the back of my mind since I took up the sciences, but when I met Rocky I thought that to talk to him, I would first have to learn to understand him. Making a translator isn’t hard, since, thankfully, Rocky understands English but can’t seem to speak it himself. Eridians speak in musical tones and sounds, kind of like a whale or a bird would back home,” Grace found himself quickly rambling off. Maybe this is the effect of having someone understand him for the first time in a while that isn’t Rocky.
“So you basically invented your own translator? Wow, that’s crazy. That would be, like, revolutionary on Earth.” Lance replied, before looking at Rocky. “So this guy’s name is Rocky?”
“Well—yes and no. I named him Rocky since humans aren’t really able to produce the sounds Eridians do, and I thought it would be easier to use. I think it’s grown on him, though. Isn’t that right, Rock?”
“Rocky think Rocky name bad. Rocky should have cooler name, statement. But if Rocky name make Grace happy, Rocky name Rocky.”
“Aw. You’re too sweet for your own good.” Grace smiles. He then looks over at the paladins. “Um, well. Now that you’re here, feel free to look around. Not like Rocky takes up most of the space on this ship.”
“Please, pardon the intrusion. We haven’t seen another human in a while that isn’t ourselves. Is there anyone else on this ship besides you two? I thought they were sending out at least three of you.” Shiro asks, already looking around.
“Oh, um… they passed away. I barely knew them myself, but they were kind and… they taught me most of what I needed to know before becoming part of the Hail Mary mission.” Grace explains, hoping he doesn’t come off as upset.
“Oh. . . My condolences.”
“It’s alright. I had to figure everything out as I went, anyway. I was forced on this damned mission anyway.” Okay Grace, that sounds like enough outta you.
“Forced?”
“Forced? Woah, who said that?”
“Grace said, statement.”
“Rocky, you’re not helping my case.”