Chapter Text
The Hail Mary had just slipped into long-range comms with Erid, only a few hours after Rocky’s accident. They were two days out, close enough that the delay between send and reply wouldn’t be unbearable. It was the first opportunity to make contact that wasn’t just an automated message. Grace knew Rocky would’ve wanted to handle it himself. But now.
Well.
Grace’s hands shook as he flipped the switches on the radio console, heart pounding, tuning to the designated frequency.
He needed the translator. The laptop he’d spent months programming to translate his English into passable Eridian. He pushed off from the console and half-stumbled toward the dormitory, grabbing at the wall for balance when his legs didn't quite cooperate.
He found it on the dormitory floor, almost snapped in half. It must’ve been knocked loose during the evasion manoeuvre, thrown and forgotten in the chaos of it all.
Grace scooped it up and carried it back to the console with both hands, like it might fall apart further if he wasn't careful. Which it might.
It sat heavier in his lap than it should have. The bottom casing was cracked clean open. The screen hung at a wrong angle, barely connected to the keyboard by a few thin bits of plastic and wire.
Thinking a silent prayer to whatever might be listening, he pressed the power button and waited.
Nothing.
He plugged it in.
Still nothing. The charging light didn’t even flash to confirm that he’d plugged it in right.
“Shoot,” Grace cursed. Of course it was broken too. Fantastic timing! He threw his hands up, jaw tight, and barely held himself back from screaming.
Grace couldn’t say anything meaningful on the comms without Rocky, and now his translator was dead too. All he had were a handful of Eridian words that could be spoken with a singular human voice box, and even those he fumbled trying to recall.
He couldn't wait for the words to come easily. There was no time to relearn a language. He took a breath, steadying his hands on the console, and reached for the mic anyway.
The radio crackled to life before he could touch the screen. Not static this time, but actual language. A smooth, resonant Eridian voice.
Grace froze.
The voice was formal and authoritative, and Grace could barely understand a word of it. Maybe ten percent, fifteen at most if he focused really hard? They were speaking too fast, syllables flowing together in a way that was nothing like Rocky’s simplified speech.
He’d known it would be difficult to understand true Eridian, but wow he’d overestimated his abilities. It was something about “unknown” and “identify yourself”.
His finger hovered over the mic button uncertainly.
Without giving himself too much time to panic, “Hi. Am Grace.” Crap… ‘ship’ was impossible for him to say with his singular voice box. “Grace Rocky in sky box.” He hummed. Gosh, he hoped it was understandable.
The silence stretched again, longer this time.
Grace could practically feel the confusion radiating through the line.
He filled the silence with his own anxious explanations. “Best-friend Rocky hurt. Bad bad bad. Rocky sleep. Grace talk.”
The radio clicked, then a new voice, higher-pitched and softer than the first. A different operator? Or the same one speaking in a different tone? It was difficult to tell.
They responded slowly this time, deliberately choosing simpler words that Grace should be able to understand.
“Hello Grace. Grace mean Rocky hurt bad and sleep now, question?” The Eridian spoke careful and slow. “How long Rocky sleep, question?”
Grace blinked. This was much more understandable.
Oh, thank god. He could actually make sense of them now. He tried his best to convert from Earth time ‘14hrs’ to Eridian numbers. “Best-friend Rocky sleep two day.” It had already been longer than Eridians were meant to sleep for and his friend showed no sign of waking up.
The Eridian operator hummed a soft distressed noise, sympathetic.
“Two day, no wake.” came another careful question, slower now, as if confirming what they’d just heard. Then, almost immediately after, “Is Rocky bleed, question?”
Oh. Right.
His throat tightened as he nodded to himself before realising they couldn't see him and answered aloud.
“Yes. Best-friend Rocky big fall. Hurt.” He wished he had the words to expand on what had happened.
The Eridian on the other end went completely silent for a few long seconds, no static, no background noise. Just… nothing.
Grace’s stomach dropped. Had he messed up? Was big fall not enough of an explanation?
Then, abruptly, rapid clicks and chatter in normal Eridian, too fast for him to follow. The message cut out for a moment.
Suddenly, the original soft-spoken operator came back on. “Grace. You okay, question?”
This wasn’t the time to explain that he had slept less than a handful of hours in the last two Earth days, or that he was terrified that his friend was dead, or that he was running out of food and had months or weeks left before it caught up to him. He wasn’t in immediate peril. He could get them to Erid, make sure Rocky got to a doctor and explain the solution to the Astrophage crisis. That was what mattered.
“Grace okay.” He assured.
The operator didn’t sound convinced. Not entirely. A pause stretched over the line.
He hadnt eaten properly since the asteroid accident. Just stolen bites here and there when his stomach growled too loud to ignore, mostly he'd been hovering over Rocky's unconscious form like a worried ghost.
Sleep had been worse. He hadn’t slept at all beyond brief dozes slumped against the wall beside Rocky’s compartment, jerking awake after fifteen minutes in panic that something had changed. It never had.
But admitting any of that would complicate things, and right now, staying focused on getting help for Rocky was more important than confessing his own exhaustion-fueled spiral.
“Grace okay.” He reiterated stubbornly. He would deal with himself once Rocky was safe. “Erid help best-friend Rocky. Fix best-friend Rocky, question?”
The operator hesitated again. Grace could practically feel them weighing whether to press the issue further about his wellbeing or not.
But ultimately, they shifted focus.
"Yes," came the calm reply. "Erid help best-friend Rocky."
Another burst of rapid Eridian chatter followed, likely coordinating medical prep for their arrival now that they had confirmation of an injured engineer aboard.
"Where Grace Rocky ship, question?"
They wanted coordinates. Or at least a better idea of how far out Grace was so Erid could start preparing properly.
Grace scrambled for the navigation display, squinting through sleep-deprived eyes at their current position relative to Eridian space.
They were a few Earth hours out from the space elevator now.
“Wait.” He said, knowing it would take a few seconds to calculate. He did the conversions on the back of a notepad. These were the times he wished he had Rocky’s calculator-like brain. “6086 second meet Erid.” About four earth hours.
The operator took the numbers without protest.
“6086 second,” they repeated back, confirming they’d understood correctly.
A few more muffled exchanges in Eridian followed, something about alerting medical teams and prepping a docking bay at the space elevator’s receiving station. He could feel the urgency even through the static.
Then, after a moment, “Stay course. No change.”
Simple instructions, but clear ones.
They wanted Grace to keep heading straight for them like nothing had happened with Rocky? He'd be flying solo all the way there now. His friend wouldn't be there to help navigate anything last-minute.
His hands tightened slightly around the controls again as anxiety crept back in.
Grace exhaled slowly, steadying himself. The ship was on autopilot. There wasn’t much left for him to do now except monitor systems and be prepared to dock manually when they got there.
He glanced back at Rocky through the xenonite divider. Still no movement.
His fingers tapped idly against the armrest as silence settled over the cockpit again, broken only by the hum of engines and Mary's diagnostics chiming in every few minutes.
Four hours until Erid. Until someone could help Rocky.
The exhaustion hit him like a freight train now that the adrenaline had faded and he wasn't actively holding himself together for an audience. He rubbed his face with both hands anyway, like it might help.
The ship was gliding smoothly on its pre-set trajectory, no input needed from him. Maybe he could manage a short nap before they arrived. Just enough to be functional.
Carefully, Grace unbuckled and stood, stretching out muscles that had gone stiff from hours in the chair. Another glance back at Rocky confirmed nothing had changed. Still unconscious. Still hurt.
The two days that followed were a blur of sleepless fear. Grace existed in a state of suspended animation, moving between the xenonite barrier and the cockpit.
He was by the control board now, waiting for confirmation from the Eridians that he was good to dock. The Hail Mary had done its job of getting to the space elevator, Grace just had to figure out the rest.
“Grace able to dock ship now, question?” The voice of the operator spoke over the communicator, overlayed by background chatter.
His fingers fumbled over the radio button, “Yes. Grace do sky box.”
He buckled himself into the pilot seat, taking a fortifying breath. Everything felt strangely disconnected. His muscles ached and his eyes stung.
Carefully, he pushed the thruster, hands trembling as he guided the ship forward, watching the sensor display the whole way. He corrected the glide with a small adjustment of the stick.
Finally, there was a thud and the whirring of the space elevator’s clamps securing the ship in place.
Silence fell over the ship.
The sound of static for a moment, then “Good job, Grace.” over the comms.
He sighed heavily and leaned his head against the console, eyes squeezing shut. They’d made it. They were finally here.
For one moment, that was enough.
Then he lifted his head, glancing toward Rocky through the divider, and the next problem settled back onto his shoulders. They'd want to board soon.
“Wait.” He warned. “Grace air bad. Bad for Rocky-plural.”
A silence followed. “Where Rocky? Rocky in bad air?” The operators voice became a frantic trill.
“No no no!” Grace waved his arms around, even though they couldn’t see him. “Best-friend Rocky okay! Best-friend Rocky in box…special box in sky box.” He sighed. “Best-friend Rocky okay. No scared.”
The operators voice sounded relieved but remained urgent and cautious. “Rocky Grace separated. Understand.”
There was a flurry of fast-paced Eridian speech on the other side, then the operator returned. “We will use xenonite suits”
Grace hummed an affirmative and leaned back, relief washing over him. “Okay. Come soon?”
“Come now.”
Grace startled. Already?
He scrambled out of the cockpit, and down the hallway to the airlock, stumbling over a lip in the floor he should’ve remembered was there by now. He caught himself against the wall, breath coming quick, and forced himself to slow down. Falling and cracking his skull open now would be a great way to ruin first contact.
He waited in the hallway outside the airlock, hoping they’d be able to figure out the door system without killing him in the process. The seconds stretched. He picked at his skin nervously.
After only a few minutes, he could hear faintly the sound of clattering on the other side, metal against metal, uncertain and testing. Then, the first door was pushed open and two Eridians stepped inside, both noticeably larger than Rocky. Both wore xenonite suits, opaque instead of transparent, that hid the details of what was underneath.
Dissapointing. He’d been wondering what they would look like. Were they all brown like Rocky? He supposed he’d find out eventually.
He waved through the porthole window. One of them, the slightly smaller one of the two, copied the gesture after a moment of visible deliberation, small clawed hand rising uncertainly, while the other Eridian fiddled with the door mechanism to seal it behind them. Grace let out a breathless, half-hysterical laugh at the imitation. He was nailing second contact. Meeting aliens never got less cool, even under circumstances like this.
There was a pressurised whoosh as the airlock cycled back up with his atmosphere. Grace shoved his weight against the second door, struggling with it more than he’d like to admit, until it finally gave.
“Hi! Am Grace!” He beckoned them forward with a trembling hand. “Best-friend Rocky here. Follow Grace.”
“Am Medic 🎶🎶, and this Medic 🎶🎶,” The smaller one said, both of them falling into step with Grace, equipment trailing behind them in something akin to a wagon. The sounds of their names meant nothing to his ears. They weren’t similar to any words he knew, and were too multi-layered to reproduce with his inferior vocal cords. He decided to call them Waver and Quiet. Very creative names that just came to him and definitely weren’t based directly on their behaviour.
“Good meet.” Grace replied automatically, already turned to lead them. At least Rocky had taught him basic manners before falling unconscious.
They entered the main room, the two Eridians still trailing behind quiet aside from the soft clicking of their suits and the wagons wheels rolling on the metal floor.
“Rocky here.” He pointed through the transparent divider to his friend, motionless on the other side.
Grace opened the section seal, a simple airlock Rocky had made and designed, and let them through. The smell of ammonia hit him, and he closed the door as soon as they were both inside.
Waver and Quiet crossed to Rocky immediately, hovering over him and clicking quietly. Perhaps chatting to eachother in a register he couldnt hear well, or simply making sounds to see the wound better.
“Best-friend Rocky okay, question?” His voice came out thin with anxiety. He pressed a hand flat against the divider, eyes trained in his friends still form. Please. Just tell him Rocky was going to wake up. That was all he needed. He could fall apart about the rest of it later.
“No sign of consciousness. No way to know.” Waver said. “Need bring medical bay. Test for active worker-cells.”
Quiet was already easing Rocky onto a contained xenonite stretcher with quick and clinical movements.
Grace’s throat tightened. “Slow slow slow.” His voice cracked. “Rocky hurt. No hurt more.”
“Is ok, Grace. We take care.” Quiet promised. They were the first words they’d said so far.
They finished the transfer, closing the opaque lid over Rocky. Morbidly, Grace couldn’t help but think it looked like a coffin.
“Okay,” Grace said, though he didn’t feel okay. He felt like his entire universe was being carried away in a box.
He followed them at a distance, watching them go through Rocky’s airlock, then down the hall, and again through the Hail Mary’s airlock. He stroked his arm in the Eridian goodbye gesture, and the medics did the same.
Grace stood in the middle of the quiet hallway, staring at the airlock door, watching as the Eridians carted his best friend away down the dark corridor. It wasn’t long before he couldn’t see them at all.
Then there was nothing. Just the hum of the Hail Mary’s system that had followed him for four years, suddenly unbearable without Rocky’s presence.
Grace didn’t move for a long moment. He wasn’t sure how long. Long enough that his legs started to ache from standing in the same spot.
He was alone. Truly alone, for the for the first time in four years. No Rocky tinkering, or chatting, or asleep a few feet away. No one to notice if he stopped holding himself together.
He didn’t know if his best friend was alive.
He didn’t know if he’d ever hear that trilling laugh again or be reminded that he was special or precious or whatever sappy comfort Rocky was feeling that day.
Grace sank down against the cold wall of the empty hallway, drew his knees to his chest, and let himself fall apart.