Actions

  • Entire Work

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2026-04-27
Updated:
2026-09-02
Words:
41,954
Chapters:
22/?
Comments:
26
Kudos:
94
Bookmarks:
18
Hits:
2,150

Laws of Planetary Motion

Summary:

There’s a kid on my ship.

A kid.

How did this even happen?

Did Yáo know? Did Ilyukhina? They must’ve, right?

And they didn’t tell me?

No. They would’ve told me, I try to convince myself.

None of this makes any sense to me right now.

*.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*. *.*.*.

Or: Grace isn't alone on the ship. But the other person is not one he expects. What do you do when you're stranded with a teenager on a suicide mission?

On hiatus until I finish writing every chapter, hopefully will be done by the end of the year

Chapter 1: GRACE // 01

Chapter Text

I’ve been awake for a week.

 

No, not a week. Maybe two weeks. Three? I’ve lost my sense of time. 

 

It was bound to happen. When you’re on a spaceship, adrift in a void trillions of miles from Earth, you don’t know how time works anymore. You don’t have a Sun rising and setting to indicate passing days. You can only count the seconds. 

 

I’m alone. Yáo and Ilyukhina are dead. They probably died a long time ago. That leaves me, the last human alive on the ship, the Hail Mary.

 

I’m the most alone a human has ever been. 

 

I don’t know what to do with their bodies. I’ve been avoiding the room where I woke up—the combination medbay/dormitory—and have been sleeping elsewhere. I haven’t been back since. I’ll deal with the bodies later. 

 

I’ve been wallowing in my despair and grief for most of the time I’ve been awake, but I’m getting slightly better. I remembered my name, finally. Ryland Grace. And remembered that I’m a scientist, a middle school teacher. I have a doctorate in molecular biology. I love teaching my kids. I’m on this ship because I was part of Project Hail Mary. There’s a crisis on Earth and astrophage is killing the Sun. We need to stop it from happening.

 

I’m remembering more everyday but I’m still missing a lot.

 

Even though there is no one around to judge my appearance, I decided to clean myself up. When I woke up, the nannybot (or Armando, as I’ve decided to call it) had tried to cut my hair and shave my beard. I didn’t let it. Only after I found a past picture of myself did I realize that I used to look different. I used to have short hair and was more clean-shaven. So I did it myself.

 

Anyways, back to the time. I’ve figured it’s been 17 days since I woke up. In about four days, the Hail Mary will reach its final destination: Tau Ceti. And then I’m going to have to figure out what to do from there. I know I’m the mission scientist and I need to do…science, like whatever I did back on Earth. I just don’t know where to start.

 

I wish Yáo and Ilyukhina were here. They would know what to do. They know the ship more than me. They could offer advice.

 

I wish I wasn’t alone.