Chapter Text
2 0 2 5
The Hail Mary Spaceship launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on the 21st March 2025. A project seeped with controversy and uncertainty, uniting nations across the globe in a desperate, improbable attempt to save humanity.
In the beginning, details are buried, redacted, denied. The world had changed since the Petrova line’s discovery and subsequent upheaval of society, so when whispers started of the development of an interstellar spaceship as a fruitless attempt at finding a solution, well.
It sounded absurd. There was outcry over it; celebrities and news channels tore it apart in public commentary. Politicians claimed it was a waste of resources, that the taxpayer dollars were better off being used for mitigation of the world’s fast-developing global environmental crisis than playing delusional spacemen.
And yet the project continued, supported by governments and space agencies worldwide; the united front of the Petrova Taskforce became a comforting constant, a background noise the general public was only vaguely aware of. Somewhere, someone was working on a solution to save Earth.
…Even if the idea was a long shot, it was something to hold onto.
But as the months drew closer to the launch date, details began to emerge. First came leaks, then official press briefings. Finally, a detailed document outlining the mission plan.
A suicide mission.
There is outrage, of course. Protests, condemnation, accusations of recklessness and betrayal. But beneath it all runs a quieter current of reluctant acceptance – someone has to do it, and at least it isn’t me.
A conference is held to announce the three selected astronauts for Project Hail Mary. It’s short, less than ten minutes. Eva Stratt, head of the Petrova Taskforce, introduces them briskly, with no fanfare;
Yáo Li-Jie
Olesya Ilyukhina
Martin Dubois
The press immediately coins them ‘humanity’s last hope’; a title that sounds almost noble until you realise it is really a burden, placed upon three people expected to save everyone, knowing they won’t live to see it. It feels uncomfortably close to spectacle, journalists and news agencies hounding for a comment, a juicy confidential detail. Because a controlled briefing doesn’t sell – but a selfless sacrifice to save humanity does.
The world holds its breath as the launch date inches closer and closer. Suddenly, it is all the news can talk about. Four years since the ArcLight probe returned to Earth, four years since the Petrova Taskforce had begun its mammoth undertaking, its saving grace.
One week left until launch.
Six days.
Five days.
Four days.
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A confirmed explosion at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Officials reach out to the Petrova Taskforce for comment – Head of Operations Eva Stratt confirms the launch date will not be delayed, but provides no further details.
The Hail Mary Crew Manifest is quietly updated sixty-eight hours before launch.
Yáo Li-Jie
Olesya Ilyukhina
Ryland Grace
Confusion and uncertainty are widespread amid the last-minute alteration to what is arguably the world's most important mission in human history, of a name not affiliated with any space agencies.
The Hail Mary launches on schedule. The eyes of the entire world are on its metal shell as it successfully lifts off into orbit, carrying the hopes and dreams of all of humanity. Its crew are remembered as heroes, honoured for their sacrifice. People mourn, people pray, people remember.
People move on.
2 0 2 6 – 2 0 5 1
The Hail Mary will take thirteen years to reach its intended destination, and a further thirteen years for the probes to return.
The world doesn't stop turning. Countries come together in ways they never have before. Joint task forces, harsher regulations. Military pacts are created, then dissolved, then replaced by new initiatives.
The consequences are severe. The pre-ArcLight global population estimates of 9.74 billion by 2050 are retracted, replaced with newer, far more harrowing figures.
Global temperatures decline 14°C by 2050, producing profound systemic consequences and cascading effects across ecological and socioeconomic systems. Large-scale agricultural failure and global food shortages place critical strain on global infrastructure and geopolitical stability.
Concurrent hydrological disruption and biome shifts, driven by expanding polar ice sheets, lead to widespread freshwater scarcity, habitat loss, and accelerated biodiversity decline.
By 2050 the global human population returns to pre-21st century numbers – Six Billion.
It's a lot.
It's not enough.
It's funny how both statements can be true.
The United Nations attributes 2.23 billion deaths to the ArcLight Cooling Event.
World Governments try various coordinated efforts, some rational, some controversial – all to varying degrees of success.
2 0 5 1
The world continues to turn, and almost without notice, the earliest possible return window for the Project Hail Mary Probes began to approach.
News channels pick up the story once more; discussions resurface at dinner tables and in public discourse.
What had lain dormant for twenty-six years – dismissed as wishful thinking while governments focused on immediate, practical solutions – returns to the forefront of global attention.
But nothing comes. No signs of probes on deep space scanners. No radio signals sent through the vastness of space.
Whispers begin to circulate. Questions, at first quiet, grow harder to ignore: whether the mission had ever succeeded at all – whether humanity's bravest, sent farther than any human before in a fragile vessel against the vast uncertainties of space, had even survived long enough to complete it.
It was increasingly possible that humanity had been waiting for nothing.
Attitudes begin to decline as the earliest return date passes, followed by the months that come after it, with no sightings.
Scientists continue to reassure the public that a wide range of variables could affect the probes’ return timeline – velocity, course deviation, the time it took the Hail Mary Crew to collate their findings and prepare the Beetles for their return journey.
Despite these explanations, public confidence is steadily eroded. One by one, institutions and individuals began to write it off as a lost cause.
The Petrova Taskforce, briefly reunited in preparation for analysing the returning probe data, quietly dissolves once more – its members returning to their primary focus of ongoing mitigation efforts within their own countries.
There was no official declaration – only a quiet, collective understanding that Project Hail Mary had failed in its mission to save the world.
It had always been a long shot, after all.
January 24th, 2052 – 02:07
It’s two in the morning, and Harley has drawn the short straw – NASA mission control nightshift. You’d think it would be exciting – it’s NASA.
That doesn’t change the fact that it’s been 36 hours since he last slept, and his thesis, Orbital Analysis of Post-Event Polar Albedo Disruption and Its Impact on Global Radiative Balance, is due in three days.
He’s eternally grateful for bagging an internship at NASA, really – he is. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s drawn the short straw of the most boring job in existence.
Six hours checking the deep space scanners for signs of the BEETLE probes, what a bore. Everyone knows it’s a lost cause now. That there will be no probes returning to Earth. Hell, Harley would be lucky if even a stray asteroid was picked up on the scanners on one of his shifts.
At least it gives him time to try and finish his thesis – he can’t ask for another extension. His mentor didn’t seem to give a shit either way; he’s not technically meant to be in the control room by himself, but Paul had stepped out for a vape over 40 minutes ago, and there’s no sign of him coming back. Typical.
If only NASA’s Ares Missions hadn’t been scrapped due to the global crisis – his internship would have been super cool if there had been missions to Mars had been going on.
Instead, he was reduced to monitoring for a transient signal spike from the deep-space scanners that’s never going to arrive.
What a waste of time.
Two hours into his shift, and he thinks he’s going insane. Will anyone notice if he leaves his post to grab something from the coffee machine? He might actually get ink poisoning from how badly he’s chewed his pen at this point – but he just can’t figure out how to write the conclusion for this stupid thesis. Why it needs to be 20,000 words he doesn’t know, does anyone even read these things at this point?
Ping.
Ugh. Maybe the cafeteria is still open. Or if he waits a bit longer, the mini Starbucks on the second floor will open at 6am.
Ping.
Maybe he can fake an emergency. A leg injury. His grandma died. There was a snowstorm, and it froze his laptop – they probably wouldn’t accept that last one. Snowstorms are so common these days. He just needs something to get another thesis extension.
Ping.
God, his head is banging. If only that fucking noise would stop then-
Wait.
His head snaps up to stare at the monitor in front of him.
For a second, nothing changes. The same static readouts. The same deep-space background noise profile.
Then the system refreshes.
A new alert populates the top of the screen.
DEEP SPACE TRACKING ARRAY [GOLDSTONE] // AUTOMATED DETECTION FLAG
SOURCE: JPL HORIZONS MATCH FAILURE
STATE VECTOR: [R=42.7 AU | V=−12.4 km/s | INC=3.11°]
SIGNAL CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN / UNDER REVIEW
Harley blinks once. Then again.
The alert doesn’t clear.
The deep-space feed shifts automatically into analysis mode. A spectral graph opens across the second monitor – thin, precise spikes of energy where there should be nothing but background noise.
A structured deviation in the radio spectrum, repeating at intervals too consistent to be natural interference.
The system tries to dismiss it.
It fails.
AUTONOMOUS FILTER OVERRIDE: CATALOGUE MATCH NOT FOUND
KNOWN NATURAL SOURCES: EXCLUDED
SATELLITE / TERRESTRIAL INTERFERENCE: EXCLUDED
A third window opens without input.
Trajectory modelling.
A faint projected path appears – an inbound curve drawn from the outer solar system. It’s a perfect match for the outbound route the Hail Mary took 26 years ago – he would know, his essay on it was what had gotten him into a Brownstone University.
Harley leans closer to the screen.
The system updates again.
OBJECT CONFIDENCE INCREASE: 0.41 → 0.78 → 0.93
He should probably get Paul.
21 January 2052 – 4:21am
“It's a BEETLE probe.”
“We don’t know that it's a BEETLE-”
“Vincent, are you serious? Look at its trajectory models – it’s headed straight towards Earth! This isn’t a random asteroid that is coincidentally on that exact return route the Hail Mary left in-”
“We can’t confirm that it’s a BEETLE probe until it gets closer and actually gives us something so the scanners can pick up its signal-”
“You honestly believe that? Look at the evidence in front of you! The whole reason we still have scanners pointed at that area of space is for this exact scenario – and you, what – want to stick your head in the sand in denial?”
“Until we can prove that it’s a BEETLE probe, there’s no use in mobilising the entire world only for it to turn out to be an uninteresting space rock-”
“That doesn’t even matter – we have 24 hours to release this data, and as soon as the world sees it, there’s no going back. We need to get to the forefront of this now. We need every scanner on the whole Earth pointed at that thing.”
“...I’ll call Canberra and Mexico City. And Paul?”
“Yeah?”
“Get me the contact details for Eva Stratt.”
21 January 2052 – 18:45
Eva Stratt is in their office. When Paul managed to actually get the contact for her number, he hadn’t thought he would continue to be included, but no one’s kicked him out yet. He has no idea how she managed to get here so fast, considering she’s banned from flying over at least 20 countries, let alone being in them. Luckily, the US isn’t one of them.
Some guy called Dimitri is also here – Paul is sure he was one of the original Petrova Taskforce members. Maybe.
They’re arguing between themselves in front of Paul, Vincent and about twenty other NASA employees who had all been mobilised into the control room and sworn under at least three NDA’s each.
“It’s not right. It’s impossible,” Dimitri is muttering to himself as he whips his head back and forth between various monitors and constantly updating data velocity outputs.
“You keep saying this. But you won’t explain why,” is the curt accented voice that responds – Eva Stratt in all her glory, coffee in hand and staring at Dimitri with an impatient expression.
“The Astrophage fuel output. Its tail is too big for the size of the BEETLE Probes.”
“Could they have combined the fuel of multiple BEETLES to speed up the transit of just one?”
“No, for a multitude of reasons. First, the BEETLE probes have a maximum fuel capacity they can physically hold, and they were already pre-loaded with their separate Astrophage fuel beforehand. The Hail Mary would have been almost fully depleted of fuel by the time of its arrival at Tau Ceti, so they couldn’t have added more anyway. And yet it’s moving too fast, with too much Astrophage fuel.”
“Even though it’s behind schedule?”
“Maybe it just took them longer to collate their findings.”
“Look at the distance it’s covered in only twelve hours. If it keeps up this velocity, it will arrive at Earth within the next two weeks! Does that sound like a probe to you?”
“Well, if I could have Steve Hatch here, then I would be able to confirm, since he created them. But he’s not here, so I am asking you.”
Paul thinks he hears Dimitri say something about the man being in a ‘drunken stupor’. But maybe he imagined that.
“I’m telling you, it’s not a BEETLE. Hell, I’d almost say it's-”
Dimitri cuts himself off. Stratt stares back at him in confusion, “Almost what?”
He lets out a chuckle and shakes his head, “Ah, no. Now that would be impossible. No, you are right, they must have altered the BEETLES in some way.”
Paul wonders what he was going to say.
13 February 2052 – 14:25
They continue monitoring the so-called ‘BEETLE’.
NASA had released its findings, and as expected, the media took to it in a whirlwind frenzy – confirmation of a probe returning to Earth – of humanity being saved.
NASA declines to comment on those statements.
The entirety of the Petrova Taskforce is now camped out in NASA’s main control room, and it’s a constant flurry of movement as they prepare for the probe to come in range of radio signals that can be pinged back and forth between Earth and the BEETLE to hopefully gain useful transit data.
Even everyone in the room had seemed to accept that it was a BEETLE – even with some of the stats apparently being vastly incorrect.
Steve Hatch is still MIA.
Stratt looks annoyed about it.
13 February 2052 – 15:33
It was a countdown of minutes until the object came within range of higher-resolution scanners, where it would stop being a distant blip and start returning usable data.
For hours, the room had been waiting.
Waiting for clarity on whether the object at the edge of the Solar System will become something more than a blurred anomaly in the noise floor of deep-space observation. Was to be their saviour.
“Velocity’s still off,” Dimitri reiterates again, eyes fixed on the trajectory model. His voice was flat, tired in the way only long uncertainty could produce. “If that’s a BEETLE, it’s not behaving like one.”
“It’s not meant to be manoeuvring,” Lokken replies. “It’s passive. Ballistic return. No control inputs.”
“I’m just saying, don’t get your hopes up. It didn’t respond to any expected transponder handshake sequences or BEETLE beacon IDs,” Dimitri muttered.
Stratt didn’t look up from her display, “Assumptions are irrelevant until we have data. We wait for the Deep Space Array to resolve it properly. We’ve input the correct data for it to recognise any of the four beetles. Once it makes a successful connection, then we will know.”
As if on cue, the central screen flickers, a new system coming online.
DSA-4 / LONG BASELINE INTERFEROMETRY ARRAY
SIGNAL RESOLUTION UPGRADE: ACTIVE
The room holds its breath.
A single line of text appeared:
OBJECT RESOLVED
Then a second:
ANGULAR SIZE: OUT OF EXPECTED RANGE
A pause.
Then the model updates again.
The BEETLE projection – a small, compact, data-carrying probe – was overlaid in one corner of the screen for comparison.
And beside it, the new measurement.
“That can’t be right,” someone says.
Dimitri leans forward, “That…is not a BEETLE.”
Lokken didn’t answer.
Stratt’s expression didn’t change, but something in the room tightened anyway, like pressure dropping before a storm breaks.
Another update flashes across the screen.
TRAJECTORY CONFIRMED: INBOUND DECELERATION PROFILE DETECTED
Mountains of data starts unloading below it, at a speed to fast it is hard to keep track. Hands are scrambling across keyboards in rushed actions.
Eva Stratt stares back at the screen.
The back door bursts open.
“Stratt! I told you to stop wasting my time with-”
Steve Hatch stills in the doorway, “Why have you got the schematics for the Hail Mary on screen?”
The room erupts.
13 February 2052 – 16:02
The room is in lockdown.
“There’s not – there’s so many reasons this is impossible, I mean, this is completely insane! Even disregarding the fact that there was only enough fuel for a one-way trip, there was only enough food for the outgoing coma system and a maximum of one year at Tau Ceti! There’s no possible way for the crew to be alive,” Steve Hatch rants to the room at large.
“Within the next eight hours, it will be in range of digital signal transmission, and then we will know for certain, if- if there is anyone out there,” Stratts facade cracks a little at the end.
In the end, they don’t manage to send a message out.
A message gets to them first.
13 February 2052 – 23:58
[NASA ARE YOU RECEIVING? THIS IS CAPTAIN YÁO OF THE HAIL MARY]
“Oh my god.”
“It’s fake. Someone’s hacked into the servers and is playing a sick joke.”
“You can’t just hack into NASA-”
“Well, someone did, because the alternative is impossible. It’s not them – it can’t be them.”
“It is them-”
“Somebody respond already! It takes thirty-five minutes each way for a data transmission!”
[TRANSMISSION ORIGIN UNKNOWN. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF IMMEDIATELY. UNAUTHORISED ACCESS TO DEEPSPACE TRANSMISSION NETWORKS IS A BREACH OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. IMPERSONATION OF DESIGNATED FLIGHT CREW IS A PROSECUTABLE OFFENCE]
They wait. The tension is sky-high.
[I CAN CONFIRM THIS IS CAPTAIN YÁO LI JIE OF THE HAIL MARY. WITH ME ARE MY CREW MEMBERS, OLESYA ILYUKHINA AND RYLAND GRACE. CURRENT DISTANCE FROM EARTH 30.2 AU ± 0.3 AU. ARRIVAL TIME ESTIMATED 28.02.2052. REQUEST FOR SPLASHDOWN CREW CAPSULE.]
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[MISSION SUCCESSFUL]