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Grace carefully positioned the ship as I was keeping my eyes on the ship's screens and making sure every calculation was met.
“It’s not half bad” he exhaled with a smirk as he perfects phase one. I roll my eyes and fix my glasses with a scoff before mumbling “humble”.
“Is all good” Rocky then affirmed, and with that, Grace gently pushes the stick forward making the ship’s speed accelerate.
“Time to go fishing, question?” Rocky asked to which Grace replied “it’s now or never”.
I only stood there, watching everything unfold and making sure the numbers were stable, and nothing was going south. There wasn’t much else I could do considering I never got the chance to discover how the ship works after countless begging. Grace was a control freak and only allowed me to work in my area of expertise; biology and chemistry. Patriarchy seemed to have followed me to space, but i wasn't really complaining; I'd rather it being his fault than mine if the ship somehow explodes.
I watched as they both got into position; Grace unbuckled himself from the pilot seat and made his way to suit up and made sure he was tied to the rope so he doesn’t just float off.
“What if something goes wrong? With the ship I mean” I whispered to Rocky my eyes fixated on Grace, who I could barely see peaking his head out from the ship.
“Rocky takes care of ship, Grace takes care of collector. No wrong happens. You make sure Rocky and Grace know if wrong happens” He answered in his ever so monotoned voice, so I just shake my head and put my headphones on so I could hear Grace, trying to distract the anxiety that was braiding my guts at this point.
He groans before softly mumbling “you've got to be kidding me” I quickly shoot my eyes to the big window “is something wrong?”. After a small pause I hear him again: “no it’s just- the sky’s slightly on fire. It’s fine” and I can’t tell if he’s trying to convince me or himself.
“Words of encouragement” I hear Rocky say from my headphones, Grace and I both let out a chuckle “You can’t just say words of encouragement” He argues with the rock.
“Words of great encouragement” Rocky tries again. I giggle before looking at him and shaking my head “Nope”.
My heart starts beating uncontrollably, not only from fear; but now also guilt. I hear him struggle outside and it kills me to know I am sat here in the safety and stability of this ship as he is in danger. And if anything goes wrong, I wouldn’t even be able to help, he'd just float off, and that would also probably be the end of Rocky and I. My lip is probably bruised from how hard I’ve been biting it, praying everything goes to plan.
A few chimes from the 2 other- well from the man and alien are tuned out as I start mentally spiraling. One thought after the other and I am now worried about the most irrelevant things to the mission, like whether God will let me into heaven after all this or not.
I’m pulled back into reality as I hear Rocky callout for Grace’s status update with as much emotion as the computer could translate. Grace then responds and as they start exchanging questions and answers, making you understand Grace dropped the ball, you hear the ship’s warning “Exterior Temperature elevated” and inform them both with a shaky voice.
As rocky pleads with Grace to come inside, you hear Grace’s raspy response “be there in a minute” and my heart drops. He’s going to do something stupid. “Grace you rock headed idiot! listen to me! Come back inside we can repeat the mission later” I cut in, walking up the controls to trying and see how I could even manage to maneuver this big ass ship with 200 buttons per panel.
“I don’t think there’s going to be another time” He argued back, breathlessly. I stop in my place and shut my eyes with frustration, he makes caring about him such torturous, his recklessness was going to send both you and Rocky into a manic episode.
“Abort, abort, abort!” Rocky insisted “No, no, no, no Grace will die” but anything we said was useless, he was not listening to anyone but himself, and was driven by nothing but the adrenaline fueling his body.
I press my lips together as I softly mumbled a prayer under my breath, I don’t remember when exactly during this whole journey, but I somehow became more religious than I ever thought I’d be.
I hear a loud thud coming from the airlock room causing my eyes to shoot open and head to snap back, I release a breath i didn't realise i was holding, seeing Grace climb in after throwing the collector.
“Oh my goodness you’re alive” I said opening the door and before I could add anything he is walking past me into the ship. *Cold dude, cold* I said to myself as I shook my head and took the collector in.
“Amaze, amaze, amaze, Grace okay question?” Rocky turning in his ball, “Well I’m not dead so” Grace answers him as he sits back in the pilot seat—yeah, he answers a rock but not his crewmate amaze- I mean amazing Rocky’s really rubbed off on me.
“Where is that noise coming from” I complain suddenly being aware of the whole ship making unusual and unbearable sounds.
Grace stands and pulls himself up “It’s the gravity- it’s tearing this ship apart”
“We leave now, question?” Rocky inquired, to which Grace comforts with “We leave now, statement” as he looks at me waiting for me to strap myself onto a seat after putting the collector somewhere stable in the other room. “Hull pressure warning” the ship alerted, Rocky added “hull bending in big room bellow bedroom”
“The fuel tanks!” I exclaim, uselessly strapped onto a seat that made sure i was far from anything useful, great again.
“Holes! Bad, bad, bad!” “Well, it’s not great!” the other 2 argued, and try to find solutions, ones I also manage to tune out, biting my lip even harder, why am I not helping? Why did my brain just shut down? I am suddenly interrupted by Grace yelling out “NOW” and everything goes quiet.
For a moment everything seems fine, we both unbuckle hesitantly when then the ship starts moving uncontrollably sending us each in a direction far from the other, we both manage to hold onto something.
“Why ship moving, question?” Rocky asked, and only after I finally look over the screen to I notice the warning and grunt out “there’s a whole, there's a fucking whole" "language!" Now he wants to acknowledge me.
Warnings add up, the fuel is running out the ship and I can see Grace trying to reach buttons, struggling to try and do anything, and I uselessly stand there mind buzzing from the lack of oxygen its receiving. He flicks some switch that pulls a squeal out of Rocky, before I feel myself get thrown back against the hard wall and hear them both yell out my name before everything went dark.
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I slowly fall back into conscious from the nagging robotic sound of Armando asking for my name, I cough out as I try to gasp for air, every breath putting knifes into my back, I mumble out my name and push its harsh light from my face, standing up quicker than I should have.
Dizzy, I feel all every ounce of blood accumulated in my brain, almost making me fall back into the bed. I push myself to limp out the room, trying to find any sign of life. Following a trail of scratches and black dust on the floor, I hesitantly peak my head and find Grace laid next to Rocky.
I get closer and notice black burn marks all over his stone shape, my heart drops. Grace is asleep, I see his chest slowly rise up and down, though now in a medical gown similar to the one I just notice to have on.
“Grace?” I try to say softly, but my voice comes out rough and louder than i wanted it to, causing his eyes slowly blink open. As they find mine, I can see a sign of half-relief. “Is he- are you-?”I fail to make a comprehensive sentence.
He nods “I’m fine, well as fine as I can be. He’s asleep” he hesitates with that last part, but I chose to ignore it. I want to ignore it.
“Are you okay? You hit your back and head pretty hard I didn’t think you’d be able to walk so early- i set you down for Armando to check out your state” He said standing up, with a wince.
“Armando’s blinding light and nagging sound hurt more than whatever's fogging up my brain” I joked taking a step forward to see just how rough he looked.
He smiles softly, takes a step forward and hugs me unexpectedly, I can feel his fast heartbeat against my chest and how his breath shudders. After awkwardly keeping my hands to my side, I slowly wrap them around his torso letting myself melt into his embrace, somehow feeling our hearts calm down to a pace that made them beat at once.
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Around a week passes and Rocky was still asleep; it was hard to get used to the emptiness of the space he once took. His blunt question, his nagging and his absurd honesty that distracted you from the fact that you were on a one way ticket, and will never get to re-experience a proper life outside this stupid rocket ship.
Once we’d mostly recovered from both our accidents, Grace and I filled our day with constant experimenting on the predator and how Astrophage reacts to it. Now our objective was breeding the predator, and while Grace was rightfully resting, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep ever since I made a small mistake 2 days ago, almost causing yet another catastrophe on the ship.
I hear footsteps followed by a roll I was used to hearing before Rocky’s 7 day hibernation. I ignored it at first, continuing to fiddle with Grace's silly earth hacky stack, fixing my shirt who had rolled off my shoulder. My eyes suddenly widen.
I heard a fucking roll. I quickly turn to see Rocky rolling in with Grace slowly behind.
“Oh my God” I let out a shaky breath, quickly leaning to hug Rocky’s ball.
"Woah woah woah what is happening!" Rocky said taking a step back in his ball "A hug" I replied looking up at Grace who only looked at us with a slight raised eyebrow. "Yknow It's usually a two Man job" I pointed out after a minute of him stuttering questions.
"Oh i do the sam-?" "would you just get in here" i interrupted him, before feeling him lean against the side of the ball i was hugging. "How do you know when the hug is done?" the rock asked awkwardly, to which Grace replied "you just feel it, and I'm guessing she isn't anytime soon", i only giggled in return as i try to sniff my sobs away.
“You look rough” Grace pointed out, with a worried face.
“You're very kind, brightening up my mood as always" I sighed while standing up.
“No like- you look like you could play in Michael Jackson’s Thriller movie. When was the last time you slept?” He asked looking behind me to check the logs I’ve been adding and notices a non-stop update pattern for the past 36 Hours. “You haven’t slept for almost 2 days are you insane!” He added with more aggression than he intended.
“No, I took small naps I just couldn’t sleep aft- I couldn’t sleep” I try to cut my sentence short as i save the progress and walk away from this conversation.
He goes silent watching me walk past him for a moment, “After your small mistake? You do realize not sleeping makes your chances of messing up higher?” Was I that easy to read?
“Just don't worry about it” I reassured him while leaving to the room.
He asks Rocky to keep an eye on everything and quickly catches up with me. He grabs me by the hand and pulls me towards his room, the door closing behind him.
"Can we not do this right now?" I asked crossing my arms after he lets go of me.
"No, we will not "not" do this, we in fact will and are doing it right NOW, so speak up" He said blocking my way and mirroring my stance