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Grace knew he’s dying. It’s inevitable. The Hail Mary was never supposed to last beyond the initial four-year trip plus the ninety days they gave the crew to do experiments and find a cure for the sun. It’s a miracle that the ship was still working. Especially with all the damage that the ship had taken from the Adrian incident. Most of which Grace had managed to just about patch with his limited knowledge.
But now, Grace could barely get out of bed. He had lost all of his muscle weight. He was exhausted all the time. The coma slurry with added Taumeoba was all he had left to eat. And it was disgusting. There was no taste to either of the remaining food items and given the coma system on the ship had broken, he had to eat it directly. Armando couldn’t give him a nasogastric tube and God knows he could not do it to himself. So he was stuck slurping down the slurry and Taumeoba until it eventually killed him.
Grace opened his eyes, when had he closed them? Rocky was no longer next to him.
Rocky kept him company, watching him sleep and telling him stories of Adrian and Erid. But Grace could see the concern on Rocky’s carapace. Rocky didn’t really understand what was happening to Grace, but he comforted him and tried his best. Grace knew that Rocky wanted to fix him, but Rocky of course didn’t know how. Not on the ship at least. He had tried to fix whatever was wrong with Armando to get the coma induction working again but nothing he did worked. Instead, they had written up a plan together for what he would need to survive once they reached Erid and Grace had done his best to explain how the human body works. But he wasn’t a doctor so it was all quite surface level.
He wasn’t on the Hail Mary either. He was in a white room. There was nothing he could see on the surrounding walls. It was sterile and cold. It made Grace feel cold. He tugged his blanket further up his body, over his shoulders, tucked under his chin. A shiver crossed his body.
“Look at you.” The sudden voice made Grace jump, sending pain through his exhausted and worn bones. He stretched his neck as much as he could to get a look at the person speaking.
It was Carl.
“C—Carl?” His jaw dropped. Well, as far as it could against his frail chest. “Where—What are you doing here?” Carl dropped his head. A sign that he was disappointed in Grace. He had seen it before, when Grace had said he wasn’t able to go on the Hail Mary in the meeting before he was forced to go. When Grace had grovelled to Stratt to join the project with his three dots.
“How pathetic.” Grace placed his head back on the pillow. Grace was hurt by the words, but he agreed it was true. He was pathetic. He was wasting away, and he didn’t even know if he had saved Earth. He would probably never know if the planet survived. He could be the last human in the universe and he would not even know it.
“I did what I had too.” Grace snapped his eyes up to a second body that appeared next to his bed. Stratt.
Grace wanted to laugh at her. He wanted to tell her that he murdered him, but he knew deep down that wasn’t true. Grace’s journey on the Hail Mary had shown to Grace just how capable he was, how strong he truly was but also showed him how human he was. He was the only one to survive the trip (even if he knew that was more down to genetic luck than anything else), he had been the first human to have contact with an alien race, and now he was giving up his own future at home for said aliens.
Grace had pondered what would have happened if he hadn’t come on the trip. If the explosion never happened. If DuBios has been the one to come instead.
Would he have survived? Would he have accepted Rocky the way Grace did? Would he have been able to go through with the mission and killed himself—?
“It’s a shame you couldn’t complete the mission to the full parameters. The three astronauts are to die in space. That includes you, Doctor Grace.”
The door to the sterile white room swung open. The doctor with his medical kit walked in. Grace recognised him instantly. They were going to kill him. Actually kill him this time.
He couldn’t die. Not now. Not when they were so close to Erid. Rocky had told him that they would be able to see if Sol had returned to full brightness from Erid. He needed to get there. If he died now, Rocky would be left alone again. Grace couldn’t do that to him. Not after Rocky risked his own life to save Grace’s when the chair was crushing him over Adrian. Not when Rocky had already spent nearly five decades alone in space. Especially not when Rocky was so looking forward to seeing Adrian again.
Grace started crying as the man drew closer to him. He wanted to shake him off and to run like he did before but his body was just so tired and heavy. There was nothing he could do. This was to be his fate. He had been so close to succeeding as well.
As the man drew the needle, Grace’s thoughts drifted to Rocky. Rocky who was now next to him in his section. Grace smiled at him and Rocky chirped back worriedly. There was a voice in the distance somewhere, but Grace ignored it as the needle pricked his neck.
He moved his head back to look directly above him to see Armando as he fell in unconsciousness.
“Grace will be okay, statement.”