Work Text:
Grace swiped the swab over the breeding tanks. He hit enter on the keyboard as the computer started the molecular scans. He tapped his fingers against the edge of the computer as he held onto it in zero gravity.
He hoped and prayed he was wrong. It had to be something else that had contaminated the ship. Maybe the computer was wrong. Or it had detected something that Rocky had left behind like stray ammonia or—?
The computer beeped in front of him. He did not want to look at it, but he had too. He had to know what the issue was. He just hoped he was wrong on what he thought it was.
CONTAMINANT: TAUMEOBA
Grace stared at the screen for a moment as it flashed the answer in his face, over and over again. It had to be wrong. It couldn’t be the Taumeoba. He had been so careful with it. He made sure none of it got out of the breeding tanks. He wasn’t stupid. He knew how to keep a lab from getting contaminated, it was the first thing he was taught when he was studying at university for God’s sake. The only thing the Taumeoba had come in contact with was—
The breeding tanks. The Xeonite breeding tanks.
The realisation hit Grace like a blast from the Astrophage engines. He was a fucking moron.
He had only bred the Taumeoba in the Xeonite Taumeoba breeding tanks. It had evolved to get out of the Xeonite breeder tanks. It could get through Xeonite.
Grace punched the screen. He wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed at himself for his own mistake or the computer system for exposing his mistake to him.
He screamed inside the EVA suit. His heart was in his throat. He needed to clean the Hail Mary out of the contamination and now. Especially with new Xeonite fuel tanks that Rocky had—
“Oh my god. Rocky.” Grace hadn’t even thought about the fact that the breeding tanks were made entirely from Xeonite — and so was Rocky's ship. Rocky wasn’t going to know until it was already too late.
Grace yelled a curse that echoed all around him in the suit.
He grabbed the breeder tanks and sealed them into plastic bags with an ungodly amount of tape around them. It was all he could do for now. Surely, the Taumeoba couldn’t get through plastic as well? He really hoped not.
He pushed off the floor and headed back to the control roll. He switched the life support back on again. He watched the number tick up as he reached for the safety switches of the centrifuge. Once the life support had refilled the ship with breathable air and a pressure that Grace could survive in, he started the centrifuge. He checked his fuel levels, especially on the new Xeonite tanks that Rocky had made for him. Luckily, they hadn’t reached them through the rest of the ship. He breathed a momentary sigh of relief.
Grace sat down in the lab, the helmet of the EVA suit discarded to one side. He grabbed the camera and held it to at the very least face him as he spoke. He informed whoever would see this of what he had discovered. And the mistake he had made and the fate he had all but doomed Rocky and Erid too.
He shed the EVA and bodysuit as he headed back to the lab, grabbing a whiteboard pen and doing the maths. He scribbled the levels of fuel he had left, calculated how far he had got from the last coordinates he and Rocky saw each other before doing rough calculations of how far Rocky could have got. The problem was, how fast did the Taumeoba get into Rocky’s fuel lines? And how quickly did Rocky notice the issue?
Grace sighed and banged his head against the whiteboard. He just didn’t have enough fuel to go back, help Rocky and get back to Earth. He had to make a choice. He couldn’t do both, but he also couldn’t subject Rocky to a slow, painful, lonely death in space. Not to mention the entirety of Erid.
Grace felt himself become wobbly on his legs. He tried to shake it off, but his hands started shaking. So much that he dropped the pen. He bent down to grab it, but his legs finally gave out completely.
Grace thunked onto the floor, leaning against the legs of the whiteboard. He could feel his blood pressure dropping, the sweat growing at his brow. He swallowed down the bile that threatened to surface from his stomach. He knew this feeling, it usually came after a panic attack. His adrenaline had finally given out, and he was exhausted. He drew his legs to his chest as best he could. He hugged his arms around his calves, digging his nails into his forearms to anchor himself. He put his forehead against his knees. His knees were bumping into his forehead from the shaking, but he didn’t care. He just needed a moment to calm down.
He couldn’t though. He may have the time to be shaky and afraid but right now Rocky was off somewhere probably panicking. He was back to square one. He was completely alone, stranded in space except now he had no fuel whatsoever and given his ship was completely powered by Astrophage, that would also mean his life support system was at risk of failing.
Grace unlinked his arms and slowly pushed himself onto his feet. His legs and arms still felt a little weak, but he pushed on. He had too. Rocky needed him. Erid needed him. Earth still needed him.
His decision was made. There would be no going back once he did this, but it didn’t matter. His first friend in years needed him, and he was going to be there for him. Even if it meant he was giving up his chance at life back home.