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The blaring of Mary's alarms has finally shut off, but it'd be a whisper compared to the screaming in my head.
The Taumoeba can get through xenonite.
Rocky.
Forget saving Erid, he won't even be able to save himself. The astrophage in his fuel lines will be gone in the blink of the eyes he doesn't have and then he'll be all alone in the middle of space with no way of getting home and no radiation shielding.
I'm erasing the whiteboard before I can second-guess myself. I need to help him, somehow. There's got to be a way.
"There's got to be another way!"
Ryland's cries still echo in Stratt's ears as she marches through the cold grey hallways. It is a good thing that no one but him has ever dared to try to get to know her, because for anyone who actually knows her the look on her face would be a dead giveaway of the aching in her chest. She does not want to do this.
Anyone else, she wants to scream. Anyone but him.
But she does not have that option.
The facts are clear. Ryland Grace knows more about astrophage than anyone else on the planet, and for all his brilliance there's no way another science officer could be trained in time for launch.
This is the logical- no, the only choice. She cannot let her heart affect her decision-making, not when the fate of the world is at stake.
"I'm not brave like you!" He'd said.
'No,' Stratt thinks, sinking into her desk chair and preparing to deliver her only friend a death sentence, 'you are not. Not in the same way.'
'But you will be.'
I can't do both. God help me, I can't do both.
Return to Earth and Rocky and all of Erid will die. Go after Rocky and I'll never see my home planet again.
This is what Stratt meant when she said there wasn't a choice, isn't it.
Go to Earth and I die in thirty years with everyone else. Go to Rocky and I die a lot quicker with some very cool company.
Agh, I want to go home so badly but...Rocky's computer-generated voice echoes through my mind.
"Grace...need word. Risk self, to help others."
I said 'dumb' back then, at least out loud. But I'd typed the proper definition a minute later.
Brave. It still seems laughable that anyone could think that of me, but...
I know what my choice is.
Stratt has seen Ryland sleep many times. She's always impressed by how exhausted he manages to look, even when theoretically resting.
He looks peaceful now. Somehow that makes it worse.
The only sign he hasn't just fallen asleep at his desk again are the streaks of salt left on his face and the slight dampness of his eyelashes where they brush his pale cheeks.
It is...wrong.
There is no one else in the room. No cameras in the corners. When the so-called Dictator of the World asks for something it's given.
In all cases but one.
She is both judge and executioner, and she wipes the tears from her lamb's eyes before sending him away to slaughter.
"I am sorry," Eva Stratt whispers. For this one moment, she allows herself to let her heart take the lead. "I know you'll do your best."
She leans forward, granting a single kiss to his forehead before she pulls away.
There is no sentient being in the universe that could know it, but it will be the last time Ryland Grace's skin feels the touch of another human.
I say my last goodbyes to Earth and send off the probes. Rocky's out there somewhere alone and afraid, and I have the ability to change that- maybe it's stupid, but I can't just leave him behind.
I am brave. And I finally know who I'd die for.
The countdown echoes across the empty plain. All preparations are complete, all checks passed.
The Hail Mary lifts off in a roar of steam and fire. Eva Stratt watches, and holds her breath until the half-remembered flashes of the Challenger mission disappear into the aching of her lungs.
Mary climbs higher and higher, until she disappears into the bright blue of the sunny launch day sky. With her she takes humanity's only hope, and with any luck her saving grace.
Eva Stratt watches him go and does not cry.
Ryland Grace will save the world.