Chapter Text
I, Ryland Grace, am not a religious person, but I do say a quick prayer to any god that is willing to listen as I guide the Hail Mary towards Venus. I have gotten this far, and dang flabbit, I will finish this job.
I feel gravity fall away as the Hail Mary settles into orbit, feeling weightless for the first time in years. I check the petrovascope to make sure I’m parked inside the Petrova Line (I am) before unstrapping myself from the captain seat, floating my way to the laboratory area where I had left my tinkering supplies and John strapped to the table.
I made the decision to take a quick pit-stop at Venus about a year back. The idea is to dump a bunch of taumoeba into the atmosphere to let them start snacking, speeding up the process of healing the sun. This decision is either the smartest or dumbest thing I have ever done, and I’m not in a right enough mind after four and a half years of isolation to figure out which it is. My reasoning: I’m already up here, and I don’t really want to come back once I’m on Earth. And there’s plenty of taumoeba on the ship, so if my plan doesn't work out we can try again. There’s about four-years’ worth of taumoeba breeding in the xenonite containers Rocky had left with me, enough to save about ten solar systems.
I knock into the table, grabbing at the Beatle to double check my handiwork. Attached to the probe with approximately four rolls of duct tape and three bottles of super glue was a reverse-engineered version of the collection system that Rocky and I had used when we first gathered the taumoeba from the planet Adrian. Inside the contraption was approximately a one-million count of taumoeba (a relatively small amount, but should be enough to begin populating), restrained by xenonite casing and raring for a snack.
My current plan is to send the contraption hurtling down into the atmosphere of the planet. Once the pressure gets too high, the system should trigger and open the doors, sending all the little predators into the atmosphere.
The hard part: the Beatles aren’t meant for that much power or pressure, so I need to send the Hail Mary speeding around Venus and let go of the little probe at the right angle to slingshot it into the atmosphere. Easy peasy.
Hopefully it works. If it doesn’t: oh well. I’ll return to Earth and let Stratt figure it out. And stay far far far away from the project.
Everything looks good with John. It’s go time.
Grace stupid for putting Grace in danger again. The voice in my head sings in Eridian as I begin to put on my EVA suit.
“Yeah, I know Rock.” I mutter. “That hasn’t stopped us before, now has it?”
Grace so close to home. Rocky’s voice sounds disappointed and concerned.
“Yeah, and who knows if any form of space-travel infrastructure is still available?” I retort, “This may be the only access to Venus they’ll have for years, and the taumoeba needs to start working now.” I don’t let myself ponder on if I can return to the surface of Earth for the same reasons.
“You know, the whole purpose? Grace, Rocky, save stars?” The voice stays quiet. I sigh. I know I shouldn’t engage with my hallucinations, as they’re a sign of the extreme insanity from isolation, but the fact that my brain has decided to conjure up Rocky has made it almost impossible to ignore. I miss my best friend more than life itself at this point, and it’s worse that I know that I will never see him again. So, yeah. I talk to myself, pretending that Rocky is still around. And if that makes me insane, then I’m insane.
I check the security of the EVA suit and ready the air lock. I take a deep breath, shaking out the nerves. This is the first space walk I’ve done in four years, and even before that I never really got used to it. I tighten the rope around my belt, checking that John wasn’t going to accidentally fly away from me. That would be bad.
The airlock filters through, unlocking the outer door to a magnificent view of Venus. I take in the view of the swirling orange, red, and white clouds, so different to her close neighbor Earth. I smile to myself, as I realize once again I am the first person to see (now two) planets other than Earth with my own eyes.
I really should stop putting myself in these situations.
I navigate my way to the tip of the ship, loosening one of the panels that kept the four Beatles secured. These were supposed to be the way all the information would get back to Earth. I wasn’t supposed to come home. Now look at me, I’m right next door.
I secure John and the device into place, giving it one last pat before working my way back towards the airlock. If all goes well, that one probe will be the savior of all humanity. No pressure, John.
The airlock filters through again, and I hear Rocky return to my thoughts as I remove the EVA suit.
Grace, Rocky, save stars.
“There you are, you little bugger.” I state, securing myself back into the captain chair.
Rocky not a bug. He answers.
“I know bud, it’s a turn of phrase.” I double checked my self-made pre-planned route around Venus, including the crucial moment where I would press the release button on John. I had reprogrammed him to not go to Earth, but instead into the closest large gravitational pull (ie. Venus). The combination of inertia from the speed of the ship combined with the full-powering of the Beatle’s spin-drives would send it rocketing into Venus’ atmosphere. It would disintegrate on impact, for the good of the world.
Grace remember speed, question? Rocky asks.
“Yep, it’s all programmed right here bud. I’ve double checked each calculation at least 100 times.” Which wasn’t a lie, I had double checked my math at least twice a day for the last year.
Grace know where atmosphere begins, question? Grace know where not to go, question? Rocky’s voice sounds more worried.
“Yes, I’ve got it.” I snap. He’s starting to bother me now.
When Grace eat last, question?
I don’t remember.
“I’ll go eat right now.” I promise myself, making my way down to the med bay.
Good. Grace stupid when hungry.
“Food.” I state, allowing Armando to drop the cup of nasty slurry into my hands. I take a deep breath, plug my nose, and knock the stuff back in one swallow. The slurry tastes of bitter chalk. I’ve never gotten used to it.
“Water.” I cough, grabbing the pack from Armando and chugging it.
Yuck. Rocky says in my head.
“Yuck.” I agree.
I’ve been on coma rations for 600 days now, a little less than two years of no real food. I calculated that to stay alive, I’m allowed to have two cups of coma ration a day. However, the diet has taken a toll on my body, and I’ve noticed. I’m basically skin and bones, my muscles having weakened from years of malnutrition and misuse. I’ve not been moving much either, trying to preserve energy for purely surviving instead. I read a bunch of research papers on how to keep your body mass healthy while in space, and I’ve been doing basic workouts to keep myself upright. It helps that I had gravity.
The four years of travel to get back to our solar system were long and boring. I began the journey with hope of keeping myself entertained, seeing as I had the entire world’s worth of research and media on board, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t really enough.
I had started by working through keeping my mind active with research projects and learning. Research was engaging enough for all four years, and I’ve written a few papers on taumoeba and astrophage that I hope to publish once back on Earth. I had a phase where I just read textbooks, enough that I could probably get three more degrees. When that became boring I moved to fiction books, then visual media. I kept a journal of ratings and critiques of books and movies and adaptations of books to movies, but that became boring when I realized I had no one to share it with. I moved on to video games for a while, spending a solid three months straight doing nothing but playing Minecraft, but that also got boring after so long.
A year or so into my journey, I fell into a great bout of depression and didn’t do anything but lie in bed for about three weeks straight. That’s when the Rocky hallucinations started, which strangely encouraged me to make a rudimentary piano keyboard and practice my Eridian. I’m now fluent in the language (or at least that of which Rocky had shared with me), and I diligently practice every day. I don’t even know why. I’ll never see an Eridian again. I then cycled back to research.
I’m sure that I’ll be every psychologist’s dream patient once I get back to Earth.
For now, I have to dangerously pilot a ship around a foreign planet for the second time in my life. Deja-vu and all that.
I make my way back up to the captain’s chair, and position the ship carefully on the pre-set coordinates.
Mary in Petrova Line, question? Rocky double checks.
“Yep,” I confirm, checking the petrovascope again. The idea is to make four cycles around Venus from this specific starting point within the Petrova line, releasing John once we hit the appropriate speed. The Beatle will drop into Venus’ atmosphere where the Petrova Line departs from the planet, which allows for more astrophage to be present for the taumoeba to eat.
“Alright, here we go bud.” I say, cracking my knuckles and grabbing the flight stick. I slowly angle the ship to its correct starting positions, before flipping on the three spin drives. I feel gravity kick back in as the ship shoots forward, navigating it to keep in line with the orbit. The ship starts flashing warnings at me, being unhappy that I’m moving this quickly next to a planet.
“I know, I know. Just work with me here.” I mutter, flipping on the auto-pilot track I had programmed into the motherboard. I let the ship take over, watching the acceleration gauge and the stopwatch for the correct second. It will take five minutes to get the ship to the point it needs to be, and a second later the Beatle may miss the atmosphere.
I hear Rocky singing nonsense in the back of my mind, the ship still flashing red warning signs. I hear the hull creaking from the pressure of Venus’ gravity outside, but I know that we’re not close enough to do any damage. The stopwatch hits 4:30, and I position my right hand in front of the release button. My left hand clutches the flight stick, preparing to immediately balance out the inertia force that will be created when the Beatle propels itself away from the ship.
“5… 4… 3… 2… NOW!” I press the button and feel the ship begin to spin away from the planet as John is released. I crunch the flight stick in the opposite direction of the spin with both hands, feeling the pressure of the gravity on my arms. It works, though, and we begin to slow down. I watch the radar as “Blip D” rockets itself away from the Hail Mary and into Venus’ atmosphere, disappearing almost as quickly as I pressed the button. Rocky sings with joy in my head.
I stabilize the ship, and the warning lights go off. I feel the weightlessness of no gravity return, and slowly release the flight stick.
“YES!” I scream, pumping my fist into the air.
Amaze, amaze amaze! Rocky sang, and I did his jazz hands to accentuate the excitement
I have no confirmation that the taumoeba survived, or if the release mechanism deployed, but I know that John entered the atmosphere so there is a non-zero chance. I could stay in Venus’s orbit for another month, gathering astrophage samples from the Petrova line to see if they were breeding enough to balance out the sun-eaters.
But I’m feeling selfish. I’m done with space.
“Let’s go home, Rocky.” I state, setting my course towards Earth. I feel the spin drives power on, and glance at the pilot screen.
Earth
07:06:43:44
Seven days. I’ll be home in seven days.
Grace, Rocky, go home.
“Yeah bud, Grace, Rocky, go home.”