Archive of Our Own

Dr. Halleron was scowling as he worked on setting up the test. He had hoped that Director Stratt would come. His experiment focused on how to use astrophage effectively in things outside of the spin drives or the ship itself. Perhaps using it for greenhouses to grow food or something along those lines. Something useful.

So he hoped to catch her attention when he had passed his findings up the chain.

He kept glancing over, though he was a little annoyed that Dr. Grace was with her, with his collection of lackeys. Last time he had dealt with the man, he had been lectured about lab safety. Please, the man hadn’t been in a real lab for almost a decade before he was recruited for the project. Everyone knew he was here because he and Stratt were sleeping together. Who was he to lecture Halleron over lab safety?

He did his best to ignore the fact that Grace was watching, instead focusing on telling Stratt all about the project. Even that made his irritation spiked as she glanced at Grace, who repeated what Halleron said in slightly different words.

Things got even more crowded as the primary astronaut team walked by, and then came over to see what was going on.

That was fine. Dr. Halleron was about to impress everyone.

The air was filled with dust, and Yao found himself coughing against the burn of it. There were alarms sounding, though they sounded distant. That may have been the ringing in his ears. Something warm dripped down the side of his face, and he knew without checking that it was blood. Vaguely recalled a body slamming into him and his head making contact with something before they landed. He wasn’t sure how much time he had lost, but it sounded like chaos around them still.

There was a person who was draped half on him, and over the pair of them sat one of the plexiglass ‘walls’ that surrounded most labs. Luckily it wasn’t that heavy, and it seemed to have protected them from some of the blast and debris.

There was German cursing from the body half slumped on him, and that told him who was with him. “Director,” Yao said, barely able to hear his own voice. “Are you okay?”

More muttering. “Yes,” she finally got out, trying to push herself up, though the plexiglass pinned them slightly. It wasn’t super heavy, but it was awkward enough that they weren’t able to get it off. Yao assisted as best he could to get the weight partially off of them. “Yourself?”

“Headache,” he admitted, slowly testing himself. Nothing else seemed to be hurt.

“Think we will all going to be down for a few days.” He glanced around, trying to spot his crew. Was pretty sure he saw Ilyukhina’s legs, but she was only starting to move.

Beyond this small bubble, there were people yelling and panicking. And then Dr. Grace’s voice cut above it all. Yao tracked him to the other side of a fallen table, able to see the man’s hair over the edge of that. At least he was sitting up, that was good.

“Aavya? Ricky?” Grace called out. “Call back!”

Someone started to reply, then coughed, and then a young woman. “Okay, Dr. Grace. Ears ringing.”

“Ricky?”

“He’s out,” said the first.

“Aavya, you are on first response. You know what to do.”

There was a moment of pause, and then whoever Aavya was started taking charge. It was a little impressive, Yao thought. That sort of steady response was worth its weight in gold, so to speak. Especially in a lab.

“Stratt?” Grace called out a little quieter. Though still loud enough that his ears were probably ringing as well. The area around them seemed to be calming down now that someone had taken charge.

“Alive,” Stratt snarled, obviously furious. “If that man is still alive, I will….” She trailed off into a line of words that were very German and very much not something Yao understood.

He called out for Ilyukhina and DuBois, who both sounded a little rattled but replied. DuBois sounded more dazed, and Yao knew he needed to check on the man.

Ilyukhina staggered over, and he noted that she was limping pretty badly. She helped him get the plexiglass off himself and Stratt, though she almost dropped it at one point.

Not that he blamed her. Not when, under all the sounds, came the very clear word of “fuck” in Grace’s voice.

Yao had never heard Grace curse. From the startled look from Stratt, she hadn’t either. They all looked to where the man’s voice had come. There, Grace was levering himself up, and Yao hissed, eyes narrowing.

Blood poured from the man’s stomach, about midway up his side. He was pressing one hand against it, leaning against the broken remains of a table. Slowly, he bunched his shirt up and pressed it firmly against the injury. That just made it easy to see where blood had left the top of his jeans wet and shiny. Both hands were stained with blood, though one was being used to brace himself.

“Your head is bleeding,” he told Yao, voice surprisingly steady. “Think we are all due a trip to medical,” he said, voice wavering a moment as he closed his eyes, swaying for a second.

Stratt was up and moving, shouting for someone to get medial here, now. The young woman Grace had put in charge said they were already on the way.

Once that was confirmed, Stratt got herself up under Grace’s arm. She ignored the blood that smeared on her clothes as she did her best to help support him. “Why are you standing?” she hissed, furious. Grace changed hands pressing against his belly, draping his now free arm over Stratt’s shoulders.

Yao grimaced at how much red was on the hand that now dripped blood on Stratt’s shirt. And at the blood that continued to smear down Grace’s belly.

Grace gave a short laugh. “It looks messy,” he admitted. “But it’s not as bad as it looks.” He frowned a bit. “We should get moving. We’re able to walk. Medics should focus on people who can’t.”

He glanced around, ignoring Stratt’s demands for him to sit down and let medics to come to him. “Aavya, heading to medical.” The young woman turned and went pale.

“Dr. Grace?!”

Yao watched Grace calm her down with a few words, even as he leaned heavily against Stratt. She looked impatient to be either on the way or to make Grace lay down.

Once he confirmed that she had the scene under control, Grace started walking. Slowly, and using the director of Project Hail Mary as a crutch, he continued to ignore her demands he sit down. Yao stayed with DuBois and Ilyukhina, neither of which were up to walking that far.

Yao now understood why they all lived on a ship.