Chapter Text
The trip to Erid was a long one. Armando had suggested another induced coma- but after what had happened to Yao and Ilyukhina? Grace didn’t want to take that chance. Not to mention the idea of leaving Rocky to sleep without a guard for nearly four years was..less than appealing.
So! Four years of uninterrupted travel across the vast expanse of space, without any idea what was waiting once they got to Erid or if they were even going in the right direction. Great. Not to mention the..well the slight food issue. But being down two team members had its perks. Most notably three times the rations, which is fair to assume would last him at least until they reached their destination. At least. And by that point they’d have bred enough Taumoeba for Grace to survive a while longer. So no problem, really! Everything would be fine, as long as they stayed on track-
<Grace> …great.
“Yeah buddy?” Grace’s voice was groggy, the man only partially awake at this point, and still, the Eridian was demanding his attention- tapping one of his limbs insistently against the side of his ball.
<Grace wake up now. Statement.>
“Yeah, I'm awake, what? What’s the issue?” He’d barely managed to sleep an hour, maybe two- and two years into the journey, this was becoming a recurring problem. “You really need to give a guy a minute to sleep-”
<Mary find something.>
..huh.
“What? The ship found- what do you mean the ship found something, bud?” No way in hell there was another ship out here, right? That was impossible. Thirty years of not knowing what lies out in the universe, and two alien species being discovered in as many years- and by Grace?? No way in hell. Had to be an obstacle of some kind.
The cockpit lit up the minute he stepped inside, the automated female voice of the Hail Mary announcing the usual ‘Pilot Detected’ as he sat down. Rocky tumbled in after him, ball knocking into the walls despite the Eridian having years to get used to navigating in it.
A moon. That’s all it was- another planet, surrounded on all sides by atsrophage-infected stars. Nothing to note, nothing to be concerned about. Grace’s eyes dart to the screen, to the bold, lit-up lettering just below the image of the moon.
“UNDOCUMENTED MOON. VITAL SIGNS DETECTED IN ORBIT.”
Okay. Yeah, that was definitely worth waking him up for.
The moon itself was dark. Nearly covered in oceans, the liquid a deep bloody red color that made the hair on the back of Grace’s neck stand up. It was more than likely clay deposits, dirt, some sort of dust making it look that way, but it was just so dark..so alive. The surface foaming and bubbling like it was boiling.
<Vessel in orbit not built for space, statement.>
That snaps grace out of his stupor, attention falling back on the alien beside him. “What..what do you mean it’s not built for space, rock?”
<Is submarine. Built for high pressure, not vacuum. Must draw close enough to stabilize internal pressure with hail mary.>
“Why the hell would a submarine be out in orbit? No way a wave launched it that far up-” Grace is already moving, slowly dropping down into orbit and drawing closer to the giant hunk of metal floating aimlessly among the stars.
The intercom in the cockpit buzzes to life, picking up on something from inside the vessel- a man’s voice, pained and scared, cutting in and out;
“..keep- safe…more than-...its..than me-” It's hard to make out what the hell the man on the other end is saying, but it’s clearly not live, something recorded less than a minute ago being transmitted as a sort of ‘distress call’. A hail mary, as ironic as that is.
There was no entrance to be found on the sub, so they had to do the next best thing and just align the entrance of the ship with one of the sides, pulling equipment out to cut into the thick metal.
He can hear movement, thank god, which meant whatever-or whoever-was inside the sub was still alive. And that also meant that it had stayed mostly pressurized. Grace doesn't wait another second, fastening the edge of the sub to the side of the hail mary and starting to cut a hole in the side. Light floods into the small space, and a thick layer of blood flows from it into the airlock, covering grace’s feet.
There’s a man. Sat up against the back wall, drenched head-to-toe in what looks like blood. Vines and roots of unknown origin cover the walls, an x-ray camera going off to the right. The man’s face is mutilated, horrific- lacerations and boils covering the left side, sharp yellow teeth beginning to poke out of his cheek. He stares at grace with a sort of quiet intensity, fist changing around the object in his lap.
Grace can only stand there, mouth agape. He turns away for only a moment, and barely has time to react to the footsteps approaching before he’s being grabbed- helmet yanked off his head by the unnamed man in the sub.
The xenobiologist makes a noise of panic and protest, registering a moment too late the bloodied fist flying towards his face. Pain shoots through his jaw, the world going white for a moment- just in time for another blow to connect and send him tumbling into darkness.
~~~
Simon didn't know what had happened. One minute he’d been sitting, waiting for Ellie to clamp her jaws around the SM-13, waiting for death- and the next he was floating. The blood hadn't gone, but it’d stopped flowing in- vines and roots covering the leaks to keep him safe.
But why? Why save him from suffocation now, after everything? He didn’t know. Didn’t know much of anything anymore, to be honest.
There wasn't any warning before the bang. Just a collision, the sound of the hull attaching to something else. The consolidation no doubt, coming to get their precious black box and then throw him in prison.
He was ready for the noise. The sound of a saw cutting through metal. What he wasn’t ready for, though, was the sight of the man on the other side. A bright red suit, surrounded by a nearly spotless white airlock. Not the consolidation, then, it was way too fucking clean- but he could take any chances.
He didn't want to kill the guy, and he looked human enough to breathe the oxygen inside the sub so he had no problem disconnecting that fuckass helmet. Two blows and he was out. Simon almost-almost-felt bad for him, all soft edges and clean hair. He stared for a moment, head tilting to get a better look before he made his way inside.
God, the place was massive. He’d have had more time to walk around had there not been some kind of guard dog..spider creature patrolling. God, what the hell was wrong with this place?- The only real spot that interested him was the medbay. Hell, even the contaminant alarm on this ship was more pleasant than the one on the sub had been.
Finally, his body starts to give out. The blood from his missing arm has left a trail around the ship, leaving him drained and exhausted. His legs go first, buckling under him out of nowhere. He tried to push back against the robotic arm approaching him but he just doesn't seem to have the energy to fight anymore, drifting off before he even hits the ground