Chapter Text
The Eridian communication array was a technological marvel. By layering the Earth technology from the Hail Mary with Eridian algorithms, they had done the impossible: create a way to communicate with planets light-years away.
It was when they got a data burst from Earth that they celebrated. It was proof that it worked.
Rocky was practically vibrating, his carapace moving from side to side as a frantic, joyous rhythm echoed from him.
“Amaze, amaze, amaze!” Rocky sang a beautiful, resonant chord. “Earth lives! And they send Grace words! You will see Earth!”
Grace sat at a desk, staring at the blinking terminal. He was smiling. He was. His lips were turned up, his eyes were bright, and his heart was hammering in his ribs.
But it wasn’t out of excitement like Rocky thought it was.
Instead, it was a sudden animalistic fear.
“You will see Earth!” Rocky repeated, a claw tapping Grace’s shoulder through his specialized protective suit. “Amaze, amaze, amaze! Grace is hero to Earth!”
“Yeah,” Grace whispered, his heart pounding in his ears. He sounded breathless. “Yeah, buddy. I’m… I’m really, really happy.”
He looked at the progress bar on the screen.
Downloading… 74%.
With every tick of the bar, the air in the room felt heavier. It felt like the thick, pressurized atmosphere of a world he had been dragged off of in chains.
He loved Earth.
Of course he did.
He loved the smell of rain on asphalt, the taste of eggs in bacon in the morning, and the chaotic, bright energy of his classroom. He had risked everything—he had literally almost starved to death in the process of getting the Taumoeba. He was glad they were alive.
But they hadn't saved him.
The memories didn't fade, not really. They just buried themselves under the quiet, peaceful years he’d spent teaching Eridian children and watching Rocky and Adrian build things.
But they were still there, sharp and jagged.
Eva’s pity-filled eyes. Carl’s apologetic words. The feeling of hands on his body, holding him down as he screamed and begged and wept to be let go. The bite of a needle in his neck. Dark, swallowing him whole.
Even now, years later, settled in a comfortable life on a planet that cherished and respected him like one of their own, Grace couldn't look at a medical syringe without his stomach turning. When an Eridian doctor had offered him a mild, specialized sedative for a wound last year, Grace had thrown up from a sudden, violent panic attack.
He had chosen to suffer through the pain instead, because last time he had woken up in a cage, shipped off to die alone in the dark.
They had burnt his life at the stake to cook their own meal. And they hadn't even given him the dignity of a choice.
100% Download Complete.
Opening File: HelloWorld_FromEarth.mp4
A face appeared on the screen. It wasn't Eva—she was likely long gone by now—but a younger face. A proud, smiling face standing in front of a monument. A monument dedicated to the crew of the Hail Mary. To him.
“To Dr. Ryland Grace,” the voice spoke through the speakers, the automatic English-to-Eridian Grace had made working smoothly. “The man who gave his life so that humanity could have theirs. The ultimate sacrifice. A willing martyr.”
A willing martyr.
A bitter, choking laugh bubbled up in Grace’s chest, sharp and ugly.
Rocky’s triumphant warbling stopped instantly, replaced by a low, questioning hum.
“Grace?” Their focus entirely on Grace now instead of the video, a discordant note of concern in its song. “Why are you leaky? It is Earth. They thank you. They call you good.”
Grace stared at the screen.
‘Willing.’
Suddenly, he felt so small. Even now, a universe away, he was still the same coward who had tried to run and hide. He was the same coward who was currently feeling a wretched, pathetic wave of resentment toward an entire planet of survivors because they got to live in the sun while he was trapped in a plastic box on a world where he couldn't even breathe the air.
He clutched his arms, his fingers digging into them to try and stop the trembling. He felt guilty. So horribly guilty. How could he sit here and be bitter at what needed to be done? How could he be angry at a dying world's desperation?
But God, it hurt.
It still hurt so bad.
A heavy, warm claw settled on Grace’s shoulder.
“Grace leak from eyes,” Rocky leaned closer, emitting a soft, rhythmic purr that echoed concern. “Heart beat fast. Bad, bad, bad. Grace okay, question?”
And Grace didn’t want to say anything. Wasn’t planning to. It was shameful. It was cowardly. It was pathetic. But—
But—
“I didn’t want to go, Rocky,” Grace wheezed out, the words spilling, tearing from his throat, jagged and bloody and ripping at the seams, and it hurt— “I didn’t volunteer. I-I didn’t want to be a hero.”
Rocky froze, the comforting rustle of his carapace stilling.
Grace had talked little about how he ended up at Tau Ceti in the first place. Rocky knew about the science, knew about the frantic, late-night breakthroughs, but they hadn't known about the explosion that destroyed the Baikonur Research Facility. They hadn't known about the scientists dying in the blast. They hadn’t known about the nine days left on the clock.
“She gave me three hours,” Grace wheezed, the tears blurring his vision until Rocky was just a dark, five-legged paste of colors. “Eva. She—She looked at me and told me I had to go. And I said no. I screamed it. I was so scared, Rocky. I’m a coward. You know I'm a coward.”
No Eridian would miss the agonized pitch in Grace’s voice, and Rocky heard every crack. Every shuddering gasp.
“I ran,” Grace whispered, staring at his trembling hands. “I tried to run. I was going to let them all die because I was too afraid to get on a ship that I knew was a one-way trip. And do you know what they did? They didn’t try to argue or beg. They hunted me.”
A sharp, high-pitched click came from Rocky. A sound of sudden, violent distress.
“They tackled me,” Grace’s voice dropped to a terrifying hollow whisper, eyes shining with tears as he got lost in the memory of cold, cold hands. “Like an animal. Like a rabid fox. There were guards. I was screaming for someone to help me, and then… then, a needle. In my neck. And the world just… spun away.”
He pressed his forehead against the terminal screen, gasping for breath.
“They put me in a coma, Rocky. They dragged my unconscious body onto a rocket and launched me into the dark. They knew I’d never come back. It was a suicide mission from the start. They didn’t ask for my life, Rocky, they stole it.”
Grace looked up, his eyes red and wild, staring at the alien who had become his closest friend.
“They murdered me,” Grace wept, the confession raw and bleeding. “Before the ship even left Earth, they killed the person I was. They murdered me, Rocky. They killed me.”
Silence descended in the room, heavy and suffocating. The video from Earth continued to play on the terminal, a speech of gratitude from a planet that buried its saint.
Then, a sound broke the silence.
Rocky let out a noise Grace had never heard them make before—a harsh, deafening screech of pure, unadulterated fury.
“Bad!” They shrieked. “Bad, bad, bad! Earth is bad! Humanity is enemy! They hunt Grace! They inject poison! They kill Grace!”
Rocky rushed into Grace’s shoulder, their protective suit pressing flat against them as they clawed frantically in a desperate attempt to huddle close to Grace.
“Grace is not coward!” Rocky roared, vocal cords vibrating so hard Grace could feel it. “Grace is brave! They are predators! They are monsters! Rocky hate them! Rocky hate Earth!”
The Eridian paused, their entire body trembling with a terrible, terrible fury.
“They kill Grace,” Rocky said, dropping into a low, resonant hum. “But we keep Grace. Grace is here. Grace is safe. Erid protects now. No more needles. No more monsters. Never again.”
Rocky's grip remained firm, a warm and solid anchor of stone and protective suit.
'Never again.'
Grace could barely breathe under the weight of Rocky's words.
He had expected… what? Confusion? Judgment?
It didn't make any rational sense, of course. Eridians were communal by nature. Their culture was one of clans and connections. There was a sense of community unique to the Eridians compared to humans.
Still, Grace had been terrified that Rocky would look at him and see a defective, selfish creature—a broken gear forced into a flawed machine.
But Rocky didn't see broken parts.
They heard his story and saw injustice.
That their friend was hunted. That there was a horrific breach of trust. An act of supreme violence. A murder.
To an Eridian who valued family, who valued pack, the unspoken bond above all else, what Earth had done wasn't a noble sacrifice.
It was an abomination.
"They call Grace hero so they do not feel the shame," Rocky hissed, chords strung with disgust. "They lie to themselves. They lie to the universe. But Grace know truth. Rocky know truth."
Hearing it out loud—hearing someone else, someone who loved him say it aloud…
It was cool salve to a blistering burn.
It didn't heal the wound. It didn't even come close to closing it. The jagged, bleeding edges of his trauma were still there, deep and permanent, but the agonizing pressure behind his ribs began to ease.
He wasn't crazy. He wasn't a bad person for hating them. He wasn't a monster for feeling bitter resentment towards billions of people celebrating under a blue sky they had stolen from him.
"…Yeah," Grace whispered, pressing the heel of his palm to his eyes, still faintly shaking. "We know the truth."
"Do not look at the terminal anymore," Rocky commanded, their tone shifting from harsh staccato to a smooth, protective rumble. "We turn it off. We do not need their words. Earth is far. Earth is past. Grace is Eridian now. Erid is home."
With a shaky hand, Grace reached out and tapped the console, cutting off the transmission feed. The smiling faces of humanity vanished, replaced by his and Rocky's reflection against the dark screen.
He looked at Rocky beside him, his chest feeling lighter than it had since he woke up terrified and amnesiac, stranded in the cosmos.
"Thanks, buddy," Grace said, voice thick but clear. "Thanks."
17 years and 10 months after Earth sent a tentative video to the alien planet through its complex communication array, they got a reply.
It did not contain the triumphant, tearful face of Dr. Ryland Grace. There was no video of Earth's martyr and savior, gray and old, a diplomat to foreign life.
Instead, on the screens of the highest powers in the world and the remnants of Project Hail Mary are filled with a single, unmoving image: a detailed high-resolution rendering of a five-legged creature, its rocky carapace gleaming under a foreign sun.
The audio that accompanied it was a jarring, echoing sound, almost like a melodic whale song. Layered over it was a flat, synthesized voice, speaking with cold inhuman clarity.
"People of Earth," the synthesizer blared into the silent command centers of a world that had just begun to recover again. "We received your words. We saw your monuments. You thank Grace for his life. You call him a willing martyr. This is a lie."
World leaders and scientists alike froze, staring at the transmission with dread.
"We know what you did," the alien continued, the low, grinding tone of discordant notes only growing sharper and more vicious. "We know you hunted him down like a wild beast. We know you injected poison into his neck while he begged for mercy, and threw his body into the dark."
The image on the screen shifted slightly, the alien creature stepping closer to the camera lens. One of its claws extended forward, as if pointing directly to humanity despite the light-years of space in between them.
"Thank you," The alien spoke, the background song turning haunting. "Thank you for giving us Grace. He has taught our children. He has saved our world. He is loved."
Then, the song turned sharp.
"But curse you," it spat, almost rattling the glass. "Curse you to the end of your days, for you did not send a hero. You murdered Grace. You killed who he was, and you stole his life so you could keep yours."
The screen flickered once.
"Do not speak to us again. You are predators. You are monsters. Keep your blue sky. You bought it with blood."
The feed snapped to black.
The data array hummed, searching for frequencies, waiting for a follow-up, but there was nothing. The bridge between the stars had been permanently severed from the other side.
It was the first and last humanity ever heard from the stars again.