Chapter Text
Eva Stratt woke up a frigid morning. The air was near painfully cold as she walked out onto the deck, cradling two cups of coffee between her arms. The sun wasn’t up yet, but the deck below was already bustling with activity.
As much as a bunch of sleep deprived scientists and environmentalists could bustle.
She sipped on her first cup of the morning, watching them with faint interest.
Four years after the Hail Mary’s launch, and a lot has already happened. The skeptical larger governments stripped her of her power and began new projects they were sure had a higher success rate than the mission she had spent years of her life and the rest of others on. It was insulting, to say the least.
She half-minded to make a statement on all of the foolish attempts, not to buy humanity more time, but scientifically impossible ways to stave off the astrophage, but that would defeat the entire purpose of being on a ship thousands of miles away from any speck of government body.
To put it simply, Eva was on the run.
Naturally, she let herself be put on trial and then thrown in jail.
But she still had work to do.
There were quite a few people still loyal to her following, so it was rather easy to escape jail. But with limited resources and too much time, she had some tough decisions to make.
Again.
So now, here they were, on a ship in the middle of the freezing sea.
“Dr Stratt,” a deep voice called from behind her.
The one man she let stay with her this long.
The one man that had decided the second she got imprisoned she wouldn’t be staying in jail for long.
“Carl,” she said in acknowledgement, taking another sip of her coffee.
It was already beginning to chill.
“Our friends in Greenland will be ready for a supplies pickup soon,” he said, approaching the railing.
“Right on schedule. Wonderful.”
He stared at her for a moment, then looked down at the patch on the breast of her coat.
“You’re still wearing that,” he murmured with a nod.
She didn’t address it and stayed focused on the lower deck.
“Dr Stratt, something is showing up on radar,” the navigator, Anderson, said.
“It is probably an ice float,” she replied, taking a bite of a muffin.
“Yes, well… it’s got an odd shape.”
“It is probably a seal, then.”
“... I think I see something. It looks… bloody.”
“A seal carcass, then.”
“Dr Stratt..”
“There is nothing exciting out here. Please get back to work.”
“Of course, Dr Stratt..”
Anderson left her to return to the dashboard.
Eva finished her breakfast and went to take a short walk. There was, frankly, not much for her to do at the moment.
She went down to the bottom deck and walked around. There was only ice around them.
Ice, and ice, and ice…
And… a smear.
It was the seal carcass that had shown up on radar.
But something seemed off about it. She walked closer to the ice drift and looked down.
It almost looked like a…
“Why do you want a lifeboat? Don’t you think we need these for emergencies?”
“We have more than enough for a vessel of this size. Besides, if this ship were to sink in these waters, a lifeboat would be useless anyway.”
“Okay, then…”
Eva climbed into the life raft with two others, and held onto the ropes on the edge as it was lowered into the frigid waters.
“Are you sure you saw something?” One of the medics asked.
“No.”
“... right.”
The emergency motor activated with a few harsh tugs. The icy water was not doing it any favours.
They approached the ice flow covered in streaks of red. The closer Eva got, the surer she was.
It was a person.
A bloody, half-frozen person clinging to the small ice float.
Eva quickly stood upright and moved to the edge of the raft. With help from the medic, she carefully lifted the person by the legs and set them into the raft. She peeled off her coat and tucked it over the person, who was cold to the touch.
The medic put fingers in their wrist, then their neck.
“I do feel a bit of a pulse… But they’re not breathing.”
She watched as she set the person down on the seat of the boat and opened their mouth.
“Ugh… what is this stuff..?”
Eva opened up the medical kit and pulled out a few wipes and handed them to the medic.
“It’s… blood. But I don’t see any injuries…”
When they returned to the ship, the medic stayed in the boat for a moment to unblock their airways.
It was a rather crude procedure, having to essentially suck the gunk out of their throat.
But they began to cough, and she rolled them onto their side to vomit up more blood.
When they were breathing, Eva helped to bundle them up better in her coat and lift them onto the ship.
A newcomer was something important.
A newcomer found in frigid waters covered in blood was even more important.
Naturally, Eva ordered a round of coffees to be brought to the infirmary, where she sat as they carefully took the clothes off of what was soon to be discovered a female.
She- they presumed for now- had a mess of scarring on the side of her face. What the medics thought was the source of the bleeding, but it had long since healed over.
The other female nurses carefully bathed her, washing off the blood that clung to her skin only after a few curious scientists took samples.
Eva sipped on her coffee and got a few security guards to check the woman’s clothes for any source of identification.
She had some semblance of a wallet, but it was full of credits that belonged to no distinct country and a badge that just said C.O.I. More research proved it stood for nothing of value.
But a bit of cleaning revealed a near-impossible stamp carved into the bronze. It was faded and pressed onto a smeared stain, like the metal had been melted over and over again to be reused.
A
V
A.
Ava. That must be the woman’s name.
Ava of the C.O.I.
They couldn’t find anything else on her other than a basic flip knife.
When her bath was done, they got her into some fresh undergarments and set up on a cot in the infirmary.
She was suddenly the most interesting thing that had happened in months. Eva stayed in the otherwise empty infirmary with her laptop and another coffee, and tried her own luck at research.
There were no records of this strange woman… anywhere. The COI was no organisation Eva had ever heard of, nor could she find. Especially not an Ava of COI. It was no model term, legal document, or medical file. No trademarks, domain names, or even photos. Without a last name, she couldn’t find anything else.
There was nothing about this woman anywhere. Eva was intrigued. It gave her something to do in her down time, at least.
Eva settled down that night with a glass of gin and a bowl of hot curry. In the infirmary, of course. It was a good place to get work done, and she had to contact the resupplier in Greenland for their ETA. In about a week they would reach a port that would drop off supplies, but the route from there would get sketchy.
“...”
She ignored the distant noise, typing away on a drafted message.
But the noise grew into soft coughing, and finally she looked up.
The singular filled bed was moving. The heart monitor picked up and the woman opened her eyes.
Eva stood up automatically, crossing the room in a few short strides to stand beside the medical bed.
One of the woman’s eyes was milky white to match the scarring. She blinked slowly, the fog in her working eye slowly lessening. Then it focused on Eva, and her eye widened.
“Do you know where you are?” She asked as softly as she could muster.
The woman just stared at her.
“Can you tell me your name?” She tried again, pulling up a chair and sitting in it. The woman reached up with shaky hands, and carefully lifted her oxygen mask off.
“A… Ava,” she rasped, then put a hand to her throat with a frown.
“Would you like some water?”
“...” She nodded.
Eva stood up, smoothed down her turtleneck dress, and left. She got a water bottle from a vending machine, and came back into the room.
“Here you go, Ava. My name is Dr Eva Stratt, you are on my ship.”
“Your… ship..? I see…” she said quietly. Eva helped her to sit upright, and steadied her hand with her own.
“Small sips,” she ordered, slowly tilting the bottle.
Ava took small sips as instructed, licking her lips after she got a satisfying amount.
“Tha… thank you,” she croaked.
“Yes.” Eva nodded.
“Now… If you don’t mind, I have a few questions for you.”