Chapter Text
Light.
An outpour, bleeding all around, consuming his senses.
The fire of untamed hair, soft in his palms, that unforgettable orange glow.
The blaze of the Sun, rays burning into his retinas, body warmed by the heat of another.
Sol, dying and dimmed.
The Sun's really dying, isn't it?
A woman before him, light blurring her features.
Yeah.
Flashes, staccato, hair fluttering in the wind. He does not see her face, nor does he know her name. A rainbow of colours.
Blinding white, searing his vision, cutting deep into his sight.
“Eye movement detected.” A robotic sounding voice called out. “What's two plus two?”
Where the heck was he?
There's tubes running all over his body, he choked from the one being removed from his throat, spitting out the fluids trapped in his mouth. It's disgusting and bitter, he felt bile rising.
“You have been in a medically induced coma.” The robotic voice came back, “you may experience some memory loss and difficulty speaking.”
Why couldn't he remember anything?
He pushed himself off the bed, ripping wires from his body—streaks of blood flowing from stinging flesh, his body too shaky to support his weight.
The robot snapped its limbs towards him, trying to pull him back. Its robotic arm appeared in front of him, a shaver near his face, he rolled away, his mind too shambled to understand what was happening.
“Body movement detected, for your own safety, please return to the medical platform.”
He stumbled as he tried standing, feeling more like a newborn than the adult man he was. Instead, he pushed himself into the corner, working up the strength to use his legs.
Who was he? He should know this, but nothing came to mind. Panic overcame him.
Climbing up a ladder, he threw whatever he could at the robot, and he must have hit a button, as two platforms were lowered, each containing another body.
Oh thank god, he's not alone. The little flashing name tag, Olesya Ilyukhina, this one read, alive. The man above, older, also alive, Yáo Li-Jie.
Okay, he knew their names, but what about his?
His heart still slammed out of his chest, thudding hard against his weakened form, but he made his way to the top, trying to find any bits of information. Anything at all, a location, a time, maybe someone who's awake.
A window, finally, he pressed towards it.
Oh.
A dark void, an inky abyss, spattering of stars laid before him.
No Earth, no Moon, not even the Sun.
Space, he's in space.
-
He tried blabbering out words, tongue too unpractised, until he saw some laboratory equipment, “is that an atomic resolution scanning electron microscope?!”
So he didn't know his name, but he knew that? Was he smart?
Body still unaccustomed to his own weight, he climbed up and down the apparent spacecraft, pulling out the remaining tubes from his skin. It burnt a little, a sharp twang against flesh, but he barely felt anything beyond the fear that encompassed him.
He found the control room, at least that's what he believed it to be with all its buttons and screens.
“Pilot detected.”
Oh nope, he pushed back up, if only the others were awake.
There's a screen that's pointing towards the Sun, okay so where are they? Neptune? Why would they be travelling this far from Earth?
No.
Eleven years, ten months, fourteen days and six hours to Earth? That can't be right. He felt his stomach drop to his feet, no way they're so distant from human connection right?
Oh, that's not his Sun.
-
A memory resurfaced, children in a classroom. He's there at the front, teaching those bright young eyes. They looked to him for an answer, the Petrova Line they asked—hardly having the stomach to respond. How was he supposed to break it to them about these Sun eating dots that could potentially be the end of their species?
-
He thought himself insane, his brain wracking for explanations, and yet there was nothing. Rummaging through some luggage—his? He didn't know, and found a bag labelled vodka, little messy hearts scrawled around. Maybe it's not the wisest decision, but he's afraid and alone. He'll apologise when the other two wake, but as he was now, he'd do anything to not lose his mind.
Images flashed by, of Yáo and Ilyukhina, they in their yellow suits, bright like the Sun and stars in their eyes. They're alive, and smiling in his memories, and there's a warmth inside when he thought of them. He tried not to think of the still bodies asleep in their comas, how he wished he could wake them.
He found some pictures, stills of their lives well lived, there's only one of him, tucked next to a fox charm and a medallion engraving, sorrow filled him again.
-
Grace, his name was Grace.
-
He found himself in a room filled with projections, music humming in the background, filling the too-silent atmosphere. Yet there's nothing but loneliness and he felt his chest ache.
The jellyfish that played, its dancing on the screens.
-
The woman in his dreams reappeared, hair reflecting soft light, vast oceans around them—why? Who? He couldn't remember, but her hair was red, red like flames and the end of fall. She looked at him kindly. Her eyes soften toward him, and oh, she's beautiful, this woman draped in red.
He's dancing, all alone, more than drunk with this substitute of a mop, its strands a similar burnt sienna. An ache he didn't know could be so painful settled in his stomach, a yearning he couldn't place.
-
He found a whiteboard, and wrote his few memories. Carl, his friend, the one he named his hypothesis after, they made a baby! There's another pang, he missed his friend.
-
The memory continued, the woman before him, her face resurfaced, and he knew her name.
Eva Stratt.
It sang like songbirds in his chest, a longing and want he could not understand.
-
Astrophage, he named it, he, the one to make first contact.
-
There's records on the wall, golden engravings that detail their beginnings, evolution, the start of humankind. Earth as a whole, the fight for their life.
People, humanity, all hope on the Hail Mary.
Lifetimes flashed by, love that persisted, cultures and art, all the beauty that defined the human race. Vast blue oceans, forests and complex ecosystems, existence as a whole—cavemen drawings, artifacts of clay, music, dance, hands in hands. Generation to generation.
Love that held them together. He would always choose Earth, always choose each other.
You're smart, you'll figure it out.
Grace's heart ached, the weight of his species, the death of his kind, it's all washing over him, no, he could not let that happen. He's here for a reason.
He had a job to do.
-
The stars were being infected, all but Tau Ceti—so that's where they're headed.
Tau ceti, eleven light years away, there's not enough fuel, practically none for their return. He had a sinking revelation, cold and empty in his heart.
There's no way home.
He and his crew were going to die.
His mind drew blank, he felt like throwing up, he's going to die out here, body to the stars, left untouched, a vacuum of space to preserve him. Again, his lungs burned, panic clouding his thoughts.
-
There's more vodka, so he pumped it into his bloodstream, his head spinned with a delightful blur. A momentary bliss away from his reality. Ilyukhina was sure to kill him for wasting a bag of this ship-bound luxury, but he hoped he could forgive her when she came to.
-
The post-drunk headache pounded in his skull, he pushed off the robot that came at his groans. The ship spun around him, his feet too wobbly, Grace remained on the floor while the alcohol wore off.
And at the end of it, he wanted to remain in this wallowing and self-pity party, wanting to scream and cry about this fate, but he's already here, and there's a solution waiting to be found.
-
He ended his self-excursion back to the beds, and propped himself up as he watched the unmoving bodies. They're alive, he reminded himself, as cold as their bodies looked, as unnerving as they were unflinching. The sound of the machinery whirring and beeping, his unsteady breaths. How much time has passed since he awoke?
“I miss you guys,” he said, staying up to keep watch. “You were all so loved back on Earth…I wish you were up, I don't really know what to do, I'm kind of lost you know.”
He barely remembered them, only a blur of fuzzy warmth, but he thought them all friends.
No sound answered back, only his sobs and heavy breathing, and there's nothing he could do about it. He wore his yellow jumpsuit, if only to feel closer to memories of them, he stared at their bodies. Minutes passed by, hours maybe, and there was no change.
-
Sleep wasn't easy when he's alone, Grace thought of a warm body next to his; of jasmine and spices, of a cold nose pressing his neck.
-
He ate the slurry that the medical robot gave him, Armando, he's taken to calling it, three times each day cycle. It tasted like pure nutrients, he gagged at the texture, gritty and soft, like pre-chewed blended up soup.
There's times he found himself wandering the spacecraft, it's not particularly large, so he acquainted himself well enough to traverse without getting lost. He took stock of the lab, there's any and all things he'd ever need, going through the laptop's databases. There's a variety of video games, the entirety of human history stored in its software, so he dedicated some time to mindless media, if only because the ship was still en route to Tau Ceti.
After a while, he gave up trying to understand his circadian rhythm, and found himself back to watching his crew members sleep.
And when more time passed, he slept on the floor. It's chilly, and uncomfortable and he's sure to have a back-ache later, but he couldn't bring himself to slot back into his own sleeping pod.
-
“Eye movement detected.”
The distant sound of the medical bot buzzing about, Grace still felt the pull of sleep, limbs too heavy with inertia.
There's thudding and soft cursing, groans from above. He's still not quite conscious, dreams clouding his head. He's not yet aware of what's going on around him.
Sounds of a woman, she spoke in another language, Russian, the robot switched itself to match. Another thump, a hiss, Grace now fully awake, blinking back his surprise. He whipped his head back to see Ilyukhina sitting up.
Armando continued making its noises, trying to keep Ilyukhina in place, she swatted a hand, grumbling in Russian of what he assumed was her answering the cognitive test.
She's awake, alive, he's not alone.
Oh, how emotions flooded him, tears pricking his eyes, his throat swelling. Grace practically shot himself up towards her.
Ilyukhina said something he couldn't understand, did she recognise him? He wondered if she too lost her memories. Either way, he was there, arms wrapping her neck, it felt like forever since he's had any human touch. The warmth of her core, proof of her life, he disregarded the fact that she was still soaking with the suspension fluids.
She spoke again in Russian, before recognising her surroundings, “making me speak English before I properly wake up huh?”
His eyes stung again and he held on tighter.
“Grace?” She eventually spat out, one hand raising to meet his back.
“You remember me?” The tears continued its flow, he's sure he looked like a mess. He's practically shaking at the contact, like his skin would be crawling without it.
Pulling back, she looked him in the eye, “of course?” and in a wary voice, “do you remember me?”
He wiped the snot off his face, “I know your names, your faces, but I don't know much.”
Something close to panic crossed her features, before she breathed in and schooled herself, “do you know of our mission?”
“Yeah, I do, we still have some days until Tau Ceti.”
“Okay,” she remained calm in his distress, “hey, I'm awake now, and we'll figure it out, together alright?”
There's another flashback, him watching the astronauts train, all their psychiatric evaluations, how bright Ilyukhina remained despite any challenges on the Vat. Relief washed over him, his crew really was the best.
“Grace?”
“Oh yeah, yeah, okay.” Pulling back, his arms still on her shoulders, and he's almost reluctant to let go.
She patted him on the arm, trying to free herself from the grasp, “alright, can you get me something to change into now?”
Ah right, she's still in the coma bag.
-
In the mental health room, they watch some snowy landscape, somewhere that reminded Ilyukhina of her home. They, in their matching yellow jumpsuits, both with a tube of nutrient slurry in hand.
“Ugh, how long until we get real food?” Ilyukhina asked.
“I don't know, soon hopefully, I've barely been awake myself.”
He filled her in on what he's done so far, which was mostly panic, but she slapped his shoulder when he admitted to using one of her vodka bags.
“You did not, that was to share after we figured out the solution.” A look of exasperation, “I will show you where the crawfish sleep!”
That made him whip his head back, “what?”
“If we weren't already killing ourselves, I'd kill you first.” She then clarified, arm around his neck in a football hold, her fist messing his hair.
“Hey in my defense, I was left alone and without memories, I was scared.”
Another beat passed, her hands dropped, resting her weight in a clumsy hug, "I'm sorry, that must have been horrifying…do you know why you lost your memories?”
Grace shook his head, bumping her shoulder with his, “but you're here now, and I'm sure our commander will be up soon.”
“Speaking of, I'm going to check his intubation, we should've woken at the same time.”
-
Ilyukhina did just that, he watched as she tinkered around, thoroughly checking Yáo's coma pod.
Silence stretched between them, Grace found no need to disrupt her working, but eventually she proclaimed, “there's something wrong with his feeder pump.” Cursing under her breath, “he's being starved as is, no wonder he wasn't waking.”
His heart sped up its already rapid pace, “can you fix it?”
“Of course, I wasn't chosen for no reason,” but there's a pinch to her eyebrows, “he might be out for a while, I'm not about to reprogram the medbot to force wake him.”
“Armando didn't alert any issue.”
“Huh? Oh the medbot,” she snorted, “of course you named it, but ah it could've been a system failure, I'll put an alarm on his condition so we'll be able to hear if anything else goes wrong from any part of the ship.”
And Grace slowly let out his breath, “you're a genius Ilyukhina.”
“Oh that's high praise coming from the astrophage expert,” she smiled as she worked, always a light in the dark, “keep that coming.”
-
The alarms started blaring, Mary telling them approaching Tau Ceti orbit. Prepare for engine cutoff.
He and Ilyukhina shared a glance, before she seemed to have processed what that had meant. She ran through the corridors, up the ladder and into the control room with him tailing behind.
“What does that mean?” he asked, “why engine cutoff—Ilyukhina!”
“Calm down Grace, it happens when we enter orbit,” she took the pilot seat, appearing to know what the heck to do.
“You're not a pilot!” Anxiety again rose, dang it he wished he had an ounce of her calmness.
“No, but Yáo is clearly unavailable,” she continued to press buttons, prodding at the controls, “I got some training, don't worry—Mary is transferring us into stable orbit, I'm just keeping watch.”
The ship counted down, four, three—
“What happens at one?”
“We enter zero g.”
And as she said that, his legs picked up off the ground, all his muscles relaxing—and oh he felt like he was falling. “What the fudging fudger!” Grace swallowed hard, he did not want to throw up here.
His body instinctively curled into himself, and suddenly he's spinning, screaming like a helpless child.
“Woah there dude, you sound like a goat.” Ilyukhina unbuckled herself, practically swimming to his side, “Grace, breathe, you will get used to it.”
He felt warmer hands on his back, stabilising him from his endless motion, she pulled him back down into the corridor and out the control room, away from the endless items he seemed to touch.
“If you keep hitting things, you bounce around like a ping pong ball.”
“I feel sick,” he groaned as she rubbed circles at his back. It did little to quell the lurching sensation in his stomach, but the touch was more than welcome.
“That's normal, and it should stop.” Her mouth pressed, clearly worried, but Grace couldn't say anything to displace it, not when his every sensation was out of balance.
He kept his eyes closed for a minute, the endless vertigo still ongoing, probably all the fluids shifting in his head, and he hoped Ilyukhina was right.
Mary sounded again, “Petrovascope operational.”
She patted his arm, still holding him up, “Sorry dude, that's all you.” Ilyukhina gave him a moment, until he showed a thumbs up.
His body protested most all movements, but she carefully pushed him into place back in the cockpit, said scope unlatched for him to use. Okay, he could do this.
Fumbling, he eventually figured out how to turn it, until he saw a beacon of light—Tau Ceti. With the IR filter switched on, the tell-tale red of a Petrova Line appeared.
“What do you see?”
“A Petrova Line,” he moved the scope along the bright red, until what looked like a smudge appeared across. He squinted, he must be seeing wrong, “there's something else.”
Her voice pitched up, “What?”
“Blip A detected,” Mary alerted.
His heart was not getting a break today, if the astrophage wasn't going to kill him, surely all the surprises would. “What's a Blip A?”
Ilyukhina floated to the window, loose hair flowing with her. Seriously, how was she so calm? He carefully came at her side, holding onto her arms, okay maybe he was using her as a shield.
“What the actual fuck.”
There, in front of her, the largest ship he'd ever seen, metallic brown, rows of lines and lines. A magnificent sight in all honesty, and if he wasn't so shocked, he'd have admonished her use of language.
Grace tightened his hold on Ilyukhina, the woman matching his expression. From his few memories, her silence held much weight, whatever was out there was astonishing to her too, it made him feel less insane, but admittedly he was still too panicked.
“We got to get out of here,” he tugged at her arm, voice raising several octaves “fly us out please.”
“What, we don't even know what that is.” She protested, “it might be friendly!”
“It could be a bomb!”
“Oh you Americans,” she gave in to his yanking, “alright, fine, let's see how far they're willing to go.”
She reclaimed the pilot's seat, buckling herself, Grace following suit, and less than smoothly zig zagged the spacecraft. The Blip A matched, copying anything that Ilyukhina did. And wow his stomach did not like this. He bit back the bile as she reversed them around the larger ship.
“Erratic maneuver detected.”
“Thank you Mary,” Ilyukhina smirked, a goofy smile on her face, at least someone here seemed to be having fun.
And then, they heard Blip B detected.
“That could be a bomb!”
“Not everything is a bomb!” she gave up on piloting, clearly it was getting them nowhere.
“Do we have shields!?”
She slapped his arm, “no of course not, what is this, Star Wars?”
They watched as the tiny Blip B floated across the vacuum of space, it touched the outer ship, gently bouncing off, and absolutely nothing happened.
The two stared at each other for a short while, he let out the breath he was holding.
“We have to retrieve it.” Ilyukhina informed him. “It's clearly trying to communicate with us!”
“And how would we do that?” He did not like the glint in her eyes.
“We space walk.”
His eyes blew wide, there's no way she suggested that. “We?”
“It's that or you stay back, alone.” She gave him that smile, the one where she scrunched her eyes knowing she got her way.
-
He saw as she put on the EVA suit, much more gracefully than he did. Ilyukhina held him down against the lack of gravity, helping him shrug on his own bulky suit, even as he spun uncontrollably, but soon they made their way into the airlock.
She depressurised the room, opening the door, oh he hated the emptiness that greeted him.
Only the stars and that gigantic hulk of a spaceship were in their line of vision, his chest might as well have exploded from the fear he felt.
Grace knew just how large the universe was, its expansion rate of about sixty eight kilometers per second per megaparsec, but to see it so intimately, to float among the nothingness, that was a completely different story.
He peeked his head out, hands tightly holding onto the edge, he's never been more happy to be wearing these massive gloves that gripped on better than his sweaty hands could have.
“Yeah no,” Grace flattened his back to the wall.
“Ah come on,” Ilyukhina nudged him, “we're umbilical corded to Mary, nothing will happen.”
And then she's off, launching into the air like the void was not staring back, but before she got too far, he grabbed one of her hands, going with her. If he thought that zero g inside the ship was terrible, then out here in the endless space was even worse.
To his relief, she let him hold on, even as he tripped on the exterior. They toed the ship's edge, lining up with the Blip B's slow velocity as it moved towards them, and they jumped hand in hand until he reached forward to grab the metal object.