Chapter Text
Cordelia eyed the two men before her warily, Mollie stood in the hatchway of the ogygia — hand out to prevent the little from spilling forward in their innocent curiosity. Henry stood a step behind her to her side, wrench clutched in a fist by his side as he stared at the men before them. None of them trusted adults, and rightfully so.
The Ogygia had crashed. It wasn't broken beyond repair, they had skimmed across the water a bit, like Flight 1549. It was damaged, sure, but Ogygia was tough. Cordelia and the other biological inhabitants? Not so much. There was an odd feeling in her shoulder, and she could see Henry taking small breaths. The Little's were sniffling.
Cordelia was intimidated by the men, even with her fire axe held in a guarding position in front of her, ready to swing. The blond man was tall, maybe six foot, and had cruel burn marks along his right arm. There was a small starburst scar above his left eyebrow too. While the blond was well built, the amputee was thicker set — shorter that the blonde, but more broad, he had even more scars, and one of his pupils was blown wide permanently, it looked like the whites were pinkish. The scar on his cheek bothered her the most though, like something had grown beneath his skin and gnawed its way out. It was like a hideous mimicry of Kota's scar.
Cordelia knew to be wary of men with brutal scars and graying temples, it meant that they would be tougher to kill in a fight.
Cordelia had killed before of course, perhaps indirectly, but she promised Henry she would carry that blame fully. When station Olympia promised them resources, and when they had tried to convince Nick to take their side, there had been a man that snuck onto their ship.
He had come for one of the Little’s. Cordelia had of course seen him before, the way he eyed them all. She told Henry and Kota, came up with a plan. There was no Little in sight for him, instead Cordelia had silently lodged her axe into his spine. Right between L-5 and L-4, waist down paralysis. She had been very proud of herself for that.
Henry helped her drag him to a holding cell. Cordelia wanted to test if what she read about the human body was true. She had heard of a woman who had held her head on as she ran from her kidnapper. It fascinated Cordelia to no end, how resilient and fragile bodies are. Enough adrenaline, and a person could survive having their head partially separated from their body. But one wrong punch, and the lights spark out, brain dead.
The man turned to Henry while Cordelia had talked with Kota about it all. He had seen something in him, imagined it most likely. A false reflection. Henry had sneered and stomped on his hand, Cordelia could remember hearing the crack and a pitiful yelp.
The next morning, the man had been bludgeoned to death. Cordelia was only mildly disappointed, grumbling only a little bit as Henry pouted in the corner of the med-bay, knuckles split and brusied. Henry sulked, half-mumbling apologies. "I didn't mean to," He had gnawed on his lip, looking almost sheepish. "I just… I didn't think it would be that easy. I thought he was like a roach. Tougher than you expect to get rid of."
That was the third time ever Cordelia had been tempted to kiss him. She knew there was something sort of wrong about that. They had thrown the body into the airlock without much ceremony while Mollie had distracted the Little's with a story.
The men before them now were not eyeing them in the same way. The shorter, dark haired man was standing in front of the blond, remaining arm clenched into a fist and shoulders tense. The blonde had his hands splayed wide and lifted in a placating gesture. His glasses hung from one of his ears.
"Uhm, hello there. My name is Dr Ryland Grace, and this is my friend Simon." The dark haired man did not move a twitch as the blonde tapped his shoulder lightly and continued talking. He was using a very calm and steadying tone, and was sort of smiling gently at them as he spoke. "How about you put down that axe, hm? Then we can have a conversation? Figure out something's?" In another life, maybe she would've gotten along with this Dr Grace. Not here though, not now. She didn't trust that easy smile or the way he held his hands out.
Cordelia narrowed her eyes at Simon and Dr Grace, gripping the axe tighter. She made eye contact with Simon and held it, staring down the man before her. She could kill him if she had too. Sure, maybe it would be a little difficult, but he had one arm and a weird eye, an entire weak side. Cordelia was fast enough to at least blind him, gouge his eyes out with her nails. Henry tilted his head down slightly to whisper something, and Cordelia tilted her head towards him to listen.
"Cordelia, they have a garden. They have supplies. This guy is a doctor." We need that. It wasn't spoken aloud, but it was heard all the same. Mollie had shuffled forward and tapped Cordelia's shoulder, muttering. "We could go back inside?" She offered, and Cordelia loved her for the out, the way to dodge a situation until they had more information. She was glad she was no longer Calypso. Now she had voices of reason. Calypso was not reasonable.
Simon darted forward suddenly and lunged for her axe, she felt it torn from her grasp and ducked back as Henry stepped forward to swing. Simon's face was impassive and blank, Henry's was tense with unease. They fought for a while, scrambling down on the sand. Henry drove punches into the mans ribs, the man did not twitch. Cordelia suddenly knew that she would not be able to kill him.
Henry's wrench and the axe were tossed aside in the scuffle and Henry yelped as he was shoved into the course sand of the beach face down, Simon kneeling on his back, single hand pushing Henry's face into the rough grain beneath them — he spat out sand and thrashed.
Cordelia didn't like that.
—
Ryland watched as Simon wrestled the boy down, he felt his stomach lurching as the boy thrashed against the hold. It felt to familiar. His face pressed into the sand. Ryland resisted the urge to scratch at a small scar on the back of his neck.
Ryland Grace knew that Simon was trying to help, that he thought he was attempting to diffuse the situation. He was not. Up until Simon darted forward, things were going calmly.
Ryland reached out to pull Simon away, this wasn't how this should be handled. These were just kids. Covered in smoke and baggy clothes and looking not that much older than the kids Ryland had taught when he was "Mr Grace".
He paused as the girl that had been holding the axe darted forward and tackled Simon off of the boy, who sat up and spat out sand with a sneer — stunned like Ryland was as they both watched the flurry of fists and curses that came from the blur in front of them. The girl twisted out of Simon's grasp, tossing sand into his face with one hand and swinging hard with the other. Simon pushed his palm against her jaw to get her away and she bit him on the wrist. Both spat curses. It was not unlike watching feral dogs fight.
The boy stood and fidgeted, looking torn between diving back into the fight and dragging the girl out, his fingers twitched as he hesitated. He had dark blonde hair and deep brown downturned eyes, and far too many scars on his hands and arms for a teenager. There was still some baby fat on his cheeks.
Ryland sighed as the fight continued before pressing fingers between his lips and whistling loudly. Adorable little faces from within the crashed ship stared at him in awe, the boy tensed and froze, Simon turned slightly, still attempting to push the girl away. The girl ignored the whistle, teeth and nails sunken into Simon's arm, she even kicked him in the ribs for good measure, earning a grunt from Simon. Simon attempted to hold his arm as far away from his body as possible. She drew blood. Her warm brown wavy curls were wilder than before, dusted with sand, and there was a blazing fury within her dark green eyes. She looked so human and so young, it made Ryland want to cry.
Ryland put his arm up. "Alright everybody, my hand is up." The girl didn't care, she just snarled. Like, actually, the sound accompanied the facial expression. The boy darted forward and pulled her away from Simon, clutching her to his chest and glaring at Ryland and Simon over her head. The girl spat Simons blood out onto the sand, it dribbled down her chin.
Simon grumbled a few curses and stood, licking a split lip. He shuffled to stand close behind Ryland, nose twitching.
"Okay, now that we've got whatever that was out of our systems, who wants to ask the first question?" These kids… they were in a ship, in space, and that ship had crash landed into the biodome. It had woken Simon and himself up. Rocky had broke down their door as well, trilling frantically about a hole in a panel of the biodome. And there they were, Children. Ryland suddenly wondered if he had wished too hard, before Simon of course, for some company. He hadn't believed in wishes before Simon, and now he wasn't so sure about that.
The blonde girl standing in the doorway of the ship spoke up calmly. "Where are we? This isn't Earth, we're in the Eridani 40 system." This one brought her brain with her. Only, it was a little disturbing how calm she was.
"That's a good observation, no we are not on Earth. This is Erid, home of the Eridians. And well, me and Simon too. Specifically the biodome, which you lovely people just crash landed in, the Eridians made it for me. My turn to ask a question, how did you get here?" Ryland shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweater while he waited for a response.
The angry green eyed girl spoke this time. "We were just picking up another kid. The final variable. Something happened, something went wrong, we don't know what yet, but long story short we got sucked into a weird orbit and needed to land." She spoke clearly, strongly, almost Stratt like in her directness. "First planet with an atmosphere that wouldn't kill us and had breathable air." She frowned at Ryland, suspicious of him.
Ryland nodded his head, he felt Simon press a hand to his lower back slightly and ball up Rylands sweater in his fist. The dark haired man had been in a strangely cuddly mood lately, not that Grace minded of course, it was just more contact than usual now. Maybe he was just more comfortable around Grace now and he was like this before he was put in that sub, or maybe it was some kind of grounding technique — a trick to comfort himself. Simon pulled him back a little.
"Why are you here?" The boy asked in a grumbly way. The green eyed girl nodded, head tilted slightly. The smaller children within the ship had leaned out a bit, and were looking around with big eyes. They were painfully adorable, all of them. And they're in space, with no adults. It made Ryland a little angry to think about that.
Ryland cleared his throat. "That's uhh, a bit harder to explain. We're both here because of different things. See, I'm here because of Project Hail Mary, and Simon-" "We don't need to talk about that." Simon finally spoke up, hand balling up Graces sweater tighter. The green eyed girl tilted her head to the other side, her lips moving to speak.
She was interrupted by Rocky.
To give them credit, none of the children screamed. The girl on the ship flinched back with a gasp, the boys eyes widened comically with a muttered swear (Ryland resisted calling him out for swearing in front of little ears, he didn't think it would matter at this point), the green eyed girl tensed and stepped back into the boy as the xenonite clad alien barreled towards them all.
"New Human Plural! Smaller! Like Pebbles!" He banged into Graces shin, waving his arms. Ryland almost didn't notice the girl who fought Simon reaching quietly for her axe on the sand, she ushered the others behind her back with a hand. She kept her eyes on Rocky.
"Uh, hey Rock, maybe now is not the best time to-" Adrian interrupted him this time, having creeped closer to the girl — which none of the humans noticed at all, even Simon tensed slightly in surprise. They spoke with a low trill, "Hello New Human." The girl blinked up at Adrian, on her hands and knees in the sand, arm outstretched for the fire axe.
Ryland had never seen someone scurry backward so quickly, not even Simon. "Uh hey, listen it's alright. Remember when I talked about Eridians? These are Eridians, they won't hurt you. They're curious and a little bit blunt and excitable, but harmless, I swear." The boy was already back on the ship, reaching out a hand as the green eyed girl stumbled forward.
All of a sudden, the ships lights flared brightly, the door made a whirring noise and the boy instinctively jumped out before they slammed shut. The green eyed girl cursed loudly and badly enough to rival Simon as she slammed her hands against the door. Ryland even thought there might have been a slur or two thrown in there — he couldn’t be sure, not all of them were in English. Maybe Ryland should've wished for some family friendly people to keep him company instead of looking up at the stars and sobbing, "Please, I don't want to be alone anymore, I saved you! I don't even care who, I just can't be alone anymore." And now he had Simon, who bit him when they first met, and a ship full of what looks to be a ragtag selection group of a k-12 school, who somehow swear worse than the ex-convict. Brilliant.
The boy stood behind the girl, back to back, fists slightly raised. "Electrical surge from the oxygen, they'll be safe. The ship will keep them safe." He muttered reassurances as the girl kicked the door in fury.
As much as Ryland wanted to ask questions, Simon stepped forward slightly after a moment, hand still gripping Ryland sweater. "… I can fix it. I'm a mechanic." Grace could never be more proud, this was progress! Simon was offering them something, and no one was hitting anyone! Or biting! Why did everyone resort to biting?
"You are not touching the Ogygia." The girl spoke firmly, in a very Stratt-like manner. Ryland found himself losing hope of no one biting anyone. "We already have a mechanic." The boy nodded as she tapped his shoulder.
Simon was quiet for a moment. "… Well, what are you gonna do without any tools?"
Both of the teenagers stared at Simon, caught off guard. Simon was right.
Besides the ship was massive, easily bigger than the Hail Mary. It was kinda… submarine shaped? Not good. But it was steel gray (not a smidge of red) and obviously built for space travel. Good. It took up at least half the beach in width, and was twice as long as it was wide. Not to mention, the thrusters and engines on it… it could definitely take off if it wanted too.
Ryland spoke up, gently ushering Rocky and Adrian back a bit as he stepped forward. "Listen, we won't do anything to your ship, you said they'll be safe right? The little kids? We have food and water here, you guys should at least eat something before you make any decisions on whether or not we can touch your ship. I think emotions are running really high right now. And we all need to take a breath." He clasped his hands in front of him and tried to give them a warm smile. "We're happy to help if you need it.”