Chapter Text
Every once in a while Grace dared think himself capable, and every time the universe proceeded to humble him immediately after.
In hindsight, the plan was risky. Though honestly, it was risky in the foresight as well, and at every step along the way. But it was a matter of life and- much more miserable life that could, eventually, end in death. To Grace, the risk had been worth at least trying.
He should not have gotten too cocky.
The problem was with the fuel. More precisely, with the fact that there was not that much left. Rocky had given him enough to return to Earth at a nice cruising speed, but then the outbreak happened and Grace had to empty the poop-filled generator lines — again — and refill them with his ‘going home’ stock, and then he had to double down and go get Rocky whose entire fuel tanks were now also just amoeba poop, and between all of that, they had barely enough to make it to Erid. They could get there eventually. Sure. In about six and a half years.
Which was about two years longer than Grace could afford even in the most lenient of his estimations. And that’s where the lack of fuel really came into play. They just could not quite get the ol’ Mary to the speed she needed to go, not if they wanted to brake in time instead of crushing into Erid like a Wile E. Coyote into a painted wall.
Hence, the plan.
They would have to return and do a slingshot maneuver, using the ample speed and gravity of Tau Ceti to propel themselves forward at a much higher speed. It added another month to their journey if it was a failure, but would subtract several if it was a win. Several months was a big prize to get. It could be the difference between the starving Grace and having-starved-to-death Grace.
It was risky, yes, but at that point Grace had already started rationing like crazy and got his first taste of constant hunger. Even with the suggestion of Taumeba as a source of protein and calories, he was quite sure his body would not survive two years of scurvy. And Rocky was incredibly distressed about the concept of ending up with yet another emaciated corpse on his ship — figures. Normally he might have protested, but now he was as pliant as could be.
Rocky was… not doing okay.
Grace could easily understand why. After seeing his whole crew die — and the guy let slip that he was related to several of them — then nearly dying and nearly losing Grace, then nearly dying again, then having to deal with Grace maybe nearly or fully dying in a rather close future… well, it was a miracle that Rocky was holding on as well as he seemed to be. Rocky was definitely a rock. Something close to obsidian in his toughness.
Still, even Rocky could not avoid bending at least a little under the circumstance. The repeat of being stranded in space left him exhausted and unwell with the beginnings of radiation sickness. Back when they had looted Blip-A before abandoning it, they grabbed the last bits of medicine that, as Rocky claimed, was meant to speed up his body’s regenerative processes. Most of it had been used up by his desperate crew members during their decline, but there was still some left to hopefully serve him better than it did the rest. However, it also made him even more tired. He was nearly constantly asleep these long days as Grace rerouted Mary back to Tau Ceti. Grace could not stay on top of him at all times, but they still tried to make it work.
Right now, as Grace was following the meticulously penciled trajectory towards the star, Rocky was fighting sleep in his reinforced dome by his side. (They had learned their lesson and fitted most of the tunnels with emergency airlocks.) Grace kept sneaking glances at him. “You good there?”
“Yes, yes.”
“You sure you should be awake?”
“Yes.” Rocky waved a grumpy claw at him. At that point they had almost stopped using the translator entirely. “Need to make sure Grace does not pilot us into the star.”
“Hey.” Grace couldn’t give him a noogie, so he rubbed the dome instead. “I’m doing better, am I not?”
“Small better.” Rocky spread one of his claws to show the minuscule amount of improvement. “Grace should pay attention to the stick. Not talk so much.”
“Okay, okay. Cranky much.”
“Not cranky. Being practical.”
“Right.”
Rocky chittered at him. Crankily.
Grace smiled. Then checked the screen with the trajectory mapped for him. Thankfully, Mary could provide some support during maneuvers, and he was not flying blind. So far so good. “Have you taken your medicine?”
“Later.”
“Rocky.”
“Later,” Rocky grumbled, tone dropping into the old-grumpy-rock frequencies. And immediately deflected with, “Has Grace eaten?” Soft trill and double-tap.
“Touche.” Grace turned back to the screens like the black pot he was.
From here, if he angled Mary just right and glanced through the window, he could see Adrian, gliding away from them along its orbit. It was too far to see the swirls of its clouds again, but the bright green dot was still pretty to watch. The planet was far too serene-looking for something that had given rise to astrophage and then nearly burned them both in its atmosphere.
Grace glanced at the screens again, set the controls to auto for the moment and reached out to the telescope. It was probably weird to feel nostalgia for a place you could have died, but he wanted to check it out one more time while he still could. “Let me look at you there, buddy. Oh, Rock — there’s that moon, I can finally see it. It’s really there. What a tiny thing.”
“Rocky would not lie,” Rocky grumbled from his dome. “Of course is a moon.”
Rocky had mentioned Adrian having a moon, because by the point Grace arrived to Tau Ceti’s system Rocky knew enough to give private tours about it. But it was a small thing, and Grace had chanced to dock Mary in the direct opposite of its position in the orbit around Adrian. He had never got much of a chance to actually see it for himself. All he knew was that it was also medium-rough-texture, though not as pronounced (so, pale green), of slightly weird density, and, overall, not that interesting. Between the consecutive life-or-death situations, they never got around to sightseeing.
But now he could see it well: a pale-green dot against the vibrancy of Adrian’s atmosphere. It seemed uniform, with no visible craters. A quiet neighborhood, perhaps, with not too many rogue asteroids to dent it.
“Think we should name it?” he said to Rocky without looking away. The two green dots locked together, one bigger, one smaller, reminded him of Rocky’s mate crests.
“Hmm. Small moon. Circles Adrian.” Rocky clicked his claws for a moment. “Want to name… Adrian-moon-one.”
Grace snorted and glanced back. “Not ‘Rocky’?”
“Nooo. Rocky won’t name things after Rocky. Stupid.”
“What if I name it after Rocky?”
“No. Is the same.” The grumpiness returned, accompanied with quiet panting. The guy was clearly pushing it with how long he’d been awake. Then, begrudgingly, he conceded, “Fine. Name anything Grace wants.”
“Thanks.” Grace gave the green dots another look through the telescope. They were slowly growing in size as Mary coasted towards their star one last time, but very soon, as gravity hopefully waltzed her away onto her long journey, the planet and its moon would be gone from sight forever. “Goodbye, Adrian and Rocky.”
“See. Confusing. Is stupid.”
“Is not.”
“Is.”
“You still like it.”
“Do not.”
“Do so.”
Rocky aggressively loafed and turned around, but the soft rumble of his shell gave him away: he was utterly pleased and utterly annoyed about it.
Grace laughed. Alright, he’d played with the telescope enough, it was time to strap back in and watch the screens just in case. They were still a good ways away from where they’d start the maneuver, but who knows.
Then he heard a strange warning sound.
Attention: route adjustment required.
“Hm?” He dropped back into the seat, frowning. The autopilot should have kept Mary in line with the selected trajectory, yet the projection of the ship on the screen, relative to the white line of its suggested route, showed just slightly to the left of where it was supposed to be. Grace easily corrected it by a flick to the controller, but the fact that there was error at all made him uneasy.
Rocky noticed it perked up a bit. “Grace? Ship is wrong?” Tap tap.
“Hard to say. Hope it’s just a hiccup. She took a beating.” Which was not the most encouraging thought to think.
“Worry. Worry.”
“Yeah. Me too, pal.”
Grace was now watching the screens much more closely. After a moment, the ship deflected from its trajectory again. Grace returned it to the line once more, anxiety not really going anywhere. “It happened again.”
“Is possible that we’re moved by gravity?”
“It could be if there was anything to- Whoa!”
Mary all but stumbled and hurled forward and to the left, as if swept away from her route by an invisible rein. Grace and Rocky were just as heavily thrown in the opposite direction. Grace could barely hold on to the stick. Rocky slammed into the same corner of his dome that was already dim with mercury splashes and screeched in alarm and pain.
“Whoa, whoa, stop! Grace what what what Grace!”
“It’s not me!”
Another jerk, and this time Grace lost the stick. His already mangled seat swayed and slid to the side, thankfully not pinning him down again but leaving him far away from the controls.
And then the ship started accelerating.
The alarm lights flickered. Mary helplessly recited warnings. Grace tried to drag his seat back into position, but slipped, slammed into Rocky’s dome and could do nothing but hold on for dear life as they were once again swept and thrown into an uncontrolled barrel roll. Rocky tumbled, claws grabbing at xenonite against Grace’s own tight-pressed hands. Grace could only grab back in comfort as the ship accelerated, swept and washed away by some unknown but vicious force.
A strong impact shook them, making Mary spiral harder. Rocky trilled Grace’s name and then just kept screeching, wordlessly, meaninglessly. Grace only realized that he had been yelling too when he started coughing his lungs out. He had no idea what was going on. He had to stop it anyway. And by all that’s good and worthy, he was going to do it, even if he screamed while he did it and threw up right after.
He was still a coward, Stratt had read him for filth. But some things weren’t optional. You had to do them anyway. Cowardly.
“Rock, I’m gonna grab the stick, okay?” he shouted, more for his own sake than Rocky’s. He lifted his body from where it was plastered to the dome and grabbed onto some panel that looked sturdy enough. Bit by bit he dragged himself about a foot and a half up towards the stick. He almost slipped and slid back down again, but then he managed to grab the stick and slam it in the opposite direction to their erratic spin.
They were thrown again, now forward. Behind his back, Grace heard a loud crack and a wheeze of pain as Rocky hit the wall yet again, and he had to fight himself not to drop the stick in favor of rushing to his side. Clenching his teeth, he held onto the stick, struggling to correct the wayward ship as it whirled on through the dark.
He glanced upward. Mostly by habit, and maybe to orient himself a bit.
He could not see Tau Ceti from here, as it must have been far to the right, but the little green spark of Adrian was right there dead in the center. It glowed gentle and serene, like a spring bud in the cold blackness, and next to it, the now-invisible tiny pale moon was keeping its rotation.
Then suddenly both blinked out. Did something come between them and Mary?
The ship was starting to slow.
Grace shook his head and braked the ship until he managed to mostly stop it. The slingshot route was long lost, but he could not really care. When he was certain that Mary was not going to run off without warning again, he rolled over to the dome. “Rocky?!”
Rocky was lying flat, limbs akimbo. A few silver scars had reopened and were now leaking, and his panting breath was much louder. But he still raised an unsteady claw. “Alive…”
“Oh thank goodness. Rocky.” Grace unbuckled and wrapped as much of himself as he could around the dome. He could only hope that this would not worsen the guy’s already frayed health. “I’m so sorry, buddy. Fu- fuck. Just…”
Rocky softly crooned at him. “Grace… okay?” He could not lift the whole leg, so he tapped his claw against the xenonite.
“Yes. Yes, I am okay. I’m fine.”
“Ship okay?”
“Seems to be. We did not hit anything and we aren’t moving… as fast, at least.”
“Okay.” Rocky let out a loud, long puff of heated air. Then slurred, “Hurt. Need… sleep… Grace okay alone?..”
“Yes. Of course, Rock. Sleep. You need to rest. I’ll watch.”
“Grace… no danger?”
“No. It’s okay. I’ll be careful.”
“Okay.” Rocky chittered quietly, a noise that seemed to be more of a self-soothing tick than anything. Then his body dropped, and he was out.
Grace watched him pant for several minutes. Then, when he was reasonably sure that Rocky was doing fine enough, he patted the dome and went to check the damage.
Mary was still anxiously complaining about lost trajectories and erratic maneuvers, and he silenced most of the warnings. However, one made him raise his eyebrows: she was, apparently, confused about her location. The screen that was meant to show it was blank.
“Did something happen to your sensors?” He pressed a hand to her panel. “Or your memory? You should be checking the star map for that, right? To orient yourself with the pictures you see? Come on. Don’t scare me like this, please. We’ve got a long way to Erid. We need you in tip top shape.”
Unable to determine current position.
“Okay, let’s all calm down. Let’s start small. You can see Tau Ceti, right? A nice big reference point.”
Unable to locate Tau Ceti.
“Oookay, now. Alright. It’s okay. I’ve got you. Manual it is. Good old human eyes haven’t failed me too much yet.”
He whirled around to the telescope and looked in.
Then he looked a bit more.
“…Guess that’s, uh, broken too. Alright. Okay. Alright. I guess I’ll… do some EVA recon later, see if it is just some… space dust on the lens. Right.” He leaned back and rubbed his face. “Okay. Nothing we can’t handle, right, Mary?”
I have full confidence in you, Dr Grace.
“That’s the spirit.” He pointed his finger at her control panel, then floated to the window. “Let’s see where that tumble took us, at least.”
He got closer, then paused yet again. Pressed his palms to the glass. Rubbed it just in case.
“Okay. Okay.”
He kicked away from the window. Glanced at the dome, grabbed onto his head and just floated for several seconds. Then shook his head and kicked off again towards the exit.
“Okay. Mary, uh. Time for an EVA walk. Let’s just. Let’s keep our cool. Alright? There’s nothing to be scared about.”
Of course, Dr Grace.
“Great job. Yes. There you go.” He tumbled towards the airlock and grabbed his suit. He wanted to push and pull it on much quicker than he should, but the thought of floating dead in space all because he was a stupid reckless ape about it made him slow down. The time spent carefully putting it on and then waiting for the airlock to cycle felt longer than his entire life leading to it.
When the pressure dropped and the door swung open, he jumped forward, then immediately kicked back and pressed into the corner. Then slowly crawled to the opening as if it was his first spacewalk. The feeling of being about to fall for all eternity into the great hungry void returned. Only this time it was much worse.
Grace peeked his head out and rubbed at his helmet, then squeezed his eyes several times. He knew it was useless even as he was doing it, because he could see everything else just fine. He could see his gloves, the airlock, the outside of Mary around the dimly lit cockpit window.
But the space was nothing. When he looked away from the few light sources on Hail Mary, he felt blind. Just darkness and more darkness that his brain desperately tried but failed to fill with information.
“The stars,” he wheezed out, clasping onto the edge of the airlock. “Mary, where are the stars?”
Unable to locate current position.
“They should be — We’re smack in the center of Cetus! We should be seeing Deneb, we should be seeing Diphda —” He splayed his hands at the silent black infinity before him. “—We should be seeing Tau! We’ve been there five minutes ago!”
Unable to locate Tau Ceti.
“Don’t start with me.” Grace paused. Then pulled himself back inside and started the sequence again. “Mary, I’m concussed. The pilot is concussed. Can you do anything about it? Armando!”
If you suspect head trauma, ensure bed rest, avoid stress, and take plenty of liquid. Try to designate the mentally challenging tasks to other crew members.
“He’s also concussed. Armando!”
If you suspect head trauma—
“Bah.” Grace all but kicked at the wall of the airlock and then slammed his fist into it several times. Then huddled up with his head in his hands.
When the sequence was over, he flew back into the ship, angrily pulling the suit off himself. Then kicked himself down and towards the dormitory. “Water! I need fluid! I need rest, I need to avoid stress, and I need things to stop happening for five — goddamn — minutes!”
Here you go, Dr Grace.
Grace grabbed the water pouch — the only thing on his list Mary could provide — and drained it. It did not really make up for the rest of it, but it was something.
He floated aimlessly for several minutes. Then glided back to the cockpit. Rocky was deep asleep, which was both lucky and terrible: he could not play the voice of reason, but at least he was not seeing Grace lose his shit. Grace grumbled about it before going back to the telescope. “Maybe there’s just light I cannot see. Come on, girl.”
He turned on the Petrovascope.
At first he thought that it was broken too. He expected — hoped — to see the Petrova line, or the outlines of Tau’s crown. Instead, what he saw was just an ocean of red. He had to blink. Was it even working, or was the equipment just bust?
But then he saw them: the individual threads around Hail Mary. Countless Petrova lines, shifting and trailing and gleaming all around them. Some grew darker, only for another to take its place; others shone spread and separated, forming river-like flows. It was beautiful in its own way. It was also completely wrong.
“Why are you like this?” Grace asked aloud, turning the Petrovascope this way and that. “We should be nowhere near you. You have a predator here. You should not be — This is not what you do. You don’t eat all the light and you do not hop around empty space. What’s wrong with you?”
Before he could even try answering all these beautiful questions, he heard Mary call out to him:
Radio signal detected.
“What?”
Radio signal detected. Frequency recognized. Please proceed to the pilot seat to engage with the message.
“I — Mary, we’re in — Radio? Who’ll phone us here? We’re not even anywhere near the — the Voyager, what radio?”
Please proceed to the pilot seat to engage with the message.
Grace threw up his hands, tumbled into the seat, buckled in and searched around for thankfully lit up switches. “Sure, stars are gone, gravity pops up and goes, there’s radio in space— Hello, um, hi. Listening.”
There was static as Mary honed in to the apparently active channel. Then it transformed into a poorly transmitted but recognizable female voice.
Human voice.
“Base 036 to unidentified craft, Base 036 to unidentified craft. You have entered the space under the COI control. Identify yourself and state your purpose immediately. I repeat, identify yourself and state your purpose immediately.”