Chapter Text
Eva Stratt was a very lonely woman.
That was a choice she made, it was easier than managing interpersonal relationships. After sacrificing her only friend for the sake of the world, she found herself unenthused at the idea of making more.
So she didn’t.
And now here she was, 10-odd years later. On a large ship through an icy ocean, waiting for the Hail Mary’s beetles to reach Earth with whatever world-saving solution Grace, Ilyukhina and Yáo had come up with. She knew it’d still be another decade or so before they’d get the beetles back.
Stratt stood outside on the deck, dressed in her typical heavy winterwear and nursing a coffee. She stared out at the ice, almost blankly, up until she saw a deep red spreading across the underside of a particularly thin sheet of ice. Maybe it’s just a dead whale, Stratt thought to herself…
Until the ice broke up, a mangled submarine surfacing through the shattered frozen plane. It was soaked in what seemed to be blood, rusted out through the sides and thoroughly punctured all along the hull. Surely, whoever was inside was dead, but the fact the hull wasn’t completely caved in gave Stratt an almost strange sense of hope in her chest.
The first thing Ava noticed was that she was shivering slightly. She wasn’t this cold in the submarine… quite the opposite, actually. It’d been hot to the point of her sweating in there, and now she was cold. Very cold.
She opened her eyes, but couldn’t see much; even out of her good one, her vision was bleary at best. She had to use her other senses… Okay.
She was still in her C.O.I. uniform, but now she had some kind of foil blanket around her shoulders. She could also smell blood, but couldn’t feel the burn of broken skin. Alright, so she was cold, still dressed, wrapped in a foil blanket, and had someone else’s blood on her.
Oh. Right. The blood ocean, Ava recalled like it was no big deal. The SM-14 must’ve collapsed in on itself. Am I dead?
“Can you speak?”
The unfamiliar voice made Ava yelp, her vision hadn’t fully returned yet so she hadn’t focused on what she could see. “Yeah! Yeah, I can.” Ava’s voice was rough from disuse, making her wonder how long she’d been out for.
“Do you know where you are?”
Ava forced herself to blink out the bleariness. This voice didn’t belong to anyone in the C.O.I.—not anyone she’d met, at least. Finally, her good eye’s vision cleared up, and she could get a good look at the woman in front of her.
Middle aged, long ginger hair, blue eyes…
“Do you know where you are?” The woman repeated.
This prompted Ava to actually look around. She couldn’t see outside, it was too bright. She knew she was on some kind of vessel, perhaps a centrifuge running for the gravity…
“No. Who are you affiliated with?” Ava asked, turning her attention back to the woman. She didn’t look to be a member of the Consolidation of Iron, but she didn’t look like she was from Eden either.
“Eva Stratt, I am with the Petrova Taskforce, and you?”
Petrova Taskforce?
“Ava. A captain of the Consolidation of Iron.” Ava answered. “Where am I?”
“Somewhere along the Arctic Ocean.” Stratt answered.
“That’s not a location on any of the known blood oceans.”
“Blood oceans?” Stratt tilted her head slightly.
“Yes. There’s blood oceans on a few of the remaining moons…”
“There aren’t any known moons with features like that. It would’ve started a huge historical event if there were.”
Ava stared at Stratt as if she were an idiot.
“We can search the NASA website, if you’d like. Perhaps that could assure you?”
“NASA hasn’t existed for nearly 21 years. It won’t—”
“No, NASA is still around. Still observing the universe, even with the astrophage problem.” Stratt answered calmly.
Ava blinked, baffled. ”What? What about the Quiet Rapture? Earth should be gone, how is NASA still around? That whole organization crumbled without their base!”
“Quiet Rapture? We’re on Earth right now.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have no reason to lie to you, Ava.”
“Then prove it.” Ava scowled.
“Follow me, then. Do you need help getting up?” Stratt offered.
“No, I’ve got this.” Ava pushed herself up onto her feet. She wobbled slightly, but steadied herself.
“You may want to keep your mylar blanket on.” Stratt nodded and led the way.
Ava followed her, holding onto the blanket as Stratt led her to the deck. Immediately Ava flinched as cold air seemed to blast into her face. Stratt offered a pair of sunglasses, which Ava hesitantly accepted. Once worn, she could easily see the ice and water under the ship, wisps of blood still visible from where her submarine had surfaced.
Ava scrutinized the surroundings, doubting the reality of it, but the longer she looked the more she realized the truth in Stratt’s words.
She was on Earth.
“Yeah, the moons you mentioned are just regular moons.” Stratt said, showing Ava the laptop screen.
Ava took the laptop, investigating further. Her brow furrowed further and further until she eventually handed it back. “Okay, okay. And then, those spots in the background are stars. Are they alive?”
“So, about that…” Stratt frowned. “They’re dying. Astrophage is eating their energy. There’s one unaffected star in this star group, Tau Ceti. 11.9 light years away. 13 years ago we sent a team to go investigate it. It won’t be for another ten years that their solution will arrive here. We put the smartest people alive on that team.”
“So, you’re in a similar situation.” Ava frowned as Stratt nodded.
”But once their solution arrives, we can save the dying stars. Since astrophage is a biological creature, there’s surely a way to kill it off.”
“I see.” Ava looked out the window, staring at the ice and water again. “It’s not as hopeless as where I’m from.”
“Correct.”