Chapter Text
Grace had thought the trip to Erid would be, aside from the looming threat of malnutrition, mostly uneventful. Just a long monotony of waiting, checking the breeder tanks, meandering around the ship and finding ways to entertain both he and Rocky. The hours had begun to blur together, sometimes it was a slog fighting against the minutes, other times Grace barely noticed when five hours would pass by.
It was in the midst of another marathon movie 'night', they were halfway through The Godfather, artfully dodging Rocky's prodding questions like; 'Why humans call group “family” but still fight inside it?' And 'Why humans choose loyalty over logic?'. He was already regretting his movie choice when the overhead speakers chimed.
Blip-D Detected
The potential of something finally putting a dent in their usual schedule prompted Grace to look out the window. It was hard to see against the vast darkness of space, but he could make it out a banged up metal cylinder with a few embellishments along its surface.
Grace, in his sleep—addled state, was ready to write it off as some sort of space debris, pointedly ignoring the fact that some like that shouldn't be possible in the middle of intergalactic nowhere. Until one single utterance from Rocky made him finally scramble into action.
"Rocky hear heartbeat."
What happened next was honestly a blur for him. A lot of initial brainstorming, panicking over time sensitivity, more brainstorming, more panicking, until they finally shambled together a half-baked plan steady enough enact.
He had inched the Mary closer to the vessel. Then, with a bunch of leftover fishing chain, they hooked the large hunk of metal up and dragged it closer to the Hail Mary, using the leftover xenonite tunnel from Blip-A to anchor, then seal the vessel to the entrance of the airlock. All while Rocky worriedly chitters about the heartbeat inside the metal hull, how sporadic it was, how weak it was becoming.
"Why Grace hesitating, question? Operation time sensitive!"
And now he was here, standing in the xenonite tunnel once again, faced with the yawning mouth of a jagged hull that curled like a maw. His hands flexed beneath the padded gloves of his EVA suit, fingers dancing around the circular saw. Thank Goodness for the leftover engineer supplies.
He took a sharp breath through his nose, glad he couldn't smell through the suit as his gaze roamed around the rusted, decrepit metal. Dark brown crusted mounds stretched across the alloy, it seemed organic—whatever it was, it was mummified by the cruel vacuum of space now.
"Rocky already said, atmosphere inside is comparable with Grace atmosphere. Open open open!"
Grace gulped down a stone in his throat. That's what made him pause in the first place. Looking at this vessel, it had all the landmarks and patterns of a manmade ship, soldered iron, bolted panels. It was shittily made yes, but seemingly human, which this far out in the cosmos should be a complete impossibility.
He took another deep breath, propping one foot against the legs of the vessel and pressed the blade against the metal before turning the saw on. He flinched at the ugly sound of grinding on the surface, turning as sparks skittered around him and disappeared off the xenonite floor.
It took a moment of grinding in one spot before he felt the surface give and sink until the saw guard hit the metal. With a wince and huff of his breath, Grace continued and pulled the blade up, dragging it along until he managed to make the outline of a large enough hole for him to squeeze through.
He put the saw to the side carefully, fingers flexing anxiously against his palms until trying to grab the edges of the broken piece. Only to fumble as the piece pushed inwards and fell into the darkness of the interior. But instead of a loud clang or clatter, his ears pricked up at the sound of a echoing splash.
Grace froze with his hands still half-raised, fingers hovering where the metal had been a second ago.
"Oh… um…" he blurted dumbly, silently cursing the EVA suit and it's thick gloves.
Slowly, Grace leaned forward, helmet light providing a meagre visibility against the suffocating darkness inside. The beam peeked past the breach, down into the rippling liquid below and Grace felt all the courage he build up squeeze out of him with a violent grip.
Blood. Dark red, viscous blood rippled lazily along it's surface.
"Grace okay, question?" Rocky's voice broke through his rapid thoughts, his auto-translated voice ringing in his ear as he leaned back to take a gulp of air.
"Um- Yeah bud, just—uh—give me a moment to freak out," he panted, eyes drifting skywards as he caught his breath.
Rocky let out a note of concern, "Grace heartbeat fast, take pause to calm? Question?"
He let out a nervous laugh, "Noted. Love that suggestion. Unfortunately if you're right about that heartbeat we gotta go inside—I, I gotta go inside and help whatever's in there."
Grace took one last moment to psych himself up before lifting his boot and climbing inside. He luckily couldn't feel the wetness of the blood when it reached up to his knees, but he could feel its weight. The liquid hugged his calves as tightly as it could despite the thick suit acting as a barrier between it.
The first thing Grace noticed once he was fully inside wasn’t the smell or the sight, his suit filtered away the smell which he was incredibly thankful for, and the light barely gave any visibly inside the hull. No, it was the sound.
A slow, wet lapping against metal walls, echoing against the walls and dripping from the ceiling back into the pool below.
Grace finally lifted his head upwards, the torch following his gaze along the wall and—Oh.
"I think I'm gonna hurl…"
Whatever was mummified outside the ship, was very much alive on the inside. Masses of flesh clung to the walls, overlapping itself in bulbous masses fighting for space. Thin tendons followed the hanging wires above before curling along the pipes. In front of him, he could catch a glimpse of long pillars, curled with a pallor of yellowish white that he couldn't decide were teeth or ribs. All of a sudden, Grace felt like he was in the belly of some beast.
With a shaky breath he finally called out, "Hello?"
Nothing but the wet echoes replied.
Grace tried to shake the jitters out from his arms and shuffled deeper into the vessel. He kept his eyes forward to ignore the fact he was currently wading through what could potentially be human blood.
Then, something knocked against his knees.
Grace jerked back so violently he almost fell into the pool. Whatever object that bumped him floating away lazily with the waves he'd frothed up. He hissed out a series of kid-friendly curses and moving so his light shone back onto the blood.
Under the beam, a container bobbed up and down with the sway of the current, about the size of a shoebox, maybe a little bigger, it was hard to tell. Whatever it was—it was wrapped tightly with some a litany of straps, wires, and some sort of orange padding.
He reached forward and with a flick of his finger, he flipped the box over. A small circular light build into the padding shone up at the ceiling, a dimmer light attached to the box blinking next to it. Something in Grace's fear addled brain clicked.
Who would pack a life jacket in space?
"Uh, Rocks! I think I found something" Grace called out loudly despite the communicator directly nestled in his ear. He bent down, grabbing the wrapped box with both his hands. "I-I can't find the source of the heartbeat but I found this thing-"
The surface of the blood exploded and something seized his wrist in a tight suffocating grip.
The first thing Grace could think to do was scream. A high pitched noise rattled out his throat and wrenched the breath from his lungs. The box immediately fell back into the pool with a splash.
"Oh!—Oh my God! Jesus—"
It was a hand, five fingers and a palm curled around his suit in a vice. Grace pulled against it with everything he could muster, his feet dragging on the slippery surface beneath.
"No no no no no-"
Then Grace pulled again, and the blood churned and shifted, a mass slowly emerging through the thick surface. It was a head, curtained by a congealed dredge of hair draped over so much of the face that he could barely discern their features, only making out a single desperately wide eye.
"…Safe…"
He could barely make out the word at first, just a waterlogged gargle that escaped like a ragged cough.
"Keep… . Keep it safe… . ."
Grace paused his struggle, not because he felt the danger was gone no, his body was coiled to jerk away as soon as the hand tugged again but instead they just clung tightly. It was because he hadn't heard a human a voice in so long, rough and deep, and so desperate.
"S'more than me… .. . More than me…"
The figure let out another wet gasp, choking on whatever residual blood clung to their throat, the surge of energy that allowed them to pounce at Grace was clearly waning.
"I don't understand—Hey!" Grace waded forward, grabbing the persons arm to keep them from sinking back into the blood.
"Please… Please.." The figure whispered now, delirious as their head lulled against their broad shoulders. Grace could catch a glimpse of a beard under the sludge of red, a guy then. His eye wasn't even focused on Grace, blinking sluggishly as it stared beyond him.
"Rocky," Grace's voice cracked under the stress, "I think I found the source, I need you to get Armando ready for a new patient-" he moved to try hook both his arms under the man's armpits, his free hand uselessly groped around the blood for an embarrassingly long time before it finally clicked—Oh, he doesn't have a left arm. "Biscuits, okay. Rocky register—Human Male, uh- Blood type unknown, approximately-"
"Please Mom…" Grace's helmet barely picked up the whimper. "It's more than me…" Grace looked back down at the man, his eye barely open a sliver.
"It's okay it's okay," the words escaped his mouth before he even thought of it. Leaning down, "You're gonna be fine—we're gonna get you help okay?"
The visible corner of the mans mouth curled, "Nnhn no no…"
Grace's eyes drifted over to the floating box. Wrapped so tightly in a life jacket that was meant to keep a human safe, instead the man believed his life was less important than whatever was in that box. It made his tongue curl sourly.
"It's okay," he repeated, more assured this time. "We'll keep it safe for you okay?"
With those words it seemed whatever strings were keeping the man awake dissipated. His eyelids finally shuddering closed with a breath so long Grace worried it was his final. Adjusting his grip on the man's now-limp body. He reached down with his free hand and grabbed the box, looping a stray wire protruding from its wrapping through one of the many attachment points on his suit.
Only then when he had both arms free he started to blindly grope through the blood, grimacing in disgust as it swallowed his arm nearly to the shoulder when he knelt. With a single clumsy motion, he slipped one arm beneath the man's knees, the other around his back, and lifted him into a bridal carry.
"Woah! Okay—Shoot-"
His boots skidded through the knee-deep blood before finally steadying himself. The stranger was built like a linebacker; broad shoulders, dense thick muscle, the kind of stature that reminded Grace his own muscles were technically lab-made.
With another huff he began to stagger towards the opening, his boots threatening to slip with every step. Padded orange wrapped box dragging behind him in the dense blood. The man wheezed painfully against his visor, fogging up the glass with every lungful.
He was warm, maybe a little too warm but…
Grace was holding a person. He almost tripped over himself at the crushing realisation. He was currently holding a warm, living body. And he needed to get it out of here soon before he turned cold.
He paused, then leaned against the jagged opening, trying to angle the man's body through first, eyes darting around the hole.
"Nope," with a quick shake of his head he readjusted.
The man's intact shoulder caught the edge of the metal, "Seriously?"
Grace backed up, readjusting his grip and tried angling his body, quickly retreating after almost giving the other man another head injury.
"Shoot, come on," he hissed, shuffling his body sideways and slowly, he was able to squeeze the mans broad shoulders out to the open. "Finally."
He could finally take a relieved breath once his feet were finally back on xenonite ground, a puddle of blood already forming on the ground. He kissed his teeth and started to hurry his way out of the airlock, Rocky climbing down to meet him in the hall.
Rocky met Grace's lumbering steps with ease, tittering next to him in his ball. The box dragged behind him, hitting his heel with every step.
"Human human human! Why human here? Here for Grace, how human come out so far so quickly? Why so leaky?" It seemed all of the questions that Rocky was politely keeping to himself were now rambling out of him in a stream of chords.
Grace let out a strangled laugh, barely keeping upright. "I don't know buddy! But let's focus on the fact that he's here right now and wait until he's not actively dying.
"Heartbeat weird. Very weak. Faster than before. Bad bad bad."
"I noticed." Grace huffed.
"Breathing poor."
"I noticed that too."
"Is volume of blood… normal for humans to leak out?"
"No, it's not," he announced as he reached the ladder hatch. "… Shoot."
He turned around, adjusting the man in his grasp with wheeze before lowering himself down the ladder. Each rung creaked under the combined weight, blood sliding off his suit in a light pattering into the room below. The box hung off his belt, swinging languidly with each step, the man now fully pressed between him and the ladder to avoid any slippage.
Grace nearly cheered once he reached the bottom, pulling the man back into a carry and taking a few quick steps forward, placing him down with a shaky gentleness. He stepped back with a heave of relief, slick gloves fumbling to undo his helmet clasp.
As he fiddled around Armando sprung into life, lifting it's head up with a simple; "Patient Registered" before moving forward on it's rig and examining the bloodied body on the cot.
Grace finally shucked his helmet off, giving a gasp of air and immediately regretting it as the stench of iron finally smack him in the face. He doubled over, one hand braced on his knees as his stomach lurched.
The air inside the Hail Mary was now thick with the scent of stale rot that had probably been festering in that ship for god knows how long.
"Don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up," he muttered queasily, forcing out two dry heaves before forcing himself upright again with a clearing of his throat. "Christ." He had only just started rationing out his food, he didn't want to waste any of it hurling.
Rocky let out a series of discordant chitters in disgust somewhere next to him. "No leaking, no leaking! New human need sterile environment!"
Armando seemed to chime in at the perfect time, "Patient visibility low, decontamination required."
He grimaced but swallowed down his nausea and agreed, whatever this liquid was—because Grace did not want to think about it as blood for too long—needed to go.
"You know what the substance is yet Armando?" He asked as he moved to use the nearby water dispenser to wet a sponge and fill a bowl.
"Processing." Great.
Armando's arms unfolded, one hand cutting off the threadbare soaked fabric that clung to the mans body and the other peeling it away. Grace pointedly ignored the surgical undressing as he started with cleaning his face.
Grace worked in slow gentle circles, starting with his forehead and hair. Thick clots came off in gummy strings, he was only able to get a few swipes in before having to rinse.
"…Please don't be my imagination." Grace murmured to himself, eyes focused on a patch of skin that started to peek out from under the mess.
With a held breath he continued to quietly clean, trying to wipe as much excess sludge from the man's longer locks as he could, reminding himself to find a way to properly wash it later. There a deep cut that went up and into his hairline, open and angry. Grace bit his lip and carefully worked lower.
To his brow ridge, down the bridge of his nose—lifting away the congealed mess in uneven sheets. He paused once half the face was scrubbed away. The skin seemed a little pale, not sickly or white, a few scratches here and there, deep bruising under the man's eyes that showed he hadn't slept in days. But he was human, two eyes and a nose, a short beard under the blood he had yet to clean, coated lips slightly agape and still breathing.
A smile inched onto Grace's face before he even realised it, "Hi there…"
The man didn't even blink at the soft coo, instead Armando inched over, hands coming up to prop his sleeping half cleaned face. "Incubation required, standby."
Grace pulled his hands away reluctantly, using the time to clean the sponge off and pointedly ignoring as the robot edged the man's jaw open and shove the tubing down his throat. He flinched as he heard the body jerk reflexively before settling back down into an eerie stillness.
Armando wordlessly pulled away and went back to focusing on the torn tissue of the amputated arm.
Grace slowly inched back and with an intense amount of care, continued to wipe the man's face clean. He gently cupped his jaw, tilting it to the side. A noise of confusion bubbled from his throat as he noticed the mass against his cheek. Assuming it was just another congealed clot he scrubbed it away until-
"Christ," Grace gasped out in a breath, reeling back. Teeth, jagged thin teeth laid ingrained into the man's open flesh. A row of teeth, top and bottom, stretched across the flat side of his cheek embedded deep enough that the flesh had started to heal around them. Not implanted, not glued on, no—they looked grown.
He's still human, he repeated to himself, two eyes and a nose.
Rocky tapped his claw against the panels of his ball impatiently, "Human okay? Question?"
"Yeah—uh no I don't think so." Grace replied, "Teeth on the face uhhh, kinda concerning"
"But humans have hard thin material protecting soft flesh on hands, teeth protecting soft flesh underneath, not similar? Question?"
"What- you mean fingernails? No, very different. This is very much-" he gestured widely to the sleeping mans face, "-not normal…"
Grace didn’t notice how long he’d been staring until Armando’s mechanical arm clicked back, the torn flesh of the man's arm was now just a meaty stump, it still made him quickly turn away and gag.
"Radioactive substance detected, decontamination and quarantine recommended."
The announcement hit like a stone in his stomach. His hands stilled as his brain caught up with the sudden statement.
Rocky immediately began pacing in his ball, "Radiation? Radiation! Bad bad bad, human dying?" He circled around and tapped against his ball in an insistent panic.
Grace could barely hear Rocky's anxious rambling as he slowly set the bloodied sponge back down. "Armando how much is the substance emitting?"
"Moderate levels of exposure"
Moderate, okay—probably not ARS level but he still needed this blood gone. Grace stared down at his EVA suit, chest to toe covered in blood, then up at the mess of the ladder where he come from.
"Rocky I need you to back to the lab right now," he said with an unnerving flatness. "Stay there until I say otherwise."
"Stay in lab? No no no Rocky help!" Rocky insisted, banging his claws against his ball.
"You don't have the same immunity like us when it comes to this. This could've already affected you now." Grace replied, voice hard. "We trailed blood through the whole ship the only place unaffected is the lab, just stay there until I clean everything up okay?"
Rocky paused for a moment, carapace rattling with displeasure. "Rocky… Not like arrangement," the transparent panelling fogged up as he let out a huff through his vents. "Rocky want to assist."
"I know" Grace replied, "That's why I need you out of here, if what Armando is saying is right and this substance is emitting any kinda of radiation and you're being actively exposed I-" He took a shaky gulp, "That's.. bad, so just go—please."
"Rocky will, but Rocky unhappy about it" Rocky chittered, his voice small.
"Yeah Rocks," Grace huffed back, not turning towards him, "I'm unhappy too"
He listened as Rocky clamoured back up the ladder using his own tunnel, letting out a heavy sigh. His eyes drifted between the slumbering man, the blood puddle forming underneath him and the box dripping more from his hip.
This was going to be a long cleanup.
Hours later Grace finally peeled the last pair of gloves into the biohazard bin. The gloves laying atop the mountain of blood soaked wipes, ruined sponges and the torn shreds that once was the strangers clothes.
"Done." He managed out in a long breath.
After scrubbing it clean, the dormitory was completely off-limits for both Grace and Rocky until Armando decided the human wasn't a living hazard. The airlock now would stay locked unless absolutely necessary. The odd box was situated under the fume hood, and he scrubbed every single square inch of the Hail Mary, from airlock to dormitory three times over.
Grace braced his hands on the counter and his entire upper body sagged. His arms felt like they had been wrung through a meat grinder.
He looked over his shoulder to glare at the wrapped up box just sitting in the fume cupboard, finally standing up and pointing at it accusingly as he passed. "I'll be back for you."
He passed Rocky, who hadn't stopped sulking, as he walked towards the downstairs ladder. Although nothing was said, Grace couldn't help but grin at the telltale shuffling of his ball following behind. "Grace not allowed in bedroom either."
"I'm just taking a peek," Grace muttered to placate the Eridians low rumblings, only climbing down a few rungs before swivelling around and sitting down on one of the steps.
The medical equipment glowed dimly in the lowered light, IV fluid dripping idly from somewhere in the medical bay panels, the tablet attached alight with a heart monitor beeping rhythmically, and the constant hissing of the ventilator.
The stranger looked… cleaner, Armando had finished his task of sponging him clean. They had peeled all the contaminated clothes off him and dressed him in a pair of sweatpants while Grace was scrubbing his heart out. His body was wrapped almost entirely with various bandages and wrappings, the wreckage that was their stump now tucked away.
Grace sat there for a long moment, his forearms resting limply on his knees as he simply stared down at the man's sleeping face. He looked a little younger, maybe late twenties—early thirties, a nose that looks like it'd been broken a few times, short black beard and longer locks on his head that still desperately still needed a proper wash to get all the blood out.
He looked… serene.
"…Hey," Grace murmured into the room. Only the steady hiss the ventilator replying back.
"I know you're unconscious, and probably can't hear me," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "But… Hi."
It felt stupid when the words left his lips, he shuffled anxiously and ignored the curious quiet chirps of Rocky above. "I haven't seen another human in…" he blew out a big breath, "I don't know how long… time dilation—makes things difficult. But it's been a long time."
Grace had always considers himself a selfish man forced to go on a selfless mission. He enjoys comforts and solace. He mourned the simplicity of the life he'd left behind, and when sacrificing it was demanded of him, his first instinct was to run.
But now he had company, human company. Showing up at the worst time possible, with no possibly way back to earth and rationing dwindling by the day. He should be terrified, gnawing at his fingernails and counting the supplies several times over. A more shameful part of him was glad the man was asleep, unable to focus on pain of his own body, spared from watching Grace unravel.
Yet there was another feeling, beneath all the guilt and shame that just refused to go away.
He was happy.
The realisation filled him with a sort of guilty giddiness. Because against all reason, all practical concern, he couldn't find it in himself to feel anything otherwise.
He clapped his hands together with a weak laugh, "You picked a really bad time to show up." The monitor beeped, "But thank you…"
His voice cracked at the last word, looking away as his eyes began to sting. Neither he or Rocky mentioned it as he walked back towards the lab.
"I said I'll be back," Grace announced as he stepped back into the room. The wrapped container sitting there, offensively bright now that it was cleaned up. He sighed and shoved his hands into the build in gloves to properly grab the container.
He fumbled to untie the various wrappings and wires, pausing as he peeled a strip of material off that seemed more like a piece of clothing, he took a closer look—some kind of holster? He placed it to the side and continued unravelling. Finally he unbuckled the straps of the life jacket, shucking it off and adding it to the pile.
"Now lets get a good look at you," Grace murmured to himself, squinting through his glasses. The box was a rusted orange and black, a cylinder attached to its side with a handle nestled next to it. The labels were scratched off and faded with age, but he could make out a few words atop the container.
COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER
PROPERTY OF CONSOLIDATION OF IRON
Oh, "It's a black box," Grace murmured, equally confused and curious as he twirled the box in his hands.
"What's that? Question?" Rocky piped up in the dome next above him.
"It's .. um-" the scientist hesitated for a moment, thick gloves running over the faded text. "It's a record keeper, ships and air planes usually have them to record all the information on their journey. If something goes wrong, other people can recover the box and find out what went wrong."
"…So an information box," Rocky hummed, "For others to learn were vessel went wrong."
"Exactly, bud," he agreed, "And the guy downstairs decided it was more important than his life…"
"Illogical, silly," Rocky grumbled, "human survival should be highest priority. Not information."
Grace gulped down something sour and nodded in silent agreement. "Never heard of the Consolidation of Iron though, doesn't ring a bell."
He thumbed around the box for a moment, feeling around the sides blindly until he found a switch tucked away.
The nearest screen to him lit up. Grace whipped his head around to watch the monitor flickered once, then exploded in a long line of text code that overwhelmed the screen. "…Mary?" Grace called to the system, not getting a reply until she started listing out the code in a flat tone.
CONNECTING TO ROVER 13
CONNECTING… CONNECTING… CONNECTING…
RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS…WAIT…WAIT…WAIT…WAIT
OXYGEN LOW
FUEL FAIL
ENGINE FAIL
PRESSURE LOW
HULL FAILED
AIR LOW
BATTERY LOW
INITIATING BLACK BOX RECOVERY PROGRAM…
Grace fumbled to pull his hands out of the Fume Hood, patting them on his shirt reflectively as he stumbled toward the screen.
SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE AUDIO DEVICE… DEVICE FOUND
He leaned down to get a better look, instead of the litany of windowed scientific papers and his disorganised tabs of media files, a single window dominated the screen.
There were two files, SM-8 and SM-13.
Grace rolled the nearby chair back over to the monitor, grabbing the mouse and hovering it over the two files.
"Mary, you said this was from Rover 13?"
"Yes Doctor Grace," Mary replied in her usual soft tone, a far cry from the stiff tone from moments ago. He hummed, mouse hovering over the file for a little longer.
"Open open open," Rocky urged from his vantage point over his shoulder.
"Yeah yeah," he huffed and opened the file, a handful more appearing in it's place. Some admittedly flew over Grace's head, a string of numbers and letters that he was sure was some kind of code. But there were two that were obvious.
AUDIO RECORDINGS and CAMERA ARCHIVE.
Grace stared at the two folders for a long moment, the mouse drifting from AUDIO RECORDINGS to CAMERA ARCHIVE, then back to AUDIO.
He gulped, finger tapping on the mouse. The camera files could wait, if anything was going to give him answers quickly it'd probably be in the audio recordings somewhere. He double clicked the file and watched it unfold into a long list of audio logs, starting with a simple LOG 001.
Grace hesitated for only a minuet before pressing it.
"Beginning the decent. Mission clock started. Exploration of AT-5 underway."
He paused it just as quickly.
The voice was female, voice full of static as she seemingly read off a report or log. It hard a hard edge to it but regardless it shocked Grace to his core for reasons he wasn't sure of yet.
"Why Grace pause? Question?"
Grace swallowed a stone in his throat, "I… was just caught by surprise, sorry." He murmured faintly before pressing the space bar.
"How's it looking down there, Convict? Ready to do some good for a change?"
"Yeah. Let's get this done."
He barely had time to pause it again as his fingers slipped from the keyboard.
It was his voice. The man's voice was less ragged and torn, more gruff and irritated. A low rumble that his hair on edge, but a weight in his chest curdled.
Convict.
"What does name mean?" Rocky hesitantly asked.
"Convict? N-No, it's not a name," Grace leaned back, pushing his glasses up to pinch his nose. "It's—it's a status, it means—a person whose serving a prison sentence." He reached over the desk to drag his laptop over, inputting the word as Rocky echoed it back in his own tone. He rarely used the translator these days, but it was proactive to keep it updated.
Rocky paused to mull over his words, then lifted his carapace to the side. "…New human, criminal?"
"I guess," he admitted reluctantly. "it means someone's been convicted of a crime, it's a very broad title."
The Eridian let out a noise of displeasure, there were a few things Rocky found generally annoying with humans, their ambiguity was a big one. "So new human… dangerous?"
He winced again. He knew labels weren't always right, he could count on one hand how many kids he's seen dubbed as 'problem children' from different teachers turn out to just be misunderstood or wrongly perceived. Some of the kindest people he's met are those deemed as 'aggressive', 'defiant' or even 'difficult'.
People who have been chewed up and spit out by society with disgust. One of the many rules of life he's learnt was to never judge a book by its cover after all.
How does he explain the flaws of the justice system to an alien rock?
"It doesn't always mean a person is dangerous, being a criminal could mean a lot of things, it could mean he killed someone, it could mean only committed tax fraud, it could mean he's innocent and was wrongly accused!" He waved his hands wildly with a helpless shrug, "we can't make assumptions yet just based off a title."
"Rocky not like name," Rocky announced, "Grace Rocky find better one."
"I hope we find a lot more than just his name," he exited the audio log to scroll down the various files. "But we need to be organised about it."
He ran a hand through his hair, "no jumping around, we listen to the audio files in order and compare them to whatever is in the camera archive."
Rocky jerked his carapace up and down, "yes yes yes."
"We need a system." Grace muttered quietly, standing up abruptly and walking further into the lab. Rocky let out a curious trill as he slowly walked back, dragging the whiteboard behind him. "Okay," he huffed, digging through the various disorganised drawers until eventually fishing out a couple of markers.
Grace couldn't go in this headfirst and blind, he needed to be smart about this. He didn't want to invade this man's privacy, but he needed to know. Needed to see what caused him to be found in such a state — To know what kind of person he was letting on his ship. Because right now, he had a lot of questions and little to no answers. He glared at the empty board.
"Now what the heck happened to you?"