Chapter Text
Ryland Grace had come to enjoy sleeping with extra gravity. The pressure reminded him of a weighted blanket without the suffocating warmth or waking up from the deepest REM sleep known to man. It also made him feel less alone—like someone was in bed with him.
Which, sometimes that was true. Rocky had taken to sleepovers. Grace didn’t mind. He also had come to enjoy being watched while he slept. But the barrier of xinonite always felt a little too… sterile. It was never Rocky or Adrien or any of the Eridian friends he had made over the last few months he was touching. Always the glass that separated them.
He supposed it wasn’t the worst. Grace never was one to say physical touch was high on his love language list. Although he did read an article about how the guy who made that list in the first place was… not great. In any case, I was always the first on his Myers-Briggs, no matter how hard he tried to skew the answers. Grace’s aversion to touch wasn’t for a lack of trying, but rather more to the history of receptiveness he had experienced. More than once, he had been called “clingy”.
Seclusion provided less disappointment.
Now, Grace slept with slightly less gravity than on Erid, but more than Earth. He could thank the near-lightspeed engines of Mary. The Eridians did a heck of a job refitting her.
The mission Grace and Rocky were willingly setting off on was more of a passion project than a final act of desperation. Thus, the Hail part of the ship had been colloquially dropped. Mary suited her better anyway.
This coma was much more pleasant. Adrien’s mind was ever giving. They had found a way to keep Grace in an induced coma while also keeping enough consciousness to dream. It also slowed his age progression. Rocky and Grace could now whiz through the cosmos unbothered, leaving Rocky with extra tinkering time and Grace less boredom.
And most importantly, it gave him the choice.
After everything, Ryland Grace savored every choice he was able to make.
However, waking up now was not his choice.
It wasn’t as traumatic as his first awakening. The shorter periods left him able to breathe mostly on his own, just with a mask strapped to his face. The tubes and such had become a little more manageable as well. Of course, it wasn’t his favorite, but humans had so little time; Grace wanted to extend his time with the Eridans as much as he could.
“Eye movement detected.”
Ah, good morning, Armando. It seems… too early, though.
Chirping was his next alarm. “Grace awake! Grace awake!”
“Hey, bud.” Grace’s voice rasped with lack of use. Water would help. Which is exactly what Armando offered up. “We haven’t made it to Gliese yet, have we?”
“No no no. Unknown moon. Should not be here.”
“Moons are small, Rock. Sometimes they aren’t spotted.”
“No no no. Grace not understand. Mary not near star. Moon should not be here.”
“And you’re sure it’s not a meteor?”
“Rocky sure!”
“Okay okay! Just checking. Show me.”
Rocky tumbled through the ship, a bit more gracefully than when he was in his hamster ball, but still not as fluid as a bipedal creature. Not that Grace was doing much better. He pushed his arms through the yellow jumpsuit as he stumbled along after the Eridian. Walking through the ship while traveling was still his least favorite of all the choices. Everything sideways was… off-putting.
Rocky chirped about some calculations related to the improbability of a moon this small being so far away from a star and having virtually no movement. Grace was still a bit too groggy to keep up enough to have any meaningful input, so he focused more on not stubbing his toes on Rocky’s gadgets and experiments.
“Grace look.” Rocky pointed towards the screen that he couldn’t necessarily see but knew Grace could. What Rocky could see was down by his feet.
Sure enough, within the sandy texture and the LED’s, a moon floated ahead of them, dark and alone. They were about an hour from it still, but Mary was good at noticing abnormal entities. An uncharted moon—or was it a dwarf planet because it had nothing to orbit?—certainly fell in the list of abnormalities.
“How far from Erid are we?”
“Been a month.”
“That short? Then the astronomers would definitely know if this was here. So what… a moon just blipped into existence?”
“You are the scientist.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Okay, well, we’re only a month away from Erid. How are the other teams?”
“All status reports good.”
“Wanna go on a treasure hunt, Rock?”
Rocky chittered in excitement.
The following hour was chaos. Mary had been fitted for the very simple mission of dropping taumeoba off at carbon-dense planets to assist other possible lifeforms and returning to Erid. She still had her lab and basic materials, but the shorter the hour got, the more ill prepared he realized they might be. The EVA suit was still fully operational, though. Which hopefully will not be needed. Grace wasn’t a spring chicken anymore.
It was quite possible there was nothing on the moon. In fact, that was the most likely conclusion. The moon was small, so the gravity must be less than half a g. Less than half a g meant little to no atmosphere. Little to no atmosphere meant the likelihood of life was… unlikely. Still, the little rock that could might show something interesting. You never knew what space might offer up. Besides, it gave him a best friend and a home on another planet.
Grace took a deep breath as he settled into the swivel chair. Mary’s alert of “Pilot detected” didn’t give him pause anymore. He just hoped his reaction speed was still up to par.
“Checking for astrophage.” He flipped some switches and brought up the petrovascope. Again, no star, but it couldn’t hurt.
“Astrophage,” Rocky echoed.
The planet came up dark. As expected. “Heat signatures next.”
“Heat.”
Some more buttons changed the scope to register heat indexes. Grace’s jaw dropped.
The moon glowed bright white. A staggering amount of heat radiated from the dark moon. That level of heat shouldn’t be possible this deep into space. What was causing it?
“Moon is… very hot.”
“This is crazy. How is it holding that much heat?”
Mary joined the conversation. She had a comedic sort of timing about her. “Blip-J detected.”
Something was moving on the surface. Which was nearly impossible because a moon that small should have next to no atmosphere, let alone gravity. Even Grace could admit life would be unlikely there. And that’s not even mentioning the lack of a star to orbit.
“Low texture moon leaky. Low texture moon have water, question?”
Grace switched on the lights pointing toward the moon. Both the window and the screen showed the same thing. The moon was so red it practically glowed.
“Not quite, bud. It looks like… blood.”
“Rocky not understand.”
Grace didn’t either. There was no conceivable way that the entire moon could be covered in a sea of blood; it was just something in his gut that he couldn’t shake. When Grace was sixteen he participated in a blood drive at his high school. He remembered the blood pouring out of his arm into the nearby bag, sloshing onto the sides of the thick plastic as the large trailer van rumbled under the engine. Blood moved unlike anything he could describe. Again, it was a feeling in his gut.
“Blip-J detected.”
Right. Something moving. On the surface of the blood moon. The thing that shouldn’t exist. Grace zoomed the camera in to get a closer look. What Mary called Blip-J could only be described as a hunk of metal. The oblong shape bobbed along, floating silently on the surface as waves lapped and stained the rusting sides. With an even closer look, Grace could see a gaping hole on the top. Almost like… teeth pried it open.
This was getting stranger by the moment, and while Grace should leave and not take the immense risk with little to no reward, his sense of curiosity hadn’t left him after the years on Erid.
Grace moved Mary closer to the moon.
“What doing? What doing, question?”
“I don’t know. Just… something about it. I need to know if anything is in there. It looks… familiar.”
“Bad idea. Observe from far away.”
“It’s not like Adrien, Rocky. There’s not enough gravity to tear us apart. I just want to get a closer look.”
The closer look ended up being a lot closer. Despite Rocky’s protests, he also had a curiosity that couldn’t be quelled. So, against his better judgment, Grace now stood on top of said hunk of metal, tethered to Mary, and his breath fogging up the glass of his EVA suit.
And Grace could hardly believe what he was looking at.
“Status update.”
Human.
“Grace, status update.”
How can it be a human?
“Grace!”
“H-Human… there’s a human.”
“Mmmm, not possible. Correction?”
“No correction, Rocky. I’m looking at a human.”
No suit, no protection, no pressure, no air. And yet…
Grace reached. The… man was lying on his side. Dark hair obstructed his face, and his tattered clothes gave way to a staggering amount of muscle. Ryland knew the improbability. Ryland knew this was a mini Hail Mary of his own. He still reached. The flesh was tender, malleable, and warm. Everything it shouldn’t be in the vacuum of space. Ryland moved him to lie on his back.
And froze.