Chapter Text
Grace sighed, while he relaxed back into his seat within the flight deck, a cup of something warm in his hands as he absently listened to Rocky and Adrian talking in the chambers below him, probably in one of the nearby supply rooms.
At the moment, Grace felt utterly content with his situation.
It had been just over two years since Grace and Rocky arrived on Erid and it had taken them a total of three years of traveling together to make it there. Grace had gone back for them, abandoning the idea of ever going back to Earth and he didn’t regret a thing.
Grace had known his best friend for five years but it already felt like he’d experienced a lifetime together. It was mind boggling to think about, since Grace’s time in space, if he included the time he spent in a coma, totalled almost a decade, which was only a portion of his life back on Earth.
With relativity in play, even though chronologically it wasn’t that long, it had been over twenty plus years for Earth.
The numbers kind of numbed his brain after a while and so he laid it to rest and decided to live in the present. Especially since his health was even better than projected at this point.
Due to Grace and Rocky managing to salvage some extra astrophage from Rocky’s emergency life support tanks on the Blip-A, they managed to cut 2 years of travel time to Erid. Which was great, otherwise Grace would have arrived on Erid in a worse state than just being a little malnourished with muscular atrophy.
If they’d arrived at their first projected estimation, Grace would have suffered from late-stage scurry and other illnesses that came hand in hand with acute starvation.
But due to that fear, Grace had learned how to metabolize taumoeba well enough to survive on the alien soup for a short period of time. Even though the texture had been horrendous, it had helped boost his food supplies enough for Grace to have a good amount of Earth supplies left over for the Eridians to reverse engineer and mass produce all the necessary ingredients for Grace’s continued comfort.
Within the years of living side by side with the Eridian inhabitants, all of Erid had pooled their collective minds and bodies into creating his biodome and making his new home as hospitable as possible, while also farming the taumoeba in what felt like record time.
Seriously, the Eridians put the hardest working humans to shame and only half the reason was their physicality.
As one of the Star-Saviors, there wasn’t anything that Erid wouldn’t do for him to make sure Grace was comfortable and happy with his life and choices.
Grace was grateful, but he felt so much better when the general populace finally shifted their attention away from the odd human alien and went about their lives.
Not to dismiss all their gratefulness, but Grace had never done well with being the center of attention.
Rocky found the whole situation hilarious, but Grace got back at them by teasing them endlessly alongside their mate Adrian. After some tense interactions between them in the beginning when the Hail Mary had first arrived, they’d become very good friends, much to Rocky’s pleasure and budding horror.
So, Grace had found his happy place on Erid.
Once his living situation got settled, Grace spent his days teaching young Eridians the art of science and human studies. He even got to participate in the Eridianan science debates and made fast friends with the dome team that watched over him and his home.
Heck, Grace even got to swim in his slice of ocean and ‘sun’ bath naked on the sand.
His retirement looked almost perfect.
Almost - except for the part where he was so fudging lonely.
It was getting bad enough that even Rocky noticed the oddness on Grace’s bad days, no matter how hard Grace tried to hide it so he wouldn’t worry anyone about his squishy, human feelings.
But he’d forgotten that Eridians could see things that Grace, as a human, couldn't. So the Eridians pooled their collective carapaces together and read up on the many human conditions to figure out what was bothering their one and only human inhabitant.
Once they pinned down the problem, Rocky held many long thrums with Adrian and the Eridians that were in charge of taking care of Grace’s environment and overall health.
Then they spoke to the Eridians in charge of rebuilding and reformatting the Hail Mary ship.
All of this happened with Grace none the wiser.
It was decided that Rocky, Grace and Adrian would go on a short-term expedition on the Hail Mary to observe a nearby star system where Erid had sent a probe full of Taumoeba to their infected star a few months prior. The mission was to observe how the predator was doing and if there was anything that needed to be addressed.
There had also been talk of an anomaly that got pinged on one of Erid’s radars from near where the infected star was located, although after careful reviews showed no sign that the anomaly was dangerous it had been written off as some kind of solar flare from space radiation.
Still, since it was on the way, they would investigate the site and see if there were any visual differences from around where the anomaly was spotted.
It was basically busy work, since Erid had the systems to check the space within the comfort of their own planet’s instruments.
But Grace could see this for what it was, a calming adventure. Something new that would allow Grace to spend time with his closest friends, in the comfort of his familiar ship.
A mental health vacation as it was.
Grace couldn’t even find it in himself to feel babied by the others' decisions on his behalf, because even though it had only been a week of space travel, he’d found himself un-clenching muscles he hadn't realized had been tensed for years.
Sipping the tea, Grace’s jaw cracked after yawning, not bothering to politely cover his mouth since there was no one around to judge him.
They were almost at the location where the Eridian astrophysicists had mapped out, not long now and they’d spend another week chilling in standby, then a week of travel back home.
So if everything went as expected, the vacation would take about three weeks, give or take some days.
Rocky had over packed, making sure there was enough food and essentials for all three of them to last a minimum of six months and that was without rationing or anything like that.
In Rocky’s defense, they stated that it was better safe than sorry. Neither Grace or Adrian had argued against their packing spree, knowing that it was tied to Rocky’s anxiety of watching Grace almost starve on their previous trip.
Grace could hear the scurrying of stone on metal and turned his head precisely the moment that Rocky came through the xenonite tunnel. “Grace, doing okay?” Rocky asked.
“Yeah, buddy.” Grace answered, smiling sleepily at his friend. “I'm peachy.”
“Good. Good.” Rocky bobbled their carapace and maneuvered closer. “Adrian says we are close to the anomaly space. Mary’s systems show no alert?”
“Naw.” Grace dismissed. “There’s been nothing out there but dust and empty space. Whatever that radar picked up probably isn’t there anymore.”
“Good. Good.”
“Oh? Is that all you can say now? Good?” Grace teased and laughed at Rocky’s fake offense. “Grace being a bad mean friend!”
“Sorry.” Grace giggled. “You're right, I’m a bad friend.”
Rocky settled down at Grace’s admission. “Is okay. Grace ready for stop and scope check?”
Grace drained the rest of his drink before securing it in the Eridian made cup holder that Rocky had made him. “Yeah, I’m ready. Adrian wants to record the results, right?”
Rocky nodded. “Adrian recording allll of the trip.” They clicked their claws together to empathize their meaning.
“Even the oppsie dasies?” Grace teased as Rocky slumped lower in a controlled collapse.
“Authentic.” Adrian’s voice whistled from right below as Rocky groaned. “Yeeessss.”
Grace laughed again, relaxed and genuinely happy at the banter. “Mary? Are we reaching the designation?"
“Yes, Captain Dr. Grace.” Mary’s voice echoed over the intercom system. “Arriving at an anomaly site directed by Eridian observation B/Y6 in 6 minutes and 32 seconds.”
“Thank you Mary.” Grace said. “Remember, you don’t have to use all of my titles when addressing me.”
“Acceptable. Dr. Grace.” Mary stated.
“One day, Mary. I will get you to just call me Grace.” Grace sighed, he’d made the mistake of trying to get the ship’s computer to just address him as Grace, the same as Rocky early on in the trip to Tau Ceti. But since Grace had been implemented as an important crew member in the systems from the beginning, the computer’s AI refused the verbal prompt and started naming off all his titles whenever it addressed him. Cheeky for an Artificial Intelligence created for the solo purpose of space travel.
“Decelerating in 2 minutes and 10 seconds. Please secure all items and bodies as we approach the destination." Mary alerted them. “Captain Grace, secure yourself.”
“You forget one time to strap in and the ship won’t ever let you forget about it.” Grace muttered as he strapped into his seat, checking over the controls to make sure everything was okay, even though Mary was already on it. “Adrian? Are you good down there?”
“Am okay!” Adrian trilled, their voice carrying from down below. “Will be up once we stop and turn on the centrifuge."
Grace turned to Rocky and noted that his friend had already secured themselves into the little pocket area of xenonite near the second chair. They’d reworked the design to make it more Eridian friendly.
“Okay, everyone.” Grace called out, it wasn’t necessary since they’d already talked about the itinerary but he didn’t mind the reminder. “We’ll probably only be at this specific location long enough to confirm that there’s nothing there, then head to where the Taubomba probe was sent and hang out there for a while to assess the situation, then head back home.”
“We know.” If Rocky had a face, they’d be giving Grace the most judging stare down right now. “Grace forgot the mission brief?”
“”I”m just making sure we’re all on the same page.” Grace grumbled. “Okay, looks like we’re gonna decelerate in a moment, brace for zero gravity.”
As predicted, the Hail Mary slowed to a stop and all gravity disappeared from inside the ship as it cruised into location.
Grace braced himself, even holding his breath as his body adjusted to the sensation. He might have gotten semi-use to the process, but it didn’t make it any less nerve wrecking.
“Okay I think we’re good.” Grace said. Unbuckling, he floated just off his seat as he looked over the monitors. “Mary? How are we looking?”
“Everything is operational, Captain Grace. Petrevoa Scope ready.”
“Well, I don’t think we’ll be using it for that specific purpose but let’s see what's out there.” Grace said as he floated to the scope viser. This reminded him of when he first caught a glimpse of Blip-A and Tau Ceti.
But how likely would it be for him to spot another alien ship?
“I don’t see anything yet.” Grace said, squinting as the scope spun around. The vastness of space was pretty much what he expected to see and while he did see plenty of that -
“Huh?” Grace’s hands went to the dials, adjusting the sights.
“Grace, find something?” Rocky asked.
“Not sure bud. Let me just -” He adjusted the focus again. “I think there’s a shimmer?”
“What’s that?”
“Kind of a distortion?" Grace explained the best he could, even as he kept trying to figure out what he was seeing. “It could be that the glass on the scope is compromised.”
“Edrians fix ship, left nothing to chance. Not broken.” Rocky’s bland statement made sense. Especially for something that the crew had known they’d be using while on this trip.
“Not sure how else to explain it.” Grace shrugged, pressing closer to the eye scope, not that it did much to change the view. “It’s still a ways away, so if there is something out there that the scope can’t catch sight clearly, I’m not sure how good this will go if we just stay here.”
“Need to get closer?” Rocky offered.
“You sure?” Grace asked. “I mean, it's a weird shimmer distortion. It could be some weird cosmic radiation that we haven’t encountered yet.”
Grace looked at Rocky as the Eridian looked at him and then they both smiled or their equivalence to a smile. Grace manually inputted the course correction into Mary’s navigation guide.
“Adrian hears mate and friend conspiring again.” Adrian’s voice got closer as they came up the tunnel behind Rocky.
The Eridians had to enlarge a lot of the original xenonite tunnels to accommodate Adrian’s larger stature, but Grace didn’t mind that he had less area to work with, as he was only one person after all and didn’t necessarily need to take up a lot of space to live short-term.
As long as they left his lab unchanged, Grace was content to leave well enough alone.
“We’re just gonna get a little closer to the location.” Grace called out, even though he knew that Adrian would be able to hear everything easily even if he whispered. “It’s probably nothing to worry about.”
Grace was corrected about ten minutes later when things got super weird.