Chapter Text
Scurvy sucks.
I take back every single joke I ever made with my students about sailors getting this disease. It's always hilarious to laugh about someone not eating enough lemons when you can just go to CostCo and buy thirty gallons of lemonade for ten bucks. Out in space, when the best you've got is a bunch of tiny seedlings and coma slush? I'd pay a million dollars for a single sip of CostCo lemonade.
At least I have one very concerned Eridian who has no idea why leaky space blob humans got very weak and sleepy when they don't eat enough citrus. It is new fun knowledge for Rocky, and a chance for him to play nurse for me. I'm not dying - the taumoeba keeps my system at least functional - but darn it all am I not extremely lethargic and sore practically all the time nowadays.
Sorry, Davy Jones. I'm grouchy and willing to stab someone with a cutlass now. I understand your pain.
Regardless, our journey to Erid is thankfully drawing to a close soon. Rocky ran the numbers the other day (since I was barely awake enough to do my daily exercises that Mary insists on) and we should be getting home within the next few weeks, if we're lucky.
Now, my biggest challenge is whether I can make it that long without falling into a full on coma.
Today, Rocky kept me entertained while I laid pathetically on the lab floor by running various ridiculous scientific scenarios by my head. Like a weird nerdy version of "Who would win - one giant duck or a thousand duck-sized lions". One of the situations he paints is one involving wormholes and other universes, and maybe it's the drugs I've been taking to nullify the absolute sheer pain of even moving my limbs getting to me, but I actually take that one seriously. We end up talking about the potentials of deep space exploration and multiverse for hours, and it's a delightful distraction from my discomforts.
Eventually, though, I grow far too tired for my own good. Rocky scampers over to my side to help me walk to my normal sleeping area, but at this point I can barely lift my chin.
"I can just sleep here, Rock," I mumble, my words a bit slurred. "You'll watch me?"
"Of course," Rocky says, and I can hear his hidden concern. He's not exactly a very good liar, but he's already pulling over some pillows and my quilt to make me more comfortable. "Just promise Grace wake up."
"Mmm," I hum. I'm too tired for words. Wouldn't matter - Rocky is beginning to understand what little broken Eridian I can manage with my limited vocal chords. I think he understands my I promise well enough.
My world goes dark once again. I think I feel the sting of Armando's needle as it delivers more pain meds - thank gods for those. I just want to drift off into nothing for a while. It's only a few weeks. Why can't I just sleep off the rest of it?
I'm probably at least seventeen hours into my slumber when I begin to hear voices. Multiple voices, murmuring and shushing each other. Footsteps creeping through Mary's halls.
That's it. I can officially add hallucinations to the pile of awful symptoms I'm experiencing. Great!
I don't want to move. Why bother confirming the hallucinations? They'll go away in time, right? Just means I need more sleep.
The voices get louder, and more distinct. I think I count four of them, and they sound young. Am I dreaming about my students? Wouldn't be the first time.
"Holy. Shit." A male voice, maybe older teenager? "Leah, they have saplings."
"You're lying!" Female, much younger. Maybe ten? "Oh my god! Shiloh, come here, come see this! They're so green!"
I hear some more shuffling, this time closer to me, nearby the entrance to the lab. My proprioception confirms that Rocky must have dozed off while I was sleeping, because his ball is curled up nearby my stomach, right where he likes to sleep sometimes when he's extra concerned about me. It helps him hear my heartbeat better, and I certainly don't mind the extra touch, despite the xenonite barrier.
"Let's get out of here quick, Aaron. This place is creepy." Middle of the road on age, fourteen, gotta be. I was excellent at nailing ages, my students loved me for it. I know I should be opening my eyes and dispelling the hallucinations by now, but hearing my kids makes me happy, even though...these aren't my kids.
"What's wrong, Shiloh, never seen a dead body before?" The older boy sounds sharper and harsher.
Fudgesticks. Is he talking about me?
Okay, brain, this is getting ridiculous. I manage to force one of my eyes to at least crack open a tiny bit, just to verify that this weird dream isn't happening.
What I see is confirmation that I've really fallen off the deep end.
I'm currently half-sprawled across the lab floor, and Rocky himself is taking up a big chunk of my space, so I can only catch about a quarter of the vision in front of me, but it's crystal clear. No haziness or weird shimmery effect. The kids in front of me look real.
There's four of them. The one standing in the front must be Aaron - older, by comparison, though not much beyond sixteen. He has short brown curly hair and a darkened expression and is wearing clothing that looks like he walked out of a military base.
Behind him is who must be Leah - what looks to be a ten year old girl with blonde messy twin braids running down her back. She's dressed militaristic too, though she seems to have personalized herself with some frayed ribbons in her hair. The kid next to her is slightly older, with a buzzcut and glasses that have obviously been broken and fixed multiple times - Shiloh.
Behind them all is a fourth child. He is the odd one out of the group, I can tell in an instant. Quiet and shy, positioning himself just outside the bigger ring of social activity, and he is the only one of them that hasn't spoken a single word. He has a mop of shoulder-length messy black hair and sunken eyes, and though the other three are taking center stage, he is almost trying not to, instead making every effort to look for ways to disappear into the shadows.
His sallow face also make me realize something horrifying - these kids haven't eaten a proper meal in a long time. They're scrawny and gaunt, and their overall appearance doesn't exactly scream "well-taken-care-of".
Why am I analyzing hallucinations? Because at this point in my scurvy-fever dream, I'm beginning to think they aren't hallucinations at all.
After all. Rocky and I had just agreed that the multiverse could exist. Why not a bunch of random kids from another dimension? Can't be as crazy as microbes that eat the sun!
.....I need that CostCo lemonade so bad.
I haven't moved beyond cracking my eye open, so the kids have moved onto looking around the lab. Aaron takes the lead, holding a flashlight that flickers every once in a while, and I remember that Mary switched off the lights for the night cycle. They probably can't see my face, and they definitely can't see Rocky.
I'm content to just let them wander - maybe once I go back to sleep they'll have relocated to somebody else's scurvy dreams.
Then, Aaron holds up a hand and points to a piece of lab equipment.
"Shiloh, take that. Leah, grab whatever small stuff you can find. Simon, you take the saplings. We're fucking rich."
They don't hesitate. Aaron is their leader. He's the oldest, and clearly the smartest in their book, so they move. And in a flurry of flashlight beams and shuffling metal drawers, my lab is now being ransacked by four children.
Four children who materialized onto my ship from the middle of space.
Four children who, I am now accepting, are very much real.
Leah steps closer to me, reaching as high as her small body can reach to get to a shelf above me, and it's then when I decide to finally force the rest of my body to move.
To which the poor girl shrieks in absolute terror and leaps backwards in fear.
"Aaron! It's alive!"
There's a flurry of discombobulated movement before Aaron does something I really did not expect - he pulls out a handgun and points it directly at my forehead.
"Don't. Move," he orders, his voice steady and stern.
Ohhh-kay. The hallucinations are real, there are children on my ship, and they have just graduated from "harmless and hungry" to "armed and dangerous" in the span of two seconds.
Shitake mushroom fudging fuck. I'm being held at gunpoint by a stranger who should not be here, surrounded by a bunch of kids who, I repeat, should not be here, while battling the urge to just keel over and pass out because my body is currently eating itself whole because nobody thought to pack CostCo lemonade.
Oh, and my only other ally on this ship is currently curled up in a ball of poisonous atmosphere in a species-evolved sleep paralysis and is, as far as I'm aware, completely oblivious to all of the above.
Bet you didn't expect this, Stratt, now did you?
I've already thrown my hands into the air in surrender and stood up, not wanting Aaron to think I have something to hide.
"Calm down," I manage. Adrenaline is a helluva drug, and it's doing the heavy lifting when it comes to pushing off the lethargy of the other things. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
"Who the hell are you?!" Aaron barks out. It's still dark in the room, so everyone is still halfway bathed in shadow, but I notice his hold on the gun is steady and sure. Combined with his military outfit, I doubt this is his first time handling a weapon like this.
"My name's Doctor Ryland Grace," I answer, trying to keep my voice steady. "This is my ship."
"A doctor?" Shiloh pipes up. Something about their tone sounds hopeful. Leah, who retreated behind Aaron as she sought protection, leans out from behind him.
"Why were you dead just now?" she asks innocently.
"I'm not..." I try to think of the best way to explain my situation. I'm keenly aware of how vulnerable Rocky is, curled up asleep in his ball at my feet, but I don't think they've put two and two together that the big mass of stony carapace in the ball is a living organism. "Not feeling well. I'm just a traveler. Just trying to get home."
"Where's home?" Aaron demands, but Leah has already spoken over him.
"Why does a space traveler have all this science equipment?"
"And where are you going?" Shiloh asks, eyes narrowed. "There's no home to go to. You lost?"
They're all talking rapid fire, but my eyes don't leave the gun. Now that I've gotten a better look, it's definitely not Yao's. This kid had this gun on him when they...boarded? Appeared? Materialized from another plane of existence?
Answer the science questions later, Ryland. You're about to get shot.
"I'm headed to a planet called Erid." Honesty is the best policy here, surely. "Have you heard of it?"
It's at this moment when I notice the fourth kid - Simon - stop in his tracks. I only notice this because for the past few minutes while this tense standoff has been happening, he has been ignoring it entirely in favor of delicately scooping up my saplings and loading them into what I can only affectionately call a military-grade ice cooler, so when he suddenly stops moving, it's notable.
"Did you say planet?" he says quietly.
"Shut up, Simon!" Aaron snaps. I'm liking this kid less each time he speaks, but who am I to judge a teenager who clearly just needs some help. He mentioned getting rich - they must all be desperate if it means they're raiding random spaceships for random junk.
"Yes, that's right - Erid. It's a planet in the 40 Eridani A B system. I'm going there to help with the astrophage - is that why you kids are here?"
Aaron is glaring at me, but Simon's eyes are wide. The other two kids just look confused, but they clearly know who's boss in this situation, and it's the one holding a weapon.
"Aaron, if he knows about a planet, then - " Simon begins, but Aaron isn't having it.
"I said, shut up!" he yells, turning the gun briefly on Simon, before bringing it right back to trail on me. Simon goes deathly quiet, as do the other kids, and whatever tiredness that was left in me is now filled with rage.
It's one thing for a misunderstood kid to protect his friends. It's another for him to threaten them just as much as he's threatening me.
I can practically feel my "teacher mode" snap into place. It's been literal years, but I still remember attending the dreaded annual teacher's meetings. Those ugly conferences held at horrible late hours where you're forced to contend with the harsh realities of school tragedies, being taught deescalation techniques and how to "shelter in place".
We are a far cry from Earth. But I see in front of me a bully, a victim, and two others who could probably use CostCo lemonade about as much as I could.
"Your ship is full of valuable shit," Aaron explains in his steady, almost haunted voice. "We're taking it for ourselves. If you tell me who at the COI sent you out here, I might let you go afterwards too."
"T - the COI?" Now I'm really confused. "I'm just a scientist, okay? From NASA?"
Simon, who had buried his nose back in the saplings, shot his head back up again at the name.
"Aaron - "
"I'm handling the talking, got it?" Aaron snaps, and Simon goes quiet again.
"Look," I say. The adrenaline is waning slightly now, and I'm having to lean heavily on Rocky's ball. I hope to god he doesn't wake up in the middle of all of this. "Clearly there's a lot of tension and confusion going on now. But I can't answer you safely unless you put down that gun."
"Why should I? Not like you have a way of stopping me."
"No, I don't. But you seem to be the leader here. Is this the best example you want to be giving your friends?"
Aaron hesitates, if just for a second, before his eyes grow hard again.
"Seems to me like I'm protecting them from COI spies and liars. Now, tell me the truth - who are you, and what are you doing here?"
A small moment of conversation between me and Rocky earlier that day passes through my thoughts.
"Yknow, there might be a world out there where we failed. Where astrophage really did eat everything."
"That world scary. Rocky like this one with Grace and taumeoba."
"Me too, bud."
I level my gaze with Aaron.
"Did your stars die?" I ask, with the gentleness one would give a child who recently lost a loved one.
Everyone is frozen solid as they wait for Aaron to respond.
"...yes," comes the quiet reply.
"I have a solution for you. You don't have to ransack my ship. You don't have to steal my stuff. I'll give it to you. You just need to lower that gun."
"And why the hell would I trust a COI spy?" Aaron still has a finger on the trigger. Do I even have a chance?
"Because I can also teach you kids other stuff. And because I want to believe that you have the best interests of your team at heart. So just...put down the gun. And we can settle this the peaceful w -"
Simon, who has been staring at me ever since I mentioned NASA, suddenly shifts his attention downwards, towards my feet. I hear Leah shriek again. A few melodious notes reach my consciousness - naive and ignorant, simply asking "What's going on?"
Unfortunately, this is also the moment when whatever militaristic patience and training Aaron had is thrown out the window. To be fair, I too freaked out the first time I saw Rocky lift a finger.
Granted, however, back then, all I had was a big wrench. This time the weapon is much different.
The loud BANG! echoes through the space around us. There are shouts of alarm. Arguing.
All I know, however, are two things:
1) Huh, xenonite is strong enough to deflect bullets at point blank range. Who knew!
2) Man, the ceiling of the lab certainly looks rather appealing to look at for someone who literally can't look away from it.
I feel the hot blood filter through where my skin is split. I can hear nothing but shouts and screams and the melodious wails of Rocky. And only now is the scurvy fever catching up with me.
Before I close my eyes, Simon appears in my eyeline. He's kneeling next to me and whispering something in my ear. A request?
No - a prayer.
I know I should be focusing on the words, focusing on Rocky, on how the hell to get us out of this pickle. But to be fair, I also just got shot. Don't I deserve a break?
My brain decides this for me by plunging me into painful darkness.