Chapter Text
Grace was sleeping.
“Blip A detected”
Key word was.
“Blip B detected”
But it seems the Hail Mary and life apparently had other plans.
“Warning Blip B within 300,000 kilometers and rapidly approaching”
So here he was scrambling up to the cockpit.
“Warning Blip B within 200,000 kilometers and rapidly approaching”
And desperately trying to figure out what was happening beyond the fact-
“Warning Blip B collision imminent”
That they were about to crash. “Rocky!” Grace screams not again, this could not be happening again.
Grace’s head flies forward, Rocky’s ball bounces off the wall.
He closes his eyes, bracing for impact, for a crash that doesn’t fully come, thank god for Nils Bohlin. “You ok Rocky?” Grace calls out as the emergency lights blare and Mary continues calling out warnings. “Warning hull damage” “Warning heat shield damage” “Warning exterior damage”
Rocky’s transmitter patters out “Rocky alright. Grace ok question?”
Grace looks himself over quickly, patting himself down and checking for damage “Yeah,” He lets out a sigh of relief “Yeah, I’m okay Rocky.”
Mary starts her warnings again as Grace interjects “Mary, Alarms off.” Grace turns and looks at our current acceleration speed and… “huh.”
“What? What grace see question?” Rocky sings, turning his carapace up in question.
“It’s just- that's funny, we’re just stopped. If something hit us, it would have changed our trajectory, not stopped us dead in our tracks.” Grace explains “We must have landed on something, that’s the only way I can even begin to explain why it says we are where we are within space.”
“What about The Hail Mary’s alarms?” Rocky asks.
“We can deal with the damage once we figure out where we are and how we’re going to get out of here, right?” Grace asks, more to himself than to Rocky.
Rocky gives a thumbs down, Grace gives him a thumbs down right back. We already figured out how to save the stars, getting off a… planet? Moon? Dwarf planet? Large asteroid? Well whatever it is, getting off it should be a piece of cake. “Alright, so the radar is picking up mountains or, maybe ridges? In the distance. We’ll need to keep an eye out for those on our ascent. But I can’t make out anything beyond that.” Grace points out, “Can you make anything out bud?”
“Rocky sees, not much.” Rocky trills out from his ball.
“Hmm?” Grace hums in question.
Rocky taps his foot in frustration “Blurry around ship.”
“Well that’s weird. Maybe I’ll be able to see something? Let’s go see where we landed, bud.” Grace says.
The two of them head out of the cockpit and make their way down to the big window on the ship and as soon as Grace rounds the corner to see even a tiny bit of it. He steps back instinctually “Holy, shit.” Covering his mouth with his hand.
“What Grace see question.” Rocky trills, tilting his carapace towards him.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Grace doubles over, trying to keep deep even breaths and willing the vomit rising in the back of his throat back down.
Rocky pitters away from Grace and the translator exclaims “No! No!! Grace no be sick statement! Grace keep gross human fluids inside!!”
“Ooohh god.” Grace turns away from the windows “It’s… It’s blood. Rock, it’s blood. It’s-” Grace swallows, they need to get the fudge out of here, now.
“Humans bleed this much question?” Rocky trills.
Grace stutters, his eyes moving around rapidly, “I- I don’t know any creature that bleeds this much Rock. But we need to get out of here.”
“Back to cockpit question?” Rocky says as he starts climbing back up
“Yeah…” Grace exhales “Yeah, that’s a good idea bud. Boy, we need to get out of here.”