Mary on a (Mary on a Cross)
"I just wanted to live… Was that so wrong?" The stranger asks, and it's clear that they aren't talking to Grace and Rocky anymore. Maybe they never were. "They didn't even ask for my name. They killed me and they didn't even care about who I used to be."
Grace and Rocky find a ship on their way to Erid. Unfortunately, the strange man inside is barely coherent, and upon closer examination, he might not even be human.
Chapter 1
(Cross-posted to AO3, please go check it out here!)
Warnings for: Hopelessness, Lapses with Reality, Religious Trauma. An extended tag list is featured on AO3, which has this chapter + an additional 4 chapters.
If you enjoy, please share and leave a comment/reblog! I update this fic at least once a week, and would welcome more readers along for the ride :)
Grace can't help his despair, quiet as it is.
He's never going home. He thought he'd made peace with it, and maybe he had. Then, he'd gone and gotten his hopes up all over again when Rocky offered him fuel. He's going home, he's going home—
Then, the taumoeba eats through the xenonite and it all comes crashing down. Then, he's racing back to find Rocky and save him, because he can't lose another friend, because he can't just accept this—
It's been a rollercoaster, honestly. He's scarcely been awake for 4 months and it's been the longest 4 months of his life. He's been bruised and hurt within an inch of his life, he's experienced things beyond the realm of human imagination—he's the first human to ever meet an alien, for Pete's sake! He's been through so much, and he's changed through it all.
And through it all, they're on the course to Erid. The ship is cramped and damaged, but Rocky is the best company he could ever ask for. Mostly.
"Grace clean his side of ship, question? Dirty dirty dirty!" Rocky says to him one day, skittering down through his xenonite tunnel into the dormitory. Grace snorts at the repeated exclamations, remembering when he'd first observed how much Eridians seemed to love the number 3—after all, 3 is half of their numerical base, it makes sense. It's just a funny quirk.
Okay, maybe Rocky has a point. He gathers up scattered pieces of clothing and the many pieces of torn packaging that he'd allowed to float around in zero-g. In his defense, NASA uses way too much plastic and he can't be bothered to set up a proper trash can when everything just floats out anyways.
With that, he settles into his sleeping pod and hooks his ankles under the curved plastic edges to remain in place. Laying in bed isn't really relaxing in zero-g, but it's familiar. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and presses the space bar on the laptop.
They're only 6 months away from Erid. He's been eating the taumoeba whenever he can stomach it (which isn't really often, if he's being honest), but mostly, he's been trying to enjoy their unlimited media supply.
He has the entirety of Earth's knowledge stored in his ship. Every single book, every journal, everything ever published resides in neat, organized folders within the ship's computer system.
As a rule, he doesn't care much for Stratt, but he's darn grateful that she'd thought to give them entertainment up here. Then again, knowing her, it was probably a decision born out of practicality rather than any sort of affection for the crew.
He and Rocky have set up a media viewing situation in the dormitory. Rocky's tunnels are still taking up the majority of the space, which is a bit of a pain, but it's really not so bad. Grace has a laptop affixed to a 3D printed wall mount, and on it, he's playing a documentary about Earth's rainforests.
Rocky loves it.
"Grace say human and chimpanzee have common ancestor, question?" Rocky asks, and Grace hears his legs tap against the glass as he readjusts his position. "How long ago evolution split, question?"
Rocky's camera and stone texture tablet are set up so he can enjoy the show, too. He has a lot of questions, which is great because Grace has a lot of questions for him, too. He wonders if the cultural exchange will ever stop being interesting.
"Only about 7 or 8 million years ago," Grace tells him, still watching the screen. On it, the narrator describes the chimps' territorial behavior and the camera shows a young chimp clumsily clinging to its mother's back. "We still share most of our DNA, though. I think it's only a 3 percent difference, something like that."
Rocky is silent for a minute, either digesting that information or absorbing more as the documentary continues to play. Finally, he lets out a high, continuous note before saying, "Chimpanzee and Grace similar in appearance, question?"
"No, not really. The closest things we have in common are the hands and arm musculature, but they have some weird shoulder muscles for climbing trees," Grace says, still watching the screen. He almost tells Rocky about the similarities in their teeth, right up until he remembers that Eridians don't have teeth and the comparison wouldn't help much.
They watch for a while longer, and Rocky's questions become more specific. He's an engineer Eridian, not a science Eridian, but his grasp on the concept of evolution is pretty good. At the very least, he has the foundations, and Grace is more than willing to fill in the gaps.
Then, the documentary shows a chimp being thrown out of the troop, and Rocky is upset.
"Why chimpanzee chase friend chimpanzee out, question? Narrator voice say friend chimpanzee die if alone," Rocky says, his notes lowered with despair. He hasn't quite grasped the idea of a 'narrator,' but they have the word now.
"Chimp social orders are funny," Grace says, admittedly at a loss. The documentary doesn't give a reason, perhaps because the researchers couldn't find one. It's good science, but doesn't make for a great story. "He might have done something that offended the other chimps, but it's hard to say."
Rocky is silent for a few seconds. As they keep watching, he says, "Chimpanzee sad without other chimpanzee, question?"
"Probably, yeah. Chimps are similar to other primates, they have social needs and they get sad when they're alone," Grace says, turning around to look up at Rocky in his xenonite tunnel. "Sorry, bud. He can still find other chimpanzees, though! It's a big jungle."
"Human is primate," Rocky states. When Grace doesn't argue, he makes a sound that they don't have a word for, yet. "♪♫♫♩…"
At that, Grace raises a brow.
"What does that last part mean??" Grace asks, taken aback. He and Rocky have been hanging out for a while, it's surprising to find that there's a word they haven't used yet.
"Is sound for intense thinking," Rocky says, his tones meandering in a weird way. It seems like he's sad, but Grace can't identify why. "And other emotion, like anger. Many things conveyed with this sound."
Grace hums. "Yeah, okay, we make a sound like that, too. It's less of a sound and more of a pointed body function- we let air out of our lungs loudly, it's called a sigh. Meaning changes with context."
"Yes, like that," Rocky says. This time, he doesn't pause to think, he seems to just barrel into his next sentence. "Grace primate, Grace have social need. What is social need, question?"
Hm. Grace turns back towards the screen and pauses the laptop with a quick press of the space bar. With that, he lets his ankles unhook from the bed and allows his body to float.
"Social needs are complicated. There's talking, that's a big one, but other primates don't do that. Touch is a big one, for them and for us," Grace says, reaching up to rub the back of his neck idly. His hair is getting long. He needs to cut it soon. "Intimacy is another. Social intimacy and biological intimacy, those are two separate things, but they're mostly reserved for romantic partners. Mates, you'd call them."
"Grace only get talking from Rocky," the Eridian says. He sounds worried, and as Grace turns to look back, he recognizes some nervous body language. "Grace social needs are not fulfilled. What are effects of this, question?"
Grace waves away his worry, mostly because he doesn't know what else to do. "It's not like that, Rock. I'm not gonna die without a hug, I'm okay."
"Rocky not want Grace to be sad." Rocky's legs are bunched up, his shoulders held up towards his carapace. He's visibly distressed on Grace's behalf, the absolute sweetie.
"Rock, I'm not sad!" Grace says reassuringly, aiming for a smile. He doesn't think it would convince a human, but Rocky doesn't quite know how to tell if a human is lying, yet. "I'm spending my life on an alien planet with my best friend. That's a pretty fulfilling life for a science human, just so you know."
Rocky's carapace settles down to its usual position, but he isn't fully relaxed. Instead, he sits down, folding his legs neatly beneath himself, and says quietly, "Play movie again, question?"
Grace turns back to the screen, absently aware that he's not fooling anyone—even an alien can tell that he's lonely.
"Sure thing, bud."
They're near the end of the documentary when there's an ear-shattering screech from the alarms.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP—
Grace shoots up with a jolt, and Rocky lets out a shuddering wail of a note. It takes him a second to recognize it as speech—
"Turn it off! Off off off!" Rocky shouts over the blare of the alarm.
"Right, right, sorry!" Grace shouts as he kicks off the bed and scrambles up the ladder. He flies through the lab and right up into the command room—he isn't surprised when Rocky stays far behind, the poor guy. Having super-hearing is probably pretty cool until the deafening alarm starts blasting.
The console is lighting up with warnings, and even the smashed screen is feebly flickering. He slams a hand against the leftmost screen to disable the audio alarm, just as his blood runs cold.
MANUAL COURSE COLLISION DETECTED- DIVERT PATH IMMEDIATELY.
Collision in 2,361 meters.
Oh, there isn't enough time. The collision meter count is rapidly going down, and Grace jumps into action.
"Rocky, grab onto something!" Grace shouts as he grabs the ship's controls and starts adjusting their path. He jerks the controls sharply to the left, furthest away from the object in their path, and holy heck it's going to be close—
The proximity sensors are screaming again, and the sharp turn is exerting g-force on the ship, even if it isn't much. Grace swears to himself and, not for the first time, wishes desperately that this stupid ship had windows.
Then, all at once, the sensors and alarms are quiet. The danger is past them, and his entire body shudders with relief.
He pulls the engines and slows them down to a dead stop. It takes more than a few minutes, and he can hear Rocky recovering in the dormitory, but he isn't focused on that.
Instead, he's wondering how the hell something managed to appear in their direct flight path.
"Rocky, get up here!" Grace calls out, scrambling through old data logs. He's squinting a bit as he reads them, still dizzy from the rush of adrenaline he'd recently gotten.
The Hail Mary has the most advanced navigation system that humanity has ever invented. Her radar can detect objects from thousands of kilometers away, and she's programmed to find a path around hazards before returning to her original route. Whatever just happened, it isn't just horrifically dangerous—it shouldn't even be possible.
Somehow, something appeared out of the blue and stayed there—the laws of preservation of momentum just don't exist, apparently. Cool, we're breaking basic physics.
There's movement from the corner of his vision, and then Rocky is floating up through his tunnels. He clings to the installed handrails with two hands, and the other three are busy tapping idly along the metal of the hull and the xenonite tunnels. Maybe he's trying to reorient himself? He doesn't look any worse for wear, thankfully.
"Check this out, Rock- whatever that thing was, it ended up directly in our flight path and just… sat there. It's like it came out of nowhere," Grace says, tapping the display. There's brief history of the moment before the systems detected the object, and it's immediately obvious that something is wrong.
One second, there was nothing in their way—the next, there was something decently sized, sitting there absolutely still.
For all that space is mostly empty, random bits of junk are common enough. Asteroids, space debris, clouds of dust—it's all normal, and it's an expected part of their mission. These things drift into flight paths all the time, and for the most part, it's expected.
This, though? When something appears in from of you in space, it has momentum. It can't just stop and sit there, that isn't how any of this works.
He's left with two conclusions, and one of them is easy enough to check.
"Sensors need to be recalibrated, question?" Rocky asks, a note of concern coloring his tone.
"I'm checking now," he says. He presses a few buttons and watches the system begin to restart itself. A navigation error is the most obvious answer, but if it's going to be a problem, he's at a loss for how to fix it. The ship's navigation systems are advanced pretty far beyond his knowledge, and without them, they're in for a hell of a time.
Finally, the systems return to normal, and the screen flashes a resolved diagnostic screen.
System Check: No Errors Detected. Check Again?
"No, they seem to be fine," Grace says before rerunning a full systems diagnostic on the proximity sensors and the navigation system. After a short silence, the diagnostics show that everything is working correctly. It's even showing him the rest of their path to Erid, and it has correctly identified several obstacles that it will take detours around. "Which means…"
"Not normal object, statement," Rocky says, an intrigued warble to his song. For all that he's a wary little guy, he's always so curious. "Grace turn ship around, question?"
The mental math isn't hard—the ship had enough Astrophage to get to Earth, so it has more than enough to get to Erid and indulge in a detour or two. Still, he doesn't immediately agree.
Instead, Grace sends out a ping on the navigation's radar system. He knows that there are plenty of sensors all around the ship, and he only needs one to make contact with the mystery object—
Right away, there's a quiet beep and he can see it.
The thing he's looking at… It doesn't look like space debris, even on the poor-quality render produced by the radar detector.
"Yeah, we're going to turn the ship around and look at this thing through the telescope," Grace tells Rocky, his eyes never leaving the screen. The Eridian must sense that something isn't right, because there's a slow, quiet hum behind him.
"What radar scan show, question?" Rocky asks.
At that, Grace winces. The problem is that he isn't sure, but it almost looks like…
"I don't think it's an asteroid or anything like that," Grace admits. "It's oblong, kinda rounded along the edges. I didn't get a good picture, the radar along the back of the ship isn't as precise."
"Turn ship! Turn turn turn!" Rocky urges him excitedly, his song raising in pitch. "Maybe object alien ship!"
Grace is inclined to agree, but it's a dizzying prospect. Another intelligent species has found them, somehow, and their first interaction had almost ended in disaster. Even still, excitement brews in the pit of his stomach.
What if it's another oxygen-breathing race?? Or maybe Rocky will have a friend in his ammonia-based atmosphere! Perhaps they're seeking an answer to the Astrophage question, too… And if they are, they'll definitely be thrilled to meet Grace and Rocky. They'll be able to deliver this alien some incredible news.
He grins, he can't help it. He turns the ship around, pulling out of their pre-determined route.
It's slow, their engines rumbling quietly throughout the vessel as they reorient the ship. After a full 180 degree turn, they're facing the approximate direction of the object—and finally, even in the dim light of the distant stars, they can see it. Well, Grace can see it on the ship's console, and Rocky can hear the texture of his translating stone tablet.
Grace kills the engines and just stares, entirely befuddled.
The ship is small, as far as spaceships go. It's dark in color, a deep red, and it's about 10 meters long. There seems to only be one central compartment, with no windows or anything. As they drift slowly closer, Grace squints slightly.
"Is that… a propellor?" Grace says aloud, his eyes going wide. "That- why is there a propellor on a spaceship?!"
"What is fourth word, question?" Rocky asks, which—yeah, that's fair. They haven't had any reasons to discuss things like propellors, since that's pretty far outside of the realm of space travel.
"Uh, mechanical device with multiple spinning blades. When the blades spin fast enough, they generate thrust."
"Ah, ♪♫♫♩. We use these on Eridian ♬♫♩ ♬ ♬♩, vessel for travel in ocean."
Grace nods emphatically. "Submarine is the English word for it. I just can't figure out why they've got a ship with a propellor in space."
Behind him, Rocky lets out a curious trill. "Propellor not work in space, statement. Maybe new ship use Astrophage."
"Yeah, you'd think so, but I don't see any thrusters on it, though," Grace says, furrowing his brow. He doesn't see much on it, honestly—it seems barely functional as a submarine, let alone a spacecraft. Maybe he's judging too harshly, but it really isn't giving him much to work with.
There's an element of Occam's Razor, here. What's more likely: that the good people of Earth happened to launch a submarine into space to deal with the Astrophage problem, or that another intelligent species has spaceships that look freakishly similar to Earth submarines?
After all, Rocky's living proof that humans aren't alone in the universe. Maybe humankind and, uh, Eridiankind have a new neighbor to introduce themselves to?
There's a blinking red dot on his screen, centered around the ship—Blip D, as his navigation panel has labeled it.
Before he can say anything, Rocky says, "New ship have radio, maybe. Rocky try to find frequency."
"Good idea," Grace says with a tight nod. In truth, there isn't much he can do right now—Mary doesn't have any kind of radio systems aside from the EVA suits, mostly because this is a suicide mission and radios aren't super necessary.
He can't help with contact, but he can make some useful observations. So, while Rocky skitters to his workshop to grab his radio and antenna setup, Grace gets to work on the telescope.
The Hail Mary is equipped with all kinds of instruments, most of them long-range because space is ridiculously, disgustingly, astronomically big. Still, there are a few instruments that are useful for close-range observations.
Grace pulls up the exterior cameras and starts filtering through the Petrovascope. He's looking for any signs of Astrophage, lingering or otherwise, to indicate any signs that this ship has used it—but the scope reveals nothing.
"So, either you don't use Astrophage, or you haven't moved recently," Grace mutters to himself. "Well, you definitely moved… Probably. Okay, that's fine. Let's see here…"
"Grace talking to Rocky, question?" Rocky calls out from far away, likely still in his workshop. Curse him and his amazing hearing.
He snorts. "Nah, just talking to myself, Rock! Sorry!"
There's a pause.
"Human Grace going crazy, statement."
"Human Grace is already crazy, statement!"
Rocky lets out the Eridian equivalent of a laugh as he clambers up through the tunnels again. In two hands, he holds his radio apparatus, and it has a surprising amount of dials for a device whose only function is to transmit and receive radio.
Before Rocky can do anything, Grace clears his throat.
"Rocky? Do you mind if I give it a try on the radio, first?" He asks, motioning to the device.
At that, Rocky's body language shifts to confusion. His carapace raises up slightly, and he raises one hand to motion. "Why Grace want to radio, question? Grace already looking on light device. Radio is Rocky job."
"I just- the ship looks…" Grace trails off, glancing back at the screen. The ship hasn't moved, but it's still eerie to see. "It kinda looks like it was made by humans."
"Human make ship, question???" Rocky demands, letting the radio float further down the tunnel so he can gesticulate with his hands. Suddenly, he's doing feverish, excited jazz hands as his voice raises in pitch. "Maybe human inside ship! Human friend for Grace!"
"Woah, buddy, hold on!" Grace raises his hands to calm his friend, but it's no use. Rocky is squeaking up a storm, a flurry of activity even as he stands in place. "Calm down! You're making a lot of assumptions, and- heck, we don't even know if there's anyone alive on that thing."
"Rocky and Grace find out!" Rocky says sharply, holding up the radio. He turns the device on and starts scrubbing between frequencies.
With another hand, Rocky holds up a small, spherical device, which has been wired into the radio transmitter box. He holds it up to Grace, seeming expectant.
"Oh!" Grace nearly slaps himself in the forehead. He leans forward in his chair and gets as close to the xenonite tunnel as he's able, positioning his mouth close to the microphone.
"Transmitting from the Hail Mary, this is Dr. Ryland Grace. Can anyone hear me?" He asks, and there's the expected crackling of static. After a while, nothing happens.
"Include Rocky in message!" Rocky hisses as he adjusts their frequency. Ah, whoops.
"Sorry, buddy!" Grace says with a wince. "Ahem, this is Dr. Ryland Grace and Engineer Rocky of the Hail Mary, does anyone copy?"
Rocky preens at that, and they continue.
Radio is tricky in space for a number of reasons. Radio waves are vulnerable to radiation and ionic fields, so they can get scrambled over long distances. They're great for short-distance communication, as long as you know what frequency you're looking for.
Unfortunately, the submarine's frequency is just one needle in a very, very large haystack.
So, their only option is to scrub through the most likely candidates and see where it leads them. Most of the lower and upper ranges are out—low waveforms like the 50kHZ range aren't detectable without specialized equipment, and the highest frequencies are microwaves, so they mostly read as static. Once they rule those out, they've cut out about a third of the work—still plenty to do, but it's more manageable now.
Unfortunately, the longer they keep doing sending calls out into the void, the dumber Grace's messages get. Sue him, it's a boring task and Rocky's melodic snickering doesn't help.
"Hello? Does anyone copy? Over."
"Unidentified vessel, please say something, over."
"Uh, hello? Hello, hello?"
"Eridian and human solve Astrophage problem! We fix for strange ship, too!"
"Hi, we're space pirates and we're totally going to board your ship. Not really, just checking if you're alive! Okay, over."
"This Captain Rocky and human Grace! Excite for new human friend!" "Pfft-"
"Is that… music…?"
That's English. There's a human in that ship, and they speak English.
Grace sits bolt upright as Rocky lets out a sharp note—a gasp. Rocky scrambles to grab the radio and presses down on the microphone's input switch, only to shove it up against the transparent xenonite separating them.
"Hello! Yes, sorry- um, this is Dr. Ryland Grace of the Hail Mary! I'm here with- my ship's engineer, Rocky. Oh my god, you're- can you speak again? Please?" Grace rambles, his eyes wide as he looks between the radio and the telescope's view on the monitor.
There's a groan, crackled with radio static, but it's real. There's someone alive in there.
Rocky squeals and sings, joy practically oozing from every limb as he throws up jazz hands. "New human friend for Grace and Rocky! Must retrieve human for Grace friend! Excite excite excite!"
"Mmm…" There's another groan, deeper this time. They almost sound like they're in pain. "Wha…? Why are you…"
Something about their voice is worrying him. Grace holds up a hand to silence Rocky.
"Are you okay? We're near your ship, we've been trying to contact you for a few minutes now. Do you need supplies?" Grace asks, though he knows fully well that he doesn't have any supplies to give. He doesn't even have any coma slurry to give them, he's down to his last few bags—he's been supplementing it with taumoeba.
There's a long, horrible silence. Grace's chest contracts painfully, as if he's made up the voice—
Finally, a deep voice crackles across the radio. "What do you want from me…? I- don't have anything left. Why are you doing this?"
Grace's heart sinks as Rocky lets out a worried chitter.
"No, I'm- I'm just trying to see if you're alright! And just- wow, meeting another human out here is amazing, you know? It's been a while since I've seen anyone," Grace says quickly, but the stranger doesn't seem to understand. He seems devastated by that answer, actually.
"Stop, stop it," the stranger begs quietly, their voice rough. There's a soft sniffling sound, and Grace's heart breaks. "I can't do this… It was s'pposed to be over. You left me here, and now you're back to… to what? To torture me…?"
Rocky shifts in a distinctly uncomfortable way. Grace can tell that this is bothering him, too. "Grace fix sad human now, please. Fix."
"I just wanted to live… Was that so wrong?" The stranger asks, and it's clear that they aren't talking to Grace and Rocky anymore. Maybe they never were. "They didn't even ask for my name. They killed me and they didn't even care about who I used to be."
Grace can't speak. His throat is closing up, tears burning behind his eyes, and he's frozen. He can't find it within himself to speak, to move. It's all too much.
Rocky lets out a keening, high pitched note. "Rocky cannot fix. Human Grace must fix, fix fix fix. Broken human need help."
"Music again…" The stranger says faintly, but the sound is still crisp and clear over the Eridian-made radio. "I've never heard… music like this…"
After a while, after his entire body has been wracked with shivers and his brain has all but given up on him, Grace takes in a breath. He's not in an office, he's not being drugged, he's not in his cell.
He's in space with Rocky, and he's surprisingly safe given the circumstances.
"We're going to come get you," Grace finally says, his tone calm and reassuring. It helps him, too, in some small way. "It's going to be okay. You're not alone out here. What's your name?"
They laugh, bitter and weak. It's not a pleasant noise.
"You know my name. Don't play games."
Grace doesn't really know what to do, here. This person is clearly traumatized by something, and they're not making sense. Hell, they're not even engaging with his questions.
"I promise, I'm not trying to trick you or anything. I just want to help."
"You're not real. I know you're not real, so it would be great if you could shut the fuck up and let me die in peace."
They sound distressed, their voice raising as they try to shout at him—but it breaks every other word, and there's a near-palpable pain that leaks into every other syllable.
Finally, Grace says quietly, "I just want you to live, I swear to God. Can you help me make that happen?"
There's a long, tense silence.
"…Who is God, to you?"
Grace nearly physically recoils at the question. Rocky twitches in a way that is distinctly curious, but he remains quiet—probably for the best, this person is probably having a moderate-to-severe psychotic episode.
After a bit of thinking, Grace answers.
"I'm not really religious. I mean, I was raised Methodist, but I'm a scientist at heart. God isn't a person, for me, but… The idea of divinity, it's all around us. It's the stars, it's gravity, it's life," Grace explains, his face heating up as he stumbles over his words a couple of times. He's not really big into the metaphysical stuff, so it's hard to explain.
His answer seems to satisfy whatever reasoning lives behind the question. The stranger lets out the softest, most wounded sound.
"The stars… God is dying, then. Maybe that explains the blood ocean," they muse, and Grace really shouldn't be surprised that it's incoherent. "Maybe you're actually real."
"We're real!" Grace says firmly, nodding sharply before he realizes that it's pointless. "We're here. We see you and we just want to help, I promise. I don't really know how to prove that, but it's true."
There's a long silence, and Grace wonders if the stranger is at a loss, too. Maybe there isn't really any way to prove it.
"Tell me something about you."
Grace glances over to Rocky, who is unsettlingly still. Usually, the Eridian is twitching and fidgeting as he senses the room with his echolocation, but not now. Maybe he's just thinking.
"I'm a microbiologist," Grace says slowly, searching for the words even as he speaks. "I used to be a teacher, before… All this. I'm sorry, I haven't been around other humans for a while. I mean, it feels like a while. What about you?"
"I…" They stop, maybe confused. "I was an engineer. I fixed things. I think I was good at it."
At that, Rocky perks up, his carapace raising up higher. "Rocky engineer! New human and Rocky same same same!"
Grace manages a smile. "Well, we could always use another engineer!"
In truth, they don't really need another engineer. Heck, it's almost certainly a bad idea to bring anyone else into the ship, especially someone as unstable as this person seems. He can practically hear Stratt's voice in his head, demanding him to see reason and continue his course.
Stratt isn't here, though, and he's done listening to her at this point.
There's a long pause. Then, the stranger says quietly, "You said your names earlier. I forgot them."
That's… not nothing. It even feels like progress, if Grace squints and turns his head to the side a bit.
"My name is Dr. Ryland Grace, I'm here with my crewmate, Engineer Rocky," Grace says. "What's your name?"
"…Simon."
That's a human name. Grace feels like his chest his caving in, the edges of his nerves frayed and damaged. This is terrifying. This is amazing.
He isn't alone anymore.
"Simon, we're going to get you out of there, okay?" Grace says, trying to sound reassuring. By his side, Rocky wiggles his carapace in an emphatic agreement. "Just hang tight."
"Don't- please, don't leave me here," they beg, and there's an element of desperation to their tone that didn't exist before. "Throw me in a cell, toss me out the airlock, I just- I can't die in here. It's not fair, it's not fair-"
"Hey, hey, it's okay!" Grace says quickly, gesturing wildly before he realizes that they obviously can't see him. Rocky can definitely hear the motions, though, but thankfully doesn't comment on it. "We're going to bring you onto our ship, just- let us figure out the logistics, okay? It might take a few minutes."
There's a quiet, heartbreaking sound from the radio—it sounds less like a person and more like a wounded, dying animal. "I don't want to die. Not anymore."
"Then you won't," Grace says firmly. "We've got you."
-
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Chapter 1 (You are Here!) | Chapter 2 |
