Hey, I’m writing a BloodyMary fanfic after my sister sprung an idea on me and now it won’t leave my head. I’ve got a decent bit of the science sorted out but there’s one thing I cannot for the life of me figure out.
In this fic, Grace and Rocky are about 6 months to 1 year into their journey to Erid when (and this is the important part) they crash into the blood ocean.
I’m struggling with figuring out ways that the Hail Mary survives the crash, is able to be pulled up alongside the SM-13, and is in good enough condition less than 12 hours after crash in order to fly away from the COI.
I thought about Rocky and Grace making a heat shield pre-emptively for re-entry into Erid but it feels too soon in their journey for them to have even considered building one yet. And everything else I think of that would help, would only work if they also had enough time to steer around the AT-5, instead of crashing into it.
It doesn’t need to last long after the crash, just long enough to make it beyond the other side of the Dead Zone (what I’m calling the densely packed astrophage that doesn’t let any light in and makes it seem like the stars are gone when they’re not) so I’d say just a few hundred thousand kilometers, maybe a few million kilometers (this detour through the densest of the astrophage was really only supposed to take a full 24 hours at absolute maximum)
If you need any more details on the au just ask. If I write the whole thing and publish it onto AO3, I plan on publishing a whole separate document just with my notes on everything I’ve got for this AU (including a cameo from the Martian)