Every time Eva Stratt has to look at the memorials for Dr. Ryland Grace, science officer for the Hail Mary, former academic and middle school teacher, she has to sit with the knowledge that she killed him the moment she had him sedated in that field.
Not physically, not technically, but in spirit. In memory.
By telling the public yes, he was second alternate for the position and he bravely stepped up after a lab accident and went on the mission to save us all.
No one except her, and the soldiers on site that day, will ever remember the truth about Ryland Grace. That he was a coward, that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this. That he had been willing to throw himself into the research, yes, but when it came down to dying for the sake of the entire planet, he had refused.
By falsifying the narrative about Grace's character, about the "bravery" in his sacrifice, she had killed him more surely than any needle ever could have.
She does not regret what she has done. Not when it was her only option. Not when it has saved the entire planet, hundreds of thousands of lives.
But she does, in a very small part of her that she keeps carefully tucked away, regret that it had to be him. That it had to happen the way that it did.
She did not respect Grace. She said it to his face herself. But she did like him. And maybe that was worse. To know she could have found friendship in him, and had to turn her back on it because it was either him or everyone.
And there was no universe where Eva Stratt would ever choose anything except humanity.
