Chapter Text
Eye movement detected.
Ugh, why is it so bright in here today? I thought I remembered to turn the lights off before I slept.
Good morning, Dr. Grace.
“Good morning to you too, Mary.”
I know what you’re thinking: Ryland, why are you back on that godforsaken ship with your best buddy…AGAIN?!
And your thoughts are still valid. I still don’t like the vastness and emptiness of space. Heck, I also don’t like being in a small ship like The Hail Mary in that vast emptiness. But I’m doing this for the betterment of the universe.
“Grace awake! Grace awake!”
I hear Rocky’s five legs scuffle along the dormitory floor just next to me. I then catch a glimpse of his carapace peeking out from below my bed. He quickly crawls over to my bed where I lay and jumps on my chest. If you ever wanted to know what an elephant feels like on your chest, this would be the feeling.
“Grace! Get up, get up. We need save stars!!” Rocky chirps in my face. He’s very loud today, so I’m assuming it’s because he’s excited. This is only Rocky’s second space mission, after all (the first being when we met). And this one will definitely not take as long as his did.
“Alright, alright bud. Just let me get up, will ya? I can barely breathe.” I tense my whole body. Him moving even just a tiny bit with his hands hurts like crazy.
“Apology apology. Rocky just excited to save stars from astrophage.” He then crawled off my chest (thank god), and jumped to the ground. I’m glad he made a more functional suit, otherwise his old ball would’ve shook the dormitory if it fell to the ground.
A lot has happened since I arrived on Erid. I met Rocky’s family, friends, and he and other engineers and scientists made a little home for me in a biodome. Rocky even gathered some young Eridians and they became my students! Everything was, and is, going great.
Then Rocky mentioned the idea of saving other stars in the neighboring systems. I’m still very hesitant on the whole thing (I say this as if I’m not on the ship, on course to these stars), but I trust Rocky’s ideas and feelings. He is genuinely a nice guy.
“I like your enthusiasm, pal,” I said. I then swing my legs over to the bedside and stand up. No matter how many years I’ve been on the ship and the two years I’ve been on Erid, my body will never get used to the gravitational force. I honestly think my legs have been in overdrive since I arrived on Erid.
“Do you know if we’ve approached anything yet? Like stars, planets? Heck, I’ll even take an asteroid.” I asked.
“Rocky do not know. Been watching you sleep. Grace still sleepy, question?”
Right. I forgot; my mistake.
“My bad, Rock,” I go to my duffle bag of clothes and pull out a shirt and a jumpsuit.
“Mary! Are we near any planets or stars?” I yell out to the computer. I’m, hopefully, expecting to hear a star pop-
There is a moon, about 300,000 kilometers away from The Hail Mary.
Up. Okay. Interesting.
“A moon? Rocky, can you go see what’s going on up there?”
“On it!” Rocky scuffles to the cockpit while I change. It’s a signature look for me: a corny t-shirt (today it’s a cat ‘hanging in there’) and a red jumpsuit. I have pants, but it’s just easier to wear a jumpsuit to slip on and off when we’re in zero g.
I climb up to the cockpit where Rocky sits in his half, separated by a thick xenonite wall. He points his texture gun at the display.
“Looks like we’re approaching moon with no planet attached,” Rocky states.
“Like it has no planet? It’s just floating out in space?”
“Yes yes. Rocky just said that. Grace being dumb.”
Rocky is my best friend but sometimes he can be a pain in my-
My eyes shift over to the cockpit window. I see a moon in the distance. It reminds me of Earth’s moon, except there happens to be giant red oceans covering the surface. And where there are no oceans, mountainous craters live.
“Woah,” I exclaim. Never in my life have I seen a moon with a red liquid ocean. “Rocky, you seeing this?”
“Yes. Do not like look of moon. Very scary.” Rocky starts shaking, indicating some form of fear had settled in him.
I walk over to him. “It’s going to be okay, bud. We don’t have to go to the moon,” I say as I try to calm him down. Realistically, we’re pretty far away from the nearest star, so this moon is just coasting forever with no gravitational pull of a celestial body acting upon it. We could stay still and it’d move further away a tiny bit each day. Very fascinating.
Signal detected. Prepare for download.
That’s new. I didn’t realize that The Hail Mary could do that. A progress bar pops up and block’s Rocky’s view of the moon. He chirps an angry tune before waddling away to his workshop.
I sit and wait for this download to come up. I have no clue what this is. Maybe it’s another ship trying to communicate! Maybe a colony, or a country!! The idea of what this could be is intriguing me so much that I’m watching the progress bar vigorously. I even cover the end of the bar with my finger to make it go faster (it works of course).
The download finishes and I’m greeted by a folder full of a file type I’m not familiar with: .coi. Huh. I ponder over all the possibilities of how to open this. It’s obviously not going to open on my computer.
“What Grace thinking about, question?” Rocky sings from his workshop. He can see from all the way over there, so basically he’s always eavesdropping on my loud thoughts.
“This is full of files I couldn’t even open if I tried. The computer can’t run this, it’s useless to even attempt it.” I try to look for converters that could be of use, but they’re not equipped for this file type.
“Is Grace sure that opening it normally will not work, question?” Rocky asked.
…I’m an idiot. I double-click the first file in the folder labeled data.coi. I wait for the file to open.
“…no I did not, Rock. It’s doing something but I don’t know if it’ll actually-”
Gathering blackbox data from SM-13.
A blackbox? A human blackbox? The only way Mary could attain a signal like this is if it’s a human one. Could it be that we’ve stumbled on other human space travelers?!
“Grace what does word mean?” Rocky asks as he walks over to the xenonite wall.
“A blackbox is a recovery device for all communication records on ships and submarines on Earth. This is a human device!” I explain.
“Understand. But where did signal come from, question? Earth very far away.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It said ‘SM-13,’ but I’ve got no clue what that means.” I look back out the window again to the moon. I don’t see any colonies on it and there’s no other spacecrafts orbiting the moon.
“The signal only popped up because we got closer to the moon. Maybe there’s something…or someone in that ocean or on the surface of the moon?” I say. I’m trying to be realistic with my hypothetical, as there’s a very likely chance that there’s no one and this is just a lowly signal that came from nowhere.
Data gathered. You are now able to access logs and audio from the SM-13.
Ok, we’re getting somewhere. I click on the first file labeled 378EIC-01-14:20.coi. I don’t know what the first code means, but 14:20 is military time. No image or video popped up, but an audio file began playing.
“This is not an expedition. It’s an execution. When they put you in here, they don’t want you to return. And even if you do, and even if they keep their promises, what freedom waits for you? A few dying ships in a sea of dead stars? If there is still hope, it lies beyond the veil. Hope, in this void, is as illusionary as the starlight. I will choose to breathe my last, here, at the bottom of an ocean, unseen, unheard, uncontrolled. They will get their execution. I will get my freedom.”
This is freaky. Was there someone alive, down on that moon? Could I even communicate with them? How long ago was this message? I had to know.
“Mary, do you know how long ago this file was created?”
File 378EIC-01-14:20 was created 6 months ago in Earth time.
Well, poop. We have no clue if this person is even alive or why they even said this in the first place.
“Rocky noticed something with that message. Human mentioned dying stars, so they must have known about astrophage,” Rocky hummed over my shoulder. I was so caught up in this blackbox that I hadn’t realized Rocky was back in his xenonite suit.
He makes a good point, though. Maybe they were looking for a way to stop the astrophage from spreading.
But why would they be looking for the solution on this moon? The closest star is light years away. And there are no planets anywhere in the vicinity. And if this message was from 6 months ago, I doubt the moon has moved very far. Which begs the question: what’s so important about this moon?!
“Grace thinking too loud again. Can practically hear every thought cross your mind,” Rocky chirped annoyingly.
I can’t even respond to him because I’m so deep into this thought. My thoughts take me to the other files in the blackbox. One is titled 378EIC-02-22:00.coi. I open it and I hear something I wasn’t expecting: two voices conversing.
“You did test this thing, right?” One voice said. It sounded different from the first audio clip.
“This is the test.” The other voice said. It sounded like a woman.
This particular audio clip is very long. Spanning almost 90 minutes. I skim through it, finding a part where the audio sits at a low hum, too quiet for me to hear. I almost slip away before Rocky chimes in.
“Voice is talking to someone but no one is there,” Rocky said.
“What is he saying, Rock? Can you make it out?” I asked.
“Not much. Heard human say ♫♪♫♪♫ ♫♫♪.” Those final words I barely understood. I look back over at Rocky and he had barely moved an inch ever since he heard those words.
“I don’t understand. What were those last words, bud? What’s wrong?” I question, trying to make sense of why Rocky was stonewalled. It would be a great joke if I wasn’t so concerned about him.
“Human said that ocean made of…blood.”
BLOOD?! Oh heck no, this isn’t good. We should’ve left when we had the chance. A blood ocean?! This is like something out of a horror game.
I quickly jump in the pilot’s chair-
Pilot detected.
Yes, thank you Mary. As I was saying, I turn off Mary’s autopilot function and take over.
“What Grace doing, question?” Rocky quizzically chirped.
“We’re leaving, pal. We have no clue what’s down there and a blood ocean just reeks of the creeps.” I grab the controller and the spin drives activate.
SM-13 radio signal detected.
I only fly a few hundred miles before I hear that message. I instantly let go of the controller and the spin drives turned off.
“Mary, what does that mean?” I ask the computer.
You have the capability of communicating with the crew aboard the SM-13 through The Hail Mary’s radio system. Signal strength: low.
A yellow light begins flashing in my peripheral, like it’s calling me to check it out. I slide the pilot chair over to, apparently, The Hail Mary’s comms station. Stratt really thought of everything, even if we weren’t gonna use half of this stuff.
I find the frequency of the SM-13’s comms system. I then press the ‘talk’ button.
“Hello, this is Captain Ryland Grace of The Hail Mary. Does anyone copy?”
Silence.
“I repeat, this is Captain Ryland Grace of The Hail Mary. Is anyone there, over?”
…
…
“*cough*”
I’m not crazy, right? That was a cough. From the other side of the radio. I double-check.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” I ask again. “Are you hurt, trapped, stuck?” I’m greeted by silence once again. I slump back into the chair. It’s possible that I mistook a static sound for a cough. Rocky, however, is shrieking at me, some of it intelligible.
“Human could still be alive! We have to go back, statement!!” Rocky shouts.
“Rocky, that sound could’ve been anything. There’s no way someone is alive down there,” I tell him.
“Rocky heard it! Human cough, they must be alive!” Rocky chirps. “Grace, we have to go back, please.”
I’ve never heard Rocky sing like that. He’s begging me to stay here and save a human we don’t even know exists. I almost tell him no and I about jumped back into the pilot’s seat and flown us back to Erid.
But, whether or not I wanted to be, I was intrigued by this moon and this mysterious ship. And I needed to find out as many secrets about it as I could. My curiosity meter is spiking!
“…alright, alright. We’ll do a fly-by. But don’t get your hopes up if we don’t see anything.” I say, trying to act ‘nonchalant.’ A memory of my kids teaching me that word pops up in my mind. They also taught me about “looksmaxxing” and said that I was “outmogging” other teachers. I couldn’t tell you what those words meant if a gun was pointed to my head.
I digress. I guide our ship over to the moon, making sure to not get trapped in its atmosphere. We know what happened last time we didn’t escape that. I lower it just enough where we are coasting in its orbit but we can escape the pull, no problem.
We’re flying pretty fast, covering a lot of ground in the process. Nothing stuck out to me. No man-made structure, ship, monument, anything. The surface is just covered in craters and blood. Whose blood? I’d rather not know.
Signal strength: medium.
I slow the ship down to where the signal could be strongest. Rocky wastes no time and waddles over to the comms system.
“This is Rocky, engineer on Hail Mary. Anyone there, question?”
Static proceeds. Then…
…
“…help.”
Ok I was not imagining that. Someone is there and they need our help.
“Rocky was right!! Human is down there, needs our help!” Rocky chirps at me in an almost ‘I told you so’ fashion.
I can’t even quip back, I’m more focused on the radar, which just started flashing: Blip E detected. And this signal wasn’t in front of or behind me. It was below me.
I slide the chair to the window again and look out at the surface of the moon. I see a structure…or thing sticking out of the blood. I can’t get a good look at it, but it almost looks like a tree?
I get closer to the moon, remaining cautious about the gravitational pull, and get a better look at this…oh my god, it is a tree! How-…this shouldn’t be possible.
The leaves were rustling around, like the whole trunk was being shaken from the bottom of this godforsaken ocean. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention it’s an ocean of blood?!
“Grace need go down there. Need save human in danger,” Rocky stated.
“No! We don’t know what’s down there, and that tree is sketchy-looking. That’s not normal,” I said.
“Grace crew couldn’t save. Grace could not fix. Human could die. Grace can fix.”
Dang, how dare he pull out that? That’s a low blow. But…he’s right. It’s not gonna be too hard, right?
“Oh, alright.”
“Good good. Hurry hurry, Human need you, Grace.”
I took that as my cue, and I ran to the airlock and put on my EVA suit.
“Rocky, we have that lander you made, right?” I ask while sliding my helmet on.
“Yes yes. Should just be right outside airlock.”
God, I love having an engineer genius as my best friend.
I open the airlock door and enter the airlock, sit in the pilot’s seat, and gaze at the controls. Almost all of them are in Eridian besides the buttons that say ‘lower’ and ‘raise.’ I will definitely need to use those today.
I get my seatbelt on and turn my comms on so Rocky can hear me.
“I’m disengaging the lander, Rock.” I flip the button that says ‘disengage’ in Eridian and suddenly the lander moves away from The Hail Mary.
I grab the joystick controller and activate the spin drives. I fly down into the atmosphere of the moon and burn up a bit on entry.
“Grace be careful! Sky is slightly on fire! Danger danger,” Rocky tells me through my radio. He can’t actually see what’s happening, but his texture translator gun is a work of sorcery and I do not question dark magic.
“I’ve got it, bud. Don’t worry,” I say. Shortly after that conversation, the sky stopped burning and I began prepping for landing on the moon.
“Landing gear down.” I flip a switch and legs appear from the bottom of the module. Some of the engines reduce power or go in reverse to give us friction to slow the lander down. I look out the xenonite window to see if I could spot any more bubbles or signs of life. The patch I saw earlier seems to have shrunk.
“I’ve got to hurry,” I make sure my EVA suit isn’t messed up, and then open the steps outside. I grab a flashlight and head out onto the surface.
I walk over to the winch, which is attached to the side of the lander. Since we’re not flying and using it, I can take a few feet of chains and drop it into the ocean from the ground. I make sure to attach the giant magnet Rocky and I made to the end. I then drop some of the chain into the blood ocean next to this tree. I hate looking at this thing, let alone thinking about it.
Like how does it even live in this ocean? The tree should've died by now, right? It looks like a tree from Earth- I’m thinking about it. Gosh darn it.
I then walk back (with an uncomfortable amount of haste) to the lander and press the ‘lower’ button. This is a long shot, but I think it’s worth it.
I wait patiently, and then impatiently, for this winch to attach to something. It took about 10 minutes before I felt a tug coming from the machine.
“Rocky, I think I’ve got something!” I press the ‘raise’ button and, slowly but surely, the chain starts being wound back in. I go look at it from outside the lander. I wish there was a way to speed this up. There’s no telling how deep this ocean is and how far down it goes. There’s also a possibility that we picked up something else that isn’t a ship, like a monster or something. I feel a chill rush down my spine. We could be in danger here.
“Grace, what is status on chain?” Rocky asks from the radio.
“Ummm, it is bringing up something, but it is taking its sweet time.”
“Grace need learn patience.”
“Yeah, yeah whatever, pal.” I go back to staring at the winch. Then I notice some ripples appear on the surface of the ocean near the tree. They increasingly get more frequent and larger.
Finally, after about 20 minutes, a submarine breaks through the surface, covered in congealed blood, giant teeth marks, and what looks to be roots. The winch drags it to the shoreline, and I’m still astounded by Eridian technology even after all these years.
“That magnet we made worked, Rock! I’ve got a small submarine here,” I exclaim.
“Good good. Can Grace open sub, question?” Rocky asks.
I maneuver around the sub, looking for a hatch I could unseal. Unfortunately, my search does not prove bountiful. “Rocky, there’s no door,” I tell him. Whoever’s in here must’ve been sealed in. I get the bright idea to bang on the hull with my fist, maybe whoever’s in there will bang back.
I wait a few seconds after I bang my fist three times. Nothing.
Well, this is just great.
If being on a moon with a blood ocean wasn’t enough, we’re here to find someone that we don’t even know if they’re-
“Rocky hear faint heartbeat!!” Rocky chirped over the comms.
A glimmer of hope spreads through me. Could they still be alive in there?!
I guess there’s only one way to find out.
I rush back to the lander and find a handheld circular saw. This should work. I make it back to the submarine and pick where I want to cut. I turn the saw on and get to work. Sparks fly all around as I cut a quasi-doorframe in the hull. Blood starts seeping through the cracks; at first it was just drops, and it increasingly turned into streams. As I cut further into the hull, the blood keeps spurting out and puddling at my feet. I start to feel nauseous and almost stop cutting.
“The submarine is filled with blood,” I say, trying to hold back vomit. Nevertheless, I continue the cutting. I’m worried that if I keep going, the pressure of the blood against the metal will push me back.
“Rocky, do you still hear a heartbeat?” I ask.
“Too faint to hear. Will try radio.”
I then hear Rocky’s voice through the metal: “This is engineer Rocky from Hail Mary, can you hear, question?”
…
…
I wipe blood away from my helmet. It’s escaping the submarine so fast that I can’t see anything. This has got to be one of the grossest things I’ve experienced. I decide I’ve cut enough and I don’t want to risk hurting whoever’s inside or me.
With no other option, I try pushing and kicking the ‘door’ down. With what little visibility I have left, I aim for the door and run straight into it. Surprisingly, it shifts forward, allowing more blood to escape. I decide to give it one final running shove. This causes the ‘door’ to fall into the submarine and tons of blood crash out onto me. Oh god, please don’t let me vomit, I’m BEGGING you.
“Grace okay, question? Heard commotion on radio.” Rocky asked from the comfort of The Hail Mary. Lucky him.
“Just p-peachy, bud,” I report back, trying to hold back my ill feeling and tears. If this wasn’t one of my biggest fears before, it is now.
I push through all my anxiety, navigating through the sludges of blood and vines. This submarine couldn’t possibly hold more than one person. One of the walls was completely covered in roots with tiny sprouts coming through. How is this even possible? I follow the sprouts down the wall, to piping, and I see…an arm…dripping blood. There is no one attached to it.
I’m really close to vomiting in my suit, and then I might pass out. In that order. I then catch a glimpse to my right and I see…
A person!! With a hole in their face…oh my god.
“I found them!” I scream, hoping my radio still works.
“Good good! Hurry back up,” Rocky chirps. I don’t want to stay any longer than I have to.
I pick up the person from the floor of the submarine and sling him over my shoulder. I don’t have time to question the gaping hole in their face. If they don’t get onto the lander and onto The Hail Mary, they’re going to die.
I walk us back to the lander. I strap him into the passenger seat (it’s Rocky’s, but he isn’t here now) and then myself. I close the doors, and immediately turn the spin drives on. Takeoff happens in a flash, and I fly the lander up to the ship.
Blood drips from both of us as I fly. The sounds and feeling of blood dripping is so unsettling. I hope Armando can work his magic with this person.
“Rocky! I’m about to dock, make sure Armando and the dorms are ready!” I shout through the radio. Hopefully, he can hear the panic and rush in my voice.
The next few moments can only be described as my “Interstellar moment.” I matched The Hail Mary’s orbital speed and slowly brought myself to the airlock and docked. If only a Hans Zimmer score was playing.
I secure the lock and unbuckle the person from the seat. I, once again, sling their intact arm over my shoulders and drag them into the ship.
“Armando! Got a new patient for you!” I yell out. Suddenly, a pair of robot arms approach and help me carry the person down to the dorm. Rocky is down there clearing up our mess on the extra bed. Armando and I set the person down on the bed and I leave him to assess.
I take one last glance at the person, who’s covered in blood, missing an arm, a giant, gaping hole in their face, and clothes tattered. The realization of my situation sets in. I’m also covered in blood.
Grossgrossgrossgross. I then chuck the EVA suit in the airlock and take the most necessary shower of my life.
Well, that just happened.