Chapter Text
What is left for a predator, once all the prey has been hunted down and eaten?
What is left for a god when all its worshipers are already brought home?
The Shed had taken almost all that was left to take. Sure, there were a few scattered colonies floating aimlessly around space, sinking their teeth into whatever life was left and refusing to let go. Hopelessly holding onto purpose even when all sense of purpose had disappeared with the stars all those years ago. And one day, they would find the purpose that the Shed could give them, and they would be welcomed home into itself, and they would be free. But at this point, finding these mortals and eating saving freeing them was just cleaning up.
So what’s a god to do?
Well, it finds more people, of course. The parts of the Shed that were once the brothers of Eden know this well, know the importance of missionaries, of crusades. And it had just the missionary in mind.
The part of itself that once was Simon was a strange one. Sure, most of the parts of it that had been mortals had been scared at first, had resisted the Shed’s offer of a home in the ocean. But once they were welcomed in, once they became a part of the swirling mass of consciousness deep in the ocean of blood and beyond, they had understood. Or been lost to madness. But at that point it hardly makes a difference.
But Simon, even after it had finally grown tired of his pointless fighting and took him by force, still remained. Holding his mind together in the ocean of consciousnesses, he continued to bite and claw and scream and beg and fight. Even knowing every single thing in Simon’s head, the Shed could not understand, as much as it is capable of understanding any human thought. He wants so bad to be free, but can’t he see that he is? He wants so badly to live, but can’t he see that this is so much better? That he could be so much more?
But even if it does not understand, the Shed loves every part of itself. It loves Simon. So, even if he is wrong to want what he does, it will give it to him. He was a missionary for Eden once. He will be one again, for a better cause this time. Whether he wants to or not.
***
Ryland Grace, Captain of the Hail Mary, if only because no one else is alive to hold the title, needs a gosh darn nap. Later. Once he finishes testing this generation of Taumoeba.
And for gosh sakes, if Rocky makes one more comment along the lines of “Grace sleep. Not sleep make Grace stupid”, he is going to take that freaking laptop and throw it out the airlock if it’s the last thing he does.
He knows, in a very logical, scientific way, that Rocky’s right. He also knows, logically, that the reason he is so ticked off right now is not because Rocky’s wrong, but because being trapped in a small tin can with anyone for a year will make you hate their guts occasionally. But frankly, that part of his brain can be quiet right now.
The objective, logical part of his brain has also picked up a habit of thinking about how likely it is that he will die of starvation before they reach Erid. So, he’s gotten into the habit of putting the logical voice in his brain in a very small box and doing stupid, pointless chores to help drown out what leaks through the cracks. Hence, running the same tests he’s run a million times before on this new generation of Taumoeba.
He’s finally managed to lose himself in the routine of the tests, when Mary’s voice, of all things, snaps him out of his reverie.
“Blip A detected.”
Grace jumps, almost dropping the sample he was checking. Finally, he actually processes what Mary just said.
“Blip A detected.”
He stares at the ceiling, where the speaker sits, like if he looks long enough Mary will notice and explain what the heck it means by that. The Blip A should be more than a light year behind them, back near Tau Ceti.
“Blip A detected.”
Rocky rolls down the hallway and into the lab. He tilts his thorax up towards the speaker the same way Grace does with his head, even though he doesn’t need to look to see it. They’ve started picking up on each other’s body language after a year with only each other to talk to. It would be kinda funny if Grace wasn’t so confused.
“Hail Mary broken, question? Blip A at Tau Ceti. No fuel. Can not be here.”
Grace breaks eye contact with the speaker and looks down at Rocky. “I’m just as confused as you are buddy.” He pulls off his goggles and gloves and throws them on the work bench, quickly checking that everything was organized enough that he could leave it for now, before turning towards the cockpit. “Come on, let’s go take a closer look.”
Rocky starts rolling down the hallway leading up to the cockpit as Grace follows behind him. By the time he’s climbed his way up and settled the pilot’s chair, Rocky has already taken his place next to the seat.
“Alright, let’s take a look,” he mutters as he adjusts his glasses and pulls up the screen. With all the practice he’s gotten reading these charts, it only takes him a second to parse out the readings. According to Mary, Blip A was floating at a leisurely pace almost parallel to the Hail Mary’s current course. It should actually be close enough to see out the window. Leaning over and squinting into the darkness, he catches movement just on the edge of the window’s view.
“...What?” That’s not the Blip A.
“What Grace see, question? Grace tell Rocky! Blip A, question?”
Grace takes a second to register the rapid fire questions from the alien, as he tries to figure out what he’s even seeing out there. “No.. no its not the Blip A, it looks -”
“Why Mary say Blip A if not Blip A, question. Stupid.”
Grace looks over, stuttering “Oh that's just - that’s what the computer calls the stuff it finds. I forgot-”
“Grace say ship must have name, statement.-”
“-yeah, it just -”
“-All ships named Blip A, question? Why-”
“OKAY!” Grace practically yells, interrupting Rocky’s endless questions with one big clap. “Just… hold on for just a second pal, I’m trying to figure out what I’m even seeing here.”
Rocky thankfully quiets down, rolling up closer to the window alongside Grace like he could actually see what’s behind the glass. Grace turns his gaze back to the craft in front of him. Now that he takes a closer look, it is a craft, and a shoddily constructed one at that. Even from this far away, he can see patches of metal roughly welded together to create something just this side of airtight. At least it used to be. The thing looked like it had been hit by a bulldozer, and then backed over for good measure. There were holes punched into the metal big enough to stick his arm through, the glass on the front was cracked, one tap away from shattering completely, and the whole thing was covered in dents and scratches. He couldn’t even see any way for the thing to propel itself. He leaned in a bit closer to see around the back and … is that a propeller? Like on a-
“..submarine?” He whispers, almost to himself, trying to process what’s in front of him. Maybe he needs that nap a bit more than he thought.
“Rocky not know word,” interjects Rocky from beside him, startling Grace. He had forgotten that Rocky was there.
“Sorry bud, it’s a, it’s like a ship, like the Hail Mary, but used to explore underwater, not space. I don’t even know how it got up here. It shouldn’t be able to leave the ground, let alone the atmosphere.”
Rocky considers this for a moment. Finally, he sits up, straightening his front two legs to face Grace above him. “Other ship, question? Like Hail Mary or Blip A. Save stars, question.”
“You think it came from another ship?” He turns back to the window. “I guess, it would have had to. But why would someone bring a submarine up here? There are no rockets, no propulsion, you would just be floating in space with no way of navigating. You couldn’t even leave, there’s no airlock. And if there was another ship in the area, the Hail Mary would pick it up. And that’s not even considering the HOLES in the -”
“Grace Rocky look, statement!” Rocky takes a step forward, resting the xenonite ball against Grace’s body.
“You want me to go in there??” Grace nearly shrieks. It looks like a horror movie set piece, plus those holes look like they go straight though the hull, so the chances of anything in there surviving the vacuum of space are slim. And, because the universe hates Grace, the whole thing is tinged a rusty shade of red that is oddly reminiscent of blood. At least he thinks it’s rust.
What else could it be?
“Rocky Grace get answers. Why here, question. Maybe save more stars.”
Grace looks back at what he was calling in his mind the Scary Submarine of Death. “There is no way that I am going out there.”
***
Twenty minutes later, Ryland Grace is standing in the open airlock of the Hail Mary, using whatever tethers he can find with whatever anchor points he can find on the strangest ship he’s ever seen to pull the thing close enough to the airlock that he can get inside. Upon closer inspection, he very quickly found that the port hole was welded shut (WHAT??????????), so instead he was going to do his best to take a peak in one of the larger holes in the hull.
After a little bit of fiddling with the straps, he was fairly certain that the thing was not going to fly away with him inside. Then he did a bit more fiddling with the straps just to put off getting any closer. The thing did not look any less scary up close. The jagged edges of the punctures in the metal looked like teeth, and he was not looking forward to sticking any part of himself anywhere near there.
The intercom in his ear crackles to life. “Grace so slow! What take Grace so long, question?”
Grace takes a deep breath. “I’m almost ready bud.” He was ready five minutes ago if he was being honest. He was not.
“Amaze amaze amaze! It’s time go!”
Grace takes another big deep breath, looking into the darkness inside the sub. Turning on the lights he brought with him to the open airlock and holding it in front of him like a shield, he mutters “Yeah, sure. It’s time go.”
He slowly manages to convince his feet that they are not, in fact, stuck to the floor, and cautiously steps closer to the biggest tear in the hull. Tear is the right word to use here, he thinks. It looks like something ripped the thick iron walls apart like paper, creating a hole large enough to fit his whole body though without having to worry about the sharp metal tearing his suit. Which doesn't mean he isn’t concerned. But, yeah, sure, let's go into the creepy space submarine because his alien crab friend insists. What is his life?
When the first rays of light shine into the submarine, all he can see is red. The entire inside of the sub is coated in a thick, dark layer of what looks like ice, if ice were blood red. He pauses in the threshold, taking in the dark, cramped interior. When he looks down and notices that his hand is touching the blood red walls, he starts (and definitely does not scream a little), pulling his hand away like it’s burning him. He contemplates calling it quits right there, because what the heck is this? But, after fighting for a few deep breaths, he rationalizes that there is no way that it’s actually blood. Surely, it's just some other liquid with a high concentration of iron. You would have to drain, like, a dozen people to get this much blood. Ugh.
“Okay, we’re not thinking about that,” he chastises himself, shaking his head sharply to clear his mind and stopping to take a second, closer look. He sees the front of the ship, the vague outline of a window, a control panel, a spinny chair, just like the one he used to have in his classroom for the more fidgety kids. And himself.
Looking across, he sees what might have been an intercom, once upon a time, various pipes on the walls under the ice, a fire extinguisher knocked loose from its spot on the wall (what kind of aliens have exactly the same fire extinguishers as Earth?), and all the way at the back, where the light struggled to reach was a computer terminal and…
Grace screams and shoves himself back away from the opening. Rocky, on the other side of the intercom, hears him and starts demanding to know what happened. Grace can’t hear him over the ringing in his ears. He feels warm all over, he needs to take his suit off before he throws up. That was a corpse. A human corpse floating around, frozen or suffocated to death, ten feet in front of him, he needs to get out of here, he needs to get out right now.
He starts going for the external door controls, he just needs to close the door so he can figure out what to do next, he doesn’t care that the straps will get caught in the door, it’ll still seal. He scrambles a little to find the handle, torn between looking where he’s grabbing and keeping an eye on the submarine’s still open maw. Right as he feels his hand close around the handle, he sees movement from inside the sub.
Which is insane. He's actually gonna go insane. He already is insane.
A hand extends out from the darkness. It wraps around the side of the submarine, scrambling for a handhold, and starts to pull. The corpse, (or the guy who should absolutely be a corpse, how is he not dead, he is in space without an EVA suit) pulls himself out of the submarine with herculean effort. He doesn’t appear to notice Grace, fighting with what is very clearly the last of his strength, even in zero gravity, to pull himself free of the SM-13.
Grace is stuck to the floor, staring dumbly, not even beginning to comprehend any of this. The guy-who-should-absolutely-be-dead finally pulls himself fully out of the sub with enough force to send him flying toward the airlock, almost hitting Grace. He bounces off the interior door and starts hurtling back towards open space. This finally forces Grace’s brain to get in gear. Pulling himself out of his panic, he grabs the guy by the back of his sweater, slams the door shut, and interrupts Rocky’s demands for updates by telling him to turn the gravity back on. Right. Now.
The airlock re-pressurizes and after a moment, the ship starts to spin enough that Grace can get his feet on the floor. The stranger is not so graceful (which compared to Grace is saying something), and slowly falls to the floor, choosing this moment to pass out once again. By the time everything is pressurized and spinning fully, Rocky is opening up the interior door of the airlock, ready to make sure his friend is okay. When the door opens, he notices the other man, and they both go completely still.
Grace and Rocky both stand there for a long time, just looking at this man who somehow survived the vacuum of space. Well, Grace has been calling him a man in his head, he looks vaguely human shaped. But, the more that Grace looks, the more inaccurate that assessment feels.
The first thing he notices is the arm. It's missing. Just underneath the shoulder, the flesh near the wound looks torn to shreds. Without thinking, Grace grabs his own arm in sympathy. His gaze moves up to the man’s face. His mouth goes much further back then a human’s does, the ends of his mouth almost reaching his ears. Poking out from behind his lips are thin, needle sharp teeth. One side of his face is a mottled mass of flesh, looking almost melted. The fingers of his one good arm are tipped with claws and, as he fully settles with the gravity, his legs fall to the side and oh my lord is that a tail???? And, to top it all off, he looks like he has gone for a swim in blood, soaking his hair, his clothes, and as the red ice starts to melt, the floor of the airlock.
“Grace Rocky medbay now”
“Yeah, yep, let’s do that, good idea”