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The beetles make it to Earth. Against all odds, a solution to their Astrophage problem falls from the heavens. They had waited a long time for this and secretly - or not so secretly, for many - they hadn't been sure it would ever return. It feels like a miracle. Everyone can agree on that. Whether it was a miracle from God or from science was irrelevant. They were going to live. Nothing else mattered.
They were going to live.
It had been a long time since the world experienced joy like the day the Hail Mary team - reformed when the beetles were first spotted coming home - launched the Taumoeba probe to Venus.
Perhaps it was foolish to celebrate so soon. The finish line is in sight, but they still have to finish the race. So much could go wrong between and now. The probe had to not only arrive on Venus. It also had to work as expected. Dr. Grace's work held up to every skeptic, critic, and naysayer on Earth and the Taumoeba works beautifully in every test they can fathom. It will work. Every sign points to success and quite simply, it can't not work. They've given up too much for it to fail.
Even the most superstitious pessimist couldn't help but be absorbed in the festivities once the probe escapes the atmosphere and starts its journey to Venus. The launch is watched by nearly three billion people. Practically the world's entire population. Dimitri can't speak for what the parties around the world look like, but Merritt Island lights up in a way he hasn't seen for decades.
The roads in and out of the launch center are closed, too crowded with people who had happily left their cars behind and walked to get a closer look. Even now, late into the night and hours after the launch, the crowds remain. There's singing and dancing, people bringing out what little food they have to share, desperate embraces, dreams of a better tomorrow. It's human. Deeply, beautifully human. It's what they sacrificed so much to save.
The celebrations on the street pale in comparison to the energy behind the heavily guarded gates of the Kennedy Space Center. Any hope for decorum was tossed out the window as soon as the rocket cleared. Scientists and soldiers alike run amok, sharing beer and liquor and memories of the old days, back when the sun shone bright. The younger soldiers, young enough to have no memory of a healthy world, drink the most, equal parts eager and fearful of what their world will look like soon. Dimitri hasn't seen unbridled youth like this in a long time.
Save for a few absolutely crucial workers - who are gifted an even bigger luxury in the place of liquor, fizzy sodas and sweets and fresh fruit - everyone is outside. Watching the stars, pretending they can see the probe as it makes its way through space, enjoying the frigid night before the Taumoeba gets to work. Even as a famous face around the base, Dimitri gets little interruption as he makes his way through from celebration to celebration. His spin drives might have gotten humanity to its solution, but this is a night everyone will tell their children about someday. He doesn't blame the crowds for caring more about their own joy than some scientist.
He prefers the anonymity. He's happy his work was able to push humanity towards salvation, but he's not proud of everything it took to get here. He doesn't want the ramblings of an old man to bring the mood down for any of these kids.
Dimitri wanders for hours, sharing shots and drinks and keeping his mouth shut as he listens to stories of what everyone's survived to get here and everything they plan to do with the future they never planned on. As the crowds get thinner, people wandering off into each other's beds, he keeps strolling through, lost in old memories. He doesn't want the night to end. He doesn't want to be alone. He knows his old team well enough to know that they'll come if beckoned.
There's a little bar at the edge of the base, a barebones place for crews to bond between the long days. It's empty now, everyone either asleep or happier to celebrate out in the open air. It's also been left open, something that makes Dimitri's life easier, though he hadn't planned on letting a locked door stop him. He sends a message in their seldom used group chat, nothing but a location, and gets to work.
There's a television in the back, still turned on to the news coverage. It cycles between footage of the launch and the video logs from the Hail Mary. It's been nearly two months since the beetles came back and still the logs are on nearly constantly. Dimitri doesn't blame the news networks for it. He's still trying to wrap his head around the discovery of intelligent life in the 40 Eridani star system. He just wishes he didn't have to see his dead friends every time he looks at a screen.
Dimitri keeps the television on, though he mutes the volume. There's already a ghost in the room. It doesn't need to talk as well.
He lets himself behind the bar and looks through the selection of liquor. He'll pay them back later if they insist, but he has a feeling being a high ranking officer on the original project has earned him more than a few drinks. He starts with a hearty glass of vodka for Ilyukhina, his fellow countrywoman. Yao's preferred German beer had gone out of business years ago, but Dimitri pours a hefeweizen on draft that he hopes will suffice. For Grace, he digs in the back of the fridge for a bottle of American lager and, because it feels more disrespectful not to act like old times, mumbles under his breath about watered down piss as he sets all three drinks on the counter.
With the important ones out of the way, Dimitri goes to fix himself a drink. Vodka, of course, though cut with soda water in his old age. He raises his glass in the direction of the others before taking a drink. If he closes his eyes, he can almost hear the clinks.
Steve Hatch is the first to arrive. Dimitri isn't surprised. Steve is almost perpetually frazzled, but he's always happy to drop everything and get together when an invitation comes. If it were up to him, they would have probably all moved into a commune in the Canadian wilderness after the launch. Dimitri isn't used to being outdone in friendliness, but he doesn't mind it.
He gestures to the bar. "Fix you a drink, my friend?"
"Oh, I'd love a bourbon. Something to warm me up, you know? Won't be saying that for much longer." Steve laughs. He pauses by their friends' drinks for a moment, hovering a reverent hand over them. His eyes flutter closed and he mumbles something under his breath. A prayer, perhaps. Dimitri gives him the dignity of pretending the bourbon has his full attention and says nothing until Steve speaks again. "Do you think honey will be commercially available soon? I'd do anything for a honey bourbon."
"If you want honey, we find honey. We are famous saviors of Earth! We pull strings, honey can be here in just few days," Dimitri offers.
Steve shakes his head so violently, Dimitri worries he'll spill his drink. Then they'll really have a problem on their hands. "Oh, no, no, no. I don't like throwing our weight around like that. They let my wife and I have our three kids even after the birthing limits were put in place and that's more than enough for me. I mean, maybe I would have liked a fourth to put them in a band, but no, that was generous enough. I'll wait like everyone else."
"Eh. Your beetles saved Earth. More than fair exchange."
"No, Dr. Grace saved Earth. Saved more than Earth, actually. I was just lucky to play a small part."
Crafting the probes that not only brought their salvation back, but also gave the Hail Mary fuel to escape an impossible situation seems like more than just a small part, but Dimitri knows Steve well enough by now to understand there's no talking him out of his humility.
They sit at one of the low tables together, sipping their drinks in silence as they watch the footage on TV. Grace is making chains in this one, doing busy work in the background as his little alien friend explains their plan. Dimitri likes this one. He likes seeing how Grace huffs and rolls his eyes and tries to act exasperated in the back. He especially likes seeing the light in his eyes, the smile that sneaks out of him despite his best efforts.
It's a side of Grace even he hadn't seen in all their time working together. Maybe he should feel jealous that an alien creature so different from anything here on Earth was able to elicit such a reaction out of him. He only feels peace, though. Happiness that his old friend wasn't alone in the end.
Dr. Lamai comes through the doors next, closely followed by Dr. Lokken. If Dimitri were to guess, Dr. Lamai had hovered near the entrance waiting for a friendly face to walk in with. It's been difficult for her ever since the beetles arrived and she learned her robots weren't enough to keep Yao and Ilyukhnia alive. Dimitri is simply glad to see she's ventured out.
"Drinks?" he offers, standing and going back to his post behind the bar.
"It's nearly four in the morning," Dr. Lokken says, too scandalized for someone who is also standing in a bar at nearly four in the morning.
"I'll take that as a yes," Dimitri decides.
They don't give him anything to work with, so he simply pours what he's seen them drink the most in the decades they've known each other. A dry white wine for Dr. Lokken, a sweet red for Dr. Lamai. They don't say anything as he sets their glasses in front of them, but when the television cycles from launch footage back to old video logs, they both take swigs.
Dimitri is sure everyone in the room has watched these videos as often as he has. He's sure that, just like him, it doesn't matter that the videos are muted. They know every word, every twitch, every breath. Just like him, Dimitri is sure their dreams are haunted by dead astronauts. No one goes to unmute the video, but their eyes are glued nonetheless.
"The launch went beautifully," Steve remarks, simply aching to fill the silence. "I can't believe this will all be over soon. If Grace's calculations are correct, and they will be, just a few more months and we should start seeing the sun's luminosity increase again."
"I don't know why I'm even here for this," Lamai mumbles. "I don't have anything to do with launches or probes. My job was done when the Hail Mary launched. Poorly executed regardless."
"Your robots got Grace to Tau Ceti. More, they saved his life from disaster on Adrian and severe ammonia burns we could never predict. You did not fail, Dr. Lamai," Dimitri says, stern in the way one speaks to a child. Always afraid one wrong move might send them scurrying. "Whole mission was risk. They understood."
Dr. Lamai doesn't respond. She only finishes her wine in one long gulp and passes her empty glass back to Dimitri. He's all too happy to top her off. He fills the glass to the top, portion sizes be damned. If anyone has earned the right to drink to excess it’s them.
(In truth, it's the astronauts they sent to die. But in their absence, they're decent runner ups.)
They fall to silence again. This isn't the first time they've gotten together since the launch. Every few years, on anniversaries or milestones, they gravitate to each other. It's never planned more than a few days in advance, but where else would they go to spend those awful days? There's no one in the world who understands the choices they had to make.
Their meetings often go like this. Stumbling into near empty bars one by one, sipping their drinks, sitting in silent regret until the alcohol has made someone brave enough to voice the thoughts weighing them down. Sometimes there's more of them present. Sometimes less. As he runs through a mental tally of who was present at the launch today, Dimitri suspects this might be it for the night. He's sure someone will break the silence soon.
He doesn't expect Eva Stratt to come through the door.
Dimitri can count on one hand the times she's joined them for this bittersweet reminiscing. In truth, he barely needs the second hand to count the times he's seen her at all since the launch. At first, she'd been swept up in trials and performative prison sentences. Then, she'd had her hands full trying to keep the Earth afloat as it grew ever colder, all behind the scenes and no credit to her name. Now she busies herself with guilt.
The shock must be obvious on all their faces. It's difficult to hide themselves when the day has already worn them down with emotion, liquor, and simple exhaustion. Stratt huffs and pulls her coat tighter around herself. In some ways, the years have softened her. In others, she is exactly the same no nonsense dictator the world needed to have any hope of survival.
"You don't have to all stare like you've seen a ghost. You did invite me," she points out.
"In a way, we have all seen ghosts recently, no?" Dimitri points a thumb at the television, at Grace's grinning face telling them he's just met an alien.
The joke doesn't land. Even Steve fixes him with a displeased look. Dimitri only shrugs. He had to try.
Stratt doesn't wait for anyone. She lets herself behind the bar and pours herself two gins with a whisper of tonic. She downs the first glass quickly enough that even Dimitri is impressed. When she sits, it doesn't escape their notice that she stays at the bar, away from the rest of them and with her back to the TV screen.
She looks miserable as she nurses her second drink. "No champagne? We saved the world."
Steve hesitates, gazing down at the bourbon he's barely touched. "There was plenty of that at the launch. I'd like to save the rest for the kids who were just handed a future. You must feel the same or you would still be out there basking in the celebrations."
"Is it not our future, too?" Stratt asks.
When they were younger, it might have sounded defensive. Scathing, even. Dimitri can only remark on how small her voice sounds now. Had it always been like this? Had he misremembered what a force she was back on the ship? Surely he hadn't fabricated the fear they'd all felt when she rounded the corner, the urgency to get their tasks done lest she start breathing down their neck, the snide remarks of how Eva Stratt had been born for a moment of tyranny like this?
"We left the future out there. This is for mourning," Steve says.
Stratt rolls her eyes and scoffs. It's a glimpse of the woman she used to be. "I don't see why you're so torn up about it. Aren't you always telling anyone who'll listen that they've all gone to heaven? If you really believed that, you'd have nothing to grieve. You'll see them again."
Steve's smile doesn't even falter as he shrugs. "I do believe they're in heaven. More than believe. I know they are. I also know that murder is a sin."
Lokken is the first to break. Her voice holds steady, but tears have begun to rush down her face. "Has it been long enough? Is it late into the night enough? Are we going to finally talk about it?"
Stratt sits impossibly straighter. She grips her glass so tightly it's a miracle it doesn't shatter. "The parameters of the mission were always clear. They made their choices."
"Did they?" Lokken laughs. "We might have gone along with the story all this time, but don't insult our intelligence, Stratt. We all know Dr. Grace didn't go willingly."
All this time, Dimitri thought this was something that they had all chosen to leave unspoken. This was their own cowardice, how they got together all these years to wallow in their misery and guilt, but not once did they give voice to the truth. To say it out loud would have been to give too much power to the ugly, murderous side of themselves. Until now, Dimitri was sure this was a choice they had all made together.
Seeing how Stratt's wide eyes bounce between them, Dimitri realizes it might not have been as clear to everyone. He thinks he should be offended, like Lokken said, that she would be prideful enough to think they wouldn't figure it out. He just feels sad, instead. Sad for DuBois and Shapiro who died before seeing the stars. Sad for Yao and Ilyukhina, so ready to give everything up for Earth and gone before the moment that mattered. Sad for Dr. Grace and the violence of his last memories on Earth. Sad for Stratt having spent this whole time thinking she carried this burden alone.
Dimitri takes pity and fills the silence they've fallen into. "We were with you and Dr. Grace when you ask him to go on mission. He refused. You say he change his mind, but we never see him again. Is not difficult to connect dots."
"We all knew what we were doing when you called us into that conference room," Dr. Lamai agrees in a mumble.
Stratt recovers. She wipes the regret off her face and steels herself. Always their leader, for better or worse. "It was my decision to keep him as the tertiary science specialist and it was my decision to send him on the mission under any means necessary."
"Are you so enamored with your own misery you can't share this?" Lokken asks. "You loaded the gun, but we all pulled the trigger."
"You didn't even like him," Stratt reminds her. "You spent months telling me I should remove him from the project."
"Dr. Grace was an insufferable, selfish bastard. He was full of himself and his people skills left much to be desired. Even watching the video logs, all I see is that smug smile of a man who needed to always feel like the smartest one in the room," she agrees. She has to pause a moment to collect herself. "He was also infuriatingly friendly, charming, and he had a real brain to back up his bravado. He woke up twelve lightyears from home, alone, betrayed by everyone he knew, and he still found it in himself to befriend an alien creature and save our planet. How could I possibly hate him?"
"Should we, perhaps," Steve suggests carefully, "table the discussion of the murder we did or did not commit and just... remember our friend?"
Lokken offers a watery smile. "I said I didn't hate him, but friend might be too strong a word."
Dimitri laughs. "He would not be bothered. He would say you are narrow minded idiot and then show up in your office with bag of American candy to share. I hope there are Skittles wherever he is."
"Sour skittles," Stratt corrects. She manages a weak laugh. "None of you have any idea how expensive it was getting those candies shipped to the boat. He told me once not to bother, but he just looked so sad. He was a strange man."
"He was different. There's nothing wrong with different. His charm was universal. Clearly." Lamai gestures at the television, where Grace and Rocky are sitting together and gesticulating wildly as they speak.
Dimitri remembers this one. They had both grown more excited with every word, unbridled joy as they explained the nitrogen resistant Taumoeba and their plans to distribute them to their respective stars. This was one of the last logs before they parted ways. Dimitri remembers all too well the pain he'd felt at seeing Grace's excitement as he explained the Eridian had given him enough extra fuel to go home. The first log Grace had them watch was when he explained he was turning around to save his friend. Dimitri hadn't been able to live for even a moment in a reality where Grace returned to them, but it still hurt to know he had been so close to coming home.
The compilation cuts to that very log now. Grace fills the screen in his white flight suit, looking every bit like the astronaut he claimed he could never be. Dimitri is struck, like he always is, by how young Grace looks. It feels impossible to think they were all that young once.
Stratt reaches behind the bar for the TV's remote. She doesn't bother asking before turning the volume on. All she says is, "I like this one."
Grace's voice fills the bar. He's dead, has been for years by now most likely, but for a moment longer, maybe they can pretend otherwise. Dimitri drags his chair closer to the women and puts an arm around both Lokken and Lamai. Neither of them try to move away or make snide remarks. This weighs too heavily to push away human comfort, even if it is coming from a man they often complained was too boisterous.
They watch Grace explain that he's going to turn the ship around to try to find Rocky. They watch him grin as he does, unafraid as he turns around and pilots toward certain death. They watch him explain the Taumoeba farms and get one last teasing jab in at Stratt. They watch him bid them farewell in the strange, alien way he'd adopted. They watch him finally shed the last remnants of the Earthbound Dr. Ryland Grace they'd all known.
Dimitri lifts his glass in the air. "To Dr. Captain Ryland Grace. To being brave in the end."
"To finding friendship in the narrow places." Steve takes a hurried sip of his bourbon before toasting. Dimitri is sure Grace would have found it more amusing than disrespectful.
"To... To stubbornness, I suppose," Lokken lands on.
Lamai doesn't look up from her lap as she offers her wine. "To his steadfast will to live."
They all look expectantly at Stratt. Her eyes are glued on the TV, mouthing along to Grace's words. She only turns to them when the program cuts back to a recap of the launch. She hesitates. "To Earth and the great love he had for it. I only wish he'd been able to see it one last time."
In the morning, they'll go their separate ways. Their flights are booked, future projects lined up. There are no plans for the probe to return to Earth. If everything goes according to plan, the Hail Mary team will never need to convene again. Dimitri suspects they'll never be in the same room again. At least not until there are funerals to attend. Maybe that should make him sad. Melancholic, perhaps.
But as they sit and talk until the sun rises, rehashing old memories of their astronauts and voicing fearful hopes of how the world might recover, Dimitri can feel nothing but a deep gratitude for this one last gift they've received from Dr. Grace.