Chapter Text
When I woke up, I didn’t remember much of anything. I crashed out after discovering I’m that last crew member alive, followed by discovering I’m in space. I came to terms, as well as anyone reasonably would in this situation, with the knowledge there’s no way I’m going home.
In the end, I decided it would be respectful to give my compatriots - Yáo and Ilyukhina, I re-learned – a proper send-of. To their last resting place among the stars. I sit with my feelings for a while after wrapping up the ceremony, allowing myself to properly grieve these people.
My friends.
The last people I would’ve-
“Foreign body detected.”
My brows furrow at the announcement over the Hail Mary’s speaker. What is a- creepers, what is THAT?!
I see it, outside the airlock. Faint, but there. A blob of… some sort of liquid substance. It’s opaque and… has something sticking out of it? Whatever it is, it’s got momentum and it does not seem to be slowing down. I have to come up with an action plan FAST.
Considering I can’t escape, I decide to do the next best thing.
Panic.
“SHIELDS UP!” I command the ship.
“The Hail Mary doesn’t have shields.”
Dang it.
“Okay… okay, we need to deal with this, Mary. How do I go about this?”
“Would you like to go for a space walk, Dr. Grace?”
No. But I also see no other way of going about this properly. One of the many factors that hadn’t been factored in, I suppose.
“Alright.”
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In the time it has taken me to get the Hail Mary to get out of autopilot until I turn it back on, and into the EVA suit, the blob has gotten considerably closer. It’s been undulating ominously, various limbs of sorts escaping and getting reabsorbed. It gives me the creeps, but so does this the idea of a space walk, so what do I really have to lose?
Maybe the contents of my stomach. I almost lose that, but I somehow manage to keep it in. Something about adrenaline and thinking in the moment. I need to minimize my mess, and that… somehow seemed like enough motivation that my body listens to.
I breathe deep before I step out, make the mistake of looking down, and quickly decide to… not look that way for the foreseeable future. I need a point to focus on.
Back to the blob. It’s about my size. Kind of… vaguely egg shaped? But liquid. A mangled nub of sorts keeps bobbing in and out, so that’s what I gave to focus on if I want to grab it.
I reach.
Reach…
Reeeeaaach..- YES!
I have contact, yanking it in to hopefully leave most of the liquid off the ship. It’s mostly successful, but as it tends to do in space, a layer of liquid sticks. It’s a little viscous, like… like blood, I want to say. I can’t get a good look at what I’ve got here, but it looks humanoid in nature. Physically, anyway. This could still be anything, but at least it’s similar to me in size.
I’m still unsure as to how this appeared, especially at the time and place it happened. Like the universe went “Here, catch.”
I did catch it.
Uh…
I hadn’t thought this far ahead.
I already got further than I would dare to think.
When in doubt, see if the ship can figure it out, I guess. It seems human enough for me to reasonably take it to Armando. Sounds like a sound enough plan.
To the med-bay with you.
I carefully maneuver the body as I also maneuver myself through the corridor, careful to make as little contact with the walls as possible. I want to clean up as little of this stuff as possible once I have this situation sorted out.
It takes me a good ten minutes, if not more, to get to where Armando can take over. I leave the bot to its business, watching briefly while it starts cleaning the body, before I decide it’s time to get Mary back on track and clean her up.
While doing this, I start to ponder.
If this were a human being… or at least something with the same anatomy… an arm would be partially missing. There was a shoulder there and part of the upper arm, but the rest looked torn off. I’m glad I didn’t get a good look at it and only realize it now, in a lower stress situation.
Does Armando know how to…? Surely, right? I- yeah. Armando would be equipped for an emergency amputation, this seems close enough to that. Speaking of, this being must be still alive… How did it survive in space? There wasn’t much protecting it… or was the liquid blob protecting it? Would that be enough protection from space? Had I been quick enough to save it? I won’t know until later.
Why was it out there in the first place? I cannot reason why… Then again, we are in deep space. I don’t know, and by the looks of it I don’t know if I want to know.
Let’s just clean for now.
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With the EVA suit off and autopilot resumed, I get to it. This stuff sure behaves like blood, I wonder…
I return to the airlock, hopeful that- No, none left. I did too good of a job keeping the space clean. There’s some drops, but I don’t think I can salvage without it being contaminated.
Meticulously, much more so than usual, I clean my way back to the medbay, where the stranger is being tended to. I finish up before I take another peek into the room. Armando has done a great job cleaning the guy- I can see it’s a human male now- up… well… I wouldn’t call him fully human. But humanoid also feels wrong.
Most of him looks about right…
There’s just… mutations, I suppose?
They’ll scar for sure, but I can t tell what’s happening inside of him. But, Armando isn’t actively operating anymore, just wrapping up the last bit of stump. I might have to get in there and start taking care of him before Armando gets to that phase of care. I don’t know what he wants to look like and I’m not taking chances.
Maybe it’s an uncanney valley effect that will go away as we share this habitat. Maybe it’s the idea that I pulled this man from space like an hour ago.
I sigh, leaving to rifle through the personal stuff sent up with us. Surely Ilyukhina packed a brush. I don’t see who else would have one with them…
Eventually, I find a brush, making my way back down. It feels weird, brushing this space man’s hair with the brush that belonged to a dead crewmate. But, you gotta work with what you got.