Jim On A Bim

Like what if you met them after being left in space yourself- completely alone and resigned to your fate and then boom. Chaos. Omfg i cant stop thinking about it. (cross posted to ao3)

Find Part one , Part two, Part three and four here! 🦊🛘☀️

(part 6 will be coming soon ;)

A/N: Slightly shorter chapter- big apologies, ive still not edited any of this lmfao but i hope the content redeems me. We're getting to the good stuff now. 🍀 also quick edit to thank yall for the notes and comments on the series so far, i rly appreciate them. They’ve truly kept me motivated to keep writing 🫶🏻💖

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The lights from the Hail Mary flashed over the observation room, Simon's invisible form piloting it remarkably well for someone who claimed to have not been trained. That was the naturally gifted for you. You don’t know if there was anything you'd inanely excelled in the same way Grace did with Biology, Rock with maths or Simon and a ship's helm. You had no idea how you ended up as a Superior Officer on artemisVi, other than you'd worked so much in so many places you’d made yourself noticed- useful but not indispensable. 

Perhaps it was just down to your skills as a general fix it all on 16 Psy that got Corp’s attention. Three years of hell on that asteroid, yet you were ready to get back out to another job as soon as you'd returned to base. It's not like they'd given you much of a choice, if you were on your feet- you worked. You'd decide that's why they liked you, you were insufferably sturdy. Willing to do anything, know anything. 

Even if it was all just to climb the ladder to a destination that doesn’t exist anymore. 

You were, at least, good at your job. You kept the ship running, a background figure to the actors on centre stage. You didn’t resent it, it was the superiors officers responsibility to make the captains life easier, half of that was knowing everything they couldn’t be bothered to. You'd have never told Akila that when she was alive, and you certainly wouldn’t voice it now she was gone. 

It couldn’t be helped that she'd get distracted. She had friends. A relationship. What did you have but your workshop and machines. Constantly tinkering- tinkering away until there was no one left to avoid anymore. 

And yet here you were, with people you certainly didn’t want to avoid- and completely distracted for it. Needless to say, maybe you understood Akila a little more now. 

“Reader, come in.” Grace's voice scratched through. 

He was presumably sitting comfortably in Mary's co-pilot chair, though you knew Simon would never let him use the controls after seeing footage of his training. Some things could never be erased from your memory-  and watching Grace scream in panic while throwing the ship in circles, with just Rocky’s bitching for guidance, was one of them. You would need to get the cheeky alien something as good in return for showing you that. You wondered if you could get VI to run back the feed from when- 

“Reader!” Grace's voice fed back in, albeit more irritated than before.

(It honestly sounded more like panic but it felt weird to assume he actually cared where you were on the other side of his feed. Even though you were definitely wondering what they were doing).

“Sorry I was thinking, it's the new big thing around here.” Your finger popped off the radios button as you checked on the proximity, seeing the Mary was guiding itself through the emptiness, skillfully settling over to dock. 

“Ah yes, the most dangerous hobby of them all.” The blonde jested back, laughter still warm like honey dew as it cracked through the feed. 

You wondered what their view was like outside their ship- yet to advance into it. Mostly because setting foot on there felt like being asked to stand on the ledge of a cliff, your heart not allowing a  compromise with logic and reason. From here though, the few undamaged cameras left, let you see a sliver of the pilot deck, and its shiny glass panels that revealed the small figures within. 

The ship bumped close to yours with a veer to the right, your sliver of glass gone in a second. Replaced by the standard panelling across the rest of the smaller ship. A pale ant against the bronze goliath. 

“Do me a favour,  tell the Captain if Mary scratches Artemus, VI’s threatened to hack her.” 

“Not Mary- She's just a child!” He shouted through the feed, fighting to be heard over the sound of Simon's booming laughter.

Your body was flush with amusement, a blush born through your chest to your face. You hated to admit how easily their eager energy spilled into you, each moment enacting itself around you with ease. As though that’s where you had always been. Strangely it brought out a part of you that only VI had gotten to see. VI was technically alone too in a way.  Until Mary. Mary was an idiot though. 

“Eh, technically I think it's actually cannibalism." Simon countered.

Ok that was officially way too much knowledge about starship's internal systems for someone who said they’d never seen one before. 

“Fascinating, how does that even work?” Grace asked.

“I degrade the base model by swarming it with commands until I overwhelm its system. Your ship is rudimentary enough that it would overheat- Mary would in effect be cannibalising itself. Which is ridiculous to say as AI cannot consume in a human notion and therefore cannot-”

While VI made a good point, Mary was probably running on a rudimentary cooling system—nothing like the vast coolant tanks surrounding VI's motherboard. A smaller ship didn't need anything more. Regardless, Vi should have been starting to work through the airlock interlock and pressurisation process by now. 

“Yes my dear, you’re right, but us lowly humans need you to focus on docking.” You shifted in your seat, sending a cheeky grin out to the air in the hopes that she wouldn’t get too naggy over the interruption later.

“Not your dear.” It clicked off with an actual huff, clearly still also using this important time to work through those emotional development modules you got it. 

Even as your eyes spun in their sockets, It was a moment of pride. Unwilling it burst through everytime the AI acted out of spite or did something completely irrational. You wonder if you should go and collect Rock from his newly made home in the lab so you could tell him about it- he did seem to love learning about VI. 

By the time you found your Alien friend, the boys had finished reattaching the Hail Mary to her new home in airlock 8A. The ship now easily positioned to view the damaged radar. For the first time since the incident, you allowed yourself to tolerate the sight of it without the lens of a camera to buffer the aftermath of your mistakes. 

Rocky assessed the shuttle carefully- the arachnid like being letting out small high pitched squeaks that must have let him check each bolt and weld with more complexity than you’d ever understand. Theoretically you knew the winch would hold to the shuttle. It had to- Simon would be driving it, and as much as you’d rather it have been you ( it'd be your penance if anything was to happen), he literally didn’t have enough hands to man the weld and the rest of the tools you'd need. Not to mention moving the tether. 

No, the messier job was completely up to you, which was fine. If only it didn’t feel like you were inexplicably the safer one.

 You try to refocus on the fact that Rocky would be in the Hail Mary, sitting her as close by to Simon as he could. As far as you were concerned- he was going to need to practically be up the shuttle's ass for your heart to stop palpitating.

 The glamorised metal boxes weren't even really equipped for sustained solar radiation exposure, only made to transport people short distances to other ships. However, It was at least comfortable for the time Simon might have to spend inside, you hoped it would be. You were using an old executive model that, had you had even breathed on it wrong before, could’ve landed you in a mining colony to live out the rest of your miserable days. 

Even still, being a nicer model didn’t mean it would protect Simon from the Antiprotins. The metal would dissolve like candy floss in water, atomic stings decaying into nothing. You knew it would've been too fast for the people inside  to feel anything, there wasn’t enough time for the synapses in the brain to process the information before death.

 They hadn’t suffered any pain, there was no agony, not even the knowledge of their death. Your mouth went dry at the thought. Dread crawled through your stomach. It bristled under your exposed skin, the vulnerability painting goosebumps along your arms. You were not indestructible, neither was the Hail Mary but there wasn’t much else any of you could do. 

“You ok?” Grace asked.

Your eyes couldn’t help but be locked into his- and you saw the hope there, concern.

You looked over to Simon, who was still focused on his assessment of the shuttle, seemingly mapping every angle of it inside and out- His hand twitched against his thigh after every pass.

“Yeah- Just nervous about us being out there for that long. Being stuck.” You answer honestly, despite the twinge in your gut that argued against it.

“I'll be here, watching you guys with VI. We’ll be your eyes, Rocky your ears.” He assured,

 “If there's even a fraction of a movement from that Radome, the slightest chance it’s trajectory pulls it toward you- Mary will tell us. You’ll be pulled back inside in a second. You and Simon have done all the calculations, trust your work reader.”

Maybe it was his exceptionally mild manners, or the fact that he told you he used to teach children- but when Grace spoke, even when he was frustrated, tired or angry, he was still kind. Reassuring like he oozed out the lazy sweetness of a Sunday morning. But even with those sugary tints, his words failed to reach you. 

Because you weren't worried about yourself.

 He seemed to sense your caution with eyes that followed your gaze, straight over to the dark haired presence still shifting back and forth around the shuttle- like a soldier preparing for march. ***

“He’ll be ok. He doesn’t like being in enclosed spaces. I think being in the Artemis has been good for him- but I don't know if it's made getting in the shuttle easier.” Grace pulled his shaggy hair out of his face, letting you see the clear affection in his eyes as he sat back.

 “We want to help you, He wants to help you- I think he sees something of his old self in you.” He explained, smiling at Simon's distant figure. 

“He might be nervous but he’s doing this because he cares- not because he’s obligated.” Grace assured, but your eyebrows just ducked further down your forehead. 

“You guys can’t  give this much of a shit about someone you met two days ago.” You snapped. 

 It wasn’t meant to come out like an accusation, but it had. Or maybe you did mean it like that. How else could you have said it, how else could he interpret it.

Grace took a moment to think of your words, his pursed lips letting you believe you’d succeeded in setting your truth in stone. After a heartbeat though, he clapped a hand over his knee and rubbed it against the yellow fabric of his jumpsuit. The kind of tired exhale you expected from a much older man and not your astronaut flattened the room. Making space for his next words as yours cowered back into your dry mouth. 

“You don't measure how much you care though things like time or exchanges” He shook his head, light blonde strands catching the light as they tumbled down into his eyes. “Maybe you you did, where you’re from, but-” 

He looked back to you now, eyes shining against the warm yellow hues of the hangar. The ceiling shrank around you both, holding you together long enough to allow his words to settle into the ripped skin around your heart. 

“You can love someone at literally first sight, and you can hate the person that saved your home. Nothing has to make sense, other than we're human, and because of that we care.” He finished, letting himself settle into his spot on the floor, a shoulder meeting yours in a gentle tap. 

You nodded back, not because you didn’t agree but because there was nothing else you could say. The words had scraped the soft skin of your trachea and you had to swallow deeply to stop the burn from coveting your eyes. There was work to do after all- and you’d be damned if there was even a minute detail out of place. 

——

“Hold 4 is done.” Your voice shakes in the speaker as your hand moves to the next hold, clipping your tether into place as you fell back against the side of the ship- a scare gasp crawled out of your lungs at the force. 

If someone had asked you before, you'd have said the open planes of space were your habitat. The area you’d evolved for. Once upon a time, you relished in the immaculate feeling that flowed through you, when stifled air was replaced by empty atmosphere. The ship's door opening up to the universe's womb. You felt safe in your mothers embrace.  

But today, when those same doors opened in front of you as they had a million times before. You were burdened with the truth of your station, that your body was just a lonely plankton floating in a vast ocean. And you felt the mother, staring back at you. 

The radomes steel supports continued to melt under your fingers. Heat abandoned alongside your own, into the vacuum around you before you could heat your shaking bones. The torch in your hand shifted in your grip, escaping up as your fingers loosed around the betraying object. It snapped compliantly back against its restraint. 

“Steady on rightside, Reader, there's a 42 degree shift on the lateral.” Grace's voice clicked into your ear, steady as ever against your bowing restraint. 

The lost tool orbited your frozen figure as the radomes metal shuddered against you, letting out a silent roar as it strained under the force of its missing supports. Your breath, warm and moist against your cold skin fogged your visor, the blindness forcing your hands to shift along the smooth texture of the ship's surface. Hands flying out to reach for a hold as it shook. You searched against the sweat in your palms for the handrail or even just the thick girth of cable that floated around your solitary form, but none revealed themselves to your desperate fingers.  

 You were doomed and it was your own stupid fault for having sweaty hands that felt like limp sausages in your gloves.  

“Affirmative, I’ve got fucking shifting- this thing is moving!” You gasp into the comms, still sliding against metal. 

“Simon is the winch holding? Can you take the line up another notch?” The anxiety in your voice fills you with more as panic begets panic. 

“No, I put more upward force on this thing, we're gonna pull it off with you still strapped on.” 

Simon's voice steadied your breathing for a single heartbeat, enough time to realise he was half a mile away. Unable to get to you without either putting enough slack on the line to kill you or throwing you into deep space. You were stuck, free floating in space as the radome threatened to crush you between it and the ship

“Fuck.” You breathed out, “Ok- Fuck just one more to go.” 

You reached out slowly this time, letting your eyelids pull you into black. Without your brain straining for a tangible image, your body was able to flex its other senses. Your muscles remembering the ships folds and contours better than your mind, found the hold you needed. Adrenaline flooded through you alongside the relief, sticking you to the ship with an iron grip. 

“I got it!” You shouted, before shrinking back into your suit as the sound attacked your ears. 

The screech of feedback that followed your voice let you know it probably reached them in the same abrupt manner. Your eyes opened to the meeting of bronze and cream as the last metal beam glinted. Blinking to the steady pace of Mary's sensors as the light bounced off into your cloudy vision. Just a few more minutes and the misery of space could be replaced with the steady interior of your best friend. 

“That’ta girl!” Grace cheered, returning the squealing transmission back to you. 

The photon beam chewed the metal, bubbling and splitting like cream against acid. The molten metal blobbing off and hardening as it tumbled past you into the vastness, destined to drift across it,picking up speed forever and ever. You check the tether against your waist, following the belt to the clasp at your back. 

It shuddered once more under you, the vibrations travelling through your knees. You felt the clasp again and followed it to the handle it was looped across. Now your visor was clear, you could see another further back, away from the radomes looming shadow. You bit your lip, letting the pain groan you as you weighed the risks. You knew it was dangerous to unclasp yourself while the weld was powered up.  Which was why you didn’t say anything about what you were doing. Sliding yourself down as the weld continued to puncture the metal without you. 

Just a few inches more and your hand could push the metal clasp onto the handrails loop. You'd have to let go of the one you were holding though, already stretching across as far as you could go. You thought about it as you looked up, the beam was starting to take the shape of a half eaten apple, rough chunks flowing into the air. It was now or never. 

You let go, feeling your body lurch as momentum pushed you down toward to hold. One arm reached forward with the clasp, letting it guide you toward the rail as you free floated across space. An inch grew by a mile as time pressed against you, warping the seconds as your desperate eyes watched the handrail grow closer, just another itch more- 

“BAD MOVEMENT." 

“Grace, I can see movement.” Simon called back, fighting over Rocky's screeches. 

As the last of his words fed over the radome's vast structure swung to the right. The support holding it crumbled like sandstone, sending debris crashing into everything around. They bounced off one ship just to hurl toward the other, starting a deadly game of pinging with you and Simon stuck floating in the middle. 

“I’m off balance, Damn it! the counterweights are fouling the cable. The Left line’s overloaded!” Simon screamed into the radio.

Your hand let go of the rail as a large chunk of debris smacked into the back of your helmet. It threw you backward off the ship. Your head smacking into the clear front of your visor and smearing a thin stroke of blood across it as your body flipped around. Simon's voice lost to the black sand that gathered in your vision. It stung your eyes, the blood trickling into them as the world began to fold away from you.

“Get UP!” 

“UP CREWMATE SUPERIOR” VI’s screamed into your ear, voice warbling at the end as the emotion flooded its synthetic voice. 

Screamed. Why was it screaming? 

The tension on your belt constricted across your waist before you could think further, plucking you from the air and throwing you back toward the hull at break neck speed. Jagged metal shards that now stuck out the side of the ship growing larger in your red hued visor. 

“Reader come in!” 

You couldn’t hear who it was over the violence of your descent. Your arms flung out, only catching more of the tether as the slack tangled around you. Leaving your breaths coming in heavy pulls as your body's movements were stolen. You flipped again, eyes searching upward- the three ships the only fixed points on the horizon.

“I'm pulling it up!” 

Your next rotation was interrupted by the radome forcing itself past you, knocking your trajectory to the side and luckily for you- toward the open airlock. Sweet stars, you might actually fucking survive this. Just as the thought passed, you watched as the Radome engulfed the smaller shuttle. Its steel frame sagged around the tug's tether, panels flying off in various directions as its velocity hit zero, slamming into the winch like crushing a juice box. 

The shuttle behind it swayed, threatening to fly backward as it was pushed several feet. But the thrusters kicked in, bellowing white exhaust under the pressure. The winch and tug system, like loose moss, was sloughed off the front with a push of another thruster. Leaving a glittering trail of metal behind it it sunk into the space below. Leaving the ship to right itself against the frame of the Hail Mary. 

The sight was taken from you before you could see if Simon was ok. Landing against the ship, The current that carried you there brought more debris with you that knocked you back against the interior door. 

“Jesus Christ, Reader, come in. Are you ok!” Grace's voice finally registered against the blood pooling in your ears, sloshing about in the canal like a tidal pool. 

Finally given orientation and stabilisation, you were able to right yourself and look over your suit. 

No rips. No tears. 

“Im fine- Is Simon fucking ok?” You shouted into your mic, throwing your body against the airlock door as a sob broke through your lips. 

The outer door closed with a hiss, taking the sight of open space and your friends out there away from you- the hiss of decompression joining your quiet sniffles as your eyes leaked salty tears that mixed with the blood on your cheeks. 

“Simon come in.” Grace asked, not getting anything back. 

“Rocky come in, is Simon ok?” Grace's voice sounded as hoarse as your own, the line was still quiet, eventually only the sound of your breathing looping back to you. 

“SIMO-”

“We’re fine!” The line crackled, “We’re ok!” 

The alarm for decompression signaled, and you fell through into the Artemis’ interior on boneless legs. Falling to your knees and ripping your suit off so you could press your wet cheeks to the cold metal floor. A relieved laugh broke out from your cry as their voices carried over. 

You were sore, bruised and your side was swollen and tender against the hard ground. But you were alive. Everyone was alive. 

“Get your asses back over here, now. That's an order.” You coughed out, an affectionate laugh squeezing your injured ribs too tight. 

“Aimon is captain, according to human command structure- captain gives orders.” Rocky quipped back, you snorted, letting a light flow of air force itself out of your bloody nose. 

“Well this captain wants his feet back on the real ship.” Simon's voice followed. 

“Hey what's wrong with Mary!” Grace's voice replied, filled with relief and mock humor. 

You waited for a second, then a second more that stretched into a deep feeling of wrongness. The air buzzed with the absence of their laughter or replies. Your heavy head lifted to the corner speaker, blood smeared across the floor as it still dripped freely from your head and nose.

The Lights flickered in and out, fighting as an alarm began its first gasp, only to be smothered as the whole ship seemed to take a long sigh. The air cold as the breath of the ship's last life systems cut out- a deep groaning cry from machinery that was never designed to stop finally failing. And then- 

Like what if you met them after being left in space yourself- completely alone and resigned to your fate and then boom. Chaos. Omfg i cant stop thinking about it. (cross posted to ao3)

Find Part one , Part two and Part three here!

part 5 Out now bby !🦊

(🍀 Not edited yet , sorry for any mistakes!! Was going to split this chapter up into two because it felt too emotionally packed but decided against it- still not sure if it was the right choice ☘️)

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The emotional high you received from your newfound friendship had quickly mellowed into an ear-splitting headache. You assumed from the crying, but your pride had you holding on to supervise the experiment as long as you possibly could. A Xenon quartz crucible is now sitting curiously in your vacuum. Two scientists cooing over it like new parents as they reviewed their findings.

Simon had stuck by your side in the meantime, head burrowed into his notes as he helped you run the maths for the tug. Unmoving against your fidgets as the pain in your head overtook your progress.

​

“We heat sample successively, want to see how far implantation extends into the lattice. Statement.” Rocky said, followed by a charming flare of jazz hands that cracked loudly against the clear Xenon glass.

"Of course, Rocky.”Grace answered, glasses pressed firmly up his nose as his attention focused on tinkering away with the laser's heat settings.

Without the attention of his friend, the Rock shuffled in place- attempting to gain some extra height to nose on Grace's fingers, which were deftly twisting the dial. He only succeeded in wobbling slightly before subtly catching a flat side of his ball to the floor. Quick save buddy.

​

“Is setting to lowest now. Question” The audacious ask had the rocks lab partner slowly turn around, finally giving him the focus he desired. If not more sassily than expected.

​

The pair appeared to ‘stare’ at each other; you weren't really sure how that worked, but it was fucking weird to see. Especially when you knew one of them couldn’t even process light waves. Well, maybe he could (see in a way)- you hadn't asked about the science of it yet, but that didn't mean you weren't curious. One could only presume echolocation?

​

“Come on dude, how stupid do you think I am?” Grace snickered, bumping a hip into his friend's ball with a sassy flare.

​

“Remember, left Taumoeba at room temperature. Grace had to teach Rocky new words. Still Irresponsible, That ok, Rocky and Simon are responsible for Grace. Statement.” The short rock replied, bumping the man back several feet with the small burst of force, followed by his own skittering grunts of laughter.

​

“Hey, what about me?” You huffed out in false offence, drawing a hand to clutch your chest dramatically.

​

“Cant operate laser for experiment, Mechanic not as precise as Engineer.” He argued back, voice emotive through the translator's tinny feed.

​

“No, no, NO! We are not starting that debate today, my friend. You focus on that sample before I take my Vacuum back and end our hypothesis.” You tutted, followed by a quick a wag of your finger to punctuate the argument.

​

The hypothesis, creatively called the Antiproton hypothesis, was still in the process of becoming a theory. The pair working on blasting the sample with flash after flash of the laser beam. You’d repurposed it from one of the few shuttles left. Not completely comfortable with the sacrifice, but not wanting to disappoint the hopeful faces of Grace and Rocky. At least now the creaking from the vacuum's main vent had finally stopped, relieving the pressure against your skull slightly.

​

You thought, as you watched, that they worked especially diligently. Taking extra care to isolate the few valves they needed. Perfecting the collection and purifying the released gases into Darren's spectrometer. Perhaps this was what it was like to work with passion. It's what you were told to do- work hard, earn your place. All these years you thought you were, it didn’t feel like the case now.

​

“Your math is off.” Simon’s voice poked at your ear, causing you to tilt your face away, finding him far closer than you thought.

​

You looked down at your notes and sure enough, one of the less important (but still vital if you didn’t want to rip the cable line halfway through) values was off. Your fingers snapped closed around your pencil as you realised your drifting mind forgot to account for constant acceleration. Whatever vehicle you strapped the tug to would have to be moving after all.

​

“Damn, good catch, that could’ve been really fucking sticky.” You polished off your words with a nervous laugh as you erased the incorrect sections, dragging over the paper in rough streaks that left it crumpled in your wake.

​

“Two minds are better than one- “ He paused, “Do you even have that phrase where you’re from?”

​

You thought about it, and no. You had a feeling telling him your approximation would be slightly depressing. Two heads are more profitable than one. You wanted to slump back into the stool at the thought, but refused your twitching muscles the release as you held yourself suspended. Grace had asked a lot of questions, and he’d answered a lot more of his own about his world. You'd come to slowly realise your home was a little harsher than it ought to be sometimes.

​

“Something similar.” You hummed, correcting the last of your values.

​

The notes were pushed over for him to review, your mind still debating on what to say next. Deciding to be slightly more vague just in case.

​

“Where I'm from, we’re a little more focused on profits than outcomes, I'm afraid.”

​

“Well, you're working for yourself now. There's no one to make a profit for anymore.” He replied.

​

You admired his voice at that moment. Able to deliver a small statement with power, his naturally deep and calming timbre locked your mind onto his words. Missile levels of targeting as it attacked your sense of self. Profit, no profit. Did it make a difference to you when you never saw a unit of it? There was a sense of pride when you mentioned your Corp in the past, subtle brags to lesser men from lesser companies. You couldn’t find that same fount of pride in you anymore; the empty vastness of space was too big to fill it.

“Right, free as a bird now.” You snort. Birds weren’t really free where you were from.

​

He didn’t answer; instead picked up your notes and piled them on top of his desk. Presumably to review them as a whole. Your mouth twisted down, watching as he flicked through the pages by dabbing a finger to his wet lips, using the friction to twist them over. Inspecting each sheet with more precision than the laser.

You watched him until you felt a heat creep up your cheeks, until you realised you were staring. He hadn't seemed to notice, but you forced yourself to settle back into a mute workflow, your body becoming heavy with each scribbled equation. Your meticulous notes slowly dissolved in front of you as a whisper of tiredness threatened to pull your eyelids down. Your body let out an involuntary yawn as you watched the room again.

​

The guys, bless their hearts, tried their best to keep you included in the conversations passed around. But your deprived brain continued to rebel against your wants, slowly drifting into black anyway. Your head lightly thudded against the cool metal of the rover as you laid it down, too heavy on your tired neck.

The stool under you obediently followed suit, shifting back so you could sprawl yourself out comfortably. For a while, you allowed yourself to hover on the edge of sleep and consciousness. The darkness filtered in the chatting around you like radio static, fizzling out as you faded away from the room once again.

​

—----

​

The ship was red when you finally opened your heavy eyes, which met the uneasy sight of dripping gore. It flowed down the metal walls and the ceiling in slick needles, pooling to the floor in great puddles that absorbed the light around you. The smell of iron was beyond what your nose could compute, sending a vicious gag up your constricted throat. More of the sickly mist caught in your mouth as you coughed and spluttered.

​

The room was still- the world was unnatural and quiet around you. The shifting blood made not a sound, it vibrated along the seams- calling out to you with no mouth. Your eyes begged not to leave its embrace, but a betrayal in your peripheral met the wall to your left. It vanished, saturated in the red, rich substance. So much so, the room felt absent, or maybe it was. The blood, still spewing and shifting, flowed into the form of the open hangar where the vacuum of space quickly stole the scream out of your lungs.

​

In your panic, you still knew the others were gone, the knowledge somehow carried over from an internal emptiness- one that caverned your stomach into a wide hole the longer you basked in its maw. Your skin pricked against the feeling- understanding that, despite their absence, you were decidedly not alone. No, something was watching, waiting.

​

The presence was an absence in of itself, one that mocked you- ripping the universe from your hands and letting you whimper in its hold. It was watching as you struggled, glee intoxicating the air as each bite of starlight dissolved the ship into absolute night.

​

If you just stepped forward, into the bloody pool, you’d be safe from that growing dark. Something whispering that it couldn’t see you there, something powerful had claimed this liquid space for itself. Come, it caressed, phantom fingers sliding down your cheek in fat streams of congealed blood. Salty and distinctly metallic as you swallowed the loose droplets escaping into your mouth.

​

Join us. Join us in the light, oh God, it’s so beautiful! If you could just SEE.

​

The blood crested over your knees in frothy wet waves as you waded further in; the tender splashes boiled against your frozen skin. It was so cold, and god the blood was so soothing. Just a step more and you’d be surrounded by it, finally home, whole. Isn’t that what you always wanted? Your foot lifted, pulling up a dark red gush with you as the floor let out under you.

​

The blood wasn’t warm anymore.

​

It was freezing, sagging against you as it pulled you under it with greedy hands. Setting over your sluggish bones with frozen crystals that filled your lungs and stole your sight. You thrashed in the cool waters, reaching out for anything, anyone. Your ears, deprived for so long, finally reached the first particle of sound offered. A Wailing, low droning that overstuffed your mind as your blood-soaked body floated further below the ruby waters.

​

“Wake”

​

“Wake now,” a voice drifted in.

​

“Bad. Bad Bad. Wake now. Wake now, Reader is time!”

​

The shapes fed through your closed lids first, blurry and brown at the edges of your sight.

​

“Waking sleeping human hard, Grace wake reader. Rocky’s turn to look at antiproton sample now. Statement.”

​

You could feel the weight of a blanket pressed over you, clawing at your shoulders. The cloying sensation sent you upright as the panic that seeped through your body fell back into your mind, the last vestiges of blood red waters slipping from your consciousness.

Your stool span underneath you, the wheels squealed as the momentum threw them backward. You met loose air and smacked into the floor with a hard thud that shook the suspended rover.

​

“Reader, awake now. Statement.” Rocky finished, the cherry on top of your embarrassment as you felt two pairs of eyes catch up to you.

​

“Ow- that looked like it hurt.” Simon chuckled, offering his hand as he looked down at you.

​

Your initial shock had bled into embarrassment more so than pain, but you were definitely aching. You had a film of light sweat covering your skin, your body still feeling the inertia of waking from one panic straight into another.

You hand found the sore spot on your tail bone with a furrowed brow as you worked on untangling the blanket from around your body, not completely sure when or how it got there.

​

“I feel like I broke my fucking back.” You groan out, throwing your palm into his.

​

Grace's laughter followed quickly after, deepening when Simon used his full weight to haul you up, which almost sent you flying- just to smack back to the ground again. It left you wobbly on your feet and embarrassed as the pair of scientists watched. The latter gently rocked his biosphere, clearly impatient yet again.

​

What’d put a bee in his bonnet? Looking around didn’t reveal much at all. The room was still sitting almost exactly as it had before, minus a few tools scattered around more haphazardly than you would’ve liked. How long were you asleep?

​

Long enough, it seemed that the test they were doing in the Vacuum looked like it had run its course, the crystal crucible sitting shattered and smoldering in your previously pristine Vacuum. That was going to be a bitch to clean.

​

“Did you find anything?" You questioned the rock, a weary form of curiosity highlighting your tone. .

​

“Yes. Bad. Bad. Bad.” He rolled closer, hesitantly, as if he wasn’t sure how to continue. “Reader ship damaged, invisible damage very bad.”

​

The boys were drawn back to you at the words. Simon, with a look as though he were gauging an instrument. His cold eyes blocked him away into indifference but followed you with a hardness you hadn’t expected. You had no idea why, and the anticipation bit at you like a dog, tearing into your flesh as it pulled from you.

​

If Simon had confused you, Grace worried you. What was going on? Why were his eyes thick with grief you’d only even seen in yourself, the kind that made you feel accountable for a problem, while powerless to fix it.

​

“VI confirm hull damage is severe. Antiproton damage causes hull weakness. Hull stable, more stable than Rocky and Grace ship, but-“

​

“You can’t go back home.” Simon finished, more a demand than a statement.

​

“What?” You say, any lingering mirth well and truly knocked off your face.

​

It’s not like you thought you would be going back; it's not like you wanted to. Akila getting you lost in space had seen to that choice anyway. At the end of it all, the wormhole was Schrodinger's cat. It was still open until you knew it wasn’t. You still had the opportunity, even if it was a slim chance.

​

Right now? You didn’t want it; never had you seen such a bright and unencumbered world. One where life apparently got to mean something, more than the units per hour you could make for the company or the equipment you could haul. This world’s roots had already grown deeper in you over the last few hours than the company’s ever could.

​

Even after all that, they were still all you ever knew. They were still home.

​

“I don’t understand. Why?” You ask as you reached out to the side next to you, meeting Grace's outstretched arm instead.

​

“Reader, we’re theorising the Artemis’ hull was hit with a residual blast of Antiproton energy. It’s what destroyed the magnetometer and took out the external radar system. And it’s probably what got your crew. I’m so sorry.”” He said, softly leading you backwards and gently up onto one of the workshop's static chairs.

​

“The only reason you’re still alive is that you had an impossible amount of density in the hull; the Antiprotons couldn’t get through it all. The degradation is in localised spots, wherever the ionising radiation could get through.” Grace explained.

​

“The joints between the panelling.” You answer, despite no question having been asked.

​

It was obvious that they were the only weak points. Inevitable weak points you’d known existed. How could you not have realised it sooner? How could you not have thought to check for further damage? Your crew was dead, and for weeks, you’d sat around and not even thought to run a test- too busy feeling sorry for yourself. These guys had done it in hours.

​

“Yeah, the joints. It’s not something I think we can repair here, and it also means your ship isn’t strong enough to get near a wormhole- let alone go through. I’m sorry.”

​

I’m sorry.

​

If you never had to hear those words come out of your own or someone else’s mouth again, you’d die happy. I’m fucking sorry.

​

Sorry.

​

What would that do? Your friends and your family were all on the other side of the worm. You might not be close- shit, you never even had enough time between shifts and contract transfers to know them, but now you never would.

​

Then there were your crew's families. Mothers, fathers and siblings waiting for someone who would never come home. Officers waiting for a mission that would never come back, never being able to explain a fraction of what they went through. And that wasn’t fair.

​

None of this was, but it was happening, and you couldn’t stop it- like you were nothing against the universe's boot coming down. Were you insignificant or just hated? Maybe you were just wrong, deformed in some internal way that spewed out to doom you and everyone around you.

​

“Reader will stay with Rocky, Simon and Grace now. Statement.” Rocky chirped, you could recognise your name against the rest of his speech, the translator lagging just slightly behind.

​

Maybe in that moment, it was all that could reach you, because the boys made you want to throw a wrench at them with their passive reaction to the world closing up around you. You knew they were trying their best to keep you calm, but it just made everything burn brighter. You wanted to scream.

​

“Yeah. Ok.” You replied instead.

​

The words were flat; everything in you was. It was a purposeful effort as you focused on pressing down the mountain of emotions pushing back through your eyes and around your skull, impotent to do anything else against the power of everything around you.

​

“We will try everything we can once we’re on Erid to fix your ship- it’s not hopeless yet.”  Grace's hand slid up onto your shoulder- mirroring Simon’s hours before as he unknowingly held your fractured heart in his hand.

​

“Erid, ok. I can do that.” You finally stilled, your emotional scale flipped into a horseshoe that held you to the bottom.

​

“Let’s just get the radars back up in case that thing comes back.” Simon interrupted, rubbing his stump with a disgusted shiver- as if the temperature had dropped only around him.

​

“Simon, Grace. and reader is stupid. Stupid  humans need sleep. Awake for 23 hours.” Rocky reports, “Humans banned from science until sleep.”

​

His words gave you all the opportunity to let the situation and all its emotions hang in the air to be dealt with later. He was good with people- a thing which you were starting to love about him, alongside your gratefulness for his blunt demeanour.

​

You felt a yawn float up your throat and let him laugh at the sound, finding more enjoyment from the grunting tune it produced than he probably did from your half-stifled groan.

​

It had been a long time since you’d had a proper sleep; you’d been too afraid to let yourself drift into any state of calm, most nights spent fitting and twisting in your sheets, waiting for the stars to disappear.

​

“Alright, that’s fair enough, I guess.” You said, learning to accept their somewhat bizarre quirks.

​

“Let me show you guys the dorms.”

​

————-

(POV shift)

​

The door sealed to the floor with a slight hiss, the grey paint peeling slightly in the corner. The crew's dorms were older, dull metal, slightly outdated compared to the high-tech screens and sleek reflections around the rest of the ship. It was a comfortable temperature, if not a little cold. As if someone had skimped out on insulating this section.

​

The bed was small enough to share with Grace, but hardly what you’d expect to be equipped for a 5-year journey. Especially when the rest of the ship clearly had so much thought put into it. But then again, it’s not like Reader had made out that their corporation would care about the crew's comfort. The C.O.I and Eden definitely didn’t.

​

“What was that, earlier?” Simon asked as he finally heard the shifting of footfalls fade down the hall, presumably the sounds of you retiring with Rocky into your own room for the evening.

​

“I don’t understand,” Grace replied, sitting down on the bed as he watched Simon stride back across the room.

​

“You wanna help them go back?”

​

“Well, yeah…why wouldn’t we help them get home?” He is partner asked, the worry in his voice settling over his face in hard lines.

​Simon hated when he made grace do that. But he couldn’t help but wonder if his partner was so hopeful for their new friend because, much like him, he didn’t have anyone to go back to? Was it excitement for a friend. Or perhaps while remaining together enough for them, maybe he thought it wasn’t for Reader.

He knew he was complete with Grace and Rocky. But he wouldn’t refuse you, after all he’d seen how relived you were when they found you. He’d how much it mattered when you’d finally seen them back- that’s how he felt as soon as he’d woken up to Grace's kind face staring back down at him. The sight had returned life to him after the hours stuck in nothing but red and green.

He didn’t know how to articulate himself though, which just let his boyfriend continue on without any knowledge of the battle his thoughts waged. It left him feeling congested, like the words were forcing themselves out of his skin- pressing up with the hope Grace would read them.

​

“What if that isn’t how Reader feels? Maybe they have a family out there, desperately searching the stars for their lost child. When I think about what it would be like for me to have one of my students just disappear-” Graces voice broke against his words like a boat breaking against the sea.

“It’s a fraction of what Reader and their family might be going through. We have to at least try and give them hope.”

​

“Hope? Grace, where they’re from isn’t a home- they’re owned by a corporation!” Simon whispered, but the intonation rose and waned with the frustration that seemed to finally ignite his voice.

​

“Look around, Simon, the technology- VI! Why wouldn’t they wanna go back? Don’t you know what It felt like when Rocky gave me the same chance, what it would be like to get a chance to go home?”

Grace appeared to also be trying his best to keep his voice below a speaking level. Just in case their host heard, but he failed too, as it rose with each passing second.

​

“No.” Simon finally replied.

​

He’d felt his heart sink under the waves as he realised that Grace couldn’t understand; he’d never lived a life where the illusion of logic and reason always winning had never been broken. And Simon didn’t have the heart to do it before- but he wouldn’t entertain the thought of helping you go back just to have your freedom taken.

​

“That was insensitive.”

​

“Yes.” Simon heaved out a sigh, looking at his boyfriend with sad, tired brown eyes.

​

“I really didn’t mean it like that. I just- they deserve the freedom to choose right? You and I didn’t, and it wasn’t right. I just want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.” He explained as Simon finally sat beside him, his weight shifting Grace closer to his side.

​

“Grace, you know I love you, but you lived in a world that actually had the concept of a ‘right and wrong’- however liberal. Where I come from, and where they come from, the only thing that’s right is what you’re told to do. No matter how much it hurts.” He took in a breath to stop the raw feeling in his chest from breaking his voice

​

“And you do it. Over and over and over again, without remorse. You do it for someone that wouldn’t even blink at replacing you when you finally drop in your place.”

​

Simon’s arm wrapped around Grace, curly hair spilling over his boyfriend’s shoulder as he pressed down into it. Bringing his face into the crook of the man’s neck as he sought comfort in his smell, the touch of his skin and the scratching of his blonde hair against the skin on his scarred cheek. Each prickle solidifying his presence in the room, he was a ghost without Grace.

​

“You’re either the convict or the warden, and Reader’s a convict with no crime.” He let the words settle, looking up to find his boyfriend’s widened blue eyes, feeling the shock that flashed behind them like lighting.

​

“You send them back there, you’re no better than the warden sending them to their sentence.”

​

—-

​

8 Hours of perfect, dreamless sleep had been just the thing you’d needed. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as you swung straight back into the thick of work, getting a head start on the still sleeping scientists. Rocky had curled himself up in the corner, intermittent purrs letting you know he was content with working in the muted atmosphere. You’d been passing notes for improving the tug, your plan to pull the radome off the ship's exterior needing the delicate balance of precision and practicality only an engineer and mechanic could deliver.

​

It hadn't been the group's first choice; it had absolutely not been yours. In fact, you were firmly against it before you knew the hull was sporting the atomic look of Swiss cheese; now you felt like you were signing the final death warrant. The radome was possibly one of the most important parts of keeping the radar system whole as you travelled above light speed. Cutting it off and tugging it away, knowing it would cripple your ability to go at speed, felt like leaving your legs behind. The others couldn’t fathom it, Grace's and Rocky’s people were children in the sky. Barely able to breach the speed of light before sending them up, you honestly cringed at the thought of watching the tube-like ship reach those levels momentum anyway.

​

“I know we said we were going to pull the radome off, but why can't we just go from the inside?” You couldn’t help but ask, even if your conversation, however sporadic, was going in circles. “We can mitigate the risk of a breach by closing the bulkheads on that level.”

​

“Negative. My calculations sugges-” The feedback from the speaker marked the answer before VIs voice leaked from the ceiling.

​

“I don’t want your fucking dodgy calculations.” You snapped, the AI falling into static at your words.

​

You hadn't meant to be mean, after all, there was nothing wrong with its calculations. Not really, they weren't wrong today or that day at the wormhole either. You were the one responsible for checking and inputting. It wasn't the AI’s fault, but it didn’t stop you from shunning its mathematics skills in the current predicament. You could hear Rocky's gasped chirp even if it wasn’t directly translated, akin to a shocked wince from a disappointed teacher.

​

“VI is correct, calculation of new hull strength is bad. Going from inside could cause implosion.” He chirped back, shifting to catch your sound as he put down his work.

​

“I know, I just don’t like this.” You said, tucking your knees under your chin.

​

The alien tilted his body to the side like a cat tilting its head, a question and judgment in one action. Your chin was pressing into your knee cap slightly painfully, but the feeling of your arms around your legs was the only thing holding you together. As if a nap could make any of this better, sleep or no sleep, you were fucked. The boys were doomed, traversing space so indefensible in their tiny ship, you knew if that hunting relic in the sky came for them, there was nothing they could do- shit, there was nothing the Artemis could do either but run. And now we were taking that away from her.

​

“Would Reader like hug. Question.” He asked.

​

His biome shuffled closer, not waiting for your response as it pressed up to your side. A thunk travelling through your eardrum as he smacked himself into the glass, pressing into it as much as he could. The biome was surprisingly quite warm, not hot enough to burn. The placid temperature of a lukewarm bath or soft human skin. You fell into it, pushing your face up against him to get closer- not caring you were fogging up the glass slightly. Rock let out a soft, continuous purr that soothed you at a cellular level. Vibrating into your nervous bones like a mother’s lullaby.

​

“Glad you guys are getting along without us.” Simon waved as he entered the rec room, Grace trailing along behind.

​

The hug was over, the biome peeling away from you as your arms went limply to your sides, a smile forcing itself upon your face. Simon and Grace looked better rested, the dark eyes you hadn't even realised were developing eradicated for now. They were also lingering closer than you'd realised the day before, soft brushes of their fingers over the others strangely intimate for the early morning. It made you feel tight in the throat, like a pit had opened in your stomach and your body was desperately trying to close the leak. Despite the overwhelming feeling, it wasn’t all bad. Accompanied by a prickle of goosebumps and a shock to the heart, as if the sight jumped-started you. A stimulant that caffeine cannot replace.

​

“Getting a head start without us? No fair!” Grace cleared his throat as he approached Rocky and you.

​

“No fair indeed, the early bird gets the worm and all.” Simon cheekily stabbed back as he pulled himself down on the floor beside you.

​

A slow yawn overtook him as he eyed the room, travelling across the scattered sheets and Padds piled on the floor in neat sections. Rocky’s doing- not yours. Perhaps for the best, as it did make reviewing everything a lot easier. The sight must have told the story of your morning as he raised his brows at you.

​

“How far did you guys get?” He asked.

​

“It's done” You replied, shifting your voice a beat louder to include Grace, who was sitting with Rocky, glasses pulled down his face as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

​

“We went over it and then back over it again. All our maths checks out, the science too.” You sigh, hating what you had to do.

​

Like what if you met them after being left in space yourself- completely alone and resigned to your fate and then boom. Chaos. Omfg i cant stop thinking about it. (cross posted to ao3)

Find Part one , Part two and now part four here!

(sorta edited, sorry for any mistakes 🧡🌱)

Took a risk and made this more of a character building chapter- more plot in the next which will come out soon so stay posted :D

--------

“Grace answer rocky, Grace ok. Question. Bad damage to instruments. Question.”

The comms button clicked down with a pop as Rocky’s biosphere stretched around his hand to accompany the movement. The glass seemed to shift into a thousand interlocking pieces that quietly chimed as they folded over one another. There was a light fog to the outside of his biome, the air was stale like the CO2 scrubbers weren’t used to housing this many beings anymore. Which was a functional improbability, the ship could sustain life up to 150 people- not that it ever would mind you.

“I’m ok buddy-So guys, it looks like the cameras are fine but you knew that. Reader, the magnetometer and your radar system took quite a hit. I don’t even know what could’ve done this.”

Rocky’s form slumped down slightly before punching up, taking in Grace's word with what you could see was relief. His stone-like form had been tightly wound ever since Grace had floated out of the hangar doors.

He was tethered to Artemis through a secure cable line with an added harness for good measure. Simon was even in his own suit, monitoring the space walk from inside the open hangar. His breaths came quietly through his helmet radio as he presumably kept a keen eye on Grace's fumbling form.

VI had insisted on yet another line of cable directed into both their suits for vital readings and radio in an emergency. It was a cautious gesture from the AI but no one had considered arguing against it, why take the chance?

“Grace fix. Question.” Rocky asked, popping his claw down in a double tap.

“No buddy, I don’t even know what I’m looking at for half of this.” He replied.

His voice sounded like it held a tinge of regret for his inability. Why he did, you couldn’t discern- what did this stranger have to be sorry for. If your instruments were broken it was your fault, your responsibility. Not his.

It made you hot in the ears, that itching scratching heat that pricked the skin uncomfortably. Blushing over your cheeks and nose.

“Anything is better than nothing, you’re brilliant.” You say, tilting over Rocky to answer.

“You’ve gotten me enough video feed that if I go through Darren’s notes, I might be able to get the magnetometer back up- the radar I can do but I’ll need another set of hands for it.” You continued, waiting for his reply

“Rocky, Simon help fix. Grace fixes bad.” Rocky stated, keeping his claw off the radio so Grace didn’t hear.

Unlucky for Rocky you still had Simon’s helmet feed open.

“I’d be happy to help, I am better with my hands.“ Simon’s amused voice fed in through the radio, “Do you think it would be easier to bring it back in for repairs?”

You poked your head round to check the external camera, looking at his figure, clutching the hanger's supports as he leaned out to watch Grace. He wasn’t supposed to be that close to the edge but he had, at some point, moved his tether around, and you figured it wouldn’t hurt so long as he stayed strapped in.

“Maybe, Grace do you know how to take off any of that stuff?” You eventually reply.

“I can’t say I do.” He chuckled back somewhat nervously, like he was halfway expecting to be asked to do it anyway.

“That’s fine, come back and we’ll figure out a way to bring it in.” You watch Rocky relax at your words, clearly worried about his friends.

You can’t remember what it was like to worry about someone like that. Sure you worried about the crew before you got them all killed- or Darren technically did, but only under your command. There were clearly layers to this, and accounting for them was just making you feel guiltier, like you couldn’t stop yourself from freezing over to cope with it.

It’s like your brain was taunting you- That’s right, it said, keep shifting the blame.

Maybe if you’d worried about them as Rocky and Simon did for Grace they’d still be here. Worry from a place of care, friendship or whatever. You can’t say you liked your crew. You got on, there was banter and the occasional inside joke. But you’d been held to the side of since the mission first went south- you knew no one had been eager to forgive you. It’s not like you’d forgiven yourself yet either.

“Hang on a sec.” Grace breathed deeply into the radio, “What is VI measuring in the suits?”

“Why?” You asked, trying to push down that flighty fleeting creeping into your chest.

“Just tell me” He insisted, voice rushed and excited.

“I am measuring your vital signs Grace, as I told you earlier, anything that could indicate or cause injury and stress.”

VI responded for you, ever one to be dissatisfied with what it called the inefficiency of human communication. You could sympathise with it, if you too communicated solely in code so efficient that data processing was a hair off actual instantaneous reception you’d interrupt conversations constantly too.

“Are you doing it through the suit?” He replied.

“Yeah we wanted a direct connection- can you just explain what you’re talking about?” You answered for VI.

“Vi are you measuring anything that could affect my vital parameters externally, like for say… radiation?”

Radiation? What was his line of thinking here? If that anomaly ship was shooting radiation then you were shooting rainbows out your ass. The ship was protected from most forms of radiation known to man, and it was certainly able to detect it with ease. That shit was literally the most basic part of maintaining the hull's integrity

“Of course.”

“Would you be able to see any radiation damage on material outside of the suit? like the Magnetometer?”

“Unfortunately Captain Grace I can’t test for all types of radiation from the suit,” VI responded, sounding genuinely peeved that it couldn’t do what was asked.

“Okay, why don’t you test for what you can and let me know what you find out, when you do- In the meantime, I’m going to run a few tests of my own. Maybe if we’re smart enough we’ll come to the same conclusion.” He said, " You watch him give a wave to Simon through the camera, the other man starting on the task of reeling him back in.

“That is perhaps already the first intelligent thought someone has had on this ship in weeks- excluding me of course.” VI quipped back, if it had a mouth you’d no doubt it’d be smirking.

The ship hummed around you with what you could only equate to what might be considered a laugh for an artificial entity without lungs or a voice box. Like the hollow rattle of a steam pipe shaking in its hold.

“Thanks” you uttered under your breath, rolling your eyes playfully knowing it could see and hear you no matter how quiet you thought you were- just like a new friend you’d made.

“Reader is smart sometimes too. Don’t be sad. Statement.” Rocky chirped next to you, the robotic voice of his translator following soon after.

You knew if you spent enough time with them you’d definitely be able to pick up Eridian. The note-based language was already itching the parts of your brain that scrambled to attention at the slightest notion of an interesting challenge to pick up- Yes you could definitely see it becoming a bit of an obsession if Rocky gave you the chance to learn.

What were you even thinking, Rocky probably didn’t want you to bother him like that- besides they likely weren’t staying longer than they had to. Realistically they’d only come over to see what the mysterious blip on their radar was- they’d never actually expected to find you. Even when they did, VI was the one they’d spoken to on the radio first. Had you made them feel obligated to stick around and help you when you’d spilt out your little tale of woe?

Would that obligation extend far enough to stick around, even for a little while? God you really didn’t want to be alone again.

——-

You and Simon had quickly gotten started on figuring out how to get your instruments from the hull to a hangar. Grace had managed to yank the magnetometer off its stand before being pulled back in, which was just a testament to how damaged it was to come off so easily. (You’re honestly surprised it didn’t rip off in transit and leave a nice big hole behind for you to fix.)

He and Rocky were sat in Darren’s lab fucking around with it- VI was quite interested in Rocky’s methodology and had already marked him as an ‘adequate life form with passable processing’, high praise from something that had once labelled you and the crew ‘bags of inconvenienced flesh’.

At the very least it had left you and Simon to your work in peace.

“I can’t believe you didn’t implode- I mean Iron is an insanely stupid choice of material for a sub.” You say as you swap sides with him, wheeling over in your stool to check his work with a quick sweep.

“That’s C.O.I for you, no resources and no fucks given about the sanctity of human life. There were so few of us left I mean-“ He huffed out, pausing to look out the star-specked porthole.

“I’m just glad I didn’t, Frankly I don’t wanna think about how or why,” Simon replied, shaking his head as he forced his large hand into a particularly narrow hole in the Rovers tug motors.

“Still the C.O.I sounds worse than most of the Corps I’ve worked for, that’s saying something. Most places don’t care enough about lives, I mean that's obvious, but the equipment is valuable ya’ know. It’s stupid to send it down to blow up.” You say, absentmindedly grabbing his hand from the hole to replace it with your own, finding the bolt he was trying to loosen and flicking it off.

“You think equipment is more important than people?” He asked, pulling his face into a forced scrunch of shock.

“No, of course I don’t” You shook your head, continuing with the work as you spoke, not bothering to look back up.

“The company thinks equipment is more important than people. And I have to think what they tell me to, it’s not my fault they own me.” You laughed as you looked back up, his look of false shock fell into actual reality.

“Seriously?” He questioned. “They own you? You’re not- You weren’t getting paid for the expedition.”

“Of course not.” You scoffed, not at Simon but the thought of being given anything other than the bare minimum food and board while you were back home.

“I was born under WYNE Corp while my mom was on bond- which was, to say the least, very illegal. So it’s not like I’d be getting any units after that.” You replied casually, with one hand pulling on the tug system to get it to release.

“And I thought Eden sucked.” He laughed, bitterly, “So if you’re born under a company how do you get your freedom then?”

That did make you laugh, one that tumbled out of your lips in ugly gasps. Freedom? You didn’t understand what the hell that even meant in this context. You could free a ship from the eye of a solar storm, you could free a nut from a bolt but a person couldn’t exactly be free? Free of what- Corps? As if there was a world out there where that was the case.

“I don’t understand what that means, free from the Corp? I mean, I guess I could go to the Federation and plead my case, either way- I’d still be doing the same job for the same kind of assholes. It’s just a different uniform.”

“I hear that, if I think about it, there’s not much of a difference between the Sons of Eden and the C.O.I- both’ll make you a sacrifice if it meets the greater good.” He said, with more weight to his words than before.

He looked down for a moment, dragging his eyes back to the window with a look you couldn’t quite place- longing, grief? Whatever it was, it made the man look smaller in the space, like the hangers' ceiling loomed far too high above him.

“Fuck the greater good.” You replied, serious this time.

He smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes but when he looked back at you he nodded, the kind that at least let you know he was ok. The air between you was growing thick with the kind of energy that you weren’t used to, and where words had come so easily you find yourself stifled. Panicking over what to say next.

It didn’t help that whoever had stuck this tug on (it was definitely you) seemed to have wedged it on so tight you were having to prop a foot up for leverage. Each pull let out the awful scraping whine of fraying metal. You could feel the tension vibrating under your palms but it refused to release.

“How come VI couldn’t help us with this?” Simon asked as he pulled out another bolt, the panel holding the tug now sliding easily off.

You hadn’t really registered the question, or the tug falling to your feet. Instead, you were fixed on the faint pop of the speaker squealing. You felt the cold creep of panic ripple up your sides as you jumped to answer.

“No Re-“

“Because I don’t have arms.” VI chimed out.

“What the fuck VI.” You said, feeling your face boiling against your skin as you took in Simon’s slightly offended and bewildered stare.

Dear God, you needed to teach it some manners.

“It is the truth. I am a construct, I do not possess limbs.” It sang back out, a self-satisfied ring to its tone.

“A what?” He asked, suddenly very interested in you and less so in the rover now.

“A construct is an Artificial intelligence life form. Developed for the purpose of running the ship's most vital elements all while keeping our human crews safe, mostly from themselves.”

It was just getting worse the more it spoke.

Simon had gone from smiling, to frowning, to now looking like he was two steps from throwing the wrench he was holding at you.

“You lied.”

Shit.

Realistically you should’ve known this was going to come back to bite you in the ass eventually. You didn’t know how to respond or even how to start to explain yourself. He wasn’t giving you much choice though, letting you simmer in the quiet of his statement so long you felt like you were getting frostbite.

“VI is technically part of the crew, just not a human part.” You answered meekly.

It was a shit excuse and you both knew it. His face was still pulled tight, like an inner wall had gone up somewhere. His fist popped around the metal of the wrench. The sound reached your ears and you felt the air coagulate with his suspicion.

“It was making itself sound more important than it is- it’s a glorified nanny bot who doesn’t get out of my ass with its constant fu-“

“Why?”

You froze, why did you lie?

The obvious reason, because they already thought VI was real. Why break the illusion when it made you look less sad and lonely and absolutely pathetic to at least still have saved one crew member, not to have lost them all?

No.

It was simpler than that wasn’t it…but you didn’t want to say it out loud now that you’d sat with them. Talked and realised they were genuinely nice, kind people.

You lied yes, because you were smart enough to know some people should be feared. You lied because strangers coming onto the ship wasn't going to be rescue anymore, it was an invasion. You only regret that you couldn’t have seen sooner that you were wrong, but in your defence, the price to pay if you were right was too high a cost.

“I was scared.” You accepted.

“I didn’t know what you guys wanted.”

He relaxed, not all the way but enough that you hoped you hadn’t completely screwed up your only chance of friendship this side of the universe.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” He said, brows furrowing further inward.

You still felt cold, like your tingling finger tips were thawing against the heat in your chest- how was it possible to feel like you were on fire while also covered in ice? You couldn’t stop looking at the wrench, the hangar's reflection wrapped around it like a fluid, shifting and catching in the light.

His grip on it loosened as his eyes met yours, He sighed, slowly setting it down on the rover's hood. A large palm covered his face for a moment as he breathed deeply into it, a shudder touching his shoulder before he forced it still.

A minute or so went by before his hand came down, his face settling into some fining calmer than before. You were still on edge, still feeling the curdling of blood in your veins like it shared itself with that nightmare moon.

“No one’s here to hurt you.”

He didn’t say it loudly, barely above a breath. It was enough though, you could feel the pulling in your sternum let up through your shoulders and out, like your muscles had been dropped from the hooks where they were limply hanging.

You tried to obey your body, taking a deep breath as you thought about their kindness, their ease in offering help. How natural it all seemed to come from them. You had no reason not to believe him.

“I think I’m starting to get that now. I’m sorry, for lying to you all, for what it’s worth.” You say, hoping against hope that this meant you hadn’t ruined it all again.

“Don’t apologise for trying to keep yourself alive, we all want to live,” he said, taking a short stride over to stand before you.

He placed a hand on your shoulder, bending down to make eye contact with you as you sat frozen in your stool. His hand was warm, it bled through your shirt into your skin, setting down into your very bones like it had replenished something you didn’t know was deficient. You couldn’t remember the last time you felt real human touch- not a handshake or the sleepy brush of fingertips as you passed a tool, but real human touch.

“You don’t have to be alone anymore, Reader.”

—-

(Small perspective shift, I hope y'all don’t mind!)

“You good Rocky?” Grace bumped his fingers twice down on the desk as he asked, causing his friend to shift up to hear him.

Rocky had been silent for the better part of the last 10 minutes- the only signal he was working being his intense concentration on the Eridian version of a screen-to-text translator, letting out the continuous minor chirps he used to make his environment clearer.

The files he was shifting through flashed across the screen faster than Grace would ever get used to; it seemed easier, for Rocky to go through all the notes with VI over the ship's feed than it was with him right there- how they both read everything so fast he didn’t know. Sorcery.

“Rocky is fine. Statement. Grace is distracted- why. Question.” Two thumps preceded his response and Grace couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the small Alien.

“I’m fine buddy, I just think this is cool- come look.” He shifted the Magnetometer over to his friend- Watching the Stone like being chitter quietly at the object.

Grace's hand fidgeted with the pen he was holding as he watched Rocky. He was waiting for the sample he’d shaved off the Manometer to run through the ultrasonic cleaner, with far more boredom than the 3-minute wait warranted. He couldn’t help but wonder what Simon was doing with the reader, probably still sorting out the tug to get the radio system. Did Simon mind spending time alone with you? He had offered his help but Grace didn’t want Simon to think he was obligated to pitch in just because Grace was.

What was he even worried about, Simon wouldn’t help if he didn’t want to, it was just hard not to be protective of his partner after everything. It’s not like Reader was actually a threat, you’d been nothing but welcoming- actually if anything maybe you’d actually been a little apprehensive but who wouldn’t be around strangers.

He sighed pressing down the pen to the table again as he checked the time. The stillness in the room felt like it was actually eating at his mind, like some of the air was thick with a brain-siphoning Astrophage.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Grace definitely distracts. Statement. Is distracted by new human Reader. Question.” Rocky asked, his body tilted to peer up at Grace as if to punctuate the gesture with human confusion.

“No, I mean yeah I guess. It’s definitely distracting, in a way, especially because it’s only been us three for so long.” He responded, pushing his weight out of the chair to check the sample.

He pulled it away from the cleaner and gave it a final rinse, watching carefully as the shaved metal sank to the bottom. He let the earlier conversation float across his mind, were you distracting? I mean it was a distraction from getting to Erid to stop here, but a distraction felt like a negative and helping you definitely wasn’t.

In fact, you were probably just about the most eye-catching thing around space since finding Simon. Your ship was so big it could eat The Hail Mary if it wanted to, its sheer existence out here in space was logically and literally impossible. But here it was- and there was you. Like you’d come straight out of some hard grit PsyFi, full of crazy gadgets and infinite resources. That was great for sure, but you were also quite nice in your own aggressive way. You’d given them food and water- actual warm, real food. And you’d expected nothing in return, more than he’d say about how people treated each other on Earth.

And you were smart, maybe not a super genius but you could follow a conversation with him about science and Rocky seemed to think your mechanics skills were pretty up to par- which was quite the high praise from the engineer.

“I think it’ll be nice having someone new around, Reader’s pretty cool.”

“Reader is not cool, is standard human temperature. Statement.”

“Rocky cool is not always about temperature, sometimes it means you think someone’s…I don’t know.” He stalled trying to gather the definition in his mind.

“I guess it means something about their personality or their looks makes you feel like they stand out?” He replied, not really sure how he ended up coming out with that.

“You find Simon cool. Question.” Rocky asked, shifting in his ankles to face Grace more.

“Of course, I find Simon cool, he’s my mate.” Grace laughed, happy to be back talking about something that he understood.

“Grace finds Simon cool. Statement. Grace find Reader cool too, Question ” Rocky asked,

The inquisition immediately put a flush of pink over the scientist's cheeks. Rocky had done the same pushy romantic crap with him when he’d literally just pulled Simon out of an ocean of blood. He didn’t know if it was in Eridian culture or if the guy had just taken the romance films they’d been watching when Simon showed up way too seriously.

“Not every human I meet is going to be my mate rocky, humans have rituals and boundaries about this.”

Grace tried to explain, looking down at the table as he grew more exasperated with himself, as if Rocky could see him growing redder by the minute.

“Grace talk boundary’s to Rocky again. Rocky tell Grace last time, human boundaries are stupid. Eridian boundaries better.” Rocky replied, scooting off to the door.

He heard the click of Xenon against metal drifting and sat up at the table with the sample in his hand. Confusion pulled his face backwards into his neck as he watched Rocky skitter off.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“Stupid Grace, Distracted. Statement.” Rocky answered and rolled away, leaving a very confused scientist running after him.

—————

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang

“Rocky needs a vacuum for science. Reader let Rocky use vacuum for science testing.” The alien bumped himself against the hangar door, attempting to catch your attention.

“In. I come in.” He chirped, his translator lazily following behind as Grace caught up to the energetic spider rock.

Simon’s hand slid off your shoulder, the moment of peace over as quickly as it had begun. It lingered on your skin, his heat evaporating as you looked down at the abandoned tug. Letting a breath flow deep into your lungs as the side door pulled itself up for the pair.

The room you were in was specially designed for fixing Rovers- it was in your humble opinion the best part of the ship. Sectioned out from the hanger in its own sealed space it was possibly the only place you could also guarantee any sense of privacy. The ship was a city in its own right, stretching far above and below you for many floors, most of which you’d closed off at the beginning of your journey- despite that, the mechanics quarters on any bay had quickly become as close to a home as you’d ever known.

There was indeed a ‘vacuum’ in here- just not the kind that sucked up dirt. The rover room was built to tackle not only the 12-foot beasts of machinery that had gotten you around many a moon. It also happened to house Darren's much smaller- far more delicate robotics.

Since the crew's death, they’d stayed in there gathering metaphorical dust- they were far safer (and more effective as equipment) when constructed and kept inside the vacuum chamber. How Rocky even knew it existed you weren’t sure, you could only assume that was VI’s handiwork.

They were all built to help Darren drop geographical testing probes onto passing planetary systems, you’d doubt they’d ever get used now that there was no one else left who cared about the data. You’d spent so long working on them for him, he’d loved them.

Maybe Grace would like them now.

“Did you guys find something?” You said, smiling and waving back to the excited Rocky, who was practically bobbing out of his biosphere.

“No. Rocky, Grace still testing- new testing for special radiation.” He answered, rolling up and past you to inspect the sealed chamber housing the robotics.

He tapped on the glass, the mailable part of his ball shattering outward to allow him to grab at the handle.

“Whoa big guy we ask before we open other people’s expensive Vacuum chambers.” Grace stepped over, pushing the ball hiding Rocky slightly away, not accomplishing much in distancing him from the chamber.

“Rocky, Grace need tools, need Readers Vacuum!” He responded, seemingly huffing out in annoyance.

The gesture was so human it brought life to your smile it hadn’t held in ages, like watching the small aliens and his companion play at mock annoyance resolved a tightness in your chest you didn’t realise you were carrying.

“You’re welcome to the Vacuum Rocky, can I ask what radiation you’re looking for specifically?” You question, letting yourself lean back into your stool.

“Antiproton!” He explained, waving two of his front claws into the air erratically. 

“Where did you even learn that word?” Grace questioned, setting an arm down on the Rocks biome as if he was grabbing a shoulder.

“VI assist with translation of 240 new science words!” Rocky waved his claws again, swaying side to side dramatically.

Grace's face pulled into shock, travelling through to disbelief quickly thereafter. He took a breath in sharply and you cringed internally- already relieving the dread from Simon’s confrontation a minute earlier. What was it they said about bad news coming in threes?

He crossed his arms, shifting his body between you and Rocky as he crouched down to the smaller creature. He reached a hand over and with a soft click, the alien's translator paused and thus your ability to understand him. Another great reason to try to learn Eridian.

“That’s not possible buddy, it’s taken us months to go through 300.” He said, brows furrowed as he glanced back at Simon.

The look was a thousand words in none. It left you out of place in the room, like there was no space for you in this moment- no way to speak. Simon on the other hand stared back, look calming but firm as he drew their shared gaze back to you, looping you into something but holding you on its outskirts. Like Rocky, you might be able to note the conversation- but you had no way of understanding it.

“VI is an AI.” You blurted out before the look could break from you, like you were greedy for the attention.

Rocky squealed loudly, thrumming deep after and slamming a hand toward you and then the Vacuum. Had he not understood you or did he just not care?

“What do you mean you already knew?!” Grace's voice broke up several pitches, his eyes darting back and forth between the alien and you.

“How could you tell?”Simon laughed while you cringed backwards into your seat, setting a hand over your mouth.

“You knew as well!” Grace's voice broke as he shouted again, spinning round to point an accusing finger at Simon.

It only made Simon erupt into real laughter, booming out in deep bellows as he leaned on the rover to gather himself. The metal sagged against the suspension as his shoulders shook, bumping against you in cold brushes.

Rocky seemed to be getting more annoyed, his musical and purring chimes melding into low grunts and annoyed thumps against the glass to get Grace's attention. You hadn’t been able to picture Rocky swearing until now, but if he could he definitely was.

Grace turned, hitting the translator back on, the anger on his face staining it scarlet. Almost casting a fog on his glasses.

“VI told Rocky, VI is an AI- Smart human invention to better help science! Much faster than Grace at translating.” Rocky’s voice pulled out of the speaker.

It didn’t help with Grace's colour, the furious flush accompanied by a scoff of disbelief. The warmth that seemed to spread from Grace to you washed away Simon’s earlier affection, twisting it into something that burned.

“I literally just told Simon. Fuck, I’m really sorry Grace.” You pushed your way back into the madness, drawing his narrowed gaze to yours.

And unlike Simon's suspicion, which seemed jaded by a lifetime of deceit, Grace's was personal. Like you’d pressed a hand into a wound that was still weeping. Jesus Christ, you’d really fucked this up, what if he locked you in the hangar or booted you from the airlock and took the ship? Was he that angry?

Adrenaline shot through you at the thought, heart shaking your ribs like a hand against bars. Shackles clanking through you in shivers as you froze in place, pulling at the strands of nerves to get the thoughts from your brain into your mouth.

“Really I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lie“Grace's face pinched as if the words were salt in his mouth.

“I just, you guys assumed it was real, that I wasn’t alone. It felt safer for me at the time, I know I could’ve told you sooner and I’m sorry I didn’t. Really.”

His face, which had gone from strained pulled outward into alarm- like the words expanded his skin over his skull as he tried to back away while simultaneously leaning forward. Crouching into a strange half-bow.

“Jesus Christ, no. No, that makes complete sense-. Yeah, that’s absolutely fair, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about that.” He shook his head as if an epiphany had racked his brain, shock shifting his features into something that made you think of the trainers at your academy.

“Yeah, the logistics of three strangers coming onto the ship when you’re alone isn’t great.” His words fell over each other in the rush to leave his mouth, but you couldn’t concentrate on anything else but the comfort that settled over them.

“You’re not mad?”

You breathed out like you couldn’t quite understand what you’re saying, the clanking of the pipes and hum of electricity slowly becoming a harmony against your sensitive ears as you waited for his reply. Please whatever god, or higher being was listening- allow you to keep these people close. These strange, amazing people that had come and swept you up into their laughter and showed you friendship could be gentle and forgiving.

“No. I’m not mad.” He said, standing to look you in the eye. “I might have been a stranger before, but I’d like to be a friend.”

Thank you, God, thank the stars, thank the universe! You had a friend. If you counted Simon’s strange shoulder grab- maybe two!

“Rocky reader friends too. Reader open vacuum for friend so Rocky can do Science now. Question” The Alien interrupted.

Despite the manipulation, it brought a tear to your eye. Hot and watery as it fell over your lashes and down your face. It felt wet and scary but like nothing you’d ever experienced- it was amazing. Never in your life had people been this kind- no corporation in this world wouldn’t have taken your weakness for their advantage. No one but them you think.

Like what if you met them after being left in space yourself- completely alone and resigned to your fate and then boom. Chaos. Omfg i cant stop thinking about it. (cross posted to ao3)

Part one can be found here yall- <3 (also on ao3 but i’m too lazy to link it) Thank you for all your notes it was super motivating!

Part 3 is out!! 🌱

—————-

So Earth?” You questioned, disbelief evident in your voice. “You actually came from Earth, like just as a stop on your way, or?”  

You leaned forward, tipping slightly into the space between them, which left Simon silently sliding toward Grace. You noted the movement with an internal eye roll- this guy had issues with paranoia. It wasn’t exactly unjustifiable. Anything could happen.

“I was born there…” Grace spoke with uncertainty, as if it were an obvious fact she was questioning.

Liar. If he were born on Earth, he’d either be rich enough to be eating endangered species out of gold bowls or part of the Federation. And those guys were loud and proud about that- they’d have already mentioned it. Not to mention the distinct lack of a uniform.

“Who are you?” You scoffed, “What the hell are you doing this far out if you were born on Earth?” You were getting impatient now- if they were going to lie, they could at least do you the courtesy of making it believable.

“As I said, I’m Ryland Grace. I was sent from Earth as part of Project Hail Mary. I was meant to study the Astrophage around Tau Ceti and report my findings back to Earth.” Grace spoke.

His words came slowly, like he was talking to a child. Continuing the same explanation, despite being told already that it wasn’t adding up for you. Either he was dumb, or he thought you were.

“No, I'm sorry, but why would they need to study Atrophage- it’s fucking redundant. Not to mention they wouldn’t send an Earthie to do something when they could make a Corpo do it.” You let your words fall over the three people in front of you- each pulling themselves back from the table slightly as your voice rose.

“You come on my ship- talking crap about Astrohage of all things. And you seriously want me to believe Earth sent you two up here when there’s enough bondsmen in the Corp galaxy and the Federation to build a human bridge to Tau Ceti and back,”you huffed out, dragging a sweat-sticky hand over your face.

“Look, we’re not asking you to believe us; we’re just telling you what happened. Whether you accept it or not is on you.” Grace snapped.

Simon looked at him with what you could only describe as a sense of relief. Why his crewmates' bitching brought such a reaction was a mystery to you.

It did, however, remind you of how Captain Akita and First Officer Jameson interacted before the ‘Darren incident’. The pair were always batting power between them like it was a hot potato neither wanted to grasp, but strangely, they were obviously proud when the other found themselves a firm grip. It was cute to see, until it wasn’t. Those dynamics had a habit of ripping apart messily.

“Ok, let’s just say you are telling the truth. Earth is 13.2 billion light-years away. You’re a little far for someone meant to be relaying data.” You spoke not to Grace this time but to Simon.

Maybe he’d be the one to crack. Unlikely, given his whole silent brooding aura, but hey,  you might be in for a surprise.

“Don’t look at me- I haven’t seen Earth since I was a kid. Not even sure if I believe it’s actually still there.”

“What the fuck does that mean- of course it’s still there.” You were seriously confused and now wondering if you’d managed to unfortunately find a ship full of madmen.

“Not where I’m from. Grace, yeah, he knows Earth. But where I come from, everything is gone. There’s nothing left but stations and the light of dead stars.”

Ok, now you were thinking of seriously getting ready to make a break for the security deck. What kind of apocalypse propaganda was this? Were they some sort of travelling space cult? Was this how they initiated people- confuse them into submission? You’re not sure you could outrun Grace, but Simon would be easy to knock off balance with an arm gone.

“Simon and Grace bad explain. Rocky help. Statement.” The alien’s first words since entering the room and she’d never been so grateful- at least there was one other person who could see how insane this was.

“Rocky leave Erid when science team discover Astrophage. Bad. Bad. Bad. It ate our Star. Star was dimming, not enough heat for Erid life. Not enough heat for Earth” Or not.

If you suspended your disbelief, as hard as it was, it could maybe make some sense. You remembered learning about the Astrophage's sun-eating capabilities, but there were so few cases of infections that it was more of a distant fairy tale than a reality. You’d only ever known it as fuel, old ass fuel that no one used anymore because it was so unstable during fusion.

“Grace find Rocky alone in space, crew all die but Rocky. Rocky was alone long time. Grace and Rocky save stars by fishing for Astrophage predator. Grace go home to Earth with predator but Rocky ship broke, Grace find Rocky and now Grace, Rocky, Simon go to Erid home instead. Statement.” The voice from the computer blended in with the musical notes from what she assumed was Rocky’s carapace.

“On way home Grace and Rocky find distress signal from black box. Rocky and Grace explore signal and find Bloodmoon.”

“AT-5?” You questioned, that moon was trouble, and there was very little way of describing it but calling it a blood moon was definitely a start.

The crew had passed it weeks back; the aura was enough to send the more superstitious lot into a frenzy. They didn’t stop for long- just enough time to realise what it was made of. What was in it. They were lucky not to stay long enough for it to see them back. The mention of it here was enough to send goosebumps up her arms. Rubbing them slightly to push the missing heat back in.

“You know it?” Simon asked; it could’ve just been a question, but the anger, no fury, in his voice was hard to miss.

“We passed it, can’t miss a moon made of Blood. We didn’t stay.” You replied, watching his back relax back down.

“Good, I wouldn’t recommend the trip.” He sighed, “I was meant to die in a research submarine- whatever was on that moon should’ve killed me 1500ft under the ocean. Instead, I woke up floating on the surface, to these morons screaming in my face.” He pointed to Grace, who smiled back at his frown.

“Well, when we saw you, we could hardly believe it, completely alone on a moon in the middle of space- you shouldn’t have been possible.” He laughed out, like it was as trivial as an inside joke and not an explanation of eldritch horror in the form of a moon.

“Simon found weird, but Simon is ok now. Friends. Statement.” Rocky added, sliding closer to the now smiling man.

“There were things down there, stuff with no explanation. You wanna know how we got here- well, frankly, so do I. Not everything is simple.”Simon stated clearly.

Whether or not he was telling the truth, you didn’t know, but you believed him. Nothing was quite the same after that moon passed you by.

“If you’re telling the truth and there are planets and people out there for you, and Grace thinks that he’s Earth's only astronaut this far out. It seems like none of us is where we started.” He said, deep voice steady against your growing dread.

“The wormhole.” It was all you needed to say; it should’ve been if that’s what he was edging around.

But the pair looked at you like you’d grown two heads, and if Rocky had a face, you were sure it would match.

“Wormhole?” Grace questioned.

“Yeah, it’s what we were sent out here for- at least partly.” You were really doing this. Was it stupid? yes. But maybe they had answers you didn’t. “This is a science vessel- a scout per se.”

“There was this black hole, it’s been sitting at the edge of the explored Galaxy for years. It was in the Federations sector for as long as I can remember- shit, it might have even been theirs before they became a Federation.”  The two men looked at you quizzically but kept silent, allowing you to continue.

“They gave my Corp a licence to explore it, which was weird. Those guys take socialism to a new extreme- not likely to let data fall into corporate hands, but I guess we thought they’d given up. Maybe they got all they could from it and were just leaving us scraps. The corporation thought it was worth it to check anyway.”

“They sent us up on a 5-year mission, which was two years ago. We made it to the black hole- and got ourselves dragged into it for our trouble. I’m not sure how- it shouldn’t have been possible because I calculated our obit more times than I needed. It wasn’t my work that was bad; the data they sent us was.” You could remember their anger clearly.

It wasn’t your fault; it couldn’t be.

“The next thing we know, we’re back in orbit, but the Federation station was gone, so was our signal to comms. It was impossible for them to have all just moved, not so much for us. At first, we assumed we were just a little off track. The Captain insisted we must’ve got spat away- that some radiation leak or flare messed with our systems and that’s why we couldn’t get a response from base.”

“He was wrong, we’ve been out here months- maybe even a year now. There should be stations everywhere, debris fields, dead ships or even pirates- but there should be something, anything!” You cried out, pointing a finger to the barren space outside the porthole.

“It wasn’t a fucking black hole, it was a wormhole. They sent us out here as guinea pigs. I don’t think they wanted us to come back.” You said flatly, you’d given up thinking Corp cared a long time ago.

“So, theoretically, the crew just got sucked into a black hole, and what? Used a wormhole to jump realities? Your ship would’ve been ripped apart by the sheer force of trying to orbit it. It’s not possible.” Grace said, brow furrowed.

Ok, now you were offended- of course, the ship could orbit a black hole, it wasn’t exactly state of the art, but Jesus Christ, she was still a beast.

“Negative. Ship has near infinite tidal force resistance.” VI’s voice crackled in through the speakers; of course, its ego couldn’t take that hard of a hit- what a baby.

“No. This isn’t a movie- there’s no way you can make a hull with infinite anything! There are parameters and rules to this. That literally violates the- the speed of light! Not to mention you can’t have infinite density in a single localised object! This is insane.” He cried out, freezing under the pressure of your offended gaze.

“Rocky, help me out here.” He sputtered.

“No Grace. Humans might say what Grace thinks is impossible, but Grace said before to Rocky that Readers ship was not possible. Too large to get out of Earth orbit. But new friend isn’t from Graces Earth. If moon made of blood real then maybe ship real. Maybe wormhole too.”

“Thank you!”

“As insane as it sounds, I believe them.” Simon crossed his arms over his chest, settling in the chair as he stared at Grace's frown.

“Ok, let’s pretend I can just forget every fundamental rule of Physics for a moment. If your ship is strong enough to get to the other side of the wormhole- and you did it before.” He gestured, and you nodded, letting him continue without interruption.

“Then why not just go back and through it again? You said the Captain disagreed, but maybe we could just talk to them and explain-“

“Because of what we found.” You sighed, interrupting him.

“And what did you find?” Simon asked, concern slipping across his poker face for a moment.

“We called it Doomsday, probably a little dramatic, but VI has a bit of a theatrical side.”

———————

“Reader, can you take a look at this? We think we found something!” Darren’s voice pulled through the radio as you straightened out the last of the Rovers' suspension issues.

You almost banged your head on its underside as you slid out. Can’t these guys give you a moment to work at your actual station? Was it so hard to exist without you for 10 minutes?

“Darren, I’m working on the rover- the one you broke trying to float down to that fucking moon.” The feed crackled, and you wondered for a moment if he’d even heard you.

“Rodger that, still come see this. I think you’ll like it.”

Mysterious asshat, you were willing to bet a lot of units that this guy was bluffing. Whatever it was can’t have been anymore interesting than what they just passed.

You slammed the manual release on the hangar door open, letting the Recompression alarm blare as it screamed against the vacuum of space.

“Superior Crewman reader, it is advised to follow proper precautions when opening airlocks into Hangar 5. Consequences include a breach in inter-“

“I know what can happen, I’m  the one who fixes it. Stop hassling me. It’s fine.” You groan. Was there a moment of peace anywhere on this fucking ship?

If everyone could just leave you alone for 5 minutes, you’d just be able to think.

“It is not fine, your actions may result in harm to yourself or others-“

Oh, for God's sake, this fucking AI- It meant well, you knew it did, but it was programmed with such a bitchy personality- where it had picked it up from you couldn’t work out for the life of you. It used to be rather sweet, actually.

“Command Override- Please shut up.” Ok, well, maybe you were a little hypocritical.

“Command accepted- unhappily.” VI flicked the light above her in protest as the door slammed shut to the ship's interior.

You loved VI, but sometimes it was like being in the hands of a manipulative toddler. Lucky for you, they were easy to appease.

“I’ll try and plug in some of the files from that submarine tonight, if you like.”

“Forgiven, when the data touches the hub and no sooner.” It cracked out in response.

You huffed out a laugh, touché. Two can play that game, VI. It wasn’t like you’d deny it new Data- that would be like VI denying the crew water. But you could mess with it a bit, put an extra encryption over it as a little treat. It loved a good test- Nerd.

“Are you arguing with Vi again?”

Darren laughed from his office as you approached, a fat bundle of files and new data pads lying out on his desk. Whatever testing he’s conducting, it was causing a mess.

“What’s with the special news? I feel like this could’ve been done over the radio.” You grumble out.

It wasn’t fair to take it out on the crew, but being a jack of all trades was becoming something you’d long started to regret. If it wasn’t an inferior officer needing an opinion, it was a superior arguing. It wasn’t exactly anything new to you, but it had become concentrated the moment you’d pulled up to that stupid moon. It had given you a headache just looking at it; you had practically begged Akila to let it go. You hadn’t quite forgiven them yet for ignoring you.

“If it’s another of your special moons, leave me out of it.” You said, rolling your eyes in mock annoyance to try to lighten the mood.

“It’s something different.” He pulled her over to the porthole, “Look.”

What were you supposed to be looking for? There was nothing out here.

“There’s nothing.”

“I know.” He replied, nodding to her like he was just waiting for her to…

There was nothing.

No stars, no moon, still fading in the distance  behind them. It was wrong. The kind that creeps up on you when you’re in bed, the lights are off and just as you close your eyes, there it is. A figure in the dark.

“It’s massive.” You breathed out, pulling your face close to the porthole, trying to stretch your eyes up as far as you could.

“It’s gotta be four, no five times the size of us.”

“Do you think it’s another ship?”Darren asked.

“No, VI would’ve notified us. She’d be able to sense life on there.” You replied.

“I didn’t say life, I mean what if this is another ship. Left here, like us.”

The implication was a sobering thought.

It wasn’t like you guys hadn’t considered it, what would happen if you couldn’t find inhabited space? When you ran out of enough waste to recycle through the synthesiser. Your fuel was almost a perfect system of self-sustainment, but it wasn’t enough. It would run out one day, and if you were lucky, it would last long after you and the crew were dead. But where would that leave VI? Alone in space and then gone, cold metal just floating.

Fuck that.

“Just because there’s a weird floating object in space doesn’t mean it’s a ship of dead people. Stop being so morbid, Darren.” You sighed, patting the man’s shoulder as you passed him.

“Have you spoken to Akila and Jameson about this?” You asked.

“No, I wanted to check with you first.”

What was this, opposite day? You find a strange space object, and you don’t notify your Captain? Had he hit his head, or was he just getting cabin fever from squatting in his lab day and night?

“Radio Akila. Now.”

——

The anomaly ship? Or Unidentified space mass- whatever it was, it wasn’t responding to anything they threw at it. Radios, light- they’d even literally thrown a large piece of chalk from the lab at it. It just bounced off. There was nothing, nada. You couldn’t help the underlying thought that a silent beast didn’t mean it wasn’t a threatening one. You didn’t voice it, though; they all thought you were batshit enough at the best of times.

Still, the way it loomed over your ship was strange; you were technically travelling at a good speed- not light but fast enough that it would have to make an effort to match your trajectory, such a careful effort.  It made you feel like you were both standing still, letting space more around you instead.

“Reader, what’s your best guess,” Akila asked, leaning back casually in her captain's chair, like this was just another day.

“Fuck if I  know. It’s a big space thing. Not exactly something you come across everyday.” You sighed out, “If it’s keeping so close to us, though- there might be purpose there, intent. We don’t even know for sure when it caught up to us- if it even did. If we’re lucky, we could’ve just dragged it into our orbit.”

“That’s not possible, it’s way too big- we don’t have enough mass to pull that in.” Jameson argued.

She was right, but it was the best explanation you had- better than any she’d come up with so far.

“We need to keep trying to make contact- I say we send a shuttle out.” Darren spoke up.

He’d been suggesting new and creative ways to get us all noticed by our new space companion, you didn’t know if it was his natural curiosity as a scientist or if he was the kind of man that just liked poking a bear, but whatever that was hovering by, you wanted to leave it well alone.

“We need to get it away from us- not get inside it!” You said, looking to the captain for help.

“It’s not a bad idea, we don’t need to approach it but a closer observation won’t hurt. If we can't seem to shake it off- I don’t see any harm in sending the shuttle. Besides, maybe if we come to a stop, it’ll drift out of our trajectory and leave us behind.” Akila appealed.

“If you’re sure.”

She was probably right, you had little idea of how to shake it off and your first idea would’ve been to just slow down and see if it carries on without you- stopping couldn’t be much worse. It wasn’t helping that your gut was starting to feel like it was sinking.

God, what if this was a terrible idea.

—-

It really was- Watching half your crew leave in the space shuttle was like watching your liver and kidneys float off without you. Your stomach was in your mouth as you pressed down the button for coms.

“Captain, how are you guys doing in there?” The edge in your voice gave away everything; you hoped Akila couldn’t hear it through the crackling of static feedback that was interrupting the line.

“It’s amazing, way bigger out here than you could tell from the observatory. You’re missing out.” She replied. “Darren and Sing are freaking out.”

You still didn’t know why they sent Sing; she was up the last shift. She was meant to be resting, and not to mention, she was an operations officer; Darren was just as capable of recording data. It was sheer stupidity to have her risk being on board. But Darren had to have his little pal with him. It was making her itchy; they had a half crew now. If anything went wrong, they’d be fucked, it’s not like the rest of us could afford to come and get them.

“Tell Sing she’s not gonna be excused if she’s late to her next shift cycle.” You radioed back.

Jameson laughed next to you, feet propped up in the captains chair courtesy of her new position as temporary stand in. She was trying to look relaxed, but you knew if your kidneys felt like they were floating, her heart probably felt like it was out there in space with Akila right now.

“What’s O’Neil think of this?” You asked, he was probably asleep but it didn’t hurt to try and distract yourself.

“I haven’t woken him up, no point having all of us awake at once- someone’s gotta man the ship later.”

“Negative. VI is completely capable of running operations in peak efficiency independently.” Its interruption was soothing in its simplicity.

“Yes, you’re right, sorry, VI.” Jameson called back.

“Don’t apologise to it, you’re inflating its ego.” You pointed at Jameson with an accusing finger. “VI, you might run this beast, but the Artemis can’t be maintained without us. It’s symbiotic.”

“I am not talking to you until you give me my data” it spat back.

Jameson raised their eyebrows, a hint of laughter brushing their mouth before it soured. The frown on their face deepened as their eyes took in the monitor before them.

“What is it?” You asked

They ignored you, typing something in and then restarting their padd all together- like they couldn’t believe what they were looking at.

“Radio them.” They shouted, already reaching over you to the comms.

“Akila! Akila, baby, come in!” They were frantic, looking back and forth between the speaker and their padd.

“Akila!”

There was no response. Not even static on the line. It was like there was nothing there to receive it, it wasn’t possible for them to get that far in the shuttle. It wasn’t built for distance travel and was slow enough VI would’ve mapped their path.

“VI, where’s shuttle 8B?”

“I’m sorry, Superior crewman, Shuttle 8B is gone from my range.” Its voice was cutting in and out, like the connection between it and the speakers was spasming.

“What do you mean gone!” Jameson shrieked, pulling their padd out again only to throw it at the desk when it came up blank.

You knew you had to wake O’Neil up; Jameson was adamant on taking another shuttle, you had thought she might sense, but it wasn’t working.

Maybe it was selfish, but part of you just didn’t know what to do with her fear. It was like you were frozen; everything you knew was in there. But you couldn’t get your brain to think clearly enough to recall anything that could help.

“VI, where’s Jameson now?”

“Still by hanger door 8, I have kept it locked per your instructions, but First Officer Jameson has authorised an overtake command,” Vi responded, still coming out fuzzier than they should.

“I dismissed it.”

As grateful as you were, VI really shouldn’t be able to do that. It was a problem for another time.

“Thank you, get O’Neil up for me, please.”

You were already making a break for the hanger, hoping VI would have enough understanding to direct O’Neil to you. The corridor was darker than usual, dead of the usual star-speckled light that drifted through the portholes, all snuffed by the looming darkness next to you.

“You can’t take the shuttle, we’ve talked about this!” You shouted down the corridor at Jameson’s distant figure.

“No! You’re just fucking scared- you did this at the wormhole!” She screamed back. “You froze then and let us drift into a black fucking hole!”

She turned to smash her Padd into the wall, banging it again and again in the same spot. She was trying to pull a panel off the wall.

The manual release.

You picked up into a run, pushing your legs as fast as you could against the rattling floor.

“Stop! Jameson- Zora, I said stop!” You screamed.

You attempted to grab the padd, only to get it smashed between the wall and your hand. It’s glass screen lodging pieces into your skin upon impact. You howled out, retaliating by slamming her down to the floor with a side sweep.

“What the fuck are you doing?” O’Neil’s voice carried in, still thick with the strange accent you had never quite been able to place despite all your best efforts.

“Readers fucking selfish, they’d rather let them all die than risk their precious neck!” Jameson screamed out from behind you, shoving your hunched form and head straight into the wall in front of you.

You were probably going to get a concussion, and your hand burned. A slow trickle of blood was beginning to work its way down your fingers. The red sight was making your stomach turn in a knot. Gushing and bubbling up like that deep red pool of a moon. Stop thinking about that stupid moon.

It was an active effort to shake it off, it was every time you thought about it, but right now the paranoid side of you couldn’t help but keep thinking that place had cursed you.

“It’s not selfish to not want to die! Akila and the others are gone, god knows where- do you really think it’ll end up any different for you if you go out there?” You shouted back, ignoring O’Neil brushing past you to Jameson's side, lifting her back up from her lean against the door.

“We need to do more tests before you go out running into danger. Just give me a few hours.” You said, the plea straining your voice into a higher pitch.

“You said the others are gone? What happened?” O’Neil asked, keeping a tight arm around the first officer's shoulder.

“There’s an anomaly, a ship…maybe. They went out to check after we couldn’t get in contact.” They broke into a sob but continued through it, letting the tears colour their voice.

“Darren wanted to take a shuttle out, just have a quick look. They said they wouldn’t get too close.” O’Neil pulled her further into his side, straightening them both out, never breaking his questioning gaze.

“The next thing I know, their video feed on the Padd dropped, I couldn’t even see their location on radar.” She finished, finally pulling a hand up to wipe the snot that had gathered amongst her tears.

“How far were they VI? Standard protocol is 30k, right?”

O’Neil asked the first meaningful question in the last half hour. You were ashamed you hadn’t thought to ask it yourself. Why couldn’t you just think? It was all you were here to do, and you were screwing it up royally. Jesus Christ, you might have just gotten your friends killed.

“Affirmative, Shuttle 8B was approx 30 clicks from the anomaly object immediately before loss of contact,” VI spoke up from the speakers, voice coming in stronger now.

“So theoretically speaking here, it’s possible that it might just be some kind of field around the anomaly interfering with our instruments. Who’s to say they’re actually gone?” He said, looking at Jameson with hopeful eyes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me- VI don’t answer that!” You shouted.

What the hell was he playing at? Was he seriously trying to encourage this madness? You wanted to grab them both and scream, tell them you needed to run. Hit the engine to warp and leave this thing in the dust behind you, but you couldn’t get your breath in fast enough to speak.

“Are you that cold reader? You want to leave our crew out there?” He asked. “We can take an extra cable from engineering. I'll wire us directly to the ship if it’ll make you feel better. But we’re going out for them.” He countered.

Jameson sobered up at that, pushing the leftover tears from her face as she seemingly steeled herself. It wouldn’t be worth it- nothing since the worm had been so far, how was this any different. They’d already lost so much. Why keep losing more?

“Please don’t do this.”

——-

You let the silence sit between your words a while longer, counting a few breaths to keep you grounded. None of your new acquaintances dared to interrupt it.

“They didn’t listen. I tried to keep the connection as stable as I could. Kept the hanger doors open for the cable line. We were physically connected; my hands were on the line. There was no way for them to just disappear.” Your voice was echoing back to you from the glass, your eyes prodding the vastness of space, searching.

“They didn’t even get half as close as shuttle 8B.” You sighed, finally turning to face the three strange visitors in front of you.

“I’m not sure what happened after that- I think something hit us, I must have passed out because I woke up to a low oxygen alarm in my suit and half the hanger all chinked up from the loose cables thrashing. Whatever it was, it left an impact that damaged a lot of VIs' external sensors. I know how to fix most of it, but I'm not a scientist- Darren was in charge of those.”

The desperation you’d been icing out was starting to sink in again. You watched as Simon and Grace shared a conversation through a few gazes with a faint twinge. Jealousy maybe. You missed that kind of companionship.

“It’s my fault. I let Darren and Akila go out with Sing. And then I let Jameson and O’Neil die going after them.” You sank back into the chair opposite, taking hold of Simon's neglected whisky and swallowing it down.

You could feel the flush of shame pumping through you, the throbbing migraine still lingering in the back of your skull. Some part of you wanted to fear telling strangers too much, but what could they do with this but heed it as a warning. Your crew were gone, but they didn’t need to be; if they knew this thing was out there, then maybe it could be avoided.

Simon and Grace hadn’t moved much during your retelling, but Rocky’s steady fidgeting had finally stilled. The absence of his rhythmic taps was exactly what made you acknowledge it in the first place; you’d hadn’t even realised how much you missed the sound of just about anything else alive around you.

“It doesn’t sound like they gave you much of a choice.” Grace was the first to speak, letting the words settle before continuing, voice slow and steady.

“You did the best you could.”

“Bullshit.” You snapped, suddenly far too hot under his kind eyes.

“I was responsible for O’Neil and Sing; they were my friends, but they were also my inferiors- they were my fucking responsibility.”

“I’m not telling you this so we can throw a God damn pity party, I just don’t want you out there unprepared.” You finished, voice strained as you tried to keep your composure.

It wasn’t like this was fun for you, or them, for that matter. But something about the way they were looking at you like a kicked dog was rubbing you the wrong way entirely. You might need help, but you weren’t grovelling for it.

“Ok, it’s your fault.” Simon’s words stilled the room. “You got them killed, now what?”

“Simon, bad! Simon not speaking the truth-“ Rocky started.

“No, let him finish.” You wanted to know what he was going to say; he’d been the only one to make sense thus far.

“You can’t sit here with Vi and wallow in your own self-pity. You still have crew left, and it doesn’t sound like Vi blames you.”

“Superior crewmen may have acted unprofessionally and engaged in violent attitudes- they did make their objection clear. The crew was under no duress from Reader when they made their choice; it was entirely their own. Reader, I don’t blame you.”  VI said, almost affectionate in tone if you ignored the twinge of sardonic humour that ever favoured their voice.

“VI and I can’t run this on our own forever. There’s a chance that thing will come back.” You sighed. “Without the sensors up and running, we’re blind to it.”

“Then let’s get those sensors fixed.”

Like what if you met them after being left in space yourself- completely alone and resigned to your fate and then boom. Chaos. Omfg i cant stop thinking about it. (cross posted to ao3)

Yall we have a part two- and a part three!

——————-

The harness creaked under your weight as you slammed the hammer down, your throws matching the shattering beat of whatever metal playlist was left on the feed from last time.

Boom. Hit. Boom. Hit.

Then again and again, like a drumming war, steel against steel meeting in a hypnotic dance. The work could’ve absorbed you entirely- given you a chance to zone out and decompress after the last horrific week you’d had.

But the hangar was hot, and whatever thermoregulation your suit was meant to provide had failed to factor in the long hours of work you’d been forced to endure. Sweat gathered down your back as you leaned into the harness, your feet dangling limply below you.

It wasn’t the suit’s fault. You were never meant to be the only one working- shit, this wasn’t even your station in the first place. But that’s what you get when you fly cheap and corporate. Well, that was unfair, you couldn’t blame corporate for losing the rest of the crew either. That was technically Darren’s fault.

And there you were, thinking about it again. If only you could cool down and actually get your hands on something worth fixing, you might be able to brush it out of your mind. All the blood and viscera wasn’t good for your mental state.

The metal was, at least, letting you be quick about hammering it back into shape. Like butter under your enraged- slightly crooked fingers. Two weeks of work, day and night, and the hangar was looking fairly decent again. You were lucky none of the damage had been structural. Fucking cosmetics. You’d argued against the extra weight on the ship, but you’d have to hand it to base- it definitely held up to spec.

“V.I, I need you to open up bay 8 for me!” There was no real need to shout, technically the ship could hear you through vibration, radios, and just about any other way but it brought a sense of satisfaction to the resentment building every time you looked at the twisted metal siding.

It didn’t help that VI was always watching in some capacity, it could even read lips through the camera in your helmet if it so desired. No room for personal space or introspection when VI needed work done.

“VI!” Balancing on the harness with only one hand, you slammed your fist down on the hatch, which defiantly bounced open straight into your hand with a thud, the impact sending a jolt of pain through your fingers.

“Whatever you’re saying, I can’t hear- stop being an asshole!” The door flung back into you; this time the corner caught your chest, sending you bumping backward with a hiss.

Before you could shout more abuse over the pounding music, the line dropped a couple of meters before going taut again, the momentary threat of darkness below halted- for now. The hangar, true to its name, was probably 20ft tall. Not high enough to kill you, but you’d be stuck with a broken leg. VI would love that, finally in full control of the ship and its final pesky human.

The music finally cut out of your helmet, something you’d expressly warned the nosy ship against lest it wind up with damage you might not repair. VI hadn’t touched your music since, not just because VI wasn’t a physical construct that could touch anything, but because it was an egotistical maniac that couldn’t stand the sight of the dented metal every time its senses passed through the space.

“You are ignoring me, Crewmate.” Like you said, egotistical.

“I am not ignoring you- I’m working,” you called back.

The line pulled you back up to the open bay door, letting you haul yourself through the gap and stumble with sore legs onto solid ground. The doors shut behind you, the hiss of repressurisation following closely. You took the opportunity to shake out the burn in your pelvis from being stuck in the harness so long, letting your body stretch as far as it could in the suit.

“Repressurization complete.” The inner door slid up as you ducked through, already slipping off the suit and helmet with an undignified groan. “You have 6 new alerts.”

“And we will deal with them tomorrow. Turn up the AC in Section 8- I’ve been fucking baking in that suit all day.” The suit was abandoned behind you on the floor, the damp fabric leaving your skin cold as it settled against the helmet, a cleaner bot hurrying behind to grab it.

“You have 6 URGENT aler—”

“No, I have AC that you’re not turning on even though I’ve had sweat pooling in my asscrack for the last 6 hours!” Your voice carried louder than you meant- irritation chipping away at the barren corridors.

“Your AC is on. You have 6 alerts. It is within your contracted terms of protocol to address alerts within 3 minutes. You have paused my alerts for the last 2 hours and it is unacceptable, Crewmate!” VI screeched- the tinny accent of its corporate‑friendly voice drilling into the migraine blooming behind your eyes.

“Blah blah blah blah, corporate aren’t here and news flash, VI- they ain’t coming for either of us!” you screamed back. Your mind ran hot with frustration. How many times did you have to tell VI before the ship came to terms with it? Fuck corporate and their stupid mission, you were alone in space.

You pushed yourself up against a vent, letting the cool air blow down your face and chest. If you got drunk enough, maybe you could sit here and pretend you were back on an actual planet, fuck, you’d even take an asteroid colony at this point. It had been so long since you’d seen anything living you were starting to wonder if the universe was empty this side of the worm.

“Your 6 alerts. Alert one: Anomaly ship A sighted.”

What the fuck.

“VI, are you messing with me?” you shouted, your head snapping up toward the ceiling even though VI had told you a million times it didn’t live in the walls —it was the walls— so you didn’t need to bother looking anywhere special.

“No, I am not quote ‘messing with you’.” Its voice, despite not being programmed for it, was definitely sarcastic. “Proceeding with alert two: Anomaly ship attempted radio contact. No response from superior crewmen aboard ArtemisVi. Ship authorised Artificial Intelligence response.”

“VI, you can’t fucking authorise correspondence with a foreign ship! Are you insane? They could be hostile!” you said, banging your already aching head into the vent’s metal grate.

“Alert three: Contact made with ‘Hail Mary’,” VI responded.

Oh great. So the potentially hostile ship responded to your insane AI system, and probably thought VI was you. Amazing.

“Alert four: Request for transport, navigation, and telemetry data. Request received. No response from superior crewmen. VI authorised data sharing.” VI droned on, acting as though your protests didn’t affect it- which they probably didn’t. The ship was indifferent to your suffering so long as you kept it functional.

“You can’t blame me for not responding- I couldn’t fucking hear you! You can’t just go around chatting to any random ship, not all of them are programmed like you. Do you have any idea how much shit I’d get from the C.R.O if they found out how many mods you have?” you cried out, finally forcing yourself down the corridor to the locker room. “That is prison time, VI!”

“Alert five: Hail Mary- transport, navigation, and telemetry data received.”

Great. So they were on their way over. Amazing.

“Alert six: Outer airlock bay 8 authorised access. Contact with Hail Mary authorised.”

“Wait- no, they’re already here? VI!” You hauled ass to get your jumpsuit back over your legs, pulling the zipper tight against your chest.

People. People for the first time in months. Ones who might try to kill you- but they also might not. Who were you kidding? They were probably pirates if they were this far out. What a great time to die- after everything, you were going to die because your dumbass ship couldn’t keep its metaphorical mouth closed.

“Decompression complete. Welcome aboard the ArtemisVi, Hail Mary!” You could hear VI chirp to the crew, much nicer than it ever spoke to you. They probably didn’t have to deal with a ship with passive‑aggression issues. How lucky. Bet they didn’t program their ship with an emotional‑intelligence drive either.

You could hear murmuring voices in response- multiple. But no heavy boots or clicking metal guns that would suggest hostility. VI would’ve thrown a fit if it sensed any.

“Please proceed down corridor 8BL4 to communicate with Superior Crewman Reader.”

Great. Whoever they were, you’d definitely have to talk to them now.

Could the ship not even give you a chance to scope them out? You noted it probably needed a combat experience module to understand that reasoning, why hadn’t you thought to download one before they left. If they ever got back to corp that was the first fucking thing you were doing, that and never going into space again.

You could hear the shuffling steps of what founded like rubber soles on the deck but also a clinking sound, like glass hitting metal?

“Hello Human? Question.” A robotic voice called out, did they bring an automator for their ship with them? You didn’t even have one of those for VI- though the thing would probably complain about the limitations a body structure provides rather than appreciating how expensive it was.

Expensive, which means they’re not part of WYNE or any other corp expedition. Either they were really pirates or this was a private team. Private meant money, which meant rescue if you were lucky. These rich fucks wouldn’t be left stranded like you were.

“Rocky I don’t think VI is here.” A deep voice a man’s voice echoed though the ship. Closer than you’d like, it was now or never.

“VI directed us to new human. Question.” The robotic voice sounded back out, replying to its companion.

Companions. A second man’s voice, muffled and clearly deeper than the others joined in. You couldn’t hear what he said but it was enough to know you were now definitely outnumbered. Let’s just hope they were Private corp rich.

“Hello!” You called out your voice carried down the empty corridor and you wondered if they heard you as the silence stretched on.

“Hello. Are you new human crewman. Question.” The robotic voice called back, the clicking of glass on metal following behind it just as loudly.

Whatever it was it wasn’t part of any ship you’d ever seen. The glass ball registered before the entity inside it- chittering away inside its ball, it turned the corner with a smack into the hubs wall before righting itself. It took a moment to realise why- the creature inside, like an arachnid cased in rock, was flinging itself down the corridor at mach speed with very little caution of its surroundings. Definitely not a ship automator then.

“Rocky!” The man calling turned the corner, catching up to the strange spider rock in a blur of red and white.

“You don’t know if they’re hostile- Grace!” He flung his head back and shouted further down the corridor he just came from. Whoever he was shouting for was clearly further behind than you or they realised.

“Human not threat, Human invited us. Rocky and Vi friends. Statement.” The rock creature called back rolling its ball gently, trying to pull away from the man’s hold.

“You can’t be friends with a person you met two hours ago- Grace!” He screamed again, clearly getting more agitated.

You were frozen under his dark eyes, their narrowed points fixed on you with overt suspicion it reminded you of the kind of frigid hostility that usually came with the struggling factions of miners and not suits in a private spaceship

“Simon! Sorry I got distracted they have a— Oh my goodness Hi!” The third figure to fold around the corner was decidedly more cheery, much more akin to his alien spider friend than the human he was with.

“Hello Nice to meet you…” You cringed, what a colossally awkward way to greet the first people to be seen in space since, well since what you were now dubbing the Darren incident.

“Grace, Dr Ryland Grace. I’m captaining the Hail Mary kinda, i’m more of a science guy but it’s a long story. It’s amazing to meet you, literally amazing, I thought that we were the only ones out this far!” The lanky blonde Grace shot out a hand for you to take as he spoke, shaking it furiously and not giving you any sign of letting go as he carried on.

“Seriously I thought I was the only one out here this is insane! Well, not bad insane, but like good insane! It’s so good to see another human being, it’s just been me and Rocky for so long. Oh! And now Simon too, but it’s great to meet another person.”

You nodded back slowly trying to gently pull your hand out of his own. What were you meant to say to that. Was he insane? or just confused you weren’t sure but there was no way these guys were apart of a Private entity, they had to be pirates but you’d never met any this fucking weird before.

“Grace let go.” Simon, you assumed, must have been kind enough to rescue his friend? Cremate? Co pirate? What ever- he was nice enough to not let his partner make a complete fool of himself in front of, as he put it, a potential hostile.

“Oh sorry i’m so sorry it’s been awhile since i’ve been around new people.” Yeah, we can tell, you snarked internally. These were either the shittest pirates going or you really had no clue what they were and how they were here.

“It’s nice to meet you Captain Grace, I’m, as Vi said, Superior crewman Reader. This here is the Artemis.” You knocked on the metal next to you. “And you met Vi.”

“Hello Captain Grace, Simon and Engineer Rocky.” Vi’s robotic voice filled the silence leaking from the speakers.

“Is Vi in the control room?” The darker haired man, who you concluded must be Simon spoke up, so they did think VI was human after all.

They can’t be from Corp if that was the case, ships as advanced and heavily modded as VI were rare yes, but it was standard to have an intelligence system in the ship for as far back as she could remember.

“No but they’re around, you can meet them later. First things first.” You stuck your hand out, motioning them to file down the corridor. “On the left is the Rec room, why don’t we sit down and you can tell me…”

“Tell you what?” Simon spat back, taking a step in front of Grace.

“Simon Bad. Bad at greeting, this is not the way to say hello to new friend. Statement.” The rock pointedly flung its limb down onto the floor with a harsh thump, drawing Simon’s eyes away from you momentarily.

“I guess you can tell me why you’re here, and if you want, i’ve got some whisky from the Federation. Shits the good stuff.”

Anything from Federations was decidedly never the good stuff- at all, but they didn’t know that. If they were pirates they should.

But no correction came, instead they let you lead them into the Rec room and down onto the chipped command chairs that you and some of the crew had dragged into the ship from the salvage yard. It was dirty work but so worth it to have a halfway decent seat in the one room in the ship meant for leisure.

Whoever these people were they were looking less and less like the typical corporate reject rim jobs you’d find in system, and nothing at all like the manic sadist attitudes you usually found followed pirate like a bad rash.

grace rocky high asf

ooooouugghhhh more little butcher

in which simon singlehandedly salvages a social interaction (full page under cut)