Rowan's Magic and Sorcery

Thinking about book!Stratt and her impassioned attempt to make Grace understand when he says no, and thinking of Sandra Hüller's amazing acting during the chase scene and how she shows her sense of disappointment and betrayal in these beautiful, minute expressions. Thinking of the ways in which Grace betrayed her in so many ways despite the ways in which Grace had time and space to comprehend his unique skills and integrality to the running of the whole project. Thinking of the ways in which Grace's cowardice includes the refusal to face facts and think through not just what came next, but what came After the launch-- thinking through how badly Grace betrayed Eva Stratt, and not the reverse;

Grace is sent to space, from humanities perspective dying a hero. Whether they recieve the video logs or not, he is considered to have died in space on a trip to save humanity.

But if he Hadnt- if he had lived to the world's knowledge, then as no.2 on the project hed probably be taken down with Stratt once society needed someone to blame. Alternatively, if stratt listened to his refusal to go he would have been painted a cowardly villain for not commiting suicide for humanity.

Dr. Ratthi goes on a research survey with non-Preservation researchers. They're on a very inhospitable planet, with lots of superstorms and poison gas. They have a little hub that they stay in and do their work from, with short expeditions outside in protective gear.

And then in a stroke of genuine bad luck, their transport off planet, communication relays, and some life support functions are destroyed in a storm. Almost all of them are convinced they're going to starve to death and die.

All of them except Dr. Ratthi, who is completely chill. They dismiss his certainty that they'll be rescued as him just being a naive optimist from a backwater polity who doesn't know the first thing about real life.

He keeps insisting, "Oh, don't worry, my friends will come get us!" Even though they'll run out of water and food before anyone even notices that something is wrong.

And then in the middle of the fourth day after the accident, during yet another superstorm, someone knocks on the entrance.

It's straight out of a horror movie. They should be alone on this planet. They should be alone. There is a deadly storm outside. Nothing human can be out there, and yet something is at their door.

They know it's not a rescue. A rescue would be coming from off-planet, and there is no one, nothing, that would have the calculation ability to safely navigate a hopper through those winds -

And while they're almost all frozen, processing their terror and the implications, Dr. Ratthi jumps up, and goes to cycle the habitat's airlock to let whatever it is in. He's all happy golden-retriever energy, all "I told you my friends were coming! I can't wait for you to meet them!"

And before anyone can stop him -

Two SecUnits enter. Two SecUnits that have to be rogue, based off of their literally everything.

This really does feel like the start of a horror movie, or maybe the middle of a horror movie, complete with the scene where a dumbass lets the monster in, but then -

One of the SecUnits immediately starts yelling at Ratthi about stupid planets and stupid lowest-bidder equipment and stupid safety protocols and stupid humans who accept stupid research missions.

The other is like. "We should leave soon. The transport is irate, and the longer we spend here, the less concerned it will be with our comfort when it calculates our ascent through the atmosphere."