Chapter Text
It finally felt like Rocky and I had earned the right to relax.
Sure…I would never return to Earth and see my kids again, but we had found a way to save both of our worlds. We had sent the Beatles on their way and were on our way to Erid.
Hey maybe I could even meet the real Adrian.
“Hey Rocky,” I called out from the lab. I didn’t hear him nearby, but he always heard me from our confined living situation mixed with his hearing.
“What is it, question?” Rocky echoed, as he made his way into the room from one of his tunnels, two of his arms repairing something I didn't 100% recognize.
“What are you most excited for when we get to Erid?”
This perks him up. His carapace turns to face me completely, tilted in a ‘smile’. “So much! You will see. Erid is home. I hope Adrian is happy to see me,” His high pitch dropped at the last sentence.
My smile fades, “Aren’t you mated for life? Why would they not wait for you?” I ask, cringing at the blunt question slightly.
“I have been gone long time…Might think I die with crew. From ‘radiation poisoning.’”
I walk up to the clear xenonite wall that separated us, pressing my hand to it’s surface despite the heat behind it, “Well you are still here. And you are going home buddy.”
“Yes…I go home.”
Our conversation is cut short when alarms start blasting out of nowhere.
“Woah woah woah,” I reach out, trying to find the computer systems through the flashing lights.
“What is wrong, question?” Rocky shouts, “Bad, question? Sounds bad bad bad.”
I glance over at him, watching him run from side to side. I absently think how this must be a lot for his senses. I gotta turn this off somehow.
“Computer! Volume off!”
Nothing changes.
“Computer! Run diagnostics!”
The lights and alarms keep blasting, but the screens change to a diagram of the ship.
Oh that's not good.
The exterior sensors were all highlighted in red.
“What is wrong with ship, question?”
“I don’t know,” I keep my hands to my ears, but I can hear Rocky all the same. “The exterior sensors are down…”
Did we hit something? No, we would have felt it.
Are they just glitching out? I close my eyes, trying to focus over the onslaught of noise and light. It hits me all at once.
“Rocky, get into your environment ball– with the astrophage. Go!” I shout. There wasn’t time to explain. I wasn’t even sure if I was right, but if I was, he had to go now.
“You will be okay, question?”
“Yes. Go.” I shout. He turns and runs after that, trusting me to know what to do in my own ship.
I brace my hands against the table in the middle of the room, trying to make sense of the screens in front of me. If our navigation systems are down, there is a chance we veer off course and overshoot our trajectory for Erid and fly off into deep space. Even if we shift just a fraction of a decimal.
My head is starting to hurt.
I take a deep breath through my nose, hoping that Rocky made it. We were fighting something invisible here. It was a frequency of light I couldn’t see. Radiation.
I remember explaining to my students one time—oh how they love asking questions once we talk about how radiation and microwaves are just light—about how radiation storms can occur in space, called solar radiation storms. I didn’t know the solar maximum of this solar system. Sure, back on Earth, they can occur roughly every 11 years, but I couldn’t think of a way Rocky would possibly know about these given he and his crew were unaware radiation even existed until it was too late.
Based on the way the ship was acting, I could only assume it was a S3-S5. If it was S-5, I was at risk for radiation exposure, but someone had to fix the ship, and Rocky can’t always read the screens with his texture.
All of a sudden, the screens go out and the emergency power goes on. I squint, trying to focus through the extremely dimmed lighting.
This can’t be good.
Rocky suddenly appears again. “Grace, what is wrong with ship, question?”
I try to face him, but I bump into the side of the table loudly, folding over it slightly.
“What is wrong, question?”
“Can’t see. The power went out again. I need to find a way to fix the navigation systems. I’m pretty sure we hit a solar storm,” I purposely leave out the word ‘radiation’.
“What is solar storm, question.” Rocky asks, I can hear him use his magnets to make his way toward me.
“It’s an energetic proton flux from the sun…they tend to impact satellite operations, but I think that one was kind of extreme.”
Rocky is still for a moment, considering what I said, “Accelerating protons, question?”
“Yeah,”
“Like radiation, question?” That gets me to pause my grasping at the walls to orient myself.
“Rocky, it’s gonna be okay you are in your ball. The astrophage will protect you,”
“I am safe, yes. You are not.” Neither of us move.
“I am not sick, Rocky.” I feel my shoulders rise defensively, “And we need to fix the ship now before we-”
“You not protected. You get sick.”
“Rocky I–”
“You can’t die.” Rocky’s voice quivers in a way I have never heard before. I can’t see him well, but I am assuming he is ‘looking’ straight at me.
“If I didn’t start showing signs immediately, then I didn’t get sick,” I ignore my head pounding behind my eyes. “Radiation poisoning is immediate for humans.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment.
“Friend, okay, question?”
I slouch in relief at his interrogation, “Yes, Rocky. I am okay. I–” I cut myself off before I say ‘promise,’ “–I am okay.”
“Navigation down. How I fix ship, question?”
“The screens were showing that the sensors were damaged externally. After everything that happened on Adrian, I’m sure they just needed this final push. I’m going to need to do an EVA to fix them.”
“No. EVA dangerous. Must be way for me to fix from inside.”
“I can’t see inside–”
“I lead you. You explain and we fix.”
I think I can see the faint edges of his ball. “Okay…we try to fix it from inside. But if we can’t, I need to go out there.”
We were extremely unsuccessful trying to fix this mess from inside. We were able to get one of the generators to turn on, but it was buggy and would dip in and out. It felt like a fight scene in an old movie where they were trying to save the budget by keeping all the actual brutal moments in complete darkness.
The navigation systems were still down, and when the screens did turn on, the sonars on the ship were still red.
We were stuck in space, Erid’s best engineer, and one of Earth’s best scientists who happened to be coma resistant, and we couldn’t fix a navigation sonar.
“You can’t go outside. EVA is dangerous. Lots of radiation in space.” Rocky scolds me as I begin to suit up.
“There is always radiation in space. That is what the suit is for.” I gripe back, having had this conversation three times while I made my way to the airlock.
“What if ‘solar storm’ happens again, question?”
“What if we fly off into deep space and starve?” I question him right back, “Rocky I know there are risks. Solar radiation storms…this is risky.” I can’t stop thinking about how little we actually know about this sun. This is beyond risky. Solar storms can happen in waves… I could be walking to my doom, but we also don’t have a lot of time to fix this.
I finish getting into the suit before turning back to Rocky, “If something goes wrong, try to get me to go back into the airlock so I can get back inside. But don’t leave your ball, okay? If there is another flare while I’m out there, there is a chance the suit will be contaminated and we need to seal it away.”
“Be safe. Don’t die.” Rocky is tense, moving side to side in an anxious pattern.
“I’ll try not to.” I sigh, working up the nerve to go out there.
It felt like yesterday that I learned that I wasn’t doomed to die alone. That I had a chance to make it back to Earth. Now, I’m never going to see Earth again, but I am not alone. Rocky saved me in more ways than one, but now I had to risk my life again to save his planet.
We don’t have a way to get the taumoeba to Erid without delivering them ourselves, and we would never make it to Erid if we don’t find a way to fix our navigation systems.
I hook up my cables as I make my way around the ship. I move quickly, trying to get to the sonars and sensors as quickly as possible. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up and there was sweat beading on my forehead.
“Okay Rocky. I’m gonna do what I can, but I’m not an engineer like you.”
“Should be me outside.” I hear him say through the speaker in my suit.
“You don’t have an EVA suit. Time is of the essence buddy.”
“I am engineer. I could make one.”
“Time limit.”
“I am fast.”
“And I’m already out here.”
We were both getting more and more antsy. I felt bad for bickering with him, but I couldn’t waste time talking about things that were out of the question.
When I finally find the damaged section, my heart drops a little bit. It was a mess.
“Rocky if I explain what I see can you tell me what to do?”
“Do not need to explain. I know issues. I tell you how to fix.”
Oh yeah… he could probably hear what is out of place. Maybe there was a way to fix it from inside.
He did his best, walking me through each step, using my ‘human names’ for tools and measurements. When I finally was able to take a step back and breath, the ship no longer looked one breath away from losing a significant chunk of hardware.
“Okay,” my voice wavered slightly, feeling some of the adrenaline leaving my system now that the main issue was handled.
“Systems functioning. Computer works!” Rocky cheers, voice going up an octave again.
“Oh thank god,” I mutter, hand moving toward the back of my head out of instinct before the suit gets in my way, making my movements awkward and clunky. “Okay, I’m gonna make my way back to the airlock.”
“Good good good!”
“Yes, good good good.” I smile, moving faster than before. The sense of impending doom still hasn’t gone away. There was still a chance another wave would knock everything out of wack again.
As I was rounding the final section, just before the airlock, it felt like I was run over with the schoolbus that brought my kids every day.
“Rocky open it,” I gasp out, feeling too uncoordinated to manually open it from the outside.
“Grace, question?” His voice sounds urgent. That’s not good.
I drag myself through the open door, hearing it close behind me at the same time I slam into the wall. I wasn’t careful enough with the speed of my entry. It felt like my stomach was upside down. Like when I experience 0G for the first time.
I felt the pressure rapidly increase around me accompanied by the whistle of air. I fell to my knees, grasping at the suit, trying to get it off once the door to the inside opened and Rocky scurried in.
“Sick, question? Radiation, question? Is okay, question?” His questions are rapid fire, each laced with the same fear. “Another solar storm, question?”
“Help,” I rasp out, unable to get the suit off.
Somehow, he manages. I couldn’t see. Not through the haze that now penetrated my vision from the pressure behind my eyes. I shove the suit to the back of the airlock as I crawl into the ship further.
I fall against a wall, trying to breath through the nausea. Going from 0G to Earth gravity wasn’t doing me any favors. The sweat that had beaded against my skin while outside now freely dripped down my head, leaving me with a wet glaze.
‘Leaky squishy human’ I muse to myself
“Grace!” Rocky is in front of me now, moving faster than I’ve seen him go in a while.
“Sick,” I breathed out, eyes closed again. Even if my eyes are closed, I can tell he froze in his tracks.
“Bad bad bad.”
“Bad bad bad,” I mirror him, “I need to get to the dorm.” I try to stand, but quickly opt for crawling. I keep my eyes closed, but Rocky leads the way, letting out a long note for me to follow. Or at least I think that’s why he’s doing that. It could also just be because he’s scared—dang it I’m scared—and it’s more of an unconscious whine.
The urge to puke rises when I remember there is a ladder. I really don’t like that ladder.
“How can I help, question? How will you get to dorm, question? You need computer.”
I peel my eyes open, groaning at the lights. “Climb gracefully. It’s in my name.”
“You are never graceful. You are clumsy human. Only two arms,” Rocky says. At least the joke didn’t land flat.
“Any suggestions?” I groan again, feeling green in the face—not that Rocky could tell.
He raises one of his arms, “Hold on,”
I try to rest my head against the ground to cool off, but before it really has any effect, Rocky is back, now holding something.
Its a cable…
“I lower you down. You don’t fall. Then computer heals you and we go to Erid.” He sounds confident enough. I drag myself to my hands and knees again, clumsily trying to tie the cable around my waist.
I forget that Rocky is as strong as he is sometimes. He looks like a rock sure, but he is physically smaller than me.
He picks me up with ease though, warm clear xenonite hoisting me up before lowering me through the opening by the cable. I feel my face tighten as the world spins around me. Now it was 0G to suddenly have gravity to then be swinging by what was basically a rope was my final straw.
As soon as I hit the ground, I lunged for a random shirt on the ground, hoping it wasn’t one of my favorites and felt my insides climb their way up through my throat in a disgusting display of how gross humans can be. I feel my body contract, trying to get rid of whatever was wrong with it to no avail.
I don’t know how long I sat there gagging until I heard Rocky’s sing-song voice next to me. He sounded scared.
I think I’m scared too.