Chapter Text
Space is a frontier so vast and so unexplored, that any theory of what is going on out there is little more than headcannons contextualized with only the human experience. Grace was all too familiar with trying to get people to expland their miopic minds. Now, he was in a space ship, hurtling towards a star to fix his sun and save Earth.
He's not sure what went wrong, but something must have. He remembered everything, even though he knows he should be fumbling around trying to figure out his own name. That is because he woke up far sooner than the systems wanted him to… a year sooner than he should. So that nice dose of forget-me medicine never reached him. But that doesn't mean he wasn't still fumbling about. No, something happened, some space thing happened. Some space thing that only effected him in such a way that is worse than having no memory.
"Ow." Grace whined as he tripped over his bedsheet toga. The seeds he had been trying to carry to the renovated anti-boredom room scattered, causing the instant effect of his bottom lip wabbling in distress like a child.
That's not even self depricating, because that's what Grace was like a child in far too many aspects now. He's not sure how, but against all odds, it seemed like upon waking up only his mind was kept fully aware of who he was. He'd woken up in his med-bag almost submerged in the excess mass of his old adult form. That decomposing material he has spent that last six months synthesizing into something akin to usable soil. And today was the day he'd get to plant his little garden so he didn't have to eat any more of that slurry. The machines and ship had already written him off as dead, and didn't recognize his new look as having any authorization. He'd managed thus far from a bit of breaking his old feeding tube, allowing the slurry to drip into a bowl he eat out of when he was hungry.
So sue him for crying over the scattered seeds. It wasn't the end of the world, but it was just one more thing to do. He wasn't a botanist, and luckily with all of the world's knowledge, he had a good working theoretical understanding of gardening, but that didn't mean he'd be any good at it. His past experiences actively condemed him of having a black thumb, and if this was an omen, then he was doomed until Yao and Illyukhina woke up, which was still in six months! He'd already tried to wake them up manually, but Armando and Mary were very hostile against what they preceived as an unknown intruder. Which is also the reason why he couldn't manually force open the food storage hatch or the Storage hatch. Luckily there was a manual override from the dorm's hatch to the rest of the ship, or Grace really would have gone crazy. It took him a month to find, hidden as it were. Probably to avoid a scenerio that Memoriless Grace woke up first and messed up the mission because he pressed too many buttons or something. Lucky that it did take tiny memory-full Grace a while to be free too, because he would have probably done a lot worse in his anger.
There was still that voice, angry and betrayed that cried for him to take retribution. He ignored it and went on trying to keep himself a live just to die in the end. But in the middle of all that, in half a year's time, he'd have to be good enough to be able to solve the Patrova problem. He was the most important person on this ship, the scientist. Even his fellow crew were just here to bullstor him up to save the world. And what a terrifying thought that was. He's sure if he were to die, Yao and Illyukhina would find a way.
But like Stratt said, sure isn't enough.
Three months later. Grace estimates that he's about six years old, due to the fact that he's lost a few of his baby teeth. He's managed to grow a small garden of easy, and plentiful vegitables. He's got enough potatoes and tomatoes and cumcumbers to start his own farmers market. Which he sets up a makeshift stall with Mia TherMopolis (princess of Germnovia) as the peddler. Grace had spent a whole day soddering little bits of metal to look like coins and using scraps of paper and the different colored highlighters to make cash. It was the first conterfieting in space, and it looked terrible. Still, Mia TherMopolis had very bad eyesight and always took his money. He felt a bit bad for her though. She'd be taken to jail for the next forty years without parole when she tried to use the counterfiet bills to pay off her hospital bills (she had a lot because she kept up catching all kinds of bacteria and illnesses. Her insurance was about to drop her as a client, but she won't know until it was too late.)
Grace hummed as he went back to his lab, under one of the desks he had fixed up into a sort of pillow fort to be a bit less scary.
"Alert! Unknown complications of life support. Alert! Unknown Complications of life support. Retrieving data now. Alert! Unknown Complications of life support. No data found. Estimate Survival rate of Yao Li-Jie 79% and declining. Estimate Survival rate of Oleysa Illyukhina 78% and declining. Alert! Uknown Coplications of life support. Reanalysing. Alert—"
Grace ran to the crewbeds. Armando was wiggling about, as if he were overwhelmed with what was happening. Grace could see the clog in oxygen tubes. He couldn't tell what it was, build up, or food litterally going down the wrong pipe, but he knew that if it made it to either patient, they'd sufficate. He raced over to their beds, but was thrown back by Armando.
"Warning! foriegn intruder attacking crew. Alert! Known Complication to life support. No Data found. Warning! foriegn intruder attacking crew. Reanalysising. Alert!—" Mary's voice mixed in with the strobing lights and the blaring alarms. Armando's arms were held out not to heal but to harm. Grace didn't know if robots had to take the hippocratic oath, but this one should get its liscense revoked. He raced over to Yao's bed again, managing to unzip his med-bag only to be attacked by Armando. He had to dodge away so arms couldn't reach him. "Survival rate of Yao Li-Jie 62% and declining. Alert! Unknown complication to life support! Survival rate of Olesya Illyukhina 63% and declining. Warning Foriegn intruder attacking crew. Alert!—"
Grace sprinted to Yao once more. He hooked his legs as best as he could around the cot to keep him anchored as he untwisted a part of the breathing tube. The part that was meant to be able to be switched out with a manual pump in case of complications. He didn't have a manual pump. He had to fix the actual problem.
Armando flung him out of the room again as he attempted to get to Illyukhina. He wheezed as his back slammed onto the ground and knocked the wind from him. He struggled to breath, but managed to force his body upright again as Mary spelled out the ever declining health of his crewmates. He didn't give himself time (he didn't have time) to recover as he ran back into to room and twisted of Illyukhina's tube. Once again, only able to dodge Armando for so long before being chucked away. His head smacked against on of the ladder rungs. His vision swam as his body listed sideway. He caught the blury image of a cart full of medical supplies. One of which was a scaplel and medical grade adhesive. An idea popped in his head. He slunk against the wall. Armando's wirring a warning at him as he tracked the child just out of his reach. Grace snatched the supples before the med bot could snatch him. He took a breather in a corner. Armando kept him corraled before Mary's Alerts registered an actual problem.
"Breathing tubes disconnected. Reattach promptly. Alert Breathing tubes of Yao Li-jie and Olesya Illyukhina disconnected. Reattach promptly." Armando let out an angry pnuematic hiss at Grace before going to reconnect the tubes.
Grace had to act fast before the arms could actually connect them back. He threw himself at the bot, pinning it to his old bed and using a lot of the tape to attatch on of its arms to the head board. Armando hissed and wriggled. It wouldn't take long before the bot could break free again. Grace raced to where the clogs in the breathing tubes were, almost the same spot. He cut a hole just above the clog in Yao's tube first and then blew into it as hard as he could, letting the excess pressure shoot the chunk of whatever out. He quickly resealed the tube and went over the Illyukhina's and did the same. Just as he secured the end of the tap. Armando broke free and flew at him with a vengance. Grace was flying in the air and knocked out of the room. He felt a sharp pain as the scalpel sliced down his thigh, long and deep.
"Breathing tubes reattached. Reanalysing date. Data retrieved. All operations at full compacity. survival rate of Yao Li-Jie 71% and climbing. Survival rate of Olesya Illyukhina 69% and climbing." The alarms cut off and the ship settled.
"Oh fudge. Oh Fudge. Oh fudging fucking fuck!" Grace held down his leg. His head pounded, and blood was pooling on the floor. His hand shook and he tried to keep preasure and tears were bluring his already hazy vision. He needed help. Actual medical help, but the only medical thing on board was Armando. All the medical supplies were with Armando except for the scalpel and the roll of medical tape that was rolling lazily back into the crew bay. He watched it wobbled and fell on its side just in the med bot's shadow. Armando clicked its hands threateningly at Grace.
"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay." Grace sniffled. All he had to do was stop the bleeding. He was never one for Boy's Scouts, but he was a scientist. A microbioligist. and before you learned microbiology, you learned normal biology. So he knew for a fact that the blood needed to stay inside his body.
His fingers slipped on the scalpel, both covered in so much blood that everything was stained bright red. He used the knife to cut strips of his toga which he as bandages. They kept soaking through. He needed something better. His lips wobbled as he fashioned his own tourniquet. He needed to get to his lab. He'd have more things to help him in there.
Climbing the ladder to the rest of the ship was agonizing. His hands were slippery from the blood. He was already down to one leg. He had to be hasty until he reached at least 2/3s the way up. The ladder was still apart of Armando's domain. Without the alarms blaring the medbot kept its distance, but kept a watch, as if anticipating the moment Grace would get to close to his precious patients.
About halfway up, Grace felt a wave of weakness rush over him. Probably due to bloodloss. His grip loosened for a fraction of a second and he could feel the heavier gravity dig its claws into him. He scrambled to right his hold, smushing himself against the rungs. Everything in him jostled. He let out a primal scream. And he couldn't stop. He cried and sobbed and screamed in pain and anguish. His tiny body shook and he had so long to go.
He begged for his mom, a woman he hadn't seen since he was originally six years old. He called for Yao or Illyukhina to wake up and help him. He cursed out Stratt before pleading with her to save him. He begged forgiveness to anyone who would listen. Begged the ship to recognize him for Armando to help for anything.
He kept going as he did so. Forcing his body upward. He had to drag himself to his lab, a trail of blood following him as if he were nothing but a worthless little slug.
All he had was a spool of nylon string, much thicker than what they would use in hospitals, and straight needles. The heruclean task of threeding them together with slippery shaking bloody, child-chubby fingers took far longer than Grace really had. With those same inefficiant hands, he pinched together his wound. It looked bigger than he remembered, probably openned up more from all his jostling. The only positive right now was that his tourniquet was working, which meant he was on a timer anyway. Had it been two hours? He had forgotten to mark the time, how silly of him.
His leg was numb though, which meant the only thing keeping him from sewing himself up was that he had to watch. Luckily that concussion he most certianly had was causing a floating effect where everything was disconnected enough that he could swallow the bile around his tears and get to work.
During Middle school, Grace remembers learning how to sew as apart of a 2 week art class circulum. Elementry school children had drawn monster creatures and written a little story. His class was supposed to then sew little stuffed versions of the monster assigned to them. He rememebers his stitching being wildly spaced, the seam bloated and puffy. The thread too loos in areas and too tight in others. The child loved the physical rendering of his creation even if Ryland had started to use craft glue for the felt details.
His leg was a lot like that monster, red and splotchy and messy in ways that if this weren't a suicide mission would leave groteque scarring for the rest of his life (it would do that anyway, but the fact that the rest of his life was comparably shorter than it would have been was more the point)
Grace was able to untie and peel off his tourniquet with the last of his energy as fatigue and bloodloss caught up to him. He was panting heavily, pressing his hot forehead to the cool floor of his lab. His eyes fluttered close, feeling all of that extra .6 force of gravity on him.
Mia TherMopolis had tried to be a red head, but as it faded it turned more into a coppery sort of brown. She also suffered a bit of an accident and had to have her leg apmutated, so she's not as tall as she once was. Due to the recovery time, her garden had taken a major hit, so her market was less abundant, but that was fine to Grace. His garden had also taken a hit. When he got better enough to hobble around on this makeshift crutch he'd aquired after his own accident. He had made a self-contained terraium where a machine monitored the air flow, water retention and growth of the plants. It was all self contained and in his lab. Which helped with his leg, which was getting much better, but it still twinged and ached when he walked.
The books all say he has to take things slow, physical therapy could take months more. He didn't know how many more months the rest of his life would be, but he knew that it'd probably be in the next year. Mary had already started to decrease the astrophage output in preparations for entiring the Tau Ceti system. Her estimations is their arrival in a week. He also heard her command Armando to start to awake the crew. Grace's skin itched with anticipation. He wondered if they'd help Mia with her farm and him with his garden. Oh! He'd need to build them their own house too! Or maybe they'd want to share with him. He hoped so!
"Eye movement detected. What is 2+2?"