Chapter Text
"¿Cuánto es dos más dos?"
Something about the question irritates me. I'm tired. I drift back to sleep. A few minutes pass, then I hear it again.
"¿Cuánto es dos más dos?"
The soft, feminine voice lacks emotion and the pronunciation is identical to the previous time she said it. It's a computer. A computer is hassling me. I'm even more irritated now.
"dhrmnbh," I say. I'm surprised. I meant to say "Déjame en paz" - a completely reasonable response in my opinion - but I failed to speak.
"Respuesta incorrecta. Por favor, mantenga la calma. Es posible que sufra amnesia o aturdimiento debido al coma. ¿Cuánto es dos más dos?"
God this is stupid. I feel like I've been hit by a falling brick wall during the least restful sleep of my life, and a robot is trying to keep me from freaking out and also to tell it what 2+2 is when I'm too groggy to speak... wait, coma?
Shit. Right, I remember where I am now (probably). I'm in space. I'm one of the three first people to ever leave the solar system. Me, and my buddies... crap, can't remember any of our names. Ah well.
I manage to force my eyes open, and "...¿cuatro?" through my mouth. The overhead light certainly helps with the grogginess the voice mentioned.
"Correcta. Movimiento ocular detectado. ¿Cuál es la raíz cúbica de ocho?"
I take a second to look around. I'm wearing a breathing mask, it's tight to my face and the tube goes around below my cot. Looking down (well, sideways, since I'm lying down, but whatever), I'm naked (ew) and connected to a shit-ton of tubes; one in each arm, one in each leg, one in my dick (ew), and two that go somewhere under my thigh, presumably where the sun don't shine. Buncha electrode stickers too (least they didn't use the needle-y kind).
"...dos."
"Correcta."
That seems to have satisfied the medical robot. For now, at least. God I'm tired. I'm so tired...
I wake up. How long was I out? Must've been a while, since I feel like I just took the best nap of my life. My eyes come open on their own without having to will 'em this time. Nice. Honestly, my brain's probably had enough time to fix the wiring situation, so give wiggling my fingers a try.
"Movimiento de la mano detectado," says the computer, "Permanezca inmóvil."
"Whmnh?"
The robot arms come for me. They move fast. Before I know it, they’ve removed most of the tubes from my body. I didn’t feel a thing, my skin is kind of numb anyway. Only three tubes remain: one of the arm IVs, the rectal waterslide, and a catheter. Those latter two are kind of the signature items I wanted removed, but okay, whatevs.
I try raising my arms over the bed and letting them flop back down. A few times, actually. They certainly aren't very muscular, but they aren't noodles either. Just average. Which is weird, right? I've been completely immobile in a coma for the last... while? The exact time will come to me later I guess. How haven't my muscles completely atrophied yet?
I test some other muscles, bouncing around different parts of my body before pushing myself off the bed, and manage to get up sitting on my butt tube. Certainly not the most comfortable long, thin thing I've ever had up my ass. Looking up, it seems that I'm on the bottom bunk, so I can't see my crewmates - Leah and Doug, those were their names - from where I am. I remember being thick as thieves with 'em, though, so I suppose I must've woken up first.
I move to get up off the bed, my legs are still a bit wobbly, though, so the med bot comes over so it can catch me if I fall.
"¿Inglés o español?"
"...English."
"Language preference updated. Full body motion detected. What is your name?"
"Pfft, seriously?"
"Incorrect. What is your name?"
Right, it's making sure I'm not completely incoherent. My tounge, by muscle memory, naturally goes to make an L sound, but... huh, guess it hasn't c- NO WAIT RIGHT.
"Lllllllleeroy Matteo."
"Correct."
The robot goes ahead and takes the remaining coma kit out; IV, butt tube, and catheter. There's a little bit of bleeding from the first & last one of those, so it gives me a pair of bandaids. The little bit of blood that does come out of my dick, though... It's funny, the faint smell of chalk dust in the air and the thin red line on the floor, they almost remin-
SUSIE: Ive been lookin at the coma system, and ive been thinking, right?
SUSIE: Weve all got basic training in the other 2 fields just in case someone dies on route to tau ceti, right?
SUSIE: And were gonna have at least someone stay up because this is the first time someones goin past the moon, right?
SUSIE: And ive been worrying, like, "what if the crew isnt able to put themselves under properly and they all die?"
SUSIE: And between it not being all that garrenteed, and the fact that there isnt much anyone could really do about that, im not tooooo worried?
SUSIE: But like, just in case, we really should have someone get put under by the medical pros at launch, ya know?
LEEROY: right, right.
LEEROY: hm...
LEEROY: eh, screw it, i'll go under.
SUSIE: Pff, ok, sure dude.
Wow, okay. Buncha memories just hit me like a truck, but that conversation in particular... Fuck, ok, grounding technique: Recap. My name is Leeroy Matteo, and I'm the Pilot of the Hail Mary. I'm in the Tau Ceti system because Venus caught an STD or something and it's killing the sun. My crewmates, Leah Smith and Doug Kaufman are in medically-induced comas, with an off-chance that they're dead. The chalk dust smell isn't so innocent anymore now that I've recalled common sense monster thanatology. Fuck.
Climbing the ladder, I worriedly look at Leah-
LEAH: ...
LEAH: I mean, I'm an ex-Mormon, you know that already, religious shit ain't all that appealing to me.
LEAH: But... I'd like to think that maybe, just maybe.
LEAH: You stick around somehow. Like, as a ghost or something? I dunno.
LEEROY: ...
LEEROY: i think... i'd like to think that, too.
Fuck.
Susie was right.
You can't breathe.
You fall off the ladder.
The arm robot catches you, and tells you to remain calm.
You're too in the midst of having a panic attack to be able to recognize you're having a panic attack.
Fuck.
Oh god, you're gonna die alone up here.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
The machine offers you breakfast.
You can't bring yourself to look at what it is.
You dry heave. Nothing comes out. You haven't had a meal in four years. You're so hungry. You're so scared.
Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck F-
KRIS: लानत है!
KRIS: कम्बख्त, बेवकूफ़ ओवन!
LEEROY: y'good there, krispy kreme?
KRIS: Burnt my fucking hand!~
LEEROY: mm, dangers of helping make the bunnyboy his last breakfast on earth, i guess!
Food. I need food. My survival instincts overpower my distress and grab the thing out of the robot's hand. It's a toothpaste tube labelled "DAY 1 - MEAL 1". He slurps it up and it's the best god-damn thing we've ever tasted, almost as good as sex, even. Ok. Ok.
Fuck.
God.
My friends are dead. My friends are dead and it's my fault. Because I thought I wanted to be the hero. Because I thought I was actually up to this. Because-
Breathe. Breathe. I'm ok. I'll be ok. How fucked I am and to what extent it's my fault is something for future Leeroy to worry about. For now, I have things to do.
"...Where're my clothes?"
"Clothes, and other such personal belongings and assorted tools, are in the storage bay beneath the dormitory."
And, conveniently, the Mary opens a little hatch to let me into said storage bay. Sick.
Quickly, I head in, and-
"Engine shutoff in 10 minutes."
Cool, anyways, doesn't take long for me to find my clothes. I throw on a comfy black shirt and some nice salmon overalls (I'm not gay or anything, it's just that Salmon, Black, Periwinkle, and Yellow is a very nice color palette), and then clamber up into the lab, being VERY careful to not give myself another panic attack by looking at Leah's dust and Doug's corpse. Looking around, all the lab equipment seems to be in the right place. Guess I'll have to figure out what it all does. I turn around, and-
Oh wow.
I forgot how beautiful space is. It's honestly kinda peaceful. I think I can see a pale blue dot in the distance, that must be, like, an exoplanet or something. Wow, looks like I'm the first person to ever lay eyes on an exoplanet, even if it's too far away for me to really count as being able to "see" it. Huh.
Right, mission. I climb up into the command room, and strap myself into the chair.
"Pilot detected. Engine cutoff in 1 minute."
I look around the command cylinder; lotsa screens, huh? All showing useful info; The Mary's attitude, a live feed of our approach towards Tau Ceti, KSP-style map view (with lots of error bars, of course, but I can fix that now that I'm AUs away from the planets of Tau Ceti instead of Light-Years), and the Petrovascope, which is turned off until engine shutoff so that the exhaust glow doesn't fry its sensors.
"Engine cutoff in 5"
Speak of the devil.
"4"
"3"
I brace myself.
"2"
"1"
"Engine cutoff. Welcome to the Tau Ceti system, Dr. Captain Matteo."
0g takes me slightly off-guard, but it isn't too bad, I've done it before. Looks like the Petrovascope is unlocked now, as expected. And, checking it... well, it's on visible mode by default, and once I've successfully swept the sky for it, it gives me a good look at Tau Ceti, except for the star itself. Presumably just an analog sunshield so the starlight doesn't fry the sensors. Switching it to "Petrova," though...
The hazy ring of Tau Ceti's corona remains, the background stars dissapear, and... Yes! A Petrova line, clear as day. There are so many experiments I'm gonna need to do, I don't even know where to start. I should see where the line leads, for starters. One of the planets, obviously, but which one, and what's so special about it? And I should get a sample of local Astrophage to see if it’s the same as what we have back on Earth. Who knows, maybe this is just a less virulent strain? I could do that by flying into the Petrova line itself and then scraping the dust off the hull with an EVA...
And then, a faint blip, on the Petrovascope's readout screen.
What.
The blip keeps happening, periodically. It's too far away from Tau Ceti and its Petrova line to be a planet. Maybe it's a spinning asteroid where one side is more reflective than the other? Weird. After a few minutes of watching, though, it stops blinking and becomes a solid light. What the hell???
...
It seems to not be changing very much.
Whatever, you'll watch it over the next few days.
You've got a pair of eulogies to write, anyways.
"Good morning, Leeroy."
"'Mornin, Mary."
An empty platitude, of course. She doesn't really care. But I might as well, right?
I start going through the same daily routine as I have the last few days: Get breakfast (A breakfast burrito, this time, since my gut has regained enough strength to handle solid food now), Head into the command pod, Turn off the Centrifuge, Check the mystery dots (the mystery dot inexplicably trifurcated after it got bright (close?) enough, a few days ago.) on the Petrovascope, notice them dissapear, Turn th- Wait what?
I stop before I automatically turn the centrifuge back on, and re-check the petrovascope. Yeah, the 3 dots are gone. What the fuck???
Zooming out, I check in on the Petrova line again, and... half of it is gone??
Zooming in on the cutoff point, it's like someone cut the flow with an exacto knife. There's no way that's happening on the Line's part, so there must be something blocking my view of it, a smudge of lost Astrophage on the lens or something.
I switch the camera to Visible and holy shit that's just straight up a spaceship.
It's a big, angular, splotchy, brown, cathedral-like mess of spires, hexagons, and no fucking curves.
How??? Is it holding in air??? When it has so many sharp corners???? And why does it have spikes?????
There's no way someone would make a ship like that. At least, nobody on Earth, which necessarily means...
"Dios mío."
It's an Astrophage-powered alien spaceship. I'm not alone. If they're using Astrophage too, then they're probably here for the same reason I am. Hopefully. I quickly switch a panel to the Radar tool and pretty much immediately mute the proximity alarm. Stupid big-ass ears. According to the readout screen, there's 3 things around me, Blips -A, -B, and -C, and all of them have a relative velocity to the Hail Mary of precisely Jax Shit, with distances and angular widths of 217m/35.44°, 104m/38.58°, and 189m/53.13°, respectively. That can't be a coincidence. 3 alien spaceships just Rendezvoused with me at decently close range, in a roughly triangular pattern, and looking at them through the telescope, none of them look even remotely similar;
- The Blip-A is a boxy hexagonal prism, colored in half-mixed-paint looking brown, tan, and gray splotches, attatched at its sides to a symmetric pair of oblique hexagonal bipyramids with long (decorative?) spikes jutting out of their surfaces along the ship's (presumably) prograde/retrograde axis, as well as a pair of hexagonal frustums sticking out of its cap faces, each attatched with a trio of rectangular prism "rods". According to some quick Arctans, it's about 139 meters long.
- The Blip-B is a tiny battleship, only about 73 meters long, made out of a combination of something golden and something purple, with what seem to be the lips of 3 bell nozzles sticking out the flat back.
- The Blip-C is a big, metallic prolate spheroid, connected at the back? by 3 cylindrical "rods" to a large circular frustum, and at the front? by a single cylindrical "stalk" to a large nosecone, with a total length of about 189 meters.
Why are the -A and -C so big? Why is the -B so much closer? (Actually, the -B is probably closer because it's smaller. Duh.) What do the aliens look like? Are they interested in teaming up? Are they gonna throw a-
"Blip-D detected."
Oh god they're throwing a bomb at me aren't they?
"Shields up!"
"There are no shields aboard the Hail Mary."
"Fuck!"
Ok, Leeroy, stop fucking panicking. It's a lot more likely to be a message-in-a-bottle than it is to be a pipebomb.
According to the radar, the Blip-D has a velocity of about 8.6 cm/s, and is coming from the Blip-A. It should take about 40 minutes to reach me, that's plenty enough time for me to hop in an EVA suit and perform monsterkind's first touchdown-pass reception with an alien quarterback.
After getting the Temperature Regulation & Bio-Monitoring Undergarment (or just EVA under-onesie, for short) from storage (it was near the top, thank god), I head to the airlock, open the inner door, and grab the Orlan-MKS2 EVA suit labelled "Leeroy." Whereas American EVA suits have the Pants+Boots, Shirt, Helmet, and Gloves as separate pieces that interlock together over the EVA under-onesie in a complex multi-person dance, the Russian Orlan suits are single-pressure vessels; you just put on the EVA under-onesie, open the back hatch, slip in, and close it back up. Convenient for when the other 2 crew members are unavailable (such as dead). The 0g also makes it easier (instead of harder) to wiggle into the Orlan, too.
I use my legs and the wall to close the Orlan's back hatch, knowing it's close enough to closed for the autoseal button to work when a little indicator light on the front panel turns green. Several clicks and a few clunks later, and I have 7 hours of life support, with 40% Earth atmospheric pressure Pure O2 air at my snouttip (A normal pressure for a spacesuit.)
"Hey, Mary, gimme a countdown on when the Blip-D makes its closest approach to your hull, same decreasing reminder intervals as for engine cutoff, will ya?"
"10 minutes."
"Thaaaanks!"
Still plenty of time. Also looks like I don't have to go through a decompression step, which must mean the whole Hail Mary's internal atmosphere is at that Nitrogenless 40% pressure mark. Convenient. I sigh, and a fan whirs behind me. AC, nice. I close the inner Airlock door and start up the airlock. A pump whirrs to life, and within a few minutes, the noise has faded away.
The Mary tells me over the Orlan suit's internal radio, "Airlock degassing complete. Feel free to step outside. Blip-D ETA 5 minutes."
I grab some tethers, then walk out into space. The tethers are essential; the one thing the Orlan suit doesn't have over NASA suits is that it doesn't have a SAFER unit (an admittedly pretty weak inert monopropellant EVA jetpack) to let me try and fly myself back to the ship if I fall. Flipping up the sun visor, I stare out at the Blips. Admittedly, the telescope gave me a better view, but still. I'm looking at alien spaceships with my own 2 eyes.
"Blip-D ETA 2 minutes."
Crap, right. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of Taulight reflecting off of the Blip-D's gently-tumbling surface. I maneuver to the part of the Mary's hull where it'll pass closest to.
"Blip-D ETA 30 seconds."
Now that it's closer, I can actually kinda see it. It's made of the same splotchy brown-and-tan stuff the Blip-A is, which I suppose would make sense if the Blip-A's crew made it on the fly out of the same stuff as their hull before they threw it at me.
"Blip-D ETA 10 seconds."
"I see it, Mary, cancel countdown."
It'll pass a bit "above" me, so when it's about to pass overhead, I give some slack in my tethers and
JUMP
and
I
TED: I swear, dude, you're gonna take the NBA by storm some day.
LEEROY: yeesh, can a guy not look at the way a football flies and want to do it one better?
LEEROY: nah, what i'm gonna do, is i'm gonna get into the air force, and then be the best pilot ever, and then i'll get to transfer over to nasa.
TED: Huh. Stars call to ya, eh?
LEEROY: pfft, what can i say?
LEEROY: my girl loves stargazing, shouldn't she get to look at me and them at the same time?
TED: Ahhaha, ya lady's boy!
Score a god-damn 13-pointer on that stupid tube.
I stick the tube (a container, judging by the weight-to-size ratio) under my arm, and make my way back into the airlock, cycle it, and start taking off the Orlan suit. And that's when the smell hits me. The tube smells mildly of cat piss, which probably means that the Blip-A's crew breathes Methane instead of Oxygen. It's not too bad while it's closed, but I should probably open it under the fume hood. And the fume hood needs centrifugal gravity to work properly.
I finish slipping out of the Orlan suit, go to grab the tube, and YEEOWCH THAT'S HOT!
Alright, the Blip-A's crew breathes hotter-than-room-temp Ammonia. Probably super hot, given that it had 40 minutes tumbling through space to cool down. Cool. I head down to the storage room, throw on some thick gloves, and grab it, now once again adequately protected from it being like 80-90 degrees Celsius. I take it to the lab, throw it under the fume hood, and then head back to the command room and turn the centrifuge on. Always a magical mess of conflicting accelerations when it happens.
After cycling it a few minutes in the fume hood, I take it back out. It's warm, but not hot, so yeah it definitely just started hot. Time for some tests.
- Hands: Feels metallic.
- Geiger counter: Not radioactive.
- Hammer and Chisel: It's harder than whatever metal they're made of.
- Handheld X-ray spectrometer: It's somehow made of pure Xenon?????
That can't be right. The spectrometer works properly on the lab table (which also reveals it can't detect anything lighter than Aluminum), and the "Pure Xenon" reading is consistent, so what must be happening is that the Blip-A species's materials science field must be centuries ahead of Humanity & Monsterkind's. Weird as shit. I decide to dub the material "Xenonite". And then I just stare at it. What the fuck. This is when I notice a seam that Icould probably use to open it up.
Throwing it back under the fume hood (in case there's still Hot Ammonia inside), I try and pry it open. No. Lefty-loosey Righty-tighty? Nope. Hmmmm... Maybe... Clock-out Widdersh-in? That does the trick. One side of the tube has a model, which appears to be a 3D starmap, with the central star and 3 others all marked with little balls connected to them by parabolic arcs... Petrova lines! Of course!
The three non-central stars marked with Petrova lines also have little models of the Blip ships on wires almost, but not quite, connecting them to the central star, one each. Checking the model against a starmap program the lab has, it looks like the central star is Tau Ceti, the Blip-A comes from 40 Eridani (AKA Keid + o² Eridani B&C), the Blip-B comes from Epsilon Eridani (AKA Ran), and the Blip-C comes from Gleise 1061. The other side contains a model of the Hail Mary and a model, at the same scale as the ones in the starmap model, of a Petrova line without a sun, as well as 2 vials, a weird tool thingy, and simple pictographic instructions on... how to use those vials and that tool to attatch the Hail Mary and Petrova Line models to the Starmap Model?
Well, that's nice. The tool works kinda like a 3D printer pen, and the 2 vials, once attatched to it, act as a fuel to make what appears to be the very same Xenonite that every part of this little message is made of. I may not be an engineer, but it's not too hard for me to attatch the Hail Mary and Petrova Line to Sol. Afterwards, I let the now-empty vials fill with air from the Mary, and put everything back in the tube.
Time to return the favor.
I spin down the centrifuge, and go through the whole EVA rigamarole again, then, finally, throw the Blip-D back at the Blip-A.
While I wait for them to get the message, I think about the fact that I'm talking to aliens right now. Three different species of them, if the fact that the Blip ships are from different stars says anything. God, what should I call them?
Eridanians? No, that could refer to both the Blip-A and Blip-B. Keidians, Ranians, and Gleisians? Hm... That would imply they're from their host stars though, when they're obviously gonna be from planets around them. It'd certainly help if I knew which planets, of course. Would also be nice to know what the aliens looked like. Hmmmmmmmm... For now, I'll just go with Keidians, Ranians, and Gleisians.
"Blip-D detected. ETA 5 minutes."
Oh shit, that was fast. Or maybe the time slipped away from me. Well, good thing I forgot to go back in the ship. I patiently wait for the Blip-D to come back and... Oh, they aimed for the airlock this time. Nice.
Catching, cooling, and cleaning it once again, this time, the Blip-D contains a little model of me on the Mary's outside, with the Mary in flight mode, as well as a model of a weird 5-legged something (A Keidian?) on the Blip-A's hull, a model of a weird chess king looking humanish guy (A Ranian?) on the Blip-B's deck, and a model of a puppet and a weird polecat looking thing (Gleisians?) on the Blip-C's hull. So that's what they look like. Well, sans color, texture, and scale information, knowing that would be nice, but who knows? Maybe Keidians are blind or something?
The other model shows the Mary (In centrifuge mode, this time) docking with the Blip-A through a tunnel, then the Blip-A using that tunnel to dock with the Blip-C's nosecone, then the Blip-C using the tunnel to dock with the rim of the Blip-B's deck. They want to hot potato me around so I can meet all of them.
Ya know what? Sure. Why not. Might as well meet my neighbors. I turn on the centrifuge without returning the Blip-D to show that I agree with the plan.
And watch as the Blip-A spins up to match me, and then start 3D-printing a tunnel.