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The conference room had long since taken on the stale, recycled atmosphere of a sealed bunker. Stratt sat at the head of the table, her spine rigid, her eyes fixed on the central display, while around her the review team slumped in their chairs, surrounded by lukewarm coffee, half-eaten rations, and glowing tablets.
They were nearing the twenty-eighth hour of continuous review, systematically cataloguing every byte of video and sensor data Grace had crammed into the four beetle probes. Each carried the same complete archive, alongside its own living Taumoeba culture, so that the mission data and the cure for Astrophage would survive the loss of any individual probe. It was an excruciating process. Grace clearly had no concept of standard documentation protocol, a predictable consequence of his lack of astronaut training. Critical breakthroughs in Astrophage husbandry, Taumoeba cultivation, and Tau Ceti stellar spectroscopy were jumbled alongside rambling monologues, shaky handheld pans of the laboratory, and five-minute clips of him testing whether Rocky could comprehend human jokes.
Dr. Chen had filled three notebooks with cross-referenced timestamps. Dr. Yoshida was on her fourth pot of coffee, her eyes bloodshot as she replayed a ten-second clip for the seventh time, trying to isolate a half-visible equation on a monitor in the background. Dr. Vale kept muttering about "organizational chaos" while simultaneously extracting usable xenonite fabrication data from what appeared to be Grace filming his own feet for two minutes straight.
Yet beneath the chaos, a pattern had slowly emerged, one that had initially seemed like nothing more than an odd habit.
During the first several weeks of recordings following the Tau Ceti rendezvous, Grace had conducted an overwhelming number of his video logs from the dormitory. He would explain CO2 scrubber maintenance from the foot of a bunk, or detail fuel-line pressures while sitting awkwardly on the deck plating near the sleeping quarters. In nearly every one of those early dormitory files, the background was dominated by the soft, rhythmic glow of a wall-mounted bio-monitor.
"Why is he always in the sleeping quarters?" Yoshida had asked on hour twelve, frowning at her tablet. "He has a perfectly functional lab bench."
"Comfort, maybe." Vale had suggested. "The man woke up from a coma with no memory. He's probably seeking familiar spaces."
"Or he's experiencing psychological regression." Dr. Okonkwo had added, leaning back in his chair. "Trauma response. The dormitory represents safety, rest, recovery. It makes sense he'd gravitate there."
At first, the team had dismissed the monitor. It displayed an active trauma-recovery profil, elevated pulse, erratic blood pressure, fluctuating metabolic baseline, running alongside secondary life-support telemetry. Dr. Vale had initially logged it as a diagnostic bleed, an automated sensor loop left over from the coma beds, or simply Grace's clumsy technical handling.
"It's probably his own recovery data." Chen had said, zooming in on the vitals display. "He was in medical stasis for years. The system's probably still tracking him."
"Makes sense." Okonkwo agreed. "The ship's medical system would maintain continuous monitoring after a coma that long. Standard protocol."
But on hour fifteen, Yoshida had pulled up Grace's actual medical file and overlaid it against the monitor readings visible in the dormitory footage.
"They don't match." she said slowly, her voice uncertain. "Grace's heart rate during this recording was seventy-two. The monitor shows ninety-six. His blood oxygen was ninety-eight percent. The monitor shows eighty-nine."
Vale frowned, leaning closer. "Equipment malfunction. Has to be. Or the camera's timestamp is off."
"Could be a calibration error." Chen suggested. "The medical systems took damage during the initial crisis. Maybe the sensors are reading incorrectly."
"Maybe." Yoshida murmured, but she flagged the file anyway.
Then the anomalies began to multiply across the timeline.
On Day 58, the medical bay inventory log showed a sudden, unexplained depletion of sterile dressings, broad-spectrum antiseptics, and burn gel, far more than Grace's minor laboratory bumps warranted.
Chen had caught it first, cross-referencing supply manifests against Grace's visible injuries in the video logs. "He used an entire month's worth of surgical dressings in three days." He said, frowning. "And look, he requisitioned two extra analgesic patches. He's not limping. He's not favoring anything. Where are the injuries?"
"Self-medication?" Yoshida suggested. "Psychological comfort? People under extreme stress sometimes engage in compulsive behaviors. Maybe he's treating phantom injuries."
"For burn gel?" Chen replied skeptically. "That's highly specific. And the quantities are massive."
"Could be a manifestation of his amnesia." Okonkwo offered. "He doesn't remember his training. Maybe he's over-applying basic first aid out of paranoia. Hoarding medical supplies as a security behavior."
Vale shook his head. "That doesn't explain the type of supplies. Burn gel, crush-injury dressings, deep-tissue antiseptics. These aren't general-purpose items. They're trauma-specific."
On Day 64, during a dry lecture on Astrophage light emission, Grace paused mid-sentence. In the silence of the cabin, the microphones picked up a distinct sound from just beyond the camera's field of view: a sharp, rasping inhalation, followed by a weak, suppressed cough. Grace's eyes had flicked briefly toward the cabin hatch before he quickly raised his voice and changed the subject.
Vale had replayed that moment six times, isolating the audio, running it through filters.
"That's not Grace." He said finally. "The acoustic signature is wrong. Different lung capacity. Different resonance."
"Then what is it?" Yoshida asked, her voice tight.
"I don't know. Could be..." Vale hesitated. "Could be audio bleed from another recording. A glitch in the file compression."
"Or Rocky." Okonkwo offered. "He's aboard for half of these recordings."
"Rocky talks in musical chords." Chen said. "He doesn't cough. Whatever that was, it didn't come from him."
"Or the ship's ventilation system." Vale said. "Pressure equalization. The Hail Mary's environmental controls make all kinds of sounds."
"That sounded organic." Yoshida said quietly. "That sounded like someone breathing."
"Rocky aside, Grace is the only living human on that ship." Okonkwo said firmly. "Yáo and Ilyukhina died in their coma beds years ago. Grace logged both deaths. There's no one else."
"Then it's equipment noise." Vale insisted.
But no one looked convinced.
On Day 71, life-support telemetry indicated atmospheric scrubbers running fourteen percent above single-occupant baseline, accompanied by an extra ration pouch sitting squeezed and empty beside Grace's mug on the galley bench.
"He's eating more." Chen noted, pulling up nutritional logs. "Caloric intake is up thirty percent over the past two weeks."
"Stress eating." Vale suggested immediately. "Isolation, amnesia, the weight of the mission. It's not surprising he'd seek comfort in food."
"Or his metabolism is elevated." Yoshida countered. "Increased physical activity. He's been doing a lot of repair work on the ship."
"The life-support readings don't match that theory." Chen said slowly, staring at his tablet. "Elevated scrubber activity suggests increased CO2 production. More than one person's worth."
"Equipment error." Vale said, but his voice had lost its certainty.
"Or feeding someone else." Yoshida said quietly.
The room had gone still.
Chen had run the CO2 output and the caloric draw against a standard human metabolic model. "Consistent with a second adult." He whispered. "Shorter than Grace, maybe one-point-seven meters. Broad frame, but the mass is low for it. Underweight."
"There's no one else to feed." Okonkwo said, but he was frowning now, pulling up his own data files. "Unless... could Rocky be sharing meals?"
"Rocky can't eat anything on this ship." Chen said flatly. "He lives in a high-pressure ammonia atmosphere at over two hundred degrees Celsius. When he comes aboard, he comes aboard inside a sealed, pressurized xenonite ball, and he never leaves it. He isn't breathing our air, he isn't touching our food, and he isn't making a human-baseline contribution to our scrubbers."
"And he wouldn't be setting off a pulse monitor at ninety-six beats per minute." Yoshida added.
On Day 79, a diagnostic thermal sweep through the corridor caught an unmistakable second heat signature huddled near the medical locker.
"That's human baseline." Yoshida breathed, her face pale. "Thirty-six point seven. Rocky's ball reads over two hundred. You couldn't confuse them."
"It's a sensor ghost." Vale insisted, though his hands were shaking slightly as he worked his console. "Reflected heat. Equipment echo. The ship's been through hell, half the sensors are damaged..."
"From what?" Chen demanded, his voice rising. "Grace is in the lab. Rocky's sealed in his ball beside him. There's nothing else aboard that could produce a thermal signature like this."
"Then it's a malfunction." Vale said desperately. "A processing error. The AI is extrapolating false data from damaged inputs..."
"Or there's someone else on that ship." Yoshida said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"That is impossible." Okonkwo said, but he was leaning forward now, staring at the thermal image. "The Hail Mary is the first and only interstellar craft humanity has ever launched. There are no other human missions. No other human ships. Grace is twelve light-years from Earth. Where would another person have come from?"
"A stowaway?" Chen suggested weakly. "Someone who hid before launch?"
"The ship was searched top to bottom." Vale said. "Multiple times. Security protocols were absolute. There's no way..."
"Then what are we looking at?" Yoshida demanded.
No one had an answer.
On Day 84, while Grace was demonstrating a xenonite weld to the camera, a pale, trembling hand entered the periphery of the frame to set a socket wrench on the workbench. It was in frame for less than a second, just long enough for the team to pause, zoom, and enhance the image of scarred, discolored knuckles, thin fingers, and what looked like a compression bandage wrapped around the wrist.
The conference room had erupted.
"That's a human hand." Chen said, his voice rising. "Five fingers. Opposable thumb. Human skin, sallow, with a sun-browned undertone. Scar tissue consistent with thermal or pressure trauma..."
"It could be convergent evolution." Dr. Okonkwo interrupted, leaning over the console, his words coming fast. "Rocky proves intelligent life exists across star systems. If 40 Eridani produced a five-limbed Eridian, then some other star could easily have produced an oxygen-breathing biped with similar manipulator appendages..."
"With human skin?" Yoshida shot back. "With a Hail Mary standard-issue thermal bandage? With five fingers and an opposable thumb in the exact human configuration?"
"Convergent evolution can produce remarkably similar structures." Okonkwo insisted. "Look at Earth. Dolphins and ichthyosaurs, birds and bats, eyes evolving independently dozens of times..."
"Not to this degree of specificity." Chen said, pulling up a biometric analysis on his tablet. "I'm looking at bone structure, joint articulation, skin texture, scar tissue formation. This is human. Not humanoid. Not alien mimicry. Human."
"Then it's a survivor." Vale said, his voice strained. "Someone from the original crew. Someone Grace didn't report..."
"Yáo and Ilyukhina are dead." Yoshida said flatly. "We have their biometric data. We have Grace's logs of their deaths. We have post-mortem telemetry from their medical implants. They died on the way out, years ago."
"Then someone else." Vale insisted. "Someone who was in stasis, or hidden, or..."
"There was no one else." Okonkwo said, his voice shaking. "The crew manifest was three people. Three. We accounted for every gram of mass on that ship. There's no room for a fourth person. No supplies. No life support capacity..."
"Then what are we looking at?" Chen demanded, gesturing at the frozen image of the hand. "A hallucination? Grace's deteriorating mental state manifesting physical objects?"
"Hallucinations don't show up on thermal imaging." Yoshida said quietly. "They don't consume rations or use medical supplies."
On Day 91, long, unkempt dark hair and a bandaged wrist brushed the corner of the lens as someone moved past in the corridor.
On Day 96, four thin fingers curled tentatively around the dorm doorframe, lingering in the shadows of the background for nearly three seconds before pulling back into the dark.
By hour twenty-four, the team had compiled a secondary file: every frame, every sound, every thermal signature, every supply discrepancy. The evidence was undeniable. Someone else was aboard the Hail Mary.
"It has to be a humanoid alien." Okonkwo insisted, though he sounded less certain now, his earlier confidence crumbling. "Convergent evolution. Mimicry. Something that looks human but isn't. Maybe it's a form of camouflage. A survival adaptation. Rocky's species developed pentagonal symmetry; another species could have developed human-like features..."
"A biped that speaks fluent English?" Chen countered, pulling up an isolated audio waveform from Day 89. "We ran phonetic analysis on that off-camera murmur. The vocal tract geometry is human. The phonemes are human. The prosody, the rhythm, the intonation, it's all human. He says, 'Grace, hand me that.' Rocky needed months of work and a translation program just to manage a few words of English. There is zero statistical probability of convergent evolution producing a mid-Atlantic English accent."
"Then it's a medical AI construct." Vale said desperately. "A therapeutic simulation. Grace's amnesia was severe, and maybe the ship's medical system created a companion program to prevent psychological breakdown. A hologram, or a sophisticated robot..."
"That consumes food?" Yoshida said. "That produces body heat? That bleeds and requires bandages?"
"Then it's a survivor." Okonkwo said, his voice hollow. "It has to be. Someone from the crew. Someone Grace didn't report. Someone who survived against all odds..."
"That is impossible." Vale said flatly, rubbing his temples. "The Hail Mary is the first and only interstellar craft humanity has ever launched. Commander Yáo and Olesya Ilyukhina died en route. Their biometrics flatlined, Grace logged their deaths, and we have their post-mortem medical telemetry. There is no other human within twelve light-years. There was nowhere for one to come from."
"Then what are we looking at?" Chen demanded, gesturing at the screen. "A ghost? A time traveler? A parallel universe refugee?"
"With a separate thermal signature and independent caloric intake?" Yoshida replied, her voice tight.
The room fell into tense, exhausted silence. Every theory had been proposed, examined, and found wanting. Equipment malfunction couldn't explain the hand. Psychological breakdown couldn't explain the thermal signature. Convergent evolution couldn't explain the English. A survivor couldn't explain the impossibility of their presence.
Stratt had been watching the entire exchange without a word, her expression unreadable. Finally, she leaned forward, her eyes never leaving the central display.
"Dr. Vale." she said quietly. "Play the final file."
Vale swallowed hard, his hand hovering over his console. "Mission Day 103. Last file from Camera Six."
"Play it." Stratt said.
Vale tapped his console, and the recording queued. The room fell silent, every eye fixed on the screen.
The main monitor flickered, clearing the star charts to reveal a fixed-angle view of the Hail Mary's living quarters. The cabin was quiet, bathed in the low, utilitarian lights of shipboard standby lights. The camera had been set down on a shelf opposite the bunk, propped casually against a stack of data pads. The wide lens captured the rumpled bedding, the soft pulse of the life-support monitors on the bulkhead, and the faint, low hum of the ship's engines vibrating through the hull.
For nearly thirty seconds, the cabin remained empty. The team watched in tense silence, the only sound the soft whir of the ventilation system and the rhythmic beep of the monitors.
Chen leaned forward, studying the displays visible in the background. "Astrophage containment looks stable. Fuel at ninety-one percent. CO2 scrubbers... wait, they're elevated again. Fourteen percent over baseline."
"Two occupants." Yoshida murmured, her voice barely audible.
The hatch slid open with a soft hiss.
Grace stepped into frame first, moving with the easy familiarity of someone who'd lived in the cramped space for months. His movements were steady, confident. He turned back toward the hatch, extending his hand.
Then the second figure followed him inside.
The entire conference room went silent.
He was unmistakably, incontrovertibly human.
Noticeably shorter than Grace, with the broad frame of someone who had once carried real muscle and the gauntness of someone who had lost most of it, long black hair falling in unwashed tangles past his collarbones, tan, sallow skin stretched over prominent bones, his natural warmth dulled by illness and months without sunlight. But it was the catastrophic trauma that made several people in the room recoil, made Yoshida press her hand to her mouth, made Chen's tablet slip from his fingers and clatter onto the table.
His left arm was gone entirely below the shoulder, the stump healed over with thick, puckered scar tissue tucked beneath a pinned-up sleeve. The left side of his face bore a massive jagged scar slashing from temple to jaw and down his neck, the tissue raised and discolored, still faintly pink in places where the healing was incomplete. His left eye was milky white, clouded and dead. Fresh compression bandages wrapped his left ribs and flank, visible beneath a Hail Mary crew shirt that was a poor fit for him, snug across his broad shoulders while the hem and sleeves ran too long, covering what looked like deep crush injuries barely held together. He moved carefully, each step deliberate, favoring his right side, his breathing shallow and controlled.
"My God." Chen whispered, his hands flying over his tablet, zooming in on the figure's injuries with shaking fingers. "Look at the trauma patterns. That's a single catastrophic event: hull breach, explosive decompression, crush injuries from structural collapse. The scarring on his face is at least four months old, maybe five. The tissue remodeling suggests prolonged healing. The bandaging on his torso is fresh. He's still recovering."
"How is he even alive?" Yoshida breathed, her face pale, her eyes wide with horror. "Those injuries should have killed him. The blood loss alone, the shock, the infection risk in a non-sterile environment... where did Grace find him?"
"And how did he get there?" Okonkwo added, his voice shaking, his earlier theories crumbling to dust. "There are no other ships. No other missions. The Hail Mary is alone out there. Twelve light-years from Earth. There's nowhere... there's no way..."
"Zoom in on his face." Vale said urgently, his voice tight. "I want a full biometric analysis. Bone structure, facial geometry, everything. If this is an alien, if this is mimicry, we need to know."
Chen complied, his fingers flying over the controls, and the image sharpened. The man's right eye was dark brown, clear and alert despite the exhaustion etched into his features. His cheekbones were sharp, his jaw angular and distinctly masculine. His nose was straight, slightly crooked as if it had been broken and healed without proper setting. His lips were chapped, his skin sallow from months without sunlight.
"Bone structure is human." Chen said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Cranial proportions, orbital spacing, zygomatic arch, mandibular angle, all within human parameters. Dental structure..." He zoomed in further. "Human. Thirty-two teeth, standard human configuration."
"Skin texture." Yoshida added, pulling up her own analysis. "Dermal layer thickness, pigmentation, and scar tissue formation are all consistent with a mixed-race human male of approximately thirty to thirty-five years old. Even sick and pale, his skin retained a warmer, more naturally sun-browned tone than Grace's."
"Hair follicle density." Vale said, his voice hollow. "Human. Fingernail structure, human. Body proportions, human."
"He's human." Okonkwo said, and his voice broke on the word. "He's human. But that's... that's impossible..."
On screen, the man took another careful step into the cabin, and Grace immediately moved to his side, his hand coming up to steady him at the elbow. The gesture was automatic, practiced, the kind of support that came from months of repetition. The man leaned into the touch without hesitation, his single right hand gripping Grace's forearm for balance, and Grace murmured something too quiet for the microphones to catch.
The man nodded, his breathing evening out slightly, and Grace guided him toward the bunk with practiced ease, the kind of ease that came from doing this every day, multiple times a day, for months.
"He's been caring for him." Yoshida said softly, her eyes fixed on the screen. "Look at the way Grace moves. He knows exactly how much support to give. He knows which side is injured, how much weight the man can bear, when to steady him and when to let him move independently. He's done this a thousand times."
"Look at the man's gait." Chen added, zooming in on the figure's legs. "He's favoring his right side heavily. The left leg is functional but weak, probably nerve damage from the crush injuries. Grace is compensating for it automatically."
Yoshida had gone quiet, her eyes on the man's chest. She zoomed in until the pixels broke apart, then backed off a step. "That shirt is mission-issue. Standard crew kit, with the patch on the shoulder." She tapped the screen. "And that's a name tape. It says GRACE."
"It's Grace's." Chen said slowly. He pulled up the stores log. "His spare uniforms. Two sets of crew clothing, flagged as unaccounted for around Day 60. I thought he'd just lost them." He looked at the screen again, at the shirt pulling tight across the stranger's shoulders while the hem hung a few inches too long. "Grace is taller, but this man is built broader. It's the wrong fit both ways. He didn't lose them. He gave them away."
"The thermal undershirt, the trousers." Yoshida murmured. "That's why it all looked like ours. Everything on that man came out of Grace's own locker."
Grace helped the man sit on the edge of the bunk, then crouched in front of him, his hands resting gently on the man's knees. The man's right hand came up to rest on Grace's shoulder, his fingers curling into the fabric of Grace's shirt, and for a long moment they simply stayed like that, Grace looking up at him, the man looking down, their foreheads nearly touching.
The intimacy of the gesture was unmistakable.
"They're close." Yoshida whispered. "Very close."
Then Grace reached up and cupped the right side of the man's face, his thumb stroking gently across the unmarked cheekbone, carefully, deliberately avoiding the scar tissue on the left. The man's eyes, both the clear dark one and the ruined milky one, drifted closed. His breathing hitched visibly, his chest rising and falling unevenly, and his hand tightened on Grace's shoulder.
"Ryland." the man whispered, his voice rough and low, barely audible over the ship's ambient hum.
The conference room collectively froze.
"Did he just..." Chen started, his voice strangled.
"That's Grace's first name." Yoshida said, her eyes wide, her hand pressed to her chest. "Ryland Grace. But no one calls him that. Everyone in the mission logs calls him Grace. Stratt calls him Grace. Even Rocky calls him Grace. I've never heard anyone use his first name..."
"He speaks English." Okonkwo breathed, his face ashen. "Perfect English. Native speaker. That's not convergent evolution. That's not mimicry. That's human."
On screen, Grace's expression softened, something tender and aching crossing his face, something raw and vulnerable that none of them had ever seen in any of his other recordings. "I'm here." He murmured, his hand sliding to the back of the man's neck, his fingers threading gently through the long dark hair. "I've got you."
The man exhaled shakily, leaning further into Grace's touch, and then he spoke again, his voice barely a whisper, thick with emotion.
"I'm okay. I'm okay, Ryland. Just...."
"I've got you...." Grace repeated, his voice rough, and then he was leaning up, closing the distance between them, and kissing him.
It was deep, hungry, desperate, the kiss of two people alone in the infinite dark, clinging to the only warmth they had. The man exhaled shakily against Grace's mouth, his hand fisting in Grace's shirt and pulling him closer with fierce, trembling strength despite his injuries.
Grace made a soft sound, his hands cradling the man's face with infinite care, and the man whispered against his lips, "Ryland- God, Ryland- " And then, as Grace pulled back just enough to breathe, the man whispered, "I love you."
Grace's response was immediate, fervent, his voice breaking. "I love you too, Simon."
Simon.
The conference room erupted.
"He has a name." Chen said, his voice strangled, his hands gripping the edge of the table. "He speaks English. He's human. He's- he's in love with Grace-"
"Grace is twelve light-years from Earth." Okonkwo interrupted, his face ashen, his voice rising. "He's alone in interstellar space. There are no other humans out there. There can't be. The Hail Mary is the first ship we've ever sent beyond the solar system. There's nowhere for another human to have come from. And he- he found one anyway, and he's-"
"He's sleeping with him." Yoshida finished, her voice faint, her eyes wide as she watched Grace climb onto the bunk, straddling Simon's lap, their mouths meeting again in another searing kiss.
"Oh my God." Chen whispered, staring at the screen as Grace's hands moved to Simon's shirt, beginning to unbutton it. "Grace found an impossible human being in the middle of the void- a man who shouldn't exist, who can't exist- and his first response was to fuck him-"
"That is enough." Stratt snapped, her voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. The room fell silent instantly, every head turning toward her. Her expression was carved from stone, her eyes locked on the screen, her jaw set. "I don't care if Dr. Grace found a ghost, a survivor, or a statistical impossibility. If there is mission-critical data in this footage, we will catalogue it. All of it."
She leaned forward, her gaze never leaving the monitor, her voice cold and absolute.
"Keep watching."
"Wait-" Vale started, his face scarlet.
"Keep watching." Stratt said, her tone brooking no argument. "This is mission data. We do not skip a frame. If there are monitors in the background, if there is telemetry, if there is any information that could be relevant to the mission, we extract it. Is that understood?"
No one answered. No one moved.
"Is that understood?" Stratt repeated, her voice sharp.
"Yes, ma'am." Chen said weakly.
On screen, Grace and Simon were already on the bed, their bodies pressed close together on the narrow sleeping platform. Grace was working Simon’s shirt off with careful fingers, peeling the fabric away from the bandages and the scarred stump of his shoulder. His movements were gentle, practiced, and Simon was helping with his remaining hand, the movements familiar, urgent, his fingers working at Grace's clothes with single-handed efficiency born of months of practice.
"There are monitors in the background." Dr. Yoshida said suddenly, her voice tight, determinedly professional. "Left side, behind them. They're displaying something."
Everyone's eyes jerked to the screens visible past the sleeping platform. She was right, several ship displays were active, showing what looked like Astrophage containment readings, growth rate metrics, energy output levels, spectral analysis data.
"Can you read them?" Stratt asked.
"Some of it. The angle's not great, but-" Yoshida pulled up her tablet, began typing rapidly. "I'll do my best."
Grace pressed Simon down against the mattress with infinite care, mindful of his injuries, and Simon went willingly, eagerly, his hand sliding into Grace's hair, pulling him down into another deep kiss. Simon spread his legs to make room, his body opening for Grace automatically, and Grace settled between them, his hips pressing forward, grinding slowly against him.
Grace was saying something against his mouth, too quiet to hear, and Simon nodded, his tan skin already flushed despite the pallor of months in space, his breathing uneven and rapid.
"Ryland." Simon said, his voice rough and low and utterly, unmistakably human, thick with need. "Ryland, please-"
In the conference room, someone made a choked sound. Vale's face was scarlet, his eyes fixed determinedly on his tablet. Chen was typing rapidly, her jaw clenched. Okonkwo had gone very still, his expression carefully blank.
"Astrophage containment stability." Yoshida said, her voice determinedly professional, her eyes fixed on the background monitor, refusing to look at the two men on the bunk. "The readings are- they're different from the baseline. Decay rate is lower. Someone write this down."
Chen's fingers flew over her tablet, recording the data.
Grace had gotten Simon's pants off now, was running his hand up the inside of Simon's thigh, over scars and smooth skin alike, his touch reverent. Simon made a soft, desperate sound and spread his legs wider, his hips lifting into the touch, seeking more. Grace's fingers traced higher, teasing, dragging over the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, and Simon's hand tightened in his hair, pulling hard.
Grace kissed him again, deep and filthy, his tongue sliding into Simon's mouth, swallowing Simon's moan. His hand finally reached where Simon needed it, wrapping around his cock, and Simon broke the kiss with a gasp, his head falling back against the thin pillow, his mouth open, his chest heaving. Grace stroked him slowly, deliberately, his grip firm and practiced, his thumb sweeping over the head and through the slit, spreading the precum already beading there, and Simon's hips jerked up into his hand, chasing the friction, desperate for more.
"Energy output readings." Vale said, his voice strangled, his face scarlet, his eyes locked on the upper right display. "Upper right display. Astrophage light emission is- is fluctuating. The wavelength distribution- Chen, are you getting this?"
Dr. Chen was typing rapidly on her tablet, her eyes locked on the monitors and nowhere else, her jaw tight. "Got it. Spectral analysis, upper left. There's a shift in the emission pattern we haven't documented before."
Grace was stroking Simon now, slow and deliberate, his grip firm, working him from root to tip with practiced ease, and Simon was gasping, his hips jerking up into Grace's hand, his body trembling. His cock was flushed dark and hard in Grace's palm, leaking steadily, precum dripping over Grace's fingers and making the slide slick and obscene. Simon's hand clutched at Grace's shoulder, his nails digging in, leaving red crescents in the skin.
Grace murmured something, his voice low and rough, and Simon nodded frantically, spreading his legs wider in clear invitation, his body open and eager.
Then Grace was pulling back, reaching for something in the storage compartment beside the bunk, a small bottle, and Simon watched him with dark, hungry eyes, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his cock twitching against his stomach. Grace slicked his fingers, the clear gel catching the light, coating them thoroughly, and then he reached down between Simon's spread legs.
Simon's breath hitched as Grace's fingers found him, circling his entrance, teasing the sensitive rim. His body tensed for a moment before he deliberately relaxed, spreading his legs wider, opening himself, tilting his hips up in offering. Grace's first finger pressed inside, slow and careful, breaching him, and Simon made a low, guttural sound, his head falling back, his throat working, his mouth falling open.
"You're doing so good." Grace murmured, his voice rough with want, his eyes dark and fixed on Simon's face. "So good for me, Simon. So perfect."
Grace worked him open with patient, practiced movements, his finger sliding in and out, stretching him carefully, feeling the tight heat of him. He added a second finger, scissoring gently, opening him wider, and Simon's breath came faster, his hips rocking down onto Grace's hand, seeking more, taking him deeper. Grace crooked his fingers, searching, and when he found Simon's prostate Simon cried out, his back arching off the mattress as much as his damaged ribs would allow, his hand fisting in the sheets, his whole body going taut.
Grace did it again, rubbing firmly against that spot, massaging it with deliberate pressure, and Simon was panting now, his body trembling, his cock leaking steadily onto his stomach, a puddle of precum forming on his tan skin. Grace added a third finger, stretching him wider, working him open, and Simon took it eagerly, his body opening for him, his inner walls clenching around Grace's fingers, his hips rolling down to meet each thrust of Grace's hand, fucking himself on Grace's fingers with desperate need.
"You're beautiful." Grace murmured, his voice shaking with desire, his eyes locked on where his fingers disappeared into Simon's body. "So beautiful, Simon. Look at you, taking my fingers so well-"
"Astrophage growth rate." Vale said, his voice tight, his eyes determinedly on the lower left monitor, his face burning. "The containment chamber readings- the growth curve is different. This is- this is significant data-"
In the conference room, Yoshida's hands were shaking as she typed. Okonkwo had his fist pressed against his mouth, his knuckles white. Chen's face was flushed, her eyes locked on the data displays, refusing to look at the two men on screen even as the sounds of Simon's desperate moans and the wet, obscene slide of Grace's fingers filled the room.
Grace pulled his fingers free, and Simon made a sound of protest that turned into a moan as Grace slicked his own cock, his hand moving over himself in long, slow strokes, coating himself thoroughly. He was hard and flushed, thick and heavy, precum beading at the tip and dripping down the shaft, and he positioned himself between Simon's spread legs, the head of his cock pressing against Simon's entrance, nudging at the stretched, slick rim.
Simon wrapped his leg around Grace's hip, the movement careful on his damaged side, pulling him closer, urging him on, his heel digging into Grace's ass. "Please-"
Grace pushed inside with a slow, deliberate roll of his hips, and Simon's mouth fell open on a broken moan, his body arching as much as his injuries would allow. Grace was thick and hard, stretching him open, filling him completely, inch by inch, the slide slow and relentless. Simon's hand clutched at Grace's shoulder, his nails digging in hard enough to leave marks, hard enough to draw blood.
Grace held still for a moment, buried deep, his face pressed against the right side of Simon's neck, breathing hard, giving Simon time to adjust. Simon was trembling beneath him, his body tight and hot around Grace's cock, clenching rhythmically, his breathing ragged and uneven.
"Okay?" Grace murmured, his voice shaking, his lips brushing Simon's pulse point.
"Yes- move, please move-"
Grace started to thrust, slow and deep at first, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in, letting Simon feel every inch, and Simon gasped with each stroke, his body opening for him, taking him, his leg tightening around Grace's hip. The sleeping platform creaked rhythmically beneath them, the sound obscene in the quiet of the cabin. Grace kept his weight carefully off Simon's damaged ribs, one hand braced beside his head, the other gripping his hip, holding him steady as he fucked into him with long, deliberate strokes, each one deeper than the last.
"Infection behavior." Yoshida said, her voice tight, her hands shaking visibly as she typed. "The display just updated. The Astrophage interaction with the ship's hull- there's a pattern we haven't seen before. The adhesion rate is-"
"Containment temperature." Vale added, his voice strained, his face still scarlet, his eyes locked on the monitor with desperate focus. "The thermal readings- they're not matching our models. There's a- a threshold effect in the energy transfer-"
Grace shifted the angle of his hips, changing the depth of his thrusts, and Simon cried out, his back arching, his hand scrabbling at Grace's shoulder, his nails digging in, raking down his back.
Grace did it again, and again, hitting that spot with devastating precision, his cock dragging over Simon's prostate with each thrust, the thick head grinding against it, and Simon was shaking now, his voice breaking on desperate pleas, his body tightening around Grace with each stroke. Grace's rhythm was steady, relentless, fucking into him with deep, powerful thrusts that made Simon gasp and moan and beg, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the cabin, obscene and unmistakable. Grace's hand slid between them, wrapping around Simon's cock, and Simon made a desperate, wounded sound, his hips jerking up into Grace's hand. Grace stroked him in time with his thrusts, his grip firm and tight, his thumb sweeping over the sensitive head, through the slit, and Simon was babbling now, incoherent, his voice breaking, tears leaking from both eyes, the clear one and the ruined one, streaming down his face.
Grace fucked into him harder now, faster, his hips snapping forward with bruising force, driving Simon into the mattress with each thrust, and Simon took it, took all of it, his body opening for him, his inner walls clenching tight around Grace's cock, pulling him deeper.
"That's it." Grace murmured, his voice low and rough, his breath hot against Simon's ear, his hips pistoning now, relentless. "That's it, Simon, let me see you-"
"Ryland- Ryland- oh god, I'm-"
Simon came with a sharp cry, his body going rigid, his back arching off the mattress, his hand clutching at Grace's shoulder hard. His cock pulsed in Grace's hand, spilling over his fingers, over his own stomach, hot and wet, thick ropes of cum painting his tan skin in white streaks, spattering up to his chest. His body clenched tight around Grace's cock, vise-tight, rhythmic contractions milking him, and Grace kept moving, kept stroking him through it, prolonging his orgasm, wringing every last drop from him, and Simon was trembling, oversensitive, gasping, sobbing, tears streaming down his face.
"Beautiful." Grace said, his voice shaking, awed, reverent. "You're so beautiful, Simon- so perfect- so good for me-"
His rhythm stuttered, became erratic, his thrusts growing desperate, chasing his own release, and then he was pressing in deep and holding there, grinding against Simon's prostate, his whole body going taut. Simon wrapped his leg tighter around him, holding him close, pulling him deeper, and Grace came with a low groan, his face buried against Simon's neck, his body shuddering as he spilled inside him, filling him, pulse after pulse of heat flooding Simon's body.
For a long moment they stayed like that, Grace collapsed carefully against Simon's unmarked side, both of them breathing hard, their bodies slick with sweat and cum. The monitors in the background continued their steady display of data, the ship's systems humming quietly around them.
Simon's hand stroked slowly through Grace's hair, gentle and affectionate, his touch tender despite the tremor in his fingers.
"Love you." Simon murmured, so quiet it was almost inaudible.
Grace lifted his head and kissed him, soft and tender, lingering. "Love you too."
In the conference room, no one spoke. The silence was thick, suffocating, broken only by the soft sound of Chen's fingers on her tablet, still recording data from the visible monitors. Several people looked profoundly uncomfortable. Vale's face was still scarlet. Yoshida was staring determinedly at her notes.
On screen, Grace was pulling out carefully, and Simon made a soft sound at the loss, his body trembling, Grace's cum leaking out of him. Grace reached for a clean cloth from the storage compartment beside the platform and cleaned them both with gentle, attentive movements, wiping away the cum from Simon's stomach and chest and thighs, cleaning between his legs with careful tenderness, wiping away the mess, his touch reverent. He checked Simon's bandages, his fingers careful on the compression wraps, making sure nothing had shifted or torn.
"How's your breathing?" Grace asked, his hand resting lightly on Simon's chest, feeling the rise and fall. "Any pain?"
"I'm fine." Simon said, his voice soft and sated. "I'm good, Ryland."
Grace frowned slightly, clearly not entirely satisfied with that answer. He glanced toward the cabin hatch and raised his voice slightly. "Armando, vitals check on Simon."
In the conference room, several heads jerked up.
"Who's Armando?" Chen asked, her brow furrowing.
"Another crew member?" Vale suggested, confused. "But there's no one else-"
A soft mechanical whir filled the audio, and a sleek medical bot reached into frame, compact, multi-armed, clearly purpose-built for shipboard medical care. It approached the sleeping platform with smooth efficiency, extending a scanning array toward Simon.
"Oh." Yoshida breathed. "It's the medical bot."
"The ship's autonomous medical system." Okonkwo said, leaning forward, his earlier discomfort forgotten. On screen, the bot, Armando, was running its scanners over Simon's torso, the display on its chassis lighting up with readouts. Grace watched the readings carefully, his hand still resting on Simon's chest.
"Good." Grace said, visibly relieved at something he read. He grabbed a water pouch from the storage compartment, helping Simon sit up enough to drink. Simon took several long swallows, his hand shaking slightly, and Grace steadied it with his own, supporting the pouch.
"Easy." Grace murmured. "You did so good."
Simon smiled, soft and tired and utterly content, and Grace kissed his forehead before helping him lie back down. He pulled a thin blanket over them both, tucking it carefully around Simon's damaged side, and settled beside him on the narrow platform. Simon turned into him immediately, his head on Grace's shoulder, his hand resting over Grace's heart, and Grace wrapped his arm around him, holding him close.
Grace was stroking Simon's hair, murmuring something too quiet for the camera to pick up, when his eyes drifted up and locked onto the lens.
He froze.
His whole body went rigid, his eyes going wide with shock and then horror and then profound, mortified realization. His face cycled through every stage of dawning catastrophe, the understanding that the camera had been on, that it had been recording, that it had captured everything, that the footage would be sent back to Earth in the beetles, that everyone would see-
"No." Grace whispered, his voice strangled. "No, no, no-"
Simon was saying something, confused, lifting his head, but Grace was already scrambling up, stumbling naked across the cabin, reaching for the camera with fumbling, desperate hands.
"Fu-"
The image jerked violently, spun, and cut to black.
In the conference room, no one moved.
No one spoke.
The silence stretched out, thick and suffocating, until finally someone cleared their throat.
The sound was very loud.