Chapter Text
BANG.
Grace winces as the Hail Mary crashes to the ground, the force of it causing his head to smash into the screens in front of him, even though he’s strapped into the captain's chair. He can feel blood start to run down his head from the left side of his face, there's a good chance glass had cut him, and maybe also got into the cut. Not good, not good at all.
He lets out a sharp sigh before unstrap himself from the chair, the ship is basically on its side, causing him to fall off the chair onto the wall. God who knew that crash would be this bad, at least he's not on some alien planet in the middle of who knows where. Grace hears some things fall in the lab, getting tossed around from the crash, hopefully the Taumoeba farms are alright. He put them in a bag with some other things, then surrounded them with whatever cloth he could find at the time in an attempt to make sure they didn't break during the Landing.
He lays there for a moment, letting himself calm down before he does anything else. ‘There should be people here soon, I mean who wouldn't run in the direction of a spaceship crash site where there might be radioactive material, or explosives, or things that will kill you.. you know what never mind. 'I wonder where I am.. Russia maybe? That's where the map said it was but honestly I think that thing broke a while ago when Rocky was going through and messing with stuff when I was sleeping.' Grace doesn't blame Rocky for it though, if he had managed to get on Rocky's ship he probably would have done the same.
After a long time of just laying there, He pulls himself up, the sooner he gets out of this ship the better, who knows if the Astrophage fuel just decided to explode, its better to be out of the ship then in it, though he doesn’t hear anyone outside the ship, not yet anyway.
Grace walks, very slowly, to the dormitory to grab the bag he had put together before entering earth's atmosphere. He slings it over his shoulder, god it was heavy, the strap was digging into his shoulder, causing him to wince. It didn't help that the old burn on his arm still hurts if he puts a lot of strain on it, so his arm is hurting and his head is bleeding, awesome!
He's about to go over to the lab area when he hears a noise.. Was that something burning?
he paused, before running to the airlock, which now just worked as a door, and ran out. The second he got out, the fuel tanks exploded, well at least one did. There was a sound wave, and god it was bad.
(Changing into first person for this, plz forgive me :,D)
I fell into the grass, my ears were ringing and I'm sure the cut on my head was only making things worse. “Fuck.. this is bad..” I mumble to myself, well people definitely know I'm here. I glanced up at the area around me, I was in an empty field, I could see some buildings nearby. I could see the sign on the building.. It took me a moment to realize where I was,
What were the chances that I would crash land next to a Russian space control building! Basically their version of NASA I think? wow.. I aimed well!
It feels weird..touching grass after so many years, let alone laying in it. Is this what my students mean when they would tell others to ‘touch grass’? Whatever, I'm sure that was just some stupid saying I never understood. I just lay there for a moment, the adrenaline of the last hour or so slowly wearing off, leaving me tired and weak. But finally, after what feels like forever, I hear voices, people running towards the crash site.
I don't move.. I don't think I have the energy to even attempt to at this point.
I know they will see me, with my blond hair and blue space suit it would be hard not to. My suit has my name on it, along with the NASA symbol, and the Project Hail Mary mission patch, there's no way they can’t figure out who I am, and that's if they don't already recognize me..
At first, I see people focusing mostly on the Hail Mary. It makes sense, it's a giant spaceship that was never supposed to see the earth again. Then people's eyes start drifting, and finally someone spots him.
(Another pov change, i'm so sorry)
“Holy shit..”
That voice.. Got that sounds familiar..maybe its just his head. But then Grace hears rushed footsteps come up to him, this person even smells familiar! That can't be a coincidence. The person comes to kneel next to him, then they pull him against their chest. Grace can’t see much, but he notices a name tag on the person's jacket..
‘Димитрий Коморов’... aka ‘Dimitri Komorov’.
One of the primary scientists during Project ‘Hail Mary’, and someone grace knew personally.
Grace somehow manages to look up at Dimitri, who now has him pressed against his chest in a half hug half supporting a limp body, and speaks,
“You still owe me that beer”
Dimitri looked down at him, the man looked like he wanted to bawl his eyes out, instead he just laughed.
“Nice to see you haven't changed.. Welcome back to earth Dr. Grace”