Chapter Text
He lightly dropped down to the ground, skipping the last third of the ladder entirely, eyes scanning his surroundings in the small room warily as he landed.
There were three beds around the walls, arrayed like half plucked petals of a flower around the centre of the room, where some kind of robotic arm contraption hung from the ceiling, currently busily at work, apparently inserting various tubes in a nude woman on one of the beds. He could see her half-closed eyelids flicker slightly in awareness at his entrance, almost managing to look at him as she twitched her fingers vaguely in his direction, but the moment passed swiftly, her eyes closing into unconsciousness mere seconds after he arrived in the room.
Ignoring the machine now apparently automatically intubating the woman, with only a little difficulty at the strange sight, he surveyed the room more fully.
Only two of the beds were currently occupied, though he knew there were three crew assigned to the ship.
The woman in the bed closest to him looked like the Russian engineer pictured on the Project Hail Mary news stories for the past several months, with the Chinese male pilot nowhere in sight. It was likely though that he would be in the cockpit, as that was really the only open room that Six hadn’t passed through on his way down through the ship.
It made sense that he would be in there during the pre-launch procedures, especially so close to lift off.
The final bed however, contained his objective for this job. Dr Ryland Grace, formerly Ryland Gentry, his little brother.
His current mission was rescue and retrieval, and was entirely self-assigned.
The moment the newsfeeds had begun giving Ryland’s name as the most recent member of the interstellar spaceship’s crew, he knew his brother was in big trouble.
The last time Six had infiltrated this base to visit, less than a month ago, Ry had promised that he wasn’t going to space. He promised, and every bit of his training, and knowledge of the younger man, told Six that his brother meant every word.
He wouldn’t have just up and volunteered for the one-way space mission mere weeks later.
And if for some insane reason he had truly agreed to go, Ryland knew that his brother would want him to contact him, even without the ability to make a secure call; Regardless of any issues it might cause the older man later on.
“Come on Ry, let’s get you out of here.” He muttered, crossing the room swiftly to where his poor brother lay, clearly sedated, practically in a web of tubes and wires. He wasn’t too sure why the woman was in a similar situation to his brother – perhaps she had protested what was happening - but he assumed Ryland had had to be knocked unconscious to end up on the ship against his so recently stated intent.
He eyed the mass of medical equipment covering his brother. He was cutting this a lot finer than he wanted right now, with the scheduled launch time so close, only two hours away now, and it would be an extra complication that Ryland couldn’t actively assist as they made their way out of here.
He couldn’t have got there any sooner though. He’d started heading back to Baikonur base the moment the crew change was announced, moving non-stop. As much as he would have preferred to be rescuing his little brother from some sort of heavily guarded prison cell, which would have been so much easier than this, he would have to deal with the situation he got.
And if he had thought the base was difficult to infiltrate with a month still left till the rocket launch, he’d found it was nothing compared to how security had been upped on the actual planned launch day.
Worse still, in order to try and delay the launch a little, at least by a few hours hopefully, and give him and Ryland time to escape, he had had to make a lot of noise in various places, fairly near to the rocket’s position, to draw in base security to search for the apparent saboteur.
After all, the best way to stop a space launch on just two hours’ notice? Put half of the base’s security personnel in the rocket’s blast zone!
The plan instantly made escaping with his brother a harder task, but he could do it.
When it boiled down to it, his mission aim was simple; He needed to stop his brother being launched into space, separating the two of them forever.
Time to put all of that Sierra program training to use again.
Six wished, not for the first time, that he had had more actual medical training over the years as he cast an eye over the many tubes and wires connected to his brother, wondering where he should begin in freeing the younger man.
The oxygen tube would need to be pulled out of course, but the probable feeding tube up the nose, and the obvious catheter and waste tube would just take more time than he really had, to remove properly, so he supposed he would need to just cut through those tubes and deal with getting them all out later once they were away from the base. Similarly, the electronic sensor pads would all just pull off by themselves when he carried Ryland away, but the IV lines in both arms would be an issue.
Six hadn’t needed too many of those in his life, but he knew there was a chance of bleeding when they came out. He might need to hole up somewhere for a few minutes to bandage Ryland if they did so in his brother’s case.
He stepped over to the bed, drawing a knife as he went, to start freeing Ryland from the various tubes.
“Who are you? How did you get on board? You’re the intruder on the base!” Spinning to face the new arrival, it was easy to see how he missed hearing the other man descending the ladder behind him.
Bare feet silent on the ladder’s rungs, the man swiftly made his way down to floor level, sharp eyes widening in alarm as they spotted the knife in his hand. The mission commander was easily recognisable from his pictures on the news.
“I don’t want to harm any of you. I’m just here to get my brother.” He said calmly, moving his hands into what could be mistaken as a placatory position as he gestured behind him with his head. “He isn’t on this rocket willingly so I am rescuing him.”
“Brother? Doctor Grace doesn’t have any family, that is one of the reasons we were told for him stepping up for the mission.
“And of course he is here willingly. I wouldn’t have a crew member who wasn’t willing.”
“Then someone’s lying to you commander.” He gestured with his empty hand towards his face, then vaguely over in the direction of his brother’s oh so similar features. “I’m Ryland Grace’s older brother, but my records were basically wiped out of existence by the CIA when they recruited me to one of their covert missions’ groups. Anyone looking only at my brother’s records, would not see any siblings mentioned, but Ryland is obviously very much aware of me.
“The very fact that he didn’t contact me to at least say goodbye, because he was going to space, told me clearly that he was also stopped from calling me for help whilst being forced into this.” He could tell that the other man didn’t seem to entirely believe him, with the pilot’s next incredulous question confirming that.
“I find you standing over Doctor Grace with a knife in your hand and you expect me to believe that you are not here to harm him?”
“I really am just here to retrieve my brother and take him somewhere safe. The knife is just to cut through those tubes and wires to get him out of here faster.”
“Cut through... No!” The pilot’s eyes widened in fear at his declaration, startling Six with the strength of the reaction.
“If you remove Doctor Grace from the coma systems incorrectly it will almost certainly kill him!”
“Coma?” He glanced over at his brother for a brief second, though not allowing his attention to completely leave the astronaut in front of him. “What do you mean coma? Ryland isn’t just sedated?”
“No. We are all to be travelling in induced comas for the entire journey, to prevent the risk of crew conflicts.”
“Sounds more like a convenient way to stop someone protesting being unwillingly sent on a one-way space journey to me.” He retorted. His mind raced with thoughts on how to adjust his rescue plans with the new information.
He absolutely would need to get Ryland to medical assistance as soon as possible after getting him off this spaceship. Fortunately, he had already done plenty of reconnaissance of likely clinics of all types over a month ago, when he visited before, just as a matter of routine.
The closest options were even conveniently away from the direction of his diversions around in the general rocket launch area. That would benefit his and Ryland’s escape, which was why he had made sure to cause commotion precisely to draw the attention of the base’s security teams mostly into those specific areas. It would make getting off the base that much easier, even with Ry not able to help out in the escape.
Though the bike he had stashed close by for their getaway would be a bit trickier with Ryland a dead weight.
“Director Stratt told us, when she informed us of Doctor Grace’s volunteering, that he was nervous about the launch, as he has no previous experience, and so requested to be placed into the coma before the rest of us.” Stated the commander. He sounded almost thoughtful.
“I’m still not hearing you say anything about Ryland himself telling you he was joining the mission.”
“No. We were simply told he was busy putting his affairs in order the past three days, and that he would be on the rocket once Engineer Ilyukhina and I boarded.”
“Right, so if you will just kindly set whatever the safe wake-up procedures are in motion, then I will be taking my brother and leaving.” Six stated mildly.
“No we need to first contact mission control to inform them of your presence aboard the ship.” The commander’s tone was decisive. “I am still not convinced of what you are claiming about Doctor Grace. There have been many reports of death cults coming into prominence over recent months, and it is very likely that you are using a coincidental resemblance to act for one of those to sabotage the mission by harming or kidnapping the most essential member of the crew.
“However, the Hail Mary’s launch needs to be delayed until you have left the ship. That is the most urgent thing right now. If you are speaking truthfully about Doctor Grace being forced on this mission, we will be able to act accordingly after I have spoken to Director Stratt.”
Whilst Six was all for having a crew member asking to delay the launch, he wasn’t too sure about the whole ‘summon the guards’ aspect of the pilot’s plan. “Delaying the launch is taken care of.” He admitted, knowing his diversionary tactics were still running at this point, and really, as long as the coma revival didn’t take more than, say, an hour, he and Ryland had plenty of time to escape a fiery death if the rocket took off on schedule. “I really do think it will save a lot of time for everyone though if you begin safely waking my brother from his coma. Now.” He allowed a hard edge to creep into his voice, letting the other know that it wasn’t a request.
Whilst he truly had no wish to harm the man that had volunteered to go on a literal suicide mission to save the world, he would not shy away from doing what was necessary to force the man’s co-operation.
“No, you are not understanding what I am saying.” The pilot’s voice was more urgent in tone now. “Because of the reports of an intruder on base, the launch of the Hail Mary has been brought forward!
“Due to those intruder reports, Engineer Ilyukhina and I were ordered to initiate our comas for the journey early, with my pre-launch checklists being cut down to almost nothing to give me time to also get ready. And, just before I left the cockpit, the order to pull back out of the blast zone was given to the base security teams that were searching for you.
This ship will be launching in a matter of minutes from now!”
Six felt his breath catch in his chest at the declaration.
If the pilot was speaking the truth, he wasn’t certain that he had enough time to get Ryland off to a safe enough distance before the rocket engines turned the launch zone into a hellscape.
He wasn’t entirely sure what the minimum safe distance was, the subject never having come up in his training for some strange reason, but what he did know, was that there was a reason the closest actual building to the rocket was over a full mile away from it.
So much for delaying the launch though. What kind of madman decided to launch a space rocket mission early instead of trying to actually catch and question the person who had potentially already sabotaged the whole thing with unknown actions?
He could have planted a bomb to blow the rocket sky high the moment they launched, or any amount of other hostile acts.
His bike was stashed pretty close by of course, but with only minutes, could he even hope to climb down the gantry and make his way to it, whilst also carrying his currently comatose brother, never mind then also having to ride far enough in time?
Leaving Ry behind on the rocket wasn’t even an option though. He had to get him away from here. Time to put a plan B into action, and fight his way out instead.
“You’re right. You should probably let your mission control room know where the intruder is immediately.” He stated. “I’m sure they would rather not launch the mission with a potential hostile aboard.”
“Claims of peaceful intentions or not, do you expect me to leave an armed man alone with my crew?”
Six shrugged, seeing the point. “Fair enough.” He said mildly, flipping the knife in his hand to hold the blade, then carefully tossing it, now handle first, onto the floor at the pilot’s feet. “Now I’m not armed.” The other crouched swiftly, grabbing the knife, but not taking his wary eyes off Six as he stood up again. Smart man.
The Sierra trained man took a chance and turned partially away from the astronaut, gesturing vaguely at his brother as he began speaking again. He needed the other man willing to leave the medical bay, to contact mission control and STOP the launch.
“Look, I don’t want to hurt my brother whilst trying to save him, and if you say waking him wrongly could kill him, I’m not going to risk trying anything whilst you’re out of the room. Not with the nearest hospital over twenty miles away anyway.” Not that he would take Ryland to that hospital anyway. The nearest vet clinic was much closer, albeit one more used to dealing with livestock, and it seemed he would need to be making a stop there after all with his brother, as it looked like he would need to take his brother out of here without going through the proper wake-up procedures after all. The pilot seemed to agree with his stated reasoning though, backing carefully towards the ladder.
“I’ll just stand here peacefully and wait for the security team, okay? Then we can all sit down together and talk this thing out.” Not that calm discussion was remotely likely, but it wasn’t like the security guards would be able to fire weapons here inside the expensive, and puncturable, space rocket, and with guns off the table, Six was willing to wager his Sierra program training against any number of guards that normally had the option of firearms.
The soles of Six’s feet were tingling as he watched the other man begin his almost hesitant ascent.
The worried expression on the climbing man’s face turned abruptly to alarm as he suddenly increased speed, almost frantic in his movements now as the former agent watched him climb through the first hatchway on the way up to the cockpit. “It’s too soon. I have to tell them to stop.” Came the panicked shout from above.
Six didn’t even have time to wonder what the other man meant. The tingling was suddenly full-on vibration running up through his legs, and getting worse.
The sounds of immense thunder could be heard around the room, but Six had the terrible certainty that the noise wasn’t anything to do with the weather.
Instinct had him trying to reach his brother’s bed, but for the first time in years he had no idea what to do.
The roaring was suddenly deafening, hands reaching up to cover ears without any conscious thought as he almost staggered across the room; The floor now treacherously trying to pull him down as gravity felt like it doubled beneath his feet. A stumble had him toppling, reaching out a hand too late to help break the fall.
The thud reverberated through his skull as his head slammed into the hard edge of his brother’s bed under the increased G-forces of take-off, and his final half-conscious thought as blackness took him, was how he had somehow heard it over the rocket's engines.