MerthurForLife



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  1. Public Bookmark *

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    Yáo registered the yellow first. 

    Bright yellow, the color of a hazard sign - it was Dr. Grace's familiar raincoat, unmistakable even at distance, the man wearing it moving fast across the open ground that separated the administrative buildings from the interior fence line.

    Grace was running.

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    15 Jun 2026

  2. Public Bookmark *

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    "What do you think happened, Captain?"

    "Don't know. Don't care. Need coffee."

    A pause. Then, "Do we wake Grace?"

    "No."

    "But—"

    "No, Ilyukhina."

    (Or: Ilyukhina and Yao wake up early due to a malfunction on the Hail Mary. They do what needs to be done—for the dying star they left behind and the only person who can save them all.)

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    14 Jun 2026

  3. Public Bookmark *

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    Ryland Grace is Not Doing Well.

    He’s consulted a medical textbook. He’s definitely malnourished, as expected, but he also thinks he might have scurvy, which is. Uh.

    He’s attempting to make light of it. Well. He’s attempting not to make anything of it at all. They only have what, ten more days until they reach Erid? And once they’ve got to Erid, Rocky has reassured him, told him again and again and again that the best minds on Erid will fix him, will work out a way to feed him, that they’ll help.

    So he just has to make it through those ten more days. With scurvy. No big deal. Who hasn’t lived with scurvy before? If he thinks real hard about it, he’s just a pirate, at the end of the day. A space pirate. A space pirate who pillaged another planet for their resources and has now got scurvy as a form of divine retribution for crimes against Taumoeba (eating it) and Astrophage (getting Taumoeba to eat it.)

    He’s Jack Sparrow. What the hey, sure.

     ***

    Or: Ryland Grace, and The Brush With Scurvy.

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    05 Jun 2026

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    Earth did not expect the Hail Mary to return from her voyage; they had expected her inhabitants to accept their fate, future patron saints of one-way trips.

    They had measured the optics. They had prescribed three astronauts with a death sentence; two aware and wanting of the pills they were handed to swallow, one dragged kicking and screaming. They had decided that the future of all humanity, of all known intelligent life, was worth these three lives. They had expected that these three lives would make peace with this: that there would be no help other than their own hands in the unknown stretch of the forever cosmos. They had anticipated no consequence for their actions; that those three names would be known as heroes, no questions asked about if they had wanted to be heroes at all.

    They had not counted on Ryland Grace.

    ***

    Or: the probes don't launch. Ryland Grace is forced to return to Earth.

    He still isn't giving up on Erid. Or Rocky.

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    04 Jun 2026

  5. Public Bookmark *

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    Rocky is eager to help his human friend adjust to his new life on Erid. Grace says he wants to stay, that he doesn’t miss Earth, but he’s showing signs of emotional distress. Humans are social and tactile creatures, after all.

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    02 Jun 2026