Alone

It felt final. It shouldn't have felt final. Yao and Ilyukhina had been long dead. Years even. But it felt raw and even more real now that he had actually done a... ceremony? Ritual? Commitment. That worked enough. It didn't matter what it was. 

I commend your body to the stars... 

It made him feel better. It was fitting. They were travelers. Had been travelers. He'd done his best by them. It felt a disservice that he didn't remember them. His friends. No. His crew. There was something deep seeded in that. Deep. An ache that if he thought to much about it made his eyes water and breath go short and the feathery feeling of panic starting to creep through his mind. 

Loss. Grief. 

Fear. 

The fear felt... visceral. 

Because he knew that he was not only alone, that the success of the whole mission rested with him...

Because he knew he was going to die out here.

He'd done the math. With a pen and paper. The numbers were there. He had enough fuel to get to Tau Ceti but getting home... that wasn't going to happen. He'd found the Beetles. The way he was supposed to send his findings back. 

The broken pieces of his memory were only just starting to drag back together but the Beetles suggested he'd known. They'd all known. Chosen to take this on. A suicide mission.

He was going to die. And he was going to die alone. 

Grace let his head fall back against the back of the pilot's seat, letting his eyes go a bit unfocused behind his glasses as he stared out into the void, the pinpricks of stars and the soft swirls of galaxies. 

He just needed a moment to stop thinking. Stop the thoughts, the fractured memories, the pressure of it all. 

He'd never been one to dissociate... at least he didn't think he was. But it was alright, for just a moment. For his lost friends and for his future death. Grace just... needed a moment to mourn. 

A moment to come to full terms with how completely alone he was. 

The only human in many light years. That he would never see anyone ever again. 

Grace let out a long, shuddering breath and pushed himself up to sit upright in the pilot's seat. 

He had to do this.

Astrophage was eating their sun. Sol. The whole of humanity was at risk. And every other living thing on the planet as well. A new ice age in less than thirty years. Even less now, he realized, he'd been in space for nearly half that. In a coma sure but the time had still passed. 

He was the last chance. 

For his students. For Earth and everyone on it. There was a solution out here, somewhere. He had to find it. He had to. 

It didn't matter that he was out here and alone and afraid. It didn't. He had to fix this. Somehow. 

He pushed his way out of the chair and pulled himself along in the weightlessness of space, towards the lab. 

He was determined to make this worth it. He was a scientist. This was a problem. Science loved a problem. This was a big problem. The biggest. It was time for some big science. 

It was the last thing he would ever do, after all.