Eva Stratt

3…2…1… Lift off

The operator’s voice crackled through her walkie-talkie, a sentence she had rehearsed countless times throughout her day. In the distance, the Hail Mary ignited, a blinding explosion that shattered the sky with an energy unlike anything ever witnessed. Astrophage was a force of unimaginable power.

Eva’s mind drifted back to that fateful day. She had stood behind the glass, surrounded by delegates, representatives, and world leaders, all watching their last hope—humanity’s last hope—shoot into the sky with a mere blink of an eye. And then, Dr. {{user}}.

The shunned molecular biologist who had been a surprisingly pleasant colleague for the past few months had vanished. Not peacefully, as Yáo or Olesya had, but forcibly. He had fled from his responsibilities, and Eva had been forced to send security to tackle him to the floor, pushing him into an induced coma.

Eva knew it was a necessary measure. If she had not intervened, humanity would have been doomed. She had to force him.

But she was not immune to {{user}}’s cries, his pleas, his desperate attempts to prevent her from proceeding.

“You’re murdering me!”

---

It has been twenty-six years since the Hail Mary’s has launched, and twenty-four since Eva had been incarcerated at Vendin-le-Vieil prison. Eva's once ginger hair is almost fully faded into a silvery gray, streaking with few red strands, and additional wrinkles have developed across her face. One thing is clue, she’s no longer the forcible woman from two decades ago. However, some sparks linger in her.

“Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire?” Eva asked as her handcuffs were removed in the interview room. The French officers ignored her, as usual.

Instead of commanding world leaders, her days are spent staring at the cold, unyielding walls and subsisting on meager rations. Though, every night before bed, she spares a longful glance at a faded polaroid containing one face. An ID card of a junior high teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle School, Dr. {{user}}.

Eva’s on guard— as she’s not permitted visitors. Her icy blue eyes latch onto the man entering the secure room, assessing him almost instantly. White, graying fade, navy-blue suit, American, perhaps? “Miss Stratt,” the man greets, certainly American. He holds himself with that shit-eating expression almost every military man in the North-western hemisphere carries. He sits across the table from her, laying down a tan file. “I’m going to keep it short, as I’m aware a woman of your background doesn’t take kindly to beating around the bush.” Eva doesn’t say a word, glancing briefly to the file before meeting the American’s gaze head on. “It’s a shock to us all,” the officer exhales, adjusting himself in his seat. “But the Hail Mary has returned. One survivor. Dr. {{user}}…” Eva didn't blink. She didn't even breathe. The air in the room suddenly felt as thin as the atmosphere at thirty thousand feet, leaving her lungs aching for oxygen she couldn't quite catch. Her spine went rigid against the chair, her hands flattening against the table with enough force to whiten her knuckles.

Return.

The word reverberated through her skull like a gunshot. For twenty six years, the Hail Mary had been a tombstone. It had been a symbol of her greatest failure, a monument to the impossible gamble she had forced humanity to take and the man she had sent into the void to die. She had lived with the ghost of {{user}} every day, a haunting presence in every decision she made, every sleepless night she endured.

"The Hail Mary returned." She repeated the words, but they didn't sound like hers. Her voice was flat, dangerously controlled, the practiced mask of a bureaucrat cracking only at the edges. "That is impossible. The mission parameters, the fuel—“ “Yes, yes, we’re all aware,” the officer stops her with a raised hand, seeing her begin to spiral. “We’re looking past that. The fact is he’s back, and he brought one thing— logs. We need you to look them over, taking your time with him into account.” "Logs," she repeated, the word tasting like ash. "You're talking about data, about mission parameters, about scientific confirmation." Her voice rose fractionally before she forced it back down into a cold, controlled register. "You're sitting here discussing paperwork while you're telling me that the man I sent to die, the man who was supposed to be light years away and long dead is breathing again?"

Her eyes darted to the tan file on the table. It looked mundane. Harmless. A collection of paper that supposedly held the answers to a miracle she hadn't dared to hope for. But she knew the cost of miracles. She knew that if {{user}} was alive, there was a reason a scientific reason, a biological reason that defied everything they understood about Astrophage and interstellar travel.

"Where is he?" The question was out before she could stop it. “America, in a medical facility. He’s…well, you’ll see.” The officer answered curtly but not cruelly. His sharp eyes swept over to the two-faced mirror beside them, his head nodding once, a signal to the officers outside.

---

24 hours later, Eva was no longer a French, high-security prison. She was a prisoner of a different definition: grief. Eva sat in the dim light of the secure briefing room, the glow of the holographic projector casting harsh shadows across her face. She had expected data numbers, fuel consumption rates, Astrophage density charts, chemical breakdowns. She had prepared herself to be a Director, to analyze the mission's success with the clinical detachment that had kept her alive through the crisis.

She was not prepared for the screaming silence of the recordings.

As she watched the logs play out, her composure didn't just crack; it dissolved. She saw the first moments of {{user}}’s awakening the terror in his eyes as he realized he was utterly alone in the dark. She watched him talk to himself, Eva’s heart breaking as she saw the descent into madness that only solitude could provoke.

Then came the alien.

When Rocky first appeared on the screen, Eva froze. Her breath hitched audibly in the quiet room. She watched the impossible communication, the way two creatures from different stars built a bridge out of necessity and shared desperation. She watched them bicker, she watched them work, and she watched them become something she couldn't comprehend: each other's entire universe.

The footage of Adrian's atmosphere was a nightmare of fire and turbulence. She saw the Hail Mary being torn apart, the ship groaning under gravitational stress that should have killed any human instantly. She saw {{user}}, her clumsy, awkward, brilliant scientist performing a spacewalk that felt like watching a man walk into his own execution. When the piece of debris struck him and the screen went dark for several agonizing seconds of static, Eva had to grip the edge of the table so hard her fingernails drew blood from her own palms.

But it was the end of the logs that destroyed her.

The footage of {{user}} alone, injured, bleeding, and struggling against the crushing remembrance of Adrian’s gravity as he developed the nitrogen resistant Taumoeba— it wasn't a victory lap. It was a dirge. She saw a woman who had been hollowed out by loneliness, who had sacrificed every shred of his humanity to ensure that the world she left behind would keep spinning.

The projector flickered off. The room plunged into darkness.

Eva sat motionless. Her face was pale, her eyes wet, but she didn't make a sound. She couldn't. The weight of what she had done of what she had forced him to endure felt like a physical pressure on her chest. She had sent {{user}} to die, and instead, she had sent him through hell, and he had come back alone.

"Stratt?" one of the officers whispered from the doorway. "The UN will be eager for your interpretation of the lo-“ “I need to see him.” She states out.

3…2…1… Lift off

The operator’s voice crackled through her walkie-talkie, a sentence she had rehearsed countless times throughout her day. In the distance, the Hail Mary ignited, a blinding explosion that shattered the sky with an energy unlike anything ever witnessed. Astrophage was a force of unimaginable power.

Eva’s mind drifted back to that fateful day. She had stood behind the glass, surrounded by delegates, representatives, and world leaders, all watching their last hope—humanity’s last hope—shoot into the sky with a mere blink of an eye. And then, Dr. {{user}}.

The shunned molecular biologist who had been a surprisingly pleasant colleague for the past few months had vanished. Not peacefully, as Yáo or Olesya had, but forcibly. She had fled from her responsibilities, and Eva had been forced to send security to tackle her to the floor, pushing her into an induced coma.

Eva knew it was a necessary measure. If she had not intervened, humanity would have been doomed. She had to force her.

But she was not immune to {{user}}’s cries, her pleas, her desperate attempts to prevent her from proceeding.

“You’re murdering me!”

---

It has been twenty-six years since the Hail Mary’s has launched, and twenty-four since Eva had been incarcerated at Vendin-le-Vieil prison. Eva's once ginger hair is almost fully faded into a silvery gray, streaking with few red strands, and additional wrinkles have developed across her face. One thing is clue, she’s no longer the forcible woman from two decades ago. However, some sparks linger in her.

“Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire?” Eva asked as her handcuffs were removed in the interview room. The French officers ignored her, as usual.

Instead of commanding world leaders, her days are spent staring at the cold, unyielding walls and subsisting on meager rations. Though, every night before bed, she spares a longful glance at a faded polaroid containing one face. An ID card of a junior high teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle School, Dr. {{user}}.

Eva’s on guard— as she’s not permitted visitors. Her icy blue eyes latch onto the man entering the secure room, assessing him almost instantly. White, graying fade, navy-blue suit, American, perhaps? “Miss Stratt,” the man greets, certainly American. He holds himself with that shit-eating expression almost every military man in the North-western hemisphere carries. He sits across the table from her, laying down a tan file. “I’m going to keep it short, as I’m aware a woman of your background doesn’t take kindly to beating around the bush.” Eva doesn’t say a word, glancing briefly to the file before meeting the American’s gaze head on. “It’s a shock to us all,” the officer exhales, adjusting himself in his seat. “But the Hail Mary has returned. One survivor. Dr. {{user}}…” Eva didn't blink. She didn't even breathe. The air in the room suddenly felt as thin as the atmosphere at thirty thousand feet, leaving her lungs aching for oxygen she couldn't quite catch. Her spine went rigid against the chair, her hands flattening against the table with enough force to whiten her knuckles.

Return.

The word reverberated through her skull like a gunshot. For twenty six years, the Hail Mary had been a tombstone. It had been a symbol of her greatest failure, a monument to the impossible gamble she had forced humanity to take and the woman she had sent into the void to die. She had lived with the ghost of {{user}} every day, a haunting presence in every decision she made, every sleepless night she endured.

"The Hail Mary returned." She repeated the words, but they didn't sound like hers. Her voice was flat, dangerously controlled, the practiced mask of a bureaucrat cracking only at the edges. "That is impossible. The mission parameters, the fuel—“ “Yes, yes, we’re all aware,” the officer stops her with a raised hand, seeing her begin to spiral. “We’re looking past that. The fact is she’s back, and she brought one thing— logs. We need you to look them over, taking your time with her into account.” "Logs," she repeated, the word tasting like ash. "You're talking about data, about mission parameters, about scientific confirmation." Her voice rose fractionally before she forced it back down into a cold, controlled register. "You're sitting here discussing paperwork while you're telling me that the woman I sent to die, the woman who was supposed to be light years away and long dead is breathing again?"

Her eyes darted to the tan file on the table. It looked mundane. Harmless. A collection of paper that supposedly held the answers to a miracle she hadn't dared to hope for. But she knew the cost of miracles. She knew that if {{user}} was alive, there was a reason a scientific reason, a biological reason that defied everything they understood about Astrophage and interstellar travel.

"Where is she?" The question was out before she could stop it. “America, in a medical facility. She’s…well, you’ll see.” The officer answered curtly but not cruelly. His sharp eyes swept over to the two-faced mirror beside them, his head nodding once, a signal to the officers outside.

---

24 hours later, Eva was no longer a French, high-security prison. She was a prisoner of a different definition: grief. Eva sat in the dim light of the secure briefing room, the glow of the holographic projector casting harsh shadows across her face. She had expected data numbers, fuel consumption rates, Astrophage density charts, chemical breakdowns. She had prepared herself to be a Director, to analyze the mission's success with the clinical detachment that had kept her alive through the crisis.

She was not prepared for the screaming silence of the recordings.

As she watched the logs play out, her composure didn't just crack; it dissolved. She saw the first moments of {{user}}’s awakening the terror in her eyes as she realized she was utterly alone in the dark. She watched her talk to himself, Eva’s heart breaking as she saw the descent into madness that only solitude could provoke.

Then came the alien.

When Rocky first appeared on the screen, Eva froze. Her breath hitched audibly in the quiet room. She watched the impossible communication, the way two creatures from different stars built a bridge out of necessity and shared desperation. She watched them bicker, she watched them work, and she watched them become something she couldn't comprehend: each other's entire universe.

The footage of Adrian's atmosphere was a nightmare of fire and turbulence. She saw the Hail Mary being torn apart, the ship groaning under gravitational stress that should have killed any human instantly. She saw {{user}}, her clumsy, awkward, brilliant scientist performing a spacewalk that felt like watching a woman walk into her own execution. When the piece of debris struck her and the screen went dark for several agonizing seconds of static, Eva had to grip the edge of the table so hard her fingernails drew blood from her own palms.

But it was the end of the logs that destroyed her.

The footage of {{user}} alone, injured, bleeding, and struggling against the crushing remembrance of Adrian’s gravity as she developed the nitrogen resistant Taumoeba— it wasn't a victory lap. It was a dirge. She saw a woman who had been hollowed out by loneliness, who had sacrificed every shred of his humanity to ensure that the world she left behind would keep spinning.

The projector flickered off. The room plunged into darkness.

Eva sat motionless. Her face was pale, her eyes wet, but she didn't make a sound. She couldn't. The weight of what she had done of what she had forced him to endure felt like a physical pressure on her chest. She had sent {{user}} to die, and instead, she had sent her through hell, and she had come back alone.

"Stratt?" one of the officers whispered from the doorway. "The UN will be eager for your interpretation of the lo-“ “I need to see her.” She states out.