Chapter Text
A bright blue flash hundreds of kilometers away gently roused Bauxite from their sleep. They looked on at the alien structure, high above them in the orbit of Giant's Deep, breaking apart at the seams.
Slate would say there was no better way to kick off an inaugural spaceflight than a good explosion.
Bauxite sat up, leaning their back against a log across from Slate. For their part, the engineer seemed more fixated on giving their marshmallow the perfect roast than whatever Bauxite was doing. It was only after Baux managed to stand up and stretch did Slate acknowledge their existence.
"There's our pilot!" Slate teased, letting their marshmallow start to burn. "Back from your pre-flight campout under the stars, I see."
"Yeah yeah," Bauxite brushed them off as they rubbed the sleep out of their eyes. "Ship's all set? Wood's not gonna catch fire as soon as I throttle up?"
"Hey, the wood was double-treated with a fireproof varnish, the aluminum is way more likely to combust."
"That what you told Chert?"
"I told Chert that if they didn't bother cleaning the thrusters out every once in a while the sand would melt to glass and mess everything else up. But the ship up there is brand new, so you don't need to worry about that yet. But first you'll need to get the launch codes from Hornfels at the observatory."
"Right..." Bauxite shook their head to dispel the last of their drowsiness. Didn't matter how big a day it was for Baux, safety procedures were to be followed. They took off down the path to the observatory— even if it wasn't for the codes, Hal wouldn't forgive them if they didn't say goodbye to them first anyways.
Armed with a Nomai translator, a goodbye hug from Hal, and a deep fear of whatever the fuck caused that statue to move and its eyes start glowing, Bauxite approached the elevator.
With Slate giving them a lazy thumbs-up, they punched in the codes.
"Dash-dash, dot dot dash, dot dash- damn."
Their moment of getting to dramatically rise up the elevator was ruined by them somehow not remembering the codes Hornfels told them literally five minutes ago how did they already forget-
After another few minutes of fumbling through different variations of the launch code they finally landed on the right one; almost got it right the first time, just swapped the last dot and dash.
A part of Bauxite wondered that if they couldn't remember a seven digit binary code, how well they'd fare in the vast expanse of the outer wilds.
No time to dwell on that, Hal might be watching and they didn't want to mess this up any more than they already did. They at least got to pose as the platform lifted them up to the top of the converted tree. And there, resting in front of them, was Bauxite's spaceship.
Well, technically everything was owned by Outer Wilds Ventures, but now they were about to get behind the cockpit of the latest and greatest spaceship Slate's ever designed— not even Feldspar themself could force them out of this thing if they didn't want to.
Bauxite approached the entry hatch, and held their breath as the Nomai elevator scooped them up. Their own space ship, all theirs.
They took stock of the supplies first. Medical, rations, spare oxygen tanks, the all-important terminal, Nomai gravity crystal, everything looked good.
Turning around, they ran a hand through their spacesuit just to make sure it survived the process of being loaded into the ship without a new puncture. The last thing they needed was to finally touch down on the Attlerock, lock in their helmet, then immediately turn around because a hole turns 6 minutes of oxygen into 30 seconds. But thankfully, all of their old stitching held up, no punctures to be found.
Content with their equipment, they finally got to the best part— the cockpit. They slid into the seat, running their hand over all the controls.
It was just like training. Joystick, landing gear, light and camera toggles, throttle- oh, the eject button was new. But everything else was more or less the same, in all its wooden, duct-taped glory.
Bauxite looked up at the expanse of blue above them. It was time.
They hit the ignition, all the consoles and indicators beeping to life. They could hear the fuel flowing up to the combustion chamber, all they had to do was tap that throttle and they'd be spacebound.
They punched it.
Quickly pulling the flight stick up, the lower thrusters fired, marking liftoff. The entire ship began vibrating, causing a couple not-very-well packed supplies to fall off their shelves.
Something to note for their next pre-flight inspection.
Still, Bauxite was full speed ahead. Just like they trained, they flew up and forward, trying to insert themself into Hearthian orbit.
The village crater began looking smaller and smaller as the sky above became darker and darker. At first the ship was stuttering as it fought Timber Hearth's atmosphere, but that soon gave way to a smooth glide as it broke out into space.
Bauxite gently tapped the flight stick forward, giving themself just a little more velocity to ensure they stayed in Hearthian orbit instead of just falling back down to the planet below.
With that, they could take a break and look out over the rest of the solar system.
They actually did it. They were an astronaut, they just finished their first orbit, even the Quantum Moon decided to stop by Timber Hearth to congratulate them. They could go anywhere, explore anything, figure out what the hell the Nomai were up to and show Hal exactly what all those sleepless nights working on the translator led up to.
But they had to start small. There was plenty of time, and only one of them; couldn't afford to crash and burn on their first day.
The Attlerock was a good first landing.
Just like they trained for, Bauxite started rotating the ship. Opposing pairs of left-right thrusters fired at the same time, forcing it to rotate. Thankfully for Bauxite, the Attlerock was close enough that the inclination offset shouldn't be much an issue, so all they had to do was make sure the forward thrusters were in-line with the instantaneous velocity vector, and gently tap the throttle-
The sound of a chunk of glass shattering startled Bauxite out of their piloting, as the brand new ship's cockpit just gained a tiny hole in it. Immediately it started making a hissing sound, the air waging a desperate struggle against the artificial gravity well to escape into the vacuum of space. The experience was not made more pleasant by the multiple alarm bells ringing and flashing red lights on the control panel.
"Okay okay this is fine…"
Temporarily abandoning their Attlerock orbital insertion, Bauxite thought back to their training. Probably a micrometeoroid impact, Riebeck talked plenty about how there was so much Nomai space debris drifting around the solar system it wouldn't be that surprising to hit something.
They really should've known better than to spend this long in low Hearthian orbit.
Not the time to worry about that, there's a hole where there shouldn't be one. The gravity well was slowing down how fast they ran out of oxygen, but if they didn't get their space suit on now they might be too delirious to do it later.
They unbuckled and lunged for the EVA suit hanging against the starboard wall. Helmet first— as much as they wanted to ensure their scarf was properly styled, there was no time for that. With the helmet sealed and the oxygen tank attached, they could take a moment to breathe.
Their hands were still shaking from the scare, which wasn't something Bauxite did often but could probably be attributed to how bad this was going so far. It took them a few moments to realize it wasn't just their hand, it was their entire body. And as Bauxite looked back to the hole in the cockpit, they realized the cause.
The throttle was on this whole time, the Attlerock looked a whole lot bigger than it did a minute ago, and it was still growing.
Spacesuit still only half-equipped, they jumped back into the pilot seat to try and salvage this. Immediately they slammed the throttle backwards, engaging the already questionably designed retrothrusters in full force. But with how much speed the ship already picked up, it might not be enough.
Thankfully the Attlerock was small. Bauxite pulled up on the flight stick as well as back, hoping the takeoff thrusters could let them overshoot the moon.
And for a brief second, it looked like that might be the case. Bauxite could see Giant's Deep crawling out of the Attlerock's shadow, they were on-track to make it out of this with only a damaged cockpit.
But running two different sets of auxiliary thrusters at max force simultaneously was a bit much for the little wooden ship to bear.
Bauxite couldn't tell from beneath their suit, but the fumes of molten rubber drifted into the ship before being sucked out to space. The retrothrusters, burning this hard for this long, began melting the insulation around the safety-critical control wiring, creating a brand new series of fun and exciting circuit connections.
One of these combinations caused a message to display on top of all the other various warning signs and beeps.
Autopilot engaged.
Stage 1: Aligning flight trajectory
"Fuck how did Slate not fix that yet!"
With the overzealous autopilot throwing all of their evasive maneuvers out the window, Bauxite desperately fumbled around for some way to return to manual control.
Quickly, they realized that wouldn't matter. They were too close now, they could make out the details of Esker's cabin.
They hated themself for setting a Ventures record, but Gossan drilled this into them from the day they started: pilot safety was the first priority. Cringing, they lifted up the eject button cover, and slammed the big red button.
Immediately, they felt themselves slammed back into their seat as the cockpit was launched forward. Slightly more delayed was the feeling like their legs and chest were going to burst— while they had their helmet on and oxygen connected, everything happened too fast to suit up the rest of their body.
As the cockpit flew towards the surface of the Attlerock, Bauxite prayed Esker would get there quickly.
The impact was about as terrible as they expected. The remains of the cockpit did cushion some of the blow, even if it meant Bauxite was now buried in a pile of shredded metal, wood, and broken glass.
They knew they made the right decision though, as the rest of the ship landed 50 meters away. The lack of an atmosphere on the Attlerock made the entire ordeal far quieter than it felt. Almost peaceful, if you ignored Bauxite's muted swearing.
That wouldn't last long though, as the ship reactor detonated. From their position pinned under debris, Bauxite could only watch as Slate's newest pride and joy was transformed into hundreds of tiny pieces. They could swear they saw the pieces of the ship terminal drift by.
Bauxite took a deep breath. Something was bleeding (probably multiple somethings), half of their body felt like it was going to burst from the pressure differential, they didn't know if they'd be able to crawl out of the cockpit's debris by themselves, all around it was a pretty shitty first flight.
At least the oxygen supply was alright.
And they knew Esker was nearby; if they didn't catch the crash, they had to have seen that explosion. And even in the worst case scenario, ground control should've been following the flight, Hornfels would've picked up on it and could be radioing someone right now.
Bauxite had no idea what a day like this meant for their future in the Ventures. And while this had to be at least partially Slate's fault, they needed to face the fact that no one would want them piloting a ship for a good long while after this.
They prayed somewhere in the debris the translator was still intact.
They didn't have much longer to stew as Attlerock suddenly lit up a dark shade of red. Bauxite mustered up just enough strength to pivot their head to the sun, and wasn't a very big fan of what they saw.
Where the sun should be was now a red giant, rapidly expanding outwards. It continued like that for another minute, before collapsing in on itself.
Bauxite spent enough time at the museum to know what came next. Figuring out the how and why would have to be saved for the afterlife.
They took a few breaths. In those few seconds between the star's collapse and the flash of blue that eviscerated all that existed, they looked out at the lights of the village.
As Bauxite's entire body was scorched alive, their last thought was that they wished they could've spent this at home instead of covered in the wreckage of their lifelong dream.
Then everything went black.
Bauxite gasped for air underneath the glow of an alien structure blowing itself up. Slate's typical smug stoicism gave way for a moment as their next test-pilot seemed to be going through a coughing fit.
"Whoah, you alright there hatchling?"
Bauxite looked down at their hand, opening and closing their fingers for a few seconds. They could still feel the fire, the cuts, the depressurization, why were they back here?
"Did I just… die?"
Slate gave Bauxite a concerned look. "Bad dream or something? Still look half-asleep…" They shook their head. "Maybe go easy on the marshmallows before you take off."
Bauxite got up, that couldn't have been a dream, right? But they were standing here right at the base of the launch pad, not in a pile of debris and blood on the Attlerock.
They stepped to the launch elevator, punching in the codes dream-Hornfels gave them.
"Hold up, you're gonna wanna get the codes from the observatory first-"
Slate's comment was cut off by the elevator motors whirring to life. The combination worked, and unlike the weird dream, it only took Bauxite one try.
"I… already lifted off," Bauxite said, more confidently. "Did this before. Took off, got nailed by a piece of debris, everything started breaking, your autopilot kicked in for no reason-" they gave Slate an accusatory point- "and I crashed and burned on the surface of the Attlerock."
"Whoah whoah, calm down." Slate set their marshmallow down, propping the stick up against their log so it didn't touch the ground. "You sure you're good to launch?"
"I wouldn't have known those codes if I hadn't seen them already," Bauxite mumbled.
Slate shrugged. "Maybe you and Hornfels are messing with me. Or I could just be huffing too many rocket fumes. Stuff is potent."
Bauxite looked between Slate and the elevator, before pressing the up button. Maybe it really was a dream that just also happened to have a premonition about the precise launch codes, with how the launch code was just nine binary inputs was it really that unlikely?
They thought back to their dream-self fumbling through 20 different codes trying to remember the combo dream-Hornfels told them. It probably was that unlikely.
Bauxite's mental math on how many different launch code combinations there could possibly be was abruptly interrupted when they made it to the top of the launch platform. A new completely different problem took its place instead.
Their ship was completely gone, replaced with …something else.
To its credit, it at least looked like something that belonged in space. There was a single rocket engine at the bottom, about the size of one of the thrusters from their actual ship. Directly over it was what looked like a fuel tank of some sort, judging by its position and the giant yellow and black drawing of a flame on the side. A couple of bolted-on fins lined the bottom, right above the engine.
The top was the most confusing. It was a black cone with a few windows, and a hatch on the side that looked just big enough for Bauxite to fit in. But the weirdest part was the text over the top.
Bauxite spent way too long with Hal working on the translator so they knew it wasn't Nomai, and it sure wasn't Hearthian. Still, they took out their translator. And just as they suspected, it flashed a red "ERROR: Unknown Language." At least it wasn't broken.
They circled around the strange ship, trying to get a sense for what it was actually doing here. Did it have something to do with the weird sorta-dream?
At last, Bauxite decided this was enough, and walked back to the elevator. Only one person could tell them what the hell was going on.
As the elevator fell back to the ground, Bauxite yelled.
"Slate, get over here! Something's wrong with your ship."
Slate, who had just reskewered their marshmallow, sighed as they rose to their feet. Between Baux's weird breakdown earlier and this, something was up, and Hornfels would probably get mad if they just acted like everything was fine. They picked up their half-cooked marshmallow and started making their way to the platform. "You better not have broken anything before you even took off."
"No it's… just look, something's wrong."
Slate finally meandered onto the platform as Bauxite punched in the codes yet again. And yet again, the elevator took them up, where that same alien spaceship stood.
"Huh… that ain't my ship."
Slate walked around it, taking the same path Bauxite took earlier. After biting off the rest of the marshmallow, they gently prodded the spacecraft with their stick.
"Looks like a full aluminum construction, guessing that's a solid fuel engine-" Slate accentuated their point with a solid thump against the engine- "Actually that cockpit might have some composites-"
"Slate what the hell is going on here?"
They paused, lowering their stick. "…Well, got two guesses here. First, Mica stole your ship and is pulling one hell of a prank on us. Second, some alien took my ship, and left this little guy in its place.
They took another accusatory glance at the ship.
"Not a good trade, if you ask me."
Bauxite could only stare, how was Slate taking this so calmly? Maybe the dream was putting them on edge, but that dream was also really realistic and it definitely had a regular Slate-certified spaceship so what was going on here-
Willfully oblivious to Bauxite's mental breakdown, Slate climbed up to the top of the strange vessel. With a minor amount of finagling, the hatch opened up, revealing a full cockpit inside.
It was both more and less complicated than the Hearthian ships. The interior was practically covered in various different dials, switches, and buttons; though there was only one tiny viewing hatch and a single display screen in the center. It didn't leave much space for the single seat with all of its accompanying buckles and straps.
Slate reached in and grabbed the flight stick, it wasn't too dissimilar to the ones they designed. They jiggled it around, looking hopefully at the rest of the vessel to see if anything would react.
Unfortunately for them, it did nothing.
"Huh… " Unsatisfied with that, Slate began probing different buttons along the control panel.
"Are you- should you be doing that?" Bauxite asked, pushing down their self-induced anxiety in exchange for new, Slate-induced anxiety.
"Relax," Slate assured, flipping a switch that caused the lights in the cockpit to turn on. "Chert looks at the stars, Riebeck likes archeology, Gabbro does Gabbro, and I…" With a dramatic sweeping motion, Slate activated a switch with a protective cover on it. "Am here for the rocket science."
Soon enough, the rocket started rumbling. Bauxite took a few concerned steps back while Slate jumped out of the way and slammed the cockpit hatch shut. Before long, the scent of smoke and rocket fumes filled the launchpad as smoke guzzled out of the rocket's singular engine.
Slate looked on in awe as the alien vessel shot up into the sky. With no pilot and no controls on the fins, the ship simply went straight up, making it to the upper reaches of Timber Hearth's atmosphere before slowing down.
"But… how'd you know-"
"While I'm still very annoyed that the aliens saw fit to take my fine piece of machinery, what they left behind isn't half bad. Well designed, clear labeling, take a look."
Slate pointed upwards at the rocket now falling back down to Timber Hearth. After a few more seconds of free fall, a blue and white parachute deployed, slowing its descent to a crawl.
"With how complex the cockpit is and lack of anything to do with those buttons, figured we were looking at a test rocket of some sort. Better have been too, this little guy didn't even break the atmosphere."
Bauxite waited for the alien ship to touch down before daring to move. Slate may have focused in on the rocket science, but that still left the much bigger mystery that there was another alien in this solar system aside from the Nomai how is that possible?
Their mental rambling was cut off by Slate waving a hand in front of their face. "Hatchling, you there? Still with me?"
"Uh- y-yeah, just… confused."
"You and me both," Slate admitted, strolling back towards the rocket. "But we have all the time in the world. And I'll tell you what- you help me figure out what's going on with all this, and I'll be sure to incorporate whatever new alien tech we find in the next ship I build for you."
Bauxite shook their head, trying to snap out of their spiral. This was something incredible, and sure there were a million questions about what was going on, but those could be solved!
"Right, yeah… yeah! I'll go get Hal, they can probably help. And I should tell Hornfels I'm not taking off today anyways."
"You go do that, I'm gonna take a look at this combustion chamber. Don't recognize the metal they used here…"
While Slate got to work figuring out the optimal way to stick their head in the rocket's exhaust nozzle, Bauxite rode the elevator back down.
And it was only as they were walking up to the observatory did they have a minute to think on what exactly they were going to say; they were so caught up in the whole alien spaceship thing that the bizarre dream slipped their mind. And they doubted Hornfels would accept "it was revealed to me in a dream" as a valid reason for why they had the launch codes.
As Bauxite climbed up the steps, a part of them began to wonder if their mind really did just make that up or if there could be something more to it. But it ended with them stranded on the Attlerock, bleeding out and consumed by the sun turning into a supernova over the course of 10 minutes. It was completely absurd.
But just in case…
As Bauxite climbed to the top of the steps, they stopped to turn towards the sky. And just as they expected, it was-
"Stars above why is it red."
The sun was distinctly red, bigger than Bauxite remembered it being. For a minute, all they could do was stare at the sky.
Did that mean the dream was real? How could it happen? Was it really about to go supernova? And did that mean they really did take off in the regular ship? What happened to that-
"Baux, come over here! You're never gonna believe this!"
Bauxite's spiral was interrupted by Hal, practically tripping over themself as they ran out of the museum.
"I was waiting for you to come by, the Nomai statue's eyes are open! Err, they used to be closed, probably should have led with that. But they're open now- Baux what's wrong?"
Bauxite was never the most expressive person around, but Hal prided themself on being one of the few who could decipher their normal stoicism. So when they actually looked like they were kinda sad, that meant something was extremely wrong and they needed help ASAP.
But following Bauxite's gaze, they realized that it wasn't really something they could help much with.
"…Oh."
Bauxite gave a slow nod.
"… How long has it been like that?" Hal asked.
Bauxite's response took a while to come out, their head split between responding to Hal and processing the potential recursive impending doom. "Had to be less than 10 minutes."
"It shouldn't be doing that for another billion years."
"I know."
"Why is it- Baux is the sun dying?"
"I… it did? I saw it go supernova, but then everything was fine and I just woke up like none of it happened and I just…"
Bauxite sat down on the cliff's edge, feet dangling over the rest of the village. Hal followed suit, positioning themself right next to them.
"You… saw it before?" Hal's voice cracked, their tone somewhere between sympathy and trying to understand.
"Yeah, we talked and the statue opened its eyes at me and then I launched and…" Bauxite leaned forward, struggling to bring themselves to look at the red sun. "Crashed in less than 15 minutes. Thought it couldn't get worse, then the sun went blue."
"But… we didn't talk, and the statue was…" Hal trailed off, realizing there wasn't much point in arguing. The story didn't make sense, the statue didn't make sense, the sun didn't make sense, nothing added up.
Instead, they just leaned into Bauxite. "If the sun does become a supernova again, do you think you'll just wake up again?"
Bauxite looked to their friend. Their face was much easier to deal with than the sense of doom above the both of them. "…I hope. I don't want to…"
Finishing the thought was scary, so they didn't. Instead, Hal reached for Bauxite's shoulder.
"Look, this isn't good. At all. But if the statue and the sun and your… thing is connected, then that means you can figure it out, right?"
"You actually think it was real?"
Hal shook their head. "I don't think any of this is real, but I'm definitely seeing this right now, so what I think doesn't matter much."
Bauxite couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. Hal was supposed to be the one freaking out right now, and they would be comforting their friend as they curse the stupid dying sun. Instead, here Hal was, trying to tell them that their weird alternate death delusion meant something.
Despite the fact that it was supposed to be midday, the sky over Timber Hearth abruptly went black. Only Hal had the courage to look up.
It didn't take long for a bright blue flare to fill the sky. Bauxite reached for Hal's hand, keeping it there for those precious few seconds before the supernova eradicated any trace of their existence.