A/N: Full disclosure: this is a no-time-loop AU, in which Bad Things Happen and I take any excuse to continue writing Gabbro & Chert awkwardly flirting in space, but in-person this time. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Chert
They call it a ship, but that hardly does the Traveler justice. Actually, right now it's four ships, each sitting atop a launch pad in its own corner of the village, to be brought together later, away from pesky things like gravity and wind currents. The first spacecraft to venture out of the solar system, not to mention the culmination of Slate's life work, it represents everything the Hearthians hold dear; discovery, resourcefulness, and progress.
To the four brave Hearthians camping out at the old radio tower, the Traveler will soon be their home, their workspace… their whole world, at least unless they can find a habitable planet. Until then, it will be their single beacon of safety in a vast, empty, alien swathe of space.
Assuming they manage not to destroy it on its first voyage.
·◊◊◊·
"I still don't see why Slate gave the warp core to Riebeck and not me." Feldspar complains through a mouthful of stellarfruit jelly. Their face is underlit by the crackling campfire. "I'm the one who discovered the thing!" (And, they don't need to add, hauled it all the way from a terrifying murder-planet. Hornfels had scolded them endlessly for risking everything for a 'broken piece of junk'. That is, until Slate discovered what it did.)
A prouder Hearthian might have taken offense at Feldspar's outburst, but Riebeck, ever gracious, shrugs without so much as dropping a note on their banjo. Their gentle tune rises into the night sky, mingling with the woodsmoke and the gentle breeze.
"It's because Riebeck has the best safety record out of all of us," retorts Chert. The four Hearthians are sprawled across the small clearing in various states of food coma, the detritus of their pre-launch feast scattered around them. "Zero crashes to my one, Gabbro's three and your… how many are we on again? Ten? Twelve?"
"I'll have you know, my crashes were for science," Feldspar responds sulkily.
"Yes, they were very illuminating, insofar as we now know not to do that."
"Anyway, if a few little crashes are such a problem, then why did Gossan make me the pilot for this mission?"
"Because you won't panic and hit the self-eject button when things inevitably go wrong." Riebeck's smooth baritone carries across the clearing. "What?" they say, when the other two turn to stare at them. "You know it's true. You don't technically need four Hearthians for this mission."
Chert's ears droop, dismay mingling with disbelief. "You're not… you're not thinking of dropping out, are you?" It's unthinkable, that Riebeck would throw away a year of rigorous preparation and testing on the very night before launch, but here they are, having this conversation.
Riebeck's playing falters. They refuse to meet Chert's eyes. "Feldspar could easily launch Traveler-1 instead," they say softly, "or you could use a redundancy socket. In fact, having only three parts to the ship would put less strain on the warp core."
"But… you're Riebeck!" Chert protests, aware that this isn't a terribly compelling argument, as far as arguments go, but they're struggling with the enormity of what they want to say. Stars, they need someone better with words, and so they pick up their discarded spoon and fling it toward the supine figure beside them. "Gabbro! Talk some sense into them!"
Gabbro, who had been half-listening, half-dozing in the fire's warmth, props themself up on their elbows to regard Riebeck thoughtfully. The bigger Hearthian seems to shrink in on themself, embarrassed.
"What will you do if you stay?"
"I don't know," Riebeck admits. They clutch their banjo as if it's a safety tether. "Watch the skies and dream of the wonders you'll discover. And hope with both of my hearts the three of you return safely."
"Thought so." Gabbro lies back again, arms pillowed behind their head, and lets out a sigh. "You're going to send a part of yourself up with the Traveler either way. Which do you want to be; safe or whole?"
"You'd never forgive yourself for letting us have all the fun," adds Feldspar, their previous outrage forgotten.
"We need you, Riebeck," says Chert in a small voice.
There's a long silence, punctuated by the crackling of the fire.
"In that case," Riebeck says, with a brave smile, "I'd better come along for the ride after all."
·◊◊◊·
Sixty cycles.
Sixty cycles away from Timber Hearth. Sixty cycles with only three other Hearthians to rely upon. Sixty cycles spent bathed in the light of an alien sun.
Whenever Chert starts to feel overwhelmed by the idea, they make a mental list of the Traveler's inventory. It's soothing, and they could do it in their sleep. They helped plan the mission, after all.
Sixty cycles' worth of food, preserved and packaged in resin-treated paper and stored beneath the crafts' floor paneling. The space will become less cramped as the mission goes on, which will be a relief to Riebeck and Gabbro.
Ten cycles' worth of water. Each individual craft is equipped with a water reclaimer, which is necessary even though no-one likes to think too hard about the process.
A modest workspace for the four astronauts to study anything they find out there.
First aid kits, supplied with painkillers, bandages, bitterwillow serum, and anything else that an astronaut might reasonably need. And a few things they might unreasonably need, at Hornfels' request. Plan for every eventuality, and all that.
Four space suits, each equipped with a Little Scout and its own repair kit. No way to properly clean them, to Chert's dismay, but at least they can perform general maintenance. These second skins will be their lifeline - literally.
Fuel, enough to allow the Traveler to explore the new solar system and bolster the solar-powered electrics, and solar crystals to store the vast amount of energy required to operate the warp core.
And, of course, the warp core itself. The beating heart of the entire mission.
"Hey, you're not nervous are you?" Gabbro's voice breaks into Chert's thoughts, and they realize time has gotten away from them. At the entrance of the village, under the brightening sky they can see the Outer Wilds Ventures logo painted boldly on Traveler-3's hull. (Feldspar had tried to get them to change it to Outer Outer Wilds Ventures, but their request was firmly denied by the other founding members.)
Chert snorts a laugh. "We're about to use reverse-engineered technology from an ancient civilization to warp ourselves into a part of space we've only ever glimpsed through a telescope. Why would I possibly be nervous?"
"It's okay to have the jitters, ya know. It would be more worrying if you didn't."
"That's funny, coming from you. If you were any more laid back, you'd be horizontal."
"Oh, I'm terrified," Gabbro admits cheerfully, "But I'll have the three greatest spacefarers in the universe by my side, so by my reckoning, I'm in good hands." That's naked flattery and Chert knows it, but the lazy grin Gabbro gives them makes something flutter in their chest. Nerves, they tell themself, and press their lips together to suppress a bubble of tense laughter.
Feldspar and Riebeck are probably with Ground Control now, preparing for their final briefing. As tempting as it is to make this moment of calm last, it's not fair to keep everyone waiting.
"C'mon," Chert says reluctantly. "Let's join the others." They drag themself away and start up the slope toward the Observatory, Gabbro's long-legged stride easily keeping pace beside them.
·◊◊◊·
The Observatory is even quieter than usual. Riebeck wanders between the exhibits, and Gossan and Slate are arguing quietly about something on the other side of the room, with furious whispers and a lot of hand-waving. Chert would be a lot more concerned about this, but it's rarer to find Gossan and Slate not in the middle of a fight these days, having been at each other's throats more and more as launch day approaches.
Their hushed bickering breaks off as Hornfels and Feldspar descend the spiral staircase. Hornfels is pale, their eyes red-rimmed, but Feldspar schools their expression into one of casual indifference. Chert and Gabbro exchange a glance, but keep their thoughts to themselves. The pair has been something like a couple for a long time. How they choose to cope with spending three months apart is their business.
"Welcome to your final briefing, astronauts." Hornfels pastes on a smile as Riebeck and the others wander over to assemble for the last time. "I know you're eager to get up there and make your warp, so we'll keep this brief. Just remember; whatever else happens, your primary objective for the next sixty days is discovery. Explore as much as you can, and document everything. Let your curiosity guide you, as it has guided all of us-" here one pair of eyes flicks inexorably to Feldspar, "-since we started our journeys beyond Timber Hearth." They suck in a steadying breath. "Slate, is everything ready?"
Slate wipes their hands on their grease-stained apron and picks up their clipboard. "Just finished my final inspection. The craft are space-ready, and conditions are perfect!" As Gossan clears their throat pointedly, their expression darkens. "Fine," they snarl, with a jerk of their clipboard that sends its pages fluttering. "There is one tiny problem - not even a problem! An item of note. A footnote-"
"What is it, Slate?" asks Hornfels wearily. A sudden shiver goes through Chert - they've never been superstitious, but that's a sentence that bodes ill if they ever heard one.
"It's the stars-forsaken coupling mechanism!" Gossan snaps, shooting a stern glare at Slate to silence their protests. "The emergency release locked up on the last stress test," they continue by way of explanation. "We couldn't find a good reason for it, and it's the only time it hasn't worked, in all of our testing. But if it were to fail again during the mission…" they trail off as the rest of the group considers the implications of this.
It's no secret that warping will put a huge amount of stress on the Traveler. The weakest point of the craft is where the individual ships join together. Slate's solution to this was to build in a way for the coupling mechanism to automatically release if hull breach became imminent. Potentially this would leave them with stranded astronauts rather than dead astronauts, but, as with everything Slate builds, there's an inherent margin of error.
"So what you're saying is," Feldspar says, rubbing their chin with a contemplative expression, "if the mission goes belly-up and the warp tears our ship apart, the four of us get to die together."
"If the emergency release fails, which isn't a given," Slate peevishly points out, but nobody is really listening to them anymore. Across the circle, Riebeck has gone deathly pale, and Chert doesn't blame them. Of all the terrible ways things can go wrong, a failed warp would be the most devastating - and, for Riebeck, whose ship holds the warp core, there's a tiny but distinct possibility that they could end up cut off from the others, alone in the vastness of space.
Chert's cheeks heat up as a flood of guilt fills them. Mere hours ago they were begging Riebeck to stick with the mission. They hadn't given a second thought for what that actually meant.
"We should postpone," says Hornfels, to a chorus of varying degrees of dismay from everyone but Gossan.
Feldspar tenses, planting their hands on their hips. "Whoah, seriously? You'd call off the mission over something that probably won't even happen?"
"'Probably' isn't good enough, Feldspar." Gossan says sharply. "This isn't one of your jaunts to Dark Bramble. There's no help out there, and you have three other astronauts to think about."
"So let's ask them." Feldspar rounds on the others. "If we're doing this, it's by consensus. If you want to postpone, no-one will think less of you." Easy to say. But their steely gaze falls on each of their fellow astronauts in turn, rooting them to the spot.
Chert opens their mouth to - what, agree? Defer to the others? - but their voice catches in their throat. It should be an easy decision. The year of planning they've spent leading up to this cycle, they'll never get back. If they had never accepted any degree of risk, Feldspar would have never left the planet in the first place. The universe would still be an unknowable void. But doubt is a cruel thing, and Chert is paralyzed. They sneak a look at Gabbro, who is staring grimly at Feldspar, and they can only guess what's going on in their head.
"I say we launch." Riebeck's deep voice breaks the silence. Chert's head jerks up in shock. The taller Hearthian is pale, arms folded tightly over their barrel-like chest. Their voice is shaking, but still, they continue. "This is what we do. This is what we've always done. It doesn't matter whether we're headed for The Attlerock or to the edge of the universe."
Gabbro nods slowly. "Yeah. Yeah. Well said, bud. I say we launch too."
That leaves Chert. Chert, who is still staring up at Riebeck, dumbfounded. Is this about last night? Are you doing this for us? They're desperate to ask, but that would mean bringing up the conversation in front of Ground Control. They try to catch Riebeck's eye, but they're resolutely looking at some obscure spot on the wall.
Well, then.
"I say we launch," they say quietly.
There's an audible exhalation from the rest of the room. Gossan makes a noise of frustration in the back of their throat. Hornfels' expression is unreadable.
Feldspar grins a sharp-toothed grin. "Alright," they say, reaching out to slap Riebeck on their broad shoulder. "Let's go make history."