Bauxite didn't gasp for air this time around. While they couldn't say they knew for sure that they'd wake back up here, two consecutive supernovas had to mean something. And as they slowly opened their eyes, they watched as the Nomai structure orbiting Giant's Deep collapsed once again.
They held out a hand, opening and closing their fingers. The first time around, they still felt the phantom pain from the crash and the depressurization. But something about only going through the supernova didn't leave that mark on them.
Good things to know if this would prove to be a pattern.
"There's our pilot! Ready to get this beauty off the ground?"
Bauxite mentally groaned as they lifted themself up. They stirred around too much, and Slate knew they were awake. And just like last time, Slate didn't seem to remember a thing.
"When was the last time you inspected the ship?" Bauxite asked, making their way to the launch elevator.
"Just a couple hours ago, and all systems are nominal- hatchling when did you get the launch codes?
Bauxite's attempt at distraction didn't quite work as well as they would've liked.
"Earlier, I think you just finished looking at the fuel tank?"
Slate looked down at their marshmallow, before nodding. "Yeah, fair enough. Stuff is potent."
Bauxite suppressed a wince— hearing them say basically the same exact thing again stung a little bit.
Still, it got Slate off their case as the launch elevator whirred to life. While Bauxite had countless questions as to what was going on, exactly one of them could be answered by getting to the top.
And when they made it, their suspicions were confirmed. Once again, the ship Slate built wasn't there, but neither was the one they saw last time.
It definitely looked similar though; about twice as tall, featuring a snazzy new black and white paint job. The cockpit at the top was the same though, down to what they were pretty sure were the same alien markings above the entry hatch.
Once again, Bauxite circled around to try and get an idea of what they were dealing with here.
As they got closer to the base, they could make out some details they didn't notice before. The engine was much more complicated than last time— while the first seemed to just be a nozzle, this one had all sorts of pipes and weird equipment dotted around the nozzle, all annotated with that same alien script.
After giving it a gentle poke to ensure it was sturdy, Bauxite moved on to the fins. Still bolted on, but at least these ones looked way more polished; the leading edge was sharp, they had a gentle curve, and it lacked the "literally sawed this off from a sheet of metal" quality the first fins had.
As they finished walking around to the other side of the spacecraft, Bauxite noticed a brand new feature: a series of metal rungs, crudely bolted onto the sides of the fuel tank. They certainly weren't a rocket scientist, but something about that felt off.
Still, it was easy to see why it was needed. The cockpit was awkwardly high off the ground, so while they could try to get a foothold somewhere on the equipment attached to the engine, this would make it way easier to climb in.
Of course, that begged the question of if they wanted to get in in the first place. Slate mentioned that the aliens who built this knew what they were doing, and Bauxite watched the first rocket take off and land without any intervention.
There was a part of Bauxite screaming that this was a terrible idea, that it took them years of training to learn how to fly a Hearthian spacecraft— only then with a dedicated coach and talking to the person who designed the ship every day. There was no chance they could just wing it and figure out how to fly this thing.
On the other hand, they got through two supernovas that should've killed them being rewound, and not even the most optimistic part of them could bring themself to believe that all the answers could be found here on Timber Hearth.
And if the mysterious alien rockets were related to what was going on, then there really was only one way to figure out how to fix it.
They reached out for the rungs.
The climb was slow, equal parts fear of the unknown and fear of tipping the rocket over because it really wasn't that big compared to themself. But eventually they made it to the top.
And just as they managed to pull the cockpit's hatch open, a voice interrupted them.
"Now what do you have there, hatchling?"
Bauxite turned back to see Slate walking off the launch elevator, looking up at the rocket they were in the process of climbing into.
Well, that's fun. They sat themself down on the hatch, half leaning inside the alien cockpit.
"Long story. Got up here and saw this rocket replaced your ship." Try to keep the story close to last time, would make it easier to guess Slate's reaction.
"And so you were gonna try and take off in it instead?"
"Well it is my launch day."
Slate nodded, like that made all the sense in the world. "You gonna let me take a look at it first or you just wanna take the chance of blowing yourself up?"
Bauxite was probably gonna blow up anyways, whether it be by alien rocket malfunction or supernova.
"Sure, knock yourself out." They jumped down from the hatch, letting out a groan as they landed. "Think it's an aluminum body, solid fuel engine?"
Bauxite was a little proud of themself for remembering Slate's technobabble from last time. However, as Slate thwapped the side of the fuel tank with their marshmallow stick, they shook their head.
"It's aluminum, but definitely liquid fueled- oh those aliens better not have dropped off a liquid hydrogen bomb, hold this for a sec." Slate abruptly handed off their stick to Bauxite, before lowering their mask and taking out a blow torch. They walked around the perimeter of the rocket, hovering the flame just outside of the metal casing.
Bauxite was caught off guard by the maneuver, and didn't think to do anything but stand there and hold onto the used marshmallow stick. Thankfully, Slate put away the torch just as quickly, leaving only the scent of chemical fumes.
"No liquid hydrogen, we're good." They took their marshmallow stick back from the still-stunned Bauxite. "Can't say for sure, but everything looks fine. Now of course, as an upstanding member of the Outer Wilds Ventures, I can't condone you strapping yourself into an alien spaceship to see how it flies. And I especially can't condone you to hurry it up before Hornfels notices, which he will in the next 5 minutes."
Taking the hint, Bauxite started climbing back up the mini-ladder. They briefly wondered what this could be like if the sun wasn't going to detonate in 15 minutes— would Slate really be willing to take this kind of risk with them? Or maybe they saw something about the rocket that Bauxite didn't. For all they know, this ship could be safer than Slate's.
Not having the Nomai elevator was annoying though. As they finished their climb, they climbed into the cockpit.
The single seat was horizontal, forcing Bauxite to lay down and only look out one tiny viewport.
While it definitely wasn't built with the Hearthian body in mind, it was more comfortable than they expected. It seemed to expect a taller frame, but it didn't take much adjusting of the leg and headrests to get comfortable.
It was really lucky they hit their growth spurt before their launch day came around though, if they were still Chert-sized they'd probably be grounded for however many supernovas the solar system had left in it.
Comfortable in their seat, they started surveying the buttons and instruments in front of them. The quick look inside from last time didn't do it justice, there was so much more here than Bauxite thought.
The sheer quantity of switches alone was enough to make them pause. All of them had text in that same alien language over them, with some colored differently than the others. There were a series of bright red buttons on the bottom, all covered with a plastic lid. It reminded Bauxite think it was probably comparable to the eject button on their actual ship.
They briefly prayed to the stars using those wouldn't be necessary.
Moving past the reminder of their failures, their hands found their way to the flight yoke. The ergonomics weren't perfect, but for how similar it felt to Slate's design Bauxite wasn't gonna complain.
From there they found their way to what was presumably the throttle. Gossan would spend months, if not years drilling out the instinctive urge to slam it forward out of the astronauts, with varying levels of success. But right now, hand hovering over the lever in the mostly-inert alien rocket, Bauxite was really leaning towards the Feldspar side of the spectrum.
But the mental visual of Gossan's disapproving stare won out, and they refrained from touching it. For now.
Satisfied with their vague understanding of the controls, Bauxite looked to the central monitor. Buttons lined either side of the screen, with a green symbol on the upper right corner. Not having any more excuses to stall, they clicked it.
The screen flashed to life, displaying a blue and red logo covered with the same alien script. That lasted for a moment, before rapidly-scrolling black and white text streamed down the display.
As the system booted up, Bauxite's brain was sprinting just as fast thinking about the connotations of this. Were these types of rapid-fire text streams how this species communicated with each other? It looked barely legible to them, but after having to deal with the Nomai split-path grammatical structure, nothing was off the table.
The text stream stopped, and the display switched to a black square taking up most the screen, with a small model of the ship on the left. The buttons on the model's side lit up, lining up with the different sections of the ship.
"So then…"
Bauxite pressed the button next to the mini cockpit. Immediately, the black panel on the right changed to a photo of the sky.
Wait, no, they could see the Attlerock moving, it was a video feed. Bauxite awkwardly raised their head to peer out of the viewport just to confirm.
Yep, camera was pointed straight up. It probably was how the alien astronauts piloted their ships, that viewport was absolutely pathetic.
Tapping the button a few more times, it shifted to different views around the cockpit. It was kinda like their scout launcher in a way, clicking through the different camera angles. They briefly watched Slate outside through the system, who was in the process of measuring length of something on the engine block. After they made a full rotation, it shifted to an internal view, and Bauxite saw themselves.
They weren't sure how much they liked it. While the 360 view was nice, seeing the Outer Wilds through a screen just felt wrong— what was the point of diving into the stars if it was as sanitized as this?
Maybe the aliens just looked at space exploration differently; with how detailed all of these random switches and buttons seemed to be, it probably served more a purpose than the Ventures driving principle of "let's go see what's out there."
It's been all of 50 minutes and Bauxite was already feeling nostalgic for their old ship.
They shook their head- If this was anything like the last few times, the sun was probably turning red right about now, if they wanted to see how this worked before the next supernova they had to hurry up a bit.
While the monitor was online, nothing else seemed to be active. First step was to figure out which of these could turn on the engine.
After idly flipping a few switches and nothing coming of it, their gaze shifted down to those very-appealing bright red covered buttons. Each of them had their own text and symbol, but nothing made much sense to Bauxite.
Unfortunately, they knew who might have an idea.
Bauxite popped the hatch back open. "Slate! You know how to start this up?"
"Give me a sec…" Slate took their time in measuring the exact circumference of the rocket's throat. "Expansion ratio is higher than my designs, makes me think- hey hatchling, you remember what the pressure is on Giant's Deep?"
"Why would I know that?"
"Why do you think I would know how to start up an alien spaceship?" Slate shot back, as they started climbing the ladder.
Was there a way to say "well you did in an alternate reality 20 minutes ago" without sounding insane? Probably not, so Bauxite stayed silent.
By the time Slate made it to the top, Bauxite had awkwardly pressed themself against the left (starboard? Gauging direction was harder when the rocket was upright like this) side of the cockpit to leave some room.
"Huh..." Slate leaned in, with a total disregard for Bauxite's personal space. "Well, judging by the parachute up top, I'm guessing one of these is an emergency trigger. Would want it separate from anything to do with rocket activation, so... You."
They lifted the cover and rested their hand right over a large red button.
"This little guy is all by themself with an emergency lock system, if any of these is your engine startup it'd be this. All you gotta do is press it down, and I'm guessing twist it to start ignition."
Bauxite looked at the knob and its alien symbol, committing it to memory. Once all of this was sorted and they'd actually gotten to use their Nomai translator a bit, they'd love to try and piece together a new alien language with Hal.
"Ready to see it work then?" Bauxite asked, turning back to face Slate.
"Better not crash it," they responded with a grin, climbing back down the ladder. "And don't get yourself killed too, your coach is already gonna have my head for launching this thing."
"How long did it take you to add an eject button again?"
"You don't need safety mechanisms when you know how to build things."
While Slate was most likely joking about that, Bauxite still locked up for a moment.
The last time they got into the cockpit of a spaceship, it ended with them in a wreck on the Attlerock. Now that they had to command an alien spacecraft, were they really up to the task?
But there was only one way forward here, wasn't there? The spaceship was the only thing that's changed every time, if there was an answer to be found, this was how they'd get to the solution.
Closing and sealing the hatch once again, Bauxite lifted up the cover. Now or never.
They slammed the button.
All too reminiscent of their first flight, the system roared to life. Kerosene and liquid oxygen pumped through the spacecraft like blood, warning and indicator lights flashing on for a moment before falling back to nominal.
Back to the camera display, Bauxite scanned the area. Day was just about to break over Timber Hearth, and Slate was hanging back at the edge of the launch pad, looking up in anticipation. No better time than now.
Bauxite twisted the ignition knob.
There was a clicking sound, then another… then another. Nothing else seemed to be happening.
Did they already manage to break it? As they desperately scanned over the control panel looking for something they may have missed, they noticed Slate on the launch pad making a motion with their first.
Were they punching the air? No that's stupid, they were saying to hit the throttle.
Another deep breath, and Bauxite tilted the throttle forwards. The fuel pumps whirred on for a moment, before they slowed down once again.
Taking that as a sign, now they tried the ignition.
Immediately, a roar filled the launch pad as the rocket began to shake. Bauxite could feel it was working, but a measly 10% throttle couldn't be expected to beat out Timber Hearth's gravity.
Slate was right; they needed to punch it, so punch it they shall. Gossan's disapproving stare finally lost, as Bauxite slammed it all the way forward.
Going to 100% throttle had an immediate impact. Bauxite felt themselves get pressed back against their seat, even lifting their hands to the control stick was proving to be a challenge. But they were doing it!
They adjusted the camera to watch straight ahead. The sky already looked more black than blue, and just like their first flight, they could feel the ship struggle less and less against the atmosphere.
Just like their training told them, they prepared to enter into Hearthian orbit. While the rocket didn't appear to have any maneuver thrusters, surely the aliens wouldn't include a flight stick if it didn't have some way of controlling its orientation.
But when they pulled up, the nose of the rocket only dipped downwards ever-so-slightly. It continued for a bit longer, before even that measly direction change stopped working.
What was the problem? Bauxite pulled the throttle back down, causing the engine to stall out with a poof.
First, they needed to figure out exactly what it was that gave the rocket rotational control in the first place. They directed the camera back onto the frame of the rocket, with the added benefit that they could see Timber Hearth between the fins-
"Stars above I'm an idiot."
Before they continued with their self flagellation, Bauxite pulled back down on the flight stick. And just as they suspected, the rocket fins reacted accordingly.
"No atmosphere out here, of course it doesn't do anything."
Through their time training to join the Ventures, Bauxite was forced to listen to more than one instructional rant from Slate about aero forces, and the many factors that led to their patented design approach of "air resistance is only a suggestion if the engine burns hard enough."
These aliens didn't quite see it fit to attach 9 extra thrusters to their spacecraft, and instead opted to actually use aerodynamics instead of brute force their way into ignoring them.
Truly, they must be on par with the Nomai.
Still, that led Bauxite to a new challenge. If they had no way of changing their orientation outside of the atmosphere, and they were currently not in the atmosphere, then they were kinda screwed.
Well, not entirely. They still had the same orientation with respect to Timber Hearth, they could just throttle up and get to watch the supernova in space for once.
That sounded more appealing than crashing back down, or worse, having to somehow steer this thing away from crushing something in the village.
Yeah, peaceful drifting in space seemed like a good idea.
After pushing the throttle back up to a comfortable 50%, Bauxite undid the straps keeping them tied into the launch chair. For once, they finally got to experience real zero gravity, and it was so much better than training in the cave.
Even though it was a lot more cramped.
Still, Bauxite pressed their face against the viewport, all four eyes desperately trying to see what they could make out.
There was a planet out there, green and cloudy and swirling— definitely Giant's Deep. Which traveler was camped out there again? Hornfels mentioned who was where, it was...
Well, not important. Even facing away, they could see the sun was a bright red in its reflection off the planet; no shot they could manage to get this thing anywhere near ready for a landing before the sun blew up again.
Not that landing was exactly feasible in the first place— all this thing had was a parachute. They could maybe touch down on Timber Hearth, and that was it.
In the middle of pondering, Bauxite was rudely jolted forward, slamming their face into the viewport. They looked back to the control panel, which had a flashing red alert and two bars next to it. The first was about 1/5th full with an orange bar, while the second was completely empty. Fuel and oxidizer, probably?
So they were officially spending the rest of their time here in space. Bauxite briefly wondered if they were on an escape trajectory or were still in Timber Hearth orbit.
They floated themselves back into their chair to study the rest of the system. The flight here confirmed that it could travel into the outer wilds, but with no landing gear, ability to reorient in space, or spacesuit, not a whole lot to do.
It kinda sucked. Here Bauxite was, sorta figuring out how to fly an alien ship on what was supposed to be their grand launch day, and they couldn't even do anything with it.
Well, may as well work with what they got. With the sun growing ever bigger, there wasn't much more to lose anymore.
They began procedurally flipping every switch or button they could find, keeping mental note of what each item did.
Some were easy; the light switch was obvious, and right next to it controlled lighting on the outside of the craft. Some seemed to do nothing at all. A few were particularly insidious, as a hissing noise filled the cockpit. Bauxite quickly flipped it back; they had no idea if that was something for pressurization or life support or maybe just ejecting unneeded fuel, but none of it they wanted to deal with right here.
That panic attack resolved, they turned their gaze to the big red buttons. One was ignition, they already knew that, but the others were a bit more of a mystery.
Looking outside, the sun was just beginning to shrink, had to be less than 30 seconds left. Can't waste a chance like that.
"...Fuck it."
Bauxite slammed every button.
Immediately they found out why that was a poor decision. First, the cockpit entry hatch blew out, the bang being muffled halfway through by all the air leaving the cockpit. Bauxite instinctively gasped for air, which was a horrible idea as the vacuum yanked that right back as well. Probably punctured a lung in the process too.
They closed their upper eyes, the lack of oxygen was making everything spin too much for them to be useful anyways. With their lower eyes, they saw something big move in front of and cover up where the hatch used to be. Obviously couldn't make out the details, but calling it the parachute was probably a safe bet.
The last thing they noticed before passing out was their chair drifting upwards and slamming their shin into the control panel, which wasn't exactly more painful than the depressurization but definitely sucked. Probably part of an ejection system.
Thankfully, they passed out before they got to feel the sun explode for a third time.