Chapter Text
Being tired sucks!
Seriously? Who’s idea was this? Was this even somebody’s idea? It didn’t matter! It sucked. Sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked! It knew well enough it was low on energy, it didn’t need some mystery feeling telling it that. And what a feeling it was! Like when it had that battery that had suddenly decided to grow two sizes too large and Coop had to tear it out before it could spill acid inside of its frame. Ugh.
Of course, it couldn’t actually feel it all too well back then, but it imagined it was similar. Compared to now, everything seemed so distant back then. Sure, it could move on its own when Coop brought it to those weird junctions, but that was less a strengthening of its own abilities and more a removal of every other competing phenomenon. The slightest amount of will towards any movement ended up sending it into a rock or guardrail. That still didn’t stop Cooper from getting out and standing a… scary distance away with a notepad as it tried its best to track back towards him.
It never really liked it when he did that, though it understood why he was testing that in the first place. It’s just that being on its own in a place that removed almost all of its ethereal tethers and left it feeling ungrounded was very much not appreciated by a machine that enjoyed having all four of its wheels firmly placed on asphalt… Most of the time.
The exhaustion, tiredness, sleepiness, fatigue, drowsiness, lethargy, burnout, lassitude (There really are a lot of words for this, aren’t there? Burnout’s usually a much cooler word!) seemed to wear away fastest if Nite forced air to cycle through its cabin. It was the closest it could manage to a “breather” and wow; It worked really well.
It had found that cycling the cabin and letting Harold sing through the radio to be its favorite way to “unwind.” Coop promised that it was going to feel a zillion times better than it usually does after it’s fully rested up, something it sure hoped was true, seeing as it wasn’t alone in this whole thing.
“This sucks. I always said I shoulda started growing some aloe vera the first twenty times I came back with severe radiation burns.”
“... Aloe ver- … Why didn’t you?”
“I never said I was smart.”
“Neither did I.”
“Alright, wiseass.”
And, wow! Was it ever relieved when Cooper turned out to be okay… For the most part. Nite didn’t really know what exactly Gabbro did. Well, it was obviously some meditation based sleep-dream-talking thing, but Nite had no idea how that worked… Or why it ended up working. A very unsurprising amount of things escape the rationale of a machine that spent the first years of its life in a shed.
Really, incredibly, unbearably, boring and… Desolate years.
It spent the first fawning over any animal that came by, the next few seeing if any of them were… Uh… Intelligent, the next next few giving up on that and… Rotting away, and finally spent the last minute banking everything on the one animal it had never seen before.
Apparently, based on recent experience, two legs must mean “Hey, I’m really smart! I can be your friend!”
It wondered who its original driver was, before Nite had the ability to remember. The one that scooped it off the dealership lot and proudly used it to travel all over the Zone. Would they have been just as friendly as Coop? As the rest of them? Did they abandon it? Or… Did something happen to them?
Of course, Nite probably had a couple drivers before getting stowed in that shed. From what it heard from Coop and seen in some TV shows, minivans were the hot new thing and station wagons were… Not as cool; Tossed around and resold from one person to the next. Still! He didn’t care! None of them did! Cooper always had that determined smile on his face even before he made Nite the absolute all-encompassing coolness champion of the road! And the rest of them had very little reservations about a self-aware collection of 10mm bolts and panels… After the initial shock from explanation (Which was always fun to see). From their point of view, it must not have been the strangest thing they’ve seen recently.
It felt nice to settle down on its springs and cozy up. Even nicer when Coop hooked up that block heater. Absolutely groundbreaking invention. What it wouldn't have given for this when it was in that shed… Probably, definitely, absolutely nothing. Even in its tuckered state, Nite felt like it would have no problem what-so-ever shooting off at the drop of a hat. Not very quickly though, at the moment it was too drained (Ha! Another word!) for that, it could say that much.
Oh… Uh, who’s this?
“Nitinol only allows those who are most worthy! You will have to pass its mighty test!”
Oh. Haha. Okay it knows what’s going on. And WOW! Coop’s accent sucks, if movies are anything to go by. Seriously, he’s got to have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail at least a hundred times by now, it’s not like he hasn’t had any practice.
Alright, little guy, hop in.
c-thuk
“Huzzah! You have been deemed worthy.”
“Coooooooool.”
The goggled alien hopped and clambered up into the driver’s seat and Nite shuffled the cushions around into what it thought would be most comfortable. Which was really finicky. Legs are weird. At least these had the courtesy to bend in the correct direction.
chunk
“Don’t worry, Nite! Mica’s cool.”
It’ll just have to be the judge of that.
“Woah… I’m sitting in the pilot’s seat of a real rocketship!”
Woah, hey, not a rocketship. Wheels, okay? Though… Nite wasn’t exactly going to object to that title…
“ksssh- This is mission control, the space station is broadcasting a distress signal, we need you up there now. -ksssh”
Uhhhh… What?
“Copy that control, starting ignition sequence. Setting throttle…”
That’s the… Shifter, but alright, Nite can play along.
“Setting rendezvous vector…”
Heater controls? What heater controls? Those are obviously incredibly important avionics and… stuff.
“Trimming fuel mixture…”
The mirrors moving are a sign that it’s working!
“Purging nozzles…”
What? They’re horn shaped. Of course it would make a horn noise.
“Starting countdown…”
Ooooh! Ooooh! Nite can do that! Thank you, Gameboy!
“Spooling turbines…”
Turbines are compressors, so have some compressed air!
“7… 6… 5… 4…”
It’s getting kinda rumbly…
“Ignition!”
It’s getting really rumbly! How's about kicking the instrument cluster lights on…
“2… 1… Liftoff!”
Emergencies don’t wait for weather, so a gust comes in and pushes the pilot… To the right!
“Ooof. Lot’s of turbulence today!”
The atmosphere gradually thins away and the buffeting dies down…
“Control we have reached orbit, starting retro-burn.”
The g-forces push the pilot towards the front of the cockpit, kinda like if they were in a car in a nose-down position.
“Retro-burn complete, velocity match successful. But what’s that?”
What?
“The station’s fuel stores… They’re leaking!”
Gasp!
“Oh stars! The station’s exploded! The crew quarters have been flung off towards space!”
Double gasp!
“Control, we can still save them.”
But how? How?!
“We need to perform a slingshot maneuver… Around the Attlerock!”
Yes! Yup! Do… Uh… That! Whatever it takes!
“Inputting new vectors!”
The strong draft is coming from the… Computer… Fans… Yeah! The computer fans.
“Starting manuever!”
Pulling some serious g’s here.
“Nearing periapsis… 50… 30… 20… 15 meters from the surface…”
That’s close! Probably!
“We are on exit trajectory! On a direct course to the crew cabin”
Excellent flying!
“Oh… Oh no! We’re coming in too fast! Emergency retro-burn!”
What?! Oh, slow down, slow down!
“...”
Uh… Did… Did they stop?
“Final deviation from rendezvous: 17 meters.”
Phew.
“Engaging docking procedure.”
Okay, heavy on the gas pedal and turning the ignition while in drive. Nite’s just gonna… Block out the starter.
“Dialing in fine lateral translation…”
Oh! That’s the uh… Docking Music. The Docking Music that plays when you turn the… Docking… Knobs.
“Closing in… 10 meters out…”
Outside of the very real movements through space Nite had been making from the adjustments to the “Docking Knobs,” the rapid turns Mica had been making had scanned through the entire radio band.
“5 meters… “
Nite was able to briefly pick up a signal of… some kind on… 104.5. Mica continued right on past it, but Nite still listened to it outside of what the radio was actually set to. Coop didn’t broadcast on this channel and the only channels around here in this band that didn’t just come back with static were the ones Coop broadcasted on.
“2 meters, initiating terminal alignment…”
It kept up and didn’t fade away like Nite expected it to… It sounded garbled… computerized… Like a zillion bleep bloops all fighting to be heard over each other. Weird. Nite would have to fabricate another quirk to draw Coop’s attention to it…
“Aaaaaaand docked!”
Wha- Oh. Great job! Have a thumbs up!
“And now… We gotta get back home in time for supper! This is gonna be a tight maneuver!”
Deathly important! Full speed!
This Mica dude is pretty cool.