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The Kerbal


RA3236

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So this is new.

I want to make a new novel. So here it is.

Prelude

Bil-4372c “Earth”, time Year 20, Day 357, Hour 2, Minute 21.

23:53:43, year 2402, date 24/1

Enomono Sushumatsu groaned softly as he squinted at the text on the screen. He was indeed too old for this. His eighty year old body had become slumped and painful, as if the treatments had not been successful.

His assistant, which he could not recall his name as he only remembered his love for astronomy, asked a question.

“Nanika?” he asked.

“Iie,” Sushimatsu answered.

Sighing, his assistant sat at a nearby chair, staring at the jumble of data that had become the norm for the past few weeks.

What was its name? JAP-8432A. Kerbol.

Named after a splendid Englishman who discovered a new way of tracing stars, the process of Hamish included a hyper jump radio signal that read a huge amount of data from the star and nearby planets. It always worked.

At least it should.

This was a mess. The star Kerbol had been on the radar for weeks. A G2V main sequence dwarf. Just like the Sun. About 5000 degrees Kelvin surface temperature. Just like the Sun. And a small planetary system. Just like the Sun.

Yet the computer had encountered an error. Invalid radius. It was normal for a star that distance to be messed up in the equations. Although this was different. The star had been measured correctly. This type always was.

It was only 261 Mm across.

Less than one tenth the size of Sol.

And in that moment Sushimatsu knew what he had to do.

“Call NASA.”

 

Edited by RA3236
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JAP-8432c "Kerbin" Year 20 Day 358 Hour 1 Minute 2

Jebediah Kerman sighed.

It was a major point of being an astronaut, especially after the successful probe to Alkok. The recent mission had included a new warp drive that had driven the probe to its destination in a matter of months, not years. It was a massive step for Kerbalkind.

Except after every mission, there was always a mountain of paperwork.

Jeb picked a form up, reading its contents:

KSP 1.1 "TurboCharged" now available 

Of course, making no sense of those words, he chucked them away.

Most of the pile had letters from fans, most of the rest were tax invoices for the Space Program. There was one however that had "Jebediah's Junkyard and Spacecraft Parts Co." emblazoned on it.

Ahh, the junkyard. Before Year One, Day One, Jeb had run a junkyard holding bits of rusty old parts that had somehow made a massive profit, as if those good-for-nothing parts had a perfectly good use.

Until the KSP stepped in.

Until the KSP stepped in, he had made such a massive profit from the parts he had called home. Until the KSP stepped in, he had made many friends.

Until the KSP stepped in, he hadn't been to space.

Jeb could still remember that moment, all those years ago, where his own parts had been strapped together to create the masterpiece of Kerbalkind: the Kerbal 1a.

He could still remember the moment when he was asked to pilot it.

And now, twenty years later, he was sitting in front of a pile of paperwork. 

He groaned softly, wishing he hadn't needed to do just that.

...

Jeb heard the knock. Almost silent, the slight thump on the door immediately roused him from his trance. It had to be Bob, it just had to be.

"Jeb?"

The voice confirmed it. No one else had that worried voice, at least of the people he had met. Of course, there was Jona, but she had a female voice, not a male.

"Can I come in?" the voice asked again.

"Enter," Jeb said.

The door opened to admit not Bob, but another kerbal who he seemed to recognise from a fair.

What was his name?

Greth.

"Sir, the launch is almost upon us. Should you want to watch it?"

And in that moment, Jeb felt a strange sensation. He couldn't make it out, as it was one he had never felt before. He didn't realise the fact that all kerbals had felt it.

And all humans, too.

Humans. He didn't know how he knew the word, but he felt the need to keep the word a secret.

Looking at Greth, he said, "Be right behind you."

On 28 April 2016 at 10:44 PM, TopHeavy11 said:

CONTINUE.

I will :) 

On 29 April 2016 at 10:39 PM, TopHeavy11 said:

kk.

And I realised as I went out of Internet range I missed the word day in that :) 

On 29 April 2016 at 3:32 AM, Rolanvorxariat said:

Nice! I like it already.

Thanks!!!

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Chapter 1: The Discovery

Bil-4372c "Earth", Location: NASA Headquarters, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, United Nations Of Ameriasia and the Pacific, time 12:34 25/1/2402

"What do you mean, small? I've never heard of such a thing... Seriously? Only two-sixty-one megameters across? It's a G2V... How far away?"

Michael would have been able to comprehend what the Boss' call with Sushimatsu was about if it hadn't been for the fact that the Alcubierre drive had completed and smashed all tests.

Literally. The drive had destroyed half the lab, but in the process managed to get to its destination of Low Earth Orbit.

He heard a click as the Boss put down the phone. And by the look on his face, he knew instantly it had something to do with the new craft ready to explore this new star.

His next words confirmed it. "Get the drive on the Rex. We're sending it to JAP-8432 right now."

...

The Rex was exactly what it meant.

Rex means King. In other words, the rocket currently sitting on the pad could easily carry more than five times the Saturn V AND SLS combined.

Which was in theory a good thing, as the payload for the relatively simple rocket was almost a thousand tons.

The drive was currently concealed inside the fairings of the huge monster, as the unaerodynamic probe had more than 20 meters of exotic matter storage in diameter.

The rocket was pitifully simple. It was essentially a large Falcon 9 Heavy, except the most important parts, such as landing gear, had been stripped away from the stage that had famously landed on a barge over 350 years back.

Not a great achievement compared to these days, Michael thought.

"So we pretty much don't need to get this thing into orbit, just suborbital?" one of the engineers asked incredulously.

"Nope. The second we're out of the atmosphere we'll fire the last stage - the drive itself," he replied.

"Prep for launch sequence. Tee minus... uh... thirty seconds."

The loudspeaker practically yelled. Michael flinched as he remembered one last thing. He grabbed the microphone and said:

"Can all engineers take a last second check of the main engines."

It was a matter of necessity. The engines might not be able to withstand the mass of the drive itself.

"All crew man your stations. Tee minus... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 and Ignition, 3, 2, 1, and...."

And in that moment the brilliant flash of rocket plume filled the launch site, and as the clamps released, the ship soared into the sky, trailing a huge roar and a pile of smoke and flames after it.

"Gravity Turn program initialising. TWR is one point two nine. Delta v eleven thousand meters per second."

Wait, Michael thought.

He swiftly moved to the craft status display, and sure enough...

An earthquake?

"Warning. Loss of control due to unknown circumstances. Switching to automatic asce...."

And the ground shook as if it had never shook before.

...

The Discovery probe had finished apogee raising burns.

Under automatic control, the final decoupler fired, and with a final push, the drive activated.

And within two minutes, the probe had travelled through the bridge to the Kerbals.

And after those two minutes, the kerbals frantically turned the tracking station dishes towards the brilliant speck of light now shooting across the sky.

...

22 hours ago, TopHeavy11 said:

4th wall awareness FTW!

That wasn't deliberate BTW. I was trying to show something as somewhat explained in the last paragraph of Ch1.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On 1 June 2016 at 9:52 PM, TopHeavy11 said:

I don't see any more, @RA3236. Within the day?! It's been a MONTH. PLEASE. CONTIUNE. I BEG OF YOU!!

Huh? What? Where am I??? Yeah, sorry, IRL happened and this is not being maintained... But my new career playthrough is starting and should hopefully be easier to manage.

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