Project Intrepid (Chapter 56 - The Final Countdown)

[Just Jim]

33 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I feel like I need to say something: the balance between round and flat characters is pretty hard, especially when you have over 100 characters to keep track of. So I'm just going to keep most of the new ones flat except for a few. This chapter reactivates a few medium characters who will hopefully become round soon. During interplanetary journeys (and a year in real life of playing this save) I forgot their personalities (what little they had).

I hear ya! I've tried to limit Emiko to about 50 characters max, both round and flat... but there's been many times I had to go back and re-read my earlier chapters, just to make sure their personalities, and what changes might be happening to the rounder ones, stay reasonably consistent. 

Oh, and I loved the carrier landing... 

 

[roboslacker]

10 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

That's a lot of jet engines. How fast can it go?

[DarkOwl57]

10 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I hear ya! I've tried to limit Emiko to about 50 characters max, both round and flat

 

Hhhmmm... I think I've got around 30+ total... In my entire writing career.... RIP

[Ultimate Steve]

12 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I hear ya! I've tried to limit Emiko to about 50 characters max, both round and flat... but there's been many times I had to go back and re-read my earlier chapters, just to make sure their personalities, and what changes might be happening to the rounder ones, stay reasonably consistent. 

Oh, and I loved the carrier landing... 

I totally get you about rereading chapters, sometimes I have to put a story down for a few months and I'll forget where I was going with it.

2 hours ago, roboslacker said:

That's a lot of jet engines. How fast can it go?

Only 30-40m/s. It's not actually designed for long distance travel, that part is unfortunately not legitimate. The carrier was actually originally a barge I designed for the Falcon Heavy challenge to land the center core, I just lengthened it by about 3x for this (although it was still barely enough!). The original was actually designed to fly to its destination and land on water to recover the center core.

[Ultimate Steve]

Figures, I update to 1.3 and a week later 1.4 comes out. 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 42 - The Invasion of Tylo

Spoiler

=============================Part I, Invasion of Tylo

Before we get to any Tylo things, the ITV-016 Explorer did a burn to intercept the ITV-019 Homecoming.

And now to the main attraction...

"Okay, are you ready, Bobwig?" asked Angie.

"As I'll ever be," replied Bobwig. "It's not every day you have to land a mining rover on Tylo, you know..."

"And you have a lower chance of survival," remarked Miteny. "I mean, it's a one way mining rover. If you smash your engine on landing, you can't reach orbit, even with refueling. If the drills fail, you can't reach orbit. If you break off a wheel, you're stuck. If we don't do precision landing close enough, you're stuck. Or if you can't land that close to the other lander... Or maybe the solar panels will break... Or you could run out of fuel... Or - "

"The optimist as always, Miteny, just what I wanted to hear, thank you, really," said Bobwig.

"Don't panic, Miteny," said Podpont.

"Don't panic? DON'T PANIC?!?!?"

"You did it again, Miteny," said Podpont.

"What? I was simply stating the facts!"

Several hours later, the one way mining rover was detached from the Creativity. After a periapsis lowering burn was completed, the two RCS pods were detached from the drop tanks, they would not be needed any more.

About a half hour after that, the main landing engine, an LV-909, was lit for the final descent.

"Okay, Bobwig, you're a bit too far East of the first landing site!"

"Roger that, Podpont, turning now."

"NO!" shouted Angie. "You're running lower on fuel than we though you would! Stay straight, you can always drive to the site!"

"Roger that, turning back to retrograde."

"See, what did I tell you? Running out of fuel!" said Miteny.

"Why are we running low, though? the simulations went fine," wondered Podpont.

"Well, that's obvious!" said Miteny. "We did the simulations from an equatorial orbit - our orbit is mostly polar to reach all the landing sites. Major failure on behalf of the mission planners. Any last words, Bobwig?"

"That's it, Miteny, I'm taking your headset off," said Angie.

"Wait, I -  *KJHDSKIWW*"

"There, much better! How is it going, Bobwig?"

"I'm too high!"

"On what?" asked Podpont, who received weird stares from everyone still on the ship.

"...Meters, Podpont," said Angie, "he's high on meters. Now if we can keep the audio channel professional, we - "

"Altitude 2 kilometers. Fuel reserves are running low!" said Bobwig.

"Okay, prepare the landing camera!"

"Podpont, have you tried to land on Tylo before? It is freaking hard, it's difficult to take pictures and control a spaceship at the same time!"

"Point taken. Pod Point taken."

"Aww, not this joke again!"

"Altitude 1000 meters. Tylo landings happen too fast!"

"Just be careful, and - "

"500 meters! 300 meters! 200 meters!" Everyone held their breath. "100! 50! Twenty-fi-OW!"

"Talk about a jolt! Creativity, this is Bobwig, I am on Tylo!"

"Bravo, Bobwig! Alright, let's see..."

"You are pretty close to Patfrey and Stabel, all things considered. You may begin driving - you can do a mining test after a bit if you like."

"Already started! Road trip!"

"Hey, I could use that as my next album cover!" said Gemma, who everyone had forgotten was there.

Meanwhile, the Eve Self Refueling Exploration Plane, or ESREP, burned into Low Eve Orbit, signifying the beginning of the rescue fleet's arrival.

About a day later, the Tylo Mining Rover arrived at the site of the earlier Tylo landing.

 

There was great rejoicing, and a mini-party, complete with freeze-dried cake. However, the fanfare was brought to a halt when they realized that the radiators on the rover had been mounted too far backwards to allow the mining equipment to have any sort of efficiency. As a result, refueling the landers to be exploration hoppers proved to be wildly impractical, and the idea was dropped - exploring Tylo all the way was a job for future explorers.

One Tylo day (a really long time, that's how long it took for the orbit to match up with the landing site on the day side) later, ARMY-2 was go for landing. It carried one Kerbal, Mojorie, in order to provide an ascent seat for Bobwig. Mojorie had been practicing precision Tylo landing (no easy feat) in the simulators and had been getting rather good at it.

 

"400 meters!" she shouted. "300!"

"I can see you!" shouted Stabel. "You're coming in a bit fast!"

"100! 50! 20!" There was a loud crunching noise that came over the radio. From the perspective of the three already on the surface, ARMY-2 had gone beneath the horizon, but they saw a cloud of debris spray upwards. They all panicked.

"MOJORIE!" shouted Patfrey. "Are you okay?!?" There was a brief period of static over the radio.

"Uh... I think so. I can't say the same about the lander."

"No core engine, no ascent."

"There goes my ride back home!" shouted Bobwig.

"I said something like this would happen!" said Miteny over the radio.

"Hush, Miteny!" said Angie. "This is why we brought six landers. We are going to rescue you, and everything is going to be okay!"

"Well, currently," said Miteny, "we have a 50% success rate for landing ascent vehicles - at this rate, we will have three left, which means six of us will have a functioning ascent vehicle. THERE ARE EIGHT OF US!" he shouted.

"Calm down. Two points do not accurately represent a data set," said Patfrey.

"So realistically it will be worse," said Miteny.

"Miteny, do you want me to revoke mic privileges for the next month?"

"Sorry."

"Alright now, proceed as normal," said Podpont. "Mojorie, did any of the experiments break on descent?"

"Only a few of them, we should be good, most of the broken ones were redundant anyway."

"Okay, great!" said Stabel. "Let's do some science!"

"Two Kerbals stranded on Tylo," muttered Miteny under his breath. "I wonder how many will be after the next landing."

 

================================Part II, The Last Samples

"Insertion burn has been successful," said Hudson.

"What does that mean again?" asked Fred.

"We are going in an oval around Eve, in layman's terms," he responded.

"Hudson," asked Robo-Bob, "Why did you not lower our orbit all the way? Would it not be practical to rendezvous with one of the ships?"

"Well... As crazy as it sounds, I do have a plan," said Hudson.

"Please elaborate," said Robo-Bill.

"I want to find the old Medium Orbit Station for Evian Science."

"The MOSES? Our records render it destroyed in the war," said Robo-Bob.

"That story is dubious," said Hudson. "One standard USKN light fighter approached it, and neither of the ships were heard from again."

"But the debris field!" responded Robo-Bill. "It's still up there, look on the radar! In all likelihood, the station is not intact!"

"I don't need it to be," said Hudson. "I just need to find two pieces of it."

"Which pieces?" asked Fred.

"I need the Emergency Eve Descent Pods. That's the only way we're getting down to Eve."

"Hold it - why the Moho do you want to land on Eve?" asked Fred. "I don't know much about the history that wasn't taught to me, but as far as I know, you do NOT want to go to Eve."

"Yes, tell us," replied Robo-Bill. "There has only been one successful manned Eve ascent in history."

"As I was saying, the other piece of the station I need to find is the sample analysis laboratory. It was a new module, delivered mere hours before the destruction of the station, which was in theory capable of fully analyzing any sample form any world and finding signs of life."

"WAIT!" said Robo-Bob. "I think I know what you're going to do! You're going to analyze the samples that you stole from the museum! The ones from the Octavius mission!"

"Sort of," replied Hudson. "However, these samples are fake."

"What?" said Fred. "I thought I had held a destroyed moon in my hand!"

"Come on, you really think they would store the only remaining samples of five moons and the only evidence of life on Eeloo beneath a museum?"

"Well, then you put it like that, I guess," conceded Fred. "But what happened to the actual samples?"

"Oh boy, story time..."

"A long time ago, shortly after the return of Octavius, Jebediah told a small circle of scientists about the outer planets, and how they were really destroyed - and specifically about Eeloo, and the possibility of life. He assembled nine teams and divided the surface samples into ten pieces. None of the teams were able to accurately confirm or deny whether the Eeloo sample contained evidence of life. Word got out, and thousands of labs wanted the last bit of the sample to experiment on - to the point of breaking into the Kerbin sample storage facility."

"I can see where this is going!" said Robo-Bill.

"So Jebediah formed the Experimental Engineering Division - their first task was to build a vault for the samples that would last one thousand years under the most horrendous conditions. They did that well, and Jebediah placed the samples in the vault, and disguised the whole contraption as a prototype Eve Ascent Vehicle. And we don't know where, but somewhere down there," Hudson gestured to the planet below, "is the most inaccessible vault in the solar system, containing samples of Slate, Tetko, Okok, Hale, and pre-cataclysm Eeloo. The idea behind the vault was once we have enough technology to properly analyze the sample, we will also have the technology to get the samples off of Eve. It's genius, really - the time has finally come! Once we get down there and find them, we need to hitch a ride back up on the KSC's ascent vehicle and analyze them in the Eve Station's Sample Analysis Laboratory."

"Woah."

"Woah is right, Fred. Now, man the telescopes and scanners - let's find those descent pods.

"Question," said Fred.

"Go ahead, Fred," replied Hudson.

"Why are you doing this? What are you hoping to accomplish?" Hudson stayed silent for a while, before answering with a sad expression on his face.

"I am doing this because I have realized that I have done terrible things in my past. Like it or not - " he struggled to say the next part - "I am the biggest part of the reason why the war started."

"Come again, I don't believe I heard the story."

"I attacked a mostly innocent cruiser piloted by my former best friend, and got de-orbited onto Kerbin and mistaken for a missile. Everyone reacted, and bam. Several million Kerbals dead. I thought the USKN was right... I supported the Flat Kerbin Society just to avenge the USKN to the point of planning an attack on the KSC, the only agency trying to save us from the black hole. Then I proved that the KSC built a missile silo on the Mun, which I was going to use to threaten the world into giving me an escape ship from the solar system. I thought what I was doing was right... But now I realize that I am a terrible excuse for a Kerbal Being. If I can retrieve the sample, analyze it, discover extraterrestrial life... Maybe, just maybe that will help everyone else live. Maybe I can make this life worth it."

"...That's deep. Well said, Hudson," said Fred. "Well said."

 

==============================Part III, Parking Orbit

"Stel-ella" stuttered Stella Kerman to the man taking names.

"Stelella, got it. You're accepted." Stella let out a sigh of relief, before realizing he had said her name wrong.

"Wait, my name's not - "

"Next!" he shouted to the long line of people. Stella, or now Stelella had been waiting in the volunteer line for several dozen hours. It's not every day the largest - and only - space organization on the planet announces that your solar system is on a collision course with a black hole. It's also not every day that the same agency asks for volunteers to pilot spaceships. Needless to say, she drove up to the surface as fast as possible, within one hour of the announcement. However, there was already a line of several hundred Kerbals waiting in front of the general qualification booths. With the amount of questions asked, each Kerbal took several minutes at minimum. She stood in the line for nearly three days, not sleeping once. Somebody had trucked in porta-potties and another had trucked in a food stand.

When she was accepted, she was overjoyed. They only generally accepted 1 in 7 candidates. After a week they temporarily closed down the volunteer program after they had accelerated an initial astronaut class of 300 Kerbals past the secondary screening - of which they only accepted, on average, 1 in 12. Stella was very fortunate to have made it this far. She was rushed through a few months of astronaut training, and she watched as the first Intrepid Test Vehicles took to the skies. And then she wasn't chosen for a mission. She watched as all of her friends launched into space to explore far-flung worlds to gather knowledge before the eventual end of the solar system, but she stayed on the ground, twiddling her thumbs. They heard about the massive 020 with it's 916 seats, thinking they would all get to go - but they didn't - it was only open to KSC construction staff, barring the four pilots. And there was that one time they managed to let a new guy all the way through with no training and pilot the 013... That did not turn out well. He ended up stealing four KSC built ships.

But all of that was behind her now. She got the call a month ago - she had been assigned to copilot the ITV-025. She nearly blew up her house in joy (don't fool around with fireworks, especially underground, kids!). She packed her bags, rented out her house and put most of her possessions into storage, taking only the things she feared she'd never see again. She also wrote her will, just in case. Then, she showed up to the KSC and met her copilot, Diner Kerman. They both quickly became great friends.

They were briefed on their mission - most of the KSC construction staff was working on far-future technologies and couldn't produce actual launch vehicles very fast. So, they thought they could kill two birds with one stone by launching one mothership to rescue another one - the ITV-013, abandoned in Low Moho Orbit. There would be ten crewmembers, although eight of them would launch on an SSTO, much safer than an untested mothership. Speaking of which, the mothership looked even cooler, in a way, than the old ones.

 

And finally, today, they launched.

The ITV-025 majestically rose into the sky, powered by six rocket engines developed by the experimental engineering group - four scaled up vectors and two scaled up kickbacks. On top, in a mark 2 cockpit, sat Stella, whose nameplate still read Stelella, despite her protests, and Diner.

And soon, Diner and Stelella were both in orbit, aboard their ship that they had to name. When the KSC prompted them to think of a name, they both responded at the exact same time.

"Heart."

"Courage."

 

And thus, the Intrepid Test Vehicle serial number 025 was named the Heart of Courage.

 

=================================Part IV, the Continued Invasion of Tylo

"You're looking a bit fast, Angie!" said Podpont, who was now the only person besides Gemma, who never talked, onboard the ITV-011 Creativity.

"Don't worry, Pod! I've got this!"

"We are going to die!" said Miteny, who, due to a lack of a better option, had been assigned to science target two with Angie on ARMY-3.

"With that attitude, maybe!" Angie responded. "I've been in the simulators all week!"

"I still think we should have sent an empty lander down to help the others!" said Miteny.

"This landing site lined up first," she said, "And who doesn't just love a spelunking adventure!"

"Me."

"Okay, I'll admit, we do appear to be going a bit fast. Pod, how is that estimated landing site coming?"

"You are most likely going to land at the right velocity, only a few hundred meters from the target."

"Good, approaching target."

"Remember the pictures!" advised Podpont. "Miteny, get the camera, Angie is piloting!"

"No, I am too busy panicking! I don't want the last picture taken of me to be a second before my death!"

"And say you live."

"Uhh, Pod?" asked Angie. "Did you say a few hundred meters from the center of the target?"

"Yes, a few hundred meters from the center... the center... - oops. PULL UP! YOU ARE GOING TO HIT THE CAVE!"

"I AM GOING TO DIE!"

"200 meters, 100 meters, 50 meters, twen-" KA-SMASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"OH MY BOP WE'VE BLOWN UP! I AM DEAD!"

"I thought heaven would be less... grey."

"You mean we're in the underworld now?"

"Guys, snap out of it!" said Podpont. "You are not dead!"

"Oh, hey... But something exploded!" said Miteny.

"By my sensors show," said Podpont, "that it was only one of the side engines. The ascent stage should be fine."

"But now we're slowly sliding down a mountain. And who named the landing site "Scientist's Recklessness?" I am greatly offended!" shouted Miteny.

"Oh. That could be problematic," said Angie.

"What if the pads on the legs wear out and break? Then we'd tip over and be stuck here!"

"Those legs are way overpowered, we should be fine!" There was a small cracking noise.

"Great."

"Okay, report back to me in about an hour," said Podpont, "I'm passing the horizon and I'll speak with the others on the other side. See you la-SDKHIUWH*&Y# HHI!KSPSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"So we come with six Tylo landers and don't even think to bring commsats," said Miteny. About ten minutes later, the lander finally stopped sliding down the side of the cave.

From there, the side boosters were detached - and then, the science could begin.

 

 

======================Part V, Idiots

The part title is literally "Idiots." However, before we get to the idiots, as with many other parts, here's a course correction montage!

 

The Eve Ascent Vehicle completed it's Eve insertion burn.

 

As did the ITV-023 Valkyrie, carrying her payload of two Mk2 Gilly Hoppah spacecraft.

 

 

And then the Eve Ascent Vehicle rendezvoused with Gilly to refuel.

Now, onto the idiots.

"Why the Moho do you have two radioisotope generators lying around on the deck of an aircraft carrier?" asked Jebediah Kerman.

"Oh, those?" replied Albert. "We thought those were landing legs. Nice to know!" Jebediah's eye twitched. He turned around.

"WHAT?!?!?!?!?"

"Oh, those are ladders, right? We had an awfully time getting them to move."

"You really don't know what you're doing, are you?" Jeb heard a splash.

"Come on in, the water is amazing!" shouted an enthusiastic Valentina Kerman.

"You know what?" responded Jeb. "I might just take you up on that!" He proceeded to start for the edge of the carrier.

"Jeb, time is of the essence - "

"And I've waited fifty three years to go swimming with my sister!"

The rest of the crew went swimming for a bit as well. About an hour later, Albert, head of the Order of the Two Poles, managed to coax them out of the water. He took them by truck to an island out in the desert, where he lined all six of them up, along with Gustav, Reyma, and Kay.

"Alright, Jebediah, you need to teach us how to build these rocket things - I'm not sure we're doing it optimally, but anyways... Here is our vehicle assembly building. Inside sits our most sophisticated device yet - the Tornado! I really hope you like it, but there is definitely room for improvement."

"Launch clamps as ladders, nuclear devices as landing legs, what's next?" muttered Jeb under his breath. Valentina chuckled back telepathically.

"So, without further ado, I present the TORNADO!" shouted Albert as he pressed a button on his remote control. A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. He pressed it again. Nothing. "Err, technical difficulties with the bay door mechanism. Standby."

"Did you put batteries in it?"

"Yes, I - "

"Is it on?"

"Oh. That's what the switch does... I proudly present - THE TORNADO!" A loud booming noise began to emanate from the assembly building as the doors slowly opened to reveal the fruits of the Order of the Two Poles' labors.

"Oh my Kraken!" shouted Jeb.

"Do you like it?" squealed Gustav.

"I've been abducted by idiots!" shouted Jebediah Kerman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid Will Continue...

 

 

An important note. Due to a glitch, stuff jumps up in the air after loading or stopping time warp, which is especially noticeable on Gilly, and as I have to be focused on the Eve Ascent Vehicle while it is mining, and there is so much else going on, I'd have to re-land the ship a dozen or more times to have it continually mining between events. As such, I have reluctantly decided to put it in a low Gilly orbit for the meantime and cheat in the fuel later in the story.

If you need additional justification, the ITV-020 is also going to land on Gilly soon, and given that its mission is to build (CLASSIFIED until the near future) on Gilly and built a huge base on Minmus, manually refueling the ascent vehicle should be no problem.

I hope you enjoyed, more coming soon-ish!

 

[roboslacker]

How did you get the launch clamps to lie around?

[Ultimate Steve]

3 hours ago, roboslacker said:

How did you get the launch clamps to lie around?

I pretty much have no idea, I think it was a combination of vessel mover and HyperEdit to grab a random craft from the SPH that looked somewhat like a dock... And then they just fell off!

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 43 - Final Glimpse of the Sun

Spoiler

==========Part I, Departure

Two insignificant pilots flew the second flight of the 100 Kerbal Minmus SSTO. It featured slightly higher thrust than its predecessor, as well as drogue chutes and enhanced stability as to not contribute to a significant chance of death upon landing.

But that's not important. What's important is the Kerbals they were carrying. Three years ago, when the KSC was recruiting, the name taker had gotten many people's names wrong, not just Stella/Stelella's. So, Wernher Von Kerman decided to have some fun and assign most of these improperly named Kerbals to the same mission.

In addition to Stelella and Diner already on the mothership, the SSTO carried Piper, Podrey, and Maclie (the ones with normal names) as well as Doodson (son of Dude, apparently), Suner, Urlie (Sooner and Early), Mating (Don't want to explain that one) and... Barely.

"What's your name, passenger?" asked one of the non noteworthy pilots.

"Barely."

"Wait, you barely have a name?"

"No, that is my name! I'm Barely Kerman."

"Wait, so your name is "That?""

"No, Barely!"

"Your name is barely "That?""

"UGH!"

"Ohh, I get it! You're one of those new cyborg test subjects, hence the fact that you're Barely a Kerbal!"

"If you really need to talk about this, PLEASE DO IT AT A TIME WHEN YOU ARE NOT FLYING A MILLION FUND SSTO!!!"

Several hours later, the second 100 Kerbal Spaceplane arrived at the ITV-025 Heart of Courage.

 

The crew EVA'd over to the ship and began plotting their maneuver node to Moho. Meanwhile, the spaceplane ventured off. Oddly, its transponder was off for several hours... When it came back on, it was in an entirely different orbit. No official comment has been made on this.

The plane reentered without major advent.

"Aaaaaaannnndddddd... Touchdown!"

"Okay, hit the brakes!"

"I am hitting the brakes!"

"Are our chutes gone?"

"No, they are there!"

"We're running out of runwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"That's going to take a while to fix."

Several hours later, another, more conventional rocket was launched.

The payload was two Moho landers, fully equipped with surveying equipment and the necessary fuel supply to reach anywhere on the planet.

 

The landers were docked, and then, the Heart of Courage, with a multitude of weirdly misnamed Kerbals on board, departed for Moho.

Around the same time, the ITV-020 Philosopher of Time entered an elliptical Eve orbit, putting it on a trajectory that would eventually intercept Gilly.

 

========= TRANSCRIPT OF SECRET MEETING - B LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED

DO NOT READ FURTHER WITHOUT CLEARANCE UNDER PENALTY OF THE KSC'S ARMY OF LAWYERS

 

"Dalton Kerman. Nice to see you again," said non-important pilot #1. Dalton, the interim President and Chief Mission Controller of the KSC (since Gene was still missing on Eve) sat up in his chair.

"I read the public report of the mission," said Dalton. "I see that your attempt at lithobraking ended in hydrobraking."

"Cut the teasing, that's not important."

"Correct. How did the secret portion of the mission go?"

"Well," he began, "After we dropped the 025's crew off, we rendezvoused with the Intrepid, expecting to find Jebediah and the rest of the crew there, planning a surprise party or something, like Jeb would."

"Uh-huh."

"And we got there, and found the ship entirely abandoned." Dalton's eyes widened. "Not forcefully, either! The place was neatly packed up, ready for the next crew!"

"So where could they have gone?"

"Well..." he began. "Our satellite coverage is still spotty, but reviewing data we found a strange launch without permission from the desert area of Kerbin, around the same time the crew of the Intrepid disappeared."

"So they just kidnapped them? From orbit?"

"Possibly, but no seasoned astronaut, let alone four of them, would ever get on a ship that they weren't expecting to be there. So that means - "

"That Jeb was expecting the ship!" exclaimed Dalton. "He's abandoned us! He could be anywhere on the planet now, working for who knows who! We need to search for him!"

"Calm down, Dalton. It's not like he's doing anything illegal, maybe they sent a boarding party and kidnapped the crew!"

"But what if he is!" Dalton stood up and paced the room. "Any idea to where he may be?"

"Well, actually, we do." He placed a photograph on Dalton's desk.

 

"During Re-entry we found a strange radar signature. Upon closer inspection via satellite telescope, it appears to be a fully fledged military base we didn't know was there - and it's showing activity."

"How do you know this has any connection with Jeb?" asked Dalton.

"It happens to be the same location the other rocket blasted off from."

"This could be bad. Should we try contacting them or anything? Attacking them?"

"That won't be necessary!" he said. "We'll send a plane over or something, let's not do anything drastic immediately. We don't even know if they have any connection with Jeb, or even who they are!"

"I understand. We shall send a plane."

"We can't just yet, sir."

"What? Why not?"

"The air show is going on, we don't have any to spare. We'll procure one as fast as possible."

"And one more thing - this is another Classified Mission, level B. Nobody without clearance is to hear about this, got that?"

"Got that." With that, unimportant pilot #1 walked out of the room, to begin preparations for his next secret mission.

 

========== Part II, The Nauseometer Rises Again

The Kerlington College's Eve Exploration Glider fired up its upper stage engine for the second to last time to insert it into a polar elliptical orbit of Eve. Due to the curiosity surrounding the poles of Duna, the geniuses at Kerlington College had rerouted the mission, which was the first privately launched interplanetary mission in fifty years, to land at the north pole instead of at the primary science target near the pole. They had also found out how to modify the negative gravioli detector software to have it function as a nauseometer and intended to compare the measurements found on Duna with the ones found on Eve.

A few hours later, the engine fired up one last time to de-orbit the probe onto the north pole, and then detached.

Atmospheric entry and heat shield jettison went perfectly, much to the relief of the students. The plane began following a preprogrammed course to the poles, with the occasional input from mission control. Signal delay at this point was around 40 seconds, so limited control was doable... Barely. As a side effect of removing the radiation filters from visors and cameras, Eve had visible clouds again. This was fine, until you actually got to Eve.

This picture was taken with the subfilter "ambient light" enabled. It was like flying through pea soup - Tar, even! Nothing was visible. At this point, the nauseometer read 1.02.

Eventually, the probe broke through the lowest layer of clouds and spotted the deformed north pole of Eve. The nauseometer read 2.6.

It was flown around the pole for a while, as long as glide time permitted, which was between 1 and 2 minutes. At the time of the picture, the nauseometer read 6 - significantly more than Duna did at this distance.

Eventually, the probe splashed down near the mountain, right next to the terrain gap. A debate took place among the students working the mission - should they attempt to move the probe past the gap using the reaction wheels, or explore the surrounding oceans a bit more? Every single mission to attempt a transit through the gap had disintegrated before, but because of the added nauseometer, the students opted to try.

The probe used its reaction wheels to cartwheel through the ocean.

 

The students held their breath in nervous anticipation as the probe inched closer to the boundary, returning stunning mind bending images of a transparent planet, until finally, the probe passed the boundary.

...And survived.

The nauseometer read 55. After a quick science grab, the probe was inched closer and closer to the true north pole. Nauseometer 140. 524. 61487.

The pole was a meter away, and the nauseometer was flickering in the two hundred thousand range.

90cm. 300k.

80cm. 750k.

70cm. 2 million.

60cm. 80 million.

50cm. 380 million.

40cm. 21 billion.

30cm. 900 trillion.

25cm. The edge of the craft began to pass directly underneath the pole. 5 quintillion.

20cm. 310 decillion. The craft was held here for a minute as the students analyzed the data. One of the wing sections was oscillating strangely, and the thermometer was simultaneously melting and freezing.

15cm. In the octodecillion range. Comms began getting a bit spotty.

10cm. The probe was somehow holding up, despite the proximity to the polar forces. Googol.

5cm. 4. 3. 2. The integers overflowed into the negatives, back up to the positives, back into the negatives, and all around again, fifty times.

As the probe hit near zero distance, the nauseometer overloaded, returning a value of infinity, then pi, and finally the square root of -1 before melting, exploding, freezing, imploding, and teleporting everywhere at once, causing the universe to notice that there was an object beneath a planet. The plane was instantly destroyed.

And thus, the mystery deepened further.

The ITV-020 Philosopher of Time and its crew of 400 performed a course correction to intercept Gilly.

The ITV-024 Avalon, slowly falling apart, with its cargo of two roverplanes, entered Low Eve Orbit.

As did the New Eve ScanSat.

 

============ Part III, [CLASSIFIED]

 

Odd, thought Natalenna Kerman, first Mayor of Minmus, soon to be Mayor of Gilly. The collision warning alarms had not engaged, because although they were within 4 meters of the surface, the ITV-020 was still in orbit. Barely. Although this was Gilly, to be fair. The ship slid over the brown plains toward their planned landing site, perfect for the [CLASSIFIED]. Natalenna thought that the public should know about the [CLASSIFIED]. Of the planetary escape plan phases, the exploration plan had gone pretty badly, resulting in several stolen ships and ten Kerbals stranded on Eve. And the next phase, using Minmus as a staging point for the actual evacuation was running into issues as well - both prototype spaceplanes had issues, and that was after the dozens of nonfunctional prototypes that came before it.

Phase 2 was thankfully in the works, although it was still classified. Phase 3 was way off... But, due to the lack of a [CLASSIFIED] a [CLASSFIED] was needed, hence the journey to Gilly. Once this elaborate construction was made public, it would certainly steal the show for the rest of the year. But the public was yet again growing restless with the lack of recent groundbreaking progress.

 

The real problem... Although the Kerbol system had 197 years left before its eventual collision with the black hole, it was unknown [CLASSFIED]. After a certain date, it may be impossible to reach any of the [CLASSFIED] even with ion powered spaceships, so in actuality, barring a breakthrough in efficiency, the evacuation might only be possible for 175 more years. Maybe 150. 100. 80. Who knew?

And then there was the problem of time. How would the Kerbals react to such a long journey in space unless [CLASSIFIED]?

Those were the thoughts that passed through Natalenna's head between the de-orbit and landing of the biggest Kerbal spaceship ever launched. She pushed them all aside took charge as the crew of 400 began unloading the massive cargo of base supplies, massive mining equipment, and silver that would be needed to build the [CLASSFIED].

The first real objective, though, was to refuel the ascent vehicle all the way... That did not take more than a day given the drills on the 020. The fully topped off lander began its journey down to the Evian surface.

 

========== Part IV, The Descenders

 

 

 

 

Suborbital Trajectory over Eve. Those four words possessed the ability to instill fear in any Kerbonaut smart enough to understand them. And yet, Hayya, plane pilot, and Mauline, space trucker, had just de-orbited themselves on purpose, aiming for the location of the eight Kerbals next to the wreck of the ITV-018 Valentina.

Hayya Kerman sat nervously as their craft, Eve Roverplane 1, entered the atmosphere of Eve. The two inflatable heat shields had been deployed, which would, in theory, protect them from the raging atmosphere of Eve. In theory. It hadn't worked out so well in history. Hayya and Mauline braced themselves through the re-entry, which was gentler than expected. Their velocity dropped to just a few hundred meters per second, and then it truly hit Hayya - they would not be returning to orbit unless the crazy Eve Ascent Vehicle worked flawlessly. They were stuck.

It had hit Mauline much earlier, though, that they were on a one way trajectory, when they had detached the retrorockets.

The top heat shield had come off perfectly. The second heat shield popped off, but unfortunately took some solar panels and batteries with it. No matter, it would still do. Hayya pointed the plane in the general direction of the wreckage and began to glide down through the cloud layers.

 

Another revelation hit Hayya - their radiation filters were gone. The clouds were back. This could be the last time she would ever see the sun.

After one last long look up at the nuclear furnace sustaining all life in the system, the clouds slowly obscured the view until there was nothing but purple surrounding the ship. In the back, Mauline began broadcasting radio signals in hopes that the stranded Kerbals might pick them up.

They passed a layer as white as snow. And then, almost immediately, it grew into a dark purple, more ominous than before.

The winds were rocking the craft now, the sound of wind whistling and the hull creaking only punctuated by the occasional punch of thunder.

And, after a little longer, they were within kilometers of the wreckage, but it was as if they were flying through oil. Visibility was nearing zero.

They could, however, barely make out the wreckage below, and they nervously lined the craft up for a landing.

 

========== Part V, A Miracle from Above

Macfry Kerman was starting to hate Anberta, and wondering why he had ever been interested in her romantically in the first place. Maybe it was the whole "Ten Kerbals in the system" thing, or maybe it was that odd picturesque moment at the Gilly rift... But the Eve crash had broken her. She had become a boiling cauldron of pessimism and doomsaying. At first, everyone had sided with her except for Gene and Leah. Then everyone had a spurt of optimism... Then she put herself in charge and removed everyone's radiation filters so they could all die seeing Eve as it truly was. Nobody particularly liked that, but their optimism had worn out and there as nothing left to do but to join her.

Eve was a terrible place, dark and brooding, which further fueled Anberta's pessimism, which pervaded throughout the group. This was not helped by the fact that the filters were difficult to impossible to put back on, and the fact that most of their supplies were stuck inside the toppled mothership... which they had no access to, because their makeshift ladder had blown away in a storm and nobody could make an Eve rock tower high enough to reach the hatches. All of the supplies they had were the ones that had spilled out when the Cupola exploded, and what they had out at the time of the storm. Thankfully, that included a lot of oxygen, but it was running out fast.

Pomeroy Kerman had managed to build an igloo out of Eve rock, which he spent most of his time in, staring at the picture of his family he had placed in his wrist compartment. He didn't talk much.

Vernie Kerman initially had been an optimist, and had invented several Eve sports, but was a sensitive Kerbal. Everyone had shot down her ideas in frustration and the pessimism had spread to her. She had attempted to build a radio out of debris but it did not work.

Allin and Ribwig had been the two Kerbals whose ship had been stolen by the Space Pirates at Moho. Because of those same Space Pirates, arguably, they were now stranded on Eve. The whole thing had hit them very hard, in one incident Allin nearly drowned in his tears lying down in his spacesuit.

Nataemma, the lander pilot, had been ambushed from all sides by multiple tsunamis of emotions, but somehow she remained the most optimistic out of the whole group.

The most effected by the entire ordeal was Elkin Kerman, who had been taken over to the very core by pessimism, hatred, and sadness. He had spent the last two weeks attempting to undo the seal on his helmet. The pressure differential kept it on. He tried smashing it with a rock. Attacking the food and water input ports. He even tried cutting every inch of fabric, and depleting his oxygen. The suits were just built really sturdily... Too sturdily, Elkin thought. Despite Anberta's protests, Nataemma had always replaced his oxygen canisters while he was sleeping to prevent those from running out.

 

"Well," announced Anberta, "That's the last of the oxygen." She dropped the last empty container onto the purple soil below. "We each have about three days left in the suits, and then it's good riddance to this purple wasteland."

"Finally," said Elkin in a deadpan tone, "I can finally just die."

"No! We don't have to die! We might be able to pile up the oxygen tanks, then make a Kerbal tower to get to the lowest hatch, it's doable!" shouted Nataemma.

"We tried that," said Vernie."

"What if we - "

"Shut it, Nataemma," said Allin. "The transfer window was a while ago, if they were going to send anything they would have sent it already."

"They could have ISRU-d the fuel, or maybe they landed the rover too far away!"

"Yeah, but, in all reality, what are the odds? They would have sent a supply drop or at least something!"

"They would think we had access to all of the ship's supplies, and we don't!"

"Nataemma," said Vernie, "How much optimism is too much? If we believed every word you said, we'd all die believing we'd be rescued, betrayed at the last minute."

"Well... At the very least, once we all... poof... Whoever finds our bodies can regrow us."

"On Eve? You've got to be kidding me!" said Anberta. "Despite how durable these suits are, if they don't find us within a few more months, they would break without power, and our ashes would scatter, and there would be no regrowth!"

"But we can still hope - "

"NATAEMMA KERMAN! AS COMMANDER OF THE ITV-018 VALENTINA, I ORDER YOU TO SHUT UP! CAN'T YOU SEE!?!? THERE WILL BE NO RESCUE MISSION!" At that moment, a strange shadow crossed the group, who all looked up just in time to see a triangular object pass just above them and crash land just past the wreckage. The explosive plume was visible even with the clouds.

Allin and Ribwig gasped. Vernie jumped back in surprise. Pomeroy popped out of his igloo and teared up at the very possibility, as did Macfry. Nataemma stood in surprise and shock. Elkin stood up, eyes wide. A crack of brightness and warmth shot through the dark void heart that was Anberta's as she just stood - a single tear slid down her face.

And then, a rover with wings drove around to the front side of the wreckage, applied its brakes, and stopped. The stranded quickly formed a line as two Kerbals exited the strange vehicle.

"Hiya, I'm Hiyya Kerman!" said Hiyya with extreme nervousness and tension in her voice. It was supposed to come across as a humorous line to break all of the tension, but it seemed like it had the opposite effect. The Kerbal in front of her, Anberta, had the most shocked expression on her face of the entire group. "As you may have guessed, we're here as part of the rescue team," she added. Anberta turned to face her crew - Leah's crew, she realized. Not hers.

"I am so sorry for everything I have put you all through. I have been a horrible person and I am no longer fit to lead you. In fact, I never was. I hereby appoint Nataemma as commander." she collapsed to her knees and began sobbing. "I am not worth rescuing."

"Anberta - don't say that," said Elkin reluctantly. "This is... err... hard for me to say, but... everyone makes mistakes, everyone affects others... and... well... What I'm trying to say is... I forgive you. Just don't do it again."

"If Elkin can forgive you," said Vernie, "I sure can." There was a chorus of agreement from the crowd, which eventually morphed into a large group hug.

"Uhh, did we miss something?" asked Mauline.

"Oh, of course! Business first, sentiment later," said Nataemma somewhat reluctantly. "Besides a little sentiment at the beginning... After a short time on the surface Gene and Leah took some supplies and walked about 100km to the wreckage of an old ascent vehicle to find an antenna. Judging by the fact that you're here, I assume you got their message?"

"Yes, but seeing as they have not returned, they are most likely deceased at this point, but we're not certain."

"Oh. Um... And after a month or two, we found ourselves unable to enter the wreckage, so we were living off of whatever had spilled out onto the surface. You found us just in the nick of time, we were down to three days of oxygen! And then a big wave of pessimism took over us, especially Anberta and Elkin." Hiyya's head spun. The initial descent had almost been delayed by one Evian day due to a glitch in the system... Had that happened, these eight Kerbals would be dead.

"So you've been outside this entire time?" asked Hiyya. "You poor souls!"

"I mean, I made an igloo!" said Pomeroy.

"Why don't you all come inside the rover and get some actual rest," said Mauline. Everyone perked up at that statement. "Then I'll tell you about the rescue fleet, I'm sure you're dying to hear... Sorry, bad choice of words.:

"Inside?"

"Atmosphere?"

"Rescue FLEET?"

"Hallelujah!"

"Oxygen!"

"Fresh snacks!"

"I can get out of this suit!"

And so, one by one, they all got into the Roverplane via the rear ladder, and took their spacesuits off for the first time in several months. Needless to say, it was quite smelly, but nobody cared. There was great celebration that night, oxygen, water, and "hydrazine" flowed freely.

Except for Anberta. She sat outside for a while before coming in, in the purple dust. Eventually, Macfry came out to talk to her.

"Are you okay, Ann?"

"Oh - hi, Mac. Truth be told, no. Never in a hundred years."

"I just want you to know - it's okay to mess up."

"I messed up pretty badly, making everyone think they were going to die, driving Elkin to almost killing himself, and - "

"Anyone could have been that person, Ann. Who knows, it could have been me had nobody else done it. We've been through something no other Kerbals have experienced in history, how can we be expected to handle it perfectly?"

"I could have easily done a lot better," she sobbed. "I behaved in a cowardly, authoritative, depressing way against almost every single value of the KSC."

"Ann - "

"Mac, I don't deserve any of this - the rescue, the forgiveness, you talking to me about it... I am a terrible person, Mac."

"No you aren't."

"How would you know?"

"Because you are genuinely sorry for what you did. You deeply regret it, and you realize that what you did was wrong. Yes, you've done bad things, but that doesn't mean you're bad at heart."

"But - "

"If you really were a terrible person, you would never even know it. And now you realize that you have been bad - And you're upset about it. That's what makes you good."

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid will Continue...

 

 

 

 

[roboslacker]

9 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

"Hiya, I'm Hiyya Kerman!"

This got a laugh out of me

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 44 - Driven by Loneliness

Spoiler

========== Part I, The Invasion of Eve

Despite the whole "Yay, we can take our radiation filters off now!" thing, the Eve teams really found it detrimental to their mission, seeing as they couldn't see very far at all. The teams had already taken theirs off, and because they happened to be very difficult to put back on, Allin began experimenting with them, and eventually came up with a modification that would allow them to be remounted. Eve would still have clouds, but not as many as before.

AKA I had accidentally installed 2 cloud packs and it was crashing my game every 2 minutes.

Due to this, the crew of the Eve Self Refueling Exploration Plane had a much easier time de-orbiting and re-entering both visually and psychologically.

 

The crew of three were aiming for the site where Gene and Leah were supposed to be. However, due to a less than ideal reentry, they were a few dozen kilometers off and would have to refuel again.

The thing was... unbeknownst to the crew, they were often joked about onboard the other ships. The reason for this was that the KSC had gone out to an actual airline and hired a pilot, copilot, and flight attendant to crew the mission. In fact, the ESREP's crew did almost everything like would be done by a normal airplane crew. They had emergency oxygen masks in the overhead compartments, they had a snack cart (rarely used due to a complete lack of passengers) and kept a flight log.

Planetary Airlines Flight 001 - KSC, Kerbin ---> Minmus City, Minmus. Duration 1 week.

Planetary Airlines Flight 002 - Minmus City, Minmus ---> Undeveloped Airfield, Eve. Duration several months (clock fixture has broken and I don't want to ask the others).

The landing was successful, and the refueling operation began.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention - halfway through the transfer to Eve, the crew radioed to the other ships asking if they had any coffee, because their supply had run out. The ITV-023 Valkyrie did, in fact, have a lot, but did not send it over on one of the hoppers. They said their excuse was "orbits don't work that way." They could have, though - the hoppers had plenty of Delta-V, but they just wanted all of the coffee for themselves.

Several hours later, the Eve Ascent Vehicle, which had jettisoned its massive auxiliary fuel tank and was in low orbit at this point, began its de-orbit burn.

Nobody was on board, of course. Descent in a vehicle such as this was inherently dangerous, moreso than in a glider. It wasn't even known if the heat shield - or rather, the lack of one - would work. The full lander burned nearly to depletion to cancel out its orbital velocity.

The resulting straight down reentry was fiery, but tame enough to not destroy anything on the lander.

The Kerbals on the surface and those in orbit held their breath as the top heat shield was jettisoned. This was one of the riskiest parts of descent, as the inflatable shields had been known to be extremely finicky. This one was mounted on a long structure to reduce the chances of unintended destruction. The jettison was successful, and the as of yet unnamed EAV descended through the cloud layers of Eve.

Despite the improved radiation filtering, Eve was still nearly pitch black at this altitude. Further rejiggering of the filters may be necessary in the future.

With the parachutes now fully deployed, the most ambitious Eve Ascent Vehicle ever launched floated ever closer to the surface, igniting its engines at the last moment...

...And successfully landing on Eve.

...And then slid down a hill for several minutes before coming to a rest, detaching the parachutes, and beginning to mine.

Everyone on the planet who was not presumed dead rejoiced, although because that's only 13 people, who all depended on this vehicle for their survival, that's not really saying much. Preparations begun for the various trips that would be needed to get everyone to the ascent vehicle.

 

========== Part II, Suborbital Spaceflight

"And then, the nauseometer just glitched out!" said Albert with bubbling enthusiasm. "Imagine what we could learn with further analysis!"

"I agree, more analysis is necessary," said Jebediah, "but that doesn't mean that the poles will be magic portals. And anyway, we have a launch to take care of, right now." a plume of gaseous oxygen puffed out from the top of the rocket as if to emphasize this.

Jebediah Kerman had helped the Order of the Two Poles build this small suborbital demonstrator rocket, dubbed the Frost 1, mostly to train the teams how to build actual rockets rather than the train wreck that was the Tornado. Despite the terrible design, and the objections of all of the kidnapped crewmembers, the Order opted to fly the rocket anyway, about a week ago.

And somehow, the terribly asymmetric rocket took off. Both the first and second stages fired successfully.

The third stage? Not so much.

The parachute recovery was successful.

And because of this whole thing (the rocket didn't even get suborbital) Jeb lost several brain cells due to the stupidity of others he was around.

Jumping back to the present, Gustav, hopefully to become the first astronaut of the Order of the Two Poles, had climbed the ladder and was preparing to board the capsule.

"Remember your training, Gustav!" called Jebediah.

"And aim for the recovery area!" called back Albert.

"I am still a bit nervous about the lack of a launch escape system!" shouted Gustav. "Are you sure we should proceed?"

"The deathtrap rocket you built went off without any life threatening moments," called Jeb. "You can't make a rocket much simpler than this one! If your parachute is damaged, bail out and aim for the water!"

"Roger!" called Gustav with nervous excitement.

The rest of the Order, along with Bill, Bob, Shercott, and Gidrien, watched from a bunker that had been built several hundred meters away. Valentina was away exploring Kerbin (under supervision, of course), and had almost been joined by Bill and Bob, who had stayed behind only because they actually saw possibility in the Order's plans. Jebediah thought they were somewhat crazy and really desperate to consider such a plan based off of such little knowledge, and because of that he intended to escape soon. He had tried, but the Order never lost their militaristic roots. Fortunately, they had not suspected a thing... yet. When he did escape, he would have to take his crew with him.

"Okay, Gustav, are we ready to release the countdown hold?" asked Jeb over the radio from the near-pad bunker.

"As I'll ever be!"

"Three, two, one, MARK!" The countdown timer resumed. "T-45 seconds. 40."

"So Jeb," asked Albert. "How soon until you can get a research crew to the Mun?"

"Can we talk about this later?" asked Jeb. "T-30, fin and gimbal checks."

"Come on, at least an estimate?"

"T-25. That depends on how fast you can learn... We'll build on orbital demonstrator rocket next, and if you're ready, we can build the Mun ship. T-10. Engine priming..."

"Goodbye, Kerbin!" shouted Gustav.

"5. 4. Engine igni - ALBERT PUT ON YOUR HEADPHONES!" Albert looked over at Jeb and briefly panicked as the ground shook, and just barely got his headphones on before the engine fully ignited, pushing Frost 1 and Gustav Kerman upwards.

"And, we have liftoff!" shouted Gustav. "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!" From there, the flight proceeded perfectly, leading to a high apoapsis.

Unfortunately, the splashdown location was a bit off, but that didn't really matter - the Order was overcome by joy and relief when Gustav landed. Soon, they thought, they would reach the Mun and make their contribution to the saving of the Kerbal species.

"Hey, Jeb?" said Gustav.

"Yes, Gustav?"

"There's this weird pipe thing behind the control panel and it appears to be glowing."

"That shouldn't happen. What does it look like?"

"Hold on, I'll end you a picture," said Gustav as he pulled out his phone. Jeb, still getting used to the whole "smartphone" thing, had to ask for Albert's.

"Can you send it to Albert?"

"Of course."

"Ohh, that's not good," said Jeb. "Who in their right mind tried to use an RTG core as a structural support?"

"Wait, I've been sitting next to radioactive material this whole time?"

"It shouldn't affect you that much, but I would still get out of the capsule if I were you. The recovery ship will be there in about an hour, hang in there!"

"Will do!"

=============================

"Dalton!" shouted insignificant pilot #1, as he burst into Dalton's office.

"I'm busy, can this wait?"

"We have detected a rocket test coming from the probable location of Jebediah Kerman." Dalton sat up.

"This is certainly big! What sort of rocket?"

"We have no images, just flash and radiation data from old satellites... We really should replace them sometime."

"Yes, I know, that's in the budget. But what do we know?"

"The rocket flew a lofted trajectory and may have disintegrated partially into its arc. We were able to track at least two pieces. But here's the bad part... Because one of our old radio measurement satellites happened to fly over at the right time, we might have detected a substantial amount of nuclear material onboard."

"How do you even detect this stuff from that far away, it seems a bit weird! How certain are you of the radioactivity?"

"We got lucky with the satellite placement, and we are only 60% sure... It could have been a sensor malfunction."

"Or it could have been an ICBM test. Get your plane out there immediately!" said Dalton.

"The air show, Dalton! It's a week long!"

"Who in their right mind schedules a week long air show that mandates using EVERY SINGLE PLANE?"

"I believe that was you, Dalton."

 

========== Part III, A Forgotten Past

"Come on, Miteny! It will be fun!" said Angie enthusiastically.

"With the ever looming threats of cave-ins, getting lost, and not being able to talk to the mothership due to the gigantic wall of rock we'll be beneath?"

"You knew it would be dangerous when you signed up for the space program."

"Good point, Angie. But we're not staying in there any longer than we need to - we're doing the science and getting out. Let's get this over with." The two Kerbonauts entered the massive cave, systematically taking samples, pictures, and measurements. After several minutes, however, something happened."

"Ow!" yelped Angie as she tripped and fell.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THE SPACE BATS ARE ATTACKING!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

"Calm down, Miteny, I just tripped on a rock. Space bats?"

"We're in a cave, you know?"

"...Right. Space Bats." She was about to keep walking, but she noticed a small patch of metal where her foot had struck. "Odd." she brushed it off with her glove to reveal...

"An RCS port?" shouted a shocked Miteny. "But nobody has been here before, we're the first! How could this have gotten here?"

"I... I don't know, Miteny."

"But," she continued, "I have a sneaking suspicion that we weren't the first ones to come here," she said, as she pointed towards a distant, thin line in the dust - a trail of footprints. During the walk to the location a quick search of records indicated that there had not been a lander mission within 100km of their current location, the closest being Tylo Outpost Two, a small multi-modular base built before the war. After several minutes of following the well used trail of footprints - Kerbal sized - they found a strange, secure looking hatch.

"Well... shall we go in?" asked Angie.

"No way, we need to tell the crew on the mothership first!" said Miteny. "What if it's a trap or something, and we get lost?"

"A valid argument - but I'm just too curious!" Angie pressed every button on the control panel at once, and the old, green, text only display came alive.

WARNING - INSUFFICIENT BASE POWER. BACKUP POWER SYSTEMS ACTIVATED. WARNING - OXYGEN SYSTEMS NONFUNCTIONAL. WARNING - CORRUPTED DATA FOUND ON DISK. WARNING - DOOR INOPERABLE.

"Great, the door is inoperable!"

"Miteny, this is an actual T-150 base computer, dating to about sixty years ago! Let me check the serial number... 006. Odd. That one was scrapped and thrown into a junkyard... So how did it end up on Tylo?"

INITIATE EMERGENCY EXPLOSIVE DOOR, Y/N? WARNING - OPERATION WILL RENDER BASE DOOR PERMANENTLY INOPERABLE. Angie Pressed Y.

STAND BACK. 5... 4...  Miteny and Angie stepped back, and a few seconds later, an explosive charge fired that sent the door flying above their heads and into the cave.

 

"Woah! That's seriously long! How was this even built?" exclaimed Angie. "Come on, let's go!" she said as she entered the strange underground tunnel.

"No thanks, I'm staying up here, we don't know what's down there!"

"So you want to stay up there and be attacked by space bats?"

"I thought you implied that they weren't real," he said nervously, beginning to follow Angie. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he muttered under his breath.

 

"This next door requires a password... Hmm... KSC doesn't work... Kerbal doesn't... Jebediah doesn't... Password doesn't... 1234 doesn't... P@$$\/\/()R|) doesn't..." she tried several more. "Miteny, can you science the door to death, or something? That's your job, right?"

"Sort of, I guess." a thought hit him - he truly hoped he was wrong as he tried a password for himself. The door popped right open.

"Way to go, Miteny!" said Angie as she clapped. "What was the password?" Miteny paused for a second. "Miteny, what's wrong?"

"The password was USKN." Angie gasped.

"No!"

"Yes It's actually a very weak password, but given the isolation - "

"But how did they get here? We knew about their small orbital battlestation... But building all this? This would have required In-Situ construction far beyond the technology of the time!"

"I don't know, Angie. Let's go in - we'll find out more that way." The door slid aside and the two stepped into a small airlock area, long since broken, with a hatch in the ceiling. Angie went up first.

"It's tiny in here, for all the effort they spent drilling downwards! I think these are two bunks!" she said. "There's also two storage containers, with various tools and food that expired decades ago!" She climbed the short ladder that led to the next section of the module as Miteny entered.

"Look at all of this old electrical equipment," remarked Miteny. "We still don't know what any of this was used for."

"Well, unless I'm blind, there are two computer terminals over there... Assuming they still work, we can figure it all out!"

"Fifty years is a lot for a computer... Even ten years is a lot for a computer! These days, you can't expect a phone to work much more than 5 years!"

"They don't build them like they used to, Miteny. My grandfather's old KerbOS XP still works like a charm, albeit a bit slow. There's a chance." They both sat down at the computer terminals.

Oddly, there was no mouse, everything was controlled by the keyboard. The only other input device was a strange button with a cover, and a key slot, with caution markings around it.

"Okay, I'm turning mine on..." said Miteny on the Right. A whirring sound came from behind the wall and the screen momentarily turned on with the KerbOS 2.3 logo, followed by the USKN's bullseye logo. A startup sound played, and then the computer froze, the audio looped, and the notorious green screen of death came on. "Well, that went well!" A clanging noise was heard behind the wall (vibrating through the seats due to the lack of air) followed by silence. Miteny's screen went black.

"Okay, my turn," said Angie as she powered her computer on. The startup logos and sounds played through, followed by a warning screen.

WARNING - SOME OS DATA CORRUPTED. ATTEMPTING DATA RECOVERY... 25%... 50%... 75%... 90%... ERROR761EXCEPTION_DRIVE_NOT_FOUND

ATTEMPTING TO CONTINUE MAY RESULT IN FURTHER CORRUPTION - REINSTALL KERBOS2.3 FROM DISKS. CONTINUE? Y/N. Angie pressed Y. Four options showed up onscreen - Launch, SecureComm, Personal Logs, and Sensitive Information. She chose Sensitive Information.

INPUT SECURE 18 BIT PASSCODE. Nope. She exited that program and chose SecureComm.

 

SCANNING FOR USKN RADIO SIGNATURES...

TYLO STATION... FAILED

LAYTHE STATION... FAILED

PERIL 27... FAILED

PERIL 28... FAILED

HARBINGER 4... FAILED

POL RELAY... FAILED

ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT SYSTEM VALL... FAILED

MASSIVE JOOL RELAY 1... SECURE LINK ESTABLISHED

PROCEED WITH INTERPLANETARY CHECKS? Y/N She pressed N.

OPEN COMMS CHANNEL, INPUT DEVICE NUMBER. Angie put the number for the Jool Relay into the computer.

CONTACTING... SIGNAL STRENGTH 14%. CRITICAL COMMS ERROR - MAIN DISH 2... MAIN DISH 8... MAIN DISH 3... INPUT ENCRYPTION CODE. She didn't know that, and went back to the first screen again.

"This is ancient software," she remarked.

"Well, the software of the time was capable of much more, but the USKN dumbed this copy down, I'm afraid. Try the "Launch" option." She chose the launch option and a graphic showing two missiles with eight MIRV warheads each showed up onscreen, one red and one yellow.

 

SILO 1 - MISSILE INTACT. FUEL - 0%. ELECTRICAL - 15%. TARGETS ACQUIRED 1/6. RADAR - ONLINE. NOT READY FOR LAUNCH.

SILO 2 - MISSILE LAUNCHED. FUEL - N/A. ELECTRICAL - N/A. TARGETS HIT - 0/0. RADAR OFFLINE. TARGET FAILURE - NO COMMS.

LAUNCH ORDERS:

Y26KN M5 D7 - - - CODE RED - LAUNCH ALL MISSILES - SILO 1 TYLO OUTPOST 2. MIRVS: 1 - ROVER. 2 - BASE MODULE 1. 3 - BASE MODULE 2. 4 - SCIENCE LAB. 5 - ISRU TEST. 6 - ESCAPE LANDER. 7 - BACKUP. 8 - BACKUP. SILO 2 TYLO OUTPOST 1. MIRVS: 1 - ROVER. 2 - LANDER. 3 - COMMS ARRAY. 4 - CREW QUARTERS. 5 - LANDING PAD. 6 - SCIENCE AREA. 7 - BACKUP. 8 - BACKUP.

YN/A MN/A DN/A - - - CODE N/A - LAUNCH MISSILE 2 - SILO 2. MIRV TARGETING OVERRIDEN - GROUND CONTROL EMERGENCY OVERRIDE.

 

NO INCOMING LAUNCH ORDERS. CONSOLE 2 DESTROYED. INPUT LAUNCH KEY AND CODE.

 

"Wait, missiles?" said Miteny as he skimmed the page. "The USKN put a missile base on Tylo?"

"It would seem so," answered Angie. "Those guys were crazy. How this managed to be constructed in secret, I don't know." She exited the launch control screen and chose the Personal Log screen. Several entries showed up, titled with dates for the most part. The most recent, however, from 42 years ago, was titled "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN." She opened it to find a lengthy message from one of the base's former occupants. She opened, and they read.

 

Given that you are currently reading this, it is most likely the far future and I am probably dead by now... And this summary is a bit of an afterthought, so I'll try to make this brief. I'm running out of oxygen and everything is breaking around me, I'm not sure how much longer this base will last.

My name is Milmon Kerman, and I enlisted as a USKN astronaut for one reason - the KSC had made it almost legally impossible for anyone other than themselves to launch anything into space. This is wrong, they were acting like they were in charge of everything, so we decided to flight back... I'm assuming you know about the cold war that ensured.

Anyway, 6 years before the war I was launched to Jool along with my crewmate, Jedstead, and several others with the USKN's Joolian Exploration Fleet 2, which included the Harbinger 4 carrier with 8 miniature fighters and a deployable orbital bombardment system, the Redemption 8 carrier, a less militarized version, which carried several relays, base modules, and station modules, as well as the heavy fighters Peril 27 and Peril 28. The missions went off without a hitch, and I arrived at Jool 2 years later. We landed on Tylo in secret with a crew of 8 (don't ask me how that worked) and began construction of this missile base using extremely advanced ISRU techniques... This entire enclosure is mostly built into a section of underground cave itself, so that wasn't too hard... That took a year. The base contained two missiles, which in the event of a war would be targeted at the KSC's bases.

I then went back to orbit and served 1 year at the Laythe station and 1 year at the Tylo station... Then it was mine and Jedstead's turn to man the missile center. Down we went again. After this timespan, we were scheduled to go back to Kerbin. However, not one week before we were due to ascend, the KSC launched nuclear missiles without any provocation at all of our bases, and we were given the orders to fire our missiles at the two Tylo outposts. Jedstead and I put the codes in, and he turned his key. But I couldn't bring myself to fire on unarmed bases... Don't get me wrong, I hated - and still hate - what the KSC had become, blocking access to space, building weapons systems with money dedicated to peaceful exploration... But for all intents and purposes, the Tylo Outposts were civilian. Not a hint of military about them.

When he saw that I hesitated, Jedstead pushed me on. Said we had no choice, that the KSC's own fighter was maneuvering to attack our carrier. The Vall OBS had fired its payload already, and our Laythe squadron was attacking. But I couldn't. And then he pulled a gun on me. I still did not turn the key. He shot at me, and missed. Poor thing... the bullet ricocheted  off of a support strut and hit him right back in the face.

 

"Hold up..." said Angie. "The KSC instigating the nuclear war? Weren't they the first one to launch a missile at the actual KSC?"

"There are many different theories leading to the initial trigger of the war. Don't act like the KSC is completely innocent, either... If you seriously dug into our past, you'd find some messed up stuff," replied Miteny. Angie felt the ricochet mark in the wall with her gloved hand.

 

Needless to say,  he died, leaving me alone and stranded on Tylo as the ships battled above me. I sent out distress signals after a week or two, and got no response. The lander was still at the Tylo station. After a year, it was fairly evident that total war had decimated Kerbin, and even the entire Kerbol system. I had not once received another radio transmission. After three years I gave up. With no other real choice, I just stayed here, and eventually figured out how everything works... And that brings us to today, eleven years after the war ended. The base is falling apart, the oxygen is running out, and my only possible escape is to strap myself into one of the missiles and shoot myself into orbit... But, the software on those things are airtight. Hacking them was extremely difficult, but in the end I managed to remove the MIRVS and adjust the gyroscopes so that it would mess up the angles and hopefully put me into orbit.

From there I'm going to try getting to the station, and seeing if anything is left that can get me out of the system... It may not be much of a plan, but it's the only one I've got... And don't even ask if I can test it with the other missile first. I had to use parts from it to get the other one fully functional - 17 years does not go well with missiles.

So, wish me luck - I figure that there's a 50/50 chance I'll end up dead, but it's better to smash into a surface really fast then to slowly run out of oxygen.

Milmon out.

 

"Wow, that's..." began Miteny, unable to finish his sentence.

"Rest in peace, Jedstead and Milmon," said Angie. "I didn't expect this find to be so... dark."

"Well, while we're here, we might as well get as much knowledge as we can. Nobody from the KSC knew this place even existed until now. Now, where are those missiles," he said as he got up from his chair and through the next hatchway. Angie followed him.

"Well... There it is," said Angie.

 

 

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid will Continue...

 

 

 

 

 

[roboslacker]

Well, you just blew my mind

[obney kerman]

Well... interesting.

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 45 - J.A.V.E.L.I.N.

 

Spoiler

========== Part I, Jailbreak

 

"And for the last time," said Kathlenna, "No funny business! We are armed!" Indeed, the crew of the ITV-016 Explorer was armed... however, due to the fact that no weapons were included on board, they had just pried a few of the less-needed metal struts from the inside of the bay that the Dres runner had formerly occupied, before its demise in Dres's massive canyon. They had sharpened the struts, and secured all of the hatches besides the ones from the makeshift prison area to the airlock.

"We got it!" said Carol as she snapped her helmet into place. After a refueling trip to another Dresteroid, the 016 had rendezvoused with the 019 for two reasons - one, to refuel it, and two, to transfer the crew back. They had extensively stripped the 019 of any manual control systems - it was controlled by pre-programmed input as well as externally from KSC. It was to make a journey back to Kerbin, carrying its three occupants safely back to Kerbin where they would be formally arrested and tried - for stealing the IRV-001, the EAV-Dragon, the ITV-019 "Homecoming," and the Dres Runner, as well as attacking two Kerbonauts and threatening at least a dozen more.

"You may now proceed through the first hatch," said Doodard Kerman over the ship's intercom. The three Space Pirates obeyed.

"We are all through the first hatch," said Milvy. "Let me guess, now it's the second hatch?" she said sarcastically.

"No - well, yes... But that's not really that - " said Doodard as Kathlenna took the microphone back from him. "Hatch 2, people. Move it or lose it." Gerdock, who was behind the trio, nudged them forward with his strut-spear. A few minutes later, Carol, Milvy, and Tomfurt were EVA, and a minute after that they were in the stripped down Homecoming - now a prison ship.

 

"Well, Tomfurt, it's been fun," said Carol. "I wasn't really going to go anywhere but Gilly, and now because of you, I've been to Eve, Gilly, and Dres! I have no regrets. What about you, Milvy?"

"Well... my parents. They are really against this sort of thing - but the important thing is - what about the Monolith? We failed him! With those samples, plus the rest, we could have made a portal and saved everyone. But nobody believes us, and the samples are 150 meters aft, that might as well be a million miles!"

"And poor Tomfurt... 100 years on Dres."

"Hold on..." said Tomfurt, his voice having aged tremendously... "And, we are now out of communications with the 016!"

"Wait, what?" asked Carol.

"I wanted to tell you earlier - did you really believe I spent those 100 years just sleeping?" he said, eyes wide with enthusiasm, like an evil villain about to show off his evil plan.

"Well, actually, I did," said Milvy. Tomfurt opened a secret compartment on the inside of his ancient spacesuit. He took out a very small flask with a very narrow tip containing a very tiny amount of a lime green sand type material and held it up for the other two to see.

"What is that?" asked Milvy. "Wait, don't tell me... that's magic, isn't it?" she asked excitedly.

"I have renamed it Graviolium, but yes, in my hand I hold eight grains of Magic - out of the thirteen grains I was able to find on the entire planet!"

"You searched the entire planet?" asked Carol.

"In a hundred years, you will do anything to get home. Unfortunately, this was not enough to get home... I used some of it to summon a computer. But, what is left is just enough to teleport seven living bodies, say, 150 meters aft?" Milvy and Carol were somewhat shocked, but smiled excitedly back. Tomfurt carefully squeezed seven of the eight grains into his palm.

"I am so ready for this - where to next?" asked Milvy. There was a loud clank as the two ships disconnected. The ITV-019 Homecoming was now uncontrollable from within.

"Jool," said Tomfurt as he focused on the grains, which grew brighter and brighter, and brighter, before there was a blast of energy - and Tomfurt, Milvy, and Carol were teleported to the ITV-016 Explorer.

 

"Yes, it worked!" said Tomfurt. "There was a 50% chance I'd accidentally turn our heads inside out!"

"Wait, what?"

"To Jool!" said Tomfurt, as he expertly maneuvered the 016 despite his antiquity. "But first - a short stop." The engines started up once more, pushing the ITV-016 away from the ITV-019, which now had a crew of four, and would be, in time, safely sent back to Kerbin.

============

"I was right about them!" shouted Gerdock excitedly. "I WAS RIGHT!"

"Yeah, we know, you've only said it 27 times," said Kathlenna.

============

A few days later, KSC was in an uproar, stopping at nothing to regain control of the pirates' new ship. And failing. The crew had temporarily disabled communications systems, and Tomfurt hacked all of the computers to prevent any takeovers. With 100 years on the surface of Dres and a summoned computer, he had learned to do this very well.

The crew had finally arrived at their destination - Sparky Asteroid 1.

Tomfurt had briefed his crew on his plan, which would help them complete the monolith's quest in a very large way, if done right knocking out the two hardest celestial bodies. This plan would require tremendous power - hence the need to come to the asteroid.

"Oh, sweet Graviolium!" cackled Tomfurt. "The power! THE POWER! I HAVE WAITED 100 YEARS FOR THIS MOMENT!!!"

"He's going crazy," whispered Milvy to Carol. Carol ignored this and asked Tomfurt a question.

"Tomfurt - isn't it a little, you know, big, to carry all the way to Jool? We might need to find another one."

"You think too small," responded Tomfurt as he went EVA over to the asteroid and grabbed a small piece of Graviolium, about a gram. Using a small fraction of it, he conjured a magic wand, with intricate woodwork and an ivory base encrusted with mystic gems.

"I didn't know you were a wizard, Tomfurt!" said Milvy.

"I am now. Well, actually this is mostly for show," he admitted.

"Can I have one?" asked Carol.

"No."

"Come on, Tomfurt! Why not?"

"Because I know what I am doing, I spent 100 years on Dres studying this stuff. Anyway, Abracadabra!" he said as he pointed the wand at the asteroid. In an instant, it shrunk and changed color.

"Okay, now we can grab it," said Milvy.

"No," said Tomfurt. "I only did that so it would be less mass to teleport - I got rid of most of the rock and made the core solid Graviolium. We are now going to teleport to every planet and moon except for Jool and the Sun - those will require specialized vehicles - and get surface samples. We will finish this."

"And what about Jool and the Sun?"

"As for Jool..." said Tomfurt slyly. "I didn't spend all of those years on Dres doing nothing." He took out a small USB stick from yet another compartment in his spacesuit, still on EVA, and plugged it into a conveniently located USB slot on his wand. He took aim at the pale blue dot that was Kerbin, and shot the code across millions of Kilometers.

"Wait, you didn't explain!" said Milvy.

"And I don't have to, it will be apparent soon enough. Now, to get the Jool samples!" he said as he re-entered the ship. Using his wand much more, he concentrated on the ship, and just as he was about top make the jump...

"STOP!" shouted the Monolith across the void of Space.

"AAA!" said Carol, severely frightened and startled.

"Hello old friend," said Tomfurt, the Monolith's apprentice. "It's been a long time."

"Or so I've heard. I am sorry about what happened to you, and my lateness in responding, but we can save greetings for later. I forbid you to teleport!"

"But we're so close!"

"And you, my friend, are overestimating both the magic - or as you are calling it, "Graviolium," and the ingenuity of the KSC's designers -"

"Hold up, KSC? We're getting KSC involved?" said Carol.

"Hush. I know Tomfurt's plan, and I'm sorry, Tomfurt, but the amount of magic in this boulder is not sufficient to create a solar ascent vehicle."

"Not sufficient? What are you talking about, of course it's sufficient, it's enough magic to throw Jool into the sun for Pete's sake! The KSC will design it, after we ransom them into building a Jool Ascent Vehicle - "

"Hold up - Jool Ascent Vehicle? SOLAR Ascent Vehicle?"

"YES, Carol! Keep up! We have to do it eventually!"

"TOMFURT! Look here. Tell me what you see."

"I see over 100 kilometers per second each way. Not ideal, but doable."

"Maybe with parts with high mass fractions. But not with parts that have to be shielded from Heat. This design will inevitably fail, no matter how good. There is too much that can go wrong with a moon sized ship."

"Sorry to interject," said Milvy, "But why not just teleport a small bit of the sun right here, and cool it with the magic?"

"Excellent thinking, Milvy, but that is not how the Magic works. The planets are all made of weak Vabolarchium, which is breakable. In fact, the Kerbals back home figured out how to efficiently mine in it decades ago. However, each chunk must be teleported separately. Without a fractured piece, we'd have to teleport the entire sun. And in case you haven't noticed, it's pretty much impossible to fracture a nuclear furnace made of plasma."

"So why don't we teleport to the sun for a split second?"

"The graviolis given off by the sun interfere with a lot of magic, especially that close in. Especially teleportation, for a large solid or gas, the precision is enough, but any living creature would be scrambled and die in agony. Not to mention the heat shielding that would be necessary."

"What about sampling a solar flare?"

"That's not the surface."

"What if we freeze the sun, or part of it, then fracture it and teleport it?"

"One does not easily freeze a giant nuclear furnace. It is doable, but we would need at least ten times the magic we have now."

"What about nudging the entire solar system so we miss the black hole entirely?"

"We could have a hundred years ago, with a hundred times the magic."

"What about - "

"That's enough, Milvy. The point is that I don't know how we are going to do it. There, I said it. You know now. I'm saying we should conserve this magic boulder for as long as possible until we know we can safely get a surface sample from the Sun."

"So we have to do interplanetary transfers like Mortals?"

"We are all Mortals, Tomfurt. Even me."

"...Well, the sun is a dead end for now, but, what about the other part of my plan? The Jool plan?" asked Tomfurt.

"I approve."

"Yay! When's the next Jool window, let's get going!"

"Two hundred and eighty four days."

"Son of a Kraken."

"The Deep Space Kraken is no laughing matter."

"I know, I know, sorry. Back to waiting with our transponders off."

"One more question, Mr. Monolith," asked Milvy. "What if we cannot get a surface sample of the sun? What happens then?"

"..."

 

========== Part II, Ransomware

 

 

Wernher Von Kerman was speechless.

Linus Kerman was speechless.

Gus Kerman was speechless.

Bobak Kerman was speechless.

S.A.M. Kerman was speechless.

Rick Kerman was speechless.

Gene and Mortimer would have been, too, if they hadn't been off-world and currently oblivious. The KSC's communications had been taken mostly offline, allowing for only a single channel of data between the KSC and any ship. No telemetry, no science, no voice... Just a single ping saying "we are here."

A meeting was called.

 

"A Jool Ascent Vehicle is impossible," said Gus Kerman."

"Nothing is impossible!" said Wernher. "What makes you think that?"

"At surface level on Jool, no engine produces any thrust due to the pressure."

"Then we develop a new engine!" said Mr. Von Kerman.

"Can't!" said S.A.M. "The Experimental Engineering Division is the only group with experience making new engines in the past several years - and our software is encrypted. We cannot make a new engine! And besides, it's what, 20 kilometers per second to ascend, accounting for drag?"

"We cannot lose the files!" said Bobak. "Mission control is already in chaos, and who knows about the ships out there? We just got back into contact with the Eve group, they have barely even talked to home, and now they can't again!"

"Well, what else can we do?" asked Gus.

"We could cut the nozzles on Vectors off to lead to increased thrust, but specific impulse would be abysmal... Wernher, run the math!" said Linus.

"The resulting vehicle would cost at least fifteen million funds."

"AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!" shouted Rick, who was Mortimer's replacement, as he had been sent to Jool.

"And that's not accounting for the launch vehicle."

"AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!"

"Or the transfer stages."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!"

"Or the testing, with a vehicle this big things will explode, and - " Rick collapsed onto the table.

"Somebody call an ambulance, I think it's heart attack!" exclaimed Judy Kerman, a high ranking PR official.

"Phone software is encrypted!" shouted S.A.M. "Whose idea was it to connect EVERYTHING to a computer?"

"I'm okay," slurred Rick as he sat back up. "I had a bad dream where a vehicle could have ended up costing a billion funds."

"That's real," said Bobak. Rick fainted again, and paramedics were manually called via an electric alarm system.

"Money is no object, we must do this!" shouted Linus. "What about hacking the computers back?"

"If I may interject," said Gavin Kerman, the head of computer technology, "I have already delicately probed the software and it made my graphics card self destruct as punishment. But from what I saw, it would take me a hundred years to make something that would crack it, the next best ransomware isn't even on the same order of magnitude as this!" The paramedics arrived (wow, that was quick) and took Rick to the hospital.

"It's just the KSC, right? The other computers on Kerbin are okay, I hope?" asked Wernher.

"Yes, they are fine," replied Judy.

"Can we use them?" asked Bobak.

"Not without rewriting the software, that would take weeks at best! Even our isolated backups were hit... how is that possible?" said Gavin, still in disbelief. A thought struck Wernher - maybe the space pirates were right about the Monolith. It was not thought to be possible to infect thousands of computers at once from millions of kilometers away - as well as isolated backups. He would look into it later.

"So, let's focus on what we can do - build the vehicle," said Judy. "Wernher, how long would it take to build just the ascent vehicle with our current workforce?"

"If we rush, a month," replied Linus.

"Son of a Kraken!" shouted Bobak.

"How about the entire aerospace workforce?"

"Maybe a week and a half, but what about the launch vehicle?"

"We can save that for later, we just have to get it to LKO! It should be able to SSTO, maybe."

"GRR!"

"This is impossible!"

"Seventeen million funds just for the vehicle, no new developments..."

"We're screwed."

"It's getting hot in here, I'm going to turn on a fan," said Linus.

"Like that will make anything better!" shouted Bobak. Linus turned the box fan in the window of the administration building on, and it blasted him with air... refreshing air. He turned it all the way up. And then had a thought.

"Linus, stop hogging the air!" said Gavin. Linus ripped up a stray sheet of paper and turned the fan around, releasing the paper through it, watching the pieces fly away.

"Linus!"

 

Linus slowly turned around, in disbelief. It seemed so simple - why had nobody thought of it before? But then again, he was part of the same race that invented rocket engines years before ladders.

"Guys, I think I figured it out."

 

========== Part III, Kitty Hawk

 

 

"Test 1, you are cleared for attempted takeoff."

"Yeah, yeah, Georgebro. This thing isn't going nowhere! Where are the jets, where are the rockets? And all of the tanks are drained, there's nothing for it to go on!"

"I don't know how it works either, but this may be our best hope of getting our files back."

"It can't really be that dire, can it?" asked Davney, a test pilot, who was very old school and did not often use a computer. Therefore, he had not seen the ransom message.

"The formula for mystery goo is encrypted," said Georgebro. A loud gasp came from Davney.

"NO!"

"Yes. Only two people know it. One of them is probably dead on Eve, and the other one is missing, who knows where."

"Yes. Gene and Jeb. How do I get this thing going?"

"Apply full trim right, turn SAS off, activate stage one, cancel trim."

"Got it. 3... 2... 1..." The massive assembly on the front of the modified Albatross III detached, and slowly spun to life.

"That's just reaction wheels and containers of nuclear death, it won't move, see? I told you?"

"Release the brakes, Davney," said Georgebro. Davney released the brakes, and to his utter amazement, the beast began rolling down the runway.

"What?" asked Davney. "Where are the hidden jets?"

"None."

"Catapult mechanism?"

"Nope."

"You've got to be pulling my leg!"

"I'm as amazed as you are."

"This is impossible!" shouted Davney as the plane gained speed.

"No," said Linus, listening in on his radio feed form the side of the runway.

"It is unpossible."

=====================================================================================

As it turned out, the electrically driven device, dubbed a "Magic fan" by some and a "Propeller" by others, was terrible at reaching a high speed. It was even worse at gaining, or even maintaining altitude. Top speed was around 30 meters per second, just above stall speed. Davney was barely able to turn, and came within centimeters of the surface on occasion. It didn't help that he was piloting a craft as revolutionary as the first rockets, that by all he knew, should have been impossible.

In a very daring move, Davney attempted a flight over R&D. He barely made it, almost taking out the observatory and a few AC units. After what seemed like an eternity, Davney completed an entire loop of the KSC.

And promptly proceeded to wreck the test vehicle due to insufficient altitude.

 

This "propeller" device made the job of the engineers significantly easier. A few days later, the kinks were mostly worked out, and two propellers, jam packed with expensive RTG's, were attached to the very first test vehicle of the J.A.V.E.L.I.N.

 

Jool

Ascent

Vehicle - 

Extreme

Likelihood of

Intense

Nausea

 

And sure enough...

...It looked like it was working.

 

The engineers, with a lack of their craft files, needed a transfer ship. Down into the hangars they went, until they found the fifth Intrepid Model 2, after the ITV 012, 013, 014, and 015. It needed upgrades, and the launch vehicle had been cannibalized, but using found hardware and good old fashioned ingenuity they were able to piece one together.

The ascent went perfectly... and the Intrepid Test Vehicle 027 reached a stable Kerbin Orbit just a few minutes after liftoff.

And a genius name was concocted, which was totally not a mixture of the song titles the mission controllers had been listening to during launch: Dragon Parade.

The eagle eyed among you will notice that 026 was skipped... 026 is a special ship. Not insanely special, but special enough to retain its number through its unfortunate delay. Rest assured, though... It was almost ready.

 

 

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid will Continue...

 

 

[obney kerman]

Magic "Propellers"? What is this heresy?

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 46 -  An Unexpected Visitor

 

Spoiler

========== Part I, One Down, One Up

"ARMY 4 away," said Podpont. "Anything to declare, Gemma?" Gemma said nothing, as per usual. However, Podpont had a closer look at her nameplate, something he never bothered to do before. Apparently, her name was "Gemna" not "Gemma." The fact that nobody had noticed that before was very concerning to Podpont - they were supposed to be professionals. If they had missed the name of someone they had worked with for two years, what else had they missed?

The ARMY 4 was the fourth lander in the Tylo Army, as the name would imply. It was the first to make the descent unmanned, and hopefully the last. It was aimed at the larger landing site, and its goal was to rescue the two Kerbals (out of four there) who did not have an ascent vehicle.

 

Also, probably due to the lack of Kerbals onboard, ARMY 4 became the first one to land with fuel still in the outer tanks.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the moon, Angie and Miteny prepared to return to orbit onboard the ARMY 3. They would have stayed another Tylo day (a surprisingly long time) but unlike the others at the main landing site, their mission was only set up for short term science operations.

Takeoff from Tylo was much less stressful than landing, it was only a much larger version of the Mun at this point. The extra gravity didn't affect ascent as much as it did landing.

"Do you think we'll see more of Milmon?" asked Angie loudly over the rumble of the engine.

"He's dead!" responded Miteny. "Riding a missile with a preprogrammed trajectory, untested, several years old, modified, into a rendezvous? He'd have to have Jeb levels of badassery to pull that off! Not to mention that the whole thing was built in situ on Tylo, with custom 1.875m parts, nonetheless."

"Who knows, maybe he was Jeb level."

"I doubt it. He's Jeb, you know."

"We can't go forever without surpassing Jeb. There are two Jebs now, you know... With all that parallel universe weirdness. I wonder when we're going to get to the bottom of that."

"First off, the second Jeb is not Jeb level."

"Sorry, what? That doesn't make sense."

"He was taken from a time before the war. He doesn't have the Project Intrepid experience, he doesn't have the piloting experience. This was before Octavius, before The SSE V disaster. He comes from a time before we had landed people on the moons of Jool!"

"Okay, I get your point, Miteny."

"Going by Jool experience, WE are more Jeb level than the second Jeb!"

"Well, that means Milmon was also above one of the Jebs." There was a pause.

"...Touche."

 

========== Part II, Delta V

 

---3 months earlier---

"Hello?"

"Hello, Katie, this is S.A.M."

"S.A.M.? THE S.A.M.? Of the Experimental Engineering Division?"

"Yes, you've heard of me. And you are Katie Kerman, second Mayor of Minmus, and one of the Kerbals teleported in from another universe."

"You know who I am?"

"Yes."

"You realize you're really famous up here, right?"

"So I've been told. Listen, we have a request and an announcement."

"An announcement? Is the fleet of SSTOs finally ready?"

"No, unfortunately - "

"Aww."

"More delays. The new NERV engines and the new, 2.5m RAPIER engines are not performing as well from a reusability standpoint, I'm afraid. Plus, we just lost our second prototype due to inadequate brakes causing a water landing. It will be a while."

"Weren't they supposed to be carrying civilians by now?"

"Yes. And weekly cargo from Kerbin. When we sent the ITV-020 to Eve, we did so thinking we would be able to resupply you and we aren't. I'm sorry."

"So what's the request and announcement?"

"The announcement was the delays, unfortunately. But the request... you're mostly done with the first part of the City. You've also proven you can build Intrepid level ships, as evidenced by the ITV-021."

"Thanks! I worked on the windows!"

" - Yeah. Anyway, before we set you loose on Phase Three - "

"Phase 3? You mean we're almost ready to build the Big Sp-"

"Yes, that thing. We can't do that until after the 020 has completed its mission at Gilly, which is still top secret, I'm afraid."

"Oh."

"But, before we do that, we need to ensure that you can build high tech parts with a reasonable accuracy. While the 021 worked well initially, we are discovering some construction flaws which are affecting performance."

"Is the crew okay? I would hate for Jeb 2 to die!"

"Probably. If their ship fails, they can transfer to the 011 once they get to Jool. But for now, the biggest problem is Mortimer complaining about the A/C. But, the point - we want you to build a high delta-v spaceship using large scale application of ion engines."

"Ion engines? Our Xenon synthesis project has barely managed to produce a few kilograms so far!"

"Which is why I need you to give it top priority. This vessel will be the ITV-026. You will find additional specifications in the email I sent you. Good luck, Katie."

"Wait, but -"

"S.A.M. out."

 

---Present Day---

 

 

Daphzor Kerman stood on the gantry that led to the ITV-026, the second major ship built on Minmus. It was notable for a number of reasons - it was the first Intrepid Test Vehicle, and the first vehicle of the new Kerbal Space Program to be powered using ion engines. And boy, did it have a lot of ion engines. Due to difficulty scaling them up, 48 normal ones were in use on the ship. It was also the smallest Intrepid Test Vehicle (besides the three miniature models), smaller than even the ITV-021. It had no Mk3 crew sections, despite the crew size of six. It was also the first Intrepid Test Vehicle built to study the sun.

But above all, it was the first expendable Intrepid Test Vehicle.

All nine nuclear engines, and 32 of the 48 ion engines would be dropped before the mission ended. It may seem like a waste, but when studying the sun, there is only so much you can do with a single staged spaceship. Daphzor Kerman, the ship's commander, prepared to take off.

The nine engines ignited, propelling the 026 into Minmus's sky. It arced over after a while, and did its Kerbin escape burn while still in the SOI of Minmus.

Soon, the first two nuclear cores were jettisoned. The central core ran lower and lower on fuel, until it was manually cut off. The original plan was to burn the stage to depletion, but the crew got concerned with just how close they would be getting to the sun - their periapsis was at half of Moho's orbital altitude. They would make multiple passes, closer each time, to make sure that they would not melt.

The ship was christened the "Flamedancer."

 

========== Part III, Deja Vu

"So what else are we going to put on this Jool ship?" asked Linus."

"Well," said Wernher, "I think we should send a Nauseometer probe to measure Jool's poles."

"Ooh!" shouted an intern. "Are we accepting ideas? How about an ISRU base to refuel the Laythe planes!"

"And a proper light transport ship, like Gilly Hoppah!" said another.

"Let's make it ion powered!" shouted Bobwig.

"No, think of the expense!" replied Rick, appalled at the thought of so many ion drives.

"What about a generic nuclear lander?" said another intern.

 

"This is turning into that time when we launched everything for the Creativity," said Wernher. "Yay!"

First and foremost, the JAVELIN was launched. The KSC needed their files back to proceed any further without extreme difficulty.

The final version of the JAVELIN had a nuclear transfer stage attached in order to get it into the required Low Jool Orbit.

As soon as the JAVELIN had docked, the scary ransomware message went away and the KSC's files were decrypted, with a small warning popping up every now and again saying that if the KSC tried anything to stop the space pirates from getting the ship, the files would be re-encrypted.

Next up, much to the anger of Rick, a shuttle-style ion transfer ship was launched with a few Kerbals on board.

The ship was called the M.I.T.T.E.N.S. which stood for Moon Ion Transfer Tug, Electric, Not Stupid. The acronym was suggested by a visiting middle school student.

Next up was a general nuclear lander for Bop, Pol, and Vall which could double as another transfer ship if necessary. It was Dubbed A.R.M.O.R., which stood for Advanced Rocket Moon Orbiter/Retropropulsive lander. So I guess if you docked the two ships you'd have Armored Mittens.

The lifter was an SSTO, though, and was jettisoned really close to the ITV-027 Dragon Parade. So close that it hit it, which broke a fin and gave the ship a bit of a scar, but nothing serious.

Next up was a very controversial launch. The KSP employees in general wanted to catch the space pirates. They had caused enough harm, and had scared the entire place for several days after the whole ransomware incident... if they couldn't get them before the Jool ascent attempt (which was widely regarded as a stupid thing to do which would get at least one of the pirates killed) due to the ransomware, they would arrest them afterward. But, they might not come peacefully, or they might try to run.

Cue the controversial launch.

Powered by two nuclear engines, housing a crew of two, and possessing twelve Impulse 8 unguided Ibeam missiles, and two guided liquid fueled ibeam missiles, the unnamed space fighter as hopefully going to deter the pirates from running away and stealing another ship.

Although if they stole the space fighter, another visiting middle schooler pointed out, the entire Jool system was screwed.

Then came a Laythe ISRU base, complete with skycrane.

Then a lab module for studying negative gravioli particles at the future Jool Space Station that the ITV-021 was going to build when it got to Jool.

And lastly, the Jool Polar Nauseometer probe. This was it for the Dragon Parade, despite the fact that it still had seven (!) open docking ports. It was getting dangerously burdened with payload. Some people considered using the ITV-009 Intrepid, which was currently in medium Kerbin orbit, as another Jool ship, but decided against it as it was potentially a crime scene.

Using the Localized Artificial Gravity detector in the Gravioli lab, one of the scientists was able to measure the L.A.G. at level 804, which was the highest ever measured on a single vessel.

The ship, which had some of its tanks emptied for launch, would have to refuel at Minmus before departing for Jool. No problem, though, as the window was still a long time away.

 

========== Part IV, Dunarian Cliff Diving and other extreme sports

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Keep calm, Joey! Pull up!"

"I AM PULLING, MAYL!"

"Just keep calm - "

"I AM LAUNCHING A SPACESHIP OFF OF A CLIFF OF AN ALIEN PLANET AND YOU EXPECT ME TO BE CALM?"

"You were trained for this."

"YES AND THEN LEFT FOR A YEAR AND FORGOT IT ALL!"

"Point taken."

Joey Kerman was piloting his ship, the ITV-022C Applesauce. It had previously tipped over upon landing. Fortunately, as he had landed on a cliff, he was able to launch off it and pull up before hitting the ground and becoming a bug on the cosmic windshield.

"Okay, you're going upwards again, Joey! Woohoo!"

"I am never going to do that again."

"Just land vertically this time. This should be easier, the land near anomaly two is nice and flat. You don't have to precision land on a mountain ridge."

"Thank the lord. Okay, speed is sufficient. I'm now on a suborbital trajectory."

"Is anyone going to talk about how AWESOME that maneuver looked?" chimed in Martin, the other one of the three people currently in the Duna system.

"It did look pretty cool," admitted Mayl.

"Okay, nearing space. Bye, Mayl! Bye, Martin!"

"Remember what you did the first time!" encouraged Martin.

"Except for the tipping over part," added Mayl.

"Not helping!" Several tense minutes passed.

"Drogues are out, deploying mains!"

"You got this, Joey!" said Martin.

"Oh. That's a dust storm," said Joey.

"Ooh, not good. Turn on your radar altimeter."

"It's been on the whole time. Why do I always get the tough landing conditions? You guys didn't have to land in a dust storm, or on a cliff!"

"Focus on the landing, DON'T PANIC!" said Mayl.

"THAT'S NOT HOW YOU GET SOMEONE TO NOT PANIC!" panicked Joey.

"Here we go again," said Martin.

"Mains are out. 500 meters. 400 meters. Engine ignition, gear down... 200 meters. 100."

"And..."

"YES! YES! YEEEEEEEESSSSSSS! IN YOUR FACE, GRAVITY! SEE? STANDING UP - VERTICALLY! BOO-YAH!"

"You owe me five funds, Mayl!" said Martin.

 

========== 2 hours later

The dust storm had subsided fairly quickly, and while Martin had been able to land really close to the targeted Anomaly, he was still five kilometers away. He still had enough fuel for Ike and the return home, with some margin, so he did a quick hop to get closer after repacking his parachutes.

Joey now had a 67% success rate for landings on alien planets. He briefly considered hopping up and down a few meters several times to improve that, but he decided it wasn't worth the risk. He exited his capsule, walked around a bit and looked for the anomaly. It was nowhere to be seen.

"Odd," he said, and then checked his map - it was actually still 200 meters away, behind a hill. So he began walking, until he crested the ridge and saw it.

"Woah... that's not natural." He walked closer. He saw... a face on the object, not super obvious, but there... He was only a few meters away now.

"Hi there," he whispered as he reached out to touch it with his gloved hand.

"Hello," replied the strange object in a deep, ominous, sly voice.

"AAAAAAA!!!!" shouted Joey as he ran back. "ALIEN!"

"Yeah, I know. Get over that. Joey, your presence here was not anticipated, but will be useful indeed. I see your ship has a lot of delta-v left."

"How do you know my - "

"Get used to it. I know a lot of things. Now, Joey, can you do me a favor?"

"Who are you? What favor?"

"It starts with a rock... Preferably that one, right there. Go on, pick it up."

"But who... What... How..."

"Pick up the rock, Joey." Joey hesitated before kneeling down and picking up one of the millions of ordinary medium size rocks that dotted the surface of Duna.

"Alright, sheesh, I picked up a rock. Now tell me - who are you?" There was a short pause.

"Me? I am the master of the planets, the entity of order, the first one to defeat the Deep Space Kraken... But, most of all, as I hope you will come to understand, I am the one who will save us all. Welcome, Joey Kerman. I am the Monolith."

 

 

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid will Continue...

 

 

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 47 - Still Alive

 

Spoiler

 

*CLUNK*

"Captain Shepsel, did you hear that?" Asked Valrigh, the ESREP's flight attendant.

*SCREEEEEEEECHHHH*

"That's not normal," observed Shepsel. "Probably the drills hit something metallic. I'll check them."

"Shepsel, the drills appear to have auto-retracted."

"Why in the world would they do that? I'll check the manual. Wake Camfrey."

*BUMP*

"Sir," said Valrigh, looking out the windows, "we appear to be moving."

"Moving?"

"Yes, I suggest we turn the brakes on before we hit any-"

*THUMP* The plane hit a rock and bounced, now going several meters per second.

"Valrigh, the brakes are at 200 percent! We're sliding down the hill!"

"Great, just great. How long is the hill?"

"Way too long, approaching 20 meters per second!" there was another loud "THUD" as the plane rolled over another large rock.

"What's going on?" asked a drowsy Camfrey.

"We've got too much fuel onboard and we're sliding downhill!" shouted Valrigh. "The hill looks like it goes on for a long time!" Camfrey leaped up from his bed and into action.

"Captain Shepsel, retract the solar panels!"

"I'm on it!" shouted Shepsel.

"We're approaching 40m/s and it doesn't look like we're going to stop any time soon!" said Valrigh. "We could crash."

"How much fuel do we have?" asked Camfrey.

"Surely you can't be thinking about -"

"Yes, I am. We're running out of options, Shepsel!"

"About 90%."

"Retract drills and close cargo bay!"

"Doing it now," said Valrigh as Shepsel and Camfrey slipped into their seats.

"Attention passengers," announced Shepsel over ESREP's intercom, "This is Planetary Airlines flight 003, departing from Undeveloped Airfield, Eve, to Peregrine Site, Eve. Please fasten your seat belts."

"WOOOHOOO!!!!" shouted Camfrey with a grin.

"And, we have takeoff!" said Shepsel.

"Okay, hopefully the 90% fuel load will be enough to get to Peregrine Point."

"Sorry, what's Peregrine point, Camfrey?" asked Valrigh.

"Oh. It's what we decided to call the place where Gene and Leah are. Because that lander came in too fast and exploded, and Peregrine Falcons are fast."

"...Okay. But weren't we supposed to be going to the crash site of the crew?"

"We might not make it on 90% fuel, and plus, it's night. We can't see a thing, so we're going with the least risky flight plan we can."

"And, engine cutoff. Cruising speed has been achieved."

"Shepsel," responded Camfrey, "You can't say "cruising speed." It's not really a speed, we're pretty much on a parabolic trajectory with some glide, we're not running under engine power."

"We're an airline, we need to function like one."

"If you say so."

Several minutes later, the ESREP had slowed to a very tame 138m/s and was gliding towards Peregrine Point. A few minutes after that, it was making its landing approach.

"Okay, easy does it... gear down, lights on."

"Don't forget the brakes."

"Got it, Camfrey.

"50 meters... 20 meters... 10 me -"

*KA-THUMPSMASH*

"And, touchdown! Valrigh, update the log!"

"Alright, Shepsel!"

 

Planetary Airlines Flight 001 - KSC, Kerbin ---> Minmus City, Minmus. Duration 1 week.

Planetary Airlines Flight 002 - Minmus City, Minmus ---> Undeveloped Airfield, Eve. Duration several months (clock fixture has broken and I don't want to ask the others).

Planetary Airlines Flight 003 - Undeveloped Airfield, Eve --> Peregrine Point, Eve. Duration 10 minutes.

 

"Okay, taxiing around closer to the lander... Wow, that thing is really broken!" said Shepsel.

Shepsel taxied the plane slightly past and uphill of the EAV 5 lander. "Okay, crew, we have stopped, prepare to disembark. Oh, and unlock the rear hatch so we can get back in, Valrigh."

"Roger."

"Finally! We've been on Eve for several weeks, I'm finally going to walk on Eve!" said Camfrey enthusiastically.

"Not sure why you'd want to. The purple dust gets everywhere, it rains rocket fuel, the atmosphere is toxic, and everything is radioactive."

"Good point, but we've come all this way, save for the last four meters, and you've forbade us from exiting."

"I don't want to risk a crewmember. Anyway, listen up, we hadn't planned for this so soon, but here's the plan. We're documenting the scene, digging the graves, ripping the files off the suits, burying Leah and Gene, and getting out of here."

"Shepsel, what if they are still alive?"

"Half a year on Eve with no supplies? I wouldn't bet on it."

"The others survived."

"The others had supplies from the ship, these two would have had to carry it. Valrigh, do you have the shovels?"

"Yes, sir!"

"But what about regrowth?"

"Camfrey, if the bodies were fresh, maybe. Not if they have been dead in a furnace for months on end."

"But still - Gene's a genius. What if they are alive?"

"Well... I suppose we should be prepared for any eventuality. If by some miracle they are still alive, get them into the plane as fast as possible. But I can see from here, there's a suit and it seems to be partially buried in purple dust."

"Can I bring a flag?"

"Alright, enough questions. Let's go, this shouldn't take longer than a few minutes."

"See, Camfrey? Dead." Shepsel reached out and brushed the dust off of the nameplate. It was Gene.

"Oh. Rest in Peace, Gene Kerman." said Valrigh. A tear slid down her face. "And Leah?"

"A moment of silence?" asked Camfrey.

"No. We should get moving, and get off this rock as fast as possible."

"You know, Shepsel, not everyone hates space exploration."

"Gene loved Space Exploration, and look at where he is now," he replied as he knelt down and began extracting the data from Gene's suit computer, and collected his long dead Kpad. Valrigh and Camfrey dragged Leah's body out from under the lander and did the same. "Odd," remarked Shepsel. "There's only one file here. Something must have gotten corrupted along the way."

"Leah's files appear to be fine," said Valrigh. "What does it say?"

"Normally I'd say we'd read it once we got back in, but it's titled "IMPORTANT." Let's see."

 

This is Gene - my suit battery is about to die, I don't know how long I have to write this. Back on Duna, Valentina Kerman attempted to put herself into hibernation using strange gases, and it succeeded, preserving herself for fifty years. However, despite attempts by the Experimental Engineering Division to replicate this, no similar long term solution has been found. Val can only remember part of the formula she used. I have, as a last ditch resort, mixed mystery goo and Evian soil to produce a gas as similar as possible to the one Val might have used. Should this work, we will be placed into a state of hibernation. However, unlike Val, we will not have a constant source of oxygen and are probably technically dead as you are reading this. If this works, you should be able to reintroduce oxygen into our suits and we should come back alive after a few minutes.

It won't work, though. I only barely thought it out a few minutes beforehand. Check Leah's logs for our journey. The only reason this could possibly work is due to the composition of mystery goo, and that will remain secret for the time being. You must go and rescue the others if you have not already, about 100 kilometers west. Good luck and Godspeed. If I am dead, I hereby appoint Linus Kerman as the new head of the space program, and ask that Jeb tell him the Mystery Goo formula. I would also like to declare my love for Leah Kerman, although that never could have worked in the long term... Business and all. And the fact that I am and have always been very socially challenged.

Lastly, if regardless of whether I am alive or dead at the time of reading, Project Intrepid must continue. I know not whether it has been two months, or fifty years, but you must look forward, the stars are our only hope now.

 

After Shepsel had finished reading, there was silence for a short period of time. Eventually Valrigh spoke up with "I'll go get the extra oxygen gear. I sure hope this works."

"How could it?" asked Shepsel. "One guy would have to be pretty lucky to get the right formula after the entire Experimental Engineering Division failed."

"Val was lucky," said Camfrey. "Val may be wiser than Gene, but Gene is way smarter than Val."

"You do have a point." The oxygen tube was connected to Gene's spacesuit, as well as a charging cable. The suit whirred to life and began restarting all of its critical systems. They did the same with Leah.

And waited.

And waited.

 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, after about fifteen minutes, Shepsel was convinced that they were both dead and had started digging the graves. And then, Gene twitched. Only Camfrey saw it. Then he twitched again. And moved his arm about an inch. Shepsel's eyes widened and he dropped his shovel.

"Great Scott, he's alive! Valrigh, prepare the medical kit!"

"On it!" And a few miraculous seconds later, they could hear coughing coming through Gene's microphone.

And then he stood up.

"Gene!" shouted Camfrey in surprise. Gene kept coughing, and ended up falling back over. The trio helped him back up.

"Gene! How many fingers am I holding up?"

"How the Bop am I supposed to know?" he coughed. "My face is covered in purple dust and my eyes are as dry as Moho!"

"Wait, your suit seal failed?" asked Camfrey, somewhat shocked. These suits had been designed to survive almost anything.

"Gene! Welcome back to the land of the living!" said Valrigh.

"Water," he croaked.

"Oh!" she said. "Right. Anyone got any spare water? Shepsel?"

"No. Camfrey?"

"Nope, YOU were the one that said we were only going to be outside ten minutes!"

"I'll fetch some," said Valrigh as she ran back towards the ESREP.

"Leah," said Gene, while coughing. "Where is Leah?"

"Oh, mulch. Is Leah moving yet?" asked Camfrey.

"Twitching," replied Shepsel. "Check her suit's seal."

"On it, captain."

"How..."

"Shh. best not stress your voice any more. Valrigh's getting some water for you."

"The mission..."

"Your radio signal reached us. Without that we wouldn't have known anything was wrong. We sent several ships - The ITV-023 Valkyrie, with two transfer ships, the ITV-024 Avalon, the test article for the Valentina, with pressurized rovers, an ascent vehicle, several probes, and an exploration plane."

"The... others..." said Gene, his voice very hoarse.

"They are all fine," responded Shepsel. "We landed one of the rovers near them, they are all fine." Gene relaxed a bit.

"Leah's seal is fine," said Camfrey, "and she's coming around. Gene, let me see your suit for a second." Gene let him. "Yeah, the Evian sand has worn away at the suit for quite some time. These seals are toast, they'll hold air decently well, but not for a long time. We'd better get you inside the plane, Gene."

"I've got the water!" said Valrigh, carrying 2 thermally insulated 2 liter water containers. Gene eagerly accepted one, and using the EVA straw attachment, was able to drink. He gulped greedily for several minutes until both containers were dry.

"More," he asked. Valrigh went back to the ESREP once more.

"Are you up to speaking?" asked Shepsel.

"I think so," responded Gene, much less hoarsely.

"KSC has some questions for you, they just came in via radio right now."

"Be honest," responded Gene, "is it the KSC or the press?"

"This guy knows his stuff," said Camfrey.

"Well now that you mention it," said Shepsel, "you deserve to know more than we do now. Ask away, Gene."

"No time for that!" he said. "Whatever I managed to make kept Leah and I alive for months, or, wait, what year is it?"

"Same year. You were under a few hundred days, our ship's clock broke and we haven't bothered to fix it. We took the first transfer window."

"Thanks, err, Camfrey. That's your name, right?"

"Yes, Gene."

"That's besides the point - we now have a very strong lead in the search for a long term hibernation system! Do you know what this means?" he asked excitedly.

"No, not really," said Valrigh, who was back with more water. She gave one container to Gene and went over to help Leah up, she was breathing again.

"If this works crazy long term, we don't have to build generation ships to evacuate Kerbin! We could make the living space ten times smaller! Think of how much more possible this just got!"

"Well now that you mention it, this is huge!" said Camfrey.

"I need to talk to Jebediah Kerman and S.A.M. Kerman immediately," he said. "Which ship should I email? Where is Jeb now?"

"Well..." began Camfrey.

"No! The Intrepid failed to return to Kerbin?"

"No," said Shepsel. "But Jebediah Kerman is missing. The Intrepid entered Low Kerbin Orbit, we sent an SSTO up, but by the time we got there, nobody was there."

"Hmm. That's not - " a new coughing sound came over the radio. Leah's coughs.

"Leah!" exclaimed Gene, who began running over, only to trip and fall, faceplanting into Eve.

"Careful, Gene!" said Valrigh. "You haven't used your muscles in months!" Gene stood pack up, sputtering, as the impact had loosened up more of the purple dust that had leaked into his suit, sending it everywhere, his mouth, his hair, his eyes.

"Shepsel, how radioactive did you say the Evian surface was?" asked Camfrey, concerned.

"I didn't. Gene, we need to clean you up ASAP."

"Yeah, just a minute," he said as he half stumbled, half crawled towards Leah.

"Oww," coughed Leah.

"Leah!"

"Gene?"

"And me too," said Valrigh, who happened to be right overtop Leah, attaching the EVA water straw extension. "Drink, you'll want it."

 

========================================================================================================

 

"So you guys sent HOW MANY ships again?" asked Leah.

"Let's see," huffed Valrigh who was running back to the ESREP yet again for more water, "The 023, the 024, the polar glider thing, the Scansat, the ESREP, the Eve Ascent Vehicle, and the 020."

"Wait, back up," said Gene. "You launched the 020 to Eve? It was badly needed at Minmus!"

"Not quite," said Camfrey. "Base construction was nearly done by the time it left with 400 Kerbals, but SSTO production has been badly delayed, only 2 have flown so far."

"Hmm. Why the 020 though?"

"That's classified, something to do with Gilly."

"I need to speak with S.A.M. You probably don't know."

"Correct, sir. I'll get you in touch after we get you back on the ship."

"Did you catch the space pirates?" asked Leah.

"Err..." said Shepsel.

"Well..." said Camfrey.

"Don't tell me they made it to Dres!"

"Yeah... and they've successfully ransomed us into building them a Jool Ascent Vehicle."

"WHAT?"

"It's really complicated and breaks the rules of known physics, but -"

"Guys, I don't want to alarm you or anything," said Gene, "But my eyesight hasn't quite fully focused yet... I can see the vague outline of the plane in the distance, but I can't really tell what it looks like."

"Leah, is your eyesight fine?" asked Camfrey.

"Yes," she said.

"It's probably the dust Gene got in his eyes."

"And the ascent vehicle," asked Leah. "What is it like?"

"Utterly Massive," responded Shepsel. "Seats for sixteen Kerbals."

"How many Kerbals are on Eve right now?" asked Gene.

"Well, there's the five of us, the two that came down on the first roverplane, and the eight crewmates you had. So, fifteen. The ascent pilot is still in orbit, she should be coming down in a few hours to check out the ascent vehicle and start the drills. That will max out our ascent capability."

"Wow, sixteen!"

"Wait," said Gene, "I think I see it!"

"That's a rock, Gene... goodness gracious, the nearest place that makes glasses is millions of kilometers away, what will we do for you in the meantime?"

"I need to speak to S.A.M." he insisted. "The ESREP is this way, right?" he asked, as he walked in the wrong direction.

"EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE WAY!" shouted Valrigh, who was frantically running towards the group. Everyone turned to the direction of the ESREP, and it was barreling towards them. Shepsel jumped sideways, narrowly avoiding a wing, Camfrey got lucky and didn't have to move (but he was frozen from fright), and Leah tackled Gene to the ground to avoid the rear landing gear.

"No! That's our ride!" shouted Valrigh. Everyone watched in anticipation as the plane barreled down the hill before turning perpendicular to the slope, and luckily managing to come to rest against a rock.

"Phew. That was close," said Shepsel. "Camfrey, get back to the ESREP, figure out what caused that. Gene, Leah, is there any flat land around?"

"None," required Leah. "Maybe a nearby hilltop? That's my best bet."

"WOAH." said Gene."

"What?" asked Leah, concerned.

"THAT THING IS HUGE!" he said excitedly. "I thought it was just going to be a tiny cockpit and a hitchhiker or two powered by a Vector!"

"If this continues," whispered Camfrey to Shepsel, "he needs to see a doctor. No pun intended."

"It looks like two things fell off, though," said Gene. "I can just barely make out two white things over there."

"Oh..." said Shepsel as his face fell.

"Well..." said Camfrey.

"For starters," said Leah, "That's a nosecone from the old EAV. The other piece, on the other hand..."

"You!" shouted Shepsel. "State your name, occupation and rank!"

"Uhh..." said the strange Kerbal. "I can explain."

"Name, occupation, and rank!"

"I'm Brian, alright!" he said, shrinking back. "I was just an intern! Some guys decided it was funny to lock me in the bay airlock!"

"Wait, what?" said Gene. "A stowaway?" Brian gasped.

"Gene!" he exclaimed. "Head of Project Intrepid!" he bowed. "Huge fan!"

"You are in big trouble!"

"I banged and banged on the hatches, but nobody heard, and next thing I know there's this huge BOOM and a whoosh, and then I'm just floating! For a week! And then we land, probably on Minmus, I bang some more, and nobody hears! Then I'm floating again for a few months! The light bulb in the airlock went out! I've been surviving just on the extra long term supplies stored in there!"

"So that's what the banging was," whispered Camfrey. Gene's accusations turned towards the crew of the ESREP. "So you never checked the airlock? At all? Wouldn't you have found him when you got out onto Eve?"

"Well..." said Shepsel, "on Minmus we used the cabin's hatches, and we only just first walked on Eve now - "

"You've been on Eve how long and didn't walk on the surface?" asked Gene, appalled more at Shepsel than at Brian.

"...Safety. Anyway, just now we exited the hatches out the front and used the ladder that wasn't long enough to get up while unlocking the airlock to get back in."

"Safety?"

"We're on Eve, Gene. You should know that!"

"Four meters won't make a difference," said Gene.

"Finally! Go Gene! Whoo!" said Camfrey.

"Anyway," said Valrigh, "Going back to get the water I just went into the airlock for the emergency supply, quickly in and out."

"I," said Brian, "was in the cabin at that point, enjoying some wiggle room. I sent a distress message to Kerbin and grabbed one of the spare suits to come and talk to you!"

"Good call," said Gene. "But why did the plane just start sliding then?" Gene, with his impaired eyesight, was talking to the nosecone.

"I went out the airlock, and stepped on the brake release lever. That thing is dangerously close to the ladder rungs, who designed it?"

"It's okay, Brian," said Leah. "We're not going to leave you here or anything, we're all in this together. No, don't cry, really it's okay, I promise we'll get you home!"

"But wait!" said Camfrey, and he groaned. "That's sixteen Kerbals! The pilot is still in orbit, she can't come down!"

"Ahh, that's certainly a problem."

"How old are you, Brian?"

"Seventeen."

"Ooofff... well, congratulations, Brian, you are the youngest Kerbal to have ever walked on Eve. Someone email this kid's parents, they probably think he's dead." It was at this point that Leah noticed a piece of paper on the surface. Probably nothing, she thought, but she grabbed it anyway with the intent to put it in the trash later.

"We'll have to fly it via probe control!" exclaimed Shepsel.

"Wait a second, Shepsel..." said Leah. "The pilot may not be coming down, but you're forgetting something - you have me. The most experienced person in the universe at flying Eve Ascent Vehicles."

"Yes!" exclaimed Camfrey. "Houston, we have a pilot!"

"Hey, I'm a pilot!" said Shepsel.

"An airline pilot, as am I. But here, we have a lander pilot, one of the most trained Kerbonauts in the recent years."

"I do feel obligated to mention that the ascent vehicle almost melted on the way up," said Gene.

"Well," said Leah, "the only comeback I have to that is that you're scared of heights."

"Fair enough. Let's go kick Gravity's butt! Again!"

The crew reboarded the ESREP, and quickly used what little fuel was left to bring the plane to the flattest piece of land around, a small nearby hilltop. They then set about redeploying the mining drills, contacting Kerbin, and cleaning up Gene.

And then - the Pilot, the Copilot, the Flight Attendant, the CEO, the Astronaut, and the Intern got a well needed meal, and some well needed rest.

 

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid will Continue...

 

 

On another note, I have started reading the story to my sister, and going back to the beginning... yikes. YIKES. Half of the names are spelled wrong and I confuse characters often, and the early references to the future of the story turned out to be conflicting... before Chapter 48 I'll be editing the first 15 or so chapters for clarity's sake. I'll copy and paste the originals somewhere else, although the chapters will stay mostly the same.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Chapter 48 - A Liftoff, a Landing, and a Short Drive through a Radioactive Wasteland

 

Spoiler

==========Part I, Signal Flare

Two days earlier...

"I present, Launch Complex 3," said Jebediah. "If all goes well, the second to last launch complex that the Order will ever need."

"Fantastic!" squealed Albert, grinning like a maniac. "It makes me wonder just how big Launch Complex 4 will have to be!"

"Depends, Albert," said Jebediah. "How many people did you say we needed to get to the Mun again?"

"350 should be about good," responded Albert. "Of course they need to have a means of return, oxygen, food, water and science equipment for however long we stay, which will probably need to be several months..."

"I can do 150," responded Jebediah. "I may be a miracle worker, but we're talking about a Mun colony in a single launch, built by 500 mid-level construction workers. No offense."

"None taken. Is it possible to stretch to 200?"

"Maybe. Let's not focus on that though. Albert, it's T-5 minutes, you should be getting in the command pod right now. The others are waiting."

"Right!" said Albert enthusiastically as he ran off towards the rocket, with a very big and visible spring in his step. Several minutes later, five people were around the base of the rocket - Jebediah, Albert, Kay, Reyma, and Shercott.

"And you're sure you two can handle Mission Control by yourselves?" asked Albert.

"Yes," Said Jebediah. "That was pretty bad, Gustav getting sick at the last minute. Good thing we've got Shercott!"

"Hi," Shercott said awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

"Just remember your training and you'll be fine," said Jeb.

"Well, then," said Reyma. "For the poles!"

"For the poles!" repeated Kay, Albert and Shercott. Jeb reluctantly echoed them.

"See you in a few days!" said Jebediah. Albert pushed a button on the side of their cab and waved to Jeb and Shercott.

 

"Okay, they're gone!" whispered Jeb as not to trip his suit's microphone (the sensitivity of which had been set very high by Bob, who had taken a clandestine shortcut through the ground control software room earlier that morning). "Quick, Shercott, back to control!"

"Wait, what?" responded Shercott.

"I think I found a way to get us out of here! We have a plan!" he hissed. "So I packed the command pod with - "

"Hey Jeb!" shouted Albert, waving. "I can see for miles up here!"

"It's definitely quite a different view from the top, and it's only going to get better from there!" said Jeb, loud enough for the microphone to register.

"What's the time?"

"T-2 minutes!" said Jeb. "Shercott," he whispered, "let's get to control. So as I was saying - "

"Wait," said Shercott, whose microphone wasn't even in the launch loop at all, "Remind me why we're leaving again? I'm actually enjoying this."

"You mean you want to STAY with these lunatics?" said Jeb, not expecting this. "Who have security around you 24/7? I had to give Gustav a laxative just to make sure I had 2 minutes to talk to you! They have most of the stupidity and all of the weapons of the Flat Kerbin Society at their disposal!"

"Well, they have jetskis. And water-skiing. And are genuinely enthusiastic about what they are doing. Val seems to enjoy it just the same as me. Plus, they have a point, the polar energy has to come from somewhere."

"Yes," Jeb hissed, starting to march over to the control facility, "Even I have to admit they have a point. But look around! They're a bunch of idiots, for pete's sake!"

"They're not all idiots!"

"As I was saying," continued Jebediah, "They have a point, but it should be investigated by professionals. If they're right, then that kind of power will require professionals to deal with it. I'll tell the KSC when we get back."

"Hey, wait up!" said Shercott as he left the base of the elevator.

"The command pod on that rocket is filled with a very powerful radio transponder, set to broadcast on the KSC's emergency frequency all the way to the Mun and back. They should hear the message and rescue is. The message is something along the lines of "Hey, we were kidnapped and are being held against our will! Here are our coordinates!""

"That seems a bit harsh!"

"It's the truth."

"No mention of how they have a theory that might save the planet?"

"The theory is a stretch."

"What will happen to these guys?"

"I have no idea, Shercott."

"Because if we do this wrong, wouldn't Maya be - "

"Maya? Who's Maya?"

"Nobody," said Shercott a little bit too quickly.

"Oh no, not now!" said Jeb, extremely annoyed.

"Launch gantry has retracted!" said Albert in excited anticipation. "You're being awfully quiet, Jeb!"

"Uhh, yeah!" said Jeb. "Remember your training, the ascent is preprogrammed, and in case of abort decouple the capsule!"

"I'm still concerned by the lack of a Launch Escape System," said Kay.

"That capsule is built like a safe," said Jeb. "You could hit it with a jet engine powered bulldozer and the bulldozer would crumple in on itself."

"Well, if it's anyone I'd trust, it's you, Jeb!" she responded.

"T-1 minute!" shouted Albert.

"I'd highly advise against making any strong connections with anyone here."

"Maya's not like the others!" said Shercott sheepishly and somewhat dreamily.

"That's what we all say," responded Jeb under his breath, quieter than before. "No wonder Gidrien has been so distant recently."

"Huh?"

"Don't worry, Shercott, we're all blind to that sort of stuff if it's happening to us."

"I don't get what you -" all of a sudden, the hatch to the padside control center opened, and in hopped none other than Gustav.

"Hey, y'all!" he said. "Sorry I couldn't make it earlier, my stomach was giving me problems."

"Ahh," said Jeb, not expecting Gustav to arrive. "Welcome! Glad you could make it, sorry for what happened to you!"

"Yeah, not a happy experience. Fortunately my sister Maya wasn't affected by it, which means it wasn't something we ate..."

"Wait, your sister is - " said Shercott, very surprised. "Wait, you have a sister?" he corrected.

"Yeah. So what's the countdown at?" Jeb glanced at his watch.

"Oh - "

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" shouted everyone as the rocket lifted off from The Order's Launch Complex 3. While the base of the pad had been enough to support the first rocket, it was not strong enough to withstand the blast from this one, which melted and blew away, leaving the launch tower (with its rather impressive rocket powered elevator) to topple to the desert floor.

Jeb, Shercott, and Gustav were very occupied after that, having to explain many things to the three passengers onboard. Their conversation did not continue.

The rocket reached orbit just fine and went through its TMI burn. Jeb proceeded to wait for the convoy of airplanes that would show up to rescue him and his team.

 

The craft landed on the Mun successfully (which was surprising). Jebediah continued to wait.

The camera temporarily broke while on the surface due to a hard impact. The radio transmitter was also knocked out by the harsh impact. Jeb continued to wait.

The craft reentered Kerbin's atmosphere, and landed surprisingly close to the launch site.

And the KSC had not come to rescue them. Maybe the capsule was shielding the transmission, he thought. Maybe the KSC had been nuked again. Maybe the Order was onto him. Maybe the transmission was ignored as a prank. But surely KSC would have detected the launch.

Right?

==========

"Dalton Kerman!" shouted Insignificant Pilot Number One.

"What is it this time?" asked Dalton, annoyed.

"The Desert... While our sensors were down due to the ransomware, they must have launched something into orbit!"

"Orbit?" Dalton sat up. "What did they launch?"

"No telling," said the pilot. "It did come in in a very steep trajectory, indicating that it was launched into an very elliptical orbit. 

 

========== Part II, The Juggler

"Target is in sight," said Podpont. "And because we've had to wait for several orbits, the Creativity is out of communications range. Fun, right?"

"Hmmph." said Gemma, or as Podpont had discovered, Gemna. Her name had been spelled and pronounced wrong this entire time.

"Right. Very Hmmph. Let's call it Hmmph mountain, then! Preparing for engine ignition in three, two, one..."

"Descent is going nominally, ARMY-5 is performing well. Anything to add?" No response.

"Okay, now that we're alone and stuff, there's something I really need to talk to you about," said Podpont. "I know nobody has directly confronted you about any of this, but this is just plain weird. You haven't said more than a dozen real words this entire mission! It's been over two years! Did we offend you in some way? Do you have some sort of disorder, no offense? What is it?"

"I know I'm supposed to be flying right now, but it's going well - I noticed that the name on your suit isn't the name we've been calling you. It's somewhat understandable, the "n" really looks like another "m," but I was wondering if your name isn't actually Gemma, is it actually Gemn-"

"YES!" shouted Gemna Kerman with extreme enthusiasm, raising her arms into the air in triumph, and making the mistake of standing up, which tilted the lander to the side during the final moments of the suicide burn, causing the right hand engine to explode.

"GEMNA!" shouted Podpont, seriously freaking out.

"FINALLY!"

"YOU COULD HAVE COMPLETELY WRECKED THE LANDER!"

"YOU KNOW MY NAME!"

"Uhh..."

"Someone finally noticed!" she continued, joyful. "And now I'm on TYLO! I LOVE YOU, PODPONT! But not like that. I don't think. Like you love a friend. THANK YOU!"

"What part of "Stay seated during a maneuver so dangerous it has "Suicide" in the name" don't you understand?"

"THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"

"Okay, well I won't stop you. Uhh, so why exactly - "

"I HAVE A FRIEND NOW!" she, already being on the surface of Tylo, jumped back up onto the lander and hugged Podpont (although it proved hard in a spacesuit) as hard as she could.

"Woah, woah, um, can I get an explanation? Staying silent for two years seems a little... extreme."

"I'm used to it," she shrugged. "Being forgotten and stuff. I guess I did take it a bit too far..."

"Nobody should be used to being forgotten," said Podpont empathetically, remembering his own adolescent experiences. However, he was still extremely weirded out by the absurdity of this whole experience... What happened to her? There's lonely and offended, and there's "People got my name wrong so I'm not going to talk for 2 years" lonely and offended.

What?

"Yes, I understand. Now, we need to get down to business. I hereby designate you, Podpont, my number one friend, acquaintance, and ally," said Gemna with subtle authority.

"Uhh... What do we need to get down - oh, right! The science mission, we only have a few days at Mount Hmmph and - "

"Oh, I wasn't talking about the science mission, although that is important. Let's start grabbing some rocks!" she said with a smile and enthusiasm, grabbing several Tylo rocks and proceeding to juggle them. "Gravity is amazing!"

"Well, what do you mean, then?" said Podpont, finally getting out of his seat.

"Milmon," she said, now juggling 8 rocks.

"You mean the USKN guy? He's dead! Maybe not immediately, but you can't spend 55 years in the Jool system with no resupply missions! And the odds of accidental death are immense!"

"Jebediah levels of Badassery," she said as she picked up a ninth rock. "He could have easily made orbit, rendezvoused, and taken a craft from the USKN's Tylo station. The question is where he went from there." Podpont just stood there as she continued to speak. "There was the KSC Laythe station, Laythe outpost, the USKN Laythe installments, the Jool station, Bop Base One, the Vall station and outpost, several USKN missile stations... Or he could have gone interplanetary." She picked up another rock, now juggling ten.

"Wait, interplanetary?"

"Of course!" she said. "A big war erupts overnight, the fighting is over in a few hours, save for the interlunar missiles, but those were easily avoided. You're stuck on a Moon. Where do you want to go, Pol?" She giggled, almost dropping a rock. She picked up an eleventh. "You'd initially want to go home, to where its familiar. But when you receive word that your home is a nuclear wasteland, you begin to have second thoughts. Laythe looks good on paper, but then there's the ammonia poisoning and the radiation... You start to consider interplanetary missions again."

"And from there it's just a matter of Delta-V!" concluded Podpont.

"Exactly!" said Gemna, picking up a twelfth Tylo rock and continuing to juggle. "Half the ships in the Jool system could have made it, especially with the handy Tylo assist. Even the final stage of the ARMY landers could, if you figured out a way to land safely on Kerbin."

"...Now this is interesting. I need to tell the others!"

"Alright," said Gemna, now juggling thirteen.

"You don't have any objection?" said Podpont, surprised.

"Nah," said Gemna.

"I just thought, since you've been holding everything in for two years - "

"All water under the bridge!" she said cheerfully. "Someone's finally noticed the tyrannical way in which my name was spelled incorrectly, and did something about it! That's cause for celebration!" She picked up two more rocks.

"Okay, uh, are we going to talk about the fact that you just broke the world record for juggling by FOUR while WEARING A SPACESUIT?"

"Oh, the record is really that low?" she said dismissively. "Besides, almost everything's a world record, we're on a whole new world!"

"But you haven't felt gravity in years! And it's a whole different level of gravity!"

"So?" She let the rocks drop, forming a pyramid of four layers - nine on the bottom, four in the middle, one on top, and one on top of that. "Now, I believe we have a flag to plant!"

"Uhh... yeah. You know, you're really good at that. Like, REALLY good."

"I guess you could say that, not to brag or anything."

"Admitting you're good at something is most definitely not bragging."

 

 

========== Part III, Road Trip

There was a loud "KA-CHINK!" as the two decouplers on either side of Eve Roverplane One decoupled. Hiyya Kerman put the rover into drive and set off, up the hill away from the wreck of the ITV-018 Valentina. And made it 1.3 kilometers before stopping to recharge its batteries.

After waiting a few hours, she drove about 2 kilometers before running out of charge. Slightly better. Take note that the journey was uphill. Just as she was about to crest the first hill, however...

One of the batteries crashed into the terrain, further reducing their range. Fortunately, after one more hill, the group of ten Kerbals found themselves going mostly downhill - setting an Evian electric land speed record of 60 meters per second towards the end of their 84 kilometer journey.

They also had a science mission to do, so at every charging stop they went EVA for a few samples. The most costly diversion, however, was to check out a boring hill, christened "Mount Mundane" by Macfry.

Mount Mundane had taken five charging trips to reach the peak. While the roverplane provided superb accommodations, exceptional stability (and to break the fourth wall, even at 3x time acceleration) and an amazing top speed, there was no denying that - there's no good way to say this - its uphill handling sucked. It was allergic to anything above about ten degrees, and had to loop the mountain in a helix to make it up at all. At slow speeds it would slide sideways down the mountain, and that was almost always, it couldn't manage more than seven or so meters per second in that situation. It was perfectly normal for the direction of travel to be twenty degrees away from the heading.

Only one tire popped during the journey, surprisingly. Initial estimates from the KSC were much higher.

Backing up, why drive 84 kilometers on Eve at all? Well... The plan was to rescue the ten Kerbals with the ESREP and take them to the ascent vehicle. The roverplanes were only meant to be taxis between the landing sites of the ESREP (the inaccuracy of which was surprisingly low) and the target, whether it be a crash site, a far-flung science destination, or the ascent vehicle.

However, the ESREP was supposed to have picked them up by now, and brought them to the site of the ascent vehicle. It, suffering from inadequate brakes, had to take off with less fuel than normal and instead went for Leah and Gene - who were both found alive, although Gene was in serious need of medical assistance. As a result, the ESREP was not there to rescue them... and because of a stowaway, they could not land Roverplane Two or else they would not have enough room on the ascent vehicle to bring everyone home. So, they would have to wait a month or two to get back to work on science, and they didn't have a taxi at the base of operations.

It was Nataemma who came up with the idea. Killing two birds with one stone. There was opposition, at first, mainly from the KSC about how the roverplane was never designed for long distance travel, but the crew was growing restless and decided to make the journey. KSC conceded and gave them the optimal route, which the crew completely ignored. In the end, the trip to the ascent vehicle was made safely, and eliminated the need for another ESREP flight, freeing up another two month long refueling process for an extra science mission slot.

"We're here!" shouted Hiyya Kerman with a grin. The whole crew perked up and clamored for the windows.

"It is real!" said one in awe. The others made similar remarks, and everyone celebrated.

Nataemma was the first one out, as she knew a thing or two about ISRU. She closely examined the engines of the ascent vehicle. Despite being landed on, they were in good shape. The engineers back home had done their job well. And then she looked up.

As anyone who has ever seen a rocket will tell you, it looks a lot bigger up close. She knew that this much power was necessary to get 16 Kerbals off of Eve, but with that much power, a lot could go wrong. It was an Eve Ascent Vehicle, after all - only a few of them ever made it to the surface intact. Only two had ever ascended properly, and one was unmanned, built over fifty years ago.

But it was her best shot at getting home. So, she remotely deployed the ladder, entered the small staging area, and began to work the ISRU as the other nine Kerbals filed in, just as awestruck and excited as her, if not more.

 

 

The Story of Project Intrepid will Continue...

 

 

Two things. One, I'm going to be going on a two week long trip to Europe in a few days, so no new chapters for at least three weeks, unfortunately. Two, we're at seven chapters on this page of the forum, not good for the whole image loading lag thing (or maybe it's just me and my bad internet, who knows!). Good news is that we're 7 posts away from the next page, so feel free to comment or ask anything or something (even if it's a 3 word "wow" or something).

In addition, I'll say a few things about the actual gameplay. I'm still on 1.3.1. There's a bug where upon exiting time warp your vessel will be thrown into the air really fast, on Eve this means several meters into the air. It was annoying when using the rover, losing several dozen meters of hill climbing after each charge. Fortunately, the Eve lander survives the fall without breaking but slides further downhill with each load. The ESREP is doing fine, however, the wheels absorb the (very rough) impact.

Another weird thing I noticed is that the ascent vehicle continues to slide slowly downhill. Once during the gameplay for this chapter it slid into the Roverplane and both of the vessels exploded violently.

Needless to say, I hope to update to 1.4.4 pretty soon.

 

[roboslacker]

Yay content!

[obney kerman]

wow

[Ultimate Steve]

17 minutes ago, obney kerman said:

wow

Is it "wow" or:

 

 

[RealKerbal3x]

@Ultimate Steve will you continue this? I've read the whole thing and it's amazing!!!

[Ultimate Steve]

1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

@Ultimate Steve will you continue this? I've read the whole thing and it's amazing!!!

Absolutely! There's just quite a short list of long things I need to do first. Also, I was in Europe for 3 weeks with no internet access, so that's why there's a long gap.

• Sorting 2,200 pictures based on who is in them, uploading them to somewhere, and sending everyone the links
• Writing the next chapter or two of Voyage: The Final Warning (which is really overdue).
• Maybe going to Colorado for a week in 1.5 weeks
• Attempting another speedrun of KSP, trying to go to every planet/moon and back (in career) in 6 hours or less.

[RealKerbal3x]

1 minute ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Absolutely! There's just quite a short list of long things I need to do first. Also, I was in Europe for 3 weeks with no internet access, so that's why there's a long gap.

• Sorting 2,200 pictures based on who is in them, uploading them to somewhere, and sending everyone the links
• Writing the next chapter or two of Voyage: The Final Warning (which is really overdue).
• Maybe going to Colorado for a week in 1.5 weeks
• Attempting another speedrun of KSP, trying to go to every planet/moon and back (in career) in 6 hours or less.

Well that’s a lot of stuff to do! I can see why the wait might be long. KSP can never take priority over real life

[Ultimate Steve]

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Well that’s a lot of stuff to do! I can see why the wait might be long. KSP can never take priority over real life

Also, glad you enjoyed the story, I got so caught up with the list that I forgot to say something earlier!

EDIT: I have realized that I accidentally made a vague Rick and Morty reference by making Rick Kerman Mortimer's replacement.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Ultimate Steve