Making a Dollar or Two- BOOK THREE

[Confused Scientist]

5 hours ago, TheMadKraken2297 said:

Im not sure but this may be a sneaky Tron reference

Actually, @KSK was more or less right. I didn't intend for the title to reference the Traveling Wilburys, but it does work quite well that way.

"Well, it's all right- even if you're old and grey. Well, it's all right- you still got something to say! Well, it's all right- remember to live and let live. Well, it's all right- the best you can do is forgive!"

[Kernel Kraken]

15 hours ago, Confused Scientist said:

Actually, @KSK was more or less right. I didn't intend for the title to reference the Traveling Wilburys, but it does work quite well that way.

"Well, it's all right- even if you're old and grey. Well, it's all right- you still got something to say! Well, it's all right- remember to live and let live. Well, it's all right- the best you can do is forgive!"

Huh. Accidental references? Who woulda' thunk it! By Tron I meant Tron: Legacy, where there is an exclusive dance club called the End of the Line club.

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 26- The Making a Dollar or Two Twenty-Sixth Chapter Spectacular!

Two songs in, Jeb thought, and this is going great. "Next up," he shouted, "is Radio Free Kerbol!"

He stepped up to the mike for the next song. All the kerbals at the End of the Line muted their conversations to listen to the crew of the Kraken's Spit perform their next piece. All we need is a name, Valentina said to herself in her head. She counted off the band and then Bill pounded on the drums.

Decide yourself where they're gonna stay.
They are running from but not away.
Let them, let them, let them have your say.
This just doesn't happen any day.

Radio broadband,
Decide yourself.

Meet me in the prograde of this world.
Dealing word games making us unsure.
Let them, let them, let them tell us all.
That we aren't one country at all.

Radio broadband,
Decide yourself.

Calling on, in transit,
Calling on, in transit,
Radio Free Kerbol, Radio!

The song went on for a few more minutes, and right as they finished up a messenger came up and said, "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we've seen a strange radar echo on Bop. Your presence is needed in the map room." They followed him to a control room off the main hallway. "It looks like it a black slab about a meter thick, four meters wide, nine meters tall... do you have any idea what it is?"

"A message," said Bob.

"An alarm," said Bill.

"A receiver," said Jeb.

"A hole in spacetime," said Valentina.

They looked at her. "Actually," said Bob, "that sounds about right."

Then a tall kerbal stepped out of the shadows. "I'm Heckroth Kerman," she said, "and it sounds to me you have no idea what you're talking about." Heckroth walked over to Valentina. "Listen," she said, "we need an expedition. We need to find out what's there. This could change history forever- and that might be literal, given what we've heard about this thing."

"But why do we need to go look at it?" asked Jeb.

Heckroth smiled. "Because you're the only ones who know about it. Besides, if the Interplanetary Authority gets their hands on this, they'll find a way to weaponize it for sure. So we're going to load up you ship with sensors and cameras and antennas, and you four are going to deploy an autonomous laboratory next to that thing. We'll analyze it from here- it's less dangerous that way."

"Wait-" Bill stammered. "You're not coming with us?"

"Nope," Heckroth said. "You won't be taking your ship."

"Well, just a minute-" Valentina began.

"It's for your own safety. The IA's got radar all over this system. If they see you flying around, you'll get captured before you can say 'busted.' You'll be taking a four-seat Papaya lander."

Jeb nodded. "Smart. I never would have thought of that, after all of the time we spent between planets where the IA couldn't get to us."

"I knew you'd come along eventually." Heckroth smiled. "Let's get to your ship. Time's wasting."

Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Valentina walked to the spaceport and climbed into a sleek spaceplane with two swept-back wings and a minimal cockpit. "It's not roomy," Heckroth said, "but it'll do. Good luck!" She waved as the Papaya's engines spooled up and Jeb guided the aircraft down the runway and into the black.

They arrived at a rebel-controlled fuel base around Tylo two days later. Valentina took the controls and backed the docking port on top of the fuselage against the capture ring on the station- one that, Jeb noted, was so much newer than the long-forgotten Station One. They all ordered ales from the brewery over the radio before they even opened the hatch, and a friendly kerbal on the other end told them their drinks would be waiting. They asked for a fuel transfer over the radio, and a friendly kerbal on the other end told them they'd be ready to disembark in three hours. They reserved rooms at the station's motel over the radio and a friendly kerbal on the other end told them their beds would be made when they walked in.

Then they opened the hatch, and a very unfriendly kerbal grabbed Jeb's left arm and said, "Bryce Kerman, Interplanetary Authority. You're under arrest."

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 27- Astrocops and Space Donuts

Jeb froze in the hatchway between the Papaya and the Tylo IV station and opened his mouth. "Wha..."

Valentina was quicker to regain her senses and started pulling Jeb back through the hatch. Bryce tightened down his grip and yanked the four of them out, like a chain of paper dolls.

The cop frowned, and unclipped a radio at his belt. "Asimov, you didn't tell me there were four of them." The dispatcher on the other end spoke for a minute. "Oh, okay."

Bryce looked back at his prey and grinned. "No, Asimov, I don't need help taking them to the detention center. I can do it myself. My shuttle's right here." He replaced his radio unit and spoke to the prisoners. "Frankly, I'm surprised you got away with it for as long as you did."

"We did nothing wrong!" shouted Bill.

Bryce snorted. "Oh, come on. You're experienced pilots. You shouldn't have done that."

"Are all space cops as fat as you?" Valentina asked.

Bryce shook his head as he led them down to his shuttle. "Even with all of that Kraken's Spit stuff going on, you should have known better than to take off from Magellan Spaceport without clearance from the tower. I tell ya, we need stricter punishments for folks like you. You endanger entire spaceports!"

"We don't know anything about that," Jeb said cautiously.

The cop shoved them into the prisoner module. "Don't play dumb, son. It'll only get you more time in the joint."

"But," Bob said, "we're actually guilty of someth-"

Valentina clamped her hand over his mouth and Jeb kicked him in the ribs. "You're lucky," Bryce said as he sealed them in the cell, "you're going to the new orbital detention center that was just completed last month. It used to be that all of you low-level offenders had to go to the surface of Tylo." And then he was gone.

The crew of the Kraken's Spit- not that they'd probably get to fly it again- listened as their oblivious guard started the engines on the transfer vehicle to match inclinations with the prison. "When we get there," Valentina said, "they're going to figure out who we are."

Jeb listened to Bryce singing along to loud disco in the cockpit. "Well, probably."

Turn the beat around! "Oh, I will spurn the meat to town!"

"Never mind," Jeb said.

"Anyway, once the IA identifies us as the solar system's most wanted kerbals, we have maybe two days while they prepare a shuttle for us to the surface of Tylo. Once we're there, rescue or escape will be out of the question. The gravity well's too big."

"So if we're going to get away," Bill said, "it has to be in the two-day window."

"Exactly. Any ideas?"

The cabin was silent except for the faint sound of Bryce singing, "Whoa-oh-oh-oh, spraying a pie!"

Jeb looked up. "Do you think the detention center has solitary confinement?"

"No," Valentina said. "They probably keep a pretty close watch on people like us who are waiting for transport to the bigger Tylo prison, but there's probably just a separate wing of the jail for that."

"So they'll let us out of our cells to eat and everything?"

"Oh, yeah." Valentina said. "And for exercise, and music."

Music, Jeb thought. He had a plan. But first he asked, "How do you know so much about this stuff?"

"I grew up in what used to be the Southern States, and one day they took my second-grade class on a field trip of a state prison."

"Okay," Jeb said, "then my plan is simple."

Everybody turned to him. In the cockpit, Jeb tried to ignore the sound of Bryce's pitiful singing voice. Dancing queen- "OxiClean!" Jeb shook his head.

"We will rock and roll our way out of that prison," Jeb announced stoically. "And we won't even have to smash our guitars over our heads."

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[KSK]

So there's going to be a little jailhouse rock then?  

Oh - I can't unhear "Whoa-oh-oh-oh, spraying a pie!" now so thanks for that! Fortunately I wasn't reading over breakfast otherwise 'spraying a coffee' might have been more appropriate. Somebody also needs to tell Bryce that 'Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard, me.'  

[KerBlitz Kerman]

One thing: call Cupcake Landers when you're ready to screenshot stuff, just for craft design assistance (not that you need any help, he's just a genius).

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 28- Criminals Needed, Apply Within

"Twenty-seven dollars in cash, one wristwatch, one rubber chicken, one thousand-dollar smartphone, and one uncashed check to the First Jool Bank. Sign here, Ms. Valerone."

Valentina leaned forward, over the dotted line on the floor, to reach the clipboard the officer behind the desk was holding. Holding the pen in her left hand, she gingerly scrawled an "X" over the line.

"Initial here."

Valentina examined the pen as Jeb, Bob, and Bill stood behind her. "The chain isn't long enough." The officer pulled out a pair of scissors and cut the nylon rope tethering the pen to the desk.

"Say, haven't I seen you before?" The officer at the desk narrowed his eyes as he looked at Jeb. In the corner of the room, Bryce Kerman gasped and looked around desperately for the door. With dismay he realized that the only one that wasn't locked led to vacuum. "You're the Kraken's Spit crew!" He spun toward Bryce. "Get behind this desk. You're demoted. I'm the cop now."

The IA suits traded places, and the officer who used to be behind the desk led them to a cell after taking their mugshots. "We let you out for meals, and to take you down to Tylo three days from now.” He turned to leave, and as he closed the door, added, “Since we believe in rehabilitation for all convicts, you will be allowed to play our instruments at mealtimes.”

As soon as the guard was off down the hall Jeb turned to the others and asked Bill, “You’ve seen the station now. How do you think the plan is going to go off?”

Bill shook his head. “It depends on the location of the speakers, and the stage, and how good the bearings on the centrifuge are. At least I was able to determine that when we run the wheel off its mountings, the airtight doors around the connections will seal automatically. But the rest is guesswork, since they took my accelerometers and my seismometers, not to mention the receiver for them, so we’re just going to be using rough estimates for the resonant frequencies and how the sound waves propagate from the-”

“You need accelerometers?” The voice startled Bob, who was sitting closest to the wall where the disembodied words came from. “You need seismometers? You need transmitters and recorders?”

“…Yes,” replied Valentina.

“Well, I have them. Slide your bunk from the wall.”

Val and Bill got on their hands and knees to find the slot for a pneumatic delivery tube. “Why is this here?” Bill asked. “And who are you?” added Jeb.

The voice laughed again. “You can call me Herlina, and all you need to know is that I give stuff to people who can pay. As for the how, this station used to have a pneumatic delivery system to transport valuables, mostly Tylo surface samples, from one place to another. My cell used to be the mail room for the entire station, but the police somehow didn’t figure it out. Now my brother works in the IA force, and he gets the goods to the station for a cut of the profit. On that note, I have the accelerometers… What do you have to pay me with?”

“Chaos, Herlina,” Valentina said. “Utter chaos.”

After dinner, with the hour of free time Jeb, Bob, Bill, and Val had outside their cell they split up and planted the seismometers and accelerometers in inconspicuous locations near the bearings for the station’s centrifuge. Then they met up at the main stage, and Bill said, “All of the data is being recorded. Now let’s get some data, in one, two, one, two, three, four-"

 

Burning, burning, burning,

Burning, burning, burning,

Burning, burning, burning,

Burning, burning, burning, Spaceride!

 

Burning, burning, burning,

All worth it for earning

Money we’ll be spurning, Spaceride!

Through the blast and nether,

Pale-faced together,

Wishing blue skies were high and wide.

All the things I’m missing-

Good luck and the wind whistling

Are waiting at the end of my ride.

 

Light ‘em up. Set ‘em off.

Throttle up. Full thrust!

Ride it out. Rendezvous.

Spaceride!

 

Set ‘em off! Light ‘em up!

Ride it out! Set ‘em off

Throttle up!

Light ‘em up, Spaceride!

 

After the final call of, “Yah! Spaceride!” Bill looked at the band members and grinned. “The data’s in,” he said, holding up the recorder. It displayed a graph of the vibrations and accelerations the seismometers had felt. “Tomorrow night we’re going to play them an explosive jam they’re not soon to forget.”

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[KSK]

Oh yeahhhh!

And the walls came down. All the way to....
Never saw them when they standing, never saw them when they fell.

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 29- Rockin' Down the House

"I am proud to announce," Mason Kerman growled, "that we have captured the crew of the Kraken's Spit and we are waiting to transport them to Tylo."

Valentina looked away from mess hall the television as the director of the Interplanetary Authority spoke.

"In addition, I have started receiving gene therapy to make myself more like a killer robot."

The reporter frowned. "But that's impo-"

"No words. Just death." Then Mason punched the reporter in the face to end the interview.

Jeb, Bill, and Bob arrived with their lunches and sat next to Valentina. "What did you get?" Jeb asked.

"Slop and nothing," sighed Bill.

"You're lucky," said Bob. "By the time I got up there they were all out of nothing. I have slop and a magnesium flare."

"A magnesium flare?"

"To get enough magnesium, I guess."

"Okay," Valentina announced. "Bob, have you thought of a song that gets the resonant frequencies right?"

"Yeah." Bob leaned in and shared the song with his crewmates.

"I don't know the words to that!" Jeb complained.

Bob shrugged. "No one does. Just fake it- and try to include some stuff about 'shaking the place to pieces'. That's gonna seem real poetic when they check the tapes of our performance."

"Fine. What's our escape plan?"

"As soon as the airtight doors close we'll just take some EVA suits from the supply, and we'll slip out from one of the airlocks. Since the suits were only meant to be worn by IA officers, the cruisers and corvettes assume that anyone in an authorized suit is allowed to pilot the ship. It's pretty easy, considering how much trouble the guards are going to be in if we pull this off."

"Okay," Bill said, "pack your bags. And be at the stage at seven o' clock sharp."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Sound check on one and three."

Jeb plucked the A string. The sound of the guitar washed out over the audience.

"Sound check on two and four."

Another sonic guitar boom rocked the station. Valentina and Jeb looked at each other. "Tonight," Jeb announced to the audience, "we are going to rock this space station apart."

"One, two, one, two, three, four-"

Warden threw a party in the county jail,
 The Kraken's crew was there, they began to wail.
The band was pumped up, the joint began to swing,
You should have heard them shake up the gravity ring!

Let's rock!
Let's rock.
Everybody in the whole cell block,
Was a dancing to the jailhouse rock!

Bob played it hard on the saxophone,
Valentina belted  into the microphone.
Bill sure blew the harmonica well
And Jeb strummed the guitar swell!

Let's rock!
Let's rock.
Everybody in the whole cell block,
Was dancing to the jailhouse rock!

Bob began a saxophone solo when Valentina looked over at Bill. He shook his head. Jeb poured into the guitar, to try to amp up the sound enough to get enough vibrations so their plan would work. They only had one more chance before going down to Tylo.

They were dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing,
Dancing, to the jailhouse rock.
They were dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing,
Dancing, to the jailhouse rock.
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancing to the jailhouse rock!

And then, just when Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val were all playing their instruments as hard as they could even though it was clear their plan had failed, a single inmate in the mess hall began clapping. The rest of the prisoners picked up on the clapping quickly, and then they began to chant:

Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancing to the jailhouse rock!

And then, with all of the extra vibrations echoing through the centrifuge and the spine of the station, twanging and shaking through sheets of steel and rocking bearings, and even the load-bearing columns shaking back and forth to the beat of the drums, the gravity wheel shook free from its mounting points and cartwheeled through space. 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Dfthu]

Oh man this is fantastic, please make more!

[Confused Scientist]

2 hours ago, Dfthu said:

Oh man this is fantastic, please make more!

Thanks! New chapters are posted roughly once a week. I'm glad you enjoy it- I hope that people like reading it as much as I like writing it.

[KSK]

"I am Bill S. Kerman esquire! This is Jeb, Jebediah, Kerman. And we are..."

 

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 30- James Bond's Grappling Gun Never Misses

As Bill ran toward the airlock in the jail's centrifuge, all he could think of was the scene from a decades-old movie where a talking raccoon and a tree had broken out of another space prison. If they can do it, he thought, so can I.

"Over here!" Valentina pointed to a guard station that had been abandoned as the officer stationed there had ran toward the command center in the middle of the mess hall. They ran inside and Jeb locked the door behind them.

"It's a good thing the emergency lighting isn't very bright," he said. "We might have been seen." He pulled four spacesuits out of a locker. "Here, put these on."

The IA suits were designed for easy-on, easy-off operation and soon the Kraken's Spit crew stood in full pressure suit, sans helmet. "We can't leave right away," Valentina said as she snapped on her glove. "We need to control the crowd for a bit. Once we make out break, what kind of ship should we take?"

Jeb mulled it over. "A corvette, I think. It has decent range, but it also has stealth and attack capabilities."

Bob typed at a computer terminal. "There are two corvettes docked to the station. One of them has twenty percent fuel... and the other is on the very end of the docking array. It's probably at least half a kilometer away by now."

"How much maneuvering fuel do these suits have?" Bill asked.

"Just an emergency reserve of fifteen meters per second," Bob replied. Jeb swore.

"It's probably a two hundred meter gap between the centrifuge and the rest of the station," Valentina said. "We'll have to use some magnetic grappling guns to get over to the other side."

Jeb picked up one of the guns from a shelf on the wall. "Son of the Kraken," he muttered. "Thing thing must weigh at least ten kilos."

"We'll only be able to take one," Valentina said. "If that's settled, we should leave now. The sooner the better."

Bob opened the door and ran back into the mess hall. Jeb, Bill, and Val followed him. After running about the crowd for a few minutes they congregated by an airlock. Just as Jeb was about to open the inner hatch, another guard came by. "Where are you going?" she asked.

Jeb enabled his exterior speaker, making sure to distort the signal so his voice couldn't be recognized. "Warden says we need to go out and check up on the rest of the station. Then we're gonna take one of the corvettes over to Tylo IV and get some backup."

The guard nodded and walked away. Jeb and his crewmates piled into the airlock, and Valentina depressurized it.

"When you go outside," Bill said, "you need to hold on to something. You'll get flung off if you don't. Then it's an easy climb to the hub, and we'll shoot our guns from there."

"Have you ever worked on a centrifuge before, Bill?" Valentina asked.

"Once. Back before I went to Minnmus. But there's no time to waste. Let's go!"

All four kerbals made the climb to the hub without incident. With no gravity, but one rotation every ninety seconds, it would be an easy shot to the station's docking hub, a mere two hundred meters from the centrifuge. The only problem was, nobody from the Kraken's Spit had ever shot a gun, except for Bill, and that was in a government training exercise twenty years ago. After Jeb and Bob fouled up their shots Valentina said, "Hold your gun a little further up the barrel. Don't flinch when you pull the trigger, and make sure you use the radar scope." Then she fired her gun and swore as the grapple crashed through a solar panel hanging off the docking adaptor.

"It's all up to you, Bill." Bill squeezed his left eye shut and dug his feet into their restraints. He lifted the gun up to his shoulder, took a breath, and then he pulled the trigger. The magnetic grapple twisted through space, with no friction to slow it down, and Jeb's heart sank as he saw it drift off course. And then, so fast that he could hardly see, a piece of debris from the centrifuge struck the grapple, and knocked it right into the docking adapter. "The electromagnet is engaged," Bill said, before duct-taping the gun to the hub. Then he untethered himself from the centrifuge and went hand over hand to the rest of the wreckage of the detention center. The rest of the crew followed behind him.

Ten minutes later, they were seated in the corvette. "Fuel at a hundred percent, RCS precheck complete," Jeb announced. Then he undocked the spacecraft from the station. "That concludes our first jailbreak."

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 31- Bopping Bop

The corvette sped away from the prison at full throttle, and Bill turned on the cloaking chips and the scrambling signal. "We are now nearly invisible to spacecraft in the IA fleet," he announced. "Jeb, is our objective still Bop?"

"No," Jeb replied as he set the autopilot to circularize at a 130-kilometer orbit. "We need to head back to Laythe."

"Wait!" Valentina shouted. "We can't return to Laythe."

"Why not? This ship has stealth capabilities."

Valentina shook her head. "Those only work in a vacuum. Once we hit the atmosphere all the warning radars are going to glow like a spotlight. What are our other options?"

"Well," Bob volunteered, "there's Vall."

Jeb mulled it over for a second. "No good," he decided. "Too close to home."

"Then what about Pol?"

"That's no good, either. It's too far away."

Valentina looked out the window at Laythe's distant blue crescent. "Then I guess that leaves Bop."

Bill nodded. "We can wait there for the heat to die down."

"Then it's settled," Jeb announced. "Set a course for Bop's north pole."

There was silence for a few minutes afterwards, as the fusion engines pushed the corvette onto a Bop intercept, and then-

"Val, turn on the radio."

Valentina turned and activated the satellite radio control panel. "Let's see, there are a few stations to choose from, would you rather have Ringo Starr's All-Starr Radio Show or Rickrolling: The Radio Station?"

Jebediah shuddered. "Jeez, I'm sorry I asked."

"Now, wait a minute, there might be some music stored on the ship's computers." Valentina tapped around at a console for a few seconds. She was about to tap on the MyTunes icon when the RCS jolted the ship, and her finger jabbed the "Documents" folder instead. Just as she was about to go back to the main menu, however, she noticed a particularly interesting document.

Valentina double-clicked.

The rest of the crew heard her gasp when she saw the drawings. "What's wrong?" Bob asked. He leaned over and looked at the console. "I don't..." He stared. "Oh, my Kraken..."

Then Jeb and Bill came up behind Valentina, and they too were stunned when they saw the diagrams and plans for the singularity device. "Such a thing can't be possible," Jeb said. "Kerbalkind doesn't have the power to create a miniature black hole."

"You better believe it," Bill answered. "If something can be used as a weapon, then someone is going to make it."

Valentina stood up. "If there is a black hole bomb out there, we need to warn people. Get an emergency episode of Radio Free Kerbol ready."

Jeb shook his head. "It's too risky. If we break radio silence and tell everybody about the IA's secret plans, they're going to have our heads."

"But it's for the greater good," Bob protested. "Let's have a vote. All in favor?" He raised his hand, along with Bill and Val. "Then it's settled. We will broadcast a warning from Tylo."

Jeb crossed his arms. "I consider myself a fair commander, so I will not challenge this referendum. But this is the worst decision we've ever made as a crew." His crewmates stared at him. "Fine. Have it your way. But just remember, I warned you."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Valentina stepped out of the corvette onto Bop's pole a few hours later. "You know, my grandma used to tell me stories about how the Kraken had died here," she said. "But all I see is that monolith."

Jeb frowned at her from the cockpit. He had refused to join the EVA. He kept pouting as the rest of the crew set up sensors around the black slab, and then they posed for a picture. When they did, Jeb left his seat and walked over to the airlock, ready to greet the crew on their way in.

The inner airlock door opened. "I'm sorry," Jebediah said, "but I can't let you warn the public. I don't want to die just yet, oh no. Not me." He then grabbed the aluminium pipe he was hiding behind his back and swung at Bob's head. Right after the shot connected and Bob collapsed, Valentina yelled at him.

"You idiot! You're the one that's going to get you killed!" She ducked as Jeb swung his pipe again and hit Bill. As he advanced on her, she leapt from her crouching position over Jeb's head and yanked the tube from his hand. Then she twirled around and used it to grab a roll of duct tape from the utility bay.

"Ah, nuts," was all Jeb could say before Valentina tore off the first piece of tape.

With Jeb duct taped in the corner and Bill and Bob down for the count, Valentina was in charge of the ship. Slowly, she advanced to the communications panel, and began the transmission sequence that Bob had taught her.

"Welcome back to Radio Free Kerbol, and today I have some news that concerns the entirety of Kerbalkind." She cleared her throat. "The Interplanetary Authority is developing a singularity bomb. I repeat, the Interplanetary Authority is developing a singularity bomb. This device creates a miniature black hole with a gravitational attraction equivalent to twice that of Eve's, but with a very limited sphere of influence. The singularity remains intact for several days until it evaporated through Hawking radiation. If deployed around the solar system, they could eliminate the entire Kerbal race with only fifty-seven bombs."

From the background came a groaning noise. "What did I miss?"

"I'll explain later, Bill. Just watch Bob for a minute, could you?"

"Jumping jackrabbits!"

"Ignore Jeb for now. He'll be fine." Valentina paused. "The singularity device could be used to create a starship with infinite range, or it could ignite Jool into a star to make the rest of the Joolian worlds habitable. Instead, it is being used as a weapon, one that could-"

"Torus bombers are inbound at five o' clock!"

Valentina gulped. "This is Radio Free Kerbol, and remember, we're still broadcasting!" she yelled. Then she turned to Bill. "Is Bob awake yet?"

"No."

"Keep watching him. I'll get Jeb out of the tape."

Valentina walked over to the galley where she had stashed Jeb. She pulled the tape off of his mouth, and he hung his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "You did the right thing."

"I know," she replied. "How do you think we can get you out of the tape before the bombers arrive?"

Jeb squinted. "Fire," he said. "Get a lighter and a fire extinguisher."

Only slightly charred, he walked over to Bill a few minutes later just as Bob woke up. "Bob, I'm sorry I hit you in the back of a head with a pipe," he apologized. "You too, Bill."

Bill rubbed a large lump on his temple. "You think? Come on, we need to suit up." The Kraken's Spit crew donned their EVA suits and then stepped out of the airlock to the surface of Bop.

"There they are," Valentina announced, gesturing to two heavy bombers with their VTOL engines keeping them skimming above the mountaintops as they closed in. "I'm almost certain they have singularity devices onboard."

Jeb nodded. "There's only one thing that can withstand that kind of force." He looked at the monolith. "Whatever this thing is, it's been here for millennia. It's probably been hit by dozens of asteroids. It can probably withstand one little gravity shockwave."

The Torus drew closer, and then the kerbals on the ground could see a tiny speck drop out of the bomb bay, slowly float down to the polar plane, falling in the weak gravity that was about to be overpowered by unnatural forces. "Impact in ten," Valentina said, "nine, eight, seven-"

"Six," joined in Bob, "five, four-"

"Three," said Bill. "Two, one-"

"Zero," Jeb said. The bomb hit the ground, bounced once, and-

They were thrown in the air like ragdolls in a hurricane of rock and dirt. Out of the corner of his eye, Jeb could see the brightest light ever seen anywhere in the universe coming from the singularity device, before it was outshone even more from the black slab that had sat directly on the north pole. Its outline grew brighter and brighter, until the light faded, and Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val found themselves lying on the grass and staring at the clouds on their long-forgotten home planet, while behind them, the monolith still glowed.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

BOOK TWO

Chapter 1- Just Like Starting Over

The waves crashed against the beach as Jeb groaned and sat up against the monolith. Around him, his crewmates were engaged in similar acts of recovery from their wild trip away from the moons of Jool. Bill crawled away from the surf as a breeze came in off the ocean and Valentina squinted against the brilliant noonday sun.

Bill lolled his head to one side. "Where are we?" he asked.

Bob closed his eyes as he considered the question. "Maybe this is heaven," he said. "Maybe we died, and this is heaven."

"Some people did think that heaven and hell might be inside of black holes," Valentina murmered. "Does that mean we're the only ones here?"

"I don't know," replied Jeb. "Wherever 'here' may be."

Bob looked around. "First things first. Is this an island?"

"Probably not," said Valentina. "Look over there. Those mountains on the horizon must be some of the tallest peaks on Kerbin."

Something about that last sentence bothered Jeb. Tallest peaks on Kerbin... he thought. Tallest peaks on Kerbin... Peaks on Kerbin... Kerbin... Kerbin...

He jumped up and looked around. "Kerbin!" he yelled. "We're on Kerbin!"

"How can you be sure?" asked Valentina.

Jeb cut his celebration short. "Uhhh..."

Bill came to his rescue. "My suit's atmospheric analyzer matches the oxygen and nitrogen content with that of Kerbin's. But even if we are back home, how does that change things? We're still being hunted by the IA."

Bob nodded. "We need a remote place to hide out. A place like..." He trailed off. "A place like that cabin over there." The kerbals looked over to a shack near the edge of the shore a few kilometers down the coast. "Yes, that would do nicely."

Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val left their footsteps in the sand as they walked down the beach toward the hut. It was only when they were on the front porch that they noticed the fresh tire tracks in the sand next to the cabin. Jeb quickly turned around, but his foot crashed through a rotted plank on the steps down to the sand. "What's that noise?" came a shout from inside the house. The four kerbals froze as the door opened with a squeak, revealing a blonde kerbal with a crew cut standing with his arms crossed over a white vest. "Who are you four?" he said through a frown.

Bob opened his mouth but no words came out. Valentina bailed him out, saying, "We're mountaineers. We were climbing in those mountains, and now we're down here on this beach."

"Really," the kerbal said. "Then can you tell me the name of that mountain?"

Nobody spoke.

"I see how it is. Well, I'll give you ten seconds to leave before I get my shotgun. You're lucky my colleague has gone to town to get some... screwdrivers... or we'd be able to fight you off ourselves. Now, I'll start counting: One, two, three-"

"Wait!" Jeb yelled. "We're the Kraken's Spit crew!"

Valentina elbowed Jeb hard in the ribcage. "Jeb," she whispered, "what are you doing?"

"This one might be sympathetic to our cause," he replied. Then, to the blonde kerbal, he said, "You know? Radio Free Kerbol? On the run from the Interplanetary Authority?"

The stranger stared at them from his doorway. "You're crazy. I have no idea what you're talking about." And he slammed the door in their face.

Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val turned and walked back down the steps. "Come on," Bill said. "I just hope he doesn't report us to the IA."

Val nodded. "It is ironic that on Kerbin, there's not any piloting in the world that can save us."

"Wait!" came a yell from the cabin. "What did you say?"

They turned to face the kerbal, who had come out onto his front porch. "I didn't say anything," Valentina said.

"No, you said you're pilots! Are you?"

"We are..." Jeb admitted.

"And are you good engineers?"

Bill smiled. "We are."

The kerbal came down from his porch and reached his hand out toward Jeb's. "I'm sorry I didn't get to introduce myself," he said. "My name's Gene."

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[KSK]

Heh heh heh.

And so it begins...

[Kernel Kraken]

(Mind blown up all over screen) wait... Did the singularity suck them back in time before the space program? Cause if there were tons of chemical rocket launches, kerbin's atmosphere would be pretty messed up and beachfront property would probably be crowded with buildings... (Brain splatters all over the room)

[SiriusRocketry]

Oh yes yes yes YES! 

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 2- The Plural of Paradox is Paradi, Right?

The five kerbals sat at a table next to a fireplace that had never been lit. "Here, it's freshly brewed," Gene said as he handed out four glasses of lemonade and kept the fifth for himself. He watched as the strangers greedily downed their shares and sighed.

"It's not my business to ask you why you happened to come around these parts, but if you want to tell me, that's your decision."

Valentina glanced at her shipmates. "I don't think you'd believe us. Maybe someday we can tell you."

Gene nodded. "I understand. How long did it take you to build The Bomb?"

"That's not it at all, sir."

"Call me Gene- and if you're trying to tell me you were working on something worse than The Bomb, I don't want to hear it."

Jeb spoke up. "Well, we are pilots. But the enemy captured us. We walked thousands of kilometers to the ocean and months later we washed up on the beach just north of here. If the government knew we didn't kill ourselves when we were shot down, they'd never let us hear the end of it. So we're more than happy to stay here and help you with your project, whatever it is."

Gene looked around. "Follow me," he said.

He led the kerbals out the door and to a shed behind the cabin. Bob noticed with some unease that he had grabbed an extra case of shotgun shells. "In here," he said, holding a heavy metal door open as the Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val stepped into a pitch-black room. Gene closed the door after them. "Get ready..."

He turned on the lights. A primitive jet aircraft stood in front of Jeb. To him it looked like the mutant child of a Kessna and a slug. "I don't get what all of this fuss is about," he muttered.

"Can't you see?" Gene shouted. "There's no propeller. That's what makes this plane different from every other one ever built."

The blood drained from Valentina's face. "...And we need your help," finished Gene.

"Wait. 'We?'" Valentina stammered. "Who's-"

Bob heard the sound of a truck pulling up to the shed and turned around just as the door flew open. "Gene, what are you doing with all of these people in here?" huffed a middle-aged kerbal with a thick mustache and thicker glasses. A slide rule stuck out of his shirt pocket. "This is the world's best kept secret."

Gene turned to him. "Wernher, these kerbals are defectors from our Air Force. They want to help us with this project here."

Wernher regarded them coolly. "Gene, what's this one's name?"

"That's Bill, Wernher."

"So, Bill, what do you know about jet propulsion?"

Bill thought for a minute about just how smart he should sound in his answer. "Well, instead of using propellers to push the air, you suck in air and burn it in a combustion chamber to make power and thrust."

Wernher whistled. "I'm surprised the Air Force taught you all that about something so secret, especially after they laughed at us when we asked for funding. But I know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Tomorrow we all will take a look at it together and see what keeps it from flying. Tonight, you all look like you could use a soft bed. But first, I will cook for you a hearty dinner to welcome you to our club."

He smiled. "And Gene will do the dishes."

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Kernel Kraken]

KNEW IT. HECKS YEAH. this is the best plot twist I've ever seen in a story. I thought Val would ask what year it was, but hmm, whatever. The will figure it out.

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 3- Silver-Studded Wings

Valentina sat in her cot as a small lamp illuminated the room that she, Jeb, Bill, and Bob shared. Outside the window a small porch overlooked the darkened beach, and the waves could be heard as the Mun capped them with an eerie glow.

Jeb coughed. “It’s time to face the facts. That black hole didn’t just bring us back to Kerbin- it brought us back in time. The big question is, how far?”

“I don’t know,” Valentina sighed. “I mean, there’s a jet aircraft outside, and no one except us knows it even exists. I saw a plane go over today, and it had piston engines. Does anyone remember when those were still in vogue?”

Bill shook his head. “For several decades before and after the Purge. The war wiped out nearly half a century of progress, so it’s hard to tell for sure.”

“Well, there’s no sense in bickering about it.” Valentina stood up and headed toward the door. “I’m going to find a calendar.”

She left and the rest of the crew sat around uncomfortably. “I’m worried, Jeb,” Bob said. “How do we get back to where we came?”

Jeb shook his head. “I don’t know, Bob,” he said in a fatherly voice. “We just need to take things one step at a time.”

After another minute Valentina stepped back into the room. The green had all but drained from her face. “We’re-” Her voice shook. “The year is-”

“Is it bad?” Jeb asked.

“We traveled back in time exactly one hundred years from the date the singularity bomb was dropped.”

Bob fainted. No one tried to catch him because he was already in bed.

___________________________________________________________

The next day Gene helped Wernher push the jet out to a small grassy strip by the hangar, which was more of a shed, really. “I used to fly fighters during the war,” Gene told his guests. “After it was over, Wernher and I met and he had some good ideas about jet propulsion. This is the culmination of these ideas.”

Jeb leaned over and took a look at the jet intakes.

“We designed and built this prototype together. We finished last spring and I was ready to fly it. However, we haven’t been able to get the engine to produce enough-”

“This is your problem,” Jeb interrupted. “These radial intakes next to the cockpit here are the only ones, right?”

“Yes; that’s correct,” answered Wernher.

“Well, while the air is in the intake, you’re speeding it up to supersonic velocities. That’s no good for combustion. What we need is some baffles to slow down the flow at right about here, here, and, say, here,” Jeb explained, while gesturing to different points of the intake.

Wernher slowly nodded. “But how could you tell all that just by looking at it?”

“The government told us,” Valentina replied. “I’m afraid the rest is a secret.”

“…Even though you’re defectors,” Gene noted.

Bob nodded. “We wouldn’t want to be bad, would we?”

___________________________________________________________

Bob had gone to town with Wernher to get the parts to redesign the air intake, who was also working with Valentina and Bill to calculate how to slow down the air as it flowed to the engine. Meanwhile, Gene was teaching Jeb how to fly the plane.

“We don’t have flaps or stabilators or anything fancy like that,” he told Jeb as the two of them peered into the cockpit together. “Just retractable landing gear and a whole new propulsion system. The lever for the gear is right here, and the ejection lever is right here. The gauges for the hydraulics system and the cabin pressurization are right here, and I think that’s all you really need to fly this jet. I’d tell you about the performance restrictions, but we don’t really know any of them.”

Jeb was wide-eyed, eager to fly the world’s first jet. Because the Kraken’s Spit had never received an upgrade to its controls, he was not off-put by the old-fashioned controls; he’d always hated glass cockpits. “Gene,” he said, “let’s fly.”

Gene called the rest of the kerbals out to the makeshift grass strip that would serve as a runway. “Wernher, how do the modifications look?”

The engineer nodded. “I am eager to see if the new subsonic baffles work as intended.”

Gene looked out to the meager crowd. “If there is nothing else to be done, then I invite you to watch this demonstration.”

Jeb climbed up a ladder into the cockpit. Valentina came over and closed the canopy. “Good luck,” she said, before she climbed to the ground and pulled away the chocks.

The small plane taxied over to the edge of the strip, and then Jeb stepped on the brakes. He paused for a moment, and then pushed the throttle lever all the way forward. The engine spooled up slowly, and he waited until its high-pitched whine was droning though his ears before letting go of the brakes. He pulled off the brakes, and pulled back just a few seconds later and took off into the boundless sky, just as blue as the ocean beneath it. As Gene and Wernher looked on at the jet, they realized what Bill, Bob, and Val had known all along: Greater things were in store.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

Chapter 4- Stalls and Flameouts

"The trees look small from up here," Jeb said. "Gene, do you read me?"

His calls traveled through his headset, out of the cockpit, through an antenna mounted in the nose, and into a receiver Gene had set up. "Loud and clear, Jeb," he replied. "On this flight we advise staying below three kilometers and Mach 0.55."

Gene started daydreaming when he heard the pilot's voice in his headset. "Nah, forget that. I'm opening up the throttle."

He buried his head in his hands. "For the love of... Jeb! Don't push it so hard on the first flight. You should know this; you're a pilot."

"Relax. I'll be fine. Look, here's twenty-five meters already! This jet you built really has quite a kick for its size!"

"Jeb..."

"Three kilometers and climbing! Say, do you think I could get over those mountains over there?"

Gene gripped the receiver harder. "No. The fuel reserves are barely adequate for a twenty-minute flight."

Jeb sighed. "Fine. Permission to descend and ride the thermals over the ocean?"

"Granted."

Before Jeb cut the throttle he looked out the canopy at the pastel-blue sky. With the howl of the turbine in his ears and the taste of canned air on his tongue, he was reminded of how much he'd missed flight in the few days he'd spent away from the Kraken's Spit.

He pushed the stick forward and pulled back the throttle. “I’m turning back to the north for my descent,” Jeb explained, “so you can keep the plane in sight.”

“Roger, Jeb. Wernher’s got binoculars on your jet.”

Jeb nodded. He was passing through two and a half kilometers. “I’m going to try throttling back up to see how the engine does.” He pushed forward on the stick. “I hear the turbine spooling-”

He heard a shaking. “Gene, something’s wrong. Can you see anything?”

“You’re trailing smoke from your engine. We think you’ve had a flameout.”

“Yeah, the engine’s dead. I’m dropping like a brick. What are the relight procedures?”

Gene looked over at Wernher. “Any ideas?”

He shrugged. “Tell him to get full fuel flow into the combustion chamber and then spark the igniter.” Gene radioed the instructions up to Jeb.

“Okay, the fuel pumps are on full...” he radioed, “I’m trying the igniter now.”

Jeb sparked the igniter and heard the engine spooling back up. “Okay, I think I’m getting-” He heard a bang. “No, that didn’t work. I’m descending through two kilometers now.”

Gene shook his head. “Wait,” Wernher said, “when he tried to throttle the engine up he was pulling less than one g, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Gene replied. “What of it?”

“The fuel valve and intake design is arranged so the engine can only be ignited when under at least one g of acceleration. Less than that, and fuel will flood the engine before burning off all at once and leading to another flameout.”

Jeb keyed the radio. “I’m passing one kilometer. Any ideas?”

Gene grabbed the receiver. “Yes, Jeb- we need you to get positive fuel flow, pull up, and then spark the igniter.”

“I’m sorry- you want me to pull up? That will put me into a stall almost right away. Nine hundred meters, by the way.”

“Trust me, Jeb,” Gene said.

“Okay, fine.” Jeb turned the knob on the control panel to pump fuel into the engine. “Okay, positive flow, I’m pulling up now.”

He pulled back on the stick and cringed as his airspeed indicator began to blur in a rapid countdown to a stall. “I’m sparking the igniter,” he yelled, and did. “The engine’s spooling up… thrust is sustained… and I’m in a stall!”

On the ground, Wernher turned to Gene. “What’s happening with the plane?”

“He’s got the engine running but he’s in a stall.”

Eight hundred meters up, Jeb pushed down on the stick and opened up the throttle. “Seven hundred meters… six hundred…” The jet roared out over the ocean. “Five hundred… four fifty… four twenty-five… four fifty.” He turned back toward the peninsula. “Flaps out, gear down… three hundred meters.”

On the ground, the observers covered their ears as the jet roared in for a landing. Jeb set the main gears onto the grass strip, and applied braking power as the nose came down. “I’ve landed,” he said. “The jet age has arrived.”

Edited June 6, 2019 by Confused Scientist

[Confused Scientist]

Intermission

Jeb felt cold, very cold. He knew that he had been pulled out of reality, and that the forces of change and fate were working their invisible hand on his life. He was in an infinite black void, empty except for four armchairs, his crewmates, and a side table with a plate of cookies.

He sat next to Valentina. "I just felt something," he said. "Something is about to happen. We won't remember this when we wake up, I know that."

Valentina nodded. "We'll be returned to the moment, which from what I remember was your landing on the peninsula."

"But why were we pulled out of the moment in the first place?"

"I don't know," Bill sighed. "Something fundamental's about to change. I know that. We might be able to fight it. But maybe it's good. I'm not sure."

"I'm scared," Bob said. "I'm not sure what's going to happen."

"I'm not sure, either," Jeb said. "Well, we've come this far, and we'll keep going for a long time."

"We were the crew of the Kraken's Spit," Valentina said. "Nobody can ever take that away from us."

Jeb nodded. Nobody spoke for a minute. Then Jeb asked, "Valentina, can you hand me a cookie?"

"Sure, Jeb. Take two."

[Kernel Kraken]

17 hours ago, Confused Scientist said:

Take two

This was in no way a coincidence. I refuse to believe it. This has to be a jab at take two. 'Something Fundamental's about to change'

This was the best subtle jab at Take Two I've ever seen, even if it was a coincidence.

 

[Confused Scientist]

4 minutes ago, TheMadKraken2297 said:

This was the best subtle jab at Take Two I've ever seen, even if it was a coincidence.

It was not a coincidence. I, for one, welcome our new capitalist  overlords.