Centipede

... I'm amazed by your apparent optimism. currently the next part of the prelude is underway, I want to continue this for at least some time. Problem is, I want to make the main story in a graphic novel format, for reasons which will be abundantly clear when Everything goes to crap the shenanigans begin. it would make the sequencing of events from a reading standpoint much easier, especially if 3+ things are interrupting each other all at once. Plus, then we get dramatic backdrops and such.

Who to leave behind after an engineer/logistics blunder resulted in the return craft for a multi-launch Mun survey mission being one seat short. Bob got left behind.

A fan-made novel, in case you were wondering. I may switch over to a graphic novel format at some point, depending heavily upon whether I can make KSP run ever again after the last update ripped through my mod list like a tornado, let alone take a screenshot without crashing. Future chapters will be right here: Just the one for now. Sorry. [will fix formatting ASAP] In The Name of Science Prologue. Salutations, my old friend. It has been far too long. I regret that I must be so brief after spending so much time on my journeys and so little back home. [incoherent scribble] Pah. I have no gift for weaving words, and you know it, Gene. So, I'll put it bluntly. I cashed in some favors, made some friends, and got real lucky. Get the old gang back together and meet me at the airfield, two miles down the road from my junkyard. Can't miss it. Signed, Jebediah "Jeb" Kerman. P.S. I was planning to tell you there, but I had best warn you now. Bill and I found some volunteers. We're back in business! Gene sipped his coffee as he read the letter. He set his coffee down and made it halfway through folding the letter when his mind caught up. Wide-eyed and now thoroughly awake, he re-read the note to make sure he hadn't misread, then punched himself to make sure he wasn't asleep. Mortimer awoke to what sounded like a very angry solicitor attempting to kick his door down. With great effort, he managed to lift himself from the bed without crumpling to the floor, stumbled down the stairs in a dazed stupor. He opened his front door, saw who was on the other side, and slammed it shut on Gus' boot. "If it's important, come back in an hour; If not, ask someone else. "Mortimer, it's from Jeb; read it." Gene passed the letter through the gap in the doorway to Mortimer. ... "No. I'm not funding Jeb's rampant wanderlust any further until it leads him somewhere profitable. Now kindly get your foot out of my door so I can slam it in your faces." "Actually, Jeb didn't mention funding. He wanted to get all of us back together for something big. He didn't specify what, but he mentioned an airfield by his junk yard." ... "Come back in an hour." and that concludes the prologue. A bit (very) short for my tastes, but I think it sets the tone decently well. It also provides a decent amount of history behind some of the canon characters.