CatastrophicFailure

Great Atuin.

Not today, but yesterday, had one doozy of a thunderstorm come thru. Old hat for some of y’all, but it’s fairly uncommon around here. Set new rain records on my home weather stations, .39 inches of rain in a single hour, .3 of that within about ten minutes, and a peak rain rate of 5.49 in/hr. Ended up with .72 inches for the day, all within a couple hours. That’s more than our last half-dozen summers combined. That, and at one point the whole south half of the island was without power.

And then, this happened...

In space it will be much quieter.

I’m hoping it won’t be nearly that bad. I need to see it finished, or it’ll drive me batty. Er. I was a bit shocked when I realized I’m already a year into it.

If it keeps up like this about 3 more years. Must write harder. Things are moving better. It won’t quite be such a quick turnaround on the next, but I’m aiming for two weeks. And here he’s become one of my most interesting characters. Is he a good guy or a bad guy after all? Time will tell... or will it?

Reminds me of the Black Arrow. Soooooo... Speaking of weird game glitches, today I got this: Um... "C'mon, 'cmon!" "She'll fly apart!" "Fly her apart, then!" "...Why am I yelling at myself?" Oddly enough, she did not, in fact, fly apart, and managed to make it all the way from the Dessert Airfield to KSC, running on fumes. Tho it was markedly worse by then... Managed to land safely... at about 5 FPS. Parked next to some other planes and exited the game, curious if it'll just explode when I load it up again.

Behold, a great Star fell from Heaven, blazing like a torch, It fell upon a third of the rivers and the springs, and made them bitter, The crops in the fields wilted, and the sea gave forth no bounty, And the name of the Star was Wormwood. Chapter 25: Relics Valentina tried once more to force a rather large lump down her throat. She looked away from the window, to Edgas, seated next to her with a pleasant, attentive smile on his face. He, at least, seemed to be handling the situation well. Then she looked to Dibella, seated in front of her. Facing her. Talking about... something, but she had no idea what, because behind Dibella... Unbidden, the steering wheel went through a series of gentle turns as their kar silently and effortlessly slipped around another. “How—” Valentina squeaked, took a moment to clear her throat, “how fast are we going again?” Dibella glanced at a display on the window, “200kph,” she said, as if the most unremarkable thing in the world. “Oh. Okay,” Valentina nodded, and tried again to dislodge the lump from her throat. The rational part of her said she shouldn’t be concerned, she was an experienced test pilot, after all, and no stranger to high speeds. Even at low altitude and controlled by an autopilot. But the less rational part of her was simply running around in a big circle, waving its hands over its head and screaming. And for the moment it seemed to be making the more convincing argument. So she turned, and stared out the other window, which didn’t really seem to help. Something else shot past them in a blur, but all that she could say for sure about it was that it was RED!. Whether that was paint or just compression heating she couldn’t say. But somehow what was beyond that was even more troubling. Apart from the freeway they were on, separated from it by a very stout-looking wall of metal lattice that was also whipping past at incredible speed, was another ribbon of concrete. Here there were... her mind struggled to construct the thought... double-high shipping containers mounted on little more than what appeared to be low-slung wheeled dollies. That much didn’t seem to be that unusual, but there were dozens, even hundreds of them, all rushing along in an unbroken line, and there seemed to be no accommodation for a driver at all. Anywhere. And worse, each dolly was bare centimeters from the one ahead, almost like a train only closer, but then... one unit broke out of formation, the others moving up seamlessly to assume the space it left, and took a long, sweeping, highly banked off-ramp toward a collection of low buildings in the distance. And they were all moving faster than the kar. Right on cue, it once more slid out and around some slowpoke who was only doing 180 or so. Valentina pulled her eyes away from the window, squeezing them shut and finally managing to swallow that lump in her throat. Dibella had tried to explain it all, something about ‘why-fie’ and a ‘star-link’ and... well, there might have been yak in there somewhere... or was it a musk ox? It was all very confusing, and about that time that little part of herself had gone from keening to groaning, working its way toward screaming, and everything else got just a bit... fuzzy. Right about now, that part of her had curled itself up in a ball in the corner, and was running a finger over its lips making little ‘bibble-bibble-bibble’ sounds, and she desperately wanted to just curl up next to it and have a good bibble herself. Suppressing a groan, she shifted in her seat, and her seat seemed to shift right along with her. Somehow, it felt like it had been custom-made for her particular posterior, and any time she moved, it moved right along with her, as if it had been made that way all along. Valentina forced her eyes open, letting them run over the interior, trying to find a distraction. Anything that wasn’t buttery-soft leather was wood polished to a mirror shine, here and there touched with accents of gold and brushed steel. The lighting seemed to come from nowhere in particular, just sort of... leaking out from behind various panels in an oddly pleasing way. The entire roof looked like a single sheet of curved glass, which grew just a hair darker any time the sun threatened to come out. And the whole thing was so quiet. Silent, even. She couldn’t hear a thing from outside, no rushing wind, no roaring engine, there wasn’t even a hint of vibration in the palatial interior. Another vehicle slipped behind them, the kar riding as if on a cloud. She was actually starting to wonder if it even had wheels. Speaking of such... Valentina’s hand groped out along the rich Corinthian leather, “is... there really no seatbelt?” Dibella stopped whatever she had been saying and blinked at her, “oh, no, of course not, they haven’t put seatbelts in kars for years, now.” She groaned a little louder, “but... what if there is accident?” “Oh, that never happens on the AutoWay,” Dibella waved a hand, “not since they added bigger barricades after some Luddite with an ICE dinosaur tried to force his way in.” Valentina raised a hand to her head, “wait, now there are giant frozen lizards too?” Dibella looked at her, “er, what?” “What?” “What?” Edgas just laughed, “turn of phrase. Besides, if anything does go wrong, there’s SecureFoam™️.” “And what is that?” Valentina groaned, still rubbing her temple. “It’s a two-part organic polymorphic gluten-free exothermic long-chain monosaccharide prophelitic pseudoprotein.” Valentina opened her mouth. Valentina closed her mouth. “Er... it sort of turns the inside into a giant cannoli.” “The pastry?” “More or less, but sort of mushy,” Edgas said with a bright grin, “it’s even flavored. Which did you order, Dibella?” “Kavarian creme,” she beamed, “I guess I am a traditional girl at heart.” Valentina just looked at her. Then looked at Edgas. Then looked at her again. Then put one hand to her face and sent the other vainly groping around for a seatbelt again. Instead, it found Edgas’s hand. After one horrible, drawn out moment when she thought her head might finally explode, they both quickly jerked their hands back. “Er, um...” Edgas stammered to fill the awkward moment, “so, does Katya still have that slick little roadster?” And, just like that, Valentina went from bewildered incomprehension to good ol’ dependable burning rage. “Oh yes,” Dibella said, not seeming to notice, “you’d have to pry that from her cold dead manicured fingers,” she added with a laugh. “Has she broken down and upgraded the software yet?” Dibella shook her head, “no, no AutoWay for her, still driving herself everywhere, and good luck to the fool who gets in her way!” The kar slipped around another once again. “Young blonde in fast car,” Valentina said through clenched teeth, “let me guess, is cherry red, no?” Edgas blinked at her, “huh? Oh, no way. It’s pearl white with blue racing stripes to hide the solar panels. She put the top down once and took me for a ride, it was awesome!” He smiled a big, guileless smile. Valentina had to ball her fists up until her knuckles ached to resist the urge to strangle him, “is not proper! You should not be driving around in fast cars with strange kerbelles,” she glanced around at her current circumstances and winced, “she is too young for you!” Dibella blinked at her, “but they are nearly the same age, why would you..?” Her eyes clicked back and forth between Valentina and Edgas, then understanding dawned across her face, and she launched into a long moment of hysterical laughter. “Oh, my goodness!” she managed to squeak out, “Tia, you’re jealous!” Valentina gasped. She took a breath to steady herself, and then, in a calm, measured, and absolutely serene voice, said... “IIIIIIII AAAAM NOOOOOOOT JEAAAAAALOUS!!!!!1!1!1!11!” The soundproof windows went on wobbling for some time afterword. Dibella took a moment to replace her dislodged hair with a little smirk on her face, “well, then...” “Huh?” Edgas wiggled a finger in his ear, “wait, why would you be jealous of Katya?” Behind folded arms, Valentina just glared at him, “hmph!” This drew another giggle from Dibella, “you know, Edgas, dear, sometimes for a scientist you can be incredibly obtuse.” “Wha?” “Yes, rather like that,” she snickered, “Katya’s quite smitten with you, always has been.” Edgas made an uncomprehending noise that sounded something like, “duuuuuhhhhheeeeewhuuuuhh??” Valentina made a low rumbling. His eyes snapped back and forth between the two kerbelles, “but why... I mean... I never... she never... why would... but I... but she... we never... but... but...” Dibella let out a long, whistful sigh, “I know, that may be my fault. I advised her against... pursuing anything. With everything that was going on at the time, and your own situation, it just...” she trailed off with a resigned shrug, “...wouldn’t have worked out.” “There, you see?” Valentina poked him in the ribs, “would not have worked. Is too young for you.” Edgas shot her a look. “So then,” Dibella said brightly, “you two are...” “NNOO!!” “Ah,” she cracked a knowing grin, “so that is how it is, is it?” “Hmph,” Valentina crossed her arms again. “Well, at least it is good to see palling around with the likes of Burdous Kerman hasn’t rubbed off on you,” said Dibella with a bitter little laugh. Edgas frowned at her, “you really don’t like him, do you?” “They have a history,” Valentina rolled her eyes. “We do not have a history.” “You should ask her sometime about Kermansk brushing incident.” “Gah! There was no incident! There was no Kermansk! There was no brushing!” Dibella snapped, then added under her breath, “that oaf wouldn’t know a toothbrush if it bit him. Such a horrid little Kerb!” “He is four centimeters taller than you.” “Phaw. In heels, maybe!” She thought a moment, “then he was even taller.” Edgas began to open his mouth, but Dibella waved a finger at him, “ЙҰЄT, this, we do not speak of.” Valentina gave a gruff laugh, “well, it seems some things around here have not changed. Dibella opened her mouth. Dibella closed her mouth. Finally, she just groaned, burying her face in her hands, “are we there yet?” As it turns out, they were. Bing-bong. “You are now approaching your destination, self-drive will be required in five kilometers,” came a voice so cheery Valentina immediately wanted to do it incredible violence. Dibella let out a long sigh before reaching into her purse and handing the other two pairs of dark sunglasses, “ok, fun’s over for now. Like we discussed, hoods up, faces down, until we get inside. There are cameras everywhere around here and I do mean everywhere, and for good reason, too. You are not specifically breaking any rules by being here with me, but best if no one knows all the same. ДЙD ЯЄMЄMЬЄЯ, SPЗДK ФЙLҰ ЦSSДЯI.” She glanced at Edgas, “wait, does he still sound like he has marbles in his mouth?” “Rocks, yes,” Valentina giggled. Edgas scowled at them both. “Hmm, rocks... yes,” Dibella mused with a hand to her chin, “all right, on second thought, say nothing. Let me do all the talking. Alexa, limo tint please.” “Limo tint applied,” the cheery voice said, as the windows darkened until they were nearly opaque. Dibella pressed a button, and her seat shifted and revolved until it was finally facing the right way. “Confirm self-drive.” “I have the wheel,” said Dibella, and there was the slightest little shuffle as she began to steer. The kar slipped down a long, deserted road flanked by open fields where nothing seemed to be growing at all, gradually slowing to a more reasonable speed. In fact, there seemed to be nothing anywhere, in any direction. Eventually they came to an unremarkable-looking fence, chain link topped with razor wire. Sturdy, but not unusual. There was no guard post that Valentina could see, only a lonely gate across the road. They slowed as they approached, the gate rattled open on its own, and that was that. It had just slipped out of view behind them, when the next fence appeared on the horizon. This one was... far more significant. A good ten meters tall, at least, with rows of steel I-beams jutting up from the ground at an angle all along the base, and more coils of razor wire above. As they neared, she could see there were actually two fences, one just beyond the other. They approached the first, another, much heavier gate sliding open, and stopped in the space between. That gate slid closed, and the far one opened, like some kind of highly inefficient airlock. Quite imposing, but still... where were the guards? For that matter, where was the prison? Surely such a thing was not easily— The ground ahead suddenly dropped away, and there it was. The entire facility had been built in a deep circular depression in the land, almost like a crater on the Mün, hiding it from view until nearly inside. There was one more fence, this one more a wall, made from a lattice of centimeter-thick metal wire. From the color, it almost looked like titanium. All along the base here was a structure that looked a bit like the cow catcher on the front of a train, stretched to ridiculous proportions. And here, too, were there finally guards, looking down from high watchtowers. As they approached, Valentina couldn’t help but think the whole mess could even stop a tank. A thought likely not lost on whoever built the place. A small squad of guards patrolled before a pair of solid, towering gates, festooned with signs extolling all the reasons why one should not want to be here. The guards themselves looked more like soldiers, clad in thick helmets and heavy flak vests. Edgas peered up at the doors, and the little lightning-bolt emblems there and on the fence, “what’re they keeping in there, King Kong?” Old images flashed from her memory, trying to form a thought in Valentina’s head, something about a tyrant lizard king, “worse. The Imperium.” “Hush,” Dibella said, rolling down her window. The guard who approached had eyes every bit as hard and cold as stone, eyes that had seen, and the casual, almost disinterested way he slung his rifle declared this was no bumbling sentry from the decommissioned Fortress wall. He eyed Dibella, eyed the kar, then presented her a tablet. She waved her phone over it, looked at it intently, then pressed her hand to the screen for a moment. The only acknowledgement the guard gave was a curt nod, and with a bare flick of his eyes, others opened the massive gates. Once inside them, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to actually go, only the edge of the cavity looming ahead. Dibella pulled the nose of the car up to a railing straight ahead, then just as Valentina and Edgas were sharing a confused look, she felt her stomach drop. No, the whole thing was dropping. They were parked on a broad elevator platform descending at at a surprising speed for something so large. Valentina had wondered if the depression was an actual crater, but now it was clear that was not the case. Sheer walls of dull grey concrete rose all around the periphery. “The Imperium... is in there?” She gawked at the spotlights and menacing buildings beyond. Tyrant kings, indeed. “No,” Dibella said, “they were to be tried in an international court for crimes against Kermanity, and would likely have faced execution. But not a one of them made it that far,” she met Valentina’s eyes in the mirror, “accidents, you see. Here, are the underlings. The cogs that made the brutal machine work. Them, and worse.” “How...” Valentina still struggled to wrap her mind around what she was seeing, “how did they build such a thing so quickly?” “They didn’t, it’s been here for over twenty years.” “What?” She slumped back into her seat, “but... we are not far from the Space Center, I... I lived here, I must have flown over this place many times a month, there was no...” “You know how good they were at keeping secrets,” Dibella said, “this was a place for people they wanted forgotten, and now, I suppose, it is not so different.” The platform landed with a thud, the railings continuing to sink into the ground. The kar hummed off, passing rows of buildings like dark sentinels. Each one was built at an eye-watering angle, seeming to loom outward. Grids of deeper shadows speckling the downcast facades indicated windows, and Valentina realized, that between that and the outer walls, whoever designed this place sought to deny those condemned within even a glimpse of open sky. At length they came to a more normal-looking building, if the austere and uninspired Imperious architecture could ever be considered normal, separated by its own set of fences and gates. Just across from it was an ancient-looking, overgrown graveyard. The kar glided into a space, and Valentina took to blankly staring at the door, wondering how in STДLIЙS STДCҢЄ one actually opened it. “Um, er... here, let me...” Edgas leaned across her, what little she could of see of his face going quite red, and touched an unremarkable-looking patch of remarkably finished wood. Then with a muffled clunk and soft whir of motors, the door slid upward, folding in on itself in a very remarkable feat of mechanical origami. She stepped out... ...And immediately cinched the hood of her sweatshirt a bit tighter. An icy breeze pulled at her as it marauded its way around a wall, despite the entire place’s sheltered location. She looked over at Edgas, tugging on his own coat. Yes, he seemed to be handling things quite well, considering... But perhaps, only seemed... While the back of her own mind flip-flopped over itself trying to make sense of the last few hours, cut off from and only distantly watched by her conscious mind in that unique way of pilots, Edgas didn’t seem to be... processing at all. She could feel the weight pressing down on him, but— A flash above caught her eye. Trying to look up without actually looking up, she thought for a moment a large building was falling out of the sky with one end on fire. Her eyes tracked it down the concrete canyon as it slipped in and out of the clouds above, before disappearing beyond the edge of the crater. That much, at least, she had understood, if she scarcely believed it. Dibella had explained the new economy rapidly taking shape across the wold... and far beyond it. The very craft she had once been sent to destroy had been repurposed to become the vanguard of a different sort of revolution. The same engine, copied, refined, evolved, had opened the gates to the solar system, and to coin a silly Foreigner phrase, there was gold in them thar hills. And not merely gold. Platinum, titanium, and iridium. Iron and nickel and copper. Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and all the materials to build new worlds. While scientists had salivated over access to the planets, entrepreneurs had made straight for very different sirens. Now, enormous tugs were constructed entirely in orbit. They were then pulled to the Mün, where their impossibly powerful nuclear reactors could be built and installed over less... sensitive environs. Finally, they made their way to Minmus to be fueled and provisioned from refined ice before heading out into deep space, where a dragon’s hoard of treasure awaited. The odd Kerbin-crosser at first, then the main belt where legend told of a place called Dres, and eventually even ancient Joolian Trojans became fair game, plucked from the heavens like the very Fruit of Life and returned to Kerbin and her moons to be smelted into the raw materials that drove the engines of this new industry. Today, asteroids made the world go round, and all the minutiae of tankers, colonies, crew shuttles, bureaucrats, and everything else such an endeavor demanded. Even industry itself was— “Tia?” Dibella touched her arm, “are you alright? You look a bit, well, spacey...” Valentina shook herself, looking around. Perhaps her mind wasn’t... quite as well controlled as she thought. “We should get inside,” said Dibella, motioning toward the doors, this is no place to linger.” Inside seemed like no place to linger, either. As soon as she walked in, Valentina was hit by the stench of decades of rattail smoke, so thick and heavy that for a moment she thought she had simply walked into a wall. The actual walls were no more inviting, covered in peeling paint and set with deep gouges that left piles of grit on the floor, as if the walls themselves were slowly trying to escape one pocketful at a time. The ailing fluorescent overhead buzzed at its own misery, and the Head Nurse who came to greet them had all the charm and bedside manner of a colicky wolverine. She led them through a creaking set of doors to a flight of rusty wrought-iron stairs. “Have you come to dangle a pardon in front of his face, now that he’s on his deathbed?” she huffed as they went, pausing often just to breathe, “the Warden sometimes does that with the others, is good fun.” She followed with a long, raspy cackle. Or perhaps she was just choking on her own tongue. “Er... no,” Dibella kept her voice diplomatically... diplomatic, “I am here as a... favor to an old colleague. State business, you understand.” “Oh, of coarse!” she probably meant course, but everything about this kerbelle seemed... coarse, “no shortage of that around here.” At length they reached the top, Valentina growing concerned someone was going to have to carry the Head Nurse if the climb continued much longer. Down this hall, either the paint had entirely peeled away or no one had ever bothered to paint it in the first place. The floors were covered in an assortment of grunge a scientist like Edgas would probably find fascinating, while the concrete walls appeared to have been scrubbed exactly once in their sad existence. The nurse pushed through a door that positively screamed, into a long gallery lined with surprisingly high windows. Before each one was a bed or cot, some with machines beeping away, the occasional raspy cough the only other sound breaking the sepulchral stillness. Valentina tugged her sweatshirt closer against the chill in the air. “He’s over there in number three, it’s the drafty one,” the nurse smiled, or at least bared her stained teeth. “Yes, thank you,” Dibella eyed her, “er, a bit if privacy, if you please? State business and all...” “Oh, yes, of course,” another hacking cackle, “not like any of these other PЦTIЙSKIS are going to go telling secrets.” She fished a rattail out of her blouse then leaned up against the wall beside the door and proceeded to puff away. Valentina frowned at her, but made her way towards the designated bed. Which... appeared to be unoccupied. Had they perhaps moved him? There were no machines, and the bed was empty save for some rumpled— A hand drew slowly to her mouth. The Kommissar was a mountain of a kerb, hewn from the very rock itself, awesome and terrifying with piercing eyes that bored into one’s soul. The creature lying here was hardly recognizable as even a Kerbal. Little more than a skull devoid of any trace of hair, with skin like thin parchment stretched across the bone. Breath came in thin, rattly gasps, barely moving the filthy sheet above its hollow chest. She approached with a fear unlike any she had felt before, as if the mere disturbance of the air by her movement might cause this pitiful thing, little more than a corpse, to crumble into dust. And then... its eyes flicked open, drilling into her and removing all doubt. “Comrade Kommissar...” To her further surprise, his dry, cracked lips split into a wide, humorless smile. “You live. I knew you lived,” came a voice dry and ragged like a tomb, “you are not one so easily cast aside.” “Comrade Kommissar,” she scarcely knew where to begin, “what... what has happened to you?!” “They tell me, ‘do not smoke the rattails,’ give you an abnormal brain,” he raised one skeletal hand from a fold of sheet, and weakly tapped at his head, leaving a bruise, “brain is strong. The lungs... not so much.” Beside her, Dibella gasped, spun around, “why is this kerb not on oxygen?! Where are the monitors?” The Head Nurse shrugged, taking a long drag before calling out from across the room, “I would not waste the resources on such as he. Besides, he refuses any further care.” She went back to smoking and digging at something unpleasant under her fingernail. Valentina threw a scowl her way that might of have frozen her solid, had she been looking, but quickly turned back to the Kommissar, “Comrade, I... I failed, I could not stop what was to happen... but this kerb,” she grabbed Edgas by the arm and pulled him over, “he is the hero. He has looked into the darkness and driven it back.” The Kommissar stared at him for a long time, breath rattling and gurgling, but those cold, considering eyes bored into him. Finally, he said, “and so we meet again... Krakensbane.” The other three traded confused glances, Edgas speaking after a nudge from Valentina, “er, um... well, I’m pretty sure we’ve never met before, uh, sir...” his eyes wandered around the delirious patients, and the inattentive nurse, “but, um, yeah... the Kraken’s gone, it can’t threaten anyone again.” “So it is true, then,” the Kommissar nodded, head barely moving, “you poor fool.” “Um, excuse me?” Edgas blinked. He turned to the others, “did... did I mispronounce something?” A bony hand seized his arm with such strength he yelped, spinning back to face those coldly burning eyes. “Now, Kerberos sleeps,” the Kommissar gurgled, “and the gates of All-Hell lay unguarded.” “Er...” Edgas tried to free his arm, to no avail, “well I’m pretty sure no one would want to go in there, anyway... right?” He offered an awkward smile. “It is not what lies without, but what lies within...” the Kommissar’s hand fell away, the fire draining from his eyes. Valentina frowned at Edgas, “Comrade... what must we do?” “Is so much left to say...” each breath seemed to come harder than the last. And then, to her great shock, he began speaking Kerblish, “fly, you fools. You will find shelter with the root of evil, the false hero points the way.” Once again, three pairs of eyes stared at one another in confusion. “What does that mean?” Valentina asked as gently as she could, “we... do not understand.” The Kommissar’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, or perhaps somewhere far beyond it, the rattle in his narrow chest growing ever louder, “strange... that I came into this world with nothing... and I leave with this stupendous caravan of sin... and I am afraid...” his eyes drifted closed. “One... more... breath...” his eyes shot open, his chest surging one last time. “Glory to Arstotzka.” Valentina and Dibella gasped, the withered form beneath the sheets crumpled to nothing, and the final trace of ice melted from eyes now blank and empty. For a long time, the room stood still and silent, until Dibella came forward, closing the Kommissar’s unseeing eyes and pulling the stained sheet up over his face. Only for it to be yanked away again, “oh good, is he dead then?” the Head Nurse was practically beaming, “these sheets are needed elsewhere.” “Have a little respect for the dead,” Dibella said dryly. The nurse chortled as if she’d just told the funniest joke in the world, “nonsense, I’ll have the janitors throw this out with the rest of the garbage, to be burned.” “You will do such thing!” Dibella snapped, rounding on her, “you will see that he has a proper burial in the prison graveyard, in an unmarked plot.” The nurse finally seemed to realize no one else was laughing, “what? Why? You would give that favor to one such as he?” “Yes. Because we must be better.” “That kerb was a butcher! He and his masters were responsible for millions of deaths!” “Are we so different?” Dibella eyed her up and down, “you are old enough. You knew. I knew. We all knew. And we did nothing. So do not put yourself so high above him, your hands are as dirty as anyone else’s.” The nurse recoiled as if struck, “we were ruled with an iron fist, what could we have done?” Dibella leaned in, “we could have tried. And now, we have been given a second chance. Where they were inequitable, we must be just. Where they were cruel, we must be humane. Where they condemned, we must give pardon. We must do all this and more, or we are no better, and will come to no better end.” She held the other kerbelle’s shocked gaze, “will will not move beyond our past by becoming what we hate.” The nurse could only gape at her, her mouth flopping open and closed, rattail forgotten in her fingers. Finally, she rallied. “You... you cannot give me orders! You are no longer in office, you have no authority here!” she crossed her arms, a smug grin settling on her face, and took another drag from the butt. Dibella’s eyes narrowed, and she drew herself up to her full, diminutive height. Something cold and powerful seemed to wash across her features, as if drawing upon the faded essence of the figure on the cot, until the nurse shrank back from her towering form. “Perhaps not,” she said, barely more than a whisper, “but what I do have is a little black book of phone numbers of those who still owe me favors. It would be a shame if the Ministry of Health stopped by for a surprise inspection...” The nurse drew further back, yet the distance between the two seemed to shrink. “...a shame, if all the many violations somehow traced back to your department... The nurse’s backside hit the wall, she ran one hand across it trying to disappear into it. “...a shame... if you wound up in here yourself,” Dibella plucked the smoldering rattail from the other kerbelle’s lips, crushing it out between her fingers until it sizzled. “Y-y-yes ma’am, yes ma’am!” the nurse’s head bobbed up and down at a frightening pace, “right away!” She oozed out from Dibella’s shadow and clopped off down the hall. Whatever had come over Dibella drained away as she watched the other kerbelle depart, leaving her looking somehow defeated. "Whoah..." breathed Edgas. She knelt down, retrieving the sheet and draping it back over the Kommissar's body. "Could... could you really do that?" Valentina approached, "have her thrown in prison for this?" Dibella stared off down the hall for a time, her face unreadable. "No," she said at length, "at worst there would be a reprimand in her record." She turned to Valentina, offering a wan smile, "but we are still Ussari after all, and some fears die very hard." She gave the Kommissar a final look, "come, this is not a good place. We should not linger."

Ok yup, can confirm, just got it for the first time. Seems like really big, complicated things trigger it. So, I’ll ask the stupid question... ...has anyone started a proper bug report thread to report it to @SQUAD?

Welp, since you mention it, I’ve never actually encountered it before. But I do mostly play in my old 1.2.2 game... Does it give you any log errors when it happens?

High-speed test footage of yesterday’s launch:

Crappus. Tho if Crew Dragon demo is also in November, this move is likely to make room for it, as I think all that’s going up from 39A for the foreseeable future is FH and D2. Aaaaaaaaand, ninja’d!

Make sure the image location you’re copying has the file extension on it, usually ends in .png. Imgur can be tricky, especially with their horrid new beta update. It’s sometimes helpful to reload the page after you’ve uploaded to clear any funkiness. Also, “paste as plain text” usually works best on the forum for some reason.

Reminds me of something out of Infinity War... which I’m yet to actually see. What’s actually going on there?

You must’ve just missed it over here...

You won’t have to wait long. Next chapter is done, but I am waaaay too pooped tonight to edit/post, so watch out for something tomorrow.

De-BRUH-ding. ಠ_ಠ

Disgusting and fascinating, I love it! I’ll forgo googling the images just the same... So... Pronounced de-BRIDE-ing or de-BREED-ing?

And a poke to @Mad Rocket Scientist For teaching me that trick.

Well, this is encouraging... ... now if only they could get that pesky first commercial launch out of the way...

Then the question is, how much turnaround do the launchpads need? Whatver they answer, I’m sure SpaceX is taking notes and will be incorporating them into BC...

looks like a n00b booster. IIRC TelStar 18 is on tap for the 17th/18th, that would make like a ten day turnaround. Have they done that before? Not such which pad at the Cape they’ll be using, but probably still 40.

Yup, there was quite the twitter on Twitter about it last nite. I checked the radar map myself out of curiosity and sure enough, long string of thunderstorms south of the Cape. This. More than anything, getting in too deep with NASA and it’s congressionally-wielded strings would sap the power from SpaceX and instead shift it to Congress, and that would mean delays and cost overruns. Which is not to say there won’t be such anyway, but they would be far, far worse. It’s the same reason we’ll never see SpaceX as a publicly-traded company, that would shift the power away from Musk and his like-minded team and into the hands of shareholders and a board of directors. Partnering with NASA will no-doubt be beneficial, but so will keeping them at arm’s length while doing so, rather like the current arrangements.

Right. In. The. Pickle. Barrel.