CatastrophicFailure

Did I call that or what?

5:30 on a Saturday afternoon? What sourcery is this?! Surely it will be delayed!

Sometimes I really don't know how you manage to keep all that straight, and have done so so well for so long. I get befuddled enough just choosing two + extras. Get out of my head. I've found following the sound of explosions will get you pretty close, then just go the opposite direction everyone is running in. No, but really, summing up all of the above I keep a spare save around with some BD Armory stuff. Sometimes there's great insight to be found watching digital green guys pummel each other (and always quickloading them back!), and even when there's not... hey, more explosions!

Over a month now... not that I'm one to talk, but... moar?

Always wanted to do that. This was one of those chapters that just kinda plodded along until I stumbled upon the connection. It's been yet another chaotic week, haven't started it yet but hopefully the next installment won't be quite so long, since some of it will be... recycled.

There are plenty more worthy than me. Tho I am still grinning about this. Of course, soon as it happens everything stalls. ATM I'm waiting on a part that may or may not make an appearance. I think I'll give it till this weekend then just work with what I've got. I've got an... interesting... thing in motion.

You troglodytes! I don’t have to use keys anymore. Whether it’s the house or my truck, all I have to do is... click..

Perhaps they were... how many fingers does the color blue taste circles?

Not impossible, just very very hard. Considering they never could get crossfeeding to work in the first place.

? I thought it required a significant redesign and is now quite different from the boosters? That was one of the big reasons for the delays, as I recall. Also, if they’ve incorporated some of the upcoming Block 5 upgrades into the design, which seems likely, it should be able to take those hot re-entries much better than the existing stock. You know you’ve been playing too much KSP when that mess doesn’t look the slightest bit outlandish.

Now in ALL NEW Hearty Click®️ Flavor!* *Hearty Click®️ Flavor does not actually exist, some assembly required, past performance does not guarantee future returns, some assembly required, batteries not included. Void where prohibited by locked thread.

Only two, and the second one is just getting finished or will be “soon™.” I really doubt it’s gonna be just the roadster, this is a capability test too after all. I expect lots of instrumentation and still some common ballast. This. Recovering the upper stage sounded iffy enough to begin with just from LEO velocity. Since we’ve heard nothing else, I expect that plan’s scrapped, unless they sourced some kind of transfer stage for the Tesla. The engine bell would get torn apart in very short order. That thing is incredibly fragile when it’s not firing.

Beat me to it. Just wait, the flight will go up with a big black “CENSORED” box over the booster. Wouldn’t do to go showing their dirty rockets to the public, now.

... and make me click...

But what if it’s a bird?

According to SpaceFlightNow, Zuma is back on the menu for Jan. 4. Maybe that interstellar oompa-loompa is slowing down...

Any chance on releasing that eyepatch as a stand alone soon? It would come in mighty handy right about now.

Exact same thing happened to me a couple summers ago, guy hit a pole and the power was out for a good 12 hours... cuz it started a small fire and the FD had to have the whole thing locked down before the linemen could even go near it. They can actually swap those poles out pretty darn quick. It’s an addicting little mod. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself building ginormous rockets held together with little .625 parts and not even thinking about struts anymore.

...and a really big fairing... which is somewhat noteworthy.

Boy, you just can’t catch a break lately, can you @Just Jim? its almost as if... someone or some thing doesn’t want the story told...

What’s in 26 Days?

@Ultimate Steve so.... just convince the pep band to play your crush “Happy Birthday,” then say you arranged the rocket launch just for the special day, then say you’d love to share it but you have to sacrifice and sit through drivers ed, because you want to be a thoughtful and responsible driver when you take your crush out. Either way, you come off looking smooth as flarp.

You may have to dig around for an older version, but it’s been around a while.

Your whole school should be watching. This is mildly historical.

In those days, one shall come unto the world as a Stranger, outcast and forgotten, One who has tasted of death, and been reborn. And the people shall cry out in a loud voice, “here is the One of prophecy, who is our salvation! In this One, we shall place our trust.” Chapter 13: Ice and Fire She clumped down the corridor, eyes locked ahead and just slightly out of focus, the corners of her mouth drawn out. She could tell, without looking, that the expression on Edgas’s face matched her own, right down to the embarrassed flush on her cheeks. No, this wasn’t at all like... back there. This was was simple intuition. That final silence had been awkward enough to flush away anything else. Probably just imagined it, anyway. A projection of her own feelings, or maybe a manifestation of her irritation, or... something. You couldn’t just... feel what someone else was feeling. That was silly. Even she knew that. She tugged the string of her hood a little tighter. His hood. Just borrowing it. She felt ridiculous, of course, hence the flush on her cheeks. The sweatshirt mostly fit all right, but the arms were at least half again too long, she either had to shove them up until they dangled like loose skin or let them flop around beyond her fingertips. She looked silly. Completely silly. Perfectly reasonable thing to be embarrassed about. And that last song, too, that was just horrid, that’s all it was! It absolutely was not such a powerful blast of emotion from him that now she was feeling it too. That would just be... silly. Still, she thought, as she shoved the floppy cuff up her arm for the umpteenth time, it was a thoughtful gesture. Very kind of him. The old sweatshirt was soft as a cloud and delightfully warm, and smelled just faintly of fabric softener and— She felt her cheeks flush just a touch more, and cinched the drawstring tighter. As they came to the end of an incredibly long corridor, Edgas drew back his wide-eyed, thousand-meter stare, and began undogging the thick-looking hatch. “Watch your step, it can get a little slick inside,” he said. He pulled the hatch open with a loud groan, both from him and the hatch. She took one step forward, and a frigid blast of air took her breath away, turning it into a little roiling cloud before her eyes. “It is freezing in here,” she mumbled as she cautiously stepped over the threshold. She pulled her hands into the floppy sweatshirt arms, fumbling not to drop her cane, as she looked around the cavernous space. It... really was freezing in here... Shafts of light from floodlamps high above illuminated twinkling ice crystals that hung in the still air. On every surface, a paper-thin layer of frost sparkled like diamonds. And within it all, rushing in through her lungs with every chilling breath, was a permeating familiarness, like the first welcoming scent of home. And the unmistakable stink of gear oil. “Yeah, just below zero is usually the best we can do,” Edgas said as he followed her in, “this place isn’t as insulated as the rest of the base; even with a nuclear reactor we can’t quite get it above freezing. There’s heated garages on the far side for major work, and...” She didn’t really hear him. As the shock of the cold wore off, she began to take in what else was in here. A few boxy, tracked vehicles off in one corner she somehow recognized as sno-cats. Off in another was something that looked like a quartet of jet engines mounted on skis. But towering over everything else— “What is that?” she blurted out. “That’s the LCC-1,” Edgas beamed up at the enormous machine, “we found it rusting in a field in Ysair, they paid us to remove it.” It was... a bit difficult to wrap her mind around. The thing towered nearly as high as the hangar ceiling. It looked less like a vehicle and more like a small building, mounted on eight enormous balloon tires three times taller than she was. As she craned her neck ever higher, she saw someone standing on top guiding a huge piece of machinery as it was lowered from above. She recognized Lemmy, waving his, er, stumps to someone else, “easy does, lad! Two pips t’the right, take it slow... right... right... now hold there!” A head belonging to Doyle, his young... assistant, poked out from a hatch she couldn’t see. “Mind the lower hoses. Pair of 36-mil spanners, and check the lockout.” Doyle nodded and disappeared again. “Hoy, thar!” he called down to the newcomers, “is that the young miss up and aboot, now?” Doyle’s head popped back up through the hatch, and he gave an enthusiastic wave. She managed a more timid one in return. Beside her, Edgas opened his mouth to speak, blinked, then seemed to change what he was going to say, “wait, is that number three?” he yelled up. “Yar. Number one’s blowed its seals again.” “What about number two?” “Still in the machine shop fer an overhaul. Waiting on that primary buffer panel, we are.” Edgas put a hand to his face, mumbling something into it, “ok, ok, I’ll makes sure there’s one in the next supply run,” he called back. “That’s what ye said about the last supply run.” “Fine, I’ll make sure there’s two!” Lemmy laughed, and Edgas quickly yet cautiously led her away. “What on Kerbin do you use such a machine for?” she tried once more to gawk back at it. “Moving stuff up here by air is expensive, and dangerous,” Edgas explained, “most of the modules would have fit in a transport plane, but it actually cost less to restore the LCC and haul them overland a few at a time. We don’t use it as much these days, the sno-cats handle the supply trips, but I’ve always kept it on standby. In a real emergency, we could use it to evacuate, not even a storm like this would stop it. “Ah, here we are...” he gave another of his awkward grins, and pointed to... a large pile of junk in the corner. “That is... it?” she raised an eye... bulge back at him. “That’s it. At least, as much as we could recover.” She stared at the unidentifiable heap, expecting... something. Yet nothing came. It looked like nothing more than so much meaningless scrap. Picking up one frosted panel with her floppy arm-gloves, she turned it this way and that. Nothing. She tried another. This one had a very strange, slightly scalloped semicircle missing. That, at least, looked somehow familiar. “This looks like a bite mark...” she muttered. “Um, yeah,” Edgas rubbed at the back of his head, “after we got you out a clutch of whumpers came along. Took some effort to scare them off, so we took what we could and didn’t stick around long.” “Something... ate this?” He nodded. She gave a little shake of her head, “what is a whumper?” “Well, you’ve heard of the abominable snow-kerb, right?” This drew a drawn out roll of her eyes, “even I know, is no abominable snow-kerb.” “Right, because whumpers ate them.” She blinked, “oh.” But then, “wait, this is North Pole, yes? Is nothing but ice and snow for hundreds of kilometers in every direction, what else could these creatures live on?” “People who go out to study them?” Edgas shrugged. She blinked again, “oh.” Then another thought weaseled into her brain, “back... back there in hallway... in window... I thought I saw... something outside, moving just beyond floodlights. Could it have been one of these... these... things?” “Probably.” “You do not seem concerned,” she raised an eye... bulge. Edgas gave a wan smile, “not really. Sometimes they like to cling to the reactor housing for warmth, but they don’t bother the base. They hate the taste of the insulation on the modules.” She blinked once more, “oh,” then gave a long sigh and a shake of her head. This... wasn’t working. She turned back to the jumbled pile of scrap. She had expected... She didn’t know what she’d expected. She picked through more burnt, icy bits of metal. Nothing. Just... nothing. One bit was a small, smashed box with two broken lights on it. IVAN was stenciled on it in her own language. For an instant... just one instant, she thought there was... No, more nothing. Another hunk of trash as meaningless as the last. She tossed it back into the pile with a grunt. All she felt looking at it was... “Hey, it’s all right,” she heard Edgas approach, “it was a long shot, anyway. We’ll try something else another day, we’ll... we’ll figure something out—“ “And what if we do not?" she rounded on him, “you keep expecting me to be this person I do not even know! What if there is no great answer? What if this is all there is... the end.” He looked wounded, “what are you saying?” “You told me they—,” she took a calming breath, swallowed, “they had to restart my heart. That I was not breathing when you found me.” Edgas nodded. She turned again to the heap, looking at it for a long moment. All she felt was... cold. “What if I am dead? What if whoever I was... died in this thing...” Conflict, confusion, doubt raged across her mind like a tempest. Was it all hers? She couldn’t tell, and at the moment, didn’t really care to. He was infuriating! Always with... something, some pointless, half-finished platitude. She spun back to him now, expecting, fearing... hoping he would have another; yet his face looked as torn as her own mind. She had just opened her mouth to say something, when— Bzzt bzzt bzzzzzzzzzzt. Bzzt bzzt bzzzzzzzzzzt. Standing, frozen, in this life I’ve chosen. You won’t find me, the past is all behind me, Buried, in the snow... Bzzzzt Edgas began frantically patting at his pockets. Finally, he pulled out another, smaller, slip of plastic. She huffed, “how many of those tablets do you need, anyway?!” “Huh? Oh, cell phone,” he mumbled, tapping away at it with his thumbs. Oh, of course. That made— Wait, what? “I thought you said your communications were out due to storm?” “They are,” he kept tapping, seeming distracted, “old system, cobbled together from surplus 6G stuff, only works within the base,” he kept tapping, “sort of like an intercom, but text—“ Then he stopped dead... and an incredible, genuine smile erupted, lighting up his entire face. It was enough to shove aside her own frustration, he was almost... beautiful... “He got through,” Edgas whispered at his phone, “Doc got through...” “Um... what?” Finally he looked at her, and for just a moment, she was caught in his bright, guileless, powerful eyes. Those eyes, she thought, could inspire someone to do anything. She felt the edges of her own mouth creeping up unbidden. He put the phone away, and looked at her again, rather more subdued. He raised his hands, hesitated a moment, then laid them on her shoulders. “Look, you may be right,” he grinned, “but if this was an end—“ he shook his head, “a beginning, then I want it to be by your choice, not circumstance.” “I... do not...” “I’ve got one last lead, had to call in an expert,” he winked, and in that, she saw something very familiar... that blew away just as quickly, “be a couple of days, yet. I had to... pull some strings.” ———————————— A place exists, that knows fire but not light. The light has forsaken this place, fled from it in terror. Here, smoking towers of brimstone climb above a lake of flames that never diminish, consuming but never consumed, and ash like corrupted snow falls from clouds blacker than the deepest night. Presently, stalking through this curséd realm came a Demon. Oblivious to the choking columns of smoke it passed, its hide was even darker than the clouds above, reflecting none of the unworldly crimson not-glow it bathed in as it proceeded toward the dark tower at the center of this place of torment. It wailed like the shrieking of a thousand condemned souls. The VC-19 Demon circled once around the mostly darkened hospital building, a black hole in reality clad in paint that absorbed every wavelength of light, nearly invisible even in infrared. The four pairs of jet engines at the tips of its stubby tandem wings roared with fury as they swung down, now fully bearing its weight. It slowed to a hover, and seams appeared in its seamless flanks to reveal landing gear and a wide loading ramp beneath the tail. With sublime grace, it floated down the last few meters, settling the ramp and rear wheels onto the hospital’s helipad. The flat patch of rooftop was far too small to support the whole beast; the nose wheels hung out over the street below, where the shimmering air revealed tanks spewing forked tongues of fire in every direction. No sooner had the wheels touched down than black-clad figures began streaming down the ramp. Flexible armor as dark as the VTOL left not one bit of skin uncovered, capped with bug-like, form-fitting helmets. They scuttled forth at a crouch, rifles raised, their every motion precise and efficient. Like a liquid they fanned out across the roof, taking up positions covering the wide elevator doors and single stairwell. Those doors binged open. Heywood appeared, squinting against the inferno beyond the roof and clutching a surgical mask to his face. One of the figures approached him and gave a sharp salute, its bug-like black helmet seeming to fold in on itself to reveal a face. “That’s not necessary, Colonel,” Heywood waved it away. “Old habits die hard, sir,” the other kerb said, then proffered a flight helmet with attached oxygen mask, “General Kerman on a secure line for you, sir.” “Can it wait?” annoyance was plain in Heywood’s voice, “we don’t have long before the generators give out” “Says it’s important, sir.” Heywood nodded, donning the helmet and strapping the mask across his face, the cool flow of bottled oxygen pushing back the parching heat. He touched a button on the side, “General Kerman, sir.” “Heywood,” a voice clicked in his ears, “how are you doing, son?” “As well as can be expected, sir. What’s our status?” “Alpha perimeter failed before it was even complete, but beta is holding for the moment. Every resource we can muster is currently en-route or on scene securing gamma. We evacuated what civilians we could early on but the situation went charlie-foxtrot before we could make much progress. Secondary sanitation protocol is currently in effect. The KHS Mercy is two hundred clicks offshore, and waiting to receive you with all facilities at your disposal.” He looked at rising flames all around, “what about primary protocol?” “You wrote the book on this, son,” the General clicked in his ear, “you tell me.” He nodded to himself, “that’s what I’m afraid of, sir.” The pause stretched out for a moment, “Heywood... is this really necessary?” “I believe so, sir. It’s our last hope for any kind of cure. I shouldn’t have let it get this far.” “You did everything you could, son. Not even you could move the bureaucrats without their noses being rubbed in it till they bled. And there are... further complications. Get what you came for and then get the hells out of there.” “Yes, sir. Heywood out,” he touched the button again, and nodded to the Colonel. “Alright, fall in, ladies,” the Colonel‘s voice was barely above a whisper, yet rung clear over the thundering jet engines in Heywood’s earphone, “this kerb knows what he’s talking about, so listen up.” Most of the squad of what seemed like living shadows gathered in front of Heywood and the yawning elevator doors. He eyed them a moment, “this is a high value extraction. The target is two floors down in the isolation ward. What you will see in there is unlike anything you ever have before. These are not monsters, they’re people; but they’re sick and not in full possession of their faculties. So do what you need to. Aim for the head, it’s the only thing that seems to make them stay down.” He nodded back to the Colonel, who handed him a holstered sidearm before turning to the elevator. “Blue team, stairwell,” the Colonel pointed as his helmet unfolded over his face again, “red team, with me. Let’s keep this high and tight.” The figures flowed out across the rooftop, half of them draining down the stairs. Heywood followed the Colonel into the elevator with the other half and disappeared. For a time, nothing moved above save for the embers kicked up by the raging firestorm, and the writhing shadows it cast. Then all at once, the rooftop became a fury of motion and martial ballet. Before the elevator doors had even fully opened, two of the black-armored figures charged out, crossing the distance to the transport’s loading ramp in an instant to take positions on either side. More followed, surrounding Heywood as he pushed a large metal cylinder on a gurney out the doors and up the ramp without slowing. The stairwell door flew open with a bang, one figure crouching down to hold it. The rest of the team filed out at a run. The last kerb in the line came out backwards, guided and pulled along by the one ahead of him, unleashing a steady stream of tripleted bursts back into the doorway. Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! They, too, disappeared up the ramp. The moment their fusillade ceased, the one holding the door tossed something inside. BOOM! Fire erupted from the tiny structure. But the fire... was not empty. Dark, condemned specters now shuffled forth, bathed in flames, tracking more along behind them. Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! The guards flanking the ramp resumed the hail of gunfire, pausing just long enough for their comrade scuttling back from the doorway to pass. One by one, the specters fell. But for each that did, two more appeared in its place in an unending stream of burning misery. The last two guards turned away from the hideous sight, retreating back up the ramp, and a new sound split the ruinous night. Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk! The VTOL’s engines roared with new fury as it rose from the rooftop. The autocannon in a turret under the tail first leveled the stairwell housing, sending flaming debris in all directions, then cratered it, then set the whole rooftop aflame. The last building in the forsaken city now burning, the transport turned away, and disappeared into the night. *** The helmet and mask clattered to the floor. Heywood collapsed into one of the canvas jumpseats lining the wall, coughing profusely and wiping the sweat from his face with a corner of his lab coat. The Colonel sat down too, just a distance away. His helmet folded down into itself, becoming little more than a black half-ring at the back of his head. In the small, round window between them, the orange glow was already receding away. Activity in the cargo bay was slowly subsiding. Rifles were made safe and clicked into racks, packs were stowed, and more helmets snicked down to near nothingness, revealing very normal faces. Normal, but cut from stone. Conversation among the cadre of kerbelles was as practiced as their movements: understated, nothing wasted. The Colonel nodded and touched his earpiece, “Orpheus has crossed the Styx,” then turned to Heywood, who was still hacking, “you should get checked out, sir.” He nodded to a nearby medic. Heywood waved her away as she approached, “I’m fine, just the smoke.” The Colonel raised an eye... bulge. “I really am. You’d know it by now if I weren’t,” he glanced around at the other Kerbals, “that was... efficient.” “It was, sir,” the Colonel nodded, stripping off his gloves, “its an privilege to work with such professionals.” Now Heywood raised an eye... bulge, “how did you pull command of the Shadowwraiths, anyway?” “General Kerman put any asset I needed at my disposal. If ever there was a need for such, it’s now, sir.” Heywood nodded slowly, turning to the look down at the gridded floorboards, “how is it out there?” “Not good, sir,” the Colonel turned his gaze back to the window, “in fact, it’s bad. Bad as I’ve ever seen it. Makes that business in Andacania a few years back look like a sunny stroll through the park. Good people down there, all of them, but—“ The craft suddenly lurched sideways, banging Heywood’s head against the wall. All around, faces looked up from whatever they were doing. The Corporal just chuckled, “turbulence. The offshore flow coming down from the mountains tends to pick up all sorts of eddies. Can get pretty rough, sir.” “I’ll keep that in mind,” Heywood rubbed at the back of head. With the other hand, he tugged his lab coat tighter against a wash of chills that ran through him. He pulled himself up with a sigh, “do you have a secure data terminal on board?” The Corporal pointed to a screen mounted in a little cubby in the forward bulkhead. Heywood made his way there, sure to keep a firm handhold on whatever he could as the aircraft swayed and bounced. He retrieved a thumb drive from his pocket, plugged it into the port and began typing. He could feel the Colonel standing behind him, pointedly not looking at the screen. “Data from the hospital’s lab,” Heywood offered, “we’ve still got one more chance to pull ourselves out of this mess.” He moved to the large metallic cylinder in the center of the bay, stumbling a bit as the floor seemed to drop out from beneath him for a moment. The Colonel followed along, taking the little jolts in stride. Opening a cover panel, Heywood checked over the instruments inside, one of which registered a faint heartbeat. Just above that, the display read: KERMAN, DILFORD. “Seems like an awful lot of fuss for one person, sir,” the Colonel mused. “It is,” Heywood agreed, “he’s our last, best hope. He contracted it from somewhere, and we need to find out where. How. Follow that vector back to its source.” He paused for another round of coughing, scratched at his face, “that’s our only hope for any kind of meaningful treatment. Maybe even—“ He was tossed across the bay, landing hard against the opposite wall by another bout of turbulence. The Colonel seemed bolted to the floor. “I’ll go talk to the flight crew, sir,” he said, unbolting himself, “see if they can climb above it. It’s a short flight, but you may want to buckle in anyway.” Heywood nodded, rubbing at the dark bruise that was already forming on his cheek. He reached around to fiddle with the seat harness. “Good thing we’re not on a V-38,” the Colonel said as he started up the short ladder to the flight deck, “those little things really get tossed— what the hells!?” He pulled his bare hand away from the top rung, trailing long strings of slimy black goo. His face darted back to Heywood, eyes wide with fear and surprise, then to the deck just above him. The flight engineer shuffled out of the shadows, oxygen mask dragging behind him, “whuuuuuuhguggle?” The Demon reared... and there was wailing, and gnashing of teeth.