CatastrophicFailure

Chapter 6: Into Darkness Valentina Kerman was bathed in brilliant, warm, penetrating light. She could hear... something. All around, faces... familiar faces... soft and indistinct. She felt like she was floating. Am... am I... dead? Bright... so bright... She raised a hand against the blinding brilliance. And blinked. Pure, unfiltered sunlight streamed in through the hole in the cabin where the window had been. A steel washer floated weightlessly by. Slowly, the sun drifted past the edge, and the capsule was plunged back into darkness. No, I am... I am in space! Disoriented, she checked her suit display... still holding pressure, backup power on. The nosecone must have decoupled! What on Kerbin had just happened? Light from the window drew her attention again... Then all... conscious... thought... ceased. The curve of Kerbin passed into view as the ship slowly tumbled. The fuzzy line of the atmosphere gently gave way to the patchwork of vivid blues, greens, and whites spread out below like a map. Valentina could see the ocean. She had never seen the ocean before. Deep blue faded to rich turquoise dusted by frail white clouds. She could see sunlight glinting off of individual waves. As the pod turned, here and there were criss-crossing trails of white within the thinner clouds, converging at the land. She realized these were ship tracks from the busy port city of Kerbelsk. The city now came into view, and Valentina could see the maze of roads... the long, thin, black smudges of smoke from the factories... the port its self... even individual ships, all with incredible clarity and detail. She saw the railroad tracks, snaking throughout the city and then concentrating beyond the city to the east, merging into the Great Trans-Kerberian Rail Road. She could see the scar it made for leagues and leagues as it cut through the dense taiga forest, and huge, kilometer-long trains headed by more smudges of smoke as they went along. To the north, the green of the forest diffused into the white of the tundra like a line of battle. The pod tumbled on, and the entire great breadth of Ussari spread out before her further east, taking up the entire horizon as the opposite curve of Kerbin drifted into view, with the stark blackness of space beyond. Then the Mün wandered into view, and suddenly filled her with an inexpressible terror that jolted her back to reality. She shouldn't be seeing this. She shouldn't be seeing any of this. She was much too far north! Instinct came roaring back, and Valentina desperately tried to restore power. Main buss A, dead. Main buss B, undervolt. Cross feed from aux batteries, switch the breaker, and... there! A single bulb flickered weakly to life, casting a dim yellow in the cabin. Debris floated everywhere. Quickly, cautiously, she reset the circuit breakers for the most important systems. The map gauge confirmed she was far off course to the north, heading towards the frigid North Yaltik Sea. She had to fire the retro rocket pack and land before she reached it. The pod could land in the water, but the nearly freezing water would kill her in minutes if she landed there. With that gaping hole, the capsule would sink like a stone. "Control, this is Kedr, do you read?" Nothing. "Control, Kedr, do you copy?" Not a sound. She couldn't be sure if the ship was even capable of transmitting. Or receiving. Or if the rest of it, and the retro pack, was there at all. She reached for the manual controls and-- PЦTIЙ! The lockout. She couldn't fire the rockets, jettison the service module, or set attitude for reentry. Even if the automatic system still worked, without buss A there was no way to power it. In frustration, she slammed her fist against the plastic cover. It shattered, sending cascading about the cabin. But as she knew, the controls still wouldn't work without the override code. Deep in the back of her mind, something leered and snickered in the shadows. She was done for now, there was nothing-- A small, colorful paper bird drifted past her faceplate. Mouth agape, she gently reached out and plucked it from the airless vacuum. Gingerly, awkward with her thick gloves, she unfolded it. The words "override code" in a certain heavy, deliberate script appeared. "Igor, I could kiss you!" Valentina squealed to the instrument panel. She flipped the paper over, and stopped. 12345. Unbelieving, she entered the code into the panel. The red light changed to green. "Unbelievable, that is the kind of thing an idiot puts on his luggage!" She said aloud as she manually powered up the controls. Quickly, must act quickly. Need retrograde attitude first, 34 degrees nose down. She hit the button to fire an attitude control thruster. Nothing happened. She hit it again. Nothing. Deep in her mind, something snickered again and eyes pierced out of the shadows. She pressed it and held. Still nothing. Had she set the power correctly? Were the right valves on? Maybe-- She felt the ship move. She tried another button, pressed, held... after an eternity, the ship moved the other way. The firing is delayed! It wasn't like this in the simulator! With agonizing lethargy, she brought the capsule around to the right attitude and stabilized it. She wasted no time hitting the sequence of switches to fire the engine. After a heartbeat of eons, she finally felt the push as it fired. She hoped it would be enough. If the altimeter was working, she was already dipping back into the atmosphere. The tiny engine fired on and on. She willed it to go faster. This wasn't the right attitude for reentry. With the service module in place, the capsule would eventually flip around nose-first, even with the attitude thrusters, pointing the parachute pack directly into the fiery plasma. "Come on, come on, faster!" Valentina yelled at the ship. Finally she felt the push cease, and saw the light on the console go from yellow to red. Slowly, ever so slowly, she brought the ship to the proper reentry attitude. She switched off the safeties and fired the decoupler. A slight bump, and the console lights changed again. There, now the ship should be stable, just have to hope the heat shield-- There was a tremendous jolt, and the craft started oscillating wildly. The view in the window began rushing around, the push of acceleration returned, and the Thing in the back of her mind cackled with glee. PЦTIЙ! STДLIИ! ЬЯЗZHЙЭV! In her haste she'd mixed up the procedure. The module should have been detached before changing attitude! Now it must be jammed against the bottom of the capsule by the force of air rushing against it. She looked at her horizon gauge, spinning around and around. It was canted off to the side, too, the pod made unstable by the mass pressed against it. Gee force pushed her deeper and deeper into her couch as the pod plunged into the thickening atmosphere. Shuddering and shaking now returned as well, Valentina could see a dull orange glow through the hole in the hull. It grew brighter, whisps of superheated plasma and glowing bits of... something streaking past. Then in an instant, the capsule shifted, and now the plasma was inside, flailing and searching like a thing alive, incinerating anything it touched. The edges of the window-hole incandesced in red and orange. She was paralyzed by the crushing gee force as the Thing in the back of her mind paced rapidly back and forth like an anxious animal, giggling all the time. But as quickly as the tempest had begun, it faded. The glow dissipated, the acceleration dwindled, and soon the pod was simply falling. Not willing to trust the altimeter any farther, Valentina hit the manual parachute release, and was relieved as the pod bucked back and forth beneath it. Eventually she felt the reassuring push as the canopies fully opened, the capsule slowed, and gently rocked on its lines. A loud bang, as the heat shield decoupled and fell away, then she hit the switch for the landing airbags. Nothing. No indicator light either way, no sound or motion. For all she knew they might not even be there anymore. It would be a hard landing. She strained, trying to see anything useful through the charred and blackened window-hole, but could see nothing but sky and clouds from this angle. She had no idea if she was even over land or-- The pod slammed into the water, only theoretically softer than solid ground. The impact knocked her senseless for a moment, water pouring in through the hole as the capsule bobbed and rolled in the waves. PЦTIЙ! This, at least, Valentina had trained for. Not much time. She knew the parachute would quickly drag the pod under the water, even if it hadn't been flooding. Her timing must be perfect. Just before it did, it would roll over with the hatch pointing to the sky. She had to blow it then, up and out of the water and away from the ship, then climb out before the sea poured in. She had to move quickly. The Thing in her mind bounded back and forth, slobbering and whimpering, still not daring to leave the shadows. Faceplate still down and locked, good. She closed her suit valves, unhooked the umbilicals, then unfastened her harness. The survival kit was under the couch, she would need the medical kit out of locker A3-- The hatch blew out. She had just enough time to recognize that fact before the incoming torrent of water smashed her face into the instrument panel, and again darkness took her.

Chapter 5: Poyekhali "All personnel clear the launchpad! All personnel clear the launchpad!" It became eerily silent inside the cramped pod once the scrabbling and banging and muffled voices departed. The distant hum of the instrument gyroscopes, the soft whir of the air handlers, but to Valentina, by far the loudest sound was her own steady breathing. "Kedr, control, set launch abort to master arm." "Master arm, set." She pulled the pin that disengaged the final safeties inhibiting the launch abort tower high above, and stowed them. "Set launch abort to flight arm." "Flight arm, set." She removed the small metal cage protecting the big, red abort handle on the instrument panel in front of her. One pull would send her pod shooting away from a failing rocket. In theory. With no way to shut down the five huge solid rocket engines below once they were lit, she had her doubts about the abort system's ability to out-run them. Sure, she'd been over all the test data, been heavily involved in the test program, even, but-- She stopped. Am... am I nervous? She thought, that is ridiculous, I do not get nervous. I have landed half an airplane on a damp sponge before, why would I be-- She stopped again. Not nervous, just nerves. Nerves, that's all. Nothing to do now but listen to the mission control chatter and flick the occasional switch. She looked over the expansive instrument panel before her, covered in an obscene amount of switches, knobs, and lights. She knew each one by heart, by feel, by simple spacial awareness. Then she looked to the control panel to her left. All the important things, covered by a piece of plastic locked by an override code she wasn't trusted with. Valentina frowned. There was a tool kit under her couch. The plastic was pretty flimsy, maybe she could pry it up. There was a screwdriver in the kit. But that would hardly be professional. Still probably wouldn't work without the code. Maybe she could-- She snapped her head to the right and looked straight into the horrible face of... the breaker panel? Valentina realized she'd been holding her breath. For a moment... just a moment... she could have sworn she heard-- "Say again, Kedr, did not copy that." Had she said something? "Ah... disregard, control.... must have jostled the mic..." "Understood, Kedr, countdown is proceeding normally, thirty minutes to launch." "Kedr copies." Just her mind playing tricks, that's all. Still, that was unusual. Growing up in the taiga, you never let your mind play tricks on you. There were plenty of hungry things trying to do that already. Her deda had taught her that when she was very little, one of the very first things she remembered. Everything before that was... fuzzy. She sighed and looked out of the small window in front of her, seeing nothing but the inside of the protective nosecone covering her capsule. Soon, through that window, she would be the first of her people to see her planet from above the atmosphere... and only the second person ever. She should be brimming with excitement. Why on Kerbin did she feel like-- Valentina snapped her head left, seeing only more indicators. She'd been holding her breath again. She knew she'd heard-- "Say again, Kedr, did not copy. Your heart rate's up, are you all right?" "Must have bumped the mic again. I am well, just excitement building," she lied. "Copy that. Final clearance has been received, ten minutes to launch." Ten minutes? The thirty minute call was only moments ago, wasn't it? Had she been in a fog that long? For a moment, Valentina thought of calling a scrub to the launch right there... but no, not when they were so close, not over some little preflight jitters. This will be a Great Day, and only the first of many. She grabbed a checklist and went through it once more. *** "Kedr, control, five minutes to launch. Terminal countdown has commenced." "Kedr copies, final gyro synch complete." As Valentina had hoped, the nerves began to abate as the clock ticked down. Just well-practiced, automatic actions now. No room for thought. "Four minutes, beginning startup sequence, pre-ignition heaters running." It all came down to this. All the hours of training, the exhaustion, even the damn politics. "Three minutes, close your visor, verify bleed valve status, Kedr." Valentina closed and locked her helmet visor, sealing out the last of the sound from the cabin. Nothing but her own breathing, now amplified off the thin plexiglass. It was time. "Down and locked, cabin bleed valve to flight dump, safeties locked." "Two minutes to launch, Kedr now running on internal power, clear umbilicals." She threw the final few switches, and again looked out the window at the featureless nosecone wall. Nothing left to do but wait. "One minute, launch key in, all systems go!" She crossed her arms over her narrow chest and grabbed the straps on her harness, scrunching into her launch couch, and fixed her eyes on the gauges. Finally, this was it. Everything would be different now. The fulfillment of a dream, but more importantly, honor and respect for her family, so long departed. And perhaps... even atonement. Then why did she feel-- "Dvenádtstat..." "Odínnadstat..." "Désyat..." "Dévyat..." "Vósem..." "Sem..." "Shest..." "Pyat..." "Chetíreh..." "Tree..." "Dva..." "Odéen..." Wait, what was-- "Ignition!" The whole world became Sound. It was everywhere, everything. Sound filled reality with empyrean ubiquity. She could feel it, smell it, PЦTIЙ, she could taste it! It was far beyond pain or pressure, it was like sentience from her very bones. A memory drifted up, but was quickly scattered by the sheer power. For a moment, she thought the rocket had simply exploded, then acceleration slammed her deep into her couch and the gauges came alive. "Kedr has cleared the tower!" There were cheers and whoops in the background. "Poyekhali!" Valentina squealed, completely overwhelmed by the moment. "Control reads Strannik-Б˜ is stabilizing, how do you read Kedr?" "I am receiving you, I am well," she tried to drag her focus back to the mission, "the noise is truly incredible." Acceleration and vibration were already rising. The 2.6 gees at ignition soon climbed past three as the rocket slowly pitched over with gravity. Three large, sudden jolts caused a hurried scan of the instruments. "Kedr is on course... deviation within limits... getting bumpy up here..." "We copy that, Kedr, confirm telemetry is good, you are still on course." Acceleration rose past four gees now, edging into the unpleasant. The tiny cabin was shaking so much Valentina could barely see the gauges, with the worst still yet to come. She gritted her teeth and shifted in the couch. "Kedr, check your indicator, we read your course drifting northward." "DД, I see it," the vector was wandering off its target, slowly pulling the rocket's trajectory away from the intended landing zone. "Guidance is suggesting you abort. It doesn't appear to be improving." Valentina eyed the large, red abort handle on the panel. Three more sharp jolts rocked the capsule. Then she looked at the map ball and did a quick mental calculation. "It's still within the secondary landing zone. We've come too far to panic over a mild course deviation, I say we continue. Maybe it will settle out after booster separation." There was an agonizingly long pause while she waited for a response from mission control. Gee force was now edging over the five mark on the gauge. "Control concurs," came Dibella's relieved voice. We will monitor, and respond as needed. Thirty seconds to booster sep." "Kedr copies." Valentina knew they would be the longest thirty seconds of the short flight. As the engines grew ever more powerful in the rapidly thinning air and the ship grew ever ever lighter as the propellant was burned away, it accelerated faster and faster. Valentina could no longer make out the instruments from the violent shaking. But she knew the feeling well enough from centrifuge training. Five and a half gees... now six... Three more jolts. Then a fourth. Something went red on the warning panel. She couldn't tell what it was. Seven gees... instinctively, she started grunt-breathing, desperately trying to keep oxygenated blood in her brain. Seven and a half... Eight... Eight and a half... Darkness began closing in at the edges of her vision. The ship was coming apart. A ragged shimmy back and forth... and the punishing acceleration died away. The sound and shaking dropped to a low rumble. Valentina blinked back into reality. "Kedr, respond, do you copy? Kedr, do you copy?" "Control, Kedr, I am here. Staging is good, core stage has ignited." "Control copies staging. Thought we'd lost you for a moment there. You had a bunch of people about turn blue, we're breathing again." Had she actually blacked out? She hadn't thought so. "Core stage is much smoother. More of a push now. Course has stabilized, still off to the north. All systems are green." "Control concurs. That should have been the worst of it, two minutes to core staging." The rocket clawed higher and higher, though its course was now more horizontal than vertical. Valentina again wished for some sort of window in the nosecone. All she had were instruments to know the outside world. And they were now telling her she was already traveling higher and faster than anyone before. Well, anyone but him. At least the flight had smoothed out. The next two minutes passed uneventfully, the core solid motor performing exactly as expected. The final stage would be milder still, specially de-tuned for a slow, easy push out of the atmosphere and into space. "Approaching final staging, Kedr, set comm array to mode three." "Kedr copies, mode three." "Relay acquisition is good, staging in tree... dva... odéen... mark." Just a thump this time. The mounting acceleration dropped once more, sound dying to a distant rush. "Staging is good... final stage reads nominal." "Control concurs, Kedr, standby to switch... ah Kedr check your vector we read your course deviating." Valentina checked the gauge. The vector was drifting northwards again. The dull rumble seemed to be rising quickly. "I read the same." "This isn't looking good. Telemetry is showing multiple channels off spec. Try resetting... channel... buss... sxkkvvzz" She checked the breaker panel. Why was it getting hard to move? "Say again control, did not copy." "Telem... set... cxkgyzzz" "Say again, did not copy, say again." She reset the comm switch, tried a different antenna, then noticed the gee meter. Four gees, rising faster than ever before. Far beyond what this motor should be producing. PЦTIЙ! The course vector was deflecting farther and farther, pushing the craft off to the north. "Control, Kedr, do you read? Control?!" Nothing this time, not even static. Standard procedure was clear, here. Abort the mission. Valentina steeled herself and strained for the abort handle on the panel before her. Her gloved fingers stopped a centimeter away. She pushed again, struggling against the acceleration making her arm feel heavier and heavier. It was just out of reach! Gritting her teeth and snarling she surged at it once more, her fingers just brushing the edge, then with her last ounce of strength... Lowered her arm with as much control as she could muster, knowing if she just let it drop her bones would shatter. Too late, the abort motor couldn't pull against this kind of acceleration anyway. Six... seven... eight gees... One by one red lights blinked on all over the warning panel, then something exploded in a hail of sparks. Nine gees... now ten... now eleven... Even grunt breathing couldn't help now. This shouldn't be possible! Darkness danced at the edge of her vision once more, she could feel her bones pressing through her flesh, her eyeballs distorting and blurring. Twelve... thirteen... The capsule creaked and groaned. Something else exploded. The tiny window cracked and shattered, the air rushing out in an instant. Darkness closed in, narrowing her vision to a point. Fourteen... fifteen... then the gauge exploded. Sparks cascaded across the panels, the cabin lights flickered and burst, and the darkness took her.

Just getting THAT far is a huge accomplishment. Moho sucks. Delta-v, that is.

wait a minute, how the heck did that happen?

What gives you the 72 hour orbit contract?

I'm just really plead with how this one screenie turned out

C'est Magnifique! Let us celebrate with wine, cheese, and running in terror, nón?

That's the 1.25m detachable nosecone from NovaPunch, only thing available as I haven't unlocked any proper fairings yet. I've hit it more than once during "simulations," so I aim for a nice long coast to a high ApA to give it time to drift off. Probably should do some orbital speed reentry testing now that you mentioned it. I've done returns so far up to about 3 km/s. Things that should have blown did and things that shouldn't didn't, but I didn't see much ablative loss either. Ekho-1 came down at nearly orbit speed and something blew up, but what was left slowed down too fast to get any useful info. I've got RealHeat & the latest 64k configs that were supposed to fix all that, haven't bothered with DRE as I think it's just adding g force now.

New computer you said... Ima go out on a limb here... are all your drivers, esp video, up to date?

Have you tried the -nolog tweak?

Well that sucks. Have you tried maybe clearing the ATM Bach?

Ah, so KCT has a history of working well with KSC switcher then?

THAT. IS. AWESOME!!! why was KSP not around when I was into that??

Well that's the thing, anything in fake-Cyrillic is either meant to be something very.... impolite, or a bit of fun poked as common Russian terms "everyone" knows (da, nyet, etc). In the case of the former, I deliberately don't want the *actual* wording, since this is a family forum after all. And in the latter, using proper Cyrillic would need a translation, yes. Any "real" Russian is an italicized transliteration, and I do try to at least get that right. But it is worth noting that Kerbal fiction (at least in my case), borrows the same convention as Tolkien (ie: Bilbo Baggins' name is actually something like Bilba Labingi): Kerbals are little alien beings with their own languages & customs, they don't speak "English" or "Russian" per se, these stories are just translated from the original Kerblish & Ussari (Etc) languages into something that makes it comprehensible to the reader and simply gets the point across. Otherwise authors would have to spend pages describing what a "smeerp" is.

Yes, there's a MM config in the 64k package that boosts all ranges by 6.4, so that much at least isn't any harder. Signal delay, now...

Now if I did that... the mods would probably close this thread

So it seems this latest update has removed all of my RemoteTech ground stations. How would I go about making a MM config to restore them, and so that it doesn't happen next time there's an update? The "wall of text" formatting of the new RT MM config makes it nearly impossible to read for me.

How would I go about setting this up as MM config that will make sure they get added LAST? I had them working for a while, then some mod got updated and they're all missing. I get real confused with MM beyond very basic stuff, and especially when the config I'm trying to figure out is mushed into a big wall of text.

forgive me for being dumb, but does the extracted folder of CFG's go in /damegata or dump directly into /RealFuels?