[Writing] My KSP short stories

[Anomalous_Matter]

Hey, everyone! Since the RP is officially shut down forever on this forum, I figured I\'d better redirect my creative juices into a new aspect. And, seeing as I love to write and consider myself a decent author, I\'ve decided to type up a KSP-related short story. So, without further ado:

Just a Day in the Life

Launch commencing in five, four, three, two, one...

'WAHOOOO!' Jebediah Kerman, known more commonly as Jeb, yelled enthusiastically as the shuttle rocketed into the air. All three of the ship\'s crewmembers were glued to their seats due to the high speeds they were travelling. Bill was desperately attempting to keep the rocket steady, while Bob was passed out and snoring in his seat.

'For the record, this was a really bad idea,' Bill muttered, punching flashing buttons with one hand while controlling the rocket with the other. 'I mean seriously, Jeb, what made you think a rocket made entirely out of solid boosters was a good idea?' Bob snored in agreement.

'I still stand by my choice,' Jeb responded, donning the sunglasses he always kept in his spacesuit. 'What could be better than flying through the air at hundreds of meters per second with no control whatsoever over your thrust? Just sounds like a good time to me.'

'Just come help me with this thing,' Bill said, exasperated. 'I need you to steer while I keep it from overheating.'

'Whatever.' Jeb lazily reached over and pressed a random button. Immediately a decoupler activated, pinning the command module to a now un-steerable hunk of randomly placed rocket boosters.

'Wrong button!' Bill screamed. 'That was the emergency ejector! We were only supposed to use it after the boosters ran out!

Bob finally woke up. 'Where the heck am I?' he asked, then looked out the window and saw that he was in an uncontrollable rocket hurtling through the air at breakneck speed. 'Oh, right, it\'s Tuesday.'

'Ah, Tuesday,' Jeb reminisced. 'The only day those boring scientists let me make my own shuttles. I love Tuesdays.'

'Hello!' Bill yelled. 'Trying to keep us alive over here! A little help would be appreciated!'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' Jeb responded. 'Just relax. Even if we die, they\'ll just clone us and we\'ll be right back where we started.'

Just then, the rocket\'s SRBs finally depleted, and the shuttle began to decelerate. Bob looked over to the altitude meter and gasped. 'Hey guys, look, we made it out of the lower atmosphere this time!'

'Woo!' Jeb punched his fists in the air. 'New record!'

'Now, how are we going to get back down?' Bill said. 'I hope you didn\'t \'forget\' the parachute again like last time.'

'No, I didn\'t forget it,' Jeb said, looking annoyed. 'Have a little bit more faith in me, will you? I knew you\'d be worried, so I took the parachute off the top of the pod and set it inside for safekeeping.'

'Jeb?'

'Yeah?'

'THE PARACHUTE NEEDS TO BE ON TOP TO ACTIVATE, YOU IDIOT!'

'Whoa, Bill,' Jeb replied. 'I don\'t know where this new angry side is coming from, but I don\'t like your attitude. We\'ll be fine.'

'It\'s a good thing I installed a backup parachute when Jeb wasn\'t looking!' Bob pulled a remote out of his spacesuit. It only had one button on it, labeled 'open parachute.' There was also a warning label, stating to keep the remote out of reach of toddlers and Jebediah at all times. Bob pushed the button, and just as the shuttle began to fall back to earth the parachute deployed.

'We\'re saved!' Bill rejoiced, smiling. 'We\'ll live after all!' He began to prepare the pod for landing, steadying it and such.

'Fine,' Jeb said, 'But Bob, I\'m going to have a serious talk with you after we land.' He looked thoughtful for a moment, then sprang up.

'I almost forgot!' Jeb told the others. 'I installed an experimental engine on the command module!' He reached for a large red button with the word 'DANGER' above it. Immediately after he pressed it, there was a BOOM and everything went black.

...

Two hours later, Jeb, Bill and Bob stepped out of the cloning vats, looking refreshed.

'Yeah, let\'s not do that again,' Bill said, and Bob nodded agreement. 'Maybe leave shuttle design to the professionals, Jeb?'

'Are you kidding?' Jeb replied. 'That was the most awesome time ever! In fact, I have a few more ideas, most of them involving moar boosters. Believe me, next Tuesday is going to be awesome!'

With that, he bounded off towards the VAB.

Just Another Mundane Mission

'Oh, you\'ve got to be kidding me...' Bill Kerman rubbed his fingers against his temples, fighting off a headache as he viewed the speed gauge. 'Jeb, what the heck did you get us into?'

Jeb, Bill and Bob were currently flying at thousands of meters per second, hurtling towards the Mun at extremely dangerous speeds. They were on a Mun landing mission, but at this point it seemed more likely that they\'d become a new crater on the Mun\'s surface. Bob was screaming his head off, Bill was desperately attempting to steer the craft, and Jeb was relaxing in his seat and drinking a milkshake he had snuck onboard. So just an average expedition.

'I don\'t get why you guys don\'t see the genius behind my ideas,' Jeb countered. 'Turning an old fuel tank into a decoupler worked perfectly; the tank exploded, separating us from the other stages, just like it was supposed to.'

'Except for the part where it caught on fire too early,' Bill retorted. 'And then blew up our orbit stage, as well as mangling our landing stage. What are we supposed to do now?!'

'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!' Bob said.

'Exactly, Bob,' Jeb replied. 'I\'m glad you see it my way. All we have to do is slingshot around the Mun, then around Minmus, launching us into an orbit around Kerbol until we ultimately end up back in an extremely high orbit around Kerbin, at which point we\'ll just deorbit until we end up back in a sub-orbital trajectory towards the Mun.'

'Wouldn\'t that just leave us where we started?' Bill asked. 'We\'re already in - Oh my god, only fifty thousand meters above the Mun and still going nearly five kilometers per second.'

Bob passed out from fright, collapsing onto his chair.

'Look, just give me the controls,' Jeb said. 'I hid some miniature rocket boosters in the rocket just in case of this issue.' He reached under the control panel and pressed a small, inconspicuous button. Immediately, windshield wipers began to sweep across the windows.

'Wrong button!' Bill yelled. 'Forty thousand meters, and our speed\'s still increasing!'

'Yeah, yeah,' Jeb muttered. He pressed a huge, extremely conspicuous button, and immediately a few tiny SRBs began to fire.

'How did that solve our problem?' Bill asked, annoyed. 'We\'re just going faster towards our deaths!'

Jeb pulled down on the pitch, slowly moving the navball\'s indicator upwards. 'See? No problemo. We\'ll just fly low around the Mun until the SRBs run out, and then hit the ground on the wheels I installed while the engineers were sleeping.'

A crackly voice emanated from the communications radio. 'Bzzt... You did what?'

'Erm, nothing,' Jeb said. 'Definitely not wheels to ride around the Mun\'s surface or anything.'

'Mission control!' Bill yelled. 'We could use some help!'

'Bzzt... Oh, relax, Bill. We\'re getting the cloning vats ready as we speak.

'Nice to see you have a lot of faith in us,' Bill muttered, then his eyes widened as he viewed the altitude meter. 'Ten thousand meters! Jeb, how\'s that idea of yours coming?'

'Got it!' The nose suddenly pitched upwards, barely missing a giant arch that the rocket passed. The SRBs finally died down, and the craft began to fall towards the Munar surface. 'Now THIS is what I\'m talking about!'

The broken landing engine suddenly broke off the main body of the craft, and wires and pieces of small debris began to make a trail of sparks and metal. It also woke Bob up, who groaned as he looked out the window

'We\'re not going to last much longer in this state,' Bill said. 'Soon this whole thing\'s going to fall apart.'

'Relax, I\'m landing...' The craft had leveled out, but it was still going at an extreme speed. 'You all need to relax. We\'ll be fine.'

'Hey, guys...?' Bob was rummaging at the back of the command module. 'I think I found a remote for a retro rocket back here.'

'Really? Activate it!' Bill said excitedly. 'We might have a chance of living!' He lunged for the button.

'Aw, come on, Bill,' Jeb said. 'Why do you have to be such a killjoy? I can land this thing myself, thank you very much.' And with that, the craft rumbled onto the Mun\'s surface. There was a huge jolt, and Bill and Bob were thrown against the floor of the command module. The craft flipped over multiple times, before finally coming to rest on its side in a crater.

'WAY too close, Jeb,' Bill muttered angrily. 'And how are we supposed to get home?'

'That is a good question,' Jeb said, although he didn\'t look very worried. 'But don\'t worry, I brought plenty of Mountain Dew for everyone!'

Atmosfear

'I can\'t believe we got stuck testing a plane while the recruits are in orbit and on the Mun,' Bill grumbled. 'We\'re the most experienced team the space center has!'

'Yeah, most experienced at blowing up,' Bob joked as he climbed into the cockpit of a new spaceplane design. 'Jeb makes sure of that.'

'I, for one, think this flight is going to be awesome,' Jeb said. 'I installed a few, um, special surprises, to make our jobs more interesting.'

'I swear, Jeb, if you mess this up again, I\'m going to kill you,' Bill replied angrily. 'Eight launches in the last two weeks, and only two of them were successful.'

'Loosen up, will you?' Jeb responded, then started the plane\'s engines. It began to move forward down the runway, steadily gaining speed until it lifted off the ground.

'I guess that wasn\'t too bad,' Bob said. 'We haven\'t exploded yet, at least.'

'Oh, you just wait,' Jeb said, grinning. He suddenly pulled the roll to the side, and the plane did several corkscrews through the air as it flew upwards. Bob screamed, and Bill desperately attempted to keep the nose up.

'Stop that, Jeb!' Bill yelled, shoving Jeb\'s hands away from the controls and steadying the plane. Just then, something kicked in and the plane began to shoot straight upwards at an extremely high speed.

'What was that?!' Bob said as they flew up higher and higher. 'Jeb...'

'Well, you know how you said you didn\'t want to fly a plane?' Jeb looked like he was barely holding back laughter. 'I installed rocket engines instead of atmospheric ones, as a joke Who knows, maybe we\'ll get into orbit!' He burst out laughing, then pressed a button on the control panel. Immediately there was a click sound as the wings and outer hull detached from the plane, revealing a small rocket inside.

'Not funny, Jeb!' Bill yelled, trying to level out the rocket and avoid going any higher.

'I dunno, it is kind of funny,' Bob remarked.

'See? Even Bob\'s enjoying it,' Jeb said, donning his sunglasses and taking the controls. 'We\'ll just shoot into orbit for a bit, and then return when our engines run out. No harm done.'

'Except for the fact that the plane\'s body just crashed down to the ground,' Bill retorted. 'And that we\'re almost out of fuel, and that we\'re going nearly a kilometer per second.'

'I don\'t see the problem with any of those things,' Jeb replied.

'Bzzt... Jeb, WHAT THE HECK did you do?' A voice said out of the transmitter. 'Get back down here, now!'

'Fine,' Jeb muttered, and swung the nose of the rocket completely downward. They lost control over it, and the shuttle flew randomly through the air. 'Happy?'

'Give me that!' Bill grabbed the controls, steadying the rocket pointing slightly downward. 'Jeb, did you happen to remember to install a parachute when you made this rocket?

'How was I supposed to put a parachute on the nose of a cone-shaped cockpit?' Jeb replied. Bill had passed out, and was asleep in his chair.

'Ugh, whatever. Did you remember a decoupler, at least?'

'A what?'

'A decoupler, Jeb! Did you remember to put in a decoupler!'

'Nope.'

'Great.'

The rocket finally ran out of fuel, and began to sink like a rock towards the ground. Bob snored, Bill screamed, and Jeb smiled as they fell closer and closer to a large mountain range.

'Ooh, I nearly forgot!' Jeb reached out onto the control panel and pressed a small button. An SRB suddenly kicked in, slowing their speed down. Jeb also moved the nose up, leveling the rocket out for landing.The ground grew closer and closer as the rocket slowed down, until...

'We\'re alive?!' Bill had woken up and was looking out the window, Jeb having somehow landed the shuttle.

'Yep,' Jeb remarked, leaning against the control panel. Suddenly he slipped, his elbow hitting the button for an emergency afterburner, and the craft exploded.

Orbiting Around

'Well, would you look at that,' Bill said, looking at a panel of various orbital information. 'We actually managed a circular orbit this time!'

'Only because we tied Jeb to his chair the whole time,' Bob remarked.

'Yeah, thanks a ton for that,' Jeb muttered. 'And it\'s only the day before Tuesday, too! Show a bit more respect for your commander.'

'Sorry, Jeb,' Bill replied, 'But we\'ve seen what you\'re like in the days leading up to Tuesday, so we had to take some desperate measures to get a successful trip.'

'Hey guys, come look at this view,' Bob said, pressing his face against one of the command module\'s windows. 'You can see half of Kerbin from up here!'

'I bet if I spit out the window it would go straight through somebody\'s brain,' Jeb joked, looking down at the planet.

'Well, don\'t get any ideas...' Bill responded, checking over the orbital information one last time. 'But really, this turned out pretty well.'

'You mean boring,' Jeb grumbled. 'What\'s the fun in a successful mission? I haven\'t been to the cloning vats in, like, three whole days.'

'And with any luck, we can keep it that way,' Bob replied. 'I hate the cloning vats. You just sit there in a tub of green glob for an hour, and then you step out perfectly fine. It\'s weird.'

'At least it keeps us alive,' Bill said. 'And it\'s necessary, because of Jeb.'

'Hey, it\'s not my fault I\'m more fun than you guys - Oh, hey look, an asteroid.'

'A what?'

'An asteroid. Headed our way.'

'Great...'

Bob screamed and passed out.

'By the way, why does he always do that?' Jeb asked.

'Defect at birth,' Bill replied. 'Whenever he screams, his body loses so much oxygen that it temporarily shuts down and he passes out.'

'Ah, I see. Now, what are you going to do about that asteroid?'

'I don\'t know,' Bill said. 'It\'s headed straight for us! We\'ll never be able to steer out of the way in time! Do you have any genius ideas in that head of yours, Jeb?'

'Well, I have a couple,' Jeb replied. 'But I\'m still TIED TO A CHAIR.'

'Oh, right.' Bill untied the ropes around Jeb\'s wrists and ankles that were binding him to the chair. 'Okay, now what?'

'Did the scientists install that experimental new afterburner I told them about?' Jeb asked.

'I\'m not going to answer that question,' Bill replied, looking away.

'You just did.' Jeb pushed a glowing red button; the rocket suddenly shot forward like a dart, gaining speed extremely quickly. Jeb used the momentum to steer the rocket around the edges of the asteroid.

'Well, we did it,' Bill said. 'But now the asteroid is heading straight for the space center!'

'Huh, what are the odds,' Jeb responded. 'It\'s almost like this course of events is being controlled by someone sitting at a desk and typing on a computer in an alternate dimension! Do you know what we have to do?'

'Yeah,' Bill said. 'But Bob isn\'t going to like it.'

'Like what?' At some point Bob had woken up, and now looked quizzically at Jeb and Bill.

'We\'re just going to slam our multi-billion dollar rocket into an asteroid at thousands of meters per second, obliterating it,' Jeb replied. 'And Bill helped me come up with the idea, no less! It\'s amazing!' Bill screamed and passed out again, slumping backwards in his seat. Jeb hit the afterburner one last time, and the rocket slammed head-on into the asteroid.

A few hours later, all three Kerbonauts stepped out of the cloning vats and sighed in relief. Apart from a few smaller meteorites scattered around the area of the KSC, there were no damages.

'You know, Bob, I see where you\'re coming from,' Jeb said. 'Those cloning vats are kind of gross.'

'Does that mean you\'re going to try a bit harder not to blow us up?' Bill asked hopefully.

'Are you kidding?' Jeb laughed. 'Tomorrow\'s Tuesday!'

[ping111]

Further ado, my friend. Also, this is great! I\'ll hope to see a 2000 worder by myself up by next weekend!

[Anomalous_Matter]

Further ado, my friend. Also, this is great! I\'ll hope to see a 2000 worder by myself up by next weekend!

Thanks! Honestly, I was just making the story up as I typed, but I thought it turned out pretty good. Glad to see someone else likes it too.

[ping111]

Thanks! Honestly, I was just making the story up as I typed, but I thought it turned out pretty good. Glad to see someone else likes it too.

Believe me, I know that feel. I\'m so crazy lazy, I think up a general idea and a couple poetic sentences, and I\'m off to the races. If you\'re interested, I can PM you the link to some of my... er, equine work.

[Anomalous_Matter]

Believe me, I know that feel. I\'m so crazy lazy, I think up a general idea and a couple poetic sentences, and I\'m off to the races. If you\'re interested, I can PM you the link to some of my... er, equine work.

Er... No thanks, I\'m pretty much the polar opposite of a brony. I can\'t stand MLP.

[ping111]

Er... No thanks, I\'m pretty much the polar opposite of a brony. I can\'t stand MLP.

Alright. That\'s fine. However, if you wish, I can completely remove the equine-ness from one of my one-shots so you can read it normally.

[Ascensiam]

Alright. That\'s fine. However, if you wish, I can completely remove the equine-ness from one of my one-shots so you can read it normally.

This is not the place to advertise your stuff, ping. Try to stay related to this story.

[Anomalous_Matter]

So, does anyone else have input/criticism to give? I\'m all ears. If you guys like it, I\'ll continue writing similar short stories and posting them

[Ascensiam]

Yes, you conveyed Jeb in a good way, if you can keep your current style going, you\'ll be just fine

[Anomalous_Matter]

Yes, you conveyed Jeb in a good way, if you can keep your current style going, you\'ll be just fine

Thanks! I\'m thinking next I\'ll write a story about a Mun landing or the like. Now that summer\'s started, I have plenty of time to write

[Rich]

Extremely well written.

'For the record, this was a really bad idea,' Bill muttered, punching flashing buttons with one hand while controlling the rocket with the other.

This line describes Tim_Barrett\'s avatar perfectly.

I look forward to their Mun trip

[Anomalous_Matter]

Extremely well written.

This line describes Tim_Barrett\'s avatar perfectly.

I look forward to their Mun trip

Thanks! The next story\'ll probably be up pretty soon, probably tomorrow or late today if I get some good ideas going. Do you think I should compile them all in this thread or make individual ones? Keeping them all here would be best, but then I might hit the maximum characters.

[Anomalous_Matter]

There\'s a new story up, titled 'Another Mundane mission'! Come give it a look!

[dogon11]

Knowing Jeb, he could get home on all that Dew.

[Anomalous_Matter]

Knowing Jeb, he could get home on all that Dew.

xD I bet he could. Turn it into a makeshift jetpack or something.

[ping111]

xD I bet he could. Turn it into a makeshift jetpack or something.

Yeah, shake it up and remove the cap... or compress the nitrogen and ignite it...

[Anomalous_Matter]

Anyone have any input on the story itself or ideas on what the next one should be about? I\'m open to suggestions and criticism.

[dogon11]

1. Don\'t stop. Don\'t give up, only improve.

2. Maybe Jeb\'s next shuttle, but power with something unconventional... say, methane.

[Anomalous_Matter]

1. Don\'t stop. Don\'t give up, only improve.

2. Maybe Jeb\'s next shuttle, but power with something unconventional... say, methane.

...Or his hidden stash of Mountain Dew.

[Lord Wasteland]

Fighter Jets...

[Anomalous_Matter]

Fighter Jets...

A rocket made out of atmospheric engines. Sounds like the type of thing Jeb would do.

[Lord Wasteland]

I was thinking air force jets modified with rocket engines, to go underwater...

[Anomalous_Matter]

I was thinking air force jets modified with rocket engines, to go underwater...

So jets + rocket engines = underwater? I\'d love to see your reasoning...

[dogon11]

So jets + rocket engines = underwater? I\'d love to see your reasoning...

It\'s Jebediah, for cryin\' out loud.

[Anomalous_Matter]

Okay, another story up! Give it a read!