[Writing] Minmus I

[Nikolai]

This is just a quick little draft I wrote to see if I could get a quick, surface-level sketch of the characters before trying to write something deeper. Please let me know what you think.

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The engineers were happy.

To a saner mind, this would have been a warning sign. Few engineers are willing to clamber aboard their machines and learn about their individual quirks, especially if the machine in question is preparing to shove a Kerbal faster than any Kerbal had a right to go. That special level of crazy required a test pilot.

Jebediah looked up at the engineers\' latest creation and grinned. The only reaction of the gleaming tower was to click, hiss, and moan as refrigerants evaporated and valves opened to vent them. 'How fast?' he asked in measured tones.

'Escape velocity, at least,' came Myrtle\'s reply. She glanced at her clipboard. 'Three and a half kilometers per second, give or take. You\'ll need to have that much push to get all the way to Minmus and back. Bottom line, though: There\'s enough oomph in this baby to leave our planet behind forever. You\'ll be the first Kerbin to pilot a machine with this much power.'

'Sweet, holy Meander.' Jeb donned his favorite sunglasses, never removing his gaze from the tiny capsule perched on top of the monster. It was a while before he spoke, though his grin showed no sign of fading. 'I\'ll need to collect my crew. Get ready to push the Big Red Button.'

***

'But is it safe?' Bob demanded.

'I\'ve seen the Ker-Sproing Alpha I myself. Up-close and personal. It\'s a thing of beauty,' Jeb replied.

'But. Is. It. Safe?'

Jeb sighed. 'It\'s a stinking rocket, Bob. It\'s not supposed to be safe. You should have learned that after our flight of the Gassy Guppy III last year.'

Bob remembered. The engineers had underestimated how much thrust they would need in the second stage. Less than fifteen kilometers up, he couldn\'t take his eyes off the altimeter as the rocket slowed, stopped, and began falling back to Kerbal -- backwards, the engines still roaring under full thrust. The last thing he remembered was watching rocket exhaust fly up past the capsule windows. According to the post-flight briefing, Jeb had kept his cool and pitched the rocket over, allowing them to jettison the capsule and parachute back down safely right next to the water tower.

If Bob hadn\'t passed out from terror, he probably would have learned a lot about rocket flight. As it was, the only thing that really stuck with him was the lesson that bleaching urine stains out of a flight suit was harder than he had first expected. Space-age fabrics might look good on camera, but they stain all too easily.

'Say what you will,' Jeb said, interrupting unpleasant memories about a long hour spent in the space center\'s laundry room. 'That thing may not have flown well, but she gave a smooth ride.'

'Comfort all the way to the crater,' Bob muttered.

'What was that?'

'Have you trained?'

'Enough to keep your little green butt safe. I always do. Don\'t worry. I\'ve got your back.'

Bob sighed. 'All right. I\'m in.'

***

'Why Minmus?' Bill pressed. 'Why not Mun first?'

'Because Minmus is further away. That\'s automatically cooler.'

'Take off your sunglasses,' Bill said.

Jeb complied. 'Look,' he said. 'Minmus offers us the opportunity to figure out how to land tail-first in a safer, low-gravity environment. Sure, it takes longer to get there, but it\'s better than finding out as we plummet towards a heavier body that the rearview mirrors don\'t work right. \'Objects In Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear\' and all that.'

Bill snorted -- a tricky sound to make when one has no nose. 'Fine. But wouldn\'t it be easier to wait until the scientists figure out docking first? We wouldn\'t have to worry about planting something down gently that was also big enough to bring us all the way home again. Just saying. It would give me time to go on a vacation with Sylvia.'

'You can wait if you want,' Jeb answered. 'But Minmus has these enormous ice fields. Your figure-skating girlfriend would be impressed. She\'d probably even find it romantic.'

Bill opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. 'Fine,' he said finally. 'Let\'s land on Minmus.'

***

Fiery-red Kerbol was just beginning to rise over the Kerbal Space Center when the main engines ignited under the Ker-Sproing Alpha I. A compression wave rippled up the length of the rocket and snapped out the top. Before Bob could even open his mouth to scream, the beast lurched off the pad and began sliding towards the sky.

Almost before they\'d cleared the tower, the rocket began to sway -- rocking to and fro as the SAS attempted to compensate for fluctuations in heading by slamming the winglets from one extreme to the other. The oscillation was enough to shove the poor Kerbals from side to side in their seats in spite of the harnesses. Jeb swore and put his hand on the abort handle. 'Could be a short flight,' he observed.

For his part, Bill was frantically stabbing out alarm lights as the computer complained about guidance. 'I think this will damp out once we get out of the lower atmosphere,' he said without looking away from the instrument panel. 'Our radar can\'t keep a constant fix on the ground, but I can still see figures every once in a while, and our trajectory looks right on the money.'

Bob started freaking out, loudly. Jeb swore again and apologized to Bill. 'I planned ahead, really I did. I was hoping this would be a quieter flight. Unfortunately, I left the sedatives in my duffel bag.'

'Where\'s your duffel bag?' Bill asked.

'In the White Room, next to my locker,' Jeb replied. 'I guess that means that if this rocking keeps up, I may need to borrow your comb in a bit. It\'s messing up my hair.'

After a few tense moments, Bill\'s prediction turned out to be right; the rocking slowly began to dissipate. Jeb released the abort handle and started to steer towards the east. 'We should be in orbit shortly,' he reported. 'I\'ll be following the path on your display, if I can.'

A bang rattled the capsule as the first stage separated. A second bang signalled the ignition of the second stage.

'Muuuuuch smoother,' Bill said appreciatively. 'It\'s like I always say: One engine is better than six.'

'Speak for yourself,' Jeb responded.

Even after orbit and MECO, Bill looked concerned. 'I can\'t get a good status on the \'chutes,' he confessed. 'I think they might have been damaged during ascent -- but it could just be a faulty sensor.'

Jeb thought about this. 'Well, if the parachutes are shot, we\'ll be dead if we go home. And that\'s true whether we go to Minmus or not.' He grinned at Bob, who had gone hoarse from shouting and was now emitting little squeaks. 'Just try not to think about it, okay, Bob?'

***

It was several days\' cruise to Minmus. Jeb ended up steering the craft into a highly elliptical orbit inclined to Minmus\' equator by more than forty-five degrees.

'I\'m going to try dropping straight in from periapsis,' Jeb announced, 'with periodic bursts meant to keep us from picking up too much speed.' He locked in the capsule\'s heading so that he would be able to fire against the rocket\'s direction of travel when they got down to that altitude.

'Wow,' Bill exclaimed. He leaned over Bob to look out the window. 'It\'s... it\'s amazingly weird, isn\'t it? I\'d have expected sharper peaks on something without erosion. Why do you think all those features are rounded off?'

There was no reply. Bob continued to squeak. 'Why do we take him along, anyway?' Bill pressed.

Jeb shrugged. 'Space is quiet. I don\'t like it when it\'s too quiet for too long. Besides, he reminds me of my parakeet.'

The minutes to periapsis passed quickly. It wasn\'t long before the kerbonauts felt the familiar kick in their seats associated with a rocket firing. The altimeter quickly started to tick off the meters as the vessel sank.

As promised, Jeb only fired the engine every few hundred meters to slow their descent. Before long, it became clear that the rocket would set down in one of the enormous ice lakes on Minmus.

Bill leaned over Bob again. He looked at the nav ball to verify that they were headed straight down. 'Um, maybe it\'s a trick of the mirror, or maybe the rotation is faster than we\'d thought,' he said, 'but we seem to be moving sideways a lot faster than I expected.'

'Don\'t worry about it,' Jeb said. 'The gravity here is pretty light. We may skid or bounce a little, but we\'ll be fine.'

As if to punctuate his remark, the landing legs smacked into the hard surface. Unfortunately, they were moving sideways so fast that one of the legs snapped clean off as the capsule slowly bounced back up.

Jeb sighed. He had time to react as the craft traveled a slow arc and began to head back toward the surface. 'No landing this time, I guess,' he said flatly, and rammed the throttle back up to full, punching the trio back into the void.

***

Several days later, the parachute worked perfectly. And Bob was finally awake and quiet at the same time.

As the capsule drifted towards the water, Jeb started a mental checklist of things to ask the engineers to add. Maybe another fuel tank in the second stage to increase their margin for error when they finally arrived at the small moon? Maybe that would work. A few other things would be needed before they flew the Ker-Sproing Alpha II, but the basic design seemed decent enough. It got them there, didn\'t it?

Bill was trying to work out the wording he\'d need to apologize to Sylvia and minimize her 'angry time'.

And Bob was counting the change in his pocket and making sure he had enough for two washes.

[Commander Zoom]

I really liked this (though I\'m unconvinced by the logic of going for Minmus first). The tone and characterization were great.

[leopardenthusiast]

I really liked this (though I\'m unconvinced by the logic of going for Minmus first). The tone and characterization were great.

Jeb and logic don\'t mix too well. It\'s like oil and water, if you shake it enough something happens, but normally they don\'t mix.

[Nikolai]

I really liked this (though I\'m unconvinced by the logic of going for Minmus first).

Thanks, Commander. As XenonBlade pointed out, there are a lot of things that don\'t make sense about this flight. I was hoping to get just a hint of the 'Let\'s try stuff and see what happens', jut-jawed, two-fisted Conquest Of Space that this game captures so well, where safety and caution are very secondary.

[HOC]

I enjoyed it as well! I\'m guessing it\'s based on a flight you undertook? The detail in it reminds me perfectly of bits of mine. Nice job.

[Nikolai]

I enjoyed it as well! I\'m guessing it\'s based on a flight you undertook?

Thank you, Vostok. Yes, it is, with the exception that there wasn\'t enough fuel left to break Minmus\' orbit. The craft is still in a long, looping orbit around the moon, three of its four landing legs still extended. (Regrettably, the Gassy Guppy III was an actual flight as well.)

[HOC]

Cool, however I\'m slightly worried about the fact you just called me Vostok...

Thank you, Vostok.

[Nikolai]

Cool, however I\'m slightly worried about the fact you just called me Vostok...

Me, too. <scrathces head> Sorry about that, HOC. Even in spite of my confusion, your kind words are appreciated.

[HOC]

No problem

Also, if you\'re interested in reading some others\' KSP stories, why don\'t you check out mine? I\'m about to start writing the third chapter.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=13862.0

[Vostok]

Thank you too, Nikolai...

[Naten]

Huh, you lived through the forum massacre?

(GLaDOS voice) Oh, it's you.

It's been a looong time.

How have you been? I've been very busy being dead after the Forum Massacre.

Well, anyways, nice writing! I'm looking forward to your next writing, if you make one, that is. Will you?