[Writing] From the Kearth to the Mun

[xmas104]

Edit: I\'ve tried to remove as many of the K-names as I thought appropriate...which turns out to be basically all of them. I\'m not changing the title, though, as it is a reference to a fantastic miniseries (and book , I assume, though I\'ve never read it).

Without further ado:

Kerbal Space Program and its associated copyrights owned by Squad and its associated entities. This is a labor of fan-love and is not intended for monetary gain.

From the Kearth to the Mun

Chapter 1: Jebediah Kerman\'s Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Company

Engineer First Class Malachi Kerman stepped out of his ancient Coupe and regarded the corrugated aluminum fence that stood between him and the mountain of rusted-out old junk currently shading him from Kerbol\'s harsh light. Malachi hated the desert, hated the dirt and grit that got everywhere, and hate hate hated his ancient car with no air conditioning.

But what he really hated was junk.

Malachi Kerman had been selected by the Program for his fastidiousness and attention to detail, which his manager said 'should help balance out all the other poor slobs we\'ve got working on this thing.' Malachi spent his weekdays working twenty-hour shifts consisting of writing elegant, concise proposals and critiques which were summarily rejected for being 'just not the way we do things here, son.' Instead, the veritable mob of other engineers at the Program got to spend all their time lazing about like drunken slugs, occasionally hammering out the odd bit of something that looked vaguely like actual work, then go back to sleep.

Malachi spent his weekends as far away from the Cape--and its Kerbal Space Center--as he could get.

Which, of course, was why he had volunteered to drive out to the middle of nowhere to try and gain an audience with--he checked the note his manager had given him--'the best damn junk salesman and all-around badass you\'ll ever meet.'

Malachi looked up at the vast expanse of wavy, discolored metal, baking in the sun.

'Junk indeed,' said Malachi under his breath.

'Say somethin\', slick?'

Malachi jumped and spun towards the voice. A man stood in a doorway cut seamlessly into the metal, the door hanging open beside him. Malachi looked him over: slim but not scrawny, reasonably tall for a Kerbo of his age, looked about thirty-five. He was dressed in blue jeans, a tucked-in button-down shirt, and a leather jacket. In the desert. In the summer. Right at high noon.

Malachi checked the paper again. Other than 'junk salesman' and 'badass', there were no other identifying remarks. Malachi had found this place by driving the three hours to the desert and asking where the junk was. It had been easy from there.

'Are you Jebediah Kerman?' said Malachi.

The man leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. 'Who wants to know?'

'I\'m with the Program,' said Malachi. 'We were wondering if--'

'Program?' The man raised an eyebrow. 'What Program?'

Malachi blinked. It had honestly never occurred to him that Jebediah Kerman would need to be reminded about that.

'The Space Program?' said Malachi. 'This is Jebediah Kerman\'s Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Company, isn\'t it?'

The man leaned out of the doorway and peered up at the wall overhead. Spray-painted in red letters were the words 'Jebediah Kerman\'s Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Company.' He leaned back and gazed levelly at Malachi.

'So it is.' He grinned. 'I guess that makes me Jebediah, right?' Jeb stepped out of the doorway and walked up to Malachi, grabbed his hand, and began shaking it vigorously. 'Pleased to meet you, Mister Government Agent.'

Malachi retrieved his hand as quickly as he could, massaging life back into his fingers. 'Malachi, please.' He straightened his tie. 'Now, Mister Kerman--'

'Jeb, please,' said Jeb, grinning.

Malachi pressed his lips together. 'Mister Kerman, the Program has asked me to extend to you an offer.'

'Let\'s talk inside, Mister Malachi,' said Jeb. He turned and vanished into the darkened interior of what Malachi presumed to be a residence built into the wall. Malachi sighed and followed him, glad to be out of the heat.

He closed the door behind him and looked around. It was a small place, to be sure, but actually fairly comfortable. Most everything was made of repurposed junk--a table made of old aluminum barrels and a sheet of steel, chairs made from other, smaller chairs, a mirror made from hundreds of rear-view mirrors glued onto a sheet of wood--but it all seemed to fit.

Jebediah sat on the bench-seat couch, reached into a cooler at his feet and pulled out two aluminum cans. 'Soda?' he said.

Malachi waved a hand and sat in the chair across the table from Jeb. 'Oh, no, I don\'t drink.'

'How d\'you stay alive, then?' said Jeb. 'Ah well, more for me.' He cracked open both sodas and set them on the table in front of him. 'Now, Mister Malachi, what\'s this \'offer\'?'

Malachi nodded; here was something he was familiar with. 'The Program needs your expertise, Mister Kerman. You\'re the only \'Spaceship Parts Company\' in the country.'

'That was to entertain my niece and nephew. I might as well be a house-parts company for everything I\'ve done with this junk.' Jeb frowned and took a pull of his left-hand drink. 'What about Steadler, or O.M.B., or any of the other big firms out there?'

'They\'re far too important to do the big work, Mister Kerman. They\'ll only contract us for a few elements. Nobody particularly cares about tanks and engines and such.'

'I know tanks and engines just fine, sure, but I don\'t know much about building spaceships.'

'Neither does anyone else at the Program,' said Malachi without thinking. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he slapped a hand over his face. 'I mean--'

'Bunch of drunken slugs, right?' said Jeb.

'Eh…unfortunately,' said Malachi.

Jeb nodded. 'Okay then, I\'ll do it. Somebody needs to bring some cool to that place.' He downed the rest of his drinks in two long pulls and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. 'On two conditions, though,' he said.

Malachi remembered what was written on the other side of the piece of paper his manager had given him: 'And don\'t come back without him!' While the prospect was tempting…well, what else was he going to do all day?

'Name it,' he said.

'First, I get to go on whatever big mission it is you\'re trying to do out there. You need me this bad, I want in on a piece of the action.'

Malachi made a note on the piece of paper. 'And the other?'

He pulled a pair of sunglasses from a pocket inside his jacket and slipped them on. Grinning, he said, 'I get to drive.'

Chapter 2: The Cape

Malachi wondered where his life had gone wrong.

Jebediah Kerman\'s vehicle of choice was a cherry-red Thrillmaster convertible manual-transmission monster of a car, and his idea of driving it was ramping over the far wall of his junkyard and onto the other side of a low hill, onto which he had paved a road leading from the hill to the main highway. Malachi watched his Coupe dwindle in the distance as Jeb put his foot down and refused to let it up for any reason.

'Don\'t you think this is a little excessive?' cried Malachi over the oppressive wind and engine noise.

'Go big or don\'t go at all, that\'s my motto!' said Jeb, one hand on the wheel and the other holding another can of soda. 'I\'ll let you pick the station!'

Malachi examined the car\'s stereo. It was possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen--chrome detailing, every kind of media player, little green glowy lights--and he took a moment to admire it before selecting a station.

Jeb grinned at him as 'Speed-Recording Device Desire' began blaring over the sound of the rushing wind. 'I like your style, Malachi!'

Malachi considered the statement for a moment and decided it was a good thing. He hunkered down in the seat and tried to enjoy himself.

It was a long ride to the Cape.

***

They saw the rockets first. Or rather, bits of them, scattered all over the highway. In some cases, right in the middle; traffic just diverted around it and went on honking and yelling for no reason at all other than for the hell of it. Malachi wondered, not for the first time, if he was actually an alien from another planet. One with less…Kerbalness.

'I can see why you need me,' said Jeb, 'if this is what you call \'rocket science.\''

'I don\'t call it that,' said Malachi. 'They call it that.'

'What do you call it?'

Malachi yelped and grabbed hold of the passenger door\'s interior handle as Jeb swerved around a particularly large bit of one of the more successful rocket engine prototypes. 'Junk!'

Jeb laughed. 'Right up my alley, then, isn\'t it, slick?'

The Cape was only a cape by virtue of the fact that it jutted out slightly more from the east coast of the continent than the bits immediately adjacent to it. The Kerbal Space Center was situated as close to the coast as it could get without putting floats on the buildings, which were generally low to the ground and armored on top.

Except for the Vehicle Assembly Building, of course. Malachi sighed when it came into view around one of the low mountainous foothills that surrounded the Cape. It was a monolithic structure, tall enough to house a skyscraper inside and packed full of enough rocket stuff to launch it into space. If, of course, they could ever get the engines to stop exploding all at once and start exploding over time like proper rocket engines.

Jeb pulled into the parking space marked 'KSC Administrator' and stared up at the building. He gave a long, low whistle.

'Not bad, not bad,' he said. 'It\'s pretty big, isn\'t it?'

'Well, the rockets going to the Mun are going to have to be pretty damn large,' said Malachi.

'The Mun, eh?' said Jeb. 'Sounds good. How close are we to getting there?'

'Well, the Mun\'s about eleven million meters away, and the top of the VAB is two hundred meters off the ground.' Malachi scratched his head. 'How tall are you?'

'Never mind,' said Jeb. 'I think I get it.'

A figure was walking towards them from the shade of the VAB. He was of average height, mustachioed, in a white button-down shirt and suspenders.

'Ah,' said Malachi as the man approached them. 'Administrator Kerman, this is Jebediah Kerman. Mister Kerman, this is Administrator Kerman.'

Jeb stuck his hand out of the car, and the Administrator shook it. 'Pleased to meet you.'

The Administrator grinned. 'You\'re just the guy for the job, Jeb. Your reputation precedes you.'

'Mister Kerman wants to be on the crew, sir,' said Malachi.

'That right? Well, stands to reason!' The Administrator scratched his head as Jeb and Malachi got out of the car. 'Unfortunately, we\'ve already got a prime crew. They\'ve been training for a year for the missions ahead.'

'Training for systems that aren\'t even designed yet,' muttered Malachi. The Administrator appeared not to have heard him, while Jeb was stifling laughter.

'Well, I like your man Malachi here,' said Jeb. 'So if they\'re anything like him, I bet we\'ll be on the Mun before you can blink!'

'Yeah…' said the Administrator. 'Just like Malachi.' He coughed awkwardly. 'Anyway! Why don\'t we get down to business, eh? Mister Kerman--'

'Jeb,' said Jeb.

The Administrator nodded. 'Right, Jeb. Mister Jeb, we would like to contract with your company for the purpose of building tanks, rocket engines, and various and sundry other parts as may be required for the construction of big rockets that go WHOOSH and ZOOM and generally don\'t blow up when we push the big red \'Launch\' button, okay?'

Jeb put a hand to his chin, thinking. 'Do I get my own parking space?'

The Administrator grinned. 'Have mine!'

'Then I\'ll do it.' He clasped hands with the Administrator again. 'We\'ll draw up the particulars later. For now, I want to see the rockets.'

'Such as they are,' muttered Malachi. Jeb grinned. 'They\'re inside,' he said more loudly. 'This way.'

Malachi led the way into the building. Administrator Kerman kept trying to engage Jeb in conversation, but all Jeb seemed to want to do was look at the pictures of rockets on the walls. Malachi had been through the VAB so often that the pictures were practically invisible to him now--especially since they were, exclusively, 'before' pictures. They had already seen the 'after' shots, scattered all over the highway.

They took an elevator up to the top of the building, then stepped out onto a mesh-metal balcony that ran all the way around the inside of the massive space. A rocket was taking shape on the main floor, tanks strapped together with tape and string and stages glued to other stages. There was a capsule on top, but no parachute. That, Malachi thought derisively, was still under development.

'Welcome to High Bay Three,' said Malachi. 'Don\'t ask what happened to the first two.'

'Er, you call that a rocket?' said Jeb, peering down at the monstrosity below. 'I\'ve had random piles of junk that looked more flightworthy.'

For a moment, a look of annoyance passed across the Administrator\'s face, but it passed quickly. 'Of course. That\'s our prototype. We\'re going to launch it off this afternoon and see how it works. Then we\'ll give you the data and you can help us make improvements, okay?'

Jeb frowned. 'How long until the launch?'

The Administrator leaned over the railing and yelled down to the Kerbos working below. 'How long until the launch?'

One of the Kerbos, hard hat askew, waved something up at them. 'The bottle says we have to wait half an hour for the glue to dry!' he said.

'Better give it an hour!' said the Administrator. He grinned sheepishly at Jeb. 'Er, two hours, then. We still have to drag it out to the pad.'

'Oh, okay,' said Jeb. 'So, you have some kind of big platform thing that rolls out there?'

The Administrator scratched his neck. 'Er, something like that.'

[Guest]

KERBIN! KERBIN! Not kearth.

[VincentMcConnell]

This was good, but did it really need all of those 'K\'s'?

I loved the ending.

[Radion]

I would suggest taking all of the place names, removing the 'K\'s,' coming up with your own place names, and then replacing Kearth with Kerbin. The era of 'K' spamming is over, thank goodness, and is not welcome. Otherwise, it seems like a pretty good story.

[xmas104]

Well, I do refer to it as 'Kerbin', since yes, that\'s the name of the planet. I figured it was kind of like how the 'name' of the Earth is sometimes thought of as 'Terra'. Also, the title doesn\'t reference the Tom Hanks miniseries/the book from which the miniseries comes if I don\'t call it that. I also guarantee that the K-spamming is over--this chapter is from a while ago when that kind of thing was accepted. I could change it if it really bothers people, but I rather like a few of the puns it produces. Next chapter will be up soon, as it\'s already written.

[Twinky827]

Too many Ks! My friend, I do suggest replacing them with English language words, as far as we know, Kerbals speak English. The planet is also 'Kerbin' not 'Kearth'. Have a good day, however!

[HOC]

I\'m enjoying it, produce more! About to go write the fifth chapter of my own novel actually, check out the link in my signature if you\'re interested.