totm aug 2016 Kerny Kerman's Journal (mission reports from a Kerbal's point of view) [Chapter 87: "Among the growing shadows."]

[Kerminator K-100]

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

I have thought about going a completely different storyline in 1.10. 

The surface decals in 1.10 are really nice for naming ships and making them look cool

EDIT: Looking back now, it looks like you already have decals, Conformal Decals mod?

Edited August 18, 2020 by Kerminator1000

[adsii1970]

47 minutes ago, Kerminator1000 said:

The surface decals in 1.10 are really nice for naming ships and making them look cool

EDIT: Looking back now, it looks like you already have decals, Conformal Decals mod?

There were two mods available for 1.3. one was called "decals!" Which does the same thing as the surface decals in 1.10. the other is InFlightFlagSwitcher, a mod that allows you to assign flags to the decals either after launch or in the craft editor.

Neither are now needed in 1.10. 

 

[Angelo Kerman]

A new story for 1.10? Oh my!

[adsii1970]

2 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

A new story for 1.10? Oh my!

I am seriously thinking about it.

[KerballingSmasher]

On 8/17/2020 at 9:07 PM, adsii1970 said:

It's encouraging to hear folks still enjoy reading this

I mean, in the absence of First Flight...

 

Jk, jk...

On 8/18/2020 at 5:21 PM, adsii1970 said:

I am seriously thinking about it.

Also wut.

[adsii1970]

Just wanted to let everyone know I have all the images I need for the next chapter. I now just need time to write it. 

[adsii1970]

Moho 37, Y003
"Lieutenant, send a flash message. Narrow beam..."

MISSION DAY +15.0

Chapter 79

It's been two days since I have been able to break away from the recent developments. Although I planned to return to my quarters after meeting with Maxbas, that's not exactly what happened. But even Maxbas was caught off-guard when I finished updating Maxbas on all the events of the day and the courier flight performed by Major Froming. She was nearly speechless. And one thing I have learned about her is her becoming speechless is not a common thing. She always has something to say about everything.

"Captain," she asked. "What do you think it means?"

"I'm really not too sure," which was the truth. "But whatever it was, you can bet that Dr. Zarkov didn't want to risk the chance of the prime consul hearing the contents of the message."

"Oh," Maxbas said, her exasperation showing through her tone of voice. "I really hope she's..."

"You know," I began, "we got to be careful here. Remember, this ship was fitted with both the newer communications system by Dr. Angelo and the older, traditional system. Unless this room is secured, you really shouldn't say things like..."

"Yeah, I know." Again, the exasperation filled her voice.

As I was getting up from the chair to leave Maxbas' quarters, a ship-wide page called out, "Captain, you have an audio-visual message coming through. It's Captain Bob."

"I'll take it in Consul Maxbas' quarters," I said. It sounded like a few cheers and snickers were in the background. I might have to look into that later.

"Aye, sir, patching it through now," Gilti said, with a slight chuckle even in her voice.

Captain Kerny, Bob's familiar voice began, I wanted you to know that by the time this message gets to you and the Excursion, Jebediah will be arriving back at the Kerbal Space Center.

We arrived shortly before local Kerbalrise this morning over the old space center. As I was preparing to land, I became concerned because Jebediah was looking uneasy. When he asked me if we could make a flyby of the old KSC and land, I thought for sure he was going to try to take over the craft. But to my surprise, he didn't.

"Bob, do you remember our time there," Jebediah began. "You, Bill, and me. We were the first to be called Kerbalnauts. And we were the first since the Emergence to break the sound wall and even the first to go into space."

"Yeah, Jeb, I remember those days. Remember when we moved the entire operations to the new KSC?"

"Yeah, do I ever. About a year later, Valentina joined us. The space program hasn't been the same since -- "

"That's not fair, Jebediah! You were the one who was already coupled to Rayvan. You led Val on -- "

"Bob, let's make one more pass around. I don't see anyone else there yet."

"No, Jeb, I better not. This ol' craft has a third of her fuel remaining and I still have two hours of flying after you're gone and headed back to the KSC."

"Well, I understand."

We did take one more passing flight so I could bring her in. Although the old KSC was no longer an active airfield, it just seemed a little wrong to not do things the way we did when the field was active.

Once we were down, we taxied to the old staging area and waited for the prototype Gene had told us would be arriving around midday. After about an hour and a half of sitting on the tarmac, we could see something heading in our direction.

As we sat, watching the black speck grow larger, the UHF radio began to spring to life. "KSC Flight 43, are you there?"

"Roger, and I have the 'package' and ready for transfer." I replied.

"Hey, where did you get that portable radio, Bob?" Jebediah began. "Why didn't they... you... just use the standard coms system of this old bucket?"

"Jeb, in your absence, things have, um... changed considerably." Bob began. "We can't trust Katrina -- "

"Woah, what's that?"

"Jeb, you're riding back in the latest passenger craft design. That's the new KAI-PT-X1"

"Ah, I see they are still letting Angelo name things." Jebediah laughed. "But then again, I've only been gone a few days, you know."

"Yeah, I do know," Bob began. "But you know there's still going to be some consequences for you when you get back -- "

"I'd rather not think of those right now, Bob." Jebediah said in almost a whisper. "But I do know."

"Let's get out and watch her come in. Gene said you need to be on board and out of here soon."

"I guess this means it's time to go," Jebediah said. "Old friend, I don't know how things will turn out, but we shall see each other again."

"Yes, Jeb," Bob said, a bit of emotion could be heard in his voice. "Gene said he'll help any way he can. And I'll be back at the KSC once I've finished my assignment."

"What assignment?!" Jebediah quizzed. "What assignment is that?"

"I can't say, Jebediah. Please don't ask."

And with that last part of the transmission, both Maxbas and I knew Jebediah was heading to an uncertain future. But at least he was no longer hiding. And whatever would happen now would be up to the Triune Committee based on our report. But Bob was right; this new passenger craft was designed for speed. And we knew that before the local Kerbalrise at the KSC - which would be at any time now. We wouldn't know until our next data packet from Bobak.

"Kerny, what do you think will happen to him," Maxbas asked. "Do you think they'll --"

"Oh, no." I'm pretty sure she's talking about poofing, um... executing him. "No, remember, the Grand Committee has that as one of the articles. But beyond that, I'm not too sure."

"Yes, I think you're right about poofing," her eyes full of tears. "But he just can't get away with what he did -- "

"He won't," I interrupted. "He's cause the poofing of his niece. That will haunt him forever regardless of what the Triune Committee decides -- "

"Captain," Karloff's voice could be heard coming from the communications panel speaker. "It's the Tsoolik, we're getting her telemetry and communications -- "

"We're on our way," I said, knowing Maxbas would be coming with me.

As we arrived on the command deck, we watched as the central display was showing images from the shuttle's cargo bay and telemetry reports of the shuttle and it's target - our data pod. Over the command deck's speakers, we could hear the conversation unfolding between the KSC's tracking station and the Tsoolik.

"KSC Tracking, this is Tsoolik" Podwin's voice could be heard clearly. His heavy lower-flatlands accent is quite distinctive.

"Roger, Tsoolik," Bobak replied. "Have you acquired the homing signal of the target?"

"Roger, Tracking." *BEEP*

"Tracking, we have acquired radar lock on target." Podwin added, "we are now moving in position." *BEEP*

"Roger, Tsoolik," Kuzzter's voice was now filling our speakers. "We've activated the target's guidance to help orient the target." *BEEP*

"We have strong acquirement signal and are in position. Preparing to capture the target in five..."

"We have strong acquirement signal and are in position. Preparing to capture the target in five... four... three... two..."

We all heard the sounds of the capture. A loud metallic thud filled the command deck.

"Tracking, this is Tsoolik," this time, it was Commander Keralla's voice we heard. "We have successfully captured the target and it is secure in the cargo bay."

"Woah," Karloff couldn't contain his awe of this. "Did they just really capture a satellite in their cargo bay?

"Yes and no," Gilti answered. "They just captured our data pod!"

I'm not sure which cheers were louder, the ones coming from my crew or the ones we heard over speakers of the shuttle's crew and the tracking station. It was the first time one of the shuttles was used to rendezvous, and capture a probe to return it to the KSC.

"Captain," Gilti's tone, her shouting above the celebration on our command deck, immediately focused us all to the reality of our crew on the surface of Minmus below. "I've received a signal they are returning to the Excursion."

"Good," I said. "Tell then to proceed to rendezvous and dock with our dorsal port."

"Aye, Captain," she said. "Minmus Lander, this is Excursion. Captain says you are go for ascent from surface, rendezvous -- "

"Roger, Excursion," Hildi could now be heard over the commotion of the command deck. "Ascent in three, two..."

 

"Excursion, we are on our way," Hildi called out. "We're on our way home..."

It's strange to hear another Kerman say what I've been thinking for the past few days of this mission. The Excursion has, in a way, become my home. While I do look forward to my return to Kerbin, I know that as soon as I am back at the KSC my thoughts will immediately be back here - in space. And as I pondered how long our next refit would take, the two members of my crew on the lander, Obion's voice shattered the near silence of the command deck.

"Captain!" he screamed, "I'm switching on my external cameras, can you see this?!"

Right there, on my monitor, and in the face of the lander crew, was one of those unidentified craft. But unlike the other encounters, the alien craft didn't seem to be concerned with the presence of the lander.

"Hey, Obion," we could hear the voice of Hildi in the background. "Let's get out of here -- "

"Captain, we're getting out of here!" Obion exclaimed. I hope you received the images -- "

"Sir," Gilti's voice was full of fear, "are they in danger?"

"Only if they get careless, Lieutenant," Karloff answered. Stick to your training. We always face the unknown by the knowledge of things we do know."

"Yes," I began. "Can you track them, Triy?"

"Sir, I can and am..." she began. "They are on a trajectory to dock with us within five minutes. I'm sending the docking approach instructions now."

"Thank you, Ensign," I replied.

"Captain," Karloff asked. "That craft didn't even -- "

"Commander," I began, "it either didn't assess the lander as a threat, it's been abandoned, or the crew is incapacitated somehow. Any one of these three reasons is the only reason I can think of as to why the craft didn't do anything when the lander approached."

"Yes, captain," Karloff added, "do you think they were studying us?"

"We won't know that from this contact." Turning towards Gilti, I gave my first major order of the evening, "Lieutenant, send a flash message, narrow beam. Frequency 476.80, channel 7. Priority C. Message is as follows, 'Contact made. After can retrieval, will intercept. Shadow 3. End Message.' Encrypt it with key VTPX099"

"Uh, Shadow 3?" Karloff asked. "Are you sure? Shadow three?"

"Lieutenant, send it." I began. "And yes, Shadow 3. From this moment until I give the order, there will be no outside ship communications. Ensign Triy, deactivate all transmitters when the lander has been secured. Leave the receivers active but passive. I do not want any signals to give away our position. We're going to go study this craft and see if we can get some answers."

"Shouldn't we wait for Gene's response?" Karloff asked. It was obvious he didn't like the idea of getting too close to the alien craft. "After all -- "

"No, that's why I sent a flash message." I understood he needed more of an answer than that. "If we want to intercept this craft, we need to be careful with our radio emissions. And I think it's time we try to get some answers for our questions."

"Sir, the Excursion is unarmed. If they attack -- " this time, it was our guest, Commander Orvin, asking the question i could tell that even a few of my crew were thinking. "If they decided to attack us, it would be a complete --"

"I understand your concern, Commander Orvin," I interrupted. "But so far, there is no indication this alien craft is a threat. If it were, the lander wouldn't be here --"

"Captain," Gilti interrupted, "the can is requesting permission to dock on the forward dorsal port."

"Permission granted." I replied. "Get them docked and stowed as soon as possible. Commander Karloff, debrief Hildi and Obion. Get the electronic-stored image recorder and let's see what we can learn about that alien craft."

"Aye sir," Karloff said, as he headed off the command deck and off to meet the crew.

 

Within what seemed like a few seconds, the command deck was filled with the sounds of the magnetic locks of the docking port engaging the port of the lander. The unmistakable whoomp, whoomp, woomp, clang filled the ears of all aboard. The lander and its crew were back - and safe.

"Captain, the ship's computer is acknowledging the lander is docked. Karloff has signaled both are on board and heading towards the forward briefing room." Gilti paused, "New orders, sir?"

"Yes, lieutenant. plot a course back to the location where Obion reported contact with the alien craft. Ensign Triy, deactivate those transmitters -- "

"Already done, sir," she answered. "I did it as soon as we had confirmation of capture and hard dock. We are now running silent."

"Good," You have to admire her efficiency. "Lieutenant Gilti, do you have the course plotted?"

"Aye, sir," she began, "and I have already accounted for the reported orbit speed and time lapsed. I should be able to put us at a distance of 150 meters from the object within the hour."

"Good, Lieutenant," I added, "Have Ensign Gentrice and you, Ensign Triy, join me in the forward conference room. Signal Commander Karloff and let him know we're crashing his debriefing. 

"Aye, sir," both Triy and Gilti replied at the same time.

As I turned to leave the command deck, I looked over at Lieutenant Gilti, sitting there in the center chair of a mostly empty command deck. "You have the com, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir," she said.

I have roughly an hour before our intercept to figure out how I am going to do this next part of our mission. Dr. Zarkov told me that, if the situation presented itself, he wanted us to learn all we could about the alien craft. I know that most of my crew feel uneasy at the site of one and now I am asking them to get as close as we can to it.

The extra crew aboard from the Discovery IV  will actually help with the needs of this part of our mission. But until we're come within range of the alien craft, I have a little under an hour to take a nap.

[Angelo Kerman]

Oh man, things are going to get crazy, and fast! Now I wonder why the alien craft hasn't responded. Which of the three possibilities will play out...?

[adsii1970]

33 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Oh man, things are going to get crazy, and fast! Now I wonder why the alien craft hasn't responded. Which of the three possibilities will play out...?

It's a good thing I'm back to regularly writing again, isn't it? Otherwise you'd have to wait a while!

 

[obney kerman]

Oh dear, things are getting very tense. What has happened to the alien ship, I wonder...

[adsii1970]

Chapter 80 is almost done... and a couple of teaser shots:

[RealKerbal3x]

@adsii1970 why did you change your profile picture? Now I can't instantly recognise you anymore!

[adsii1970]

On 11/7/2020 at 8:08 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

@adsii1970 why did you change your profile picture? Now I can't instantly recognise you anymore!

I needed a  change. I've changed my avatar five times since I have been a member of this forum. But I am sure the current one will be easy enough to pick out.

[KerballingSmasher]

On 11/11/2020 at 1:03 PM, adsii1970 said:

I needed a  change. I've changed my avatar five times since I have been a member of this forum. But I am sure the current one will be easy enough to pick out.

Exactly, it's Beeker! (mimimimimimi)

[sir rocket]

the suspense builds...

[sir rocket]

how do i delete posts?

Edited November 15, 2020 by sir rocket

[RealKerbal3x]

7 hours ago, sir rocket said:

how do i delete posts?

You can't. It's so trolls or spammers can't break the rules and then remove the evidence.

(Obviously you're not a troll or spammer though )

Edited November 15, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[sir rocket]

12 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

You can't. It's so trolls or spammers can't break the rules and then remove the evidence.

(Obviously you're not a troll or spammer though )

Thanks for telling me this.

[adsii1970]

An update to the faithful readers of Kerny's Journal:

I've come to the decision that there's simply too many craft to reconstruct in making this story utilize the newer versions of KSP. There are five mods which are no longer updated but are heavily utilized in this 1.3.0 version of the game. @Angel-125 tried to help me with a few of them to bring the game into 1.8.0, but there's a few more mods which have woven their way into the game to the extent it's nearly impossible to continue the story in a newer version of KSP. One of the reasons there's been such a gap between chapter 79 and chapter 80 is that I was trying to make the jump into 1.8.

So, with that in mind, Kerny and his crew will remain in 1.3.0. This means that I can focus more on story development - and as many of you know, there's a lot of loose ends to be handled and many, many more missions Kerny's going to embark upon. So, Chapter 80 is coming soon.^TM I already have the images selected and sorted and will be posting the chapter next week.

In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at what's gonna happen in the chapter...

[Lisias]

7 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

One of the reasons there's been such a gap between chapter 79 and chapter 80 is that I was trying to make the jump into 1.8.

So, with that in mind, Kerny and his crew will remain in 1.3.0.

I have absolutely no problem on sticking with 1.3, but... had you tried 1.7.3? It's my main gaming rig until now, and it's working pretty fine to me. There're some good parts on the Making History, and perhaps Serenity would allow you do do some interesting stunts on the plot?

In a way or another, I have a lot of add'ons backported down to 1.3 if you need something with bug fixes (under the KSPU hierarchy - no official support, but yet it's more support than you have now, so...), and I have no problem on backporting something else to 1.3 if there's a demand. TweakScale, in particular, is way more robust on 2.4.4.x series, and backporting it to 1.3 is a breeze now after the last batch of refactoring.

Cheers!

[adsii1970]

Moho 38, Y003
"Rendezvous"

MISSION DAY +16.25

Chapter 80

Yesterday and today have merged together into one long and indistinguishable day. Besides my hour nap, I've not had a lot of time to sleep. Not that having time would be any good. There's been so much happening that my mind has scarcely had the chance to comprehend everything that's happened. After my short nap, I returned to the command deck about the time we caught the first glimpse of the alien space craft on our electromagnetic spectrum scanner. My chief engineer, Commander Karloff, thought that since the scanner can identify large deposits of metallic ores on a planetary or natural satellite, why could it not be used until our other shipboard tracking systems are within range to track it more precisely.

"Captain, we now have a visual on the alien craft," Gilti called out. "Re-plotting our intercept course, sir."

"Yes," I began, "that's good. Get us close but without making our intent to appear hostile -- "

"Good idea," Karloff added, "last thing I want to do is end up holding my breath in a space suit while in orbit around Minmus. If we do something to make it mad, you know... if that thing starts shooting and should hit us..." Karloff's voice trailed off, not to be heard above the environmental equipment's efforts to recirculate the Excursion's air supply. 

"Let's keep calm," I felt I had to say something. "If we get careless because we let our imaginations run around, we'll make mistakes. Let's not make those kinds of mistakes."

"Aye, sir!" It was pretty much in unison from everyone on the command deck.

I was caught off guard by a light touch on my shoulder and a familiar voice that whispered, "Kerny, Dr. Edmund would have loved to see this." Maxbas was right. Dr. Edmund would have loved to have seen this - potentially first contact with the aliens in orbit around Minmus.

Immediately, my mind began to remember all the stories I had heard about Bill's experience on the mission where he became the first Kerman to make the gravity turn around Minmus and return to Kerbin. Although he was only behind Minmus for less than an hour, both his capsule and he told a different story. His capsule's data recorder had over nine hours of data it saved while he was on the far side of Minmus. His story was officially discredited as the products of an overstimulated and overly-stressed mind. But I wonder if we will experience something similar in our encounter?

We continued to make slow progress on our intercept trajectory. The Excursion filled with sound and vibrations as the monopropellant thrusters continually adjusted our speed and heading. By this time, we had two other visitors on the command deck - Lieutenant Commander Orvin and his mission scientist, Ensign Crista.

"Captain," Orvin asked, "what are your plans once we get close to it?"

"Yes, I want to touch it. We're going to hold station and I am going to do a spacewalk. I want to touch it." And no sooner than those words left my mouth the collective gasp could be easily heard over the thrusters and the air handling system. "If there's anyone who wants to go, I need a volunteer to go with me..." For a brief moment, no one said anything.

"Captain," Karloff broke the awkward silence. "You're kidding, right, sir?"

"No," I said, "I am going to touch it. I want to know what it feels like --"

"Oh, wow!" Hildi called out. For the first time, we were about to be closer than any other Kerman had been to one of the alien craft - except for the stories of Bill's encounter around Minmus and his abduction from the space center. There it was, within eyesight - one of those strange alien craft. My first reaction was pure curiosity. It looked familiar - like the one which was crashed in the northern polar glacier region. The Excursion's computer continued to fire the thrusters and adjust our speed and heading towards the programmed encounter.

"Captain, we are within 75 meters of the alien craft," Lieutenant Obion called out. About the same time he gave his update, the command deck filled with the familiar tones and computerized voice issuing the standard proximity warning. "Preparing to use manual control to get us closer..."

"Good," knowing the computer would not move us closer unless it recognized a docking port, I reminded Obion, "Remember, take it nice and slow. Do not retract the solar array. That could be seen as hostile --"

And then it happened.

K--A--CH--U--N--K!

"What the --" I yelled. "What --"

"Sir," Karloff began, "I told you this was a bad idea, telemetry is showing it fired some sort of thruster --"

As if the tensions on the command deck were not already high enough, the Excursion's automatic alerts began at the same time the sound of metal against metal contact filled the ship. Now, amid the confusion was the ship's computerized voice calling out, "Collision alert -- collision alert!"

We watched as the alien craft tumbled and floated away from us. There was something odd about the flight behavior we were witnessing. It was acting more like it was reacting to something - such as us running into it - than as if it were running on its own power. I believe that Dr. Zarkov referred to it as the First Law of Passivity.

"Captain," Gilti commented, "I don't think it hit us. I think we hit it! If it had used thrusters --"

"We would have seen some sort of puff or flame," Maxbas interrupted. "Ensign Obion -- "

"Yes, Madam Consul," he said, rather sheepishly. "We are low on monopropellant; we are at 1/3 of our total capacity remaining -- "

"That would mean that the Excursion's computer --" Karloff began.

"Would reduce the waste of monopropellant by closing some of what are considered redundant thruster assemblies --" now it was my time to interrupt. There was no need to penalize Obion for something which is a design flaw in the ship's automated systems. The ship did what it was programmed to do; Obion was a victim of a designer's inexperience in a real space environment.

"Captain," Obion began, "when the thrusters shut down, we were drifting closer to the craft. I did an override to reactivate them, and when I did -- "

"It fired the thrusters according to the commands in the computer's buffer that were issued since the shutdown." Karloff grumbled. "That's going to have to be overhauled, Captain."

We watched as the alien space craft continued to tumble, the distance between the two vessels increasing with every second that passed. There would be no second attempt at a rendezvous this mission. We didn't have the shipboard resources to do it.

"Ensign Obion," I ordered, "can you plot our return trajectory to the Mün? Shortest burn, least amount of course corrections." Within what seemed like seconds, Obion had already plotted our new course. "Awaiting your orders, sir! The course change has been plotted. We are only six minutes from the burn window." He replied.

"Good," I began. "Commander Karloff, jettison the Minmus lander and give us some distance. We do not need to have another collision today. Oh, and what's our damage report from our collision with the alien craft, Commander?"

"Sir, the computer is showing no damage." Karloff replied. "We probably just scraped the paint off the side, but I won't know until we run full diagnostics. But I can't do that with the current onboard computer until we return to the station."

"Make sure you put that in your after action report, Commander," I said. "We need to be able to do these things when we are out on a mission. Not everything can wait until we get back to the station..."

"Agreed, sir" was his reply. I could tell by the expression on his face he knew I was right.

Commander Karloff, you have command." And with that, I turned towards Maxbas and Orvin and asked, "would you two care to join me in the briefing room and review the latest data packet from Bobak.

As we left the command deck, we could hear Karloff ordering the separation from the lander and asking for an audible countdown to the transition burn. We also could hear and feel the slight tremor as the Excursion released the lander and positioned itself towards the maneuver node. Within a few minutes we would begin our journey back - and eventually home to Kerbin.

The data packet contained the normal "housekeeping" items that I've come to appreciate from Bobak. Earlier yesterday morning, normal flights resumed around the KSC and the Island Airfield. Major Froming was the first pilot up since tensions with the Prime Consul began. For some unknown reason, she ordered all training and KDF flights not to approach New Kerbin City. But according to Bobak's newest report, the Grand Committee reached a decision to override her orders.

Sure, using afterburners on the runway is a pretty neat feeling as one races their craft into the sky. And sure, when I return to Kerbin, I look forward into putting some time in the cockpit as well. But there's nothing that can beat the feeling of -

"Captain, this is the command deck. Maneuver burn in thirty seconds," Obion's voice was full of excitement. The same excitement I feel each time we've gone out on a mission.

"Thank you for the head's up, Obion," I said, pressing the communications button on the conference room table. And within just a few short moments, the Excursion shuddered to life as her main engines began the burn.

We were now at three-quarter's throttle and from our vantage point in the conference room, I could see Minmus slowly shrinking. No longer would it fill the entire window. By the time we finished the briefing, Minmus would be about half the size it appears now. By this time tomorrow, Minmus will be just a speck of light among the other specks of light that makes up the Kerbin night.

Just as gradually as we had reached full acceleration from the main engines, we could feel the gradual reducing of the ship's throttle. From now, the Law of Passivity would be in control of our journey. It's simple - an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Dr. Zarkov says it's a universal constant. No matter what other space faring races of beings are out there, they will be governed by the same Law of Passivity but they may call it something completely different.

"Commander Orvin," I began, "I have new operational orders from the KSC for you. Once we arrive in Münar orbit, you and your crew are to disembark from the Excursion and continue your mission to rendezvous with the lander. Bobak has said you are to go to the Münar Arch Base and reestablish contact with Kerbin. From there, you three will remain until relieved by replacements, an estimated week."

"Aye, sir," Orvin replied. "What about -- "

"We'll resupply your command module, refuel your monopropellant and LFO before you depart," I answered. "And we'll make sure your snacks and life support are sufficient, too."

"But Captain," Ensign Crista asked, "What about your ship -- "

"Nothing to worry about," I replied. "We are going to be docking with a resupply rocket in Münar orbit. We'll have what we need to get home."

"Captain," this time it was Maxbas' turn to ask questions. "Anything else in there about the Triune Committee? About what we can expect to come home to?"

I shared the latest news about Commander Aldred, the former executive officer of the URKN Sinaan, a mutual friend of her and me. He did take command of the URKN Tekto during her refitting. We all were excited to learn that he, his ship and crew begin sea trials as soon as Kerbol light breaks.

The URKN Sinaan, also having been recently refitted, sits next to the Tekto, awaiting to begin her sea trials when Commodore Valentina returns from her temporary assignment. The Sinaan is barely visible in the images sent to us by Bobak, but it's easy to see she's probably the largest ocean vessel to be commissioned by the United Republic of Kerbin's Navy since our reemergence. While most of the specifications have not been released yet, we are told that it is more of a new construction than a refit of the older vessel. I'll have to ask the Commodore once she has a chance to inspect and test her newest command.

The data packet had one final entry. Earlier this morning, Major Froming did what he always does best - test the boundaries put in front of him. Each morning, he has always done the same thing. He climbs into his cockpit, fires up his craft, and shoots down the runway with afterburners glowing.

But this time, instead of flying straight out to the islands off the coast, then banking to the south, he did something that got a chuckle out of Maxbas...

He's decided to see if the skies above New Kerbin City are as friendly as they once were. And with that, the data packet was pretty routine. Dr. Angelo has requested evaluations of the changes he designed into the Excursion; I am not sure he is going to want to see what all we want changed. I know our current mission was not exactly what he was expecting for what he called space trials, but it did give us a chance to test the limitations of this ship.

Already, we are being told about our next mission. We will be going beyond the sphere of influence of Kerbin. We will be flying into what has been described as a bunch of small rocks floating in a parallel orbit to that of Kerbin. Depending on the length of refit time, I have no idea how long it will be before we embark on this new mission.

But, until then, all we can do is to finish this mission and arrive safely back in Kerbin orbit. At our current speed, we should be in Münar orbit within three days. And once we have finished everything Bobak has said Gene wanted us to do, we will complete our journey back to Kerbin.

 

 

[Phildan Kerman]

On 7/27/2016 at 3:59 PM, Kuzzter said:

Love that recovery ship and system! Now that's hardcore mode, recovering capsules manually...

i've tried recovering ships manually but i suck at it

[Phildan Kerman]

On 12/7/2016 at 2:53 PM, adsii1970 said:

what mod is those rover cabins from?

[adsii1970]

52 minutes ago, woofles56 said:

what mod is those rover cabins from?

@Angel-125's "Buffalo" mod:

I really need to go and clean up some of the older chapters and add some navigation links!

[RealKerbal3x]

@adsii1970 congrats on 9k rep

Also, if my calculations are correct, this is the 999th post on this thread!