Forgotten Space Program

[Cydonian Monk]

Out In The Cold

How long had they been on Vall? The Sun had risen twice since Thomlock disappeared, and they landed in the dark. Three days? Three Vall days at least. How many days was that on Kerbin? Macfred considered doing the math, but decided it wasn't worth it. He was too cold for math. 

Vall is a very cold place, that much they'd discovered. Especially in such extreme latitudes where the sunlight was thin and never far above the horizon. The low angles cast all manner of strange shadows. More than once he'd found Thomlock's body, slumped on the ice, only to walk over and discover just another boulder, another set of misleading shadows. 

Agake was convinced the old space kerb had been vaporized. More than once she suggested continuing to search was pointless. Gletrix seemed to be of a similar mind, but was more supporting of Macfred's continued efforts. Besides, in absence of communication with Kerbin he was still the top ranking kerbal. If he wanted to stay here until their food ran out, that was his choice. 

And so he kept looking. 

Yet all he found was the cold. Cold was everywhere. His feet were cold. His hands were cold. Everything everywhere was cold, but he continued his search. "Everything will be ok," Thomlock had said. Is cold ok? Did he mean everything will be cold? Maybe, maybe not.

At least now they knew with certainty that Kerbin still existed. A message from The Boss had arrived shortly after Thomlock's disappearance. Things were not going well back home, with wild stories of power struggles and mass discontent, strange governments and bizarre conspiracies. The descriptions all pointed back to the cycles Bob and the other Forgotten had described, and perhaps to a bit of space madness. 

They had only briefly exchanged information before the link was severed again. Macfred had relayed their science data and crew reports and explained the situation with Thomlock, and of course everything they knew about The Forgotten. The Boss had confirmed the orders to visit the other moons yet keep looking for Thomlock. And then... nothing. No further contact since two Vall days ago. 

There was no good reason to keep the others at the anomaly, every square meter of ice around it had been searched. They'd not have another chance to collect samples from the surface, so Macfred had sent them off to do other things. Gletrix was working as a radio relay in the Sulphur while Agake was out in the field doing science. There were a couple of "biomes" near to their valley (or was it a crater?), one within close hiking distance.

It was eight kilometers out, a distance they would normally cover with a hop in the shuttle. Except the fuel levels were still questionable. Thomlock had assured them they could make it back to orbit, Gletrix had run the numbers again and came up with a different result. There would be no hops to other biomes unless they wanted to spend the rest of their lives here, and even making it back to orbit was suspect.

So hiking it was. Agake had ventured out early that morning, and was returning with a fresh set of samples from Vall's Midlands. She had stopped at an odd boulder on her way back, and was now describing it while taking a new sample. He was half listening to her, half meandering around the perimeter of the anomaly. It was a strangely welcome distraction.

"It's a shame we can't take this entire rock back with us. Very out of place, with a blend of dark and light crystals. Resembles a huge lump of dirty quartz, though I think it's some form of water ice." Macfred could hear her chipping away over the radio, the dull ringing of the hammer echoing through her suit. For a moment he imagined he felt each hammer strike as it happened. Thump. Thump. Thump.

"I guess this tiny sample will have to suffice. Very pretty little rock." The link went silent momentarily, a faint rustling sound on the other end. "Tagged and bagged. Headed to base once again."

"Copy that, Ag. The lights are still on." Gletrix sounded bored. She was repeating the same canned phrases, this now the third time in the last hour she'd commented on the lights being on. "You find anything Commander?" And she was still asking the same questions, even though she knew the answers.

"Negative. Just more ice and...." The shaking from earlier returned, yet the noises from Agake's radio were long gone. A low, deep rumble. Exactly as before. Long before. "Wait a sec...." How long had it been going? Blue orbs appeared over the spires of the anomaly, and with them returned the ebb and flow of its energy. Static filled his radio.

The VallHenge was active once more.

He tapped at the side of his helmet. Static. "Agake?"

"I see it."

"Get back to the ship."

"Already moving, still a few kilometers out." Yet more static filled the connection, though faint enough for him to make sense of what he was hearing. "You should do the same. Back off from the anomaly, no sense in losing you too."

The ground was now pulsating, its rhythm increasing in frequency as the energy built. Just like before. He watched as pebbles and small lumps of ice bounced with each thump, something missed the first time. They had been more interested in the lights, not what was happening to the rest of the moon. He wondered if these pulses could fracture the thick ice, or if the energy could melt it. No doubt this anomaly was contributing to the smooth surface nearby. 

Bolts arced out from the orbs, the characteristic ring of plasma formed, and the same beam that had taken Thomlock shot upwards into the endless black. The blast of energy from its activation knocked Macfred backwards, off his feet and onto the cold ice.

His back was cold. The radio crackled. He heard voices, both loud and hurried and softly whispered. They weaved in and out of the background static, dancing against the interference. Was this what Sieta heard, all those years ago? Was this the sound that had inspired her music? One of the voices sounded like Gletrix, going on and on about... something. Another was unmistakable as Agake. He could hear both, but understand neither. Other voices were unfamiliar.

The light grew ever more blinding, beams of pure energy pulsating in their alien way. He pushed himself back onto his feet, brushed the ice and dust off of his cold suit. Checked to make sure nothing had broken. An arc reached out from the spire and grounded near him, his instincts made him back off.

A shape formed in the dancing light. A dark shape, some shadowy thing, heading straight towards him. A demon from the stories of old? Perhaps, and a vaguely kerbal shaped one at that. A kraken having taken the appearance of one of their own? A voice deep inside told him to run, but he was frozen with a strange fear as the dark mass approached.

It stopped a few paces away, a dark hand reaching to its dark head. Eyes of a blinding fire pierced through Macfred, their fires burning brighter than the light from the anomaly. A scream belted forth, a banshee's wail. Loud as though inside his own head, distant as though at infinity. His hands instinctively shielded the sides of his helmet, reaching for his ears. The demon lowered its arm.

And then it stopped. The anomaly went dark, the whispers and screams faded, the universe rebalanced itself, his mind calmed. The dark shape took a familiar form.

"Hey kid, how's it going?"

He blinked. This was no demon, no dark beast, but a flesh and blood kerbal.

"Thomlock?"

"You betcha. Miss me?"

 

--

Navigation: Next Post

Edited October 23, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[obney kerman]

YUS!

2 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

"You betcha. Miss me?"

Really Thomlock? Really?

[Geschosskopf]

5 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

It stopped a few paces away, a dark hand reaching to its dark head. Eyes of a blinding fire pierced through Macfred, their fires burning brighter than the light from the anomaly. A scream belted forth, a banshee's wail. Loud as though inside his own head, distant as though at infinity. His hands instinctively shielded the sides of his helmet, reaching for his ears. The demon lowered its arms.

I want one of those machines  

[Numberyellow]

Is it just me, or did the whole "return of thomlock" have a very similar flavor to the return of starbuck in BSG?

[Cydonian Monk]

8 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

Is it just me, or did the whole "return of thomlock" have a very similar flavor to the return of starbuck in BSG?

The one where Starbuck repairs the Cylon and then jokes around with it for an hour before stealing its ship and flying to Disneyland?  

[Numberyellow]

1 minute ago, Cydonian Monk said:

The one where Starbuck repairs the Cylon and then jokes around with it for an hour before stealing its ship and flying to Disneyland?  

If i'm remembering correctly, you're talking about the last episode of Galactica 1980 (horrible abomination of a show). I'm talking about the re-imagined show...

[Cydonian Monk]

1 minute ago, Numberyellow said:

If i'm remembering correctly, you're talking about the last episode of Galactica 1980 (horrible abomination of a show).

It wasn’t a complete abomination, just mostly one. It was the super-lazy zero-cost production that hurt it - even spending an extra $10 would’ve made the horrible campiness ok-ish. I remember one of the crew saying by the time G:80 started they didn’t have any Cylon suits left that weren’t full of squib holes, and had no money to make more.

That same episode kinda-sorta made its way into the first season of BSG where Kara also nicked the Cylon ship.

 

No deliberate parallels here, but if Thomlock starts tapping randomly on a piano you should become worried. 

[Numberyellow]

1 minute ago, Cydonian Monk said:

It wasn’t a complete abomination, just mostly one. It was the super-lazy zero-cost production that hurt it - even spending an extra $10 would’ve made the horrible campiness ok-ish. I remember one of the crew saying by the time G:80 started they didn’t have any Cylon suits left that weren’t full of squib holes, and had no money to make more.

That same episode kinda-sorta made its way into the first season of BSG where Kara also nicked the Cylon ship.

 

No deliberate parallels here, but if Thomlock starts tapping randomly on a piano you should become worried. 

Yeah, i do remember the one where she fixed up the kinda brain-dead raider...cool episode.

In the G:80 episode though, Starbuck was marooned.....Had the show not been canceled, He would have been rescued by the Seraphs, and kept aboard the ship of light, as a guest...

 

I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, but it just felt similar.....he disappeared in grand fashion, was shown truths by someone he thought was dead, and then was returned to his old life, in a "poof, here i am, miss me?" kinda way.. just like Kara..

[adsii1970]

Cylons aside, it was a good chapter... cannot wait to see what happens next!

[Commander Zoom]

At least one great line came out of the (original) episode, though.  Starbuck has the opportunity to ask a Cylon what their goal is, other than the whole kill-all-humans thing.  "Cy" explains that they intend to "organize" the universe.  Starbuck asks the logical next question, "And then what?"  (after they get it all "organized").

"... NO ONE HAS EVER ASKED THAT QUESTION."

So much for "and they have a plan."

[Cydonian Monk]

Late Arrival

It had been a productive day so far, and Agake was happy to get away from Macfred's pointless searches. Thomlock was gone, vaporized by the anomaly. That was the only logical conclusion. Otherwise they would've found something; his helmet, a piece of metal, anything. The complete absence of any debris meant only one thing. And that was a thing Macfred seemed incapable of accepting.

The eight kilometers out to the Midlands had been an easy walk. She'd covered three times that distance while looking for Thomlock, but there were surface samples and crew reports waiting at the end of it instead of strange obelisks and anomalous energy events. The ice there wasn't noticeably different, perhaps a bit more polished with a thicker layer of dust. How anything or anyone ever identified it as a different biome was beyond her understanding. She made a note to review the detailed satellite scans once she was back at the ship.

On the way back she found a boulder. It was a very large one, formed of many mixed materials, and out here all on its own. There were many other similar pebbles around, but nothing this large. Some form of ejecta? Possibly, but there was no obvious impact on the nearby ice, and no impact she could think of that would include this much rock. What appeared to be pure water ice was mixed with the darker matter, making this lump all the more exceptional. Debris from one of the other moons? Very likely.

She opened a radio channel to the lander and relayed her findings to Gletrix. "It's a shame we can't take this entire rock back with us. Very out of place, with a blend of dark and light crystals. Resembles a huge lump of dirty quartz, though I think it's some form of water ice."

The samples from the midlands took up most of her suit pouches, but she had room for another at least. She slipped her pick loose and started chipping away at the boulder, dropping the damaged pieces into a sample container. It didn't take much effort, a few rhythmic taps, and the surface fractured along one of the lighter bands. Obviously ice.

"I guess this tiny sample will have to suffice. Very pretty little rock." A bit of a shame, too, as the ice would no doubt melt once it was inside the ship. They had no way to insulate their samples long-term, meaning in a few hours a bag full of liquid water and some silt would be all that remained. All these many years the lump was frozen, and now this small part of it would be changed forever. Oh well, such is science.

"Tagged and bagged. Headed to base once again."

Gletrix droned back a response on the radio, rather monotone and mentally distant. "Copy that, Ag. The lights are still on." She went on to discuss some matter with Macfred, during which Agake tuned out by default. Or she did until the anomaly started glowing. It was faint at first, still some three or four kilometers out, but obvious. She sealed her suit pouches and took off towards the ship at a sprint.

"Wait a sec...." Macfred had noticed it. "Agake?"

"I see it." The orbs were brighter now, and the ground was throbbing softly. (Or was that a trick of the mind caused by her running?) Not unlike the previous event. 

"Get back to the ship."

"Already moving, still a few kilometers out." She paused to take a breath, running in such low gravity was harder than one would expect. "You should do the same. Back off from the anomaly, no sense in losing you too." Why did she say that? Was it a mistake? Macfred was still convinced Thomlock was alive. Would he try to prove her wrong and run into the beam? To follow Thomlock? Maybe she shouldn't have said that.

Static filled her radio. Gletrix was going on about something, but the unintelligible noise overstepped her. And it only got worse when the anomaly fired its beam.

It was active only a few seconds, but the event had rendered either the ship or her suit radio inoperable. No response from Gletrix, nothing from Macfred. She called out every few minutes anyway. "Agake, Sulphur, please respond." Nothing. A brief stop to check what parts of her suit she could reach revealed nothing, and she had no idea if it was on her end or theirs. Occasionally a short, static-filled burst would scratch its way out of her headset, but nothing more. Scritch.

It didn't take long to cover the remaining distance. There was nothing obviously amiss at the Sulphur, and she could see shapes of kerbals moving through the windows. More than one of them too; Macfred had apparently not charged into the anomaly. Good. Yet why had she not heard anything? Her radio must be dead.

She paused at the top of the ladder to transfer her surface samples to the cockpit's science container. While it was exposed to the void it still wasn't entirely insulated from the heat of the ship. Even just being in her suit pouch had made the boulder sample turn mushy, rather like a snowball sat in the sun for too long. Oh well, at least it was intact and unspoiled, along with her notes and observations of its collection. She closed the container, opened the airlock, and climbed back inside the all too familiar ship. 

Her helmet and mittens were stowed away before she dropped into the lower levels. If there was something wrong with the suit radio Macfred would need to fix it, so she kept the EVA pack. It was a tight fit inside the Sulphur; she unhooked the bulky EVA pack and lowered it into the cabin below her.

That's when she noticed there were three others aboard, not two. An aged, grey-haired kerbal was looking up at her, eyes alight with some newfound energy. Thomlock.

"We thought you were dead!"

"I get that more often than you know."

"Vaporized!"

"No," Gletrix interjected, "you thought he was dead. And you were wrong. Pay up."

"What?!" Macfred and Thomlock glanced at each other before looking with disbelief to their backup pilot. So Macfred didn't know about her wager with Gletrix after all. She felt herself turning a darker shade of green, somewhat embarrassed to be so suddenly reminded of it. Gletrix should have kept her mouth shut, especially in front of Thomlock.

"Fine." She climbed back up into the shuttle to her locker and removed a small, tightly wrapped brick. This was the last of her dessert rations on the shuttle. It was the good stuff, the squishy blue stuff. Sure, there was more of it back at the Jumble of Parts, and plenty to go around for all four of them, but if they kept to the mission plan they wouldn't be back there for several munths. Until then she was stuck with the bland normal snack rations. She tossed the package down to Gletrix. "Here, that's all of it."

She smiled at her prize, mockingly and loudly. "Mmmmm." 

"Ok then." Agake turned to Thomlock, "How are you still alive?"

"As I was just telling the rest of the crew, I, well, I don't know. So I'll tell you what I do know." 

She found a comfortable place to perch while Thomlock described the last several days of his life. How the anomaly is just a marker of where a portal can be opened, a portal that will connect them to some other star system. How at this distant star system there was a moon where kerbals could live, possibly even thrive. How the Kerbol System was a construct, completely artificial, and built in every way to keep them trapped indefinitely. And how they needed to get back to Kerbin as soon as the transfer window was open so they could save everyone from their repetitious fates.

His tale left her with far more questions than answers, and she was certain he was leaving things out deliberately. Just too many holes in the story. Was this Albro character someone that could be trusted? Was anything he said real? How did these portals work? What is The Machine? How did they construct such small planets with such massive gravity using seemingly normal matter? How did Kerbol even maintain a fusion reaction at its small size and low mass? What were the Kraken? Where did kerbals come from?

So much of what Thomlock had said went against every basic principal of known kerbal science, which convention dictated to be impossible without overwhelming evidence. And yet here he was. Not vaporized, not dead, and not obviously spacecrazy. Of course there was the chance he had been hiding and was now lying about the entire ordeal, but she judged that to be very unlikely. Which meant the entire body of her knowledge of the physical universe was based on an untrue premise, and not for the first time.

To think they once thought there were barrels full of fleas, barrels that exploded. How simple everything was back then. 

When did life become so complex?

--

Navigation: Next Post

Edited November 28, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[Geschosskopf]

21 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

She smiled at her prize, mockingly and loudly. "Mmmmm." 

Whether it be grog rations, or desert, or years on Davey Jones' ship, sailors will wager their most prized possessions.  This is a trait which has never gone unnoticed by those who cater to sailor needs ashore wherever they happen to make port.  This simple thing proves the reality of this whole thread.  I cringe at thinking about what all humanity has Forgotten  

I believe it was Goethe who said, "Everything has been thought of before; the problem is to think of it again."

 

21 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

To think they once thought there were barrels full of fleas, barrels that exploded. How simple everything was back then. 

When did life become so complex?

Wait, you mean barrels of fleas don't explode?  Geez, I've been going about eradicating them all wrong

 

[obney kerman]

On ‎10‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 1:13 AM, Cydonian Monk said:

How the anomaly is just a marker of where a portal can be opened, a portal that will connect them to some other star system. How at this distant star system there was a moon where kerbals could live, possibly even thrive. How the Kerbol System was a construct, completely artificial, and built in every way to keep them trapped indefinitely. And how they needed to get back to Kerbin as soon as the transfer window was open so they could save everyone from their repetitious fates.

This feels like interstellar. A portal near a gas giant leading to another star system used to save human Kerbalkind.

[cubinator]

37 minutes ago, obney kerman said:

This feels like interstellar. A portal near a gas giant leading to another star system used to save human Kerbalkind.

And also there was a kerb with space madness earlier who stole a spaceship.

[Starslinger999]

Quick Question: Whats the mod u used for the "Carbon" capsule?

[Cydonian Monk]

11 minutes ago, Starslinger999 said:

Quick Question: Whats the mod u used for the "Carbon" capsule?

It’s from an older version of Tantares. 

[Starslinger999]

Just now, Cydonian Monk said:

It’s from an older version of Tantares. 

Ah. Darn.

[Cydonian Monk]

An update: Sometimes when life gets busy, it gets so overly busy that it sucks the oxygen out of the room and leaves nothing for anything else (or some other metaphor that works). This has been one of those months. Thankfully things are slowing down now (or appear to be). And we get a couple of days for holiday this week in the U.S., so I’ll hopefully find some time where I can sit down, relax, and get back to kerbal and writing about kerbal. So the next post (or next several posts) should start flowing again in a few days. I hope.

What a year. At least it’s been interesting. Cheers.

[xkerbal]

Wow

[Cydonian Monk]

Late Departure

Thomlock's story of distant Espadarte ran late into the day. And in Geltrix's opinion it was stretching plausibility much too thin. Portals? Ok, maybe. He'd obviously gone _somewhere_. Unless he'd suddenly become the elite of all hide-and-seekers in the shortest time ever he had not been on this moon. Yet portals to a distant star system? Where their supposed creators had originally lived, and lived long enough to spawn this infinite Machine? (And not just any machine, mind you, but The Machine.) The tale had the same edge to it as the stories told by those among the "space mad" kerbals. And that wasn't a good thing.

The worst part was he offered no explanation as to why. Why Thomlock? She guessed perhaps that part was obvious; he was the only living kerbal this Albro character could relate to. Yet why? Why did his old friend decide to whisk him away? Just to have a brief chat? To catch up on the times? To reveal the dark underbelly of existence and send him back with only vague promises? Nonsense. Something was missing.

Thomlock slipped outside to inspect the Sulphur and prepare for launch. They were several hours from leaving Vall, but their window opened long after sunset. Now was the time to do anything that required sunlight. Any of them could have taken the chore, technically it was Macfred's job to do the inspection, but when Thomlock offered they all agreed. He was, after all, an equal member of their crew, and qualified to do all three of their jobs. And they had quite a few things to discuss about him. 

Agake wasted no time, broaching the subject almost before the hatch was closed.

"Something doesn't add up."

"And here I thought I was the only one."

Macfred shook his head. "No, I agree with her. Something is missing. The story was lucid, Thomlock seems to be in good spirits and fully cognizant. I just, I don't know. There's something." They watched through the cabin windows as their now strangely alien crew mate bounced between the Sulphur's main engines. "I'm sure if it's important he'll tell us. It's not like Thomlock to hold back."

"Ok, so maybe he's hiding something. What? And how do we coax it out of him?"

"Maybe we don't. At last not until we're on our way back to Kerbin. Though depending on what it is he may not even tell us then."

"You don't think it has something to do with The Forgotten, do you?"

"No, Agake, I don't. They're weird in their own right, but I think if we were about to head back into a den of vipers he'd at least tell us that much. Whatever's going on, it'll just have to wait until we're home.

Home. Free again, if only for a few moments. Gletrix rubbed at the base of her collar, the bothersome and uncomfortable thing that it was. The mere mention of Kerbin was enough to remind her of the days when she had been free of that annoying helmet ring. Had it really been four years? No, couldn't be. "So now the important question," she gave the collar a quick twist to adjust it, a bit of a fidget, "do we let Thomlock pilot us back to orbit? Or should I do it?"

"You're the only other pilot here. What do you think? Is he fit to fly?"

"I ain't no doctor, chief." She'd hoped Macfred had already decided for her; it certainly wasn't a decision she relished making. "I mean he seems to be all here. The story might be strange, and maybe it's all true, but he didn't obviously break from the experience." A quick glance outside revealed a remarkably spry kerbal, still bounding about on the ice. "And he hasn't lost any of his motor functions. I guess he'll be ok? Who knows. I can always take over the ship using the terminal here in the cabin if something goes wrong."

"Hopefully that won't be necessary."

From there the chatter degenerated into the usual smalltalk; Agake grumbling about her lost bet, Macfred zoned out and scanning through radio frequencies. Thomlock burst through the airlock shortly thereafter, announcing his intention to take a good, long nap until they were ready for launch. She hadn't realized it, but she was rather tired as well. And so she curled into a ball in her seat and drifted off to sleep.

--

She awoke to the rattle of her seat's harness. The ship had shuddered, most likely caused by the engines spooling up. Someone had strapped her in while napping; she hadn't even noticed. She must have been far more exhausted than she realized. A strange kerbal blinked at her from the other side of the window; it took a few seconds to recognize her own reflection. Groggy. These cold dark mornings were not all they were cracked up to be. A quick shake of her head and she was awake, though koffee would be the best fix. 

Thomlock's voice boomed into her helmet speakers, and now she was really awake.

"Ok kiddos, say goodbye to Vall." 

The sunlight was gone, its timid warmth no longer brightening the icy plains. Launching from the darkness, in the darkness, into yet more darkness. As was only right and proper. It was a strange phrase that, burned into their minds through some shadowy indoctrination, yet so perfectly fitting for their space agency. Half of everything happened in the dark, most of it forgotten before the next sunrise. 

Her still sleepy brain registered the flash of  the engine lights before it felt the shudder. The ice was briefly illuminated in an unnatural warm glow, a cloud of vapor spreading out in their wake. And then they were away, led willingly into the dark by a twice dead kerbal. What could possibly go wrong?

The g-forces were nice; enjoyable even, after so many days in the lower gravity of Vall. Everything was pulled along one vector, backwards. She only noticed the pitch over maneuver because Tylo slipped out of her view. 

Tylo, the only moon of Jool they wouldn't land on. They weren't even planning to fly by the moon, unless it was in a position copacetic to their destination. Disappointing, somewhat, but when they left Kerbin the agency lacked the resources and the tech to land them safely on Tylo and return them to orbit. Heck, they weren't even sure they could get them back to Kerbin.

It's just that Jool 4 just doesn't have the same ring to it. Jool 5 was where it was at, what all the cool kerbals talked about. Yet she was getting way ahead of herself. They'd only landed on two of the moons, and as impressive as it was to be the first kerbals to land on Laythe, a Jool 2 was only half of the accomplishment of a Jool 4. Half the number of service ribbons, too. Thankfully she had secured that "first to land on Laythe" achievement alone, quite likely the last kerbal to ever do so. 

So maybe she wouldn't hit all five, but she would still be first. And possibly last. Good times.

And then the engines cut out. Or... not so much cut out as sputtered out. Two completely different sounds, and any kerbal would recognize the difference. One was good, the other was "uh oh, what now?" Even a mechanically disinclined scientist such as Agake would know the difference. One is a sharp jolt, the other is a series of uncomfortable jolts. Sometimes followed by a kerbin-shattering kaboom. 

Gletrix only realized the RCS was firing after the main engines went silent. A strong hiss as the tanks vented into the rear jets. Not a good sign.

"T? How we doing up there?"

Silence for a few seconds. Too many seconds and too much silence.

"Don't you worry about us, I'll get us back into orbit. Just a bit more. A bit more."

And then the RCS sputtered out. Macfred chimed in from below. "Was that the last of the monoprop?"

"Nope, there's still some in our EVA packs." Gletrix heard the latches of Thomlock's harness clang off of the console before she saw him drift out of the seat. "We'll make orbit, even if I have to get out and do it the old fashioned way." He spun around to face her as he pulled his EVA suit on over his flight suit. "Which is what I'm going to do. Get out and push. It's the kerbal way." He zipped up the thick EVA suit and started pulling the straps tight. "You might want to bring the other Sulphur down to meet us, just in case something goes wrong."

"Shouldn't we wait until we're in orbit?"

Macfred floated forward to help Thomlock with his suit. "If something goes wrong we won't make orbit. There's enough oomph in our packs to get the four of us into a safe orbit without the shuttle, but if we lose the ship we lose the remote controls to the other Sulphur. I don't need to run the number to know we'll never make it into a higher orbit and change planes on our EVA packs alone."

"Yeah. What the kid said."

They had a point. She fired up the remote console and brought the other shuttle online. It didn't take long to get a rendezvous plotted and programmed into its flight computer. It wasn't ideal, the maneuver required three burns to reach them, but they'd at least live long enough to get to the other Sulphur. Even if that rendezvous was the hard way; in an EVA suit. And on the dark side of the moon, because fitting and right and proper and all that joy.

They weren't particularly short of orbit anyway, close enough they could've vented the shuttle's atmosphere and made it into a safe orbit. They might have even technically been in orbit anyway, with their apoapsis near 17km and their periapsis well above 2km. Probably not high enough to miss the icy moon's many ridges, and she'd rather not find out through field testing. A quick mental check of the numbers and she was pretty sure one jetpack's worth of monoprop would be enough.

Their periapsis crept further upwards the longer she watched. She hadn't even noticed Thomlock slip out of the front docking port, and the tiny fraction of a G from his EVA thrusters was barely enough to cause the debris floating around the cabin to move. Yet move they did, if slowly. The numbers crawled away from their likely doom and towards a dark conference with Sulphur. 3km. 4km. 5km. And on. 

Just then the other Sulphur performed its first burn, kicking into a higher orbit. There it would then commit its plane change, burning however many degrees it needed to align their orbits. She watched the telemetry to make sure everything was going as planned, and her heart almost stopped when the feed cut out. "Connection Lost." What? What!? Oh, of course, there were only so many options for data relays at Vall, and their relay had just drifted out of sight under the moon. This was why the craft were equipped with programable flight computers. 

"I'm back. Miss me?"

Agake groaned from the lower seats as Thomlock made his way inside. "Not that line again." He was done? Already? Gletrix tuned them out and looked back at the numbers. Orbit. He'd finished the job while she was obsessing over the other shuttle. It was a good burn he'd just performed, and close to her projection. She'd need to make a tweak to the other Sulphur's program once it matched their inclination, but it was workable. Assuming the Sulphur ever came back into... no, there it is. "I'm back." Contact. "Miss me?" Maybe.

A couple orbits and some strange maneuvers later and they were set. The two shuttles would drift toward each other in the dark, and just when everything seemed like it would be forever in that abyss, the sister Sulphur would shine like a gemstone in the candlelight.

"Precision." Macfred drifted into the upper cabin just as the Sun crossed Vall's horizon. The Sulphur 3 was drifting in the void above them, station keeping a little over a hundred meters away. It had finished its rendezvous in the dark, matched orbits, and was now awaiting their arrival. All without direct control from a kerbal. Strangely independent, these machines they had built. Fill them with a program and along they would run, reacting to stimuli, putting on a good show, entertaining the crowds. 

"Just like fine clockwork. Nice job." Was he talking to her? Was he commenting on her thoughts? Had she been talking aloud? Nonsense, of course he was talking about the rendezvous. 

"Thanks."  She closed the remote control terminal and unlatched her seat harness. "I'll head over to the other shuttle and get us docked up. It'll be easier from over there, hands on the actual controls instead of a radio link. Shouldn't take too long." 

Macfred and Agake helped her into her EVA suit while Thomlock nursed the reaction wheels to hold their orientation. They were almost out of this mess. Just a short walk, a quick docking, and back up to the fuel tanker they'd go. Then maybe they'd get to knock two more moons off of their list. Jool 4, here they come. Hopefully. Just this short walk. Nothingness below, nothingness above, two islands of life between a vast nothing. Short walk. Right.

Space. It was good to be back, back out amongst the dust and micrometeorites, separated from certain death by only a thin layer of cloth. One speck of dust would tar through that layer and through her and out the other side before her brain would even register it. No, shake that away, she had a job to do here. Space. It was good to be back. It was good to have something to do again. It was good to not be bored. This was never boring. It was just a short walk. A stroll down to the corner to fetch a bus and bring it to meet another bus. 

She pushed off of the Sulphur 5 and kicked her way into the void. Floating through the endless nothingness above an icy prison. 

She was alone again. The last time she felt this alone was during the descent to Laythe. The Aluminum, a good craft, but if something had gone wrong.... She spent several minutes there, completely alone, on the surface, the furthest kerbal from home. Her survival was dependent entirely on the other three members of their crew. (And Jeb.) They had to land nearby and "rescue" her from that surface. If they missed, she could at least fly out to meet them. Unless they had missed so badly they ended up in the ocean. 

They could have left her, aborted the landing, gone back home or out to Vall or even Eeloo if they were so inclined. Yet of course they wouldn't. And they didn't. They weren't robots, they weren't executing some program. They were kerbals. Would one of these Sulphurs rescue the other if it was falling to a certain death? Had it? No. What if it had been programmed to....

She reached out and grabbed the ladder of the Sulphur 3. The sudden transfer of momentum caused the shuttle to fire its RCS jets,  a program taking over to rescue itself. She almost lost her grip thanks to that hard burst from the shuttle, but she held on. Her eyes turned towards the stars, temporarily mesmerized by the nothingness. Was she programed to hold on? Had some machine whispered that in her ear? No.

A star in the Cloud of the First Kerbals constellation caught her eye, brighter than the others. Was that where Thomlock had gone? Was that Anzol? She couldn't remember their names, those stars. She wasn't even sure they had names, and if they did who was to say they were the real names? The correct names? What was real anymore?

The emptiness, that's what was real. Out here every kerbal is alone. So very alone. Work together or risk slipping into the void, never to be found again. Or be stranded on the surface of some distant moon, or distant planet. The others? The other three? They were entirely dependent on her now. Their shuttle was empty, dry, only two of their EVA packs had fuel. If she left, if she took this shuttle and ran, they would never be able to leave. Trapped here, three frozen kerbals, drifting above a cursed and frozen moon. Would someone, some... thing, program such malice into a kerbal? 

No, of course she couldn't leave, that was just the darkness talking. And she didn't. She was needed; they were needed; all kerbals were needed. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point they would all be needed for something. She opened the hatch, climbed inside, and took control of the shuttle. She turned off the shuttle's flight computer and set about checking its systems. No more programs, no more robots, and no more hypothetical disasters. It was dangerous enough being out here without imagining more pain on themselves. It felt good to be free of the boredom of Vall's endless ice. She moved towards her friends, off to rescue their stranded little spacecraft.

Space. It really was good to be back.

 

--

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Edited December 4, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[Geschosskopf]

"Get out and push!"  Yay!  That's one of my all-time favorite things to do in KSP.  Glad you were able to work it into this story .

[cubinator]

Excellent as always!

[Cydonian Monk]

10 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

"Get out and push!"  Yay!  That's one of my all-time favorite things to do in KSP.  Glad you were able to work it into this story .

Sometimes it’s the only option. Don’t know how many times I’ve done it in the past. Just part of what makes KSP KSP.

 

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

Excellent as always!

Thanks!

[Pretorian28715]

Most definitely worth the wait.

As always...

Thought that might be an episode of spacemadness  [pun intended]

But it was a-void-ed

[obney kerman]

"Get out and push". A time-honored spaceflight method when fuel has run low.