THE BARTDON PAPERS - "Cancel all previous directives."

[superstrijder15]

On 18-11-2016 at 2:29 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

Yes, I'm lucky enough to own what I believe must be one of the most amazing gaming rigs ever manufactured. Its performance literally blows my mind at times. I will put its specs in spoiler tags below so that less fortunate individuals don't quit my thread in a fit of jealousy.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Early 2009 20" iMac.

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.

6 GB RAM.

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory.

 

I also have 126 TB of Patience^TM.

My specs: The cheapest thing in store built for lightness in 2011...

Once I managed to crash my system by watching Scott Manley while having KSP and word open

Edit: though suprisingly it still works^TM!

Edited November 20, 2016 by superstrijder15

[UnusualAttitude]

2 hours ago, Shania_L said:

Wow, that is ... cold ..... even for the board.

"All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Romans 3:12).

You have to admit it though, Bartdon did do just about everything he could to annoy them.

Tune in next time to see if there are some pieces to pick up.

2 hours ago, superstrijder15 said:

Once I managed to crash my system by watching Scott Manley while having KSP and word open

That will teach you not to open Word when your computer is busy doing more interesting stuff. 

Edited November 20, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[superstrijder15]

But I used it to be able to pretend I was doing something useful! Seriously though, Word is really useful for actually long-term planning my missions instead of having Bob out coming from Dres, Jeb in orbit with the comet catcher(catching class A comets only, really need to work on the design) and Bill... somewhere... when the window for my fully designed Duna mission comes along

[Geschosskopf]

12 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

I knew that the Board wouldn't buy it. But there's not a damn thing they can do about it for the moment. Go on, then. Sue me! I happen to be many millions of miles from the nearest courtroom right now.

Not to mention out of reach of even the most ardent of process-servers

 

12 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

“Listen to me carefully. Shut down the uplink from Earth now. Do you hear me? Shut it d-”

but who needs process-servers when you can remotely detonate bombs that Barty himself had put aboard.  Or is that what happened?

[UnusualAttitude]

38 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

but who needs process-servers when you can remotely detonate bombs that Barty himself had put aboard.  Or is that what happened?

There was definitely some remote detonating going on there, although the Board will no doubt claim that "an unfortunate technical failure occurred." If you look at the image of Laroque, however, you can see that the explosion occurs in the aft section of the ship, around the NTR. I don't think Bartdon would be careless enough to leave his explosives lying around near a nuclear reactor. 

[Geschosskopf]

56 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

There was definitely some remote detonating going on there, although the Board will no doubt claim that "an unfortunate technical failure occurred." If you look at the image of Laroque, however, you can see that the explosion occurs in the aft section of the ship, around the NTR. I don't think Bartdon would be careless enough to leave his explosives lying around near a nuclear reactor. 

In my experience, there is nothing more explosion-proof than the containment vessel of a nuclear reactor.  They've been tested against planes crashing into them, being rammed by high-speed freight trains at railroad crossings, you name it, and the containment has always won.  So hopefully the containment vessel shielded the more fragile areas from the worst of the explosion.  In any case, it looks like Camwise is coming up to bat

 

[Shania_L]

I would say that would apply for Earth bound nuclear containment where environmental damage is a high concern. In space however where pretty much everything is radioactive anyway and mass is such a concern I highly doubt you would get quite the same level of over-engineering.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

8 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

In my experience, there is nothing more explosion-proof than the containment vessel of a nuclear reactor.  They've been tested against planes crashing into them, being rammed by high-speed freight trains at railroad crossings, you name it, and the containment has always won.  So hopefully the containment vessel shielded the more fragile areas from the worst of the explosion.  In any case, it looks like Camwise is coming up to bat

 

Ahh, but this was built by the Board.  And they like to keep their options open.  Plus, realistically, weight would be more important than strength in space.

Ninja'd by @Shania_L

[UnusualAttitude]

@Geschosskopf, @Shania_L and @Mad Rocket Scientist: you all make good points. Reactor containment vessels should be incredibly tough things, although if you want to use one to push your spaceship to Mars, you're gonna have to cut down on weight somewhere. By how much I don't know. I'm certainly no expert on the matter.

But all this is irrelevant if the much more fragile nozzle of the aforementioned nuclear propulsion system is destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Your NTR ain't sending you home...

Sounds like a job for Camwise, indeed.

[Geschosskopf]

21 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

@Geschosskopf, @Shania_L and @Mad Rocket Scientist: you all make good points. Reactor containment vessels should be incredibly tough things, although if you want to use one to push your spaceship to Mars, you're gonna have to cut down on weight somewhere. By how much I don't know. I'm certainly no expert on the matter.

But all this is irrelevant if the much more fragile nozzle of the aforementioned nuclear propulsion system is destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Your NTR ain't sending you home...

Sounds like a job for Camwise, indeed.

I"m sure it's pretty tough regardless.  After all, it has to protect the crew from radiation, besides surviving its own internal pressures and temperatures, plus neutron erosion and such things.

Somehow I can't help but feel that Barty has been hoist by his own petard (love the literal meaning of that word, BTW) here.  Had he let the whole message get through, then it wouldn't have been so easy to snuff him out.  But OTOH, enough of the message did get out for folks to draw reasonable conclusions a bit more dire than it actually turned out to be, which might result in torch-wielding mobs storming the Board's castle

But Camwise?  Barty's "officially" dead.  There's a deadline to get to the outer planets.  Why would there be a rescue mission to Mars when it takes so long to get to Jupiter?

[UnusualAttitude]

13 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

I"m sure it's pretty tough regardless.  After all, it has to protect the crew from radiation, besides surviving its own internal pressures and temperatures, plus neutron erosion and such things.

Just for the record (as it may become important at some point in the story), I consider that the nuclear reactors used in the Camwise Logs are tough enough to survive a launch failure, so pretty strong. But in terms of radiation shielding: not so good. I design my ships so that bulkheads, fuel tanks and water/supplies provide the shielding. On the bridge, you're relatively safe. EVA to the rear of the ship when the reactor is powered up, and you won't be having sprouts any time soon.

13 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Somehow I can't help but feel that Barty has been hoist by his own petard (love the literal meaning of that word, BTW) here.  Had he let the whole message get through, then it wouldn't have been so easy to snuff him out.  But OTOH, enough of the message did get out for folks to draw reasonable conclusions a bit more dire than it actually turned out to be, which might result in torch-wielding mobs storming the Board's castle

Love that expression.

Just remember that Bartdon cut the message short before the First Mate explicitly threatened the Kerbals, hoping to keep the situation under control and avoid mass panic. He has never had any love for the Board's methods, quite the contrary, but he is part of the establishment himself and would much prefer to avoid a bloody revolution or a complete collapse of the resource companies' authority.

You and I know all the sci-fi tropes. If an alien robot says "we will have to consider your species as a potential threat", we get understandably nervous for our characters. But for the Board, the Crew are still just a bunch of helpless million year old abandoned computers that might hand out free technology. The potential gains far outweigh the remote chance that they might actually represent a true danger to Earth.

Bartdon betted that his knowledge of the end of the Martian Transmission would be insurance for him and his crew. He lost that one...

14 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Why would there be a rescue mission to Mars when it takes so long to get to Jupiter?

Read on...

[HamnavoePer]

On 18/11/2016 at 3:05 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

Exactly. Also, I believe I'm making significant savings on my heating bill at the moment by running KSP. 

Wow. I want to see this rig in person and touch it while running. How long would I be in A&E for?

[DMSP]

Oh my god...

The Board is evil. Even if those poor, poor Kerbals are dead, Camwise is probably going to stop them in some way. Can you build an M202 at the South Pole?

18 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

There was definitely some remote detonating going on there, although the Board will no doubt claim that "an unfortunate technical failure occurred." If you look at the image of Laroque, however, you can see that the explosion occurs in the aft section of the ship, around the NTR. I don't think Bartdon would be careless enough to leave his explosives lying around near a nuclear reactor. 

Wait a second, were those the crates Bartdon brought onboard? What is this??

[Garrett Kerman]

On 11/20/2016 at 5:51 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

There was definitely some remote detonating going on there, although the Board will no doubt claim that "an unfortunate technical failure occurred." If you look at the image of Laroque, however, you can see that the explosion occurs in the aft section of the ship, around the NTR. I don't think Bartdon would be careless enough to leave his explosives lying around near a nuclear reactor. 

Mars mission rules:

1. Somthing catastrophic must occur.

2. No rescuing may happen.

3. Explosives must be brought.

[UnusualAttitude]

7 hours ago, HamnavoePer said:

Wow. I want to see this rig in person and touch it while running. How long would I be in A&E for?

 

Spoiler

 

 

I exaggerate: it's not too bad at the moment. Back in August things got pretty hot in my little study though. That big desktop fan was on full blast all the time. Ironically, I was writing about Camwise in the Antarctic back then.  

 

6 hours ago, DMSP said:

Wait a second, were those the crates Bartdon brought onboard? What is this??

 

59 minutes ago, Garrett Kerman said:

Mars mission rules:

1. Somthing catastrophic must occur.

2. No rescuing may happen.

3. Explosives must be brought.

When preparing for his journey to Mars, Bartdon packed a red herring... geddit? 

Edited November 22, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 12, DAY 20. CAMWISE.

We listened to them over the radio as they died slowly, one after the other.

Prospection Station Vrijheid 2 was a small mineral exploration camp that one of the struggling independent companies had set up in Antarctica. A last-ditch attempt to escape the smothering monopoly of the Big Three had brought a skeleton crew of desperate engineers and geologists to the hellish conditions of the Adelie Coast.

Here, they had hoped to find rare earth deposits and ore that was sufficiently rich in uranium to try leaching it out of the ground. Two decades ago, such a venture would have been unthinkable, as the cost of extracting, processing and shipping minerals from such a hostile environment would have been prohibitive. But as the years went by, unclaimed resources became scarcer and the noose that Trans Pacific, Trans Atlantic, and Trans Indian held around the world's neck tightened slowly but surely.

The choke-hold was such that some of the smaller settlements had formed cooperatives, trying to break free by finding up their own sources of energy or income. Drawing on new extraction techniques, they sought out deposits in the most distant and inaccessible places of our planet. A small minority of these projects were successful, but this only encouraged the cooperatives to push on to ever greater risks. In some cases, these independent exploration camps turned out to be ill-advised mistakes that payed the price of failure in Kerbal lives.

Such was the tragic fate of Station Vrijheid 2.

The Vrijheid Cooperative had already been in dire straits when we had last visited the station two months ago. It was a bleak and desolate place, situated on one of the ice plateaus about two hundred kilometres inland, near a mountain range that the geologists hoped to exploit. Whereas the summer temperatures could be bearable near the edge of the ice-shelf, up here at altitude they could still drop to forty below at night, and the wind chill factors were vicious.

I remember the ragged team of Kerbals milling aimlessly amongst a group of inadequately equipped huts that were in urgent need of repair. We offloaded the pitifully small amount of food, medical supplies and kerosene that happened to be all that they could afford.

Tucked in the back of our icecrawler, Montbrun, was a badly needed back-up generator that had been ordered by the cooperative to replace the ageing and sputtering turbine that kept the outpost alive. However, Trans Pacific had called the previous day to inform us that the Vrijheid Cooperative no longer had the means to pay for it. The generator would stay in our cargo hold; we were not to unload it under any circumstances.

Commander Tirice had offered to evacuate the team there and then and let the bean-counters squabble over compensation later if they really had to. This suggestion of surrender was met with hostile glares from the half-starved crowd that now surrounded Tirice and I at the bottom of the cargo ramp. You could see the hatred for the Company in their eyes. They would not accept defeat and the shameful prospect of being given a ride home by the enemy.

“At least let me take a look at that generator...” I offered, knowing that if it packed in then they were as good as dead. I thought of the Company-owned research stations and their redundant power supplies housed in separate, well-spaced buildings. Some of the larger bases were even equipped with nukes. These guys had nothing.

“You will leave, now,” said the Chief Engineer of Vrijheid 2 in a gruff, broken common tongue. And, since our crew of four now faced a dozen increasingly angry and desperate prospectors with nothing to lose, we closed up shop and left. As Montbrun pulled out, I spotted three kerb-sized mounds of snow in a line, a stone's throw away from the camp. The cold and lack of supplies had already claimed its first victims.

Last week we were returning to Knox along the coast when the blizzards started. Temperatures plunged far below zero and the whole region became cut off from the outside. In these impossible conditions, a fire had broken out in the hut housing the generator at Vrijheid 2.

In the polar regions, a fire can be every bit as deadly as the pervasive, soul-numbing cold. With little liquid water on hand to fight it and a howling gale to fan the flames, the Station was reduced to a jumble of burnt-out ruins in minutes. As the storm raged on, the survivors huddled inside the gutted remains of one of the shelters and used the dwindling power of their remaining battery to call for help.

Even if an aircraft with sufficient range had been on hand at Woomera, a successful airdrop of emergency supplies in such atrocious conditions would have been unlikely to succeed. If, by some miracle, a package had landed safely within a kilometre of the survivors, they would never have found it in the blinding snowstorm. An airship evacuation in such high winds would have been suicidal.

We were their only hope, and we were a thousand kilometres away across the ice shelf.

Never before had we pushed the icecrawler so hard, driving relentlessly through the long polar days into weather that worsened with every passing mile. Never before had we taken so many risks, and Comander Tirice used every trick in the book to shorten the journey, knowing full well that each hour we lost by being cautious could mean one less living Kerbal to pull from the wreckage of Station Vrijheid 2.

As we got closer it became possible to contact the survivors directly with our radio. We listened to the strained voice of the Chief Engineer shouting over the wind shrieking through the jagged and twisted corrugated metal that was their pitiful last line of defence against the mindless violence of the elements. At first, we could hear other voices in the background. But as the days passed and the blizzard fell upon us, our progress slowed to a crawl. And one by one, these other voices fell silent.

We were spared the ordeal of listening to the Chief Engineer's end when the battery of his radio finally gave up the ghost.

With the typical blind cruelty of nature, the storm lifted the very next day. The wind fell silent and a blazing sun appeared above the ice-cap, showering the endless blanket of fresh snow with brilliant light and feeble warmth. Montbrun covered the last fifty kilometres to Vrijheid 2 in just over an hour. We knew that it was too late, but we had come much too far to give up now.

We almost missed the remains of the shelter, half-buried in deep drifts. I volunteered to go in and perform the cursory examination that would confirm what we already knew. Tirice overruled me with a few sharp words, and climbed down into the shelter herself through a gaping tear in its corrugated roof. She returned just a few minutes later clutching the Chief Engineer's battered radio. Staring straight ahead, she pushed past us and headed back towards the icecrawler.

That evening we buried the remains of the shelter. Gemxy, Jorvis and I shovelled compact snow into a large mound, and we planted the station's broken radio mast at the summit as a monument to the shattered hopes of the Vrijheid Cooperative. Not a word passed between us as we worked, and the heavy silence prevailed when we were done and turned to leave.

There was no ceremony. There was nothing to be said. We hadn't even known their names anyway.

I dragged my exhausted body up the ladder to the bridge, lost in the frozen wasteland of my thoughts. Gemxy was slumped in one of the seats, staring out of the window, tears streaming down her face. I had no comforting words for her.

There were two and a half years still to go before the end of my contract.

 

YEAR 12, DAY 63. CAMWISE.

Things had changed very little since I had joined the team, with the exception of the departure of Malcolm who had moved on to bigger and better things as a trainee officer for Trans Atlantic. My new shift-partner was Pilot Jorvis, a cold and grizzled Kerbal from the far North.

We would trundle around the ice-caps for months on end, then at the end of each year, we were granted a few week's leave. This involved flying out to Woomera on an airship, leaving Montbrun in the hands of the overhaul crews for scheduled maintenance. From there, Tirice would leave us to our own devices while she flew out to Africa to join her partner.

Jorvis, Gemxy and I usually stuck together during those weeks we spent in the arid dustbowl of Australia. It wasn't that we couldn't have done without each other. But after months on end spent working as a family in a closed environment, the rest of the world felt alien and strange. Our senses were assaulted by the seething mass of faceless Kerbals that we were suddenly surrounded by, whether it was out on the surface around the airport, or in the cave settlements that lay below it. After a couple of weeks, we usually looked forward to returning to the isolation of our polar home on wheels.

Coverage in Antarctica can be patchy at best, with just a few satellites in high polar or molniya orbits. And even when we have it, Montbrun's ageing communications array can be less than reliable. Sometimes we go for days without contact from the outside world.

Most of the radio traffic we get consists of orders from the Trans Pacific logistics HQ. Go there. Pick up this from the coast. Take that to Station Zeta. Yes, they have payed for it. Weather bulletins, storm warnings, assistance required by another crawler that has experienced some failure or other. And so on...

Occasionally, Froemone would write to me. He would give me a very brief summary of the space programme's activities. After an initial period of cooperation, during which I provided what help I could with concepts for Bartdon's Mars mission, these summaries got more and more infrequent. There were no details, nothing that could be considered confidential, and the news often reached me long after the events had taken place.

Froemone was obviously being very careful, well aware of the risk of his messages being intercepted and their contents examined. But it was in this manner that I had learned that the crew had reached the surface of the Red Planet safely.

But this morning I received short message from Karanda, relayed via Omelek with the usual engineer's encryption. This was unusual, as until now Froemone had been the only one to write to me. Something was obviously very wrong.

Salut, vielle crotte verte,

Je sais que ça fait longtemps, cousin. Mais contrairement à toi, j'ai été pas mal occupée ces derniers mois. Alors que tu étais en train de prendre du bon temps et de faire le fainéant au pôle sud, je suis allée sur Phobos et maintenant je suis en orbite autour de Mars. La vue est magnifique. Je voulais juste te dire à quel point je suis heureuse que tu ne sois pas là pour l'apprécier avec moi...

Which meant, of course, that my beloved cousin held me in high esteem for the difficult job I was doing here in Antarctica, and she wished that I was there with her to share the magnificent view of Mars.

...Le Chef s'inquiète, par contre. Au sol, il a trouvé une tête qui parle. Elle me rappelle un peu la tienne, tellement elle est moche. La tête lui a dit avec une voix de robot que si jamais on la contrariait, elle nous enverrait des boulets du ciel dessus...

What the hell was she on about? The Boss – which I assumed meant Bartdon – had found a talking head on Mars with a robotic voice. And if we didn't do as it said, it would throw... balls... from the sky at us...?

...Il faut vraiment que tu parles aux copains sur l'Ile. Dis-leur de préparer un parapluie pour nous protéger au plus vite...

Now she was telling me to speak with our friends on the Island, and tell them to prepare an umbrella to protect ourselves soon as possible.

...En plus, il faut que nous soyons ou bien chez le fêtard, ou bien chez le vieux pour l'heure du souper, disons dans dix longues heures...

What's more, we must arrive at either the party-animal's place, or the old man's home in time for supper in, say, about ten long hours...

...Salut cousin, je te déteste, comme toujours.

Karanda.

By now, I was staring vacantly at the screen in total incomprehension. It sounded like Karanda had been at the hydrazine again. In fact, it sounded as if she had completely drained the tank. I couldn't even begin to...

Then things began to click into place. An umbrella to protect ourselves from space...

I began frantically hammering out a quick translation for Froemone, hoping that it would not be intercepted, and praying that Omelek's Senior Engineer could summon enough imagination to make any sense of it.

It was a good job I sent it when I did. Just a few hours later the last of our spare tubes blew and Montbrun's radio fell silent for the foreseeable future. There'll be no chance of us getting hold of any replacement parts until we return to our drop-off point in Knox in a couple of weeks. For now, I am left to worry in silence at the ominous state of affairs suggested by Karanda's message. I hope they are alright.

 

YEAR 12, DAY 73. CAMWISE.

This morning an aircraft flew low overhead. It was clearly searching for something.

It was another bright, crisp morning and visibility was excellent. From the bridge, I got a clear view of the jet as it flashed past but I didn't recognise the design. It was a sleek machine that was obviously built for speed, with a large cropped delta wing and two engines mounted in large booms that were embedded in the airframe. The turbines put out a very loud and distinctive whine that I had no trouble hearing, even over the noise of the ice-crawler.

The jet climbed, turned and flashed past us again rocking its wings. It was trying to talk to us, but we still had no radio with which to respond.

We were out on the ice shelf, just a few hundred kilometres out of our drop-off point on Knox Coast, and the surrounding terrain was flat and smooth. Despite this, I couldn't believe my eyes when the pilot of the aircraft lined up on our position, lowered its landing gear, and put it down on the ice about a mile away from Montbrun.

Jorvis adjusted our course and just a couple of minutes later, we had pulled up along side the aircraft. A ladder extended from the cockpit and the figure of a suited Kerbelle was already climbing out onto the ice, waving anxiously at us. I slid down the ladder from Montbrun's bridge and crunched across the surface to meet her. As I approached and got a clear view of her face for the first time, I blinked.

It was Catbeth.

My pilot and teammate from the Drygalski Lunar mission. I hadn't seen her since Cernin had left for Mars, and that had been nearly six years ago. I stumbled over and swept my old friend into a fierce bear-hug, almost lifting her bodily out of the snow.

But then she stiffened. Something was wrong. I released her from my embrace. She was clearly happy to see me too, but there was also anguish in her eyes.

“Camwise. You have to come with me. Right now,” her voice was flat as she attempted to contain her emotion. As she spoke, a second Kerbal descended the ladder from the aircraft behind her.

“But... I can't. I...”

“You must. We need your help. Engineer Calby here will stand in for you while you're gone. He is familiar with the Kastria reactor and has served on crawlers before. Calby, will you ask Commander Tirice if she can spare part of her load of kerosene to top us off? This is on Trans Pacific, of course.”

Calby dropped lightly onto the ice and with nothing more than a cheery “Aye TP, will do. Morning, sir,” made his way over to Montbrun without looking back. I watched him go in a daze.

“Camwise, come with me,” Catbeth insisted.

Five minutes later I was sitting in the right hand seat of the aircraft's cockpit, looking out at Calby and Gemxy working to attach a fuel line beneath the jet's wing. Another ten minutes more and Calby gave us the thumbs up as he backed off to a safe distance for us to roll.

I caught a final glimpse of Gemxy, standing in the snow in front of one of Montbrun's massive wheels. She gazed up at the aircraft's cockpit intently, unable to see me through the glass due to the glare of the morning sun. She wrapped her arms around her own chest, as if protecting herself against something other than just the cold, and bowed her head as the aircraft turned and pulled away across the ice.

There had been no time to say farewell, as always.

Then the engines shrieked and the acceleration kicked in as Catbeth toggled a couple of piano switches situated behind the thrust levers. I realised that this aircraft was not designed for hanging around. The jet's afterburners pushed hard, but she was heavy with fuel and we were hurtling along at an insane speed before Cat finally rotated the craft's nose and pulled us into the air.

The Antarctic ice shelf and another chapter of my life fell away behind me as we climbed to cruising altitude and set a course northwards.

“It's a good job your Commander gave us some fuel,” said Catbeth. “It means we can head directly for Omelek. I was afraid we'd have to stop in Woomera. We'll have to supercruise for most of the way, but once I'm sure we have enough fuel, I'll kick in the afterburners again. We should be home in... five and a half hours.”

Despite all that had taken place that morning, I couldn't help but be impressed by this mysterious aircraft. By my reckoning, the Pacific Island was nearly ten thousand kilometres from where Catbeth had picked me up.

As if reading my mind, Catbeth told me, “This is Martiel, the Board members and top executives use these when they can't get on a scheduled hypersonic flight. Froe had an extra fuel tank fitted to its cargo bay. I've no idea what that will do to its handling, but it was the only ship with enough range and speed to reach you in time. It's a good job you weren't far from the coast, or I would never have found you.”

“What's going on, Cat?”

“Something... happened. At Mars.”

I froze. Couldn't breathe.

“Are they..?”

“Everyone is alive,” Catbeth began, and I found that I could breathe once more, “your cousin and my sister are... OK. But they won't be for long if we don't find some way to get them home. We thought that you could maybe help us with that.”

“But I wasn't involved in the mission...” I stammered, beginning to panic. “I don't even know the vehicle's specs. I just offered some ideas...”

“I can't give you the details, but Froemone will give you a full briefing on the situation as soon as we land,” Catbeth said firmly. “In the present state of things, any new ideas will be worth a try. It's not looking good, Cam. And the Board are not cooperating like they should.”

“What do you mean?”

“So far, they have rejected funding for any proposal of a rescue or relief mission. Not that we even have a plausible one. Earth and Mars are still only just past opposition right now. It's the worst possible time to launch there.”

Catbeth lapsed into an uneasy silence. Martiel sped on above the great Southern Ocean towards the Pacific.

Edited November 28, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[NotAgain]

6 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

We listened to them over the radio as they died slowly, one after the other.

I had a serious panic for the first few paragraphs, until I realised that you meant Vrijheid 2's crew, not Bartdon's lot.

[UnusualAttitude]

18 minutes ago, NotAgain said:

I had a serious panic for the first few paragraphs, until I realised that you meant Vrijheid 2's crew, not Bartdon's lot.

Heh, sorry.

I mean, it's not as if I chose that opening sentence to mislead my readers on purpose... No sir, absolutely not. Me, do such a thing ? 

[Garrett Kerman]

Woah. I also paniced in the first few paragraphs.

[Geschosskopf]

On 11/28/2016 at 5:59 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

Salut, vielle crotte verte,

 

On 11/28/2016 at 5:59 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

Elle me rappelle un peu la tienne, tellement elle est moche

Ah, colloquial French

 

On 11/28/2016 at 5:59 AM, UnusualAttitude said:

“So far, they have rejected funding for any proposal of a rescue or relief mission. Not that we even have a plausible one. Earth and Mars are still only just past opposition right now. It's the worst possible time to launch there.”

Oh well, Camwise has already been to Mars anyway

 

[UnusualAttitude]

19 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Ah, colloquial French

...and merely the family-friendly version of it.

By the way, for those of you who don't speak any French, here is a full literal translation of Karanda's letter.
 

Spoiler

 

Hi, old green dung,

I know it's been a long time, cousin. But unlike you, I've been pretty busy in recent months. While you were having a good time and slacking at the South Pole, I went to Phobos and now I'm orbiting Mars. The view is beautiful. I just wanted to tell you how happy I am that you are not here to enjoy it with me.

The Boss is worried, however. On the ground, he found a talking head. It's so ugly that it reminds me of you. The head told him with a robotic voice that if we don't do as it says, it will throw balls at us from the sky.

You really have to talk to our friends on the Island. Tell them to prepare an umbrella to protect us as quickly as possible.

What's more, we have to be either at the party-animal's place, or at the old man's home in time for supper, let's say in ten long hours.

'Bye cousin, I hate you, as always.

Karanda.

 

 

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Even though I speak conversant "proper" French, lots of that still made no sense

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Even though I speak conversant "proper" French, lots of that still made no sense

Well, it is supposed to be cryptic.  If you remember from this entry, Bartdon asked Karanda to write a message to Omelek. She was to warn Foremone and his team of a possible threat to Earth and disguise her meaning as the usual abusive garbage she would write to her cousin, Camwise. The whole point of the operation was to get the message through to Froemone without its content being immediately obvious to the Board (who are clearly monitoring all transmissions from Mars to Earth closely).

In French, boulet is often used to signify "cannon ball". A "cannon ball from the heavens" is pretty self-explanatory, hence the "umbrella" required to protect the planet.

As for the Party-Animal, and the Old Man's place, you literally need to brush up on your classics. 

[hidude398]

Am I the only one who feels sorry that Camwise and Gemxy didn't work out? I mean, yeah, Camwise is a Kerbal, which is the dictionary definition of suffering, but it's kind of sad that he never really got the chance to explore that relationship before being ripped away again.

[UnusualAttitude]

5 hours ago, hidude398 said:

Am I the only one who feels sorry that Camwise and Gemxy didn't work out? I mean, yeah, Camwise is a Kerbal, which is the dictionary definition of suffering, but it's kind of sad that he never really got the chance to explore that relationship before being ripped away again.

If you look back through the dates of his log entries, you will see that Camwise spent more than two years working on the icecrawler with Gemxy in the Antarctic. Time kinda flies when you then focus on a mission to Mars.  But certainly he and Gemxy were close, and his departure was... unexpected.

Sadly, Camwise has a problem with longing for something (a Kerbelle) he cannot have. Just say the word "Lisab..." and he comes running, even though he knows deep down that it cannot end well. I agree that this is tragic, indeed there is a little bit of the author's own personal experience there. And before you ask, no, she wasn't called Lisabeth. 

Maybe, just maybe, we haven't seen the last of Gemxy. But, as always, if she reappears, it will be at a most unexpected moment.

Thank you very much for commenting: it is always particularly encouraging for me to realise that some of my readers are attentive to the finer details of my story.