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Making a Dollar or Two- BOOK THREE

Confused Scientist

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Chapter 10- What’s the Frequency, Kerbin?

“Comms check on one and three.” The two hi-gain antennas on the belly of the Kraken’s Spit swiveled and connected with the Deep Space Network. “Comms check on two and four.” Two omnidirectional antennas mounted above the crew cabin screamed into the ether. “Okay, we’re online.”

Bill moved away from the comms panel and floated towards Bob. “You got the antennas, now you can talk all you like. But we have to make a maneuver after each broadcast so the IA doesn’t get an accurate lock on our position. Jeb?”

Jebediah looked at an analog gauge near his left foot. “Yeah, we got about two kilometers per second left, we’ll only need one and a half to get on Duna safely, so call it… a ten-meter per second burn each time. That will stop them from chasing us down”

“Speaking of which,” continued Bill, “hundreds of tracking computers are probably triangulating our position as we speak. Say what you want to say and then get the kraken off the airwaves.”

On four worlds, kerbals were sitting in front of televisions, tapping on phone screens, and pounding on keyboards. Hundreds of megabytes poured out into space every second. If she wanted to, a kerbal could instantaneously access all of kerbalkind’s collected knowledge and wisdom going back to the Great Purge, or she could spend hours trying in vain to get her mods to work together on Human Space Program. The point was, the most important utility in the Kerbol system was communication.

And one kerbal aboard a spaceship was able to bring it all down.

“Hello, we’re broadcasting to you today from an undisclosed location that shall remain secret until the cops get off our tail.” A million radio programs were interrupted by Bob’s voice. “However, you can see that right now, we’re in some sort of spacecraft.” The face of Jebediah Kerman appeared on thousands of screens across the solar system. “And this is Radio Free Kerbol.”

“The fall of capitalism is fifty years in the rearview mirror, but communism is no longer necessary. And yet, the United Kerbin prefers to continue with the current style of beating down the masses until they conform to a larger plan that doesn’t exist. However, we have two things to say.

“One, we are onboard the Kraken’s Spit. We have gone on the run after inadvertently delivering a terrorist to the surface of the Mun. His ship was full of plutonium, and he killed everyone aboard Munbase Two.  And, second, we have figured out his goal: to give each and every kerbal control over their lives. Although we cannot agree with his methods, we can agree with his purpose. People of Laythe and Duna, we bid you: Break free from the influence of the Kerbin system! Give us sanctuary and embrace our cause! Support the rights of kerbalkind! And, people of the Kerbin system: Always remember that you are really in control and that the rest of the solar system is on your side.”

The commander of the Kraken’s Spit finished his speech. The engineer scrambled the comms. And the navigator pushed play on a tape recorder.

“Until next time, this is Radio Free Kerbol… and remember, we’re still broadcasting.”

Decide yourself where they're gonna stay.
They are running from but not away.
Let them, let them, let them have your say.
This just doesn't happen any day.

Radio broadband,
Decide yourself.

Meet me in the prograde of this world.
Dealing word games making us unsure.
Let them, let them, let them tell us all.
That we aren't one country at all.

Radio broadband,
Decide yourself.

Calling on, in transit,
Calling on, in transit,
Radio Free Kerbol, Radio!

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Chapter 11- G is for Gilly

"Our radio broadcast has gotten a lot of attention," said Bill. He pulled up a news page from the Solar News Network. "A few kerbals have started to wonder if the United Kerbin is really doing the best they can in their favor. There's been a few articles published about it, and they point out smaller colonies and settlements are more likely to stray from the establishment- which gives us an opportunity."

Bob looked up from the EVA helmet he was polishing. "Gilly?"

Bill nodded. "Yeah, there's only about three hundred people there maintaining the mining equipment. I think if we called ahead they might let us refuel and give us sanctuary for a while."

Jeb floated over. "But doesn't the IA have a strong presence there because of piracy issues? How do we avoid them?"

"Well, the IA figured that since Gilly was a refueling stop, it was essentially just a space station," explained Bill. "And since it was privately funded, they thought that it would just be easier to let Gilly Control manage its own traffic. So the IA doesn't pay attention to incoming ships unless Gilly Control flags them for further investigation."

"Well, it could be risky," said Jeb. "What if the controller on duty decides that we're worth the bail?"

"It says here that nearly forty percent of the kerbals at Gilly are sympathetic to our cause," said Bill. "And that figure includes the four dozen IA troops stationed there."

"Okay, let's put it to a vote," the commander said. "All for?"

Bill and Bob raised their hands.

"Okay, then. I'm calling Gilly and requesting permission to land."

Jeb reached for the microphone. "GC, MkII dropship requesting permission to land and transfer fuel onboard, over."

Gilly Control was unfazed. "Negative. Please give name of spacecraft and affiliated company."

Jeb took a deep breath. If the controller didn't like the answer then it was all over for them. "Spacecraft is Kraken's Spit, part of the Jeb's Dropship Services fleet. Over."

"Are you crazy? You want to bring the IA in on our heads?" yelled the voice on the other end of the speaker.

"Actually... we're not. The IA doesn't need to know what they don't want to hear, if you get my drift. There's money in it for you- we have big fuel tanks, and they're almost empty."

"And what if some officer notices that, hey, the three most wanted kerbals in the solar system are sitting eating lunch across the table from him?"

"Then we'll let you turn us in and you can collect the bail. But if you go running to the cops before anyone finds out about us, then we'll open the first airlock we can find. We'll sabotage everything."

There was silence over the microphone for a while. When the controller called back, Jeb could almost hear the smile in his voice. "Pleasure doing business with you. We'll have Pad 03 ready for your arrival in three hours."

The Kraken's Spit abandoned its carefully planned trajectory the next day and settled into orbit around Gilly. Forty minutes later, Jeb gave the engines a five second burst at full thrust and they were falling straight down, so slowly, toward the captured asteroid. Two minutes before landing Bob said, "Are we sure we want to go through with this? It might be riskier than we thought."

"It's too late to quit now."

The ship fell with a dreamlike quality in the microgravities. Rather than use the normal accelerometer equipment to figure out when the legs touched the ground, Jeb just looked out the window. The engines were at two percent thrust, barely even glowing. The last meter to the ground was excruciatingly slow. At last, the landing legs thumped down on the first land they had touched in years. "Touchdown," Jeb said.

During the two hours it would take to refuel the Kraken's Spit, the crew loitered in the lounge. It was almost empty, so they didn't worry too much that they would be discovered. Still, they should have been more careful- at one point a kerbal came over and was within two meters before they even noticed her. "My name is Valentina," she said. "And you look like you need a pilot."

Nobody knew who this Valentina was or where she came from, or why they could trust her, but she seemed persuasive. And you could tell just by looking at her that she was one damn fine pilot, something that could come in handy while running from the cops. "Where are you fellows headed?" she asked.

-Duna, or maybe Laythe.

"Why don't you know for sure?"

-Uh... you see, there's some guys hanging around the inner solar system that we don't want to run into. It's kind of a complicated story.

"Lucky for you I want to head out to the icy worlds myself. Still, I can charge you a lot more if you're on the run."

-Charge you how much?

"Does eighty percent of your money sound reasonable?"

-Holy kraken!

"I'm just kidding. Really, I'll fly along with you for no charge- my ship was damaged by a runaway tanker, you see. And everyone can use another pilot."

-Sure. Our ship will be fueled up in two hours, five minutes. We cast off immediately, so be at Pad 03 as soon as you can, or you'll miss your ride.

Nobody questioned the wisdom of bringing Valentina with them. On paper, it was a terrible, terrible decision, but sometimes you just have to meet someone to know that they are mysteriously loyal and trustworthy to complete strangers that will probably get them killed, or worse, just by association. Some people call them adventurous.

Jeb, Bill, and Bob started walking back to the ship. They killed time during the fueling operations by checking the ship's systems and making sure everything was okay after the ridiculous battles with the IA. Ten minutes before liftoff, they heard a knocking at the hatch.

"I'll bet that's Valentina," said Jeb. "I'll let her in."

They listened to Jeb climb down to the ingress hatch and almost immediately forgot he was gone. Five minutes later, Valentina entered the Kraken's Spit and sat down next to Bill and Bob. "I thought there were three of you," she said.

Bill and Bob looked at each other. "Uh-oh," they said.

The two of them sprinted into the refinery's galley, where they saw Jeb fighting to get free of the clutches of two members of the Interplanetary Authority. "Run!" yelled Jeb. "Save yourselves! Get out of here!" Of course, before Bill and Bob could start running, the two IA officers noticed them.

"Forget this guy, there's two of them!" one shouted. By that time, Bill and Bob were already halfway to the Kraken's Spit. "Start the engines!" Bob yelled to Valentina. "Jeb had to stay here. Start the engines!" They climbed into the ship just as it started rocking with the vibrations of the turbopumps coming online, and the hatch was closed in seconds. "We can't stay here anymore. Liftoff!" shouted Bill. As the ship rose high into the black, Bob sighed. "Poor Jeb."

Jeb was already on his third lap around the refinery. He needed to stop running soon, or else the IA suits would catch him. There! An escape pod! He ran in and closed the door. By their very nature, escape pods are fast-acting, and within seconds Jeb was kilometers from the station. Looks like I can catch up with the Kraken's Spit after all. However, before he could start accelerating toward a rendesvouz with his beloved dropship, two IA cruisers pulled up alongside him. Just by looking at them, Jeb could tell they could outrun him any day of the year. They want me to lead them toward the dropship. Well, he couldn't do that, and he couldn't just sit around in space, either, or they'd capture him. In fact, the only thing in his favor was that the escape pod was entirely self-sufficient, with compact recyclers for air, food, and water.

Then an idea entered Jeb's brain. A crazy, idiotic idea, one that any other kerbal would have dismissed as utterly insane. And Jeb started grinning like a madman.

"He's moving," said the captain of the first cruiser. They followed Jeb through a three-minute burn, slowly starting to wonder just where they were going. Finally, after nine minutes of this, the captain said, "Where is he- oh, kraken! Turn around! Look what trajectory he's on! One thing for sure, nobody's going to be able to claim a reward for his head now!"

A few hours later, the escape pod entered Eve's atmospere. It did have parachutes and heat shielding, but they were intended for entry at Kerbin. To compensate, Jeb burned off all of the fuel slowing down at two hundred kilometers. After that was finished, he just held on to whatever he could find as the capsule shook and rumbled its way down. Whatever wasn't in the shadow of the heat shield was vaporized instantly. After the shock heating was over, the pod ran out of RCS propellant and started gyrating wildly as it tore through the clouds at many times the speed of sound. Delicate equipment tore off the outside of the spacecraft, creating a debris clouds kilometers wide. Four parachutes deployed and were destroyed, and four more reserve chutes popped out of their cowling. One failed, but the rest survived, and the spinning stopped, only to be replaced by a bone-shattering thud moments later as the capsule slammed into the ground and the landing gear sheared off. The pod started rolling down a hill, and at this point virtually all equipment mounted outside the hull had been destroyed. Finally, the main fuel tank tore off, and the pod came to rest in a valley on the most deadly planet known to kerbalkind.

Jeb couldn't wait to step and see what it was like. He had even been able to make a flag out of spare items lying around the cockpit. Well, he thought, here I am. The first kerbal to visit Kerbin's twin. And then, wiping a drop of sweat off of his brow, Let's hope the radiators still work.

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Chapter 12- Purple Rain

Aboard the Kraken's Spit, Bill Kerman cleared his throat. "This is Radio Free Kerbol, broadcasting as we make a rapid departure from the vicinity of Eve- and we have a new passenger. Allow me to introduce our new pilot, Valentina Kerman."

"Thank you, Bill. Now, I know that whoever you are out there, you may agree with us or you may disagree with us, you may be young or you may be old, you may be rich or you may be poor. But we are all kerbals, right? In the end, that is the great equalizer- and the Lazarus Proposal that Prime Minister Adwell passed through the Governmental Chamber made it an act of treason to, directly or indirectly, take the life of a kerbal on purpose. Then you should ask yourself why the Interplanetary Authority, an organization under direct control of the Prime Minister, would chase a kerbal to the surface of Eve on a ship meant primarily for orbital operations.

"Yes, you heard right- there is a kerbal on Eve. Our old pilot, Jebediah Kerman, is on the purple giant's surface with no way to escape. Although his pod is self-sustaining, some systems will probably fail immediately in the overheated atmosphere and, barring that, he will probably go insane- those of us in the space business refer to that as Krakensbane.

"So poor Jeb is as good as dead- and why? Just because he tried to make some money in our failing economy. He broke no laws. He did nothing wrong. And now his bones will remain on the surface of Eve until the end of time. This is Radio Free Kerbol, signing off. And until next time, just remember... we're still broadcasting."

Try to see it my way

Do we have to keep on talking ‘til I can’t go on?

Why do you see it your way

At the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone?

We can work it out! We can work it out...

Jeb dearly wished he could wipe that drop of sweat off of his brow. He could manage short EVAs, but the suit's cooling systems were quickly overwhelmed in the soupy atmosphere. Well, he thought, if I have twenty minutes to walk around, then it's better than nothing. He struggled up a hill in the high gravity and looked around. There was poisonous fog everywhere, and he could barely see a kilometer in any direction. Jeb wiped some moisture off the outside of his visor and turned to look into the valley off to his left. What's that? He could just barely make out a large black slab at the bottom of the hill. It's probably debris from my descent... but it's huge! Indeed, it was over three times the size of his ship. As Jeb got closer, he could see that even the smallest face was wider than he was. He walked into the shadow of the slab and looked up. Above it, he could make out the sun shining through the purple fog, just slightly above the top of the monolith.

Jeb walked the remaining meter to the slab and reached out a gloved hand to run his fingers along the first alien artifact ever discovered, for he was sure that kerbals had nothing to do with this object. He gingerly extended his arm, and his hand stopped an impossible billionth of a centimeter from the surface of the monolith. At this point, Jeb had forgotten all about how hot he was inside of the suit. He just wanted to know more about this strange object...

...And a million kilometers away, Bob was saying, "...already crowdsourcing designs and funding. Gee, that's nice of them." He floated over to the window and set his gaze upon the cloudy purple ball receding from their tail. "We're gonna get you, buddy," he said.

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:) 

Spoiler
On 23/08/2017 at 3:38 AM, Confused Scientist said:
On 16/08/2017 at 2:35 AM, Confused Scientist said:

...Wait, did I just write myself into a massive corner? Oh, dang it...

New tab -> YouTube -> Matt Lowne -> Expedition Eve

I'm going to be here for a while...

He gingerly extended his arm, and his hand stopped an impossible billionth of a centimeter from the surface of the monolith. At this point, Jeb had forgotten all about how hot he was inside of the suit. He just wanted to know more about this strange object...

 

So...Jeb hasn't touched the Monolith yet? But when he does, he gets magically teleported to a Monolith on the Mün/Duna, surrounded by rioting kerbals? 

This is still great to read

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Chapter 13- Hit the Road, Jeb

The path between the crashed spacecraft and the monolith was very well traveled now, and Jeb followed his own footsteps back toward the mysterious block. He dragged a camera and transmission equipment behind him. He figured he could set up the equipment and monitor the strange slab from the comfort of the downed pod. He crested the hill and started on towards the valley where, untold millennia ago, an alien spacecraft had decided to land on Kerbin's twin. Why, pondered Jeb, did they land there? The atmosphere is so much thicker down there; you waste half a kilometer per second just getting up past the valley's rim. Unless, of course, when they came Eve was a temperate planet, and they wanted to land next to a river.

The ebony rectangle stood defiant in Eve's toxic soup of an atmosphere. Jeb stared up at it. What secrets do you know? Once again he reached out to it, once again his gloved hand stopped against an invisible barrier. Jeb shook his head; he could learn nothing more here. He turned back to his equipment and dutifully labored for a few minutes setting up the cameras and antennas before a sound distracted him from his work. Is it lightning? This didn't sound like any lightning he knew, instead it was something more at home to the seasoned kerbonaut, more like...

A sonic boom. Jeb stood up quickly. Something was coming in fast through the clouds.

"Right now we're seventy-six light-seconds from Eve," explained Valentina. "That means delivering our little care package is entirely up to the good kerbals on Gilly. There's nothing I can do. However, I can control the launch if I have to, using simulated data based off of real telemetry and predictions. My controls won't reach him for over a minute, but that doesn't matter since we will know where the liftoff point is."

"Drogue chutes are out," narrated Bob. "Gear down... here come the mains."

Back on Eve, Jeb stared up at the sky as the spacecraft came down on four red and orange parachutes. He didn't consider that it might be hostile- no kerbal in their right mind would come down to Eve. Then again, I did. Is this a rescue? A resupply? Or something else? Before Jeb could contemplate on the purpose of this mystery rocket any longer, the spacecraft disappeared below the horizon.

The only kerbal on Eve turned back to his scientific equipment, connected one more wire, and then started running toward the newly arrived probe.

"Telemetry confirms contact light. The parachutes are gone," said Bill. "Now let's hope Jeb notices."

Jeb noticed. What kind of rocket is this? It was barely any larger than the first rocket to take a kerbal to space- and the first stage looked like an SRB! Is this supposed to get out of this gravity well? Then he saw the note taped to the ladder:

Hello, Commander Jeb!

Radio Free Kerbol has alerted us to your current predicament. Who are we? We are the Divisible System Party, a cause dedicated to guaranteeing the independence of the planetary territories and the rights and freedom of every kerbal in the Kerbol system. It was not right for the IA to chase you here from the Mun, and it was criminal of them to pursue you all the way to the surface of Eve. As such, we have crowdsourced funding and designs for the rocket you see before you. All you need to do is climb inside and press the red button. The spacecraft will navigate back to the Kraken's Spit automatically. There is ample food, water, and oxygen for your journey, although it may be a little cramped. We look forward to seeing you after your arrival at Duna.

-Signed, the DSP.

P.S. Congratulations on becoming the first kerbal to set foot on Eve!

So, not only was this thing supposed to get into orbit around Eve, it was supposed to take him all the way to his ship. Great, just great. Let's see what it can do.

"Telemetry confirms the hatch has been opened."

Jeb sat down and strapped in to the acceleration couch. He plugged his suit into the ship's life support systems.

"...and closed."

It's over a million kilometers to the Kraken's Spit, I've got a full tank of... some sort of superfuel, it's noon, and I'm wearing an EVA suit.

Jeb pressed the big red button. Hit it.

Nothing happened.

Jeb looked around and pushed the button again.

A red light lit up on Valentina's console. "Launch sequence is activated!" she shouted.

Jeb sat in the capsule for a few minutes. As far as he could tell, he wasn't going anywhere, but the launch indicator was lit up. Just as he was about to press the button a third time, he felt a very slight jolt and his altimeter showed a rise in vertical velocity. No way there's any engines lit up. What's happening? Then, outside the capsule's tiny window, Jeb saw a giant balloon had inflated over the rocket. So that's their game! Get up out of the soup, and then boost into orbit!

The rocket rose up from the plateau. Ten, twenty, thirty kilometers. Finally, Jeb sat motionless at thirty-five kilometers. I wonder when- All at once, the balloon was cut and the first-stage SRB ignited. "OoooOOOOooffff," Jeb moaned. The acceleration was nearly five Gs. "Heeeeeerreeeee weeeee gooooooo!" he yelled as he escaped from Eve's atmosphere.

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Chapter 14- Knock, Knock

Five days later, the fast trajectory the nuclear engine had put Jeb on was leaving Eve's sphere of influence. It's good to be back in zero G, Jeb thought. The time had passed lazily; Jeb was just along for the ride. He spent most of his time looking out the window, and indeed he was now- when he saw the space equivalent of red and blue flashers in the rearview mirror: the plasma trail of nuclear engine exhaust. Think, think, think! Jeb needed to avoid detection. What's IA protocol for derelict ships? For one like this, it's cheaper to just leave it floating.

Jeb grabbed the environmental controls and vented the air from the pod. Then, he opened up the storage compartment for his consumables and emptied it out, leaving all of his food floating around the cabin. He crawled inside the compartment, lifted his knees to his chest, and closed the door.

A few minutes later, Jeb heard his hatch open. He twisted the dial on his radio until he picked up the IA channel.

“-looks abandoned. There’s a lot of food floating around, I’ll load it up into the bag and take it back with me.”

Jeb swore in his head.

“Let’s see… the controls seem to be set to automatic stability, there’s still plenty of electricity, but the atmosphere was vented before I got in. Uh… I’m just gonna check the computer… yeah, this isn’t registered on any databases or anything. Best guess? My best guess? Probably… whoever was in here jumped out. No idea where they went? Nah, we’re not going to look for a body, that Jeb guy is a bigger problem… okay, I’m going to examine the exterior of the spacecraft again. I’m out the door…”

Jeb didn’t listen to the conversation after that. He jumped out of his hiding place and floated out the hatch. Look! The bag full of food! Jeb needed that food, and he grabbed all of the rations out of the bag while the IA suit was gone on the other side of the rocket. Turning back toward the capsule, he contemplated where it could go. Under the acceleration couch. He shoved the rations under the chair and crawled back into the consumables compartment just as the IA suit came back around toward the hatch.

“Okay, I’m leaving… got the bag and everything… wait!”

Oh, kraken. What did I do?

“It’s picked up a roll… it’s almost like someone’s still on this thing.”

Jeb mentally cursed again.

“Yeah… I’m gonna go in and check… oh, right. It’s probably automatic thermal control. Okay, I’m heading back to the ship.”

Jeb grinned mindlessly as the other kerbal left the capsule and sealed the hatch behind her. All I got to do is let cruise control handle this flight, he thought.

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Chapter 15- Getting the Band Back Together

The Kraken's Spit was a quarter of the way to Duna when Bob motioned for Bill towards a display on the flight deck. "And until next time... we're still broadcasting," Bill said, and then finished up the broadcast. "What's up?" he said.

"Radar is tracking a small blip, angular rate zero, bearing straight down on us. Is it a coincidence?" Bob said.

"Only one way to find out," Valentina said as she floated by. "We'll perform our post-transmission burn and see if that thing follows us." She climbed up to the flight deck and set a delta-v of tenmeters per second. "Three... two... one... ignition."

Twenty-five meters below, the nuclear engines burped into the void. "Nine, ten, eleven, cutoff! Bob, any change in the UFO's trajectory?"

"Nope, it's still on the old course... Wait. Infrared shows an exhaust signature... radar shows a ten meter per second burn to match ours. It's twenty-one minutes out. We need a plan!"

"Well..." Bill said, "we can't burn any fuel, we'll have to go out and fight it. I'm sure there's some delicate parts I can smash."

"Negative," Valentina said. "Consumables are limited; we couldn't vent the airlock into space and it will take too long to empty it with our pumps. Any other ideas?"

"How about we use the robot arm to seal a bag over the airlock dump valve?" suggested Bill. "It would empty pretty quickly that way, and when it's time for me to come back in I could just turn the valve again and we wouldn't lose any air."

"Hmm... sounds fine to me. Bill, you suit up. Bob, start up the RMS. And hurry!"

Nine minutes later, everything was in position. "Beginning decompress," called Bill. "Bob, is the bag sealed?"

"Roger, the bag is sealed. Good luck, space cowboy."

"Okay, the dump valve is opened... pressure is at three p.s.i... two... one... point five... zero."

"You are go for EVA," Valentina announced.

"The door is open... I am outside. All of my thrusters work... here I go!"

Bill was now an expert at spacecraft sabotage, and he plotted a trajectory that wouldn't announce his presence to the occupants of the mystery spacecraft. From inside the Kraken's Spit, Valentina watched him slip behind the engine bell to do his work.

What's all that noise? Jeb wondered. It was almost like someone was banging on the engine bell. Is this part of the rendezvous procedures? I thought I was supposed to fly to an intercept with my jetpack. Indeed, Jeb decided it was better not to stay on a ship that made loud noises for no reason. He vented the air from the cabin and prepared for EVA.

"Augh!" Bill's shout nearly ruined the speakers aboard the Kraken's Spit. "Someone's coming out of the ship! Fire up the engines! Get ready to burn as soon as I get back!" He raced toward the airlock, avoiding the urge to look over his shoulder at his pursuer. "Okay, I'm here... and the hatch is shut! Valentina, did you rotate the ship while I was out?"

"Sorry, Bill. I needed a better view to monitor your progress. The hatch must have slammed shut during the maneuvers."

"I'm gonna monitor your progress after I bash your head in... the hatch is stuck! Oh, Kraken! This is it!" The mystery kerbal came up behind Bill and tapped him on the shoulder. "Waugh! Oh, remember me!"

Then Jeb pressed his helmet against Bill's, providing a medium for sound waves to travel through: "Whew, Bill! You sure did give me quite the chase!"

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Intermission

While the Kraken’s Spit continues its journey to Duna, there is time to kill and history to be told. The fuel silo operators sitting in their orbital homes today are akin to the general store shopkeeps that just a few hundred years ago sold supplies to brave kerbals traveling the Koregon Trail. Those travelers brave everything from dysentery to broken wagon axels, from dangerous river crossings to dysentery, from dysentery to dysentery, much like today’s kerbonauts risk their lives to make a few dollars- dollars that they’re going to spend just to buy fuel from those same fuel silo operators who charge unfair prices, knowing their customers will be stranded without their commodity.

Anyone who goes into space is either crazy or stupid or evil or bored.

During the second reach for the stars after the war was over, things didn't go so well. Wernher von Kerman had a grand vision of a space armada traveling to Duna, assembled at a massive spinning wheel space station by reusable spaceplanes, and it came to be just nineteen years later. The entire fleet crashed into Minnmus due to a navigation error one week after launch. The first seventeen rockets to fly to the Mun had to be aborted due to twenty-ninth stage separation failures, and none of those crews survived (as it turns out, the rounded ends of the fuel tanks were perfect for deflecting flame up towards the capsule). The next twelve failed because someone forgot to fill the thirty-second stage tanks. Even the first test flight of the space program ended badly, as the one solid rocket booster and the one parachute fired at the same time. Despite never traveling more than ten meters during the flight, the intrepid pilot perished because he jumped out while the engine was still firing.

And now, Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val are about to follow in the footsteps of these early explorers and arrive at Duna, a planet that was colonized over a course sixty-eight years and millions of deaths. I wonder how they’ll do…

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16 hours ago, Confused Scientist said:

crashed into Minnmus due to a navigation error

twent-ninth stage

someone forgot to fill the thirty-second stage 

:D:rolleyes: 

16 hours ago, Confused Scientist said:

And now, Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val are about to follow in the footsteps of these early explorers and arrive at Duna, a planet that was colonized over a course sixty-eight years and millions of deaths. I wonder how they’ll do…

:o

Still love the writing

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Confused Scientist

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Chapter 16- Scientific Progress Goes 'Skrtchhh'

With three hours to go until the Duna capture burn, Valentina was resting in her cot, listening to the sounds of the Kraken's Spit reverberating around her. The RCS sounded like a popgun firing outside the cockpit... Bam. The oxygen pumps were a gentle whine... Thrummmm. The parts of the spacecraft exposed to the sun expanded noisily... Bang. And something caused a horrible scratch that filled Valentina's ear... Skrtchhh.

'Skrtchhh'. What could make something go 'skrtchhh?' Valentina wondered. She held her breath for a while... and there it was again. Skrtchhh. Valentina was sure that she hadn't heard this sound before, so she drifted over to Bill's bed. "Bill," she whispered, shaking his bed, "get up. Something's wrong."

"Mnrnruhhhnn..." Bill moaned. "Grnnn to lnnd Duna?"

"No, there's been a strange... scratching for a while. It sounds like-" The sound came again. Skrtchhh. "It sounds like that."

Bill was more awake now. "I haven't heard that before." Skrtchhh. "Sounds like it's coming from behind that bulkhead. But nothing's back there except fuel... Do you think we have a leak?"

"No... I've been inside a ship with bad tanks and you couldn't hear anything."

"Well, then we need to figure out what that noise is. Wake Jeb, he might have some advice."

Jeb was even more reluctant to wake up than Bill. "Bad kerbal take pillow," he mumbled, before rolling out of bed; if the ship had been under acceleration he would have faceplanted onto the floor.

"Wake up," Bill hissed. "We've got a strange sound from behind Bulkhead Four."

"Wha..." Skrtchhh. "You're right. I think... do you know what it is?"

"Nope. What do you think we should do?" asked Valentina.

"Can you open up the bulkhead and figure out what it is?"

"Well, the pressurized area actually extends for about half a meter past the bulkhead, so I could open it up. It would take a while, though."

Skrtchhh. "I can't think of anything better to do. Get your toolkit."

"Okay, I'm on it. Valentina, you're going to be my assistant. Jeb, just keep the ship flying."

"Sounds good. I'll get your toolbox," Valentina said as she floated away.

Jeb looked up. "Oh, and I'll wake Bob."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Bob, Bob! Get up!"

"What's happening?" Bob said as he drifted out of his bunk.

"We're disassembling Bulkhead Four to investigate a strange sound we've heard. It's kind of like..." Skrtchhh. "Like that.

Bob gulped. "Uh, that's, erm... cool."

Jeb looked at his crewmate with a cynical glance. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just... ah... cold. I'm cold."

"Since we've had to stop our thermal roll the temperature's gone up over five degrees. What's really up?"

"...Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"Well, if you feel like telling me, then I'll be on the bridge, doing important work. See to it that you make good decisions... very soon." 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Okay, Val... hand me the Size 11 wrench... thanks."

"Sure thing, Komrade."

"Okay, adjust that bolt, turn that valve... Hand me the drill?"

"It needs a little more cord... Okay. Here you go."

"Okay, I am removing screws nine, twelve, and fifteen... time to remove the bulkhead. Valentina, will you help me lift this?"

"Of course. Grip it by these handles right here?"

"Yep... Okay, on the count of three. One... two..."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Augh!"

Jeb turned his head down to the hab module where Bill's shout came from.

"What in Kraken's name is that thing!" yelled Valentina.

I wonder what's going on in there... Jeb thought.

"Run! It's coming up here!"

...I'm sure whatever I'm doing is more important. Jeb made sure the hatch between the flight deck and the hab module was securely latched.

"Yeargh! That thing shocked me!"

Shocked? Maybe I should check that out...

"That space crab shocked me!"

Jeb launched himself at the hatch and entered the hab module. When he was in there, he saw Bill, Bob, and Val frantically ricocheting off the walls in a frantic effort to avoid the so-called space crab. It had a shiny green dodecehedron for a main body, with six extremely long insect-like legs sticking out from various faces. It had three antennae at what must be the front and four tendrils hanging limp from its back end. Little gold balls adorned the tips of its extremities and the corners of its dodecehedron. The space crab walked along a wall towards Bob (it must have microscopic hooks on its feet, Jeb thought) and when the tendrils touched him he cried out in pain. "I hate this darn thing!"

Jeb was able to sneak up from behind and trap the space crab in a sample container. He then turned toward his crew. "What was that thing?"

"I have no-" Bill said, before being interrupted by Bob.

"It's a space crab that I stole from scientists on Minnmus."

"You what?" everyone shouted.

Bob suddenly realized what he had said. "That's one of the things we found out about it. Its powerful jellyfish-like sting includes a truth serum."

"But how did you get it?" asked Valentina.

"You see, when I was on Minnmus, I wasn't actually mining. I was a secret government operative, sent to investigate a downed spacecraft that was carrying a top secret payload- the first antimatter bomb. Needless to say, the antimatter completely obliterated the thing on impact, but it also bored a hole two kilometers deep into one of Minnmus' flats. What we found under there was much more interesting than a rogue shipment of antimatter.

"Instead, we found the space crabs. They had a whole colony down there, just like insects on Kerbin. Some scientists thought that they were related to insects, but these guys were vacum-hardened, clearly evolved to live on Minnmus like that. At the time, we only knew about single-celled organisms on Laythe, so this was huge. And, naturally, the government wanted to keep it a secret while we collected specimens and studied them.

"This worked well for a while, but then the guys just... disappeared. And it was right after we captured this specimen. The others, they weren't this big and they didn't have the gold balls and they didn't have the truth serum in their sting, and this one also layed eggs- so we knew we had captured their queen, and without a queen they just spontaneously died. We stayed on Minnmus a few weeks after that, but then our base sprung a leak and we had to evacuate to a civilian settlement. We couldn't bring the space-crabs, or else the best-kept secret in history would be out, and so the plan was we would leave them to die there. So instead, when no one was looking I put the queen in a sample container and put her in the one place I knew no one would look- a bulkhead in a rusted-out MkII dropship docked to a derelict Station One."

Bob looked at the space crab. "What are we ever going to do with you?"

Edited by Confused Scientist
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KSK

KSK

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Robocrabs in spaaaaaace!

And on a serious note that was another fun chapter with some really nice descriptive touches. I especially liked Val picking out the various subsystems by sound alone.

Oh - and I saw the sneaky The Martian reference - well played. :) 

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2 hours ago, KSK said:

Oh - and I saw the sneaky The Martian reference - well played. :) 

I should have played off that book more when Jeb was stuck on Eve... ah well.

Also, if I had to pick three of my favorite chapters so far, it would be this most recent one, one of the first few early on where I describe how space has been conquered and "ruined", and the one where I introduce Valentina and strand Jeb on Eve.

2 hours ago, KSK said:

Robocrabs in spaaaaaace!

Interesting... they might actually be robotic! I hadn't considered that. Neat!

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Chapter 17- Jettison the Seatbacks and Tray Tables

Two hours after the discovery of the space crab, the Kraken's Spit was falling toward Duna at over two kilometers per second. "This will be an extremely long suicide burn," Jeb explained when all of the crew were strapped in. "We can't go into orbit because radar would be able to get a lock on us before we go down, but luckily no one is monitoring this descent because our good friends on the surface have taken down one of the IA satellites. Without that satellite, we will be able to make our approach and go below the radar horizon before anyone can get a lock on us... hopefully."

"Roger that, Komrade," Valentina said. "I have scrambled the comms and activated the cloaking devices anyway. We don't need to make it easy on them."

Bill chimed in. "Bob, would you check the uplink on my displays? One of them is frozen."

"Yeah... try it now?"

"Looks good. All engines are ready for the two minute and twelve second burn."

"Copy," Jeb said. "Ignition in three... two... one..."

The cockpit started rumbling as the nukes came online. "Green lights on motors one through ten."

Even Duna's atmosphere was not a force to be trifled with at such high velocities, and the Kraken's Spit could theoretically handle entry into Kerbin's atmosphere. There was moderate heat shielding around the engines, but the bells themselves would be exposed directly to plasma during a reentry. This is negated somewhat by increasing the angle of attack during entry, but the main way that the dropship dealt with excess heat during entry was through a thermal exchange unit that emitted prevented overheating by increasing the temperature of the exhaust. Another pleasant side effect was a ten percent increase in the engines' thrust during max heating. "All heat exchangers operational," Valentina said.

The burn continued normally for a minute. "Getting a little plasma," Bob said. "I wonder- Oh, kraken!" He gestured to his control panel, where two red lights shined in his faceplate. "Jeb, engines two and six are down. Can we land without the extra thrust?"

"Calculating that... Maybe try increasing the angle of attack... Valentina, deploy the speed brakes, that might help... no dice. We're still coming in about three hundred meters per second too hot. I'm lighting up the auxiliary aerospikes."

"Do we have the fuel?" Valentina asked. "The spikes were only meant for a few seconds of operation on Laythe or Kerbin... it will be very tight."

"If we follow the approach vector exactly," said Bill, "and don't loiter above the pad... we will come in with fifty meters per second of fuel left."

"Dump all extra monoprop," Jeb said. "It's time for this to get real."

The monoprop dump valve opened as the two radial aerospikes lit up. "Ooof... we must be topping two G's," said Bob. "What's our margin?"

"Twenty-five meters per second!" Jeb yelled. "I am venting air from the cabin!"

The pressure relief valve opened and hundreds of kilograms of needless air spilled out as the Kraken's Spit descended further.

"That might just do it..." said Jeb. "Are your suits holding?"

"Yep."

"Yes, Komrade."

"Mmm-hmmm."

"Okay then. Aerospike cutoff in three... two... one..."

The oxidizer tank emptied and the rockets shut off all at once. "We have sixty meters per second to spare. We will come to a stop fifty meters over the pad," said Bill.

"Valentina, call out data for me. I'm going to manual with ten seconds until our velocity hits zero."

"Okay, Jeb... V=0 is at t-minus twenty seconds."

"Gear down," added Bob.

"Ten seconds to manual override... five seconds to manual override..."

"T-minus three... two... one..."

"Manual override!" Jeb and Valentina yelled together. "Okay," continued Jeb, "throttling down... holding at ten meters per second."

"Twenty seconds of fuel remaining," said Valentina.

"Pad guidance is go... landing legs aligned."

"Fifteen seconds."

"Altitude is thirty meters... I'm not sure we can make it."

"Ten seconds."

"Okay... I'm cutting the throttle!"

The Kraken's Spit fell silently toward the gaping mouth of the pad. The window set into the blast wall provided an excellent view of the kerbals running from a control room that they were certain was about to become the site of a massive explosion.

"Ten meters!" Valentina was trembling as she called out the last bit of data.

"Full throttle!"

Debris was flung up from the pad as the blast wall was scorched with the full fury of eight nuclear engines. The entire landing bay was almost too bright to look at.

"Cutoff!"

The Kraken's Spit fell the remaining two meters to the pad.

"Gear strain numbers at fifty... seventy... ninety... seventy..." reported Valentina. "We... did it!"

"We... what?" said Bill.

"We did it," said Bob.

"Well, by the kraken," yelled Jeb, "we did it!"

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Confused Scientist

Confused Scientist

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56 minutes ago, TotallyNotHuman said:

Really liked the details you crammed in.

I'm just worried someone is going to plug all the numbers into a giant equation and prove that the Kraken's Spit gets a TWR of 0.2 in Chapter 3 and 3 in Chapter 17. I never actually did the math, but I built what I imagined to be the Kraken's Spit long before I started writing this story, and it had maybe three km/s of delta-v, a TWR that probably couldn't land on the Mun, and it was really ugly. So, no screenshots (although Station One turned out really well.)

1 hour ago, Confused Scientist said:

"That might just do it..." said Jeb. "Are your suits holding?"

"Yep."

"Yes, Komrade."

"Mmm-hmmm."

Bonus points: Guess who said what!

(I'm pretty sure the answer is, in order: Bill, Valentina, Bob.)

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