Audacity: Memoirs of a Kerbonaut

[jimmymcgoochie]

At last, it's done! I had the start and the end done a while ago but trying to make them fit together and into the bigger story was a bit of a pain.

Some details of Kerbal physiology have been changed from what you’ll see in-game: I think Kerbals’ heads are far too large compared to their bodies as their heads are nearly half of their total height versus around 15% for a human adult, so for the purpose of this story I’m reimagining Kerbals with smaller heads at around 30% of their total height but with longer bodies to make them the same height overall; this is still a bigger head:body ratio than a human baby, however Kerbal babies don’t share this larger head ratio for the simple reason that they wouldn’t be able to fit. (Perhaps KSK’s marsupial idea wasn’t so far-fetched after all!)

I also stole most of the final section of this chapter from @CatastrophicFailure with a few minor tweaks to fit with JNSQ; I know, I know, I'm trying to write my own stuff instead of just ripping off other people's, but I really liked that poem/song and so I found a way to incorporate it here.

Note to self- no more stealing other people's ideas!

Chapter 16- Bring the Mun 

“I figured you’d be here.” Martin said as he entered Tina’s room. “You should get some sleep before this one wakes up again.” He glanced down at Sasha, still snoring away.

“You really think I could sleep right now?” Jeanette replied, before yawning widely and reconsidering. “OK, maybe a little nap would be good for me.”

“You need more than a ‘little nap’- you haven’t slept in nearly 24 hours. You’ll make yourself ill if you keep this up.”

She tried to argue but yawned again instead.

“Fine, but I’m staying here. I can’t leave her alone like this.”

“I’ll find you a blanket and something to use as a pillow.”

There was a knock at the door; when Martin opened it, he found Nat, looking uncharacteristically unsure of herself.

“I hope I’m not intruding?” She said.

“Not at all- come in, you look like you could use some company.”

Her eyes moved to the heavily bandaged figure on the bed, then quickly dropped to the floor.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here…” she murmured, edging towards the door, but Jeanette stood, crossed the room and gently but firmly guided her towards a chair.

“Natalia, whatever happens, this is not your fault.”

“But it is my fault! It should have been me on that mission, not her! It should have been me…” She couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer and broke down crying, all the guilt, shame, and fear finally allowed to escape. Jeanette put a comforting arm around the younger woman’s shoulders while searching for a packet of paper tissues in her bag with the other.

“We don’t blame you for any of this, Nat. The only person who blames you, is you.”

It took a few minutes and most of the tissues for the sobs to subside to sniffles, but in the relative quiet a new sound emerged.

vvvvvp-vvvvvp

“What was that?”

“Sounded like a phone vibrating.”

vvvvvp-vvvvvp

“It’s not mine,” Jeanette held up her non-vibrating phone.

“Or mine- it’s on silent mode.” Added Nat.

“Or mine- it ran out of battery while we were out earlier.” Martin sheepishly held it out to his unimpressed wife. “Recharge please?”

vvvvvp-vvvvvp

“Where’s it coming from?”

They searched the room, homing in on a small cupboard; inside it they found Tina’s phone in a sealed bag with some rice, the screen covered in message notifications.

“Did she take that thing to space!? That’s… pretty impressive actually- first space, then the sea, and it still works.” Martin was grudgingly impressed. “And so it should, at the price we paid for it!”

vvvvvp-vvvvvp

“Should we open it?”

Jeanette looked at him reproachfully.

“Martin! We can’t just look through her phone when she’s right there!”

“Why not? We could at least let her friends know how she’s doing.”

“But… it’s an egregious breach of trust.”

“So, yes, but we don’t know the password.”

“…no?” The rising inflection betrayed her real thoughts.

“I’ll try her birthday, it’s probably that.”

He retrieved the phone from its bag, shook off a few stubborn rice grains and tapped in Tina’s birthday. No luck.

“Maybe Sasha’s birthday?” Jeanette suggested.

Tap-tap-tap.

“Nope, not that either.”

“Will it erase itself if we get it wrong too many times?”

“I don’t think so- it’ll probably just prevent us from trying again for a minute or so. I’ll try Darryl’s birthday, maybe they use each other’s birthdays.”

“Because Tina is a character in some clichéd teenage TV show,” Jeanette rolled her eyes. “But then again I can’t think of anything else, so give it a go.”

It wasn’t that either.

“Hmm, maybe...?”

He typed 190239, and…

Nothing.

“What was that number?”

“Val’s birthday. Worth a try, I suppose…”

“But that’s the wrong year- Val was born in ’35.”

“Apparently she wasn’t.” Seeing the confused look on his wife’s face, Martin decided to explain everything that had happened downstairs- meeting Matsen and Judge Jonton, the dramatic showdown with Dilgas and their triumphant return, with Nat filling in more details.

“So- let me check if I got this right- Dilgas married Val when she was thirteen years old? And it’s taken this long for anyone to realise that?”

“Apparently so. That does explain one big mystery though: remember when Tina called us a while ago, really upset about something but she didn’t want to tell us what it was? I think it was that.”

“You think she knew all that time, but she didn’t tell us?”

“Of course she knew- she was there when Val finally told us about it.” Said Nat. “Actually, she heard it before I did. Val is her lifelong hero- do you really think Tina would break her trust, even to tell us?”

They all stayed silent, minds racing, before Jeanette picked up on another detail of the story.

“Matsen? As in your high school girlfriend, Matsen?” She gave Martin The Look, tempering it with a smile underneath the angry eyes.

“Yes, that Matsen, who I haven’t seen in person since that school reunion six years ago. Getting her appendix removed for the second time, because apparently they can grow back.”

Nat shuddered slightly, still unnerved by the idea.

“But now that you’ve reminded me…”

He tried 190235 on the phone and it unlocked immediately.

“Bingo!”

They exchanged guilty glances.

“This feels wrong, somehow, looking through her phone when she’s right there. What if she can hear everything we’re saying?” Jeanette said in a half-whisper.

The phone buzzed again, making her jump.

“I’ll do it if you won’t. The least we can do is let her friends know that she’s still alive, they’re probably all worried sick about her.”

He opened the messages app and was confronted with a wall of texts, emails, voicemail notifications and alerts.

“SKS- isn’t that the guy who does all those space videos? ‘Hope you get well soon, I’ll keep Jim’s grubby fingers off your Mors colony until you get back’? Must be talking about that Terry-wotsit game.

There are a lot of group messages from ‘Nate’, ‘Jen’ and ‘Ger’ here, all really worried about her but also concerned about Megan because she isn’t dealing with it very well. We should probably message them first.”

“I’ve met Megan- they seem like really good friends, and she probably hasn’t heard anything since Gene started the communications blackout.” Nat added.

“We are trying to contact you about your car’s extended warranty- delete. And you, and you, and that’s disgusting and really nothing to brag about, sunshine- deleted and I’ll block your number too.”

“Martin! You can’t just block people on her phone!” Jeanette hissed at him.

“Oh yeah?” He showed her another message of dubious origin.

“I take it back- block them all.”

“With pleasure. Twelve voice messages from Darryl, need to call him back asap. Hmm, what’s this? ‘Me-nome, we’ve found a match’?”

“Me-nome? The genealogy website? I remember Tina talking about that a while ago, Megan was going to do one of their DNA ancestry thingies and talked Tina into it too. Probably matched her with Linley, she’s been really into all that family tree stuff lately and I remember her doing one of those as well.”

“Or maybe they’ll ask for credit card information to show us who- what in the seven smoking-!”

Startled by the noise, Sasha started crying; Martin handed over the phone to focus on calming her down. He watched Jeanette read the message, saw the shock in her eyes harden to anger.

“Why would someone do that? Probably some stupid teenagers hacking into the website to prank people, not caring if they hurt anyone. Nice try, morons, but Val is emphatically not Tina’s long-lost mother.”

Natalia went incredibly pale.

“What kind of sick, twisted person would do something like that? Preying on someone’s emotional vulnerability for money, attention or just their own enjoyment. It’s disgusting.”

“Uh, I think you lost me there,” Martin replied.

“Val had a daughter; she’d be about the same age as Tina is now.”

“Had?”

“Had. Until Dilgas tried to kill her.”

“WHAT!?” Martin and Jeanette shouted at the same time, causing Sasha to start crying again just as she had settled down.

“He’s been keeping rather a lot of things about that so-called ‘marriage’ a secret- and for good reason. Little Dianna wasn’t good enough for him, so he decided to try and kill her; the doctor who was there to help her with the birth got them away, but Val took a bullet in the back and nearly died. She begged that doctor to take Dianna away so she’d be safe, but that was the last time she saw her and with everything that’s happened recently- especially this little guy-“ she poked at her distended belly- “Val’s been trying to track her family down again.

She signed up for that ‘Me-nome’ thing to try and find Dianna, but I warned her not to get her hopes up- she might not find anything, or it could be some scumbag stringing her along just to empty her bank account. This is exactly what I was afraid of; even if it’s just a publicity stunt or a harmless prank by some bored office worker, it’ll cause her no end of pain and I can’t bear to see her like that again.”

Jeanette tried very hard to stifle a yawn; Sasha promptly yawned too and Nat followed shortly after.

“Sounds like you could all use a good long nap,” said Martin.

“I can’t- what if he came back and I wasn’t there to protect her?” Nat’s eyes darted anxiously towards the door. “I need to get back to her.”

“He’s not coming back, Nat.”

“But what if he does?”

“How about this- I’ll hang around here and make sure he can’t sneak in so you can sleep for a while.”

“I… just can’t leave her, but thanks. For everything.”

“For what?”

“Listening. Caring. And those cheesy chip things.”

“Don’t say that in front of her!” said Martin. “I’ll be eating salad every meal for the rest of the year now…”

“And next year,” Jeanette added, giving him a disapproving scowl.

“Guess I shouldn’t mention that maple-glazed bacon bagel then- oops!” Nat grinned, then left before Martin could protest his innocence.

“Actually, a maple-glazed bacon bagel sounds rather good to me- why don’t you go and fetch me one, that’ll start burning off those cheesy djan calories.” Jeanette said, smiling innocently.

“Fine, but I’m getting one for myself too.”

“You certainly will not!”

“You’ll never know…”

“Of course I will- the greasy fingers will give it away, as will the dried-in maple stains on your face to match the spice dust and cheese grease.”

“I don’t- wait, do I?” He rubbed his face then looked at his fingers, which were conspicuously free of cheese grease and spice dust.

“Hmph. Fine, one bagel coming right up.”

“And a blanket.”

“And a blanket.”

“And a nice hot cup of tea, since you’re already up.”

“You want me to bring the Mun on a stick while you’re at it? Minmus on a string with a bow tied around it?”

“Well, if it’s not too much trouble…”

Someone knocked on the door. Martin opened it and found a black-suited man that he immediately identified as some form of law enforcement agent. Behind him stood an elderly man in a crumpled sweater that seemed oddly familiar, but he couldn’t remember how or why.

“Martin and Jeanette Kerman? Special Agent Pedro Kerman, Estovus Bureau of Investigations” The agent held out his ID, which confirmed everything he had just said. “This is my colleague, Special Agent Lolo. May we come in? There’s something very important that we need to discuss with you.”

“Of course.”

Agent Pedro entered the room, followed by the older man, a middle-aged woman in a grey skirt suit and a second EBI agent in a matching black suit.

“This is Maria Kermana from the Prosecution Service, and Orney Kerman, former head of paediatrics at this hospital.”

Oh yes, now I remember, thought Martin, he was in charge of looking after Tina when she was born.

“What’s this about?” Jeanette asked.

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the terms of our arrangement,” Maria said to Orney, who seemed to shrink in his chair. He looked at Jeanette but was unable to make eye contact with her, instead focussing on the floor between her feet. He sat with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, as if trying to make himself as small as possible, and spoke very quietly.

“What I’m about to say won’t be easy to hear.”

He paused, gathering the courage to continue speaking.

“The day your daughter was born, something happened, something that nobody has spoken of since; until now.”

“What are you talking about, Orney?” Jeanette asked.

Summoning his last reserves of mental strength, he looked her straight in the eyes and shattered her world with five simple words:

“Tina is not your daughter.”

***

Tina floated in a strange monochrome world, darkness below her and gradually brightening greys above.

Whenever she moved towards the light, she heard brief snatches of people talking or saw vague shapes like shadows moving through thick fog before the pain closed in and dragged her back down into the darkness; if she moved towards the darkness, memories would come flooding into her mind- memories of people: of Mum and Dad, Sasha, Megan, Darryl, Johnbro and Desdas, Thombert, Val, Jeb, Gerald and Jennie and Nathanael, Scott and Jim; and of places and events: the Science Fair, the Dynamic crash-landing, the day at Darude, the day at the Heritage Centre, ‘flying’ the DAGGER Mk3 through the VAB roof- and she felt herself being dragged back from the blackness.

Light and darkness battled around her, shadows charging into the light and sunbeams lancing into the darkness. Time was an abstract notion without any external reference to show if that swirling pattern over there was taking place over milliseconds or millennia.

Then it began to change: greys shifting to greens, up and down morphing to in front and behind and everything seeming to contract until it hung above her like a- planet?

The blue-grey orb that came into view, light reflecting off its nearly ubiquitous oceans, confirmed it: she was looking at Jool, apparently from a vantage point somewhere beyond Tylo’s orbit. Laythe, Vall and Tylo were all visible- Laythe’s seas and atmosphere shimmering in the sunlight, contrasting with Vall’s odd glimmering from the vanishingly thin veil of ice thrown into space by uncountable cryovolcanoes across its surface and Tylo’s flat, grey- wait a minute… Tylo had a faint glow around it, a slightly lighter shade of grey than the surface and barely visible in the dim sunlight, but definitely there.

All the evidence gathered from centuries of sky-watching and decades of space exploration said that Tylo was an airless lump of rock, so why would this hallucination/near-death experience/whatever this was, say that it had an atmosphere? The Wayfinder 12 probe had sent back part of an image that may have suggested an atmosphere, but it was hurtling through Jool’s previously undiscovered radiation belts at the time and was completely scrambled before any further data could be received so that image was hardly conclusive evidence-

Something moved in her peripheral vision and she turned to see an ugly brown lump of a moon hurtling towards her, orbiting retrograde and well off the plane of the three Kopernican moons- it could only be Bop. As it rushed towards her (or she towards it) she saw a speck on its surface; it seemed to change its appearance several times, switching from green, to red, back to green, then a black that was even darker than the empty space between galaxies, then it took on its final form as she plummeted towards it and she felt an all-encompassing sense of pure, unadulterated terror as this gargantuan monstrosity seemed to rear up, its gaping maw lunging upwards to engulf her as she plunged helplessly, her scream lost in the vacuum of space-

***

“What are you talking about!?” Martin asked incredulously.

“We all knew something was wrong even before your daughter was born. As soon as you came through the front door of the hospital, we knew we had to get her out- you were having a reaction almost like anaphylaxis as your immune system attacked her. We barely got you into theatre in time and for a while it wasn’t clear if either of you would make it; you eventually pulled through, but…”

Orney swallowed, his mouth completely dry, keeping his eyes fixed on Jeanette’s shoes.

“In the middle of the night, your daughter’s heart stopped. We tried everything we could to bring her back, but she was just too small to survive.”

“No…” Jeanette whispered, eyes wide in horror.

“At that same moment, another newborn baby girl was brought into the PICU- she had been left in a box outside a service entrance in the middle of a snowstorm and was barely clinging to life.

We had a terrible situation, one which seemed so unimaginably cruel- a couple so desperate for a baby going home empty-handed once more, and a baby that had no home to go to and no family to love her. And then the senior nurse suggested something that could solve both problems at once, with no-one outside of the room any the wiser.”

In that moment, it all became clear.

“So we switched them. Now that poor foundling had a loving family to care for her and love her, and her new parents had the child they’d waited a decade for.”

Jeanette stood suddenly and only just made it to the bathroom in time to double over the toilet, dry retching long after her stomach was empty.

“We called the police to report the incident, a newborn callously abandoned outside the hospital and tragically perishing before we could do anything to save her; an investigation was launched but with no evidence to act on and none of the modern genetic technology we have now, there was no real hope of finding her birth parents or who had left her there; there was a little feature on the news that morning, barely a mention at lunchtime and nothing beyond that.”

“And that was it. Seventeen years and nobody knew anything untoward had happened, but then a few munths ago the senior midwife shared the secret on her deathbed and an investigation started.”

“As part of his plea deal, Orney was ordered by the court to tell you this information in person at the first available opportunity.” Special Agent Lolo said to Martin. “I realise that our timing is far from ideal.”

“We trusted you.” Martin replied, the calm in his voice at odds with the cold fury in his eyes. Orney shrank back even further; the two agents exchanged worried looks. “All those years, all the setbacks and false hopes, we trusted you to make the right decisions. Would you have told us if you weren’t being made to do it? Would you?”

At that moment, Tina started screaming.

***

Startled by the screaming, Orney stood up abruptly; both EBI agents also stood and moved to block what they thought was an escape attempt. All three were promptly knocked off their feet as Jeanette came hurtling out of the bathroom at a speed that champion sprinters would have been proud of. In moments she had wrapped Tina in her arms and was trying to calm her down while the screams turned to choking as her own breathing fought against the respirator.

Medical staff came running, trying to get into the room as Pedro, Lolo, Maria and Orney were trying to get out. Removing the breathing tube was easy, but it took time to shut down the ECMO system and by the time that was done doctors Philbo and Wenlan had arrived; Wenlan studied the electroencephalogram data while Philbo tried to check Tina’s condition, a task that was made much harder by the fact that she would abruptly jump or push him away, all the while whispering something that nobody could understand.

“I don’t understand what I’m seeing here,” Dr Wenlan said, looking up from the EEG chart in bewilderment. “One minute she’s in a stable low activity pattern as you’d expect from someone in an induced coma, then suddenly everything goes off the scale for just over a second, then she’s awake just like that with no transition at all.”

“So she just woke up?” Martin asked. “That’s the only answer you have?”

“Azimuth.” Tina said to nobody in particular, stalling the conversation until it became clear she wasn’t going to elaborate.

“You can’t just wake up from an induced coma. It usually takes over an hour for the drugs to wear off after we turn them off, but Tina’s were still running. Maybe it was a bad batch, or the ECMO machine filtered them out somehow.” Wenlan replied.

“It’s not a dialysis machine. It removes CO2 and adds oxygen, nothing more,” said Philbo. “There’s nothing here that could have done this, even accidentally. Did anyone interfere with anything?”

“You think we did this?” Jeanette challenged him.

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but there’s no escaping this simple fact- from a medical point of view, with these levels of these drugs in her system, she should not- could not- have woken up.”

“And yet, here she is,” said Wenlan, gesturing towards Tina in the bed-

The bed was empty.

***

Further down the hall, Nat sat in the darkness of Val’s room, illuminated only by the medical monitors.

“You can’t leave us now, Val.”

She lifted Val’s hand, carefully avoiding the monitor clipped to her finger and the IV line in the back of her hand, then held it against a prominent bulge in her already distended stomach.

“That’s an elbow just there. He’s been really active recently, punching and kicking when I’m trying to sleep or poking those pointy little elbows into something…”

The façade crumbled.

“What am I supposed to tell him? How do I explain that his real mother is gone, and never coming back?”

She closed her eyes as a cascade of memories flooded her mind: their first meeting, a chance encounter during an aviation industry conference; joining the Space Program, when time and again Val made space in her packed schedule to check in with her and make sure she was settling in; Val the staunch ally in the face of persistent discrimination, during the internal inquiry and ultimately the main reason why Nat remained in the Space Program while those who had tried to remove her were themselves removed; that fateful flight aboard the Dynamic, their teamwork saving the stricken shuttle from certain doom; a decade of shared experiences, of soaring highs and crushing lows, of deep, meaningful conversations long into the night and laughing until they cried, and the growing realisation that in a world so determined to judge, label and divide people any way it could, here was someone who ignored everyone else’s opinions and simply accepted her as she was, here was a life and a future to be enjoyed rather than endured.

But now it all lay in shattered pieces around this fragile figure, ensconced in tubes and wires that were the only things keeping that battered, broken body alive.

“I can’t do this without you, Val. I need you; we need you.”

She closed her eyes to try and gather her thoughts, but when she opened them again there was someone else in the room. The last person she wanted to see beside Val’s defenceless form.

She sprang to her feet, pulse immediately pounding.

“Get out!”

Dilgas laughed coldly.

“So emotional! It’s pathetic.”

“I said get out!”

“Or what? I’m the Governor; you are nothing but a foolish little girl, desperately seeking attention.”

Nat saw something in his eyes that made her blood run cold.

“It’s pitiful, really: realising that your little scheme had failed, you decided that if you couldn’t have her, no-one could.”

Without warning, he turned and began pulling cables and tubes out of the life support machines, eliciting a chorus of alarms; his voice stayed completely calm.

“Despite my best efforts, I was unable to stop you-“

Nat smacked him over the head with a plastic jug; it did little damage and broke in half, but drew his attention. He turned to face her and she swung the jug again; a sharp edge made a scratch down the side of his face deep enough to draw blood. Enraged, he swung a punch right at her face and she reacted instinctively- by head-butting the oncoming fist.

The impact knocked her back a step, briefly seeing stars floating across her vision, but it also elicited a series of unpleasant cracks and pops from his fist and he grunted in pain.

And then Dilgas said a Word. A Word so outrageously obscene and profoundly profane that Nat, for all her inventive invective, had never even considered using it. It was so far beyond vulgar, beyond offensive, so irredeemably and unutterably wrong, that for the briefest of moments she hesitated.

And in that split-second of hesitation, she felt his hands close around her throat.

She tried to prise his hands away but couldn’t break his grip. She tried to knee him in the groin but couldn’t put enough force behind it and his grip never wavered. Her vision narrowed to two points of light surrounded by darkness; her lungs were burning, desperate for air; her thoughts were becoming fuzzy and indistinct.

It can’t end like this.

Random splotches of colour flashed across her vision as her brain, starved of oxygen, began to shut down.

Please…

To her amazement, Dilgas’ grip abruptly slackened and he let out a strange yelp; she collapsed onto the bed, coughing and gasping, flooding her lungs and her blood with sweet, sweet air.

Dilgas looked down at his left arm, now hanging limply at his side, unresponsive and completely devoid of sensation. He turned in stunned disbelief to find Tina standing behind him, a scalpel in her hand with blood covering the top half. Disbelief turned to fury and he lashed out- and for the second time in as many minutes his fist connected with a forward-moving face, breaking his little finger but also sending Tina sprawling on the floor, the scalpel bouncing from her grasp and disappearing under a cupboard.

Whimpering in pain and utterly enraged, he drew an old revolver from the back of his waistband, pressed the tip of the barrel against Tina’s bandaged head and-

***

A tense standoff was in progress in the corridor outside, with four GSS agents holding the area directly outside the door to Val’s room with their guns drawn, against three doctors, two nurses, Gene and two hospital security guards on one side and a further two doctors, a nurse and a security guard on the other. The situation was being worsened by the insistent amber alarm indicating that something was clearly wrong inside the room.

A single gunshot cut through the hubbub, instantly silencing everyone.

It had come from inside Val’s room.

The GSS agents responded immediately; two tried to herd the growing crowds back from the door while the other two took up positions ready to force their way in. One of the agents pounded on the door.

“Sir, open the door.”

There was no response.

“Open the door right now!”

His colleague took a step back, then surged forwards and delivered a devastating kick right at the door’s handle. It had absolutely no effect.

Realising the seriousness of the situation, the lead agent did the sensible thing.

“Boulder One to command, Boulder One to Command. Request immediate backup to Northill Hospital, level seven, room 742. Shots fired.”

“Command copies, Boulder One, backup is on the way. Is Kingpin secure?”

“Negative- Kingpin is not secure.”

Two of the agents ripped a bench out the floor and tried to turn it around to use as a battering ram, but there was barely enough room for it to fit across the corridor and they couldn’t put any force behind it. One of them then found a fire extinguisher and tried to smash his way through the observation window beside the door, again without success.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP!”

Everyone did shut up, gawping in amazement at Dr Davlos from whose diminutive frame that tremendous shout had just erupted. He pushed his way to the control panel and tapped his ID badge, then pressed a very prominent UNLOCK button on the screen and the door unlocked with an audible clunk. The GSS agents charged into the room with their guns drawn- and right into a scene of pure carnage.

Dilgas and Tina both lay on the floor in a huge pool of blood; Nat was lying across the bed, still gasping for air and unable to speak; and Val was completely still, the chorus of alarms from the life support machines making it abundantly clear that something was very wrong.

“We need a doctor in here!” One of the agents shouted as another tried to find Dilgas’ pulse- on his wrist. There wasn’t enough left of his neck to find one there.

Philbo and Davlos both raced into the room, took one look at Dilgas and then raced to their respective patients. Davlos immediately spotted several wires and tubes that had been pulled from Val’s life support systems and hurried to replace them while Philbo peeled the blood-soaked bandages from Tina’s head, noting with alarm the huge gouge on the left side right where her left eye would have been.

“Hey!” One of the agents grabbed Davlos. “Forget them- save him!”

Davlos didn’t even look round.

“He’s already dead.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Look at him! Half his neck is missing and most of his blood is on the floor instead of inside him. Nothing can survive that.”

“No pulse,” the other agent said, dropping Dilgas’ arm. “He’s gone.”

“NOOOOOOOO!” Jeanette screamed as she charged into the room, ploughing through the crush of people before kneeling beside Tina’s limp body, cradling her daughter’s head in her arms.

“owwwww…”

“Tina? TINA! You’re alive!” The tears of grief turned to tears of relief. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”

“What happened in here?” An agent asked, though it wasn’t clear who he was asking.

“That ҜҤЯЏSЊҪҤԐVS ЙФSЭ ӉДЇЯ tried to kill me, and Val, and Tina.” Nat spat back, collapsing into a coughing fit with the effort.

“What’s a ҜҤЯЏSЊҪҤԐVS?” Tina asked, repeating the question ever louder as Jeanette tried to shush her.

“Oh really? He tried to kill you?” The lead agent confronted Nat, who finally managed to sit up again.

“First, he tried to kill Val by wrecking her life support; then I tried to stop him doing that and he tried to kill me; then Tina tried to stop him doing that and he tried to kill her too. Or did you think these hand-shaped bruises around my neck were just a coincidence?”

“He shot me in the face,” Tina added, her voice inexplicably cheerful and completely at odds with both her words and her surroundings.

“It’s pitiful, really: realising that your little scheme had failed, you decided that if you couldn’t have her, no-one could.”

Dilgas’ voice cut through the air like a knife. All eyes turned to the wall-mounted control panel as Philbo replayed the footage from a camera in the far corner of the room.

Nobody said a word as they watched Dilgas’ attack on Val’s life support systems, Nat’s intervention followed by Dilgas’ attack on her, then Tina seemed to appear from nowhere and stabbed him with the scalpel. They watched him pull the gun from the back of his waistband, point it right at Tina’s head and then-

At the moment he pulled the trigger, Nat mustered enough strength to kick the gun away; the bullet grazed the side of Tina’s head, the layers of bandages over her left eye (or what was left of it) helping to deflect it away; there was a metallic ping and a small pedal bin under the table at the other end of the room bounced backwards, a fresh dent in the rim of its lid; then there was a horrible thud and Dilgas collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The lead agent called in through his radio, his voice shaking slightly.

“This is Boulder One to all callsigns. Kingpin is down, repeat, Kingpin is down. He shot himself.”

***

The hospital was soon swarming with police and GSS agents, the entire seventh floor locked down and everyone moved to separate rooms to be interviewed. It didn’t take long- faced with a full audio and video recording of the entire incident, backed up by Nat’s account (the interviewer who tried to talk to Tina gave up after fifteen minutes without getting a coherent sentence from her), it was clear to everyone what had happened and who was to blame.

When the interviews were over, Gene, Nat, Martin, Jeanette, Tina, Philbo and Davlos gathered in a staff break room.

“So what do we do now?” Gene asked. “We can’t stay here any longer.”

“We can’t move Valentina, she’d never survive,” said Davlos.

“We can’t not move her: you saw how bad it was out there on the news earlier; now think what’ll happen when they find out Dilgas tried to commit multiple murders but ended up dead himself.”

“Uh, I think we’re about to find out,” Philbo said, pointing to a TV where the news banner simply said DILGAS IS DEAD?

He turned the volume up so they could hear the report.

“…scenes of absolute chaos on the streets as thousands of Dilgas’ supporters march towards Northill Hospital. Cars and buildings have been set alight and multiple voting stations broken into and vandalised. Vice-Governor Marcus MacKerman has declared martial law across Tenbridge and the surrounding areas and has urged all citizens to remain indoors until the unrest can be brought under control.”

The news anchor looked past the camera and her eyes widened.

“Our news studio has been surrounded by an angry mob, who are trying to break down the entrance doors. We’ll stay on air as long as we can.

Our reporter Kerny is outside Northill Hospital right now. Kerny, what’s going on over there?”

The video uplink was patchy and the audio frequently drowned out by sirens.

“The atmosphere around here is incredibly tense: many of the protesters who lined these streets yesterday and today have left at the urging of the police, who have set up roadblocks outside the hospital and are attempting to evacuate as many people as possible. We can see fires in the distance to the south as-” a trio of ambulances drove past, their sirens making him inaudible for a few seconds, “-local bus, tram and subway services have been suspended and at least eight trams are being loaded up with those patients who can be safely transported.”

The screen cut to a “technical difficulties” graphic. Gene switched the TV to another channel where a news helicopter was flying over an enormous angry mob who were busy smashing shop windows and parked cars as they rampaged towards Northill.

“This is bad,” said Gene.

“This is Tripansk all over again,” added Davlos, who immediately became the focus of five angry scowls. “What? You’re all thinking the same thing.”

“So we can’t stay because of the angry mob, but we can’t leave because we’d kill Val. What’s the third option?” Gene asked.

“Azimuth.”

All eyes turned to Tina, but again she didn’t elaborate. It was impossible to tell if she was even responding to the conversation around her.

“Wait- Azimuth, the new flying hospital?” Gene asked as his brain made the connection. “I think I saw that parked on the tarmac over at Yeager. We could probably get it to come over here and get us.”

“That… might work- that thing will have a full ICU on board,” said Davlos. “Although I can’t see how we could possibly get it to us or her to it, that thing is far too heavy for the helipad and there’s nowhere for it to land nearby.”

“Then we have it hover with its main ramp on the helipad and board it that way.”

“You’d need some serious piloting skills to hold a hover on a plane that size in this weather,” said Nat, her voice still barely above a whisper. “One gust of wind and we’d be bugs on the windscreen.”

Gene retrieved his trusty ‘mobile’ phone and dialled a number.

“Joeny, it’s Gene. Did I see Azimuth parked on the tarmac at YSC?”

“Uh, yes, but it’s not finished yet.”

“Prepare it for flight and send it to our location immediately.”

“Gene, the Azimuth isn’t ready to-“

“Valentina’s life- all our lives- depend on one thing: getting that aircraft over here as fast as kermanly possible. Get it done.”

“Yes.” Joeny didn’t dare to argue.

“Impressive- the best I ever got with one phone call was a pizza.” Martin quipped, though his smile quickly faded when nobody laughed.

The door opened to reveal a middle-aged police officer with “Incident Commander” on her jacket.

“We’re evacuating the building. Everyone who can leave should leave now.” She recognised Nat and Martin from the showdown that morning. “We can give you a police escort, get you out of town before that angry mob figures out where you’ve gone.”

“We can’t leave Val here, and we’re not leaving without her.” Nat replied.

“You might not have the choice. That mob out there think you assassinated their leader and they’re out for blood. They’re heavily armed, impossible to reason with and are destroying everything in their way to get here. This hospital is full of innocent people, many of them unable to leave. If you stay here, hundreds of people could die, and I can’t let that happen.”

“We’re hoping to have our own ride out of here. How long do we have?”

“At the rate they’re going, that mob will be here in about twenty minutes,” the Incident Commander said. “We’re blocking the roads around the hospital and we’ll slow them down with tear gas, but it’s too dangerous for us to face them head-on. I really hope your ride gets here in time.”

She left them in a tense silence, broken only by the news report on the TV. Ten minutes passed like ten hours before Gene’s phone rang as Joeny called him back.

“Good news and bad news- the good news is Azimuth is fuelled up and ready to go; they should be with you in fifteen minutes.”

“We might not have fifteen minutes. They need to go faster.”

“They’re already overstressing the airframe by going as fast as they are; any faster and they could rip the wings off.”

“And the bad news?”

“They’re not finished fitting it out. Not even close- there’s one barely functional operating theatre and the critical care beds aren’t installed yet. We had to send some of our medical staff with them, they only have a handful of crew here and all of them are just to operate the aircraft, not treat any patients.”

“Understood.”

Gene turned to Davlos.

“We need to be up on the roof when that plane gets here, which means we need to get Val ready to move as soon as possible.”

A teenager in a police uniform was guarding the door to Val’s room; he moved to stop them before recognising them and nearly sprinting out of their way. Gene, Nat, Philbo and Davlos went into the room while Martin, Jeanette and Tina (and Sasha, who was sound asleep) waited outside.

 “Can we move the life support?” Gene asked.

“It’s mains powered, unplug it and it’ll switch off.” Davlos replied.

“We might be able to run the ventilator off a crash cart, but the batteries on that thing would last a few minutes at best,” said Philbo. “Not to mention that the cart is another forty kilos we’d have to carry up the stairs to the roof.”

“Why carry it?” Asked Nat. “I thought the lifts went all the way up to the roof.”

There was a muffled thud from below them, accompanied by a slight shudder through the floor, then all the lights went out. Emergency generators kicked in, restoring power to the critical equipment keeping people alive but leaving the whole building in near darkness, illuminated only by the lights guiding the way to emergency exits.

“Uh oh…”

The rookie cop stuck his head around the door.

“You need to go, right now. They’ve broken through from the west and are trying to force their way up from the basement.”

“I’ll get a crash cart,” Philbo said as he ran out the door.

“I need one of you to sit on top of her,” Davlos said to Nat and Gene.

“Sit on her!? Why?” Nat asked.

“Because if the ventilator fails, you’ll need to do chest compressions to keep her alive.”

“I’ll do it,” said Gene. Nat tried to protest, but he stopped her. “You can barely breathe for yourself right now. I’ve got this.”

Davlos began shutting down as many of the life support systems as he could, leaving only the ventilator running. They had to wait for two agonising minutes for the blood filtration system to cycle through and pump all the blood out of its tubes and back into Val before disconnecting that, by which time Philbo was back with the crash cart.

“Get ready,” Davlos said to Gene who nodded. He pulled the ventilator’s plug out the wall and quickly plugged it into the backup socket on the side of the crash cart. For several seconds nothing happened, but then the lights on the ventilator’s control panel came back on and it started working again.

Davlos and Philbo carefully manoeuvred the bed out the door with Nat following close behind trying to herd the ventilator and crash cart along with them. Seeing their struggle, the young policeman grabbed the handle for the crash cart while Martin grabbed the ventilator, leaving Jeanette to look after both her daughters and with Nat bringing up the rear.

The stairs were another matter- it would take at least four of them to lift the bed and even more to carry the extra equipment. Philbo had the brilliant idea of using an emergency evacuation device, normally used to transport people in wheelchairs down the stairs, to carry the ventilator up the stairs instead; Davlos ran up to the next level to grab another for the crash cart and an awkward ascent began.

It took Martin, Gene, Davlos, Philbo and the young cop- his name badge said Baruki- to heave the heavy hospital bed up one stair at a time while Jeanette, Tina and Nat tried to manage the ventilator and crash cart. They had to stop on a landing half way between floors seven and eight as a group of people came down, but two of them stayed behind to help with the heavy lifting and their progress was faster after that.

When they reached the ninth floor a chilling sound came echoing up the stairwell- a malevolent roar made of hundreds of voices. The mob had broken into the hospital’s main building and were pouring up the stairwells towards the seventh floor.

And then- at last!- they made it to the roof, where another problem was waiting for them: the weather. Another storm system had blown in from the sea and was lashing the whole area with gale-force winds and torrential rain, an occasional flash of lightning lighting up the billowing storm clouds from within. It took three of them just to force the door open against the wind, an action that gave their location away to the mob below who kept charging up the stairs towards them. At that point their fortuitous helpers ran back down a level and disappeared into the corridor beyond to make their own escape.

A new sound drowned out the howling wind and the roaring mob- the distinctive noise of heavy turbofan jet engines. The roof was lit up by blindingly bright landing lights which then moved away as Azimuth swung around in a mid-air handbrake turn, lining up its rear ramp with the helipad and coming to a halt in one smooth motion.

The ventilator failed the moment they went outside, water leaking into its delicate electronics. Philbo clambered onto the bed and began chest compressions as the broken ventilator and crash cart were left behind.

The noise was incredible at such close range as the plane’s engines strained to hold it aloft and hold it steady. Between the buffeting from the wind and the slick helipad surface it was hard to keep their footing

Baruki, Davlos, Gene and Natalia got on board pushing Val between them, but a gust of wind caught Azimuth just as Martin and Jeanette tried to follow. The ramp shifted and caught Jeanette’s foot, snapping her ankle like a rotten twig. She fell to the ground hard, shielding Sasha as best she could but unable to fully protect her from the impact.

One of Azimuth’s crew ran to help; between her and Martin they picked Jeanette up and carried her into the aircraft while Tina carried a screaming Sasha in one arm and clung to her father’s jacket with the other.

The cargo ramp closed just as the first of the angry mob began swarming onto the helipad. Azimuth began accelerating up and away, the pilots desperately trying to get clear of the buildings around them and the turbulence they were creating. Someone guided Tina to a seat and fastened her seatbelt while she tried to calm Sasha down.

A lightning bolt struck a building barely a hundred metres to their left, plunging all forty floors into darkness in an instant. The heavy jet struggled to gain speed and altitude, flying between buildings and forced to make several tight turns to avoid gaps that were too narrow for it, but then they were clear of the city and levelled out.

Azimuth had been in the middle of a refit when it was called in to evacuate them from Northill Hospital, so many of its internal fixtures and fittings were missing- the operating theatre had no walls around it, there was no X-ray machine and much of its other medical equipment was either missing or still packed in the boxes it was shipped in. Both Philbo and Davlos had to pitch in to help Jeanette as the onboard medical team focussed on Val.

Val’s monitors suddenly took on a more urgent sound, except for one which changed to an ominously flat tone.

“No pulse!”

“Get the crash cart!”

A violent downdraft struck, slamming the plane downwards and making everyone on board temporarily weightless before crashing down onto the floor as the plane escaped; the crash cart toppled onto its side, spilling medical supplies everywhere.

“We need adrenaline!”

Nat couldn’t bear to watch, but Gene couldn’t look away; Jeanette was screaming in agony, gripping Martin’s hand nearly as tightly as when she was in labour while Philbo and Davlos tried to turn her foot around to point forwards again; and amid the chaos and confusion, Tina began to sing.

Quietly, softly, a strangely mournful melody emerged. She had no idea where either the worlds or the melody came from, couldn’t remember ever hearing the song before, yet it came as naturally as breathing.

“Far over the distant mountains due,

Up passes steep, I must go through;

I'm bound away, at break of day,

But, child, I'll bring the Mün for you.”

The plane shuddered as winds battered it from all directions.

“Where’s that adrenaline?”

“It fell off the tray, I can see it under the seats but I can’t reach it from here.”

“Charge the defibrillator.”

"'Cross oceans wide, and seas of blue,

Beyond the sunset's golden hue,

For home I'll yearn; on my return,

Dear child I'll bring the Mün for you.”

Sasha was no longer crying and was now watching her big sister in fascination.

“I need that adrenaline, now!”

“Almost got it- aagh! It keeps bouncing around with the turbulence.”

“Up o'er the sky, and past the Mün,

To Minmus' shores and frozen dunes;

I won't be long, I've heard the song;

Sweet child I'll bring the Mün for you.”

“Where’s that adrenaline!?”

“Charging to 300.” _eeeeeeeeeeeeeee^eeeeeeeee   beepbeep “Clear!”

thump

“Out in the great star-strewn expanse

I'll see where Ike and Duna dance;

They spin through space, in fond embrace;

Yet for your Mün, I'll take the chance.”

“Got the adrenaline! Wait, this is adenosine- where’s the adrenaline!?”

“Charge it again!”

“Don’t you dare die, Valentina…”

“To Evian seas, and hills that burn,

Vast purple lands, and weather stern,

I'll struggle through, and think of you;

I'll have your Mün, on my return.”

“Adrenaline is in!”

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeee^eeeeeeeee   beepbeep

“Clear!” thump

 “We have a- no, it’s gone again.”

“Charge it again, continue compressions.”

“I need you to be strong, Val.”

“Over Jool’s green clouds and Lindor’s blue,

Their courts of moons, I'll pass there too;

I'll think of home, no more to roam;

But, dear, I'll bring the Mün for you.”

“Clear!” thump “No change.”

“Charge it again, full power!”

“But-“

“Just do it!”

“We need you to be strong.”

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeee^eeeeeeeee

“And when at last, all journeys through,

When I'll no more return to you,

You'll be strong, and sing this song,”

beepbeep

“Clear!”

For now, I've brought the Mün for you.”

thump

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Next chapter: Chapter 17

Edited January 8, 2022 by jimmymcgoochie
Link for next chapter

[GuessingEveryDay]

Yay! New chapter!

Begins reading.

[Admiral Fluffy]

That is one of the best chapters so far in my opinion.

Hope the cops got out ok

[CatastrophicFailure]

27 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

I'm trying to write my own stuff instead of just ripping off other people's

Me: 

 

[Wizard Kerbal]

Yeah nevermind

But yeah! Good story. I wanted to make a joke, but it had a word that I feel I can't say on the forums. It's not offensive, don't worry, I just probably shouldn't say it.

Edited July 10, 2021 by Wizard Kerbal

[obnox twin]

Woah this is intense story and I like it keep up the good work and make sure you don't kill val.

[JoeSheridan]

Wow... what a chapter Dead A*-hole gouverneur who is in fact Tina´s biological father, killed himself while trying to kill his former wife?? And it´s nice to read that they are still alive... okay, for Val it´s not so clear, but i think she will survive that. And Tina seems to be just unkillable. She crashes multiple of her own rockets, no real scratches. She falls from space in a desintergratet shuttle? Still alive. Should stay in a induced-coma ? Just wakes up and kills her biological mothers nerly-could-have-been-killer....... Which material is she made out ? ... Titanium?!  (Not meant as critique, i am shure you have plans to give reasons to this  


Thanks you for keeping that story alive after such a long time

[Admiral Fluffy]

13 hours ago, JoeSheridan said:

Wow... what a chapter Dead A*-hole gouverneur who is in fact Tina´s biological father, killed himself while trying to kill his former wife?? And it´s nice to read that they are still alive... okay, for Val it´s not so clear, but i think she will survive that. And Tina seems to be just unkillable. She crashes multiple of her own rockets, no real scratches. She falls from space in a desintergratet shuttle? Still alive. Should stay in a induced-coma ? Just wakes up and kills her biological mothers nerly-could-have-been-killer....... Which material is she made out ? ... Titanium?!  (Not meant as critique, i am shure you have plans to give reasons to this  


Thanks you for keeping that story alive after such a long time

Kerbals are made of enthusiasm and and complete disregard for safety. -someone on a twitch stream

[JoeSheridan]

3 hours ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

Kerbals are made of enthusiasm and and complete disregard for safety. -someone on a twitch stream

You think they know that there is something like the situation we call "safety"

[obnox twin]

When is the next chapter going to release not a specific but when I can possible expect it might come out.

[Admiral Fluffy]

1 minute ago, obnox twin said:

When is the next chapter going to release not a specific but when I can possible expect it might come out.

In a month or so, that seems reasonable to me.

[obnox twin]

1 minute ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

In a month or so, that seems reasonable to me.

Thats is good for me here but if you need more time I perfectly understand

[Admiral Fluffy]

9 minutes ago, obnox twin said:

Thats is good for me here but if you need more time I perfectly understand

Umm, I’m not the author.

[jimmymcgoochie]

@obnox twin it'll be done when it's done. I'm not sticking to any kind of schedule, I write when I have the inclination, the ideas and the time- and a good chunk of the latter is going into playing KSP rather than writing about it, plus other games too.

The best I can do is to say that the next chapter is Coming Soon^TM 

[GuessingEveryDay]

Chapters usually come out every month, so you can expect one to be some time in August, if not then October.

[Hyperspace Industries]

On 7/10/2021 at 5:34 AM, JoeSheridan said:

Wow... what a chapter Dead A*-hole gouverneur who is in fact Tina´s biological father, killed himself while trying to kill his former wife?? And it´s nice to read that they are still alive... okay, for Val it´s not so clear, but i think she will survive that. And Tina seems to be just unkillable. She crashes multiple of her own rockets, no real scratches. She falls from space in a desintergratet shuttle? Still alive. Should stay in a induced-coma ? Just wakes up and kills her biological mothers nerly-could-have-been-killer....... Which material is she made out ? ... Titanium?!  (Not meant as critique, i am shure you have plans to give reasons to this  


Thanks you for keeping that story alive after such a long time

The reason she survives everything is her encounter with the kraken, which in a very odd show of empathy for kerbal kind (my theory is that Danny has not yet met this kraken and taught it to be evil) gave her super-kerbal abilities such as the aforementioned durability, and, in some cases even teleportation and maybe even quicksaving/loading or spaghettification. It also went back and modified earlier autosaves and gave her the durability in the past. 

[Souptime]

Alright, i have no words. this chapter is AMAZING as always! (although i was a little late to viewing...)

But i got confused a little through, not plot-wise just i dont remember the characters and what they did, i know sasha is the baby less go and dilgas was the *if i put my actual thoughts here i would get insta banned* who tried triple homicide, and other questionable things, and val is valentina.

Can you give me a rundown of the current plot and characters? i get confuse easily

On 7/9/2021 at 1:42 PM, jimmymcgoochie said:

“Far over the distant mountains due,

Up passes steep, I must go through;

I'm bound away, at break of day,

But, child, I'll bring the Mün for you.”

"'Cross oceans wide, and seas of blue,

Beyond the sunset's golden hue,

For home I'll yearn; on my return,

Dear child I'll bring the Mün for you.”

“Up o'er the sky, and past the Mün,

To Minmus' shores and frozen dunes;

I won't be long, I've heard the song;

Sweet child I'll bring the Mün for you.”e great star-strewn expanse

I'll see where Ike and Duna dance;

They spin through space, in fond embrace;

Yet for your Mün, I'll take the chance.”

“To Evian seas, and hills that burn,

Vast purple lands, and weather stern,

I'll struggle through, and think of you;

I'll have your Mün, on my return.”

“Over Jool’s green clouds and Lindor’s blue,

Their courts of moons, I'll pass there too;

I'll think of home, no more to roam;

But, dear, I'll bring the Mün for you.”

“And when at last, all journeys through,

When I'll no more return to you,

You'll be strong, and sing this song,”

For now, I've brought the Mün for you.”

Alright, that sounds like it could be an actual TheFatRat song, specifically sung my Laura Brehm, Anna Yvette, but specifically Stasia Estep from warrior song

On 7/9/2021 at 2:00 PM, GuessingEveryDay said:

Yay! New chapter!

Begins reading.

Sums it up PERFECTLY

P.S. Dilgas, im gonna kick your *ss in the afterlife you  ҜҤЯЏSЊҪҤԐVS ЙФSЭ ӉДЇЯ

[jimmymcgoochie]

@Souptime Character list (significant characters only):

Tina- main character.

Martin and Jeanette- Tina's parents; Sasha- Tina's little sister.

Jeb/Bob/Bill/Val/Gene/Wernher/Gus/Mortimer/Walt/Linus- come directly from KSP with my own personal takes on their various characters; Val and Gene have been getting a lot of attention lately but I intend to give the others their own time in the limelight in due course. (Linus hasn't actually been in the story yet but will appear soon...)

Nat(alia)- pilot with the Space Program, currently engaged to Val; some retconning going on involving her appearance in Chapter 1, more backstory to come that will reveal more about this.

Miltrey, Gerzer, Billy-Bobrim- crew of the Dauntless, commanded by Val, all KIA when the shuttle was destroyed in orbit.

Johnbro, Desdas- work for K.V. Roe, a major aerospace company; Thombert- test pilot for K.V. Roe and former flight instructor at the Space Program, currently MIA (though presumed dead) aboard Firebird.

Philbo, Davlos, Wenlan- doctors at Northill Hospital where Val and Tina are taken following the EVA rescue and prototype shuttle crash/ditching that followed.

Dilgas- current Governor of the Regionality of Estovus (broadly comparable to a President, though political machinations still to be revealed); generally horrible in every way as the last few chapters have revealed, now dead. (Disclaimer: any resemblance to real persons or events occurring since I created this character in ~October 2020 are entirely coincidence. Wow, did I pick the wrong time to be writing about politics or what? ); Romana- previous Governor and electoral rival to Dilgas, generally incompetent but politically well-connected, and also Not Dilgas.

Megan- Tina's roommate and classmate at KSC; Nathanael, Gerald, Jennie- other classmates.

Scott and Jim a.k.a. SKS and TheLayKerbonaut- make videos about space-related stuff and post them on the internet; loosely based on Scott Manley and Everyday Astronaut (I'll let you guess which is which ) but also a nod to @KSK and @Just Jimwhose KSP stories inspired me to start writing my own (and start merrily pilfering their ideas ).

And some vehicles:

Dynamic- Dynawing-class shuttle, crashed beside Tina in Chapter 1 (landed backwards by Jeb ).

Dauntless- Dynawing-class shuttle, destroyed in orbit in Chapter 11.

Vulture- K.V. Roe VTOL aircraft (based on the Mk4 mod by Nertea from which K.V. Roe itself is also taken), appears in Chapters 2-4.

Firebird- K.V. Roe prototype spaceplane with air-breathing nuclear engine, not quite an SSTO but can reach near-orbital velocity, first appears in Chapter 12, scrambled with Thombert and Tina aboard to rescue Val after the Dauntless was destroyed but subsequently damaged in space before apparently burning up on re-entry.

Azimuth- Subsonic VTOL flying hospital, looks like the mutant offspring of a Quinjet, the shuttle from Avatar and a widebody passenger airliner. Appears in Chapter 16 and will also be appearing in Chapter 17.

[GuessingEveryDay]

4 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Azimuth- Subsonic VTOL flying hospital, looks like the mutant offspring of a Quinjet, the shuttle from Avatar and a widebody passenger airliner. Appears in Chapter 16 and will also be appearing in Chapter 17.

Why don't you model it after this bad girl? It's called the "Airship", from the Atomic Robo Comics. If you want, you can also see the picture's origin, and the origin of the airship.

Unless you already built it, then whoops.

[jimmymcgoochie]

@GuessingEveryDayMy story, my rules

[Admiral Fluffy]

7 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Azimuth- Subsonic VTOL flying hospital, looks like the mutant offspring of a Quinjet, the shuttle from Avatar and a widebody passenger airliner. Appears in Chapter 16 and will also be appearing in Chapter 17.

This is what I thought it looked like:

I added a front ramp because i thought it looked cool.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Admiral Fluffy

[obnox twin]

I agree it takes time to write I have an idea for a SCP themed book (Which I am working on) and maybe some other ideas. Its taking a long time just to think of character names and ideas what you want to be added to the story line and account from past chapters. But when we can't think we just go onto other stuff. As well how much hours do you have on KSP so far I have  449 hours. As well keep up the good work.

On 7/31/2021 at 12:14 AM, jimmymcgoochie said:

@obnox twin it'll be done when it's done. I'm not sticking to any kind of schedule, I write when I have the inclination, the ideas and the time- and a good chunk of the latter is going into playing KSP rather than writing about it, plus other games too.

The best I can do is to say that the next chapter is Coming Soon^TM 

It is diffidently your story and your rules. 

On 8/1/2021 at 7:25 AM, jimmymcgoochie said:

@GuessingEveryDayMy story, my rules

Edited August 3, 2021 by obnox twin

[Jeb_Needs_A_Parachute]

Good story. I hope you have good luck on the next couple of chapters. Also - Interested to see more of Kerbal society. Not everything is about rocketry in the world, I hope.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Jeb_Needs_A_Parachute

[Maria Sirona]

I absolutely love this story. There's no words to properly describe this, but just know i love Audacity soooo much. Not criticism, but it's a bit dark tho.

Love it. Plz continue

 

PS. I instantly knew Tina was actually Dianna from the moment they said she wasn't Martin's and Jeanette's child

Edited August 18, 2021 by Maria Sirona

[jimmymcgoochie]

5 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

I absolutely love this story. There's no words to properly describe this, but just know i love Audacity soooo much. Not criticism, but it's a bit dark tho.

Love it. Plz continue

People still read this!

Yeah, it did get a bit dark. I really wasn’t expecting that as I wrote it and hopefully it’ll get less dark in future; no promises though.

Chipping away at the next chapter bit by bit, I’d like it to happen faster but between actually playing KSP in various guises, some other games and boring life stuff like “working” and “sleeping” time for writing has been in short supply of late. At least, that’s my excuse to keep everyone in suspense .