The Skies of Duna

[NASAFanboy]

Just a quick mental exercise.

I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic. I will not abandon this fanfic.

Good. Shall we begin?

CHAPTER ONE

PROLOGUE

Hundreds of millions of kilometers from home, and after half a year of flight and a gravity assist from Eve, the Kerbal spacecraft Deep Sky Five reached Duna. The probe was about the size of two Kerbals stacked head on head, covered in radiation hardend golden insulation, and dozens of tiny scientific instruments, many nolonger functioning. Three weathered solar panels, fading with age, provided the power for the small probe faced the sun wearily. The faded-yet flamboyant and proud colors of blue, white, and red were barely visible on the craft as it hurled past the orange-red planet at kilometers per second. The solar wind from the sudden storm during the probe's trek around Eve did most of the damage-and comisic radiation, the nemisis of Kerbal spaceflight, did the rest.

A small odd dark object tightly held onto the bottom of the Deep Sky Five. The surface probe of the Deep Sky Five was mostly intact. Mostly. Radiation and solar storms had fried mst of the onboard equipment, and a corrupt contractor had caused a partial failure in one of the solar panels. But the mission was holding up, just as the controllers back at KSC wanted it to. The little lander, the Deep Red Planet, or DRP, as it had fondly been known by researchers, was to perform surface studies while it's mothership performed orbital surveys while orbiting dozens of kilometers above. It was the only part of the spacecraft that would land. The probe was now a mere one million kilometers from the surface of it's target.

From here, Duna looked like a large round grapefruit. The probe faced the sun.

The thrusters began to fire on the Deep Sky Five, following out the pre-programmed commands they had been trained for all their lives. Then they fell silent, as the probe began it's quick descent toward Duna. The time came. The alignments where correct. Several explosive bolts planted in the connection between the lander and the orbiter fired, releasing small puffs of Kerbin-air that had been trapped for years inside the craft. They quickly dispersed and dissappeared into the void as the lander slipped away from the probe, pushed off by a slight (but pre-programmed) nudge from the aerobraking shield. Now on it's own, the orbiter re-adjusted it's orbit, and the thrusters fell silent for the last time. The lander probe, which had clung so tightly an faithfully during the transit, was now a mere dot in the far distance.

The lander was not finished yet. Swinging toward the night side of Duna, it braked with the last of it's monopropellant, and began to aerobrake in the atmosphere before landing. The altitude went low. The temperatures soared. Hurling across the Dunaian landscape at orbital velocities, a bright streak raced across the skies of Duna, heading toward the dusty surface. It's cameras snapped widly at every detail, and prepared to upload the data to the orbiter over ahead. The craft passed into the radio shadow of Duna. Twelve hundred thousand meters from the surface, the lander tasted it's first impression of Duna, a stray dust cloud in the high atmosphere. It kept going.

As the craft hurled into the atmosphere of Duna, the parachute began to deploy, slowling down it's descent as the air around it thickened. With the lower gravity and the large parachute, landing would be softer than expected, a true break for the battered spacecraft. Onvoard the descent module, the surface instruments went online for the first time, recording every number, every little piece of data, and every last image of the scarred surface. The lander kept with it's constant battery of telemetry data to the orbiter, which relayed it back to KSC. Two hours after landing, the batteries were completely exhausted, and the solar panels went back online. Recieving no more data from the lander, the orbiter turned toward Kerbin and relayed the data.

Fourty minutes later, the results came in.

Some were quite unexpected.

Edited November 23, 2013 by NASAFanboy

[xzxvrx]

Looks nice

Hail probe!

[Danish_Savage]

Another mental exercise: Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one, Don't let him abandon this one.

Seriously, you write really well, and it's really a letdown getting fond of a story that then just stops. The descriptive language of this story as of yet, is worthy of a professional writer, and it's very well pieced together.

I'm really looking forward to this one, so don't let me down. M'kay?

[NASAFanboy]

CHAPTER ONE

A small spacecraft floated in lunar orbit. The craft, the Munshot IV was a typical craft of its class, a small service module and a capsule. A couple weeks of constant micrometeorite bombardment and comisic radiation had caused several dents in the hardened insulation and armor that the ship sported. Onboard, operations went as planned.

Billy-Bobfred went through his EVA checklist. He secured his helmet and comms headset, tightened the bolts, and stuffed a large oxygen tank into his EVA pack, and connect it to his suit. The airlock was cramped, a small chamber in the side of the Munshot IV command capsule, and he stuggled to keep upright. Beside him, Jebediah himself was also struggling with glove, and managed to get it on and secured after a few tries. He grinned, and tapped his helmet and gave Bobfred an enthusastic thumbs up. He was ready for action.

The slow ritual was checks was oddly comforting to both the astronauts. It really did help relax them and take their minds off the task ahead. Bobfred clasped on tightly to the foot restraints inside the small chamber as Jebediah accessed the keypad for the airlock controls, and moved the several controls, setting the Depressirzation Adjustment button to 1.

"EV58, we are go. Bobfred, be careful out there."

"Going? Already?"

"Yep."

His heart hammered away as the airlock slid open to reveal the cratered surface of the moon a minute later. Jebediah grabbed a handrail then hopped out of the airlock, steadying himself with his EVA pack and pushing the hatch the rest of the way open. Bobfred followed, messing around with the controls on his pack. His heart rate hit 120%, and a message to calm down appeared on his HUI. Jeb paused, and looked at him.

"First time out here, huh? You're a spaceship now, and a rather quiet one by standards. Don't act silly. You ready for the repairs and retrival? This is going to be a sort one."

Bobfred nodded silently. Jeb was the Mission Commander here, and one of the Munwalker's during the Munshot programme, had served as a Major General in the Airforce, a Senator in the Parliament, and the Deputy Administrator of the NAA until he was re-transferred to become a astronaut under his own command, while he was just a rookie-a Mission Specialist tagging along on the lunar orbital expedition. If he was a Prince, then Jebediah was a god-king, the pinnacle of achievements that every astronaut could ever hope to become. It would be best to follow his advice. Jebediah was whistling cheerfully now as he moved around with his jetpack, and opened his toolbox-a large chamber on the side of his pack. A screwdriver floated out, and he grabbed it in time, and set about fixing the comm dish as Bobfred watched.

"What? You going to join in?"

"Alrighty, sir." Moving toward him with his pack, Bobfred took out his own EVA toolbox, and set to work. He breathed in. I can do this. I can do this, he whispered. He went to work, something that he had done several dozen times back at the swimming pool at KSC during training. A screw floated out of his toolbox and into the distance, and Jeb frowned with disapproval, and grabbed it just in time. The Service Module was slightly worn here and there, and the emblems emblazoned on the side where slightly faded. The radiator panels onboard the service module were gleaming, and both astronauts made careful notice and tried to stay away. Jeb loosened his control pack controls, and moved cautoiusly toward the Mystery Goo containers on the shadowy side. Bobfred still remained silent, and remained by his side, staring out toward the fruit-sized dot of Kerbin in the distance.

"Turn on your EVA lights. We're in the shadow of the spacecraft."

"Yes sir."

"You're not a talker, aren't you?"

"No sir."

"Meh, you don't use the comm link that much"

Reaching into the worn-out container, Jebediah grabbed the experiment canister, a small glass tube with a odd green substance inside. He looked at it, checking for micrometeorite damage in the glass chamber. There was none. He handed the cansister to Bobfred, and stuffed it into his storage chamber. The gold visor of his helmet reflected the sunlight as he manuveuered himself back to the daylight side of the spacecraft. The two headed in silence back toward the airlock. Bobfred stayed quiet. Years ago, when he was just a kidling, he had seen Jebediah prance around the Munar surface at the Eypmodus Mare with his lander pilot. He had a hero-worship thing going around Jebediah, and now he as working with him, over the very Mun he had landed on all these years ago. Bobfred felt the sides of the cansiter, and looked toward the veteran.

With the canister secured to his pack, Jebediah moved outwards from the spacecraft. He floated in silence, staring at the craft, with its layers of hardend armor and insulation, gleaming in the sunlight. Several signs flashed up on his HUI, alerting him back to reality.

"Oh great. Oxygen low. Tom!"

"Yeah?"

"Tom, EVA has retireved experiment canister. Open the airlock!"

There was a sound of several buttons being punched back onboard the Munshot IV by Tom, the Capsule Pilot. A pause followed, and Jeb noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A small grey dot, heading toward Kerbin. Most probably an asteroid. Below, the hatch for the airlock swung open and an alert on his HUI quickly notfied him. He closed it. It can wait, he thought, and looked at the craft, summing it up. The Munshot IV was pretty beat up, despite being a brand new vessel on its maiden launch-the Munshot series weren't designed to be reusable. The XML-30 shuttles where. The are average lifetime of a Munshot IV-class rocket was less than a month-and that was first and only flight. The dot dissappeared for a second, then once again appeared in his range of view.

"Hey, Bobfred, come see this."

"Coming, sir!"

Jeb pointed into the horizon, at tiny grey dot streaking past Kerbin. The dot slowly approched Kerbin, and slowly flung itself outwards into space until it completely dissappeared into the darkness of space. Bobfred sighed in relief that whatever it was, it didn't hit Kerbin. After all, he did have families and friends down there. Especially my kerbette. How is she doing, since I'm so far away?, he wondered. He snapped back to attention when he heard Jebs voice over the comm link.

"Wow. It's a asteroid flyby, beginning to end.......Now, can you hurry up and move inside the airlock?"

Bobfred hesitated to move, and a new alert notice blinked in his HUI.

"Uh, Jeb, we're getting some message from Control?"

"Hurry up! O2 down to five percent. Enough for ten minutes. What is it? Tom, hold the airlock open for us, please!"

"Uh, someone at the RCC claims to have found life on Duna. Not the janitor, but the Flight Director for Deep Sky 6."

Edited November 23, 2013 by NASAFanboy

[NASAFanboy]

Chapter Two

Adam Kerman raced toward the Robotic Control Center. As the Director of Planetary Science in the space agency, it wa his responsiblity to be present at the site of important achievements. Driving his car out on the freeway, he drove past sleepy suburbs, the high palm trees of Los Kerbinanos, and finally, to the center on the outskirts of the metro area. Guided by a GPS, he was still suprised when he ran into the RCC after turning a corner. Quickly parking his car in the spacious employee lot, he hurried to the building. At first glance, the RCC could've eben anything, any campus, any office, had it not been for the NAA and United Provinical flag emblazed as decals on the light grey side of the building.

Edited November 23, 2013 by NASAFanboy

[NASAFanboy]

Meh.

Bump.

Next chapter will be finished today, and start of next one after next will be posted.

[Danish_Savage]

Neato!!!!!

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I like this story! I (in my own personal preference) would have done it on vall, and then sent kerbals out with a A.I that went rouge, and then they saw a giant mono- wait, hasn't that been done before?

[NASAFanboy]

I like this story! I (in my own personal preference) would have done it on vall, and then sent kerbals out with a A.I that went rouge, and then they saw a giant mono- wait, hasn't that been done before?

Meh, I might change the focus a little.

Ok, tell me, what is the analog for Titan in KSP? Would Laythe cut it?

I'm considering renaming the story "Laythebound" and having the main focus being the discovery of life on Laythe and politics.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Mmmm...I personally think you should make those two seperate stories, though managing multiple may be tiresome. I vote for you to keep this story still centered around Duna, though the Laythe storyline you suggested seems plausible, I just want for the Duna storyline to continue.