Colonization: Ch5 Jool Explorer- Part 16: Intermission (AAR) [pic heavy]

[Patupi]

Completed Chapters:

Ch1: Farside Crater, Ch2: Lalock Valley, Ch3: Tylen Sea, Ch4: Munbase Alpha, Ch5: Jool Explorer (this one)

Ongoing Chapters: Chapter Six: Atomic Science

This Chapter:

-Part 1: Expectations

-Part 2: Pilot Exchange

-Part 3: Departure

-Part 4: Perchance to Dream

-Part 5: Arrival

-Part 6: Aerobrake

-Part 7: Rescue Vessel Launch

-Part 8: Problems

-Part 9: EFT Rendezvous

-Part 10: Satellites and Satellites

-Part 11: Bop

-Part 12: Low Jool Orbit

-Part 13: Leaving Jool

-Part 14: Journey Home

-Part 15: Journey's End

-Part 16: Intermission

Alright, Chapter five already! Next up Jedwig Jebediah and Rodsy head to Jool for a 'footsteps and flag' style mission to as many moons as they can manage. At least that was the plan. We'll see how well they do eh?

Expectations

"Forty nine days."

Gene turned, startled, to see Dunkel standing in the doorway, arms crossed and with his ever-present scowl on.

"Pardon?"

"A while back you asked me how long it would take to get it ready." He said, nodding towards the ship on the pad that Gene had been staring at the last few minutes. "Well, it took forty nine days to get it to there, and she's as ready as she's gonna get... unless the Council has deemed we actually have time to spare?"

Sighing Gene glanced back at the huge construction on the pad. Easily it was the tallest rocket ever built. Perhaps not quite the heaviest, the Munbase launch had been quite a load on the pad, but this was trying to launch everything needed to explore the Jool system and mine it for fuel in one rocket. Gene thought the idea was crazy. Frankly, the whole idea of travelling the length of the Kerbolar system and relying on fuel you mine to get home again... nuts! But he'd been over-ruled by the high and mighty, though there were grumblings in the government about it, even openly. Tension was rising.

He'd spoken to Sendo last week and the guy seemed burned out. Trying to keep control of the council and avoid it doing something stupid was a full time job, and given what he'd seen this last month Sendo had failed. Of course in the government this was all the Director's fault, not the council's fault as a whole. Scape goats. Politics. Gene had pretty much given up the idea of succeeding Sendo, if and when the old guy retired. He no longer wanted that job!

Dunkel coughed and Gene realized he'd been lost in thought for a few seconds. Yeah, he was getting old too.

"Sorry Dunkel, a lot on my mind." He said turning back to his friend. "No, no extensions on time from the council. We go ahead as planned." Glancing back at the ship for a moment Gene smiled "You've really outdone yourself though. She's quite a rocket."

"Yeah, a lot to put into a small ship admittedly. I like how it's gone. Still think the safety's been pushed to the limit though. We need more testing." Dunkel put his hand up, forstalling Gene's rebuttal. "I know, I know! Not going to happen. We have to make do with what we have. Still, it would have been nice to actually prove this thing worked."

"You've flown the test version to orbit and back three times now Dunkel."

"And revised the design each time Dammit! Come on Gene, you know this is wrong."

With a sigh Gene turned back to his Head of Engineering.

"I know, but we don't have a choice, and to be frank we may be overly cautious. We've flown hundreds of missions and, other than a few mishaps in early orbital launches, we've had a spotless record."

"Not spotless. The munbase was a near disaster, and for what? Badly designed computer hardware."

"We still aren't sure of that Dunkel. Those reports of magnetic fields affecting the ship en-route to the Mun first..."

"Was beside the point. The docking systems malfunctioned and blew everything to heck. Those docking controllers were just shoddy workmanship, no two ways around it. Yes, the computer problems probably would have affected them without that, but it made the problem a whole lot worse. So far we haven't had any recent fatal disasters, but we've had plenty of non-fatal ones."

With a sigh Gene brought a hand up to Dunkel's shoulder.

"Look, I hate this as much a you Dunkel, but there's nothing we can do. Demands have been made of us and if we don't perform the budget cuts would likely stop any launches beyond the Mun for a long time."

"Hogwash! The council may cut us back, but the government would over-rule them."

"In time, perhaps. But then again, it wouldn't take much for someone on the council to slurry our name and blame all the failure at our door, not the rushing the Council's been heaping on us. Then they'd go for the near-Kerbin science missions they've always wanted, exclusive of everything else. If popular opinion turns against us the government would be forced to allow us to be downscaled... permanently."

Both Kerbals turned to look at the ship before them.

"I guess I couldn't really live with me'self if that happened." Dunkel said tiredly. "But..."

"I know, I know. We'll make it work Dunkel. These guys are the best after all."

"Hah! With Jedwig up there? That choice wasn't the best around."

"Unfortunately he was picked when the project was starting, and now the public knows he's the mission commander we'd need a damned good reason to replace him."

"Other than he's an idiot?"

Gene just chuckled and shook his head. Yes indeed, fun times ahead!

Edited February 21, 2014 by Patupi

[The Error]

Cool. Gleaning insight into the machinations of the council...

Nice writing. +rep.

[Patupi]

Thanks The Error, much appreciated. Now, on the next installment.

Launch

While Gene was going over the paperwork for the latest refinements for the Vanguard resuable rockets he became aware of a subtle, irregular tapping. Looking around he could see no source, then he realized it was coming from outside his door. With a sigh he got up to see what it was.

Opening the door he was somewhat surprised to see a nervous looking Jedwig standing there. Jedwig too seemed surprised but soon his patented 'I'm Great' smile was back on his face, the nervousness gone.

"Oh, hey Gene. Didn't know you were in your office. Um, what can I do for you?"

Gene squinted as he looked at the Kerbonaut. 'Didn't know'? That was a laugh.

"So... go on..." He said pointedly. Jedwig just looked confused. "I mean, why are you here?"

"Oh, well... I, erm...." Jedwig actually looked at his shoes "I... just wanted to be sure. You know, before the flight."

"About...?" Gene leaded.

"Well... You've told Jeb haven't you?"

Gene blinked, what was he...? Oh!

"Yes Jedwig. He knows you're in charge."

Still the guy was nervous.

"Well, I mean, he understood it... right?" He'd now reached the point of thumb twiddling. This was getting silly!

"Yes. You are commander, he is your second in command, in charge of the landings. He knows the drill Jedwig. Despite him being higher rank than you."

"Um... good. Just wanted to be sure you know. Hah! Er... He really said it was OK?"

"JEDWIG!" Gene burst out, then controlled himself when the guy jerked back in response. "Jedwig, you should get ready. Launch is in four hours."

"Um, yeah. I'll do that." HE said, still looking unsure of himself.

Slowly he headed off towards the Flight Prep area.

"That guy seriously needs help." Gene muttered and headed back into his office, dreading what would happen on the mission with Jedwig in charge. "Kod help us!"

***

"T Minus two minutes and counting." Milton's voice came over the speakers in the cabin.

This room was somewhat more cramped than some capsules Jedwig had been in over the years. A lot of the room was taken up with the large hibernation capsules on one side. There were even folding partitions for decency's sake when getting ready for hibernation. They had simple regenerative life support systems, good for ten days and took over two months to regenerate that life support capability when not being actively used. He hated the idea of relying on the machines to wake them all up. The original designs he'd seen were for cabins with life support that could keep one Kerbal alive indefinitely, and that one would oversee the others in hibernation for the trip. However tests on Kerbals cooped up for a year or more on their own... hadn't gone well.

So, here he was babysitting two newbies, one of which wouldn't be with them for long. He surveyed his two compatriots in the seats beside him.

Lolorf was due to take over from Jebediah on the VKM Two, ferrying fuel from the Mun up to orbit, or to other craft on the surface of the Mun. He seemed solid enough, but was rather quiet. In fact he hadn't said one word since boarding the capsule. Rodsy, the crew member that would be joining them on the mission, was a different story. Wide eyed and eager, gaping at everything. Jedwig hadn't left the academy that long ago, but he had plenty of other experience under his belt in aircraft. Even out of flight academy though he hadn't been that green!

"Hey look!" Rodsy exclaimed. "They've finished connecting the water tower!"

Oh boy, this guy needed to get out more! Jedwig would take him under his wing, nurture him, and teach him the ways of the world!

"Can you shut up? I'm trying to work out the flight path." Lolorf interrupted.

"It's done." Jedwig said. "I double checked it myself when I came in. Here." He sent the flight plan to Lolorf's terminal. "Telemetry was only out a few hundredth's of a percent. Not bad."

Lolorf looked confused, but skimmed Jedwig's data none-the-less.

"Um, OK." He said timidly.

"Jool One, this is Flight. All systems are go. Coming up on one minute to launch. Standby."

Jedwig went through the preflight automatically. After all, this was child's play! Grinning as he worked, he still had nagging doubts of how Jeb would react to meeting his new 'commander' for the next couple of years. OK, most of it would be in hibernation. Still...

"T minus five... four..."

As Gene took over the countdown Jedwig settled in, hands on the controls and set up for the flight. It was good to be back in the captain's acceleration couch! OK, that didn't sound right.

"... Two... liftoff!"

The engines burned hard and the huge structure rose slowly and majestically off the ground, the pillar of fire and smoke beneath outlining the sharp outline of his ship. He could watch the launch via feeds from the ground cameras and saw himself tearing up into the sky on the most ambitious mission Kerbals had yet to attempt.

This was the life!

***

A small light flickered on Jeb's control panel, snoring filling the little cabin. Soon a repetitive beeping sounded. Eventually it got through to him and his eyes flickered.

"Whu? *YAWWWWN!* Oooh, long nap. Oh, Bob." with grin he flicked the comms on. "Hey there Commander. How's the base fairing?"

"At last!" Bob replied. "I was beginning to think you'd gone into a coma or something! Anyway, just reporting that the Jool Explorer has launched successfully. I think it's time you found a good spot to land and refuel don't you?"

"What's the magic word?"

Silence filled the cabin.

"It starts with a letter 'P' you know." Jeb needled carefully.

"Just get going will you? Kod you can be annoying sometimes!"

"Aww, you're just saying that 'cos you loath and despise me." Jeb said with a grin and started warming systems back up again on the ship.

"Don't tempt me Jeb. I've had a rough week. We had two 'guests' from the government last week here and I had to give them the grand tour. Fun stuff!"

"Hey, could have been worse, could have been from the Council!"

"Just keep it together Jeb, and watch out for Jedwig."

"Will do Bob. See you in a couple of years."

With a roar his engine ignited and he burned for the surface. With a grin plastered across his face he didn't even look at the computer flight plot. This was the life! Flying by the seat of your pants.

***

Launch went without a hitch thank heavens! Gene had to stare at the self obsessed face of Jedwig on the screen the whole time, but other than that it went well.

"Orbit perfectly circularized." Jool Commander said on the screen "I... we are doing well."

Gene shook his head. He had to give Jeb credit, he had managed to temper Jedwig's insulation a little. Maybe after a long voyage with the two of them together the whole time Jedwig would become a better person? Gene smiled and managed to avoid snorting in dirision at the thought. Somehow he doubted it.

"Flight to Jool One congratulations on a smooth launch. ETA on burn is in fourteen minutes. Mun rendezvous at fourteen hundred hours."

"Thanks Flight... you don't mind if I double check this?"

All sound in Mission control abruptly halted as everyone stopped what they were doing, gaping at the screen. Gene kept expecting crickets to be chirping in the background somewhere.

"I... no... no I don't mind Jedwig." Gene said, for once missing Jedwig's designation.

Milton leaned over towards Gene as the crew up in orbit got set up for their burn.

"Is he OK? Should we scrub the mission?"

"He's suffering from something rather severe." Gene said seriously. "It's called Jebediah Kerman."

A chuckle was all the answer he got as Milton went back to work. Maybe they could pull through this after all?

Edited January 26, 2014 by Patupi

[KSK]

Oh this is going to be good. Political machinations and the Jeb & Jedwig show!

[Patupi]

Unfortunately I was rather busy over the weekend so didn't get to add a post. I'll try to keep up with it this week.

[Patupi]

For those that are interested I didn't use Joint Reinforcement mod to launch this rocket. Though I did install it some time later. I think it was about one or two missions after the Jool One. Mainly to try it out Hadn't used it before.

Pilot Exchange

Bob looked out through the small windows the base and smiled. Things were going well for once. The government representatives were gone. Dansey was off 'playing with the rover' somewhere, and Dunkel said he'd finally found where the squeak above the command pod was coming from. He was up in the crawl-space now with a welder trying to iron it out.

"Er... Bob, sir?"

Turning Bob saw Seanbur at the entrance to the command pod.

"Seanbur, haven't seen you in a couple of days. How's life on the Mun treating you?"

"Oh, well sir, very well. I... well, I've been doing some research, and cross correlating from the adaptive filtered sensors here, the Melvey sats, the Diego Ring observatories and twelve of the..."

"Seanbur... what's up?" Bob interrupted. Sometimes Seanbur got into a rut and wouldn't shift until you practically kicked him.

"Oh, yes... well, I think I know what happened to the docking computers."

Bob sat up straight in his chair.

"Really? What is it? Defective components? That's what Dunkel is saying. He swears he's going to rip whoever shipped them a new one. A new what I didn't ask."

"Right, of course sir... but no, that's not it. The components were stressed, but I think all of that was from the physical damage after the incident. No, the cause was Kerbolar."

"Excuse me?"

Seanbur shuffled in nervously and put a laptop down on the desk in front of Bob. Shown on the screen was a representation of something Bob recognized. The Melvey belts.

"OK, magnetics. I get it. You're saying things got fried on our way from LKO to hear in the belts?"

"Yes, but that's the point. We've known about them for ages and rated all parts outside the faraday cage of the hull to withstand the magnetic strength we've charted. But it's changed. It looked like we were lucky. Just after we got to The Mun the magnetics reached a peak, then settled down again. If it hadn't settled quickly the replacement drone that was sent would have been fried too."

"That's incredible! I didn't know the Melvey belts changed like that?"

Seanbur paused for a moment, licking his lips.

"No... they don't."

"I'm sorry, what? But you just said..."

"They don't normally." Seanbur interrupted "But I don't think it's the belts themselves. I think this is similar to a phenomena I witnessed during my trip to Minmus. The magnetic fields there became lobed, sending peaks of magnetic strength out at different amplitudes. I haven't worked out the data yet, and I may have to wait for another anomaly to turn up to properly chart it. Somehow the sun is affecting our magnetic fields in intense and unusual ways. We need to know more before we start exploring beyond the Kerbin system."

"It's a little late for that Seanbur. Jool One has launched and is on it's way here to refuel and change pilots. I don't think they're going to change their minds if you don't have something concrete. Do you think the ship is in danger out there?"

"I... I don't know. I doubt it, we've only had two recorded events and both seemed focused on planetary bodies. Even though this is a stronger one I..."

"Stronger? I thought that when you went through the last one there was a danger of radiation exposure from magnetic focusing? Something to do with the Kerbolar wind being channeled? We've had no deleterious effects since then and it's been a month and a half. I think we'd have seen illness or something showing up in the medical checks if it was serious."

"Well it was serious, but this ship is far better shielded than Minmus One. We were lucky sir."

Bob sat back, pondering while he watched Seanbur's display.

"How long do you think the period of danger is? If these events are focused around the Kerbin system at least then Jool One will soon be outside the effect, right?"

"That's the point sir, we don't know. We barely have any data from beyond the Kerbin system. Four satellites and the Duna mission. That's it! We can't be sure these events are all that's out there. What if they're struck while the crew is in hibernation? The automatics won't know what to do with events that weren't programmed into them and the time delay will get significant as they get further from Kerbin. Mission Control may not be able to save them!"

"OK, calm down Seanbur. I know this is nasty, but what's the chance it could happen?" Seanbur's face seemed to crumple. "I'm not saying we ignore this! Oh heck no! But Seanbur, so far we have no real proof. We need to tell the crew of Jool One and Mission Control, but I think things are just going to have to just play out."

"I... I understand sir. I just hope the crew of Jool One don't regret it."

***

"Third stage at nine percent... and cutting thrust." Jedwig said calmly as he flicked switches almost without looking. Damn he was good at this! "Engaging Third stage remote control and.... Jettisoning."

A clunk ran through the ship as the last launch stage separated and Jedwig warmed up the Main drives.

"Um, is it supposed to sound like that?" Lolorf said nervously.

"Oh yes, in fact for stage separators that's fairly quiet. You don't tend to notice on the way up since the sound of the rockets muffles it out... or you're too deaf from listening to the rockets to hear it after." Jedwig chuckled. "Don't worry, and this one isn't going to be debris either. We separated before the fuel was gone so we could do this."

Jedwig engaged the secondary control console on the left and a few monitors lit up showing views from the cameras on the stubby third stage, and one view of it from this ship's rear view camera.

"There she is. Now... engaging torque systems..." the third stage spun slowly behind them till it was at ninety degrees to them. "Firing short burst."

The engines on the separated booster lit once more and she slowly slide sideways, the engines cutting out in a couple of seconds. Once it was no longer behind them, but instead off to one side, Jedwig rotated it once more so it was pointed away from them.

"And, retrograde burn." He said as the engines lit again, more strongly.

Lolorf and Rodsy watched as the booster sped off into the distance, the monitor beside showing an orbit plot based on inertial guidance info from the booster.

"That's how you dispose of a booster!" Jedwig said triumphantly.

"Very good Jool One, would you mind setting up for the Munar burn now?" Gene's voice said through the ship's speakers.

"Your wish is my command Flight." Jedwig said, showing off by loading the course he'd already plotted (Well, checked from Telemetry's plot at least) in while grinning and staring at Lolorf, not even looking at the board. "Engage in... Five, four, three, two, one... Ignition!"

He did at least glance at the screens just before hitting the engine ignition switch. He wasn't quite that stupid. Still, Lolorf stared panic stricken for a few seconds, worried his commander had gone insane!

Immediately the Poodle engine beneath them lit and slowly the second Kerballed interplanetary ship set sail, though at the moment heading for it's refueling rendezvous at the Mun.

"We'll rendezvous with Jeb at fourteen hundred hours and twelve minutes Flight. Meanwhile I'll be reviewing the VKM Two's control systems with Lolorf. While we have the time."

Lolorf groaned and got his manuals out, again. This would be a long trip.

***

"Nearly down Flight." Jeb muttered, more focused on landing than communications.

Slowly his rather familiar pod settled to the ground once more and he started warming up the mining equipment.

"So, ETA still good for the Rendezvous Flight?"

"Yes VKM Two, looks to about quarter past two now, but still on profile."

"I'll make that no trouble." Jeb said with a grin. "Drills biting now.... yup, we got green stuff!"

Dials spun as Kethane started filling the tanks. He began the rather boring step of warming up the converter and getting rocket fuel and oxidizer flowing into the tanks. Over the last month and a half he'd been doing a lot of fueling missions, mostly for the Munar transport when they didn't make the trip quite as efficiently as planned and didn't have enough fuel to land back at base. The trip to Kerbin and back took a lot of the fuel and was fairly difficult to do it with full tanks from the surface of the Mun and back again. But that was what this ship was here for.

Unglamorous perhaps, but fun, and he got to Munwalk as often as he wanted! This was the life.

"I'll be done here soon Flight. I'll let you know when I lift off."

Well, soon he wouldn't be here any more. Instead he'd be on his way to Jool! That was something to think about. Jeb sat back in his couch and dreamed of exploring Vall, Bop and Pol. Their current lander might be capable of Laythe, but that would be pushing it. Doubtful they'd get the go ahead to test that.

***

A few hours later, fuel and kethane tanks full, Jeb lit the drive once more and rocketed off the Mun. This was starting to get routine, though at present they only had one mining ship. They'd better get a second one up here fairly soon. What if there was a mechanical fault they couldn't fix at Munbase Alpha? From what Jeb had heard though it didn't sound like the Council was going to go for that. Flashy Jool missions? Sure. Boring fuel supply ships? Maybe not.

Well, wasn't his problem now. Lolorf would be the one doing the boring grunt work. The grunt work with unlimited access to the Mun... Jeb sighed wistfully.

As he cruised upwards, the Mun starting to diminish behind him, Jeb saw he'd not made bad time. Only five past two. Unfortunately he hadn't checked on Jedwig's orbit and he had to swing a few times around the Mun before their orbit's coincided. It was over half an hour before he made rendezvous.

"There you are. Jeb." Jedwig said when they were finally closing distance between them. "Well, as punctual as ever I see."

"Oh, you want I should go back and try again? I can if you'd like Brains."

"Er, no thanks. Just dock so I can get this baby fueled up."

Jeb stared at the ship and sighed. Jedwig was going to be stupid again huh?

"Uh, Jedwig?" He said calmly. "Haven't you forgotten something?"

"OK, please can you dock?"

Jeb shook his head. Oh it was one of those days huh?

"No... how am I going to dock when your docking port is attached to the lander?"

A poignant pause lasted for a few seconds.

"Of course of course. Give me a chance will you?" Jedwig said nervously.

Grinning he watched Jedwig disconnect from the lander and slide away, clearing the from docking port. As Jool One swung to face him Jeb engaged RCS and slid towards the exploration vessel. Pondering on what he'd thought back on the Mun Jeb wondered if Interplanetary ships would become just as routine in the future? Well, eventually sure. But would he live to see it? Did he want to? When everything was routine and laid out just so... where were the frontiers to explore?

With a gentle clunk the two ships docked and Jeb opened the hatch above him. It was odd for the orientation to be switched like this when in orbit. This capsule was designed for Kerbals to be sitting upright when landing, not when the ship moved horizontally towards another vessel in orbit... if horizontal meant anything in zero-g.

The hatch on the other side opened and Lolorf waived through the access tube.

"Hey, nice to see you again Jeb." Jeb thought he could see signs of worry on Lolorf's face and wondered if Jedwig had been scaring the guy.

"She's all warmed up for you Lolorf. Come on over and I'll go back and grab your place OK?"

"S.. sure." He said, then pulled himself through the tube.

Briefly the two shook hands, but there wasn't really room for two in here so Jeb squeezed past him and into the docking port access way.

"Welcome aboard Number One." Jedwig said, beaming and offering his hand as Jeb emerged.

"Number One huh? I thought you're Jool One and I'm Jool Two?"

Jeb thought he caught a slight twitch in Jedwig's left eye, but he kept grinning.

"Of course, of course. Come on in Jeb."

Sliding up and docking the hatch closed, and hearing Lolorf close his docking port, Jeb checked out the extended capsule that he'd be calling home for the next few years. It was a little cramped. One of the new three Kerbal capsules connected to a four kerbal hitch-hiker pod, but with a lot of the space taken up with three hibernation pods and their control equipment.

"Well, best get to work. So Commander, what first?" Jeb said, floating to attention in front of Jedwig, saluting.

"Er... I... *cough* Yes, best double check the fuel systems while we pump it over from VKM Two." He managed, then floated back over his seat and strapped in.

Oh this was going to be a fun voyage. Jeb could tell!

Edited February 23, 2014 by Patupi

[Patupi]

Departure

"Do you read me Jool One?"

"Hey Bob, long time no see!" Jeb answered before Jedwig could get to the comms switch. "Oh right, talked to you, what? Twenty minutes ago? So... can't get away from me huh?"

"Jeb, please shut up a minute, this is serious!" Bob said tiredly. "Seanbur has just given me some bad news. We've recently had an anomalous magnetic flux in the Kerbin/Mun system and he believes it may have been responsible for the docking malfunction when the Base landed last month. Thing is we should have been proofed against it. Seanbur thinks your trip might be more dangerous than we'd planned on."

"Um, only the second interplanetary trip?" Jeb said slowly. "Weeell, kinda going to be dangerous... isn't it?"

Jedwig seemed to be gesticulating rather fiercely, trying to get Jeb's attention, pointing at the comms control and himself. Jeb didn't deign to notice him.

"Come on Bob, what's the worst that can happen? We get a little toasty. As I recall the cabin's been radiation proofed."

"Not proofed, shielded. And the water blanket won't stop all kinds of radiation, and even the types it can stop it won't protect against a large strike. Seanbur is worried that either radiation, or the wierd magnetic fields themselves, might damage computer systems outside the protective layers. If something affects the computers while you're in transit... well, your guess is as good as mine."

"Wait... Seanbur... magnetic flux... Wasn't that what happened to him the last time he left Kerbin?"

"Jeb, this isn't some sort of fixation or anything. Seanbur just seems to have been lucky... er, unlucky I guess. Anyway, others have corroborated his findings on Minmus, and I'm sending his current data back to be checked too. But just take any extra precautions you can. Shut down non-essential systems, make extra backups of software, that kind of thing."

At this point Jedwig, tired of being ignored, slammed his palm onto the comms switch (with a wince.. that thing could be sharp if you catch it wrong), and butted in.

"Don't you worry about it Alpha One. We'll take every precaution known to Kerbalkind." The idiot actually saluted the comms system. "We'll be sure to do you proud."

"Yes, captain Kermerica here will keep us on the straight and narrow Bob." Jeb said sarcastically. "We'll be fine. You need to worry about yourselves! If it affected you before it may again. Beef up your shielding."

"Roger, Munbase Alpha signing off."

With a click he was gone and the three occupants of Jool One settled back. Rodsy coughed a couple of times to get attention, then spoke up.

"Um... we will get a little warning won't we? Won't the radiation, or magnetic fields, ramp up slowly? I mean, as long as we have warning we just shut everything down and we'd be fine. Right?"

Both Jeb and Jedwig looked knowingly at each other.

"You've been watching too many movies Rodsy." Jeb said "Shutting a computer down doesn't protect it from electromagnetic interference much. It will stop it messing with active signals, but a strong enough field will generate electricity in the circuits randomly, frying the system. No, the best bet would be to beef up the faraday cage of the hull, plus some solid material to protect versus radiation. Lead, steel, water... something."

Rodsy looked a little down, but his usual perky self came through with a grin.

"Oh, I'm not worried. You two are the best there is! You'll figure out a way."

And with that the young kerbonaut turned back to his console and started checking the systems of Jool One again.

"Rookie." Jedwig whispered, and for once Jeb agreed with him.

***

A few minutes later, after un-docking from VKM Two, Jedwig took the controls and swung his ship back to the drifting lander. On remote control he stabilized it so it stopped spinning and pointed towards Jool One, then slid closer.

"Easy, easy does it." Jeb muttered from the seat to the right of Jedwig.

"I know what I'm doing Jeb!" He spat back.

Shortly afterwards there was a rather harder than usual bump as the docking ports connected.

"See, don't distract me!" said Jedwig as he unbuckled and floated out of his seat.

"Oh, so you're doing the maneouvering, docking AND locking the craft together? Are you leaving anything else for us mere mortals to do?"

Jedwig looked daggers back at the smiling Kerbal and humphed.

"Fine," Jedwig said with a nasty smile, "How about we let Rodsy lock us down?" He said, waving at the airlock.

Rodsy turned around, finally taking note of the conversation and the two Kerbals glaring at each other. He sighed, but unbuckled and got up from his seat. This ship was only the second one to have a real airlock. The first being Munbase Alpha itself. Jool One had the conventional hatch near the controls up top, but then further down, alongside one of the three hibernation pods, was the airlock leading to the side of the ship. Big, bulky, using a lot of mass for the ship, but Rodsy was glad of it. At least now they didn't have to waste oxium when they opened the hatch!

Suiting up he got into the airlock and double checked his seals. All good. A grin spread across his face. He'd only been in orbit once before, but now? The Mun awaited!

As the outer hatch opened after the airlock had been evactuated Rodsy gasped.

"Wow. It's beautiful!" He slowly drifted clear of the ship as he gaped at the lightly lit dawn edge of the Mun and the crisp black edge made a stark line against the starry sky.

"Always gets ya." Jeb muttered happily. "Don't ever get used to it kid. This is the life! And you haven't been on a space walk in Kerbin orbit! That's beautiful!"

After finally managing to tear his eyes away from the scene Rodsy got his tools out of his belt kit and went over to the new KAS Strut mounts. Now came the laborious task of unfolding the struts and mounting the ends against both the lander and Jool One.

***

Eventually, after almost fifteen minutes of adjustment, Rodsy was done.

"OK, I'm finished." He said tiredly, and watched one of the external cameras rotate to peruse his work.

"That is rather crooked Rodsy." Jedwig's voice echoed in Rodsy's helmet.

Jeb immediately cut in though.

"Oh, and it has nothing to do with your docking being out of alignment I suppose?"

"Please guys, please! I can unbolt them and try again." He said with a sigh.

Both Jeb and Jedwig cut in, but Jeb seemed to speak over his commander enough to be heard.

"No, don't worry about it Rodsy. structurally speaking the struts just stabilize the docking port. We should be fine like that. It's not like we're pulling high g's in this thing!"

"Well," Jedwig managed once Jeb had stopped talking. "Technically our acceleration could peak at over three Munar gravities. Even the two and a quarter Munar gravities we'll feel to start with would..."

"Oh give the guy a break will you?" Jeb said fiercely. "I'm an engineer and I say it'll work just fine."

"I thought you were a scrap merchant?" Jedwig said lightly.

Rodsy sighed and turned his helmet volume down low so he wouldn't have to listen to them scream at each other any more while he headed back inside. Oh yes, Loooong trip this. But at least most of it would be asleep in hibernation.

***

It was over eight hours later when they hit their burn time. Jeb was a little worried. Apparently Jedwig had had a long conversation with Milton and they'd come up with a faster trip than the originally planned one. True, they weren't on line for a Hohhman transfer so it had to be higher than usual, but this? Over two point seven kilometers per second delta v? KSC had signed off on it though so Jeb went along with it. It made their trip considerably shorter, but now they had very little reserve. They had to get the mining lander working quickly once they arrived or they'd be out of fuel. Not a pleasant thought.

The nagging thought of what Seanbur had warned them about kept buzzing in Jeb's head as he got the ship battoned down for transit. However, there wasn't really a lot else they could do other than what they had. Unless they took a detour to the asteroid belt, found a comet, rigged up some extra pipe blankets around the ship, melted some ice in... that was way beyond what they were kitted out for on this trip and would have set them way behind too. No-one had even rendezvoused with an asteroid as yet anyway. Who knew how difficult it would be?

No, for now they just had to double check everything and hope it all went well.

"Primary life support system and the backup both check out fine." Rodsy reported from his console. "We're at ninety two percent efficiency at present. Lander systems aren't tied in so that gives us... maybe nine days life support." he clicked a few buttons. "With the lander systems tied in that gives us... about sixteen days. That'll be ample once we wake up at Jool for a rendezvous with Pol for refueling."

"Yup." Jeb agreed. "And it looks like propulsion is all set too. Lander systems look good."

Jeb had checked them out manually on EVA 'just to be sure' on Jedwig's express order. He hadn't questioned it that time. It was only sensible.

"Well," Jedwig said finally. "I think the controls systems are also fully operational. Computer and backups all have had their systems wiped clean." Both Jebediah and Rodsy looked aghast at Jedwig. "What? Oh come on! It's just a little joke. Some people have no sense of humor!"

Jeb pushed himself down into his seat and buckled up.

"If you call that humor!" He muttered, but louder he continued. "OK, warming up main systems. Checklist."

Rodsy called up the checklist and Jedwig and Jebediah slowly get things verified.

***

"Main initializer... check." Jeb said tiredly a few minutes later.

"Pump feeds one through four on Main drive." Rodsy read out.

"Turbopumps one through four... green." Jedwig reported. "That looks like it. OK..." He flicked the comms on. "Flight, we're about ready here. First launch window is in... two minutes."

They had two more backup launch windows later on with the current burn schedule. With all the checks good though it looked like they were going with the first one.

"Best of luck Jool One." Gene's voice wafted across the cabin. "Kod be with you."

"Amen!" Jeb muttered as they prepped for acceleration.

After this they'd go into hibernation and when they awoke they'd be over two light minutes from Kerbin. Communications would be awkward.

The last couple of minutes were tense. They were all well aware that no Kerbal had ever gone as far as they were going, and this was pushing things to the limits.

"I just wish Wernher had got the nukes working in time." Jeb said under his breath.

"With the way the Council is rushing us it's no wonder he didn't have time for it. Still, our engine is pretty efficient. Don't worry, we'll get there intact, even without any LV-Ns."

Jeb raised an eyebrow. Jedwig was being nice again. That usually meant he was scared. Not a good sign.

"T minus five... four..." While Gene's voice read the count down Jeb double checked a couple of things, just to be sure, then tensed. "two... one... ignition!"

The drive lit and over half a gravity hit them roughly after their long hours in freefall. The little ship accelerated away from the Mun into a wide arc, heading out into the dark, out towards the large green planet called Jool.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Patupi
acceleration correction

[Patupi]

OK, I've been somewhat... erratic in naming different sections of my AAR 'parts' so I'm going to try to update it per post. One post is the next part from now on... if I can remember to do it! Also, apologies for delays with this update. I'm at work, doing this while the machine is running (and I can listen for danger!) and our server is incredibly slow (or rather the wireless network is) and often bombs out. Took me over three hours before this got posted and updated correctly.

[BPI_Bel]

Thanks for continuing to share this story with us. I have been following the whole time and I find your style to be quite entertaining.

[Patupi]

Thanks in return Bel Polaris. Nice to hear you like what I'm doing. I try

This one is a little shorter (and a little different in feel too), and not many pics... OK, one pic *shrugs* Even that was built together, and yes I did use the Eterno-Rest coffin for the hibernation pod. Hard not to. So far there aren't any hibernation mods out there, though a few are talking about it

Perchance to Dream

"Um, Rodsy?" came a voice out of nowhere.

Rodsy jerked and turned to see Jedwig nervously floating up to him.

"Oh, don't do that!" Rodsy said "You could give a Kerbal a heart attack like that!"

"Sorry... I... well have you noticed that Jeb seems... more on edge lately?"

Rodsy, normally warm hearted, eager and happy, was a still a little jittery after the scare.

"You mean he's not taking your nonsense right now?" He winced, regretting saying it immediately.

"Yeah, pretty much." Jedwig said without batting an eyelid. OK, this was weird. "I mean, OK, normally he doesn't let me get away with stuff, but he's... well, jovial about it. Right now he's more agressive than I've seen him in a while."

Rodsy managed to quell the urge to say 'Probably just realized he's stuck with you for the next few years.' A silence drifted with them for a few seconds, and eventually Rodsy found something tactful to say.

"Um, yeah. Does seem like it, with you at least." OK, not that tactful.

"Hmmm, maybe you could talk to him about it?"

Rodsy quirked an eyebrow at his commander.

"Seriously? I've known him all of the four weeks of training we did for this mission and that's it." He glanced up to the other end of the cabin where Jeb sat in the co-pilot's seat doing flight calculations to see if their trajectory was correct. "Besides, I'm not exactly the person you want for that. I tend to... blurt things on occasion."

A grin on Rodsy's face belied his inner qualms. He wanted to be friends with people, and he really tried. It was just he tended to say inappropriate things at odd times. The fact that Jedwig hadn't freaked already just meant he'd realised this over the last few weeks training with Rodsy. Dealing with Jeb's shenanigans had given Jedwig a somewhat hard shell against such things.

"Well, just keep an eye out. I worry for him."

Jedwig didn't catch the look of abject disbelief on Rodsy's face and instead just waved absently and floated back up the cabin to the pilots couch to finish his post flight checks.

"OK, weirder and weirder." Rodsy muttered and went back to his checks on the hibernation pods.

***

"Alright. Jeb? You get the one by the airlock on the dorsal side." Jedwig proclaimed when they were all ready. "Me and Rodsy will take the ventral ones. That means the bottom ones." He added, rather to the annoyance of Jeb.

Jeb didn't comment, being rather reticent for a change and he shifted in the awkward, one piece med-link body suit. They all wore them to send data to the ship's computer about their health during the hibernation period. Didn't make them comfortable though.

"OK, remember, according to our seminars the down cycle... going to sleep thing... only takes a few minutes. It's the up cycle, waking, that's going to take a while. Be prepared to cope with the disorientation and stamina loss."

Normally Jeb would have been both surprised Jedwig was going to the trouble of telling them these things again (since it wasn't only for his benefit) and annoyed he was going over the same things that KSC had drilled into them for their training. Now however he just felt drained. Almost as if he'd already been through the damned pods.

Yeah. This bothered him. His whole metabolism was going to be slowed down to a crawl and his body put into artificial, slow life support. Anything went wrong with the systems and... he'd never wake up. True, he lived with danger and the threat of death every day, but that was something he could fight, something he had the skills to deal with. This? He'd never even know it if it happened.

Shivering despite the raised temperature in the cabin he stepped into the pod, twisted around, and started going through the connection ritual the docs had taught him. Soon he was in (and Rodsy nearly done too opposite him) and the canopy hinged shut with a faint hiss.

"Don't worry you two. We'll be fine." Jedwig said as he stepped into his own chamber. "We'll be chatting away like nothing happened, and it'll all be mere moments for us."

Consciousness was fading now as the drugs started coursing through his system. He wanted to smash the glass, rip the sensors from his body and shout that this was all a big mistake... but he couldn't move.

Panic set in before he finally drifted into a medical coma, shortly followed by Jedwig.

In the rapidly cooling cabin, drifting between the worlds, a soft series of faint beeps were all that could be heard to indicate anyone was alive in the pod.

Jool One sped on, coasting towards it's destiny.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Patupi
Extraneous 'just'

[Patupi]

Another wall of text pretty much. Things will get better next time. More pics then Oh, and the pic is from a while back. That isn't when they wake up! That would be too easy

Arrival

Consciousness faded slowly in, drifting in waves of... what was that sensation?

"A... a... owww!"

Oh yes, pain!

Jeb winced, then regretted it as his eyelids rubbed raw against each other. Eventually, after some effort, they stickily came apart and he blinked at the blinding light in the cabin.

His whole body hurt, it was as if someone had stretched him head to foot, and every bit in between was slowly drawn apart.

Jeb started to panic.

"Welcome back Jebediah." A calm, female voice announced, dragging his attention from the pain. "You are now a time traveler! You have traveled forwards in time four hundred and ninety two days, while your body only aged seventeen days, and your mind barely even noticed a difference."

'I'll show you the difference.' Jeb tried to say, but his lips wouldn't cooperate and it came out more like a zombie moan.

"Please remain calm while your body recovers from the metabolic stabilizers and things get back to normal. Estimated time for recovery is five hours. Thanks to the metabolic changes you have experienced you will notice only minimal decalcification and muscle atrophy from your journey. Thank you for flying Von Wernher Timeways."

At least Wernher hadn't gotten his way and has his voice put into the computer! That was the last thing he needed to hear right now.

As his eyes got used to the dim light of the cabin and he could see again he felt the umbilicals disconnecting from the body suit. Even the suit was 'uncoupling' from him... a very disconcerting feeling. Panic started to set in again and he attempted to raise a hand to push the canopy open. Even in zero gravity it barely moved.

So much for no muscle atrophy!

"Euuuoooorrggg!" he mumbled and started to shimmy, hoping to knock the thing open.

"Easy, easy Jeb!" Jedwig said, and Jeb looked up, startled to see Jedwig floating upside down over his pod. He looked almost as bad as Jebediah felt. "It's OK. You're fine. Rodsy's waking too. *Ungh* Don't worry, it'll get better... slowly."

Gradually Jeb's frantic attempts at motion died down and he tried to be calm. It was hard, way too hard, but he managed. Jebediah, the kerbonaut who had faced death in the sky, ridden untested rockets in the early days, who had been the first into space, the first to space walk, the first on the Mun... had finally found something that really scared him.

It felt way longer than five hours!

***

Still shivering (Rodsy had insisted that was psychosomatic. Jeb's body had never been too cold) Jeb huddled in a ball, arm hooked around a 'float strap' on the wall of the main cabin. He'd more or less recovered from the experience but it still gave him pause, thinking back. At least the computer had been right, his muscles hadn't atrophied, it was just hard to get them working again. Slowly he was getting movement once more.

"Um, guys. What's that?" Rodsy said, pointing towards the flight consoles.

Jedwig and Jeb looked over and gaped. A red light was flashing!

"H... *cough* how could we have missed that?" Jeb gasped.

It seemed that Jedwig was flabbergasted too. He stumbled up out of the chair he was in and pushed himself over to the pilot's seat.

"Oh crud! Critical course correction alarm. Dated six days ago. Why weren't we woken sooner?"

"Critical?" Jeb gasped, somewhat more with it, the adrenalin kicking in. "How critical?"

Jedwig pulled himself down into the seat and strapped in, starting to skim data screens.

"I don't get it. There was some kind of fault according to this... quite a while ago. One hundred and eighteen days!?! An alarm went out then too. We should have been woken ages ago!"

"What kind of fault?" Jeb said, pushing himself up, a little shakily, towards the co-pilot's seat alongside Jedwig. "Brains, speak to me? Come on, what's wrong?"

"I'm getting power spike readings... fifteen times during the trip. Oh no. Is this from Seanbur's magnetic fields or something? Mostly nothing happened all these times, the system coped. Once... I think it's affected the central power regulation system first. That one didn't get flagged. Then the one a little over a hundred days ago it affected the RCS system. We got a nudge off orbit and the alert was triggered."

Eyes scanning across the screen Jedwig looked panicked while Jeb seemed to be getting calmer. This at least was familiar enough to him and he could do something about it... at least probably. He started going over his screen, monitoring the trajectory and seeing what the damage was.

"OK, looks like we're heading directly to Jool. As in 'head on collision'. We'll need to burn radially, if that means much on a direct impact course, to bring us into an aerobrake... it doesn't look good. It's going to use most of our fuel just to get the aerobrake to bring us to any altitude!"

"Oh, let me do it. I'll get us a better orbit." Jedwig said harshly.

"For heaven's sake, there isn't any give." Jeb said desperately. "We just need to burn out and pull our course up. It'll take just so much dv right now and that's it! The earlier we start the better!"

"There's always room to maneuver! Don't start giving me the 'Jeb knows all!' routine."

"What? Oh for Kod's sake! This isn't about you or me, this is basic orbital mechanics. I ju..."

"I'm just sick of you always having to be right." Jedwig fumed, glaring at Jeb. "I'll fix this! I'm way better at maths than you ever could be!"

"Just stop it Brains! We need to fix this now, as much as we can. If you think you can do it better, go right ahead. Just do it!"

"YOU AREN'T THE COMMANDER HERE! I DO THE ORDERING!" He shouted back, going lavender in the face.

"Brains, you just nee..."

"STOP CALLING ME BRAINS!"

"Uh... guys?" Rodsy's voice cut in, and both turned to look down the cabin to where Rodsy was pulling himself out of a service panel in the wall. "I think I've figured it out. It wasn't external."

Both looked at him as he waved a circuit board over his head.

"What is that?" Jedwig said.

"This is the power regulation controller for the primary bus. It's the wrong model."

Silence hung in the cabin for quite a few seconds. Eventually Rodsy broke it.

"It looks like someone miss-typed the requisition for the system. One digit. 045 rather than 043. The system is close, works most of the time, but about one time out of a hundred when it activates it bombs out and puts the power system briefly to maximum output. Power spikes."

"You're saying..." Jeb said, aghast at what this meant. "... This was... from a typo? Someone didn't check it?"

"What do you expect?" Jedwig said sullenly "Consider how much we were rushed to finish this thing!"

With resignation Jeb sank back, letting his belts pull him into his seat.

"The Council just killed us." He muttered.

"We are NOT dead yet!" Jedwig said, suddenly fierce again.

This time Jeb didn't contradict him. They had work to do!

***

It took nearly an hour to figure out the exact problem and make a jury rig around it. The spikes still happened but with an L.C. board plugged in it damped the effect, minimizing the effect to other systems.

Of course, while Jedwig plotted the burn, Jeb contacted KSC to give them the bad news. Seems they already knew from on-board telemetry streamed back to KSC. They hadn't noticed early on as Kerbin's radio telescopes couldn't accurately position such a small object as Jool One at extreme ranges, but once the errors were noticeable to Jool One's own computers they tried to waken it's crew remotely.

Needless to say it hadn't worked. Something had been overloaded by the power spikes and signals weren't getting through to the hibernation chambers. They were left to their own devices and just woke the crew at the appointed time anyway.

Gene was horrified, not only that this could have happened but that the problem was traceable to misappropriation. What was worse was that a couple of months after the launch The Council had bent to pressure from the government and had dialed back it's expectations... and unfortunately also it's funding allocations. Things were scarce right now, even if the frantic pace had been cut back.

"So basically we're left to our own devices." Jedwig said dejectedly.

"Come on Bra... Jedwig." Jeb said carefully. "We have a burn to do, then an aerobrake to perform. We'll make it, and after that we need to sort out which moon to go to to refuel us!"

Slowly Jedwig nodded and they started working things out. KSC called back while they were running the last sims. The time delay in conversations was annoying, but they agreed with the crew, all they could do was get into the aerobrake and hope things went well.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Patupi
Wrong duration of flight! Doh!

[Patupi]

OK, story aside... I goofed when I played this. Big time! I've done dozens of Jool missions before and thought it'd be easy. I even allocated more dv in the ship than usual and decided to go with a non-hohhman transfer. I was being too fancy by far! Lets just say I had no-where near as much dv when I got to Jool as I expected!

For what happened afterwards you'll have to wait till I post the rest of this.

[Patupi]

Aerobrake

The engines cut off abruptly and Jeb turned hastily to Jedwig.

"Well? Do we have it?"

The Commander frowned at his screens and shook his head.

"I'm not absolutely certain. Periapsis is one hundred and fifteen kilometers. Seems low to me, but the system indicates it should put us in the right orbit after aerobraking... Is it working right? I mean, yes, we're going faster than normal, but it still seems awful low."

Jeb raised an eyebrow.

"You saying you can't work this out in your head?" Jedwig glared at him in response and Jeb raised a hand defensively. "Hey, just asking!"

"I... just don't have enough information to plot it. Aerobrakes are tricky. If I had access to KSC plots and atmospheric analysis... but I don't think we have time to download the new data with our current low bandwidth. We're just going to have to trust this is right."

They both sat staring at the screen. Trust wasn't exactly high in the system, given what had just happened.

"Come on guys, cheer up!" Rodsy broke in, managing to regain his former cheeriness somehow. "Look, we survived the trip against insurmountable odds. Think of it! If we can do that we can do anything!"

"Yeah... right." Jedwig muttered sourly. He sighed, then leaned back with a forced smile. "OK, sure.... guess we've nothing left to do but wait for the aerobrake."

"Well, I think there is the small matter of scientific study as we approach a new world?" Jeb cut in.

They looked at each other and Jedwig finally nodded agreement.

"Sure, why not? We don't have much else to do."

Now Jeb didn't have the threat of impending hibernation hanging over his head (putting out of his mind the fact that he WOULD have to go back in soon! Their life support wouldn't last forever.) he was feeling somewhat better... and now Jedwig seemed to be getting depressed. This wasn't good. Jeb didn't think he was up for raising the guys spirits again. Not now at least. Well, all he could do was try.

"Hey, come on Jedwig." He said, managing not call him 'Brains' in time. "This is uncharted territory, the new frontier! The more data we can garner on the situation the better our simulations will be. Come on, surely you're up for more data?"

With a chuckle he nodded and they started activating sensors.

***

"I'm sorry, I can't let you do that." came the still oddly friendly female voice from the computer.

"Huh?" Jedwig said, after the odd report.

"Um guys, maybe we should cut the computer from the system and do it manually?" Rodsy said, moving over to the main breaker box.

Suddenly the Materials Analysis Unit gave a green light and began opening.

"Oh, that's not scary in the slightest, is it?" Jeb said warily.

"Yeah. Think we may need to check the computer." Jedwig said, pushing away from his seat and floating down the cabin.

'Well, at least he's got something to focus on.' Jeb thought to himself.

Jeb maintained a watch on the control systems while Jedwig and Rodsy started checking the computer main systems. After two hours of routing pathways they did eventually discover damage to four sub-memory units, probably caused by one of the many power spikes in their journey. They manually edited as much of the data as they could, transferred it to other memory, then removed the damaged chips.

While they worked Jeb watched the orb before them swell to a majestic arc of green that filled the window. The swirls of storms on the huge planet were mesmerizing and he was sure to take quite a few snapshots with his handicam. Gene would love these!

"OK, that should get things going again, though the computer will be somewhat low on active memory." Rodsy said when they were done.

"Well, I'd say we've got some time for a bit more scientific study before we hit atmo." Jeb said, waving to the sensor panel. "Come on, lets get cracking boss!"

With a sigh Jedwig pulled himself back into his seat and started warming up the sensors again. He too seemed to breifly smile as he gazed at the sight of Jool beneath them, but dug into the data aquisition systems and started to analyse what was coming in from Jool.

At least he was busy again.

***

Jool's horizon was now almost a straight line before them as they slid backwards towards the atmosphere. Everyone was buckled in and they'd strapped down anything that could drift free. They were about as ready as they could be.

On the rearview monitors Jeb could see the upper layers of Jool's atmosphere start to separate from the bulk of green below as they dropped below a hundred and sixty kilometers altitude.

"Nearly there. Everyone get ready!" Jedwig said, with a slight tremor in his voice.

Minutes past and the numbers on the altitude dial dropped slowly. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, slight shudders were felt through the hull.

"One forty." He stated calmly as the g-forces built and flames just began to wisp by the craft.

"Hey look!" Rodsy said, pointing at the rearview monitors. "Laythe!"

Sure enough, rising above Jool's surface a blue world swung into view, glinting in the sunlight.

"The first of the Joolian moons we've seen with the naked eye." Jeb said smiling. "That's a good omen if ever I saw one."

The shuddering started to get worse as they dipped deeper into the green sky, flames roaring past the ship and creaking groans started to sound from the structure.

"And that sounds like a bad omen to me!" Jedwig grunted as he visually scanned the screens, trying to find what was causing that noise.

"She can take it!" Jeb said, patting the console before him.

Now flames could be seen around the forward window as they reached a hundred and sixteen kilometers deep. They were nearly past the worst of it but the plot showed their apoapsis already in the Joolian system and dropping alarmingly. Nothing to do now but wait, and that was hard!

All three visiters swept across the Joolian sky, burning a trail of orange and crimson as their ship hammered it's way through green tinged clouds. Eventually the orange faded, flames flickered and died, and they soared once more into the black of space.

"We made it!" Jeb said with a grin, which promptly dropped as he saw Jedwig's face as he scanned the orbital report screens. "What... what's up Brains?"

Jedwig didn't answer at first, then just waved at the monitors. It took a few minutes to be sure, but it was obvious their orbit was way lower than it should be.

After almost an hour of checking and rechecking a rather dejected crew came to a very troubling conclusion and opened channels to KSC. Jedwig glanced from Rodsy to Jeb nervously before opening the mike.

"KSC, we have a problem. We don't have enough delta v to reach any of the Joolian moons and make orbit. We're going to need assistance."

Edited February 23, 2014 by Patupi

[KSK]

Great stuff! Loved the dynamic between Jeb and Jedwig, the 'bad things are usually attributable to a series of small events' build up to their current predicament and especially Jeb's fear of hibernation, which absolutely makes sense. Even in the computerised world of spaceflight, your Jeb is very much a hands-on pilot, so yeah - being completely at the mercy of the equipment and not being able to do a thing about it would be hard.

I liked the 2001 stuff too! Unless Jedwig has any orbital-mechanical wizardry he can bring to bear, I'm guessing the crew are going back into hibernation for a while. In which case Rodsy might want to double check the AE35 antenna steering module before he goes to sleep...

[Patupi]

Thanks KSK, I have to admit, it's good to finally get to this bit. Munbase was fun to play, but it didn't feel very exciting written down. To me at least. So, lets switch to KSC and see what they are doing. This actually was the first rescue mission I actually played through. I've had the odd disaster before but I don't think I ever did do the classic 'Send a rescue ship for that stranded Kerbal!' before this. Poor Kerbals must have starved to death on various moons.

Rescue Vessel Launch

Gene stood at his picture window in his office and stared across towards the VAB and the frantic activity around it. For months he'd been praying for more funding to build ships, and now he had it. It was true what they said. 'Be careful what you wish for... you might get it!'

*Knock knock!*

"Ahem, er Flight Director?" Came the familiar accented voice.

"Come in Wernher." Gene said without turning around. "I take it this isn't a private matter. Since when have you called me 'Flight Director'?"

"Ach, well, yes... Gene... I've run into some problems." Gene's head turned round and looked sardonically at the nervous looking scientist. "I know, I know. Nothing compared to what they're facing." He said, nodding his head skywards.

Gene sighed. Things had been rather hectic this last two days since the word came through that Jool One was stuck in a low orbit. Well, two thousand kilometers was low for a Jool orbit anyway. First recriminations, though surprisingly few from the Council. Next finger pointing, with the obligatory talk show presentations from all sides. Now... cash. Of course it came with strings attached. Frankly the limitations were ludicrous. 'Bring them back quickly before the public gets nasty' must have been scribbled in at the last moment on the thick memorandum (you could hardly call a three hundred and fifteen page work a simple 'Memo') that came from the government, but it was an apt summary.

Yes, of course they'd bring them back quickly. Life support problems alone dictated that. The problem was no matter how much fuel you threw at a problem it was simply a long way to go. With the electrical problems they still weren't absolutely sure the life support hadn't suffered during the trip. At present it was hovering at a little over eighty percent efficiency, which was good. No telling how fast it would drop when put under full use for more than a couple of days though.

"Um.." Wernher continued, breaking Gene's train of thought. "We have a tentative design put together, planned to get there in one hundred days."

Gene suddenly turned around and gaped at Wernher.

"A hundred days? How in heck did you manage that?"

Wernher shrugged.

"Honestly? The budget went up, so we just upped the size of the rocket. Right now design plans are for a nine hundred ton unit, assembled at the launch pad."

OK, that was incredible. Even the Munbase ship had only been a little over five hundred tons!

"And we can build that? Reliably?" Wernher nodded. "Good god, if we'd only had that kind of resource to throw at Jool One this wouldn't have been the...nasty problem we have now."

He'd been about to say 'Disaster' but managed to stop himself. Can't think like that! We haven't lost anyone in space in over ten years! Not going to start now!

"Herr Director? I don't think it is helpful to think like that." Wernher said,echoing Gene's thoughts "We have what we have and have to make do. At present the Council seems to be attempting to make sure no blame sticks to themselves. I say we just do the best we can and ensure the same for ourselves."

Gene couldn't help but notice that, despite some mannerisms, Wernher seemed to suddenly have lost most of his accent. He decided it wouldn't be helpful to point this out right now.

"OK, so a hundred days there. I take it that will be a quick trip back too?"

"Well, it's using approximately seven thousand dv to get there, but it is carrying very little in extraneous weight. We actually have three K-sats attached in the designs at present to alleviate the need for the mothership to venture to each world and spend time scanning. Right now time is of the essence, yes? Well, the vessel is mostly fuel tanks, three of the new LV-N's we've been testing these last few months and one skipper to assist with launch. I'm not sure whether to have the skipper detach to save weight or not. Having a high thrust propulsion system on the craft later might be advantageous and it doesn't loose that much from the added weight."

Wernher coughed, looking more nervous.

"What is bothering me more, " he continued, "is that to get that schedule it needs to use most of it's fuel to reach Jool. Again we will be dependent on the lander to mine the return fuel."

"We based the entire Jool One mission around that philosophy Wernher. Why change now? No, if we can get it to them faster like this all the better. It will take much less than a hundred days to reach a moon and refuel there, even assuming a lot of landings and launches."

"True, but what I worry about are those multiple landings and launches. This is a big ship and will need many trips by the lander. Current estimate is between ten and twelve journeys. That is a lot of trips and in a short period of time. The lander has ten days of life support for it's occupant and the longer it is used the more chance it has to go wrong. Beyond that there are hundreds of chances for mechanical problems with the lander that could happen every time it launches or lands. The more they need to do the bigger the risk."

"I think they can handle that side of it. Jeb's been doing this for a long time, and Jedwig... well, despite his shortcomings he is a good pilot. I'm sure they'll pull through that."

"Only one of them. As I said, there is minimal equipment beyond engines and fuel tanks on this and for it to carry the lander the main Jool One craft will have to be left in low Joolian orbit. The other two will hibernate again and wait for the ship to refuel and return. Then the fueler can undock from the lander and dock to the Jool One and carry it home. It's engines are much more efficient that those the Jool One possesses."

"I see, so someone is going to have to stay awake this whole time huh?" Gene pondered Jedwig's reluctance about Jeb's acceptance of command authority. He wouldn't want to let Jeb roam around alone most likely. "I think we know who that will be." He said with a glum face.

Relying on Jedwig to do that kind of mission... not ideal to say the least.

"Things will turn out OK sir, I know they will. As you can see the teams are already building the scaffolding for assembly, even though the rocket has not yet been even started construction on yet. I did assume I had the go ahead to do that?" Gene smiled and nodded. "Good. Vell, I think zat covers it. I vill get back to the design laboratory and zee vhat I can do to tveak it a little, Ja?"

Gene had to resist the temptation to chuckle at Wernher. Sometimes he was really weird with that accent of his.

"Er, yes. You do that Wernher. I'll certainly sign off on your design. I know I can count on you."

With a friendly pat on the shoulder Gene showed him out and sighed. Now, again, he didn't have much else to do than stare down at the VAB as the activity continued to increase. Soon he'd be busy again as this whole base got working once more.

He just hoped they'd be in time to save Jool One and it's crew!

***

Dunkel spat on the pavement and crossed his arms as he stared at 'The Abomination 2' as he liked to call it (He'd talked to Bob about that of course). Ending up over a thousand tons in mass, just the orbiting section had a total of ten thousand eight hundred delta v, and had taken over a month to build (Now they could take the time to do it right!). It also included three Kethane scanning satellites to check out moons of Jool, and the whole rocket was entirely automatic. Well, once it got beyond remote control range anyway.

Even from down here he could see, way up on the top of the ungainly mass of tanks and struts, a faint light blinking from the new, improved mechjeb unit. Apparently it could now automatically adjust for atmospheric drag and predict orbital courses after aerobraking, and even where your sorry piece of junk was going to crash after being lightly crisped after re-entry.

At least that was the way he'd described it to Gene. Dunkel didn't think Gene had got the joke.

"Isn't it beautiful?" a young voice said from behind him.

Dunkel turned slowly to see... oh, what was his name. That geek from Mission Control... Ipswich? Iphop? Ipdel, that was it Ipdel.

"Uh, yeah.... beautiful." Dunkel said noncommittally as he turned back to Emergency Fuel Transport One as it sat on the pad. "So, you gonna be flying that... ship?"

Ipdel nodded enthusiastically, still staring at it.

'Was I ever that green?' Dunkel wondered to himself.

"How long before it goes autonomous? I mean, signal degradation alone's a problem much beyond the Kerbin system and the whole light speed signal delay... Huh!"

The young electronics specialist quirked an eyebrow at the elder engineer questioningly.

"Um, about twenty to twenty five million kilometers we'll start to get significant degradation. Enough that we can't get the bandwidth for full navigational readouts in real time. Theoretically we can still control it further out and allow for both bandwidth limitation and signal delay, but realistically there is a threshold when..."

Dunkel glazed over. Good god that Kerbal could talk! He heard odd words wash over him. S-plane analysis. Signal to noise ratios. Intermediate frequency shifting. Phase analysis... OK, Dunkel knew what they were, he was an engineer after all! Though he was self taught. This kid... this was just over the top!

"... And allowing for current planetary configurations it's not optimal. I mean Kerbin is in opposition to Jool right now, leaving a signal delay of over four minutes! The ramifications of just current problems from data analyses from Jool One have been just..."

"Yes... OK..." Dunkel butted in a little harshly. "I just... realized I have to... be somewhere. Wow, would you look at the time? You take care Ipdel. Be seeing ya!"

Waving happily, with perhaps a little too much of a fixed grin on his face Dunkel strode off towards the VAB. Ipdel stood with a smile, waving back till he was gone. Then he let out a sigh.

"Dang! I thought he'd never leave. Almost ran out of stuff to say! Sheesh!" he muttered, shaking his head and then heading towards Mission Control.

***

"T-Minus Five... four... three..."

Ipdel stared fixedly at his displays, full monitoring equipment relaying everything to his terminal from EFT-1. The last countdown settled and he watched the prefeed on the fuel lines steady, then reach full pressure. With a glare the ignition system lit and the engines flared, vibrating under the huge structure.

"Liftoff!" Gene's voice echoed into Mission Control.

They could feel the vibration from here as the huge rocket blasted off the pad. It shook a bit, and Ipdel worried that the fifth stage tanks were vibrating too much. Would the connections hold?

Slowly it rose from the pad and gradually gained speed, inching into the sky atop a blaze of smoke and fire. The big screen and all the smaller side screens showed various views of the massive craft as it headed ever upwards. A minute later the twelve solid rocket 'helpers' separated from the still roaring fifth stage, effectively making a semi-sixth stage all it's own, and the craft's acceleration slowed, but only briefly.

Ipdel held his breath almost as he watched the figures. Frequencies of oscillation were stabilizing between tanks. That wasn't good! They did not want resonance to amplify anything. But the vibrations didn't worsen and soon the ship started to turn over. The fifth stage was a big one, huge tanks linked to nineteen Skipper rocket engines. The ship actually went into it's gravity turn before that stage was done.

At thirty seven kilometers altitude the fifth stage was finally done and Ipdel watched nervously as the readings suddenly jumped, a heavy jerk translated through the ship as they were jettisoned. Another explosion (controlled thank Kod!) echoed from the sky as the fourth stage kicked in.

Ipdel leaned back, letting out a heavy sigh. The hard part was over, the rest was a more normal flight and he started to relax. It was going to work!

"Good job people!" Gene said proudly. "Now lets get this thing heading to Jool."

Edited October 27, 2014 by Patupi
Extra 'Have'... at least no extra have nots. :)

[Patupi]

Problems

Yet again Jeb struggled awake, the stickiness, the unresponsiveness of his body, and... oh yes... the pain.

"Uuuuurrrgh!" he groaned, shuddering as much as he could given his lack of control.

"Don't worry Jeb. You'll soon be up and around again."

Jeb managed to shakily turned his head, just in time to see Rodsy holding a 'Goo Bag' to his face.

*HUUURRRL* "Ooooh I don't feel good." He moaned, filling the bag quite effectively.

Jeb seconded that thought. He could use a Goo Bag himself right about now.

***

"How long?"

Jeb had barely managed to keep his head still, and Jedwig's revelation had made his head literally spin.

"One hundred and thirty one days." Jedwig repeated. "I thought you'd be pleased?"

"I... am." Jeb said lamely, trying to ignore the hurling noises from behind the partition. "I just didn't believe it. How on Kerbin did they manage to get a ship here in that amount of time?"

"Beats me. I haven't seen all the data yet, just read the summary in that last recording. Seems the triple secure remote wake up call worked. We didn't need our planned wake up every hundred and fifty days after all."

After the disaster of the aerobraking, when it had finally sunk in that there was no way to fudge the numbers to get them into an orbit around a moon (at least with enough fuel to land on it) they had come to the reluctant decision that they had to go into hibernation again, hoping that KSC could come up with a rescue mission soon.

Needless to say Jeb had been none too keen on the idea. It had taken a lot of explaining, pleading, begging, and the occasional bribe, to get Jeb to go back in. But now they were out again, and rescue seemed near.

It seems the boffins back home had out-done themselves. The new ship, even on a bad phase angle between Kerbin and Jool, had traveled the distance in less than a quarter the time they'd done it in.

Now, EFT One was entering the Jool system, preparing to aerobrake automatically and use the new atomic engines to match orbits with Jool One. A lot of information had been downloaded during their hibernation and the crew were gradually trying to catch up on the good news... and some bad news.

"Why? Why couldn't they have just send it slower? It could have held enough fuel to take us directly home."

"Um..." Jedwig said, while Jeb still fumed. "Haven't reached that bit yet."

Jedwig was going over a review of 'KSC Update #142' and attempting to pass on the relevant information to the crew. After a few minutes Jeb decided the slight twitch Jedwig was developing in his right eye was probably a bad sign.

"OK... do you want the good news or the bad news?"

Jeb groaned and found himself doing a perfect, zero gravity face palm. Did leave him spinning slightly though.

"Um... Good?" Rodsy chimed in while Jeb managed to steady himself. The young kerbonaut was still not quite his rosy self after his brief bout of space sickness.

"OK, seems they had to work fast to get here as early as they did so our life support wouldn't fail before getting back to Kerbin."

"That's the good news?" Jeb groaned. "What's the bad news?"

"That even as fast as they are going, our life support is going to be taxed when we wake up at Kerbin orbit finally. We're going to have to do the final maneuvers rather carefully with only a few days awake, or rely on KSC to remote guide us in if any course changes are necessary." Jedwig said slowly. "Right now, if we completely refuel the ship via mining and head home on immediately it will probably be something like another... maybe two hundred day journey home. The extra mass of Jool One slows the ship basically. Best guess is we'll have at most three days of life support when we wake."

"But our original plan called for us to take a little over three hundred days to get back to Kerbin anyway. Isn't that about the same, all told?" Rodsy said nervously. "We were supposed to have almost seven days life support by then."

"Yeah, if everything was working right. Something must have been stressed by all the power spikes. KSC thinks our life support is fading faster than planned, but no-one is exactly sure how long we have on it. This is all estimates at present."

Silence drifted in the cabin along with the three Kerbals for a while as they digested this. Finally Rodsy broke it.

"Well, at least we have a plan now. Don't worry, it'll work!" He said with a grin, though perhaps not quite as cheerful as it usually was.

***

It was nearly three days later when EFT One edged in to Jool, with Jeb monitoring the aerobraking. Right now they were relying on Jool One's own life support as much as possible, not taxing the lander's, so they had maybe six more days before they had to hibernate again. At least two them would have to. One had to fly the lander. The decision about who that would be still hadn't been made.

"She looks good." Jeb said, watching the reports as EFT One started it's dive into the green sky of Jool.

On his monitor flames licked across a camera view from the port side of the ungainly ship. It seemed stable and on a pop up window a plot showed the advanced Mechjeb's predictions of orbit interception after aerobrake, still plotted at a hair under two thousand kilometers apoapsis, just meshing with their own periapsis. Unfortunate that the orbits coincided like that. It would have been better if they could have matched at Jool One's apoapsis, but you couldn't have everything.

A sudden whistle of amazement jerked Jeb a little. Jedwig had been watching over his shoulder apparently.

"Wow, over eleven kilometers a second? That's a heck of a speed to be tearing into the atmosphere. Can it withstand that?"

"Once, yeah. Ablative material on the underside, though the engines themselves can withstand a good deal more than that as far as the raw heat is concerned. They may be slightly ablated on the external sections of the nozzles, but there are ablative shutters to protect the main parts of the engine bell. It'll be good. Luckily the dive back into Kerbin's atmosphere at the end of this will be a good deal less frenetic. Though it'll likely wreck the engines even then. We'll probably have to use Jool One's engines to stabilize the orbit there."

Jedwig nodded. He'd been rather quiet this whole time since waking. Jeb had come to know him quite well and realized there was something on his mind. He'd been letting it slide, hoping he'd open up, but now with rendezvous nearing Jedwig had been getting even more withdrawn. Jeb had an idea what this was about and it was probably not a good idea to let it go any longer.

"So..." Jeb said cautiously. "Who's flying the lander?"

At first Jedwig didn't answer, just grabbing the hand-hold near his seat beside Jeb and pulling himself to float beside him. When Jeb looked up he saw Jedwig staring out through the window at the sight of Jool's atmosphere, it's storms seemingly frozen from their point of view. Anyone dunked in them would disagree when they felt four hundred kilometer an hour winds, but out here at this distance it looked serene.

"Yes." Jedwig said finally, still staring out the window. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

Jebediah felt himself tense. He'd put off thinking of a third batch of hibernation, the horrors of putting his life in a damaged machine's hands again, but realized it had been unconsciously weighing on him. Yeah, of course Jedwig was the natural choice for the position wasn't he? With the computers possibly compromised, and here they had a guy who could do most of the calculations without the computers anyway.

Oh god, he was going to have to under again!

"You're going to have to do it."

At first what Jedwig said didn't register, then Jeb gaped at him.

"What?" he managed weakly.

Jedwig turned to face his second in command and Jeb could see fear in his eyes.

"I've done a solo mission to another planet Jeb, and that one went as planned. It's not... pleasant." The guys hands were actually shaking slightly. "I work best in a controlled environment, with lots of information to make decisions on, lots of... well, lets say Duna was not actually 'fun' for me. I did it, but I can't say it was my skill that pulled it off."

Slowly he pushed himself round to look at Jeb straight on and he gulped slightly, obviously his mouth dry as he licked his lips.

"You thrive on the unknown Jeb. You launched on rockets before they even knew what the properties of the upper atmosphere were, let alone the Melvy belts or conditions in orbit in general. You can take an unknown situation and run with it, manage things on the fly and have proven you're good repairing ships off world as well, should anything go wrong." He paused for a second. "I hate to do it, as I've been running the numbers."

Jeb's brow furrowed for a few minutes.

"What do you mean?"

"Our best bet is Bop. Lightest gravity here, a small body with the likelihood of kethane deposits near the surface slightly higher due to less convection in the mantle of..." Jedwig paused, realizing he was switching into 'science explanation mode' and visibly reigned himself in. "Well, best choice anyway. But even with that it'll take a few days, probably two or three, to get there, then a lot of landings and launches to refuel EFT One. KSC estimates ten such trips."

Again Jedwig paused and Jeb began to see where he was going with this. Oh Kod!

"Yeah," Jedwig said, seeing realization spread on Jeb's face, "it looks like the whole trip, out to Bop, refueling then returning, will likely take about thirty days. The Lander's life support at the moment can sustain one person for ten."

"That... is a problem!" Jeb managed weakly.

Un-noticed on his monitor, clear of atmosphere once more, EFT One automatically made it's maneuvering burn to finally tune it's orbit to coincide with Jool One. The crew had less than a day till it arrived to figure out how to get the Lander and it's pilot to last long enough to get the fuel back to them.

[Patupi]

EFT Rendezvous

It had been a hectic day as they struggled to bolster the life support of the little lander. The only way they could do it was to push it past it's limit, and this meant the life support would likely fail completely after it's stint out at Bop. That was fine, they would dump the craft when it got back to the Jool One anyway.

"Is it going to be enough?" Rodsy worried, for at least the tenth time.

"Honestly, we don't know." Jedwig said nervously. "The system is not meant to be used like this. But aside from the unknown life support duration the whole thing could just catastrophically fail. Increasing tank pressure to 200% isn't disastrous in itself. There's a danger of leaks or explosion, but it'll get used up and get down to a reasonable pressure soon. The other issues are what worry me. The catalytic disassociators running on high voltage. Air and water pumps with safeties removed. The electrification of the filters in attempt to clean them in-situ. It's all very nasty. Things could go horribly wrong part way through."

The was a dry chuckle from behind the two.

"Aww, you're just saying that to make me feel better." Jeb said as he suited up.

"Jeb, a failure in just one system could snow-ball and cause the whole thing to collapse. On reserve air you'd last a day, tops. Barely enough time to get back here from Bop on a high speed transit. Assuming you'd mined enough fuel by then to attempt that."

Jeb stared back at Jedwig and nodded slightly.

"I know." He said softly. "And thanks for caring."

Jedwig blushed and coughed.

"Don't be ridiculous! I just want you to bring the fuel back! Without it we'll be stuck here."

A grin crested Jeb's face.

"Of course Brains, of course. I'll believe you." and he winked before he slid his helmet on and fastened it tight.

Jedwig just stared back as Jeb finished getting ready, then the Commander turned to the panel.

"Looks like EFT One is on final approach. Best get out there. Last exterior check and all." He said, his throat dry.

"Sure boss. Keep a seat warm for me." Jeb said and kicked over to the airlock.

***

Outside Jeb did a cursory check of the Jool One just to be sure everything was OK. The crew could check it themselves before they went back into hibernation. Off in the distance he thought he could make out a faint moving dot. Was that the EFT One? Probably.

"Hmm, be here soon. Best get started." He muttered to himself, then activated his flight pack and jetted away from the vessel, over to the Lander.

On first inspection it all seemed pretty good. He could see where they'd cut and welded in a couple of extra heat sinks for the primary power bus they'd installed. Once plugged into the EFT One that should be able to handle the extra power for life support needs at least.

A few minutes later, after going over every modification they'd done this last day, he could see the 'dot' in the distance gain substance. Yup, that was definitely the EFT One. It was slowing down. He RCSed his way to the Lander hatch and opened it up. Fairly familiar little thing used on most of KSC's small one kerbal ships. With a little wriggling he slipped down and into the seat that would be his home for the next month. Not exactly comfortable, but it'd do.

"Jeb, I got EFT inbound. Plot says it's about two minutes from matching speeds about four hundred meters off our port side, starboard for you."

Jeb looked and saw the ship, still mostly a dot, moving in, flickering slightly now with the faint emissions of the nuclear drives.

"I'm about ready here. Switching on the upgraded life support and disconnecting from the Jool One system." He said, then paused with his finger over the switch.

This was it!

He closed his eyes and flipped it, then heard a faint thrum from behind him. Dials turned, numbers altered on the main panel, then the exterior connection shut down.

"It works!" He said.

"Don't sound so surprised!" Jedwig bit back. "I designed most of it!"

"Ahh, then my ghost will have someone to blame then? Good." Jeb said jovially.

The only response he got from Jedwig was a grunt. Rodsy spoke up then.

"OK, Jeb sir? We're just about ready to undock here. Just waiting for the EFT to park. Want to be sure the automatics work OK."

Outside, to Jeb's right he saw the dot gain shape, the engine exhausts slowing as it came closer and got slower. Finally, it's acceleration diminishing, it slid to a stop, the glow from it's engines dying down.

"That looks like a bit more than four hundred meters." Jeb said.

Jedwig reluctantly agreed.

"I think the computer decided it was unsure of conditions and went into safe mode."

"Don't fret. I've enough fuel and tons of RCS." Jeb said. "I'll get there."

After a few more double checks Rodsy released the clamps and the mag lock and the docking ports uncoupled. Slowly Jeb gave a burst on the RCS and the Lander slid away from Jool One. With gentle puffs of vapor Jeb maneuvered clear and swung to point at the EFT.

"OK, ignition." Jeb said, and set throttles as he accelerated away. "And cut. Gonna drift in and use RCS to slow at target."

"Acknowledged Lander." Jedwig replied.

***

With a clunk the docking collars mated and the Lander was docked to EFT One.

"I'm done. Doing post flight checks before going out to lock the docking ports in tight." Jeb said, chuckling to himself.

"You sound way too happy for someone heading off into a very risky enterprise Jeb."

"Hey, I'm flying a ship further from Kerbin than anyone has ever before. Why shouldn't I be happy?"

"Fine, but snigger about it on your own time will you?" Jedwig said shortly.

"OK, spoilsport!"

Jeb leaned back and took a minute to just relax. It was nice to just be alone for a change after being stuck in that small cabin with Rodsy and Jedwig. But, he did have work to do so after a way too small a break he popped the hatch (he hadn't bothered to pressurize it) and went out again.

The EFT looked a rather blocky somehow, but he welcomed the three probes sitting out there. At least he wouldn't have to sit and wait for his ship to scan Bop, and he could do another couple of moons too. The plan called for Laythe and Vall, the most likely for the next mission to visit. Yes, the next. They hadn't quite discussed it, but all on the Jool One crew knew their original plan to check out the various moons was a bust. They didn't have enough reliable life support duration to risk it, even if he brought enough fuel back from Bop. And the last thing they needed was to use fuel up on landings, then find they had to go back to Bop to refuel again!

As he jetted around his new craft he got the tools ready to lock down the KAS struts. After Rodsy's attempt to re-link the Lander and Jool One after refueling in Mun orbit, Jeb was rather adamant he'd do a better job (He still thought it was more to do with Jedwig's docking than anything Rodsy did though).

It took quite a while to tie together all the struts, and half way through he backed off and looked down on the ship he had now.

"Not bad Dunkel, not bad at all. Could use a lick of paint perhaps."

His 'visual check' complete he jetted back alongside the docking collar and started strutting again. It didn't take too long to finish and soon he was snapping and locking the last one into place.

"OK, I'm done!" He proclaimed.

"Well bully for you." Jedwig said. "So you're talking to us again huh?"

"Hmm? Oh sorry." Jeb said, realizing he'd been rather quiet this whole time. "Got carried away."

"Hey, that's OK." Rodsy chimed in. "I'm just glad that the best pilot is out there for this!"

There was a slightly strangled sounding grunt that Jeb thought was probably from Jedwig before Rodsy realized what he'd just said.

"Oh, I didn't mean... Um... You're perfectly OK at piloting Jedwig!"

"Perfectly 'OK'. Oh joy. Thank you for that glowing recommendation Rodsy."

While those two were 'chatting' Jeb scooted round to the hatch once more and slid inside, carefully easing the flight pack into it's niche. With a clunk the hatch closed and he pressurized the cabin again. He just thanked Kod those two wouldn't have to be awake together for too long. Plus they seemed to deal with hibernation better than Jeb... did.... Oh he hadn't. Had he? Could Jedwig have arranged it for Jeb to be out here just so he wouldn't have to do one extra session in hibernation? He better not have!

Jeb reached for the comms, then paused. If he forced Jedwig to switch places with them now they'd just be wasting time and resources, resources they desperately needed. Slowly he withdrew his hand. Yeah, best let him win this one. And it had nothing to do with Jeb not wanting to go back into that damned tank. Nothing at all.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Patupi
various typos

[Patupi]

OK, the more observant of you may have noticed the real reason the EFT had K-sats strapped to it... I forgot to add on a scanner to the Jool One or it's Lander! *doh* I did consider making that a feature. IE, when they got there the scanner failed to initialise, or was damaged by the power spike, but decided to ignore it, at least as far as the story went.

[Precambrianmollusc]

Just here to say this is awesome, waiting for the next installments.

Apologies for interrupting the story flow.

[Patupi]

*smiles* No apologies necessary. I like feedback, positive or negative... as long as there's no shouting... then I go hide in the corner

[Patupi]

Satellites and Satellites

First things first. While he started to set up his trajectory Jeb warmed up one of the K-sats and went through it's pre-flight checks. As he went through the procedures he saw the lights slowly going out through the windows in Jool One. Yeah, they were getting ready for hibernation. An involuntary shiver ran down Jeb's spine.

Once finished with the pre-flight he prepped the first K-sat and disconnected it. The board lit up with feed-back and telemetry as it's on-board system double checked it's location.

"OK little fella, lets get you on your way." He said.

These little sats had plenty of delta v so he didn't wait for a window, especially as Laythe was (relatively) close by. Nearest target, nearest launch. The other's he'd wait for a little better launch position for Vall and Bop. The little engine warmed up and soon it was on it's way, burning off away from Low Jool Orbit.

"Hmmm...." He pondered, watching the power meters.

That wasn't right. It looked like the power readouts from the solar panels read maybe two thirds of what they'd expected from these things according to the notes Dunkel had left with the EFT's computers. With power settings like that it was likely it wouldn't charge up well in the daylight while orbiting moons. He'd have to be careful with it's orbit to maximize power input. Hmm, maybe he could adjust the other two sats and move some of their panels into a grouping on one side? That'd get more power available to charge the batteries. Pity he hadn't realized that for the first one, but no way to tell before it was really activated.

"Jool Lander?" Came Jedwig's voice from the panel. "We're just about ready to hibernate. We've gone over the checklist a couple of times here. Anything you've thought of that we've forgotten to do?"

Jeb did a mental recap but couldn't come up with anything.

"Not that I'm aware of. Have a nice nap you two."

"Sure Jeb. Take care and for Kod's sake be careful out there!" Jedwig said, then signed off.

Jeb was alone.

....

He shrugged, expecting to feel 'the loneliness of isolation' getting to him or something.... Naaahhh. Whistling to himself he got his kit together ready to jury rig something for K-sats two and three.

***

Jool was beautiful this close. Jeb hadn't really appreciated it during his last EVA, as focused on the EFT as he was. Now he was glad for some time alone with the planet. The wisps of white on green were mesmerizing and he had to force himself back to the task at hand. Solar panels! Come on Jeb, get with it.

He took the one he'd removed from K-sat two and slid to the other side of the little satellite and welded in place behind the other two on that side, then rigged up a cable to link it into the satellite's power network. His voltmeter seemed to indicate everything was good so he backed off to see how it looked.

Great! As long as he kept that side to the sun he wouldn't have any power problems on these two. He readied the cutting torch again and the snips and headed over to K-sat three to repeat the procedure.

Soon he'd have all three on their way and he could head for Bop himself.

***

Jeb had changed his mind. Once back in the cabin he only released and launched K-sat two, that would head for Vall. The one for Bop he kept on board. The Vall window was a little ways off, but Bop was coming up. However, to get a good trajectory for Bop he'd have to do some fancy flying. Doing it twice, once for the K-sat and once for his ship, really didn't appeal to him. So he left it connected to the EFT while he plotted his course.

His fuel was... well, not critical, but tight enough, so he was careful to leave himself plenty of spare for final course changes at Bop. That meant some... interesting maneuvers to get there.

Sitting back in the acceleration couch as the nuclear engines of the EFT lit he watched his course laid out and smiled. The couch hardly helped really. The way his ship was docked he was upside-down and hanging from the straps! Still, the acceleration was pretty low.

Looping past Laythe to use it's oberth effect for a small burn, then doing a swing around Tylo for final intercept at Bop. He cut it rather close to Laythe's atmosphere, but could adjust a little en-route if needed. Jeb wasn't worried.

Once the initial burn to leave LJO was over he laid his head back and took a rest. It was at least nine hours before the Laythe rendezvous.

***

Jeb hadn't really been able to sleep much. He'd woken, a fast fading dream of running after Jedwig who for some reason he couldn't catch up to, despite him being asleep at the time. He shouted but Jedwig wouldn't wake up! He much preferred that other dream he had on occasion. The 'all you can eat desert menu' on Minmus.

Instead of sleeping some more, or at least trying, he filled his time with various checks on the course and a few cat-naps here and there. He even sent a few messages back to KSC, but with the time delay measured in minutes it was rather monotonous conversation. He was pretty much alone out here. But soon enough he reached his first moon.

Laythe. Couldn't see much yet, but still the little blue ball was welcoming. Someday he'd set foot on that moon, but right now he had to do some science while he could spare the time. When he got low things would get rather hectic, doing his burn and trying not to crash as he passed by. That last bit was rather important.

First he monitored the satellite that had gone in ahead of him as it headed into it's own aerobraking maneuver, while at the same time warming up the science package on the Lander. While instruments examined Laythe from afar he gave a few tweaks to K-sat One's course so it should get a nice polar orbit.

The report from 'Junior' was a little alarming. This little lander didn't have the extensive radiation shielding around the capsule that Jool One did. It wasn't really designed for long term habitation! Still, so far it seemed tolerable, and he wouldn't be in Laythe SOI for long anyway. Out at Bop the levels should be way lower.

By now the K-sat had started it's atmospheric approach and Jeb got ready to do some real-time course adjustments if needed. Watching the little remote guidance screen he could see it start to edge into the outer reaches of Laythe's atmosphere, and soon flames began to course around the tiny craft. It didn't have a dedicated heatshield, but the speed of entry wasn't steep and the engine coped quite well with the moderate heating. The tiny craft slowed rapidly, then left the air of Laythe surprisingly un-exploded.

It's engine worked quite well for circularization, though it's orbit wasn't aligned with the terminator. With it's solar panels not as efficient as planned, and without Jeb's emergency fix for the other two sats, it would brown out on the dark side before getting power back on the light side, and not enough power to fill the batteries before night time descended once more. He couldn't do it now as he was too busy, but later he'd tweak the orbit to be over the terminator with what fuel was left in the satellite.

Still it did work though it would take twice as long to scan the whole moon for Kethane. The other satellites should do better.

Now it was the Lander's turn to head into Laythe and he focused on the timing for his burn at periapsis. This would be tricky. However he was interrupted by something special. Blue light flooding into the capsule as it rotated and he gazed up as Laythe swam into view. This close the view was even better than Jool.

He definitely wanted to come back here! Still, no time just sit and gaze! He got back on the controls and readied for the burn.

This was a tricky one, a few seconds here or there and he could dip into the atmosphere and wreck his course adjustment, and his later meeting with Tylo. Such complicated courses helped a lot in getting trajectories on low fuel, but they tended to amplify little adjustments into huge variances in the end. He just hoped Rodsy was right and he was good enough to manage this!

Racing in at breakneck speed the lander swung past Laythe quickly enough that he could easily see the moon swelling and moving against the background stars as he plotted.

Nearly there. Nearly....

"Ignition!" he said aloud and tripped the safety switches, letting the nuclear engines of the EFT let rip once more. Even with the bulk of that ship connected to him he could feel the acceleration. Mainly as the craft didn't have that much mass, it's fuel mostly gone.

He edged around the curve of the moon, the oxygenated atmosphere calling to him, wanting to pop in for little visit. Jeb resisted stoically. Um, was he feeling alright? Shaking his head and attempting to keep his mind on the business at hand he watched the maneuver dv drop till finally he cut the drive and sighed. He'd stayed out the atmosphere and was on course. If he needed any further minor corrections he could do it outside the Laythe system.

"Not bad if I do say so myself." He said, chuckling... then wondered who he was talking to.

Blinking Jeb coughed and tried do some checks on the ship. Something to keep his mind off what awaited him once the whole refueling deal was over. He wasn't exactly thrilled by the thought of the journey back to Kerbin.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Patupi
Planet... Moon... what's the difference, right?

[Patupi]

Bop

The remote systems were working well. Jeb was monitoring and adjusting the course of K-sat two as it careened into the Vall SOI. So far so good, and his own course seemed on track too. Any minor variations he should be able to fix after his swing by Tylo. Before then, well, his plot was a little erratic based on limited sensor information. Should stabilize as he got past Tylo and he could be sure of things.

K-sat two shifted a hair to port and ignited it's little engine once more under Jeb's tutelage as he nudged it into a polar orbit. From this angle of approach he couldn't get a shot along the terminator immediately, but he didn't have any time pressure on maneuvering the lander this time so he'd fix the orbit alignment later. Heck it had plenty of fuel anyway.

He plotted the burn and sat back to wait. The actual burn was a bit of an anti-climax, but it was there at least. After twisting it's orbit over the poles he got a pretty good alignment so it could see the sun the whole time. That way he'd be sure it wouldn't bomb out from lack of power. True, the adjustments to the panel layout would have meant it should be fine anyway, but best be sure. While he was at it he re-aligned the course on K-sat one around Laythe so it was flying over the terminator. That was a little low on fuel. Probably because he'd been a little off optimum with the injection from the Jool One to Laythe in the first place.

Well, not a lot to do now but wait for the Tylo intercept. Jeb glanced around the cabin and realised he didn't have a whole lot to do. It was a convoluted course he had, about three days to Tylo, then another four to Bop. Not exactly ideal, but good on fuel. It should leave him with plenty to circularize and land on Bop.

....

Yeah, not a lot to do at all...

Jeb twiddled his thumbs for a few minutes then started rummaging in whatever was in the locker. Snacks of course, but beyond that there were only a few magazines, scientific periodicals unfortunately. Well, it was something.

***

He'd read them all... twice... before he arrived at Tylo. Unfortunately it was just a bland hunk of rock, and his flyby was a bit too distant to really see much detail so he checked his course, set his alarm for when he left Tylo's SOI, then took a nap.

The beeping woke him abruptly, for a moment Jeb not knowing what emergency that alarm was for... till he remembered it was just a timer.

"Son of a..." He sighed, switched the alarm off and fixed his seat straps. "Hmm, not bad. On course pretty much."

Other than a few tiny adjustments he left the ship alone and went back to sleep. Several times he woke to... well, strange dreams. Several times when he went to sleep he got this horrible, nagging suspicion that he shouldn't go to sleep at all. That something would happen to him if he did. Still, the longer he slept the longer his life support would last. A sleeping Kerbal uses far less air and food.

***

The last day before Bop he could barely sleep at all. A combination of fear, nervousness and anticipation pretty much wide eyed and shaking the whole time... or it could have been the five bulbs of koffee he'd drunk that 'morning'. Not that there was a different between morning noon and evening here.

Finally though he was heading into Bop orbit. He prepped the last K-sat, still sitting on it's decoupler on EFT One, and planned his circularization burn.

Bop. Very little was known about it. Vall and Laythe, and even Tylo, had received quite a bit of attention from astronomers, but Bop and Pol were too small to really make much detail out from Kerbin. He made sure to record as much in the way of images as he could on the way in. As he slid closer and closer Jeb felt more and more uncomfortable. As if there was something he should be doing and had forgotten. Something important.

Shrugging it off he turned his attention to the burn and ignited the atomic engines once more, braking slowly, but easily into a steady orbit.

"There, finally I can get started on fueling." He said to himself. "Oh... right. First the K-sat."

He had no clue where to land right now, so that was pretty important.

K-sat Three separated easily and a few short burns cleared the EFT and Lander, then he set up a burn to flip it's axis so it went over the poles. The little engine ignited once more, the exhaust visible through his hatch window for a few moments, before it zipped out of sight. Only after it's orbit was stabilized did he remember that he should have waited to get it into an orbit over the terminator!

"Humph! Well, at least with the panel moved it should be OK." He muttered, then aligned it so the panel he welded on was pointing at the sun.

Trace began to read off as it scanned across the surface of the little rock and Jeb set a continuous feed into his data-banks so he'd have the planet's Kethane plot. He was about to go to sleep when he realized the pass he had on the scan plot while his ship had been sliding into orbit showed an equatorial strip of data... and right in the middle was a Kethane deposit!

"Huh, lucky." He said softly, then grinned. "Right then! Time to get going."

With a click he separated from the EFT and felt the shudder as the docking port released. Going through the check list as he drifted clear of the EFT One he made sure everything was working then plotted the burn for descent.

"What d'ya think of that Brains?" He said, turning to his left... and his face dropped.

What was he doing?

With a shake he got focused again and watched the altitude drop.

***

Landing on such a small body was odd, but not really a challenge. True, he hadn't even got to Minmus yet, but he'd run sims for it and this was even lighter. Drifting down he checked his fuel levels repeatedly, but there was ample for this. Perhaps too much. He needed to cart as much up to orbit as he could each time so next time he'd try with a lighter load.

A few more tweaks and a check on the Kethane map and he slid across the dull, brown landscape. Why was this so ordinary looking compared to the Mun? I mean, thinking logically the dull grey of the Munar soil should be the 'ordinary' stuff, and this brown soil the unusual. He guessed it reminded him too much of Kerbin soil.

A few jets from engines and RCS thrusters matched speeds with the surface and he extended the landing gear. Slowly drifting down he managed to find a flat bit of ground... though not level unfortunately. The angle wasn't huge, but probably would have been too much in normal gravity. Gently the legs hit dirt and the little craft shuddered, bounced a couple of times, and then settled. Jeb had to tweak the SAS unit to get the ship to stay level. It wanted to sit on two legs, the other stuck in mid air.

Smiling he leaned back and cracked the hatch. This was where he'd be for most of the next couple of weeks. Gonna be a long time! The view wasn't particularly inspiring and he wished he had better reading material. Still he hopped out and slid down the ladder to get some samples at least.

Crouching on the ground, scooping brownish sand into a little pot, Jeb stopped and sat up. Why wasn't he thrilled with this? This was what he had dreamed of for over a decade! He was the first to set foot on a moon of Jool! The first to make boot-prints here so far from home.... and yet something marred it, made him want to curl in a ball and just sit in the lander while the mining equipment worked.

Speaking of which... With a scowl he closed the sample container up and bounded back into the lander. Yeah, here he hardly needed ladders. Almost didn't even need RCS!

Jeb settled back in his acceleration couch, engaged the mining system and waited. He didn't even monitor the drill and it was only after the instruments noted that Kethane was filling the tanks that he remembered he should be checking that the head wasn't wearing or over heating. Blinking he just sighed and turned on the convertor and went to sleep.

He'd never felt so alone before.

***

Blasting free of the surface as soon as he could Jeb felt a little better once he reached orbit. The docking maneuver seemed a little laborious, but hardly difficult. Soon he was filling EFT One's tanks and he pushed it a little, leaving less on the Lander this time, then... back down again.

This was going to get monotonous.

***

It was over ten days over Bop, 'Bopping' up and down, and that sent him well beyond the safety margins on the life support, and with the refueling nearly finished that Jeb began to wonder.

Did Bop hate him? Every time he landed he felt irritable, annoyed, but mostly full of despair. Back in orbit he started to feel, well, a little better. He knew he'd been feeling bad when he got here, but this was way worse. Maybe there was something on the little moon that was affecting him? Some rare element that made Kerbals insane?... Was he insane? He didn't think so, but then, would a crazy kerbal think he was insane?

Down he went again, forcing himself to be happy.

"Yay!" He said in a depressed tone of voice

Didn't seem to be working. As Jeb touched down for the last time he stared out the window and tried to remember why he was here. What was wrong with him? Jeb activated the drill and converter then popped the hatch. He wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep and be done. Just get out of here and... why was he so desperate to get out?

Jeb paused. He most certainly did NOT want to go back into hibernation again, and that was what awaited him.... why was it that whenever he was down here he desperately wanted to be somewhere else? Something had done this to him, it was affecting his mind! Aliens, must be. Something out here was trying to get rid of him!

Yanking himself out of the hatch he drifted down to the surface and yelled out to anyone who could hear.

"Well you're not gonna get me! I'm staying here forever! HA! SEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT!" and he started jumping because... well, he had no clue.

Grinning like a maniac he yelled and screamed and surprisingly felt much better... Then realised he was acting like an idiot. With a few stuttered steps he bounced to a halt and looked around. He had yelled to an alien in a vacuum. An alien?!? What had he been thinking?

For the moment the panic and fear had subsided but still this place seemed creepy to him so Jeb climbed back up the ladder and got back in the lander. He sat in the little capsule and watched the numbers climb, waiting the tanks to be full. It was a long wait, and while he waited the fear returned, full force.

When the time came he just hit ignition and retracted the drill during the ascent. To hell whether it damaged it or not!

Just like the last times as he climbed into orbit the panic retreated and Jeb started to think a little clearer again. What was doing this? Wait, was that his insanity talking? Looking for 'aliens' to blame this on? He struggled to remain in control of himself, keep calm and sensible. Forget all this nonsense about aliens.

Since his launch had been a little, spontaneous, he had to adjust his orbit a fair bit to meet up with the EFT. Eventually he got there and docked and pumped in the last load of fuel. Soon he'd be free of this horrid little lander. He hadn't thought it bad to begin with, but with what he'd been through inside it he'd be glad to be rid of it.

He took a few minutes of peace to just collect himself. The mounting panic was gone, but still that lingering fear and dread remained, but with an effort he quashed them. Gotta stay focused! Plotting the return burn a little more directly than his outbound course had been he waited for the launch window.

***

Ten minutes later the engines lit and he heaved a sigh of relief. As he started to accelerate out of orbit he felt his fears abate, like a warm wind washing over him. This whole experience seemed more like a nightmare than a dream come true. To land on such a body so many time just for... wait.... did he?

Jeb blinked glancing out the window back towards the little brown lump that was Bop. He'd landed twelve times on that horrible moon and never once put a flag down!

"Gahhh!" he vented, then shook his head as he at least set some of the science instruments going. Best not to waste the opportunity.

Just as he was about to sit back in the couch something caught his attention, like a raindrop sliding across the window... but it seemed too far away. Something had moved out there, down on the surface of Bop! Oh god, he was going insane again. Seeing things!

Hunkering down Jeb waited for the burn to finish, checked his course, then pulled his straps tight and tried to go to sleep. At least that panic seemed to have left him, finally. Hopefully it was gone for good this time!

[briansun1]

oh this is good

[Patupi]

Perhaps not so good for Jeb... unless he likes the loony bin

[ramnrmeul]

Kraken.

(Damn character limit)