Colonization: Ch6 Atomic Science- Part 27:Cleaning Up(AAR) [pic heavy]

[Patupi]

Titan RLV Landing

"I think the engines are on... right Flight? I suppose I could pop outside and check?"

This was starting to get a little tired. Derfred's sense of humor could get old if you were exposed to it for too long. Funny? Yes. Annoying? Definitely.

"I think we'll leave the checking to the computers Titan One." Gene said after a suitable pause.

"We're on course." Milton said, then frowned and looked up nervously to Gene. "I mean, he's on course. Looks like he's currently deviating by.... five kilometers from the landing site."

Given the few near misses of late (and the last disaster of RLV-5) the site chosen for landing was twenty kilometers west of KSC. Trucks were ready nearby to service the ship, even refuel it to get it to fly back to base after it had been checked out. With a pure rocket system like this though that would be less efficient than the jet variants seen so far.

"Acknowledged Telemetry." Derfred said. "Make sure they paint the bulls-eye clear enough for me to see, OK?"

Milton just rolled his eyes while Derfred continued his journey.

"And I'm starting to get buffeting... At fifty kilometers and dropping."

On the screens the layout of the course was shown, with two indicators. One the planned trajectory and landing site, and the other the current path and the estimated landing site. Both were pretty close right now.

"Chutes opening." Derfred intoned calmly.

***

Derfred smiled as he watched the hull readings, buffeting and stress readouts mixed with temperature indicators. Both were going up and little wisps of flame were streaking past the hull now.

He had to admit this thing seemed pretty stable and fun to fly. Didn't hurt that he'd had the chance to go over it with a fine tooth comb before hand and learn the thing inside and out.

Did wreck his comb though.

"I'm passing eight kilometers altitude." He said into the mike. "Hey, I think I see you house from here Gene!"

Gene failed to comment on that one.

"I'm getting near chute full deployment altitude. Deploying landing gear."

With a faint mechanical whir the gear folded out and locked in place and Derfred watched the altimeter fall.

"We are a little far north of the plains. Some hills nearby. I seem to remember one of the selling points of this thing was it could cope with inclines, right?"

"That was mentioned yes." Gene answered. "It seems you'll be checking it out."

"I'm below five hundred meters, and the chutes are fully deployed. Air speed is now... eleven meters per second and dropping." He checked the display and the lower cameras. "I don't like the look of that terrain. Plus the descent is too fast. I'm warming up the main engines. I'll engage at... twenty meters."

"Take it easy Titan-1."

Gene didn't have to tell him! However, he kept his cool and focused on the controls as the ground slid closer. The ground looked decidedly sloped.

"I'm engaging now. Attempting to side-slip."

The torque on the ship was high, but struggling against the chutes without breaking them was tricky. After a few tries he gave up and let the ship stabilize again for it's decent.

"Can't tip far enough to make a difference without pushing too hard. If I try to push too strong on the engines the chutes will loose pressure and collapse. I'm just going to have to hope the ship can cope with the terrain."

With suddenly clammy hands in his suit gloves Derfred made sure the ship was as level as he could and readied the engines. The ground came up slowly, then just before touchdown he hit the drives on trickle thrust.

"Slowing. Seven meters per second. Five.... three meters per second. Stabilizing. Altitude is eight... four... two...."

The ship jerked slightly, then tipped alarmingly. Some warning lights came on the panel, but none red. After a few worrying moments the twisting motion stopped and the ship was still.

"And I'm down in one piece. At a crazy angle, but I guess they weren't kidding about the landing gear. It's good."

He could hear cheering over his headset as Mission control finally celebrated. Curiously he didn't hear Patrick's yells, but then that Kerbal didn't seem like the kind to shout his joy to the world.

"Welcome back Titan-1, and congratulations on a job well done." Gene said calmly. "The trucks will be there in a few minutes. You touched down... only seven kilometers off target. Not bad for an unfamiliar ship. I'll see you back at KSC later."

Praise from Gene? What was the world coming to? Derfred acknowledged, then sat back and grinned to himself. This was worth all the hassle. Next time he'd spend longer in actual space though!

[Patupi]

Round The World Attempt

Jeb stared across the concrete as the sun rose, a glint shining of the control tower, reflecting in his sunglasses. Before him was the Crimson Comet (Jeb's working name, until he got something better than APP-01), wings catching the morning rays almost as much as the control tower, it's four propellers just itching to claw at the sky.

"Now that is something I haven't seen in a while." He said wistfully.

"You mean other than the last two months of testing?"

Jeb sighed, the moment broken, and turned.

"Hey Bob, when did you get back?"

Bob shook his head at his long time friend and wondered. Jeb could be annoying, frustrating, and sometimes just plain ornery, but he usually kept up on the goings on at the space center. Since this mission was announced however he'd been wrapped up in it totally. And he wasn't even going to leave Kerbin!

"About two weeks ago. Kemster is up there taking care of the base for the moment. I don't think he likes field duty. He'd rather stay in the training facility."

Jeb shook his head.

"Oh god. Kemster. I haven't seen that guy in... what? Seven, Eight years?"

"Sounds right. That teaching bout you did back then was.... interesting."

Jeb chuckled, stepping up to his old friend, back off the landing strip and out of the wind.

"Yeah. Don't think he appreciated my arcane arts of tuition."

'Arcane arts'? Bob still remembered the shocked expression when Kemster had found Jeb had taken four green students and given them a 'crash' course in flying... almost literally! Letting the fresh faced cadets at the controls of a Skylord jet trainer hadn't been Jeb's best idea. They survived at least. Kemster's almost purple face when he had found out had been quite impressive. Bob had no idea a Kerbal's blood pressure could go that high without a heart attack.

"No... I don't think he did." Bob answered finally, then nodded out to the plane on the pad. "So, is she ready?"

"Oh, she's ready! Thorium cells fueled, batteries checked, regulators are steady. She'll fly."

Bob shook his head and smiled.

"I still think an atomic plane is a really bad idea. What if... I know this is unheard of for you...." Bob said, raising and eyebrow and smirking at Jeb, "... but what if... you crash? Radiation spilled over the landscape?"

"You worry too much Bob, besides, we have gone over that. That was the reason we went for this reactor. Less radiation if the reactor vessel does breach. Once Wernher finally gets fusion cells working we won't have to worry about that at all."

"Hah! He's been saying fusion power will be ready 'in twenty years' for as long as I've been flying. I think you'll be stuck with atomic reactors for a while Jeb."

Jeb gave Bob a slow, sorrowful shake of his head.

"Oh Bob Bob Bob. Fusion power IS atomic!" and he turned and walked back out to his plane before Bob could retort.

Sometimes Jeb was just plain annoying and little else.

***

"Cooling system." Milton said softly on the radio.

"Check." Jeb said.

"Standby power cells."

"Check."

It was a long checklist for a plane. Not surprising given the power plant on it Jeb supposed. He knew more about the dangers of radiation than most of KSC, he had secretly been boning up on his nuclear physics (though he still didn't think he'd pass the test if he went for that online course... yet) and of course his experience in engineering and... well... scrap, did let him understand what could go wrong. It was just such a cool concept!

"Atomic batteries to power." Jeb said idly in a pause in the checklist.

"What?" Milton said, flustered for a moment.

"Not a BatKerbal fan huh?" Jeb said with a smirk.

"Please wait for permission to engage your 'atomic batteries' APP Zero One." Gene cut in.

"Awww, you're no fun Flight. I wanna glow in the dark now!"

"That can be arranged." Gene shot back quietly.

Jeb smirked as the last of the checklist was run through and the most complex plane Kerbals had built was readied for flight. From what he'd heard it wouldn't be the most complex for long. Dunkel was supposedly working on an atomic jet engine! That might be worth flying!

"Alright. I think I'm ready Flight. Can I go out and play now?" Jeb said in his best simpering voice.

There was a significant pause before Gene answered. Jeb could almost see him clenching his eyes tight and attempting to keep his cool.

"APP Zero One, you are cleared to take off. Try to stay to the flight plan."

"Roger Flight." Jeb replied, not wanting to push his luck with another joke at this stage.

Slowly he brought the reactor power up, the electric motors in the housings on the wing finally getting power, and slowly the propellers began to turn. The buzz of the prop wash vibrated the cockpit as they wound up to full power, then, finally he released the brake and taxied down the runway. It was a clumsy plane, low on power, large on wingspan, heavy and cumbersome, but soon it slid into the sky and a smile broke over Jeb's face.

It was an awkward kludge of a plane, but it flew well enough and it was, after all, a true Atomic Plane!

Cruising out over Booster Bay Jeb set out on the longest flight of his career... well, longest in atmosphere anyway. Cruising around the world!

This would be fun!

***

Jeb was bored.

It had been a while since he'd flown long haul, most of the times he'd got behind the controls of a plane in the last ten years were for short stints, and the last flight he'd done (discounting the last few months testing) had been over a year ago. He'd forgotten how boring long flights could be.

"Hey Flight. How're we doing?"

" 'We' are doing just fine APP Zero One. You're just heading over the coast of Lal right now, about a sixth of the way through the flight."

A sixth... a whole enormous sixth! This was going to be a LOOOONG flight!

Pretty though. The sunset out the rear view was impressive as he soared around Kerbin. At a hundred and sixty meters per second he was hardly setting any records, but it was still not bad for such a heavy plane.

"So, How many bottles of beer should I sing to."

Another pregnant pause answered this question and Jeb smiled.

"I think singing should be on the back burner for the moment APP Zero One." Gene said finally. "Besides, I really don't want you to break your microphone."

Ouch!

"OK, so...." Jeb stared down at the coast he was soaring over, "...We've got a nice view. Few Lemar birds out there. Must be big ones if I can see them from six kilometers up."

"I'll get the ornithologists on the phone shall I?"

Jeb sighed. Gene wasn't exactly making this easy... in fact this was rather unlike Gene. He was usually all about keeping the crew on their toes, including giving him needless things to do to avoid him... experimenting in his boredom.

"So, Gene... I mean Flight... what's up back at KSC?"

There was a noticeable pause before Gene answered and Jeb mentally gave a 'Yes!' to himself.

"I don't believe anything major has occurred APP Zero One. Given it's only been a matter of hours since you left it won't be that different."

Come to think of it Gene had been a little distant recently through training. Maybe a week or so. What was going on? Was it the Science Rover project? He had been focusing on monitoring that for a while.

"I guess. But I have been stuck in intensive training this last week, and intermittent training the previous few weeks. I'm sure there are things I've missed of late. Why don't you fill me in?"

Again a slight pause. Definitely a sore point there.

"I think you should concentrate on flying Jeb." 'Jeb'? Gene must be really out of it if he's missing his precious protocol! Jeb mentally backed off, not wanting to push his friend too far.

"Yeah, sure. I'll keep my eyes peeled and my nerves steeled." Jeb said, at least managing to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

As the sun finally slid behind the horizon behind him Jeb wondered what was worrying Gene so much. How could he get his friend to open up? Maybe when he got back in a few days he'd think of a way.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Patupi

[Patupi]

A Quarter the Way Around The World

Gene sighed, leaning back in his chair in a rare moment of peace. Things were getting weird, here in KSC, in government circles, and in the Council. The whole deal with the competition for RLVs was bad enough, but now there was another competition (which thankfully did not involve KSC!) for a replacement for the hibernation chambers. Gene was also beginning to suspect that the government had backed the hibernation project to begin with. The debacle of the Jool mission, even though the hibernation units weren't the cause, had put them in a poor light and several contractors were looking into a possible cryogenic alternative. That at least (if it worked) would allow almost indefinite storage of the Kerbals in question and seemed more stable in transit and less likely for minor problems to kill the frozen crew.

However... that wasn't the biggest issue. The council had been it's usual schizophrenic self, marveling at the two RLV competition winners, then refusing to fund both of them. They didn't understand that one couldn't fulfill both rolls, and even if it could it would cost almost as much as funding both winners. After all, if one did both personnel hauling and light payload hauling then they'd need twice as many launchers! He still had paperwork on his desk requesting yet another study done on how much a cut down hauler would cost. This wasn't going to end well. Hopefully he could just put his foot down and get them to accept both entries as is.

Then there was the other issue.

Rodsy.

His repeated attempts at hacking out of the Science Rover had failed thankfully, but it was only a matter of time Gene suspected. Things had been distracted by the team finding a curious new plant nearby. Redtop had almost died in that experience as the thing almost sucked the salt right out of him. Odd that he was so cheerful afterwards. From some of the tales Gene had heard the guy was a natural danger magnet. Why he'd been picked for the mission was anyone's guess! Perhaps this was the safest mission he could be on after all. It never left the surface of Kerbin!

However, despite the 'distraction' of Redtop's exploits, Rodsy had not been delayed in his activities. Still adamant that someone was covering up alien activities offworld... and that someone was Gene! Well, KSC higher ups or the Council from what Rodsy was saying. From his interaction with the council he knew what they would think of any talk of aliens! The government was another matter, and given that his recent contacts in the capitol seemed to be drying up, and their increasing fervor for resuability and, curiously, some more long term systems were starting to worry Gene. He'd love if their current interest in Jool and Laythe were to end in another manned mission, possibly even a landing on Laythe in the near future, but so far it had been... awkward. What little paperwork on the subject that had come his way seemed to indicate a need to develop some over the top, totally reusable, interplanetary shuttle to ferry people, small ships and cargo to and from the Jool system.

Gene didn't see that as likely in the near future, but wondered why the change lately? Why were the government pushing like this?

"Sir?" A young mission control specialist said, knocking on Gene's open door. "The signals from Je... I mean APP Zero One's body monitors are showing considerable fatigue. Flight surgeon is saying he really needs to land and take a nap."

"Well?" Gene snapped, then visually relaxed himself. Yeah, getting way too worked up on his inner musings of late. "Sorry Lakedon. I take it Jebediah is insisting on continuing 'a little bit further'?"

"Um, yeah. Pretty much."

Gene sighed and stood up. Time to get back in the saddle.

"Very well, I'll be in mission control in a few minutes. Tell Jebediah he's an idiot, and you can quote me."

With a puzzled expression he nodded and headed back.

One last look out his window to the launch pad and Gene pondered what the place would look like in a few years if the government had their way. It'd be nice to be a bustling hub of activity with regular reusable flights, but it would change the character of the place. He'd still love to know why. They seemed so... set in on it, without any obvious reasons.

Reluctantly Gene put that thought to the back of his mind and followed Lakedon back to mission control. Time to talk Jebediah down again.

***

Jeb was not too happy. He'd pushed it a little longer, but eventually Gene had managed to persuade him to venture down towards Kerbafirma. Apparently there were areas on Doren that were fairly unexplored. He could do a little science down there if he managed to find a good spot and hopefully that would defuse the Flight Controller a little.

"Heading down now Flight." Jeb said as he angled downwards.

"Roger APP Zero One, we have you on orbital tracking. Southern shores of the Straights of Thando on the Western peninsula of Doren." Gene said calmly.

"Any shops nearby?"

An audible sigh came from the speakers.

"No APP Zero One, I am afraid the shopping possibilities are rare to none in that vicinity. If there were any there we might, perhaps, have asked them to study the area for scientific details prior?"

Oooh, touchy today!

"Maybe they're geekless shops?"

Another sigh, but this time there was no further comment and Jeb just began his approach over a likely landing spot. The sandy coast was not very even, and he headed inland a little, then doubled back to find a suitable spot once more, but finally he arced down, slowing the craft as much as he could before the wheels gently hit grass.

"And I'm down in sunny..." Jeb stared out into the night sky, "... starry Doren. Hey, is this near where Bill went?"

"Not even close APP Zero One. I believe that was further East, unsurprisingly, and a little North. You'll be passing that way yourself later. There there are tourist sites I believe, at least close to where he touched down. Seanbur can attest to that apparently."

Jeb chuckled. Yeah, he'd been pretty vocal over that at the time. A two and a half gallon hat had been nailed to the door of the training room after that, with numerous dart holes in it as time went on. Bill found it rather amusing from what Jeb could gather.

Popping the canopy he slid it back and breathed in the... dusty air. Yeah, not his favorite area. The 'grass' was rather poor and scrubby in this vicinity, despite the proximity to the coastline. Licking his finger and sticking up he felt the wind heading for the coast. Hmm, might have something to do with it? Maybe the winds don't come inland from the sea often?

"I'm getting Junior ready for his Eastern Excursion, Flight." Jeb said idly as he hopped out onto the rungs and slid down to the ground. "Any advice for the little tyke?"

"Don't talk to strange Kerbonauts." Gene said deadpan.

"I'm not strange! I'm just... eccentric!" Jeb flipped back as he set up the Materials Science pod.

"Yeah, I'm thinking this region might be a bad influence on Junior." Jeb said as he read off the data. "I think he needs some inspirational speeches!"

"Not right now APP Zero One, I don't believe Mission Control would survive another one of your 'inspirational speeches.' "

"Oh ha ha Flight. It is to laugh!" At least Gene seemed a bit more chipper now. Hopefully he was past whatever was bothering him.

Here's hoping.

[KSK]

Ahhh - today is a good day for story updates. Cheers, Patupi - that's put a smile on my face for the afternoon slog.

[Patupi]

You're welcome KSK. I was planning on doing a bunch of updates over Xmas holidays... and got distracted by various other things *sigh*. I hope to keep a bit more frequent updates in future.

[Patupi]

Half Way Around The World

"Early to morning, early to rise." Jeb muttered as his plane shot up into the morning light.

It was an easy flight with this plane at least. True, it was a little bulky and had a tendency to drift a little on autopilot, but as long as he kept good attention on the systems it was fairly responsive. Plus the whole 'Not needing to refuel' was a big thing.

With a grin he circled around and headed East once more, cruising over the plains and grassy slopes of Doren as he got up to cruise altitude.

"Flight? So, have any stories you could regail us with?" Jeb said into the mike.

"I take it by 'Us' you mean 'You' APP Zero One?"

Jeb sighed.

"Funnily enough, yes Flight, I do mean me. It's either that or the Fanged Dune Beast on the wing. Do we charge hitchhikers?"

"About two hundred and forty volts D.C. I believe." Gene shot back.

"Hmm, doubt he'd like that." Jeb commented, shaking his head. Gene was quick he'd give him that. "I think I'll settle for a can of Beast Be Gone. Know where I can pick up a can?"

"In a bar I'd assume. Best do that on your own time APP Zero One. You're reputation precedes you."

OK, looked like he wasn't going to beat Gene on that today!

"Heh, Touche Capitan. So, we have our flight plan for today? Heading East, with a slight detour East followed by a trip a little Eastward?"

"I'm amazed that you can remember that APP Zero One. How long were you studying for this Flight?"

"Study... Hmmm.... Stuuuuddyyyy. Nope, sorry. That word is a complete unknown to me. Wanna run that by me again Flight?"

OK, maybe he could best the controller!

"Perhaps later Jeb. I believe you have a heading to change?"

***

"Nice territory around here." Jeb said idly as he cruised a down a little crossing some hills. "How expensive is the real estate here abouts?"

"More than your pay-scale can handle APP Zero One." Gene put in.

"Dang, you spoil all my fun Flight."

"Only the non-authorized fun. I believe we have a paddle with a ball on a piece of string here waiting for you."

Jeb was beginning to think Gene had been taken over by aliens. He was not normally this responsive. Overcompensating for his earlier grumpy mood perhaps?

"Well, it's not like I have anything else to do like... oh, fly a plane."

"If you call that flying."

OK, this was getting weird!

"Gene? Is something wrong?"

"Why would you say that APP Zero One?"

Jeb could swear he could hear s......ing on the line. Then another voice tuned in.

"I believe ze, er, jig is up as you say, ja?"

"Wernher? What's going on?"

There was an abrupt guffaw from Gene, that promptly shifted to sound like...

"Bill? What the heck?"

"Hey, Gene's been taking a break Jeb. What did you think? He'd put up with you through the WHOLE flight? I've just been testing the Frequency Modulation and Distortion generator that Wernher just came up with. Real cool huh? Matched the waveform to a 'T' huh?"

"Oh ha ha, very amusing. If you're done poking fun at me I think I'll head East... again."

"Heh, go ahead, be original!"

Jeb shook his head. How Bill had managed to get Gene to agree to this he didn't know. Normally Gene signed off when he handed over to someone else in command. Thus he had to have known. He sighed. Well, at least it removed the boredom for a bit.

***

Jeb was bored. Bored bored bored BORED!

"Mmmmmm, sky.... grass.... oh and some hills ahead. Funny, looks real familiar."

"I don't believe you've been out this way before APP Zero One." Came the familiar voice.

"Gene! I mean Flight, you're back.... That is you isn't it?"

"Yes. I've been made aware of Bill's exploits of late, though I'm surprised at Wernher's involvement."

"Hey, it wasn't dangerous, just a case of miss taken identity." He said, putting emphasis on the space between Miss and Taken.

"I see." Gene said slowly. "It's going to be one of those days isn't it?"

"Possibly Flight, possible. Huh, hey these mountains, is this the halfway point?"

There was a pause, then Milton joined in.

"Er, yes, pretty much. They're a little under the halfway point, but close. Don't worry Jeb, you'll be home soon."

"Good, not sure I can stand this much boredom. At least in space there are stars to gaze at. It's been cloudy at night of late and none too entertaining."

"Nice view though in places." Jeb admitted as he crossed the mountains. "Um... There it goes again."

"Again APP Zero One? Clarify." Gene interrupted.

"A flutter in the controls. I don't think it's a wind related phenomena. Felt too... harsh."

Over the next few minutes Mission control began to check the systems of the plane. So far the reactor checked out, the electronics, the ailerons. Then the controls jerked once more.

"Um, tell me there is an airfield nearby Flight?"

"Turn North on heading of twenty five degrees. It's about fifty miles till Strenlo Airport."

"Roger Flight." Jeb said, now far more seriously.

Arcing over the terrain he could feel judders as the sun began to set, the terrain becoming more stark and unforgiving looking. With the continually unexplained jerkiness in the controls it didn't look good.

"Flight. I can't raise the nose any more!" Jeb said frantically, then shortly afterwards. "Nose is heading down. Stick is unresponsive, flaps are not helping. I can't recover. Trying to throttle back."

"I'm attempting to make an emergency landing." Jeb said, and then he saw the ground coming up towards him far too fast!

"APP Zero One.... APP Zero One do you copy!"

There was no reply.

***

(OK, I had serious issues with this when playing. The plane jerked and bucked under anything but low time acceleration (didn't stop be from attempting high acceleration now and then ) and I was attempting to do the rest of the journey without landing... but this was 0.23 if I remember right, and back then you couldn't save in flight. Just as I was coming in for an unplanned landing to do some SCIENCE! on a spur of the moment thing... the damn game crashed. I'd gone way over half way round the planet and the last save was back in the badlands! I gave up. It'd been hours of real time flying. I wasn't doing that again! I just recovered the plane back in the badlands.

After this we switch to the nuclear jet test and a trip to the south pole. Not with Jeb this time (he's going to be in the hospital for a bit) but a newcomer, Gus Kerman.)

Edited January 9, 2015 by Patupi

[Patupi]

Polar Flight

Rodsy was annoyed! Pretty much a permanent state of mind for him for the last month or two.

"Hey Rodsy." He turned with a scowl to his companion in the science lab, Sigfry, as usual, shared Rodsy's scowl. "Tell me you know a way to boost the external monitoring coverage on this tub."

"Huh?" He managed, not quite getting what the scientist was referring to.

"Oh come on! Surely you've noticed. We've had three cases of missing data during excursions, two of animals sneaking up on us without us seeing them, and then there was that time with Redtop a couple of days ago. I mean, being attacked by a Janarope, up here, and out of camera-shot? It's shoddy work I say. This whole thing was ill conceived!"

Yeah, Redtop did seem to get the bad end of the stick. So far he's fallen down a slope, been attacked by Selar Bats, a Janarope bite, and the less said about the whole salt thing the better! What was up with that guy?

"I don't think I can get any spare cameras way out here Sigfry. Besides... we," He almost said 'I', Rodsy thought, scowling again, "can't leave the ship. Besides, I don't think it's that much of a problem. The suits all have cameras and we haven't lost any critical data."

Sigfry 'Humphed' and crossed his arms.

"Well, just don't come crying to me when nasty critters comes to take bite out of you and nobody notices!"

Then he stomped out of the science lab leaving Rodsy to his thoughts.

Idly he looked around, checked the telltale on the security camera in here (still off, due for maintenance), then brought up his control panel and accessed the careful routing link. Soon his IM system was up again and he had his contact.

Rodsy492: Good to see you again DD.

DistrustfulDignatory: Oh Hey Rodsy. You made it!

Rodsy492: Of course. You're the only person I can talk to, well, about anything that is. Daren't say anything to these chumps!

DistrustfulDignatory: Well thanks. You made any headway on the analysis yet? I still say it's Gaussian, buried in all the static.

Rodsy492: It's not static, and yes, thanks to your data, combined with mine, I have made some headway! But it's frustrating. I don't have access to the full systems here and things are going slow. Not only that keeping my processing time to only that when I'm alone is slowing me down even more!

DistrustfulDignatory: Oh, you'll get it. Heck, you've already got more out of it than I did. I just want to know what causes that magnetic field. It's just too consistent to be natural. It doesn't match any of the other data about Kerbol or the planets. Got to be some kind of connection we can find somewhere.

Rodsy492: Don't worry. We'll get it. But like I said, I am making some headway. I have found there is some kind of signal duplication or something to an information set you gave me. The data from the BT-9 Scan sat when it was checking out Vall. Looks like the signal there oscillated in the same pattern as Bop, but with a time delay of sixty seven hours and five minutes! No way that's caused by direct interference or resonance or something. This has got to be some kind of pattern, just with a different start time on both places. Gotta be artificial!

DistrustfulDignatory: Wow! How did I miss that? I went over that when you sent me your data.

Rodsy492: It's buried under the background magnetic field for Vall, not that obvious, but when you extract the info for the L9 long range telescope's magnetic image of Vall from ten years ago from the current data it's obvious.

DistrustfulDignatory: Huh, I'll take your word for it. Look, I gotta go. Send me your data and I'll check it out. We've got to make a real case! If we can get this thing proven... well, heads will roll!

Rodsy492: Yeah, I'm all for that... as long as it isn't my head! Take care DD.

DistrustfulDignatory: You too Rodsy.

Sitting back from the terminal Rodsy smiled. Yeah, maybe with more time he could get some headway on analysing what the damned magnetic signals were doing! But at least they had something to work with. Frustrating yes, but at least it wasn't going nowhere.

***

"YEEEEHAAAA!" Gus yelled as the jet screamed into the sky.

"I take it you approve of the aircraft APP Zero Two?" Gene said over the comms.

"Uh, yeah.... I think that's about right. Whooh, what a rush!"

As Gus leveled the atomic powered jet aircraft out it picked up speed, currently at over two hundred meters per second and climbing! Heh, maybe he could break the sound barrier in this thing?

The ship was smooth, sounded like a warm buzz rather than the more familiar rumbling from props and engine noise. He hadn't flown the atomic propeller plane though. That was supposed to sound pretty quiet too... not that he'd want to emulate Jeb's experience any time soon. He heard the guy was still in the hospital. Nasty crash, and nothing to do with the atomic systems as far as he knew. Poor design in the avionics, which they assured him was completely redone (with a different company!) in this plane.

He hoped so.

Fixing a grin to his face after those nasty thoughts he fine tuned the course and headed south. This was going to be cool. Literally!

***

"Flight, just heading over the ice now. Definitely looks cold."

"Thank you for your finely honed scientific assessment APP Zero Two." Gene said "Do you see a decent landing site yet?"

Gus scanned the ice flow carefully and smiled.

"Doesn't seem to broken up actually. It's mostly flat. Should be no tr... I can land it OK." You do not say 'Should be no trouble' in a plane. It's just asking for the demon Murphy to go kick you where it hurts!

"Roger APP Zero Two. You have permission to land."

Gus liked planes. He always preferred them to rockets, though he had been into orbit a couple of times. Smiling broadly he nosed down, coming in way too steep really. He didn't care. Despite being rather... cavalier, he'd never crashed a plane in six years of flying. Not for want of trying occasionally. Definitely didn't want to try drinking and flying again any time soon.

Zooming down he leveled out at about five hundred feet, just to be safe, and came down at a more reasonable rate of descent.

"Nearly down Flight." He said with a chuckle.

Swooping in he lowered the undercarriage and saw the glaring ice coming closer and closer. Finally wheels squeaked on ice and he was down. A little breaking and he skidded to a stop.

The next few minutes were nasty. His face was starting to get numb by the time he had readings from all the science instruments, though at least his hands were fairly warm in the gloves of his suit.

"OK, that's DEFINITELY enough of that!" He said, sliding back into his seat and slamming the canopy shut again. The heaters soon began to defrost his face and he sighed.

"When you are ready APP Zero Two, proceed North by North West. About twenty kilometers away should be the tundra flats. Wernher would like you to get some samples."

Gus groaned.

"Please let me get warmed up first Flight."

"I beleive we can allow that APP Zero Two." Gene said amicably.

***

Roaring up off the ice Gus banked sharply around to head towards the tundra flats. The ice glinted brightly and he had to squint a little to get a good view as he got his heading lined up.

http://i.imgur.com/8KSiup0.jpg' alt='8KSiup0.jpg'>

Gus roared up to seven thousand meters, then gunned it up to two hundred and sixty as he saw the ice flows vanish beneath him

"OK, tundra ahoy. Taking her down captain!"

He did. Literally.

"Er, APP Zero Two." Gene said with a slight tone to his voice. "You're coming in too steep. Pull up!"

"Oh, you worry too much Flight." Gus said with a grin as the grey white plains below him rose to meet him.

"GUS!" Gene screamed, and with a slight smirk Gus pulled up. By the time he'd leveled out he was less than a hundred meters from the ground.

"There, see? I'm fine." Gus said, lowering the landing gear and coming down with a bump. "You should watch your blood pressure Flight."

Gus sighed and popped the hatch once more. Not quite as cold as the ice flow, but damned close! After this a quick jaunt home. This was a job he could live with!

With the sound of berating from Gene on the comm Gus happily went to work on the science module, with accompaniment from chattering teeth. Soon he'd be home, and warm, once more.

[Patupi]

Jool Explorer

"Again? Didn't we just get back from Jool?" Jeb said staring up at the rocket on the pad.

"Oh ha ha Jebediah." Jedwig said, arms crossed. "Somehow I don't think this thing will ever go to Jool. You could rename it you know? Captain's prerogative?"

Jeb looked up at the 'Jool Explorer', the fancy new testbed for reusable interplanetary craft technology, and pondered. It was a fairly good craft all told. Nuclear propulsion. The lander that would be launched later to dock with it however? That was a kludge. Something they threw together quickly so they could, you guessed it, appease the council's ever growing interest in reusable vehicles. Rush rush rush.

No, actually that wasn't fair. The government was pushing the council for whatever reason to do this. From what Jeb had heard the council had been putting together a proposal for a much larger ship, a more practical cargo ferry to ship things back and forwards. The government however wanted the tech proven right now, so we get this scaled down version and the monstrosity of a lander. Heck, with the nuke engines on the lander you really didn't need the Jool Explorer to carry it. It was efficient enough on it's own to travel reasonable distances. Maybe not to Jool, but this likely wouldn't leave the Kerbin system anyway. Probably just be tested then retired. Stupid waste of money in Jeb's opinion!

"No point to a name change Brains. The gal might not appreciate it."

Jedwig rolled his eyes.

"Oh please. 'The Gal'? Tell me you aren't going to be personifying this thing already? You know it isn't going to last long."

Jeb sighed. For once Jedwig had a point.

"Fine, whatever. Let's get out of here." He said, stomping back to the Kerbonaut complex.

Jedwig felt almost let down by that. Normally Jebediah would argue and joke for much longer than that. Tensions had been high around KSC of late though and tempers were short. Even Gene, no, especially Gene. What was going on? Maybe he could find a way to cheer the old man up a bit? Jeb not Gene. Well, maybe Gene as well.... though come to think of it the idea he'd just come up with would probably give Gene fits.

However when had that ever stopped the magnific.... er.... when had it ever stopped Jedwig.

Even thinking things like that made his cheek muscles tense now. Darned that Jeb! Getting under his skin.

With a sigh he headed back and set about planning. He'd need it.

***

"And are all seats in the full and upright positions?" Jeb said into his mike.

From down in the science lab Caldin chuckled.

"The way we're positioned 'Upright positions' would be bad Commander. I don't want to spill my Froot-e-Juice all over the place."

"Dang, my fiendish laundry schemes have been foiled again!"

Jedwig sighed and 'tut'ed to himself while looking over at Mervey with sad expression.

"I don't know why I put up with him." He muttered, but Jeb had good hearing.

"Dating advice I'm pretty sure." He chuckled. "Flight! We about ready to go?"

"Given that you should be staring at a mission timer right now I believe you are aware the answer to that question is yes, in about twenty seconds Jool four."

Given that this ship was officially named 'Jool Explorer Command Module Four' the term 'Jool' had been assigned to the crew for the mission.

The crew had been going over pre-flight while bantering. Normally Gene would have been screaming at them to shut up and concentrate. Messing around during the finicky stage of launch was not normal SOP. However they were currently testing an automated system. The crew were not going to fly this thing this time. At least on launch. The crew needed all the help calming their nerves about now. Depending on an autopilot to launch the ship with all that volatile fuel should something go wrong...? Not calming in of itself.

"3... 2... 1... Liftoff!" Milton said and the thunder let rip under the crew.

"NOOOOT BAAAAD!" Jeb screamed over the noise of the boosters. "COULD DOOOO WITH A BIIIIIT MORE THRRRRUST!"

Jedwig rolled his eyes, as much as he could when being pressed into his seat under three gravities of acceleration. These newer solid boosters really packed a punch!

*CLUNK!*

"And there they go." Jeb said, in a more normal tone. "Much better."

The ascent to orbit was pretty smooth. The Jool Four shot skyward on pillars of fire, traditional staging used on such a large vehicle. The Council could tell all they wanted about reusable launchers but for this kind of thing they were out of the question for now.

"Final stage release." Jedwig said calmly as the last systems shut down in the stage. Another clunk and it too was set loose. The main atomic engines lit and blazed away, circularizing the orbit.

"And we're in orbit again. The Great Jebediah and Jedwig, in the stars once more."

"I think a prayer on behalf of the stars might be mandatory right now." Gene said.

"Come on, we'll only break a few of them Flight." Jeb said "Cut us some slack! Anyway, we're up here and getting things in order. Just send up the lander and we'll be out to Minmus for our trials."

Jedwig gave a wink to Mervey and grinned. Boy would Jeb be surprised! Mervey chuckled as they sat behind Jeb in the pilot seat and planned.

[KSK]

What could possibly go wrong ?

[Patupi]

OK, sorry for the long pause. I've had a whole heap of things land on me. Overtime and weekend working (frantic pace!) at work, and came down with a cold at the same time. Sucks. Two weeks on and I'm still clogged up! Haven't had one last this long for ages.

Anyway, on the space flights!

Explorer Rendezvous

"Aaaaaaand...." Ipdel said, finger poised over the button, watching the clock. ".... ignition!"

With a roar the solid boosters and liquid engines ignited and the Jool Explorer lander climbed for the sky.

"Look at her go!" Machel whispered from the next control seat, staring at the big monitor.

Ipdel glanced over at Machel and sighed. Things had been... interesting of late, and more to the point she'd been a real help with probe missions and remote control assignments. She still was a little nervous, especially after the whole TMS-1 thing, but on the whole seemed to be coping well. Often she seemed to see saw between nervous apprehension and complete and total self-confidence. He still wondered about that sometimes.

But here, seeing her awe in what they were doing, that made his day.

"GUIDO. Do we have confirmation on stage release?"

Ipdel jumped at Gene's soft voice behind him and he snapped back to look at his display.

"Er, yes Flight. Clean seperation."

OK, he had to be more careful! Letting the boss see him pining over Machel was just embarrassing!

***

"Telemetry looks good." Milton was saying, still glancing over at Ipdel and Machel on occasion. How could that geek get so darned lucky! With effort he focused on the flight once more.

"And final stage separation." Ipdel's voice came over the comms circuit.

"Telemetry reports... go from Lander. All systems read in the green. Nav systems have a lock on the JE Command vessel. We are go for rendezvous."

KSC had been odd lately. There seemed to be a lot more nervous tension around. Perhaps it was just the way Gene was behaving. He seemed more distant than usual. Even Jeb had noticed it. Dead pan humor was one thing, but ignoring anything not mission related was something else. There was definitely something up. Plus of course all the rumors about Rodsy going around the center. Last he heard the talk was he'd shacked up with a Councilor's daughter and was getting isolated in the Science Rover because of it. Maybe Gene's behavior was all due to the rumors? Naw, it started a while back, before the rumors got going.

Milton sighed. He wished Caldin was back. Not so he could do Milton's job, but when he'd helped Milton get ready for this the two had bonded pretty well. Now he was up on Munbase Alpha with Bob and the rest and he was stuck here as the tension rose. Oddly most of the actual kerbonauts didn't seem to be affected by it. It was the techs and specialists that were getting nervous of late. The divide between the two sections seemed to be growing, or maybe that was just his imagination.

The frantic pace set after the RLV competition might have been part of it. Now the government was sponsoring multiple research projects, though of course funding was sporadic. As usual. This whole Cryopod research was worrying Milton. I mean, going to sleep, even medically induced, was one thing. Freezing someone solid for a long term mission? That was something new. He hadn't seen any practical upshot of it yet, but Dunkel was grumpy about it.

Milton chuckled. OK, Dunkel was grumpy about everything! Still, he got the impression the old guy didn't like the concept the government had thrown at them.

"Standing by for docking maneuver." Milton said on automatic as the two ships closed. Jeb was due to do this maneuver, which was a relief. It meant he wasn't going to hear Jedwig's boasting and self important comments for it at least.

"The Major is about to engage thrusters." Jedwig's voice came over the comm's. "Now standby. Where is my shock frame again?" Jebediah's wry laughter followed Jedwig's comment.

Well, Milton could hope at least. He couldn't talk through the whole thing could he?

Edited January 31, 2015 by Patupi

[Patupi]

Minmus Test Flight Preparations

"Nearly there. Nearly.... Easy does it..." Jebediah said, trying to focus past Jedwig drumming his fingers on the panel. Brains knew it annoyed him, but he was Jedwig after all. He lived to annoy people. Thankfully he'd stopped at being only mildly annoying during life and death docking maneuvers. He'd save the nasty stuff till later, Jeb was certain of that.

*Clunk*

The ship juddered slightly as the two, twin docking collars mated together. With a sigh Jeb leaned back and held his hand out without a word. With a resigned sigh a Fund bill slapped into his palm and he pocketed it, pointedly not looking at the resigned Jedwig who'd handed it to him. Jedwig just raised an eyebrow and floated back to the rear of the capsule. At least he was a good sport about it nowadays.

"OK, who wants the job of connection this time?" Jeb said, finger on the intercom button to make sure all the crew heard it.

Technically this ship type could hold nine Kerbals, but the main habitat pod had been adjusted from the standard design to extend long term usage. This meant hibernation pods. That sent shivers down Jeb's spine just thinking about it, but the life support on the ships was also pretty darned good. Good for at least a couple hundred days even with the five crew they had aboard.

This time Jebediah was in command, and for once Brains hadn't put up a fuss about it. Jedwig was second in command, with Rolock being the last pilot. He was scheduled as main ship commander while the lander was in operation. Odd that one of the main flight personnel would be in the lander on operations, but neither Jeb nor Jedwig had wanted to give up the chance to use the lander... though they might have to fight for the chance when the time came. It'd probably come down to whose shift it was. Besides, with Rolock being an Eastpoint Graduate and having a degree in astronomy gave a commander a lot of confidence in the guy. He definitely could hack it while the commander was away from the ship. Rolock's rather stoic, no nonsense attitude generally went down well, even if he barely responded much to jokes. Apparently him and Rayzor were buds from the academy. Given Rayzor's attitude that wasn't surprising.

James was an engineer, well trained under Dunkel (horrifying thought! What that poor kerblet must have been through during training!) and good at keeping the ship going. He was here because he specialized in the older LV-N propulsion units and those were the main driving force on the ship and the lander. He was a bit eccentric though. Had a habit of scrawling over open surfaces. Sometimes designs he came up with, sometimes just pure graffiti. Nice to look at, but didn't really help the running of a ship. Jeb made sure to keep a squeeze bottle of cleaning fluid near by and a cloth.

Mervey was the mission scientist (beyond Rolock's knowledge at least) and hoped to connect with who ever took the one man lander down to Minmus to do some serious science. He also kept looking over at Jedwig and giggling. This was not something Jeb liked to see in a crewkerbal. Laughing at Brains? Sure. But this seemed to premeditated. Something was definitely up.

"I'll perform the operation Major." Rolock said, reminding Jeb what he'd asked. Oh yeah, the docking lockdown.

"Hey go for it Rolock. This your second EVA, right?"

"Yes sir, though plenty of practice in The Tank." You could practically hear the capital letters there.

Jeb had fond memories of The Tank, the underwater testing lab where they checked out new suit maneuvers, even though RCS thrusters couldn't work there to test the backpacks. Shame. Zipping around underwater like that sounded like fun!

"OK Lieutenant, suit up and prep for the docking lockdown. At least this time we don't have to worry about alignment too much. With two ports it self aligns."

Yeah, on that fateful Jool mission there had been some... problem with that. Yeah... Rodsy. Jeb gave a mental sigh. What was up with that guy? Last he'd heard from him had been months ago and he hadn't sounded all there. Very 'The Aliens are out to get us' kind of attitude. He'd never have pinned him for a conspiracy nut. Not that he had much to say on the matter. Or if he did Brains would very promptly remind him of his ravings during the Jool mission. Things he'd very much like to forget!

Jeb stared out the window as, a few minutes later, Rolock drifted clear and began to bolt the connecting pylons on to secure the Command module and the lander together. This would be a fairly short trip, but hopefully an entertaining one. If things went to plan then this ship would pave the way for regular forays into interplanetary space. He needed this to go right!

[briansun1]

really need to get caught up on this...

[Patupi]

Well, not that much to catch up on. I only restarted it fairly recently. Thanks for reading anyway

[Patupi]

Explorer First Mission

"All mission parameters completed sir!" Rolock stated firmly as he drifted back to the airlock.

"Good Rolock." Jedwig said, hitting the comm button with an elbow while calculating orbital maneuvers on the main console with that arm... and performing a supply and stores check with his other hand. "Head back in... and double check the Orberry Snack packs while you pass the cargo bay. There's a typo on the manifest. I really hope we don't have fifty two packs of Orbellies. Those things stink!"

"Roger Captain."

Jedwig focused again on the flight path he was checking, then heard a familiar click behind him of the door snapping open, and quickly switched the flight plan.

"So, checking our Minmus path again?" Jeb said. "Still don't trust Mission control huh?"

"Hey, you can't blame a genius from making sure can you?" He said calmly.

Jeb chuckled.

"Heh, don't change brains.... No, wait. On second thought change. Change right now. Do the world a favor."

"Oh ha ha, mightily amusing oh esteemed commander." Jedwig said shaking his head as he mentally reviews the OTHER flight plan. Jeb would thank him later. I mean who wouldn't be excited about it!

"So, we have everything ready?"

Jedwig brought up the check list for the fifth time and scanned down it quickly.

"Looks like it 'Sir'." He said, with a hint of sarcasm on the 'Sir'. "I think we'll be ready to depart on schedule. Amazing huh?"

"Sure, though if we weren't I'd just eyeball it and hit the big red 'Go' button." Jeb said as he leaned back in the chair, hands behind his head, grinning.

"You know sometimes I'm not sure when you're joking or not Jeb." Jedwig said and went back to his calculations.

***

"Aaaaaad. Light it!"

With a roar the LV-N engines ignited and the Jool Explorer began it's initial orbital correction before heading out on it's maiden (and possibly only) voyage to Minmus. The vibrations from the engines sent shivers down Jeb's spine as the ship shifted it's plane of rotation to match Minmus.

"This is noisier than the Old Jool ship, or even the rescue vessel." Jeb said conversationally.

"WHAT?" Mervey said, cupping a hand over his ear.

"Oh ha ha. It's not THAT loud." Jeb replied.

"Yeah, well us newbies don't have the incredible experience to compare with, do we?" Mervey replied, grinning. "Perhaps you should regale us with tales of the fabled mission to Jool?"

"But of course!" Jedwig butted in with a smile. "I'd be happy to!"

Mervey's face went from a grin of expectation to a rictus of horror in a few moments while Jedwig cleared his throat melodramatically.

"I'm sure you know how the launch went, it was all on real time broadcast. But the real fun, where my genius really shone, came up after we woke up out near Jool. You see..."

Jeb slowly turned around to face Mervey and mouthed the words 'You asked for it!' before putting two ear plugs in calmly, then facing back front again and watching the flight controls while they did their maneuver, then realigned for the burn for Minmus. 'Heh, newbies!' He thought to himself. 'Should know better than to say something like that in front of Brains!'

***

The burn for Minmus took over four minutes, and of course when it was all done Jedwig was still talking.

"...before we had any direct communications. But I took a step forwards, as any noble mission commander should, and decided..."

"That you were a jerk." Jeb butted in, taking his earplugs out. "Say, 'Noble Commander', what say we double check our flight path before we bore our crew half to death, hmm?"

Jedwig stared at him with a blank expression then just raised an eyebrow. Shortly after he winked the eye that wasn't visible to the others on the crew. Oh god, Jedwig was trying to be FUNNY. Hmmm... either let him bore the crew with his attempt to make fun of his old self's self aggrandizing or hinder his mental development by putting a stop to it... hmmm.... hmmmm...

Jeb sighed, and gave a brief, barely visible shake of his head. Jedwig sighed, but acknowledged the 'command'.

"OK Major, lets get things double checked."

[imghttp://i.imgur.com/JE9U9Fq.jpg

***

A longer journey than to the Mun, but the accommodation here wasn't too bad. Sleeping in Zero g was always odd at first, but he got used to it quickly. Now-a-days he barely woke himself by bashing himself in the head any more if he forgot to strap his arms down. But the view now he was here? That was something else.

Jed smiled, looking down on Minmus once more. He'd only been here once previously, and the view wasn't half bad. Still not a patch on the old girl closer in to Kerbin, but not bad.

"Sorry miss. I'm a one Gal Guy. But I'll stay for a brief visit."

"Getting another mistress Jeb?" Jedwig teased.

"What? This heathen hussy?" Jeb said, waiving at Minmus out the window. "I think not! I have a little more class than that! The Mun deserves better from me!"

Mervey just looked back and forth between his two superiors, perplexion written all over his face. Sometimes he really didn't understand those two.

Jeb chuckled while they tossed a coin for the privilege of going down in the lander. Tossing a coin in zero G is tricky. Involving flipping it up slowly enough to then catch it before it hits the ceiling, then slapping it down on your hand. Of course you can never tell which hand it will stick to when you lift your hand again.

"Hah!' Jedwig said. "I win! Nya nya nya!"

Jeb stared coldly at Jedwig who slowly calmed down, then became very serious.

"I... er... I mean... This is a bold thing I do for all Kerbal kind."

"Yeah, sure Brains. Go crash a ship for us huh?"

"Crash a ship! Hah, as if!" He said as he floated off towards the lander hatch.

"All systems are looking good. Standing by for separation." Jedwig said over the comms.

Jeb looked out the main viewports at the new ship. Ungainly monster that it was. Darned thing was built by committee he was sure! Still, it seemed solid, if rather ugly, and probably wouldn't crash. Still, with Minmus' low gravity the main ship could head down to rescue him if Jedwig got into trouble.

"Just take care down there Brains." Jeb said calmly. "All systems look green for separation from here. Primary power couplings are disconnected. Docking port magnetics are offline. Releasing connectors."

With a snap the connectors that Rolock had calmly connected a few days ago broke free and wound back into their housings.

"Releasing clamps."

The docking ports separated and the craft began to drift apart. With a puff of vapor the lander pulled away on RCS, then slowly spun around.

"Right. I think I have the course memorized. Burn in... NOW!"

Engines blared into life on the lander and it accelerated away.

"You just hit start. You don't have a course planned do you Brains?"

"Hey, you taught me well Oh mighty commander. Spur of the moment. Inspiration. Creativity. Am I learning or what?"

Jeb dropped his head into his hands and wondered what he'd done to deserve to be lumbered with Jedwig. OK, he'd made it his task. His own fault he guessed!

"OK Brains. Be careful and let us know when you get close to the surface."

"Roger Jebediah."

[Patupi]

Minmus Landing

The not so little lander aligned itself and leisurely descended towards the surface of Minmus. Planning was not very high on Jedwig's list of 'things to do'. Unusual for him, but given the great and powerful Jebediah's tutelage he didn't think it would be a problem. There was also the two minor facts that a) there had been several landings and many probes sent to Minmus and it had been thoroughly mapped, and the gravity was so low that as long as he remembered to decelerate at all he'd be fine. Something deep in the back of his head did pine for pages of mathematics, of calculations and orbital paths but he had rudely shoved it all behind him. He was turning over a new leaf, the new Jedwig, able to surmount any obstacle, to delve in even without knowing all the details ahead of time!

Involuntarily he shuddered, the prospect still daunting him, but for this mission he considered a trial run. He expected his old fear of the unknown to really come to life later if all went well. What he was planning was... well, almost completely unplanned! Just thinking about it made his head spin, but it was something he had to do, must do, to prove himself to Jeb. Of course that was not the main reason he was doing it. Of course not! The science benefits alone, let alone the proving of the vessel's capabilities, would completely justify his efforts.

He just hoped Gene back at KSC would agree with his assessment.

"So, having fun 'Improvising' down there Brains?" Jebediah's voice came over Jedwig's headset.

"It's certainly a very invigorating experience. I'll let you know how it works out after I crash. After all, I have to follow your example, don't I?"

"Why yes, yes you do. Please, show us how it is done. I'm sure you'll be as excellent at crashing as everything else you do Brains. Don't plan on missing Minmus do we?"

Jedwig rolled his eyes.

"Sorry to burst your bubble Jeb, little late for that now. I've already reduced below orbital velocity. You'll have to be satisfied with seeing my broken and burned corpse in the scattered remains of the ship over the green surface."

"I'll take photos. Lots of photos. I'm sure the bulletin boards at KSC academy could do with some livening up."

"Not to interrupt you, but I have to get on with the job of crashing... I mean landing this ship now Jeb. We'll banter later."

Getting closer to the ground he cancelled more of his velocity, aiming for one of the many flat basins on Minmus. Purely by eye of course. He had to fight the instinct to mentally calculate his orbital path and landing site. Improvisation! He had to learn to do this. If he could conquer this ability he could do anything!

The ground got closer, and his measly few hundred meters per second of speed did not truely worry him. The lander had an awful lot of deltaV to use, even if it's acceleration was not something to boast about. The light green shades of the ground grew closer, details of the nearby hills slowly becoming clearer, and Jedwig finally engaged the engines, slowing down a little early by his guess.

"Velocity down to under a hundred meters per second. Altitude now passing one kilometer. Angling to cancel sideslip now."

He tipped the ship a little to bring him down almost vertically as he unlatched and extended the landing gear.

He tracked the monitors, their views relayed from cameras that pointed aft, towards the ground now, and two laser indicators showed graphically (if his lander's shadow wasn't enough) how low he was going. As he got closer the two red dots grew closer and he increased the deceleration.

"Nearly there. Extending solar arrays." That wasn't technically in the 'plan' of any landing until after touchdown, but he planned for this to be a gentle kiss of a landing. Nothing a delicate panel would even feel. "Under a hundred meters."

Jeb didn't comment so he assumed he too would have risked extending the solar panels. It just showed how awesome his landing would be.

The dust kicked up by the energetic nuclear engines did obscure things a little, but he could still see the polarized light of the indicator dots let alone the shadow, through the cloud, and gauged his velocity accordingly. The shadow neared and finally...

"Touchdown!" he said, joyfully feeling the minuscule bump as he cut the engines.

"Congratulations Brains, the first manned nuclear powered touchdown on Minmus. So, feeling all glowy inside?"

"Oh ha ha Jeb. I haven't even grown an extra finger yet!"

"Be sure I'll be counting them when you get back!"

"I'm sure you will. Well, this is something to remember, and such a gentle touchdown with no instruments."

"Wait... what? Are you telling me you shut your instruments off?" Jeb's voice said, a hint of anger in it.

"Of course not! I'm not an idiot Jeb! I just didn't use them."

There was a pause before Jebediah answered.

"I see..... so no proof you did it unaided huh?"

Jedwig slapped himself in the face. Walked into that one!

With a sigh he began the prep for leaving the capsule, somewhat second nature now given his experience and the training for the many missions he'd done.

***

Jedwig stared up at the sky, the inky blackness a firm contrast to the almost glowing green curve of Minmus' basin. It was certainly a sight to see, and not one he'd seen before. Minmus was a place he hadn't been yet, though not for want of trying. The few missions here had been claimed by others at KSC. His objections had been met by deaf ears, but at least he hadn't gone untested. Many trips into orbit, to the Mun, and one trip each to both Duna and Jool. Not bad going for his age!

"Ahh, even the air is minty fresh!"

"You know that joke wears thin after the first dozen times you hear it." Jebediah said tiredly. "Not going to ask for some sauce with the desert are we?"

"Perish the thought!" Jedwig said, hastily cancelling what he was going to say and getting his flag out. "I was just going to get something permanent here before going on to some scientific testing."

"Of course Jedwig. I'll believe you. Carry on!"

The man was infuriating, but oddly even when he was like this Jedwig actually liked him. The odd repartee feeling old now, well worn and cozy. A friendship that was... odd, but lasting. At least he hoped so!

Jedwig planted the flag with great ceremony and stood firm, facing off to the sunrise as he engaged the vocoder to scribe his words onto this permanent record plaque on the flag base.

"Here lies testament to the incredible skill of one Jedwig Kerman, a master among minions, a genius that stands..."

A beeping from the vocoder signaled that the text box was filling quickly.

"...Damn! I'm running out of space." He said, hearing the vocoder click off as he said it, and wincing as he realized it had just finalized the plaque with those final, stupid words.

There was a pause as the 'Tick.... beep beep" came from the plaque and then the flag unfurled.

"I am truly impressed Brains. That was a good one even for you! Bravo! I'll be sure to take tapes from the flight recorder and play them at training sessions for years to come. You will be an inspiration to us all!"

"Are you done yet?" Jedwig said tiredly.

"What do you think Brains?"

'Brains' merely rolled his eyes as he got on with the science. This would be a long mission!

[KSK]

You've unleashed a monster. The cold calculating abilities of Jedwig coupled to the 'improvisational' skills of Jeb.

Great couple of chapters though - loving the dialogue between Jed and Jeb! Oh yeah - and that's one brute of a Minmus lander.

[Patupi]

You've unleashed a monster. The cold calculating abilities of Jedwig coupled to the 'improvisational' skills of Jeb.

Great couple of chapters though - loving the dialogue between Jed and Jeb! Oh yeah - and that's one brute of a Minmus lander.

Yeah, I threw it together quickly after the interplanetary section was designed... then realized it could probably do with just a fuel tank to rendezvous with in orbit rather than an IP ship It's engines were good enough on their own really. Bit of waste. And this whole system wasn't used after this (extended) mission. Yeah, you didn't see the (extended) bit. Jedwig would kill me if anyone found out too early

[Patupi]

A Change in Plans

"You do realize this is pretty pointless Brains?"

Jedwig smiled to himself as he lay back in the acceleration couch, watching the tank readouts shift as the pumps worked.

"Just because I have enough fuel to reach orbit doesn't mean we shouldn't refuel as much as we can. After all, the lander wasn't fully fueled when released. We hardly needed a full tank for this! This way I can mine the fuel to refuel the main ship for what it expended on the trip to Minmus. I'm sure the council will love us for being thrifty on fuel, right? Plus it does test the Kethane equipment."

"I hate it when you're being reasonable. Takes all the fun out of insulting you.... Not that you should expect me to stop you understand."

"Of course not. Perish the thought!" Jedwig replied with another smile.

This was turning out to be a good day, plus it would be a whole lot better a little later on. He had to suppress a chuckle. Ah Jeb would love this!

***

Jedwig was still grinning as the engines shuddered to life. Over in the distance he could just make out the tiny waving flag from TSNM-1 so long ago. Seanbur planted that Jedwig thought... or was it Bill? He couldn't remember. Despite his incredible memory it did tend to lose things he didn't think important. Titbits of information like that fell into that category... or they used to anyway. Personal stuff. Who did what. Before if he hadn't done it (or perhaps one of his few heroes in science and exploration) he wasn't interested. Now... people did matter, even people like Seanbur. Yes he seemed to be a rather ordinary, unimportant guy, but you never knew. If there was one thing Jeb had taught him was that people surprised you. Especially Jebediah!

He stared at the speaker as the ship took off, almost expecting that thought to trigger one of Jeb's customary jibes or jokes just when he was thinking about him. It would be typical. However this time the moment passed without the voice of Jeb butting in. Oh well. He couldn't be perfect could he?

"So, how's 'Mister Perfect' flying right now? Veering into any sheer cliff faces lately?"

Jedwig chuckled. OK, maybe Jeb's timing was still on.

"Difficult. There aren't any sheer cliff faces on Minmus Jeb."

"Hey, you are JEDWIG here. You'd find a way."

"Why I'm touched you think I'm that capable. It's truly an honor. Maybe I should hunt for a fabled Kunicorn while I'm at it?"

"Given your experience you seem eminently qualified. How did your last date go again?"

OK, that one bit! Jedwig ground his teeth, and he guessed Jeb might have realized he'd pushed a tad too far as he didn't follow up on the jibe. Slowly he focused on the controls, idly calculating an orbital rendezvous while trying to calm down a little. His 'date' with Lenley hadn't gone well. Trust Jeb to set him up with someone who's laugh could was so shrill it could break glass!

Jedwig did consider attempting to get up to orbit without instruments, even eyeballing it for rendezvous, but that would be a bit over the top. Even Jeb wouldn't try that... at least he didn't think so. So he sauntered up with his usual skill and matched courses, ferrying up quite a load of fuel after the converters had got the fuel from the Kethane.

"Nearing you now Jeb. Maybe you could get out and push. Just line things up a little for me? You know how awful I am at these things. You don't want me to ding your ship do you?"

"I think you can handle it Jedwig." Jeb said, somewhat subdued. Huh. No comeback? Jeb must be slipping.

Easing in Jedwig neatly put the lander into alignment with the twin docking ports then gently eased in.

[imghttp://i.imgur.com/5JjfTIH.jpg

*Clunk*

"There you go. If it weren't for the magnetic seals that would have been as smooth as Kustine's... well, you know." Jedwig said as he unbuckled, then floated for the docking hatch.

It opened before him and a rather somber looking Jeb floated before him.

"I'm sorry Jedwig. I... Look I've been under some stress of late and... I didn't mean it like that."

Huh?

"Jeb? What's the matter? Didn't mean what like that... Oh... the... date thing." Jedwig winced. He'd almost managed to forget it. "Don't mention it. You need to get out more is all. This little jaunt to Minmus is fine, but we need a longer haul, deeper into the Black, eh?" He said, fist bumping Jeb on the shoulder as he drifted past the moody Kerbal. "Come on, lets get the data from the lander uploaded and get set for our... plot."

Jeb sighed, then frowned. There was something odd about what Jedwig just said, but he couldn't put his finger on it. What was he up to?

"Hey Jedwig!" Mervey cheerily said, waving as Jedwig floated into the central pod. "How was Minmus? Minty enough?"

Jedwig rolled his eyes.

"Oh, that joke is SO one hour ago! Talk to Jeb, I'm sure he can help you come up with something better. Right Jeb?"

Jeb at least managed a smirk as he joined them in the pod, but there was an odd look on his face, and he seemed to be squinting at Jedwig. Uh... did he have some goo on his face or something?

"All systems prepped and ready, SIR!" Rolock said as he joined the group, saluting in zero gravity without beginning to spin. Quite an achievement. "Once the data transfer is complete and course confirmed I will perform the tie down. Then this vessel will be ready for the voyage home. Satisfactory sir?" He said, staring somewhere over Jeb's head.

"Rolock, you really need to loosen up some. Do you really enjoy all this military ceremony?"

A rare smile punctuated Rolock's features, though he was still saluting and staring out above Jeb.

"Yes SIR!" he said, winked, then turned to float across to the service pod and the airlock.

"Heh, Rolock cracked a joke. Wonders never cease!" Jedwig said with a smile. "Hey, Mervey, want to help me plot the course?"

Mervey actually giggled, and Jeb frowned while the other Kerbonaut saluted, though not as efficiently as the Eastpoint graduate Rolock.

"Oh yes SIREE! Heh. This'll be cool!"

Jeb continued to squint at the two as they headed into the command pod, but he had a job to do. Data transfer and checking the lander. Yeah. This totally wasn't planned ahead by someone was it? Hmm....

"You done yet Rolock?" Jebediah asked on the comms. He could see out the tiny window that the guy was still out there.

"Not yet sir. I was checking the main seals. One of the docking collars hasn't aligned perfectly, but with the connectors in place it should be sturdy enough for transit. I will commence with locking the connectors in place now sir."

"You do that Rolock." Jeb said, while finalizing the data transfer from the lander. Seems Jedwig had had some fun down there. They had some data from the Great Flats before, but this did fill out some details. Hopefully the boys back home could make use of it.

***

"Come on Mervey, quickly! He'll be back soon. Gotta get this right!"

Jedwig would rather have done this all himself, but two (even if one was Mervey!) could do this quicker than one. He typed in the final entry in the main course cycle, then watched as Mervey correlated the data from the disk he'd brought in with him.

"Looks like we've got it."

"Got what?" Jeb said, floating into the cabin.

Jedwig hastily coughed, covering the movement of him snatching the disk from the drive slot and hiding it in a front pocket. He clicked off some of the display, just showing the course plot arcing in towards Kerbin.

"Mind if I do the flying for once?" Jedwig said with a smile.

Jebediah stared at him intently, then crossed his arms.

"What are you up to Jedwig?"

"Hopefully taking us back to Kerbin. Why, you think I can't handle it?"

Again Jeb squinted.

"You better not be pulling anything weird Brains. You know I don't like your sense of humor!"

"Oh, come on. What do you think I'm going to do?" He replied, managing to keep a straight face somehow.

"The mind boggles Jedwig."

With a sigh Jeb waved absently at the controls.

"Sure, go ahead. Fly the ship. Just don't break it."

***

"Isn't this a little long burn?" Jeb said, eyes boring into Jedwig once more. "Not to question the mighty Jedwig, but you did do your maths right?"

"Of course I did!" And he had, just not with the results Jeb expected! "Have a little faith in me!"

"I do... very little in fact."

"Oh ha ha. And..... engine cut off." He said as the vibration stopped. "Just coasting left to do from here to Kerbin."

"Flight to Jool Four. We have an off course readout from our end. Can you confirm trajectory?"

"Oh definitely Flight! We're right where I set us."

"Jedwig?" Jeb said, leaning over and looking at the flight readouts. "What did you do?"

"Oh just a little... excursion."

Behind them Mervey burst out laughing.

"Little excursion! Mwaaaa ha ha ha!" He stopped as Jebs' eyes bored into him. "Er... yeah... What he said." Mervey said, looking contrite and nodding to Jedwig.

Jedwig sighed and turned to Jeb.

"Look, Jeb, what were you planning on doing when we got back? Some preflight checkouts for another flight? You don't have anything booked for months do you? I helped you out."

"Helped me...? What. Did. You. DO?" He said slowly.

"Well, you know how I like slingshot maneuvers?"

Jeb glanced back at the display and saw their path wasn't quite in Kerbin's atmosphere. They weren't going to aerobrake. They were swinging around the planet and back out into... interplanetary space!

"Oh god! Where?"

"Eve."

"EVE? What the hell were you thinking?"

"Actually I was thinking we could take a little holiday on Gilly. Grab some rocks, maybe lay out a picnic basket. I think the purple glow above would just set off the tablecloth I have packed."

Jeb, for once, was at a loss for words.

"OK, aside from the obvious insanity of doing this with no preflight checks from KSC, why? Just why?"

"For you Jeb."

Jeb's right eye began to twitch.

"Come again?"

"You have been bored rigid since the air crash. Barely been into orbit let alone anywhere interesting. We have the perfect interplanetary space ship, tons of fuel, and even a fuel reprocessing system, and it'll likely be completely scrapped after we return home. I just figured we could use it one time before it's dismantled."

"For... me?" Jeb said, very quietly.

"Are you telling me you wouldn't like to go to Gilly?"

"I..." He paused and shook his head. "Of course I would. That's not the point! This isn't like you it's..."

"... Spontaneous? Inventive? Original? Guess where I picked that up from?"

"Yes..." Came the deeper tones of Gene over the comms. "... It does seem a little familiar. And curiously your orbit seems, from our initial plot, to be spot on. The ship certainly has the fuel for it. And after checking the supply manifest it also, curiously, has the lifesupport for it too. I wonder how that happened?"

"Planning. OK, not so spontaneous as all that." Jedwig said with a shrug. "Still KSC could do with the publicity couldn't they?"

"Actually yes." Gene said.

"Wait, you're going to allow this?" Jeb said, incredulous that Gene wasn't flipping his top. "This is absurd, for him to spring this on you without warning like this. Without you knowing ahead of time about this anything could happen, I mean..."

"... And what makes you think I didn't?"

Jeb and Jedwig both looked shocked at that, staring at the speaker.

"You knew?" Jedwig said to Gene.

"Of course I knew Jedwig. You really think you could pull this off without me figuring it out? You've been planning this for weeks. I found out as soon as the extra supplies arrived for shipment to the Jool Four. I've been talking with the Council, persuading them that a trip to Eve was a good idea ever since. Yesterday they agreed with me."

"But... how did you know where I was going?"

"Other than fuel and supply issues, just enough for a round trip to Eve, I did get some more information."

"Uh... yeah." Came the small voice from the far side of the cabin. The fifth member of the mission hadn't really said much throughout the whole trip so far.

"James? You told Gene?" Jedwig said raising an eyebrow. "Wait, how did YOU find out?"

"I read your plan. I'm a computer geek... well, in addition to being an engineer. Gene asked me to hack into the flight computer. Didn't want the warning flag of a high bandwidth signal coming from KSC mission control doing it. Thus I had to do it from a terminal on the ship. It wasn't hard. Your encryption sucks.... Sir."

Jedwig stared at the unassuming engineer for several seconds, then burst out laughing.

"Ha! Oh, I suck at computers do I? Heh, maybe you can teach me something later then huh? Give me a few pointers?" He said, shaking his head.

Jeb's eyes were wide. This was certainly a different Jedwig than he'd known a few years ago! Still, there was the minor issue of the errant mission.

"So... seriously. We're going to Eve."

"You're going to Eve Jool Four." Gene said through some static.

Jeb looked slowly around the cabin to the other four members. Rolock looked slightly confused by all this, but seemed to accept Gene's agreement with it. The others seemed to be looking forward to it and... well, why wasn't he? This was the first manned mission to Eve. Even if they couldn't land on old Big Purple....

"Oh for... OK, OK, you win Jedwig. We're apparently going to Eve. You better have some darned good wine for that picnic though!"

Jedwig grinned and stared out the window to the distant view of Kerbin ahead.

"Oh definitely Jeb. Don't worry, you'll love it! A glorious expedition!"

There was that. Jeb started to crack a smile and slowly shook his head. Jedwig had done it again. Managed to get his own way. This time Jeb intended to enjoy it!

Edited March 10, 2015 by Patupi

[Patupi]

Oh for.... This thing spell checks for swearing in the darnest ways! Had it say 'S.N.I.G.G.E.R.I.N.G' and it deleted the middle. I can understand, but is this not a word in the US? Or do they consider it worth denying us that word just to stop racism? *sigh* I guess I'll change it to something similar.

[Patupi]

Heading to Eve

A knock came on Gene's door making him look up from his reports.

"Come in." He said bruskly, it had been a long day.

The Kerbal entering was equally brusk, but given who it was that was hardly surprising.

"Seriously. Eve? Does nobody tell me anything around here?" He said frowning at Gene.

Gene sighed and looked up at Dunkel and reluctantly slid his paperwork to one side for the moment.

"Yes. Eve. I know this is awkward, but honestly when I found out what Jedwig had planned it fitted perfectly."

"PERFECTLY!" Dunkel said with almost a screech. "You want to send some darned fool kids off to a new planet with no preparation and planning? This is suicide!"

With exaggerated slowly Gene pushed his chair back and stood up, heading over to the window looking out over towards the launchpad.

"No Dunkel. This is Jedwig." Dunkel raised an eyebrow, but Gene continued before he could interrupt. "Seriously, do you think that boy did not] plan this thing every which way? He doesn't do anything without planning, preplanning and overthinking it. Sometimes to extreme. As to supplies and such? We checked to make sure, but yes he has everything set up. We didn't even have to add anything to make it a viable mission."

Dunkel looked flustered, glancing around anxiously.

"But... but why? Why'dja let him?"

Gene sighed.

"Honestly? To get the government off our backs. They have been pushing for a while now for us to extend our exploration further into the kerbolar system, but our funding hasn't been equally increased. They did however fund for this prototype ship. If Jedwig decides to take this off and do some of what the government wants they aren't going to stop or chide him for it, and we won't stop him either. Besides, how he did it is even more interesting. He worked with Mervey to ensure things went right and no-one found out. Since when have you heard of Jedwig relying on someone else for something like this? He's changing Dunkel, and, however much it irks me to say it, it's due to Jeb."

Dunkel slowly nodded.

"Maybe. That boy knows people that's for sure.... and rockets of course. Heh, and ladders. He's gaga about those!"

"Yes." Gene said, keeping a stern expression. "I'm sure he is. Look, Dunkel, we have been under more and more pressure from the government of late, how is the research progressing?"

"Well, the work on the ion drive is bogged down a little. The things are just not doing what they are supposed to! At least the test models aren't liable to rocket off the test stand and hurt passers by! But I'd say in a few months we should have it ironed out. The other part though... Those cryo-test beds they sent us aren't up to scratch. It'll take me a while to modify this so it'll work reliably, let alone be something we can mount on a ship. Why aren't we sticking with the hibernation pods?"

"Again, orders from on high. Someone likes that the cryopods will hold Kerbals indefinitely once frozen. Hibernation they still age, though slowly. If we get them working there is also less risk with them. At least they have lower maintenance and control issues. All you need to to keep the Kerbals cold after freezing, no need for complicated lifesupport monitoring systems as on hibernation pods."

"And... why?"

Gene sighed, turning back to stare at Dunkel.

"I don't know, and honestly something about the... fervor in the government for space exploration, and what specific advancements they are after, worries me. Something is up on the hill Dunkel, I just wish I knew what."

"Aye. You and me both."

***

"Take a good look at Kerbin folks. You won't be seeing her for a good while!" Jeb said as he swung the ship around to show the view better from the science pod.

Jedwig floated behind him, a fond smile on his face as he gazed down on the sight of their homeworld.

"It does fill one with a grand sense of humility doesn't it?"

Jeb jerked slightly as if bitten, then slowly turned on Jedwig with a frightened expression.

"OK, who are you and what have you done with Jedwig?"

"Oh ha ha, most amusing Jebediah. Seriously, the view of our little corner of the universe like this, especially when we won't be seeing it for a while, does take your breath away doesn't it?"

"Mmmm, yes. Though I never thought I'd hear you say those words Jedwig. Besides, it's your fault we won't be seeing the old gal for a while."

"Oh, so now your on close personal terms with 'The Old Gal' Kerbin as well as the mun? How many girlfriends do you have Jebediah?"

Jeb grinned and leaned back in the couch (tricky to do in zero G), with his hands laced behind his head.

"Oh, one in every port... or least on every planet."

"Sir!" Rolock said abruptly, startling both Jedwig and Jebediah. "Report all life support systems have been double checked and supplies accounted for. We are go for departure."

"Heh, well we'll soon pass the last abort point so yeah, I think we will have to be. I hope you're happy with yourself Jedwig? You've suborned this entire mission, made me look like a fool, sent us all off on a fool's errand, and perhaps, just perhaps, ticked off Flight."

"Gene? He didn't sound annoyed to me?" Jedwig said with a frown.

"Maybe. Maybe you'll be lucky, but I wouldn't bet on it. You'll have to wait till we get home again to find out what your punishment will be. I'll eagerly await that announcement!"

"As long as you don't give him ideas!" Jedwig said fervently.

"Oooh! Thanks bud! Didn't think of that." Jeb said sitting up and reaching for the comms console.

"DON'T YOU DARE!"

Rolock sighed and left the command pod before it turned into a fight... or more joking. He wasn't sure which would be worse given these two's sense of humor.

***

"Well, course confirmed. We're good for Eve rendezvous. Estimated at a little under two months there, little time for science, then three or four months back. We should have enough fuel to do a seriously non-Hohmann transfer back home."

Jedwig smiled as he did the final checks.

"Hmm, well we're on course now we just have to *shudder* go into hibernation." Jeb said behind him.

"Actually, I had Rolock double check supplies earlier on this score, just to double check I'd got it right, but for this short a mission we have enough that you don't have to. Life support should be able to handle at least two awake the entire time for this mission, even assuming a long wait for a Hohmann transfer back to Kerbin."

Jeb raised an eyebrow and peered out the window as Kerbin shone, distant and small in the window.

"Well, that's a tough choice... the sheer unmitigated terror of hibernation or *DUN DUN DUUUUN!*" And yes, he actually said the 'Duns', much to Jedwig's chagrin. "... Spending months of flight time with you. How will I decide?"

Jedwig just sighed. It was going to be one of those missions... still, would be interesting.

[Patupi]

Cleaning Up

OK, this was new.

"And what are they exactly?" Gene said slowly to a disgruntled Dunkel. Not that that was different than the normal Dunkel.

The grizzled Kerbal shot a glare at Gene, then stomped to the window and snapped the blinds up sharply. Outside in the lot were five trucks with dozens of cylinders already offloaded and sitting on the concrete.

"That's what they are. Cryo-freeze chambers, a hundred of the darned things! We spend the better part of six months working on the problem and just when we're nearing completion they come down here, unannounced and dump these completed units on our doorstep! I swear, if councilman Carter were here right now I'd throttle him myself. Do you know how frustrating it's been this last month messing with cryogenic coolants and additives when I could have been tuning the prototype fusion reactor? Do you? NO YOU DON'T!"

Gene just let it wash over him, but Dunkel did have a point. The government (not to mention the council) were getting more and more chaotic of late, saying one thing then changing their mind shortly afterwards. This just put the icing on the cake.

"Fine. Take one apart and see if it meets your standards of approval Dunkel. Oh, and see if you were right on your design as well. I'd rather have a backup in case these things turn out to not live up to the claims for them. We do however have another problem." He said and pushed a memorandum across the table towards the aging engineer.

Dunkel frowned and looked down then sighed. Picking it up he shook his head despairingly.

"You've got to be kidding me. They want a reusable fusion shuttle? For crying out loud, we've barely got the tech started, let alone practical yet!"

"True, but there is more." Gene said, nodding towards the report. "If you read between the lines in that thing there indications of off world use for this 'Shuttle', that the specifications they call for have significant EM and radiation shielding. The only place I know where that would be needed would be..."

"...Jool. Of course, they're wanting us to send another fools errand out there. Typical."

"To be fair Dunkel we have several plans in the works to go to Jool again, just not soon. However there is more. I've had communications from Umbra Space Industries. Apparently they have been getting government funding as well and are eager to test some habitat systems they have designed. I understand it will take a little while to get their equipment up to scratch, but it seems the government wants us to set up a colony. They just didn't bother to tell us."

"This is ludicrous!" Dunkel said, screwing up the memo and throwing it across the room with a scowl. "What'll they think of next?"

"Well, for now I'm trying to expand my contacts in the government, and I can tell you Dunkel I don't like what I'm hearing. There is a lot of nervousness and secrecy up there, more so than usual. Something big is up and they aren't telling anyone! For now I suppose we just carry on as usual, but if I find out more I will let you know. I know there is something big going on Dunkel, we just have to find out what."

With a sigh Dunkel strode over to the door, but stopped before leaving, glancing back.

"We are all set for tomorrow Gene, but if things keep going like this we're going to be stretched to the limit."

"I know Dunkel, I know. Just do your best. I'm sure Ipdel will do us proud again."

Dunkel snorted.

"Huh, that love sick pup'll likely get us all killed! But what else is new?" He said before grinning and heading out.

"True, true." Gene said with a faint smile, but his gaze returned to the cryo-tubes being offloaded. What was the government's big rush? He would find out!

***

Ipdel straightened his suit one last time before dashing out. Late as ever. Fumbling with his notes he tried to go over it one last time, tried to think if there was anything he'd missed or got wrong.

"WHOAH!" He gasped, skidding to a halt as Machel nearly ran into him at a junction in the hall. "Oh Machel! Uh, ready?"

With a contagious grin she nodded.

"Oh you betcha! First remote pilot in, what? Six months? We need the experience."

With a haughty air Ipdel shook his head.

"Oh hardly. Us geniuses excel at everything we do."

"Like tying your shoelaces?" She said, nodding at his feet as she raised an eyebrow.

"What?" He bent over so fast he almost dropped his notes again, then sighed. "Oh very funny Machel!"

"Gotcha! See at Mission Control!" She said, already racing ahead.

"That girl!" Ipdel said, but grinned as he raced after her.

***

"Aaaand liftoff!"

The launch was fairly standard. A bunch of boosters with skipper engines kicked the assembly up to high altitude before the ship's main engines kicked in. Those and it's internal tanks were enough to get it to orbit with fuel to spare, but then it needed it's extra fuel.

"I'm reading a seventy seven by seventy kilometer orbit." Machel noted calmly. "Path is clear. No debris near vessel."

"Unfortunately." Ipdel said with a grin.

"OK GUIDO, tracking debris locus d9001" Gene said from the Flight desk. "Stand by for interception."

"Roger Flight. Disengaging integral skippers, engaging LV-Ns. Plotting intercept orbit."

The next twenty minutes were tense, but Ipdel and Machel focused on the task well, and soon their remote controlled ship was closing on a piece of orbital debris. A section of booster that had exploded after being jettisoned during the Munar Five mission. Closing to a kilometer from target the ship slowed down and began to edge closer.

"All readings look good, rotation is minimal. RCS is reading green." Machel said quietly as the craft neared the burned piece of engine and fuel tank.

"Green from primary claw mechanisms. All systems retracted and standing by." With a nod Ipdel acknowledged Machel and let her take control as it closed on target.

"Twenty meter. Eighteen. Velocity is at two meters per second, decelerating.... ten meters."

"Picking up some drift." Ipdel said softly, monitoring the velocity readings.

"Correcting. Target within claw arms. Five meters.... Three.... two... Contact. Closing claws."

"We have capture!" Machel said, the grin on her face infectious.

"OK, checking payload stability." Ipdel said, unable to stop smiling himself. "We have some lateral drift, but payload seems to be holding. Suggest slow roll maneuvers. We might lose it."

"Roger GUIDO."

Slowly the craft rotated in place until it was pointed retrograde to their orbital path.

"Engaging atomic engines!" Machel said with a grin. "Heh, always wanted to say that."

Ipdel just shook his head as he watched the periapsis of the orbit dip lower and lower till it nearly touched the surface of Kerbin.

"Braking path locked in. Cutting engines."

"Releasing payload."

"And payload is free. One piece of debris that won't bother anyone again."

The tension in the room relaxed somewhat, though not completely.

"OK, maneuvering for a radial prograde attitude and prepping for burn."

Now they just had to make sure it was only the debris that burned up, not the craft!

"Engines engaged, and periapsis is rising. Clear of atmosphere." Machel said with a chuckle. "OK, next target?"

***

The next few hours were intense as they grabbed and dumped payload after payload, multiple pieces of debris being flung into Kerbin's atmosphere to burn up.

"I think this is the last for today." Gene said calmly as they caught a booster one more time. "And after this stabilize the orbit and call it a day. We've done enough for now."

"Roger Flight. Standing by to ditch main tank." Machel said, then turned to Gene. "Do we have confirmation of the refueling launch?"

"Payload away!" Ipdel said, watching the booster descend towards the surface. "Prepping for boost. Engines engaged."

Gene nodded to Machel.

"Yes, two auxiliary fuel and monoprop tanks to be attached to the side ports. Current launch ETA is Oh four hundred tomorrow."

Machel sighed.

"Good. I'd hate for this to die after doing only half a job. If we can get that tomorrow we can stabilize the fuel status, ditch the launch tank and be ready for the next target."

"Yes, but be sure to jettison the tank into the atmosphere. I'd rather not have our recycling vessel create more debris up there."

"Roger Flight."

A grin firmly plastered on his face Ipdel watched as Machel finished the burn and stabilized the ship, locking it down for the night. Damned that girl could fly a console!

NOTE: Yes, this was done in KSP 0.23, so no claw as yet. I had to make do. The legs proved really tricky to get working right, holding the target, but jumping all over the place if you pushed to hard. Plus they didn't hold well. If I rotated to fast the part slid right out the side, even with the restraint arms between the 'claws'. In the end it worked and I cleared up a lot of debris. Not going to post all the pics from that. It got very repetitive, but was interesting to fly. The main ship however was seriously low on maneuvering fuel, so I did send up the 'refueling launch' just to keep it operating effectively. Mainly it was for the monoprop as the on board fuel was OK. All in all it worked very well. I was surprised. I figured it's be a disaster to fly that thing!

Recycler + refueler tanks on side: