Farlight (Updated 8/15)

[Ten Key]

Fixed. Thanks Pendant.

Apologies for my continued absence here. Our cat didn't quite clear the back of the couch during a recent bout of the "evening crazies", hooked one of his teeth and managed to break his jaw. Full recovery is expected, but for now the spoon feeding is taking up my writing time.

Look for me again around June 1st.

[pendant]

My pleasure, glad to help! I'm looking forward to reading more of your work

[polan]

This is really cool and inspirational. Expect rep to come your way

[Navy Airforce]

Any progress??

I really love this story, and am sad to see it sitting idle like this.

Rep coming your way

[Ten Key]

Some progress. Not enough, sadly.

I'm trying to twist two main threads together for the current chapter, and I'm running into a situation where some things work when done in one order, and others in another, but there doesn't seem to be one particular sequence of events where everything fits neatly in place. I will hopefully have some time this week to sit down and untangle things. Apologies for the delay.

[Navy Airforce]

Take all the time you need.

I've just seen too many good stories like this fall into disrepair and never get finished/updated with new content.

Glad to hear that this story won't be one of those

[Ten Key]

Just an update. . .the writing is rolling again, though still not as smoothly as I would like. The next chapter is a long one, and the rough draft is about 40% of the way done. I would like to have this out the door by next Tuesday (August 11) but that's going to depend on how many problems I run into.

Thanks for the patience all. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

[Bev7787]

That last chapter... Was hilarious.

[Navy Airforce]

Any luck??

[Ten Key]

We are still inching forward over here. I'm considering splitting this chapter into two parts, but having gotten to the designated "break point" I'm worried doing so will really change the tone of this part of the story. I'm just going to have to wait until it's all written and polished before making that decision.

I have long since crossed the "sick of looking at this" threshold, so it's time to just knuckle down and get it done. Thank you for the prod.

[Ten Key]

It, is done.

I still need to fill out a few sections, and the whole thing needs a few good editing passes, but I've got some momentum back now and I'm happy with the basic structure of it, even if the writing itself needs work in some places.

Getting this chapter into the forum is going to be a bit of a pain, but I promise you all, it is coming.

 

EDIT: For those of you following along through the comments, the next chapter was originally posted after KSK's message right below this one. It was apparently too long for the automatic update process to digest, and the post was deleted during the forum upgrade. It will be back up shortly, but if the following comments seem out of order, that's why. 

Edited December 29, 2015 by Ten Key

[KSK]

It, is done.

I still need to fill out a few sections, and the whole thing needs a few good editing passes, but I've got some momentum back now and I'm happy with the basic structure of it, even if the writing itself needs work in some places.

Getting this chapter into the forum is going to be a bit of a pain, but I promise you all, it is coming.

Woot! This is turning out to be a bumper week for KSP fanfic and I'm loving it!

[KSK]

That was an epic update...

I'm loving the mix of world-building and 'starting from the absolute beginning' rocket science (and yeah it's actual science at this stage) and engineering. All that plus vivid characters and a tangy splash of politics on top.

I may have made a slight tactical error by reading it at lunch break today - which turned out to be a rather longer lunch break than anticipated. I regret nothing!

[Shania_L]

Wow, what an awesome return!!

Like KSK just said, once I had started reading it .... I am sure there was something I had intended to do this afternoon ...

Quick question, maybe it has something to do with BTSM, but why does the mayfly have so many wing surfaces on it? dont they add a lot of drag?

[Ten Key]

Quick question, maybe it has something to do with BTSM, but why does the mayfly have so many wing surfaces on it? dont they add a lot of drag?

Aesthetics. The honest truth is that I had no idea what I was doing, and I liked the way it looked.

I think I had exactly two ridiculous suborbital flights with stock KSP before I installed BTSM, and you're looking at the very beginning of that. I didn't know about the CoM and CoL displays in the VAB. And it took me a while to figure out that I could use the cockpit's SAS function even if there wasn't a kerbal in the seat.

It did work out though. The Mayfly is nose heavy, and the tri-wing on the front gives it good pitch authority at the low speeds it glides around at. That helps a lot with the landing, since that parachute is barely adequate and you need to pull the craft vertical to make sure it comes down on its tail. The eight tail wings keep the Mayfly upright on the launchpad, and help cushion the landing. It loses about half the tail when it hits the ground. You don't want to know what happens if it comes down in the water.

The tri-wing has the added bonus of turning the Mayfly into an Infiniglider, giving me some quality time with my flightstick.

If you think the Mayfly is a kludge job, just wait. . .

"You want to use the casing on the probe core as a structural member?"

"Sure, it'll hold."

Is it possible to rip a Stayputnik in half? Oh yes, yes it is.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Brilliant! I just spent the better part of the day enthralled in this. Grinned, then chuckled, then completely lost it at William Tecumseh Kerman and now people are staring at me. Will be eagerly waiting for more.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Um.... Moar plz?

[Ten Key]

Abscissa

 

"So, this is it then?"

Bill pulled the blueprint across the desk, gave it a good once over. Jeb and Bob had worked through the night on it, and Bill had to admit it looked professionally done. 

Bob's hand, surely. 

The three of them had relocated to Bill's rail car, still connected to his former assistant's old office and now parked on an unused section of track next to Jeb's property. The liquor was gone, as was the phonograph. The pictures were still up on the wall though. Jeb looked them over carefully while Bill examined their schematics. He shook his head slowly-- none of the kerbals in any of the pictures were smiling. Not one of them.

Bob leaned over the desk, explaining each of the upside down notations and answering Bill's questions as he raised them. He was getting the definite impression that both Jeb and Bill preferred to talk to him, rather than to each other. Bob wasn't really sure what to make of that, but he was pretty sure their contraption would fly.

"Alright then." Bill leaned back from the blueprint, seemed to think for a moment. "Probodobodyne has agreed to sell us the probe cores, and we can buy those KESTES 1.5 things straight off the shelf." He looked up at Bob. "What about the cockpits?"

"Well," Bob glanced over at Jeb, who simply nodded. "We shouldn't have any trouble getting as many of those as we need. I know of at least one other warehouse that's been storing them, and there's bound to be others that come forward once words gets around."

"Hmmph, and then they'll start charging us for them too."

"We can worry about that later." Jeb turned from the wall and reentered the conversation. "Right now we have enough parts for three prototypes and one or two mock ups. It's time to take the next step."

"Test flight?"

Jeb nodded. "The news-sheets say the weather is supposed to be clear tomorrow, for what little that's worth. I'll see about getting some time on the firing pad. . .we need to know what we've got here."

 

 

________________________________

 

 

The mop came out of the bucket, landed on the tile with a wet slap. The marble flooring had been clean for a while now, but the mop's owner had little else to do while waiting for the conference room to empty. And the noise from the scrubbing helped to damp the shouting coming from the other side of the door. 

The meeting, if you could call it that, had already run over a good twenty minutes and showed no signs of abating. The group that had reserved the conference room for the current period loitered just down the hallway, having reached the conclusion that holding their own meeting was very much not worth the cost of disturbing the firestorm on the other side of that door. 

The heavy door blew open with no warning, a red faced government official leading the charge out of the room. "And you had better forget about studying gravity until you find a better way to deal with it!!"

The official slipped on the wet flooring, the painful fall avoided only through the janitor's quick reflexes, the mop clattering to the floor. The man sputtered, shook himself free, stormed down the hallway past the stunned on lookers. The engineers looked at each other, started to sneak back to their offices.

Kinsey stuck her head out of the conference room. "Oh no you don't. You all can feel free to join us, I think the director would like a word?"

 

 

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The door closed, and the director settled back into the chair at the head of the table. The others took their seats one by one, some avoiding eye contact, others seeking it. As ugly as that meeting had been, it looked like Farlight had managed to avoid any official sanction. That was good, but it left them back to trying to find a way to keep the lights on.

"As most of you know, the maiden flight of the Exosphere 2 sounding rocket terminated in the back yard of a prominent politician, in full view of almost a hundred VIPs and activists. A few hundred meters difference and it might well have landed on them."

"Would have solved a lot of problems."

The director inhaled slowly. "Kinsey. Shut up."

The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. The director continued. "The funds from that launch have cleared, and Rockomax in particular has taken a keen interest in Probodobodyne's new toy. The rumor is that Probodobodyne is collecting a significant backlog of scanning contracts, and right now we are the only ones who can get those scanners where they need to go. Or at least we were, until this morning."

The director flopped open a notebook, clicked a fresh pen to life. "We have two more Exosphere 2 rockets ready. One is slated for a trajectory that will take it out over the water, the other is set for a flight path along the coast south of us. Both of those rockets will fly, and the payments will keep us going a bit longer. After that, we're sunk unless we can figure something out. Options?"

"Can we fine tune the trajectories? Keep the rockets out of populated areas?"

"I'll be honest here." Kinsey leaned back in her chair. "We're having a hard time keeping them straight coming off the pad. They recover well enough, but not to the point of being able to target the crash area with any precision. Any fancy trajectory magic you all work out will be overwhelmed by launch instabilities."

"What about parachutes? Could we land them gently?"

"Not unless you can dream up some way to attach them to the side of the rocket. The probe core has one hardpoint, and the KESTES 1 motor has one hardpoint." The engineer brought his hands together, shook his head. "The augmenters don't have any hardpoints." 

The director looked around the table, settled on one particular face. "You're awfully quiet over there John. You have an idea then?" 

The kerbal stood, adjusted his glasses, crossed to the blackboard at the back of the room. "Gravity, as you all know, is an unavoidable field force." He drew an arrow pointing towards the bottom of the black board. "A rocket can temporarily overcome this force and climb out of the atmosphere." He drew an upwards facing arrow opposite the first one. "But this is only a temporary situation. A rocket can only carry so much energy, while gravity is forever. Once the fuel is gone, gravity will pull the rocket back to the ground." He put dashes into the upwards arrow with an eraser. 

"Now, gravity only acts against the vertical component of our velocity." John drew another arrow at a right angle to the other two. "It does not affect our horizontal velocity."

"The ground does." There were a few chuckles around the table. 

"And if Kerbin were flat, that would be a problem. But Kerbin is a sphere." He drew a large circle under the arrows. "If we make the horizontal velocity large enough, Kerbin's surface will curve away from our rocket at exactly the same rate it is falling." He drew a final arrow that curved around the circle. "The rocket will be in a stable equilibrium."

The director wrote something in the notebook. "And how long will that last."

John adjusted his glasses. "Forever."

A wave of low murmurs passed through the room. The director leaned forward. "How exactly does that help us? We're trying to be in the business of launching rockets John. Plural. If Probodobodyne's scanner will stay up indefinitely, I don't see where they need us anymore."

John shrugged. "It's a matter of battery life. Power is everything. Without it they don't run the scanner, they don't align the antenna, they don't send their data back. It will take about 30 minutes to complete a full circuit around the planet. It probably won't be much longer than that before the batteries are dead."

The director nodded. "And that's Probodobodyne's problem."

"Precisely."

"When you say, "large enough", what are we talking about? How fast do we need to be going?"

"The numbers say roughly 2,300 meters per second."

Kinsey sucked in air through her teeth. "Are you kidding? How are we supposed to do that?"

"I don't know Kinsey." John smiled. "That's not my problem either."

 

 

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The trundle bounced to a stop, the trailer behind it drawing a shroud of dust up from the unpaved roadway. The Farlight employee looked up from his work on the camera mount, returned the driver's enthusiastic wave with a tentative one of this own. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else out here. . .

"Morning Curtis!" Jeb beamed a smile, leaned his head further out the driver's side window. "Beautiful launch this morning, got to watch it on the way in till we lost it in the sun. That was something else! Series Two Exosphere, right?" The kerbal nodded, seemed to puff up a bit. "Ha, I knew it! See?" He looked over at the passenger seat, Bill rolling his eyes in response. "I told you they were still flying those things! Oh, right. Boss wants us to get this rig set up on the firing pad for the afternoon test." Jeb leaned back out the window, graced the kerbal with his best smile. "Mind if we play through?"

"Well. . ."

"Don't mention it! See you at Wurli's!" Jeb fed power to the motor, the noise drowning out the worker's half hearted reply as the trundle rattled around the camera shelter and made for the raised firing pad at the edge of the complex. 

"And where do you know him from?"

Jeb just smiled, shook his head, tapped his chest. "Name tag."

Bill snorted, looked out the window. "You're a real piece of work." 

The smile got bigger, one hand reaching back to thump on the wall separating the cab from the cargo compartment. "Going to be on a time table here Bob. You ready back there?" 

 

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Technical problems had a way of rolling downhill, shifting and sliding their way from one committee to the next until they finally landed hard on the desk of the last person in the chain. Probodobodyne had completed preliminary work on their new "orbiter" (the word was too close to "obituary" for Kinsey's liking) but they had also handwaved or outright ignored a number of problems along the way to their prototype. The battery packs alone were expected to weigh a full ton, and that number was far more likely to go up than it was to go down. 

Kinsey had a prototype of her own, the large tube strapped into its carrier in the center of the VAB. Like the Exosphere 2 rockets, this machine relied on a deliberate asymmetry in its dummy payload for guidance. Unlike the Exosphere rockets, this one was powered from tanks of liquified gasses from the air distillery, feeding a spare engine left over from the LFA-1 Dart test. It wasn't a question of if it would fail, but rather of how, and Kinsey hadn't even bothered to give it a name. 

"Alright everyone, welcome to the team! I know most of you, like me, have made careers as structural engineers. It's good work, isn't it?"

There were a few cheers, some friendly elbowing. Kinsey scrawled a familiar equation up on the white board.

"As of this moment, we have entered a completely different world, and it's going to take us a while to figure out how to live in it. I'd like to welcome all of you to the exciting field of rocketry!"

"Now this. . ." Kinsey picked up a broom. "This is our rocket. The heavy bristles on the end here are our payload." She turned the broom upside down, held it vertical. "All we have to do is figure out how to balance this on its end here so that it doesn't tip over." She balanced the broom, briefly, in the palm of her hand, catching it when it fell. 

"But wait, it gets better. That's just gravity. For the real deal, we also have to account for aerodynamic drag." She took some lead weights and attached them to the business end of the broom with lengths of string. "Like so. Now this. . ." Kinsey held the broom vertical again, ". . .is an unstable equilibrium. Perfectly balanced, it will stay like it is. But the slightest variance. . ." she tipped the broom a little to one side, the weights moving so that they were still pointing straight at the ground, ". . .and the whole thing will want to tip over. And it's a positive feedback loop-- the more it tips, the more it will want to tip, and so on and so forth, right up to the point where it starts doing somersaults." A wave of murmurs rolled through the assembled engineers. 

"Oh, and our broom isn't this big. It's that big." She gestured to the prototype behind her. 

The two traction engines that would drag the doomed rocket to the firing pad hissed and spat their way to life, their steam boilers coming up to their operating temperature under the watchful eyes of their handlers. Kinsey brought her hands over her head, clapped twice, the crack of it echoing through the bay. 

"Okay, let's get that door open and get this show on the road!" 

 

________________________________

 

"HEY!!"

Bob drew back carefully from the now armed prototype, turned towards the sound of the voice. He wasn't surprised to see the irate kerbal, or the Farlight uniform, but the rifle that was not quite pointed at him did provide for a moment of pause.

"Oh hey Curtis!" Jeb didn't so much as blink as the rifle swung in his direction. "We're just about finished with. . ."

"Finished! That's right, you three are finished! I want that thing off the firing pad! I want it off right now!"

Jeb glanced over at Bob, then back towards the Farlight employee. His smile had a hard edge to it. "Right now, you say?"

"Yes, right now! Are you deaf!?"

"Not yet." Jeb thumbed the ignition toggle on the console. 

 

________________________________

 

The deep rasp of the solid fuel motors blew in through the open doorway, drowning out the noise of the traction engines and drawing the attention of everyone on the bay floor. Little more than source of sound and light at first, the object shot up and quickly twisted back into its own exhaust plume. Clearly struggling, the machine did several tight loops just above the ground, each circuit spiraling closer to the open VAB door. 

"GET DOWN!!"

Kinsey threw herself to the ground along with the others, rolled behind one of the traction engines, looked up just in time to see the flyer miss the roof of the VAB by a few handspans.

 

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The director stared over the desk, one hand absently clicking away at a ballpoint pen. Jeb met the director's gaze evenly enough, seemed relaxed despite the armed kerbal standing in the doorway. The silence in the small office grew heavier with each passing minute, but so far the only one squirming was the guard. 

"It's good to finally meet you, though I wish. . ."

"Spare me. " The director dropped the pen onto the desk, flipped open a file folder. "Jebediah Tiberius Kerman. Forty two years of age, parents George and Wilma, father deceased. Graduated from Catamount Polytech with a Kermanship in. . .history? Interesting. Enjoyed modest success as the owner of a waste disposal company before running afoul of the last recession. Recently sold off the business and purchased the rights to an old dumping ground north of the pipeline complex. The fees and penalties on that land start to kick in about eight months from now."

"You're very well informed."

The director looked up from the folder, graced Jeb with a icy stare. "You have no idea. How you choose to go about paying off those penalties is not my problem. Unless you make it my problem. Do you understand?"

Jeb smiled. "I hear you."

"That's good. But just so we really understand each other, consider that most of the land around here is nothing more than bog. Bog that is quite inaccessible, and quite deep. Things, and people, have a way of disappearing out there."

"I hear you."

The director frowned. "Milo, please escort this gentleman and his friends off the property."

"Yes ma'am."

 

________________________________

 

 

"So, what happened?"

"It crashed?" Jeb's words were barely intelligible, his mouth full of half chewed sandwich. Bob resisted the urge to grind his teeth.

"No, with the Farlight director."

"Oh that." Jeb swallowed, made a dismissive gesture with the sandwich. "She wasn't happy, given that we almost took the roof off the extruder. But I have a feeling that problem will work itself out."

"No doubt." Jeb just shrugged, took another bite of his lunch, leaving Bill and Bob to exchange glances. 

Wurlitzer's was crowded, a lunch time rush that filled the main room and spilled out into a makeshift area hugging the street in front of the building. More than a few of patrons had paid for their food by chipping in on the construction of an extension to the dining area, and between the dozens of conversations going on around them and the din of hammering, their little table was as private as it was going to get. And a sight bit more comfortable than sitting out in the swamp in the heat of midday. 

"The basic problem. . ." Jeb swallowed, set the sandwich aside. ". . .is that the glider's wings generate lift at a right angle to the ascent path. It should be correctable with a pitch forward command, but the speed comes up too fast for the operator to react."

"And once it twists into that spiral, no amount of course correction is going to stabilize it until the motors burn out."

"Exactly! Now, what if we set the trim on the wings manually to a "pitch forward" state before ignition? Might give the operator just enough time to get things under control."

Bill tried straightening one of his sleeves, the clinging humidity making it a futile gesture. "Yes, fine. We still have plenty of parts. When can you get started?"

"I'm going to go get started right now." Jeb set a pair of hammers on the table. "You two are going to pay for lunch." 

 

 

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"The basic problem. . ." Kinsey set her fork down on the plate. ". . .is that the rocket needs to be too long in order to pack in enough propellant. All of the asymmetries we've tested become uncontrollable at some point during the flight. The center of mass just shifts too much as the fuel burns away."

The conference room was cool, the convention center's HVAC laboring to keep the heat and humidity on the other side of the window. Representatives from Farlight and Probodobodyne treated themselves to a light luncheon while they mulled over the recent developments in the Exosphere program. 

The Probodobodyne rep dabbed at his mouth with an embroidered napkin. "The orbiter is coming along nicely. Zaltonic has finished vacuum testing the batteries and we think we have a solution for exoatmospheric attitude control. Our lead engineer tells me we should have a working prototype in about two weeks. Do you think the rocket will be ready by then?"

"Two weeks?" Kinsey snorted, caught the subtle shake of the director's head, bit back what she'd been about to say. "I don't think so. On top of everything else, we're suddenly having a hard time sourcing the engines we've been using."

"We are?"

Kinsey sighed. "I don't understand it. The licensing fees on those LV-T15 engines jumped by a factor of ten overnight. There's no way we can pay that much just for test flights, and if we have to cook up a whole new engine it'll set us back at least a month. "

The director frowned. "The vendor for those engines wouldn't happen to be a 'Jeb's Junkyard', would it?"

"Yes, I think that was the name."

"Of course it is. Sometimes, I swear, this planet seems so much smaller than it ought to be. Nevermind, I'll see to the engine problem. Just get the rocket flying."

Get the rocket flying. How? With the combined weight of the machine moving farther and farther away from the engine at the same time that the tail fins were becoming less and less effective in the rapidly thinning air, maintaining control for the entire flight seemed impossible. Kinsey pushed the food around on her plate, her lunch settling in her stomach and that stupid broom swaying back and forth in her mind, lines and weights, lever arms and force thresholds. Her mind wandered and her eyes with it, settling finally on the battered, spherical form of a probe core, sitting on a pedestal along one wall of the room. The attachment plate was warped, had been partially melted. It looked for all the world like it had been torn off of something. 

Kinsey blinked.

"Excuse me, but that probe core. What happened to it?"

"Oh, that? As best as we can tell, the rivets and welds holding it in place weakened due to frictional heating. The whole thing popped off when the rocket hit the ground. We've gotten some useful data. . ." The Probodobodyne rep went on at length, but Kinsey wasn't listening anymore. Nor did she catch the director's slow smile.

"Could we do it on purpose?"

 

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The interior of the VAB was dark, save for a small pool of light in one corner. The technicians and support staff had long since gone home, leaving Kinsey alone in the cavernous room. She leaned over the desk, set the tape measure aside, made a mark with a grease pen roughly two thirds of the way up the handle of that cursed broom.

"Kinsey?" 

The janitor's face poked into the circle of light, eyes dulled from the lingering effects of sleep. "It's the middle of the night, what are you doing here?"

Kinsey drew back from the broom, slapped the grease pen down on the desk, the sound echoing through the bay. "The rocket's too long, but we're not going to carry that blasted lever arm all the way up with us." She grinned up at the startled janitor.

"We're going to stage it."

 

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"Morning Curtis!" Jeb hopped down from the trundle, surveyed the firing pad like he owned it. Which, in a small way, he did. 

The response from the assembled Farlight employees was muted, the ground team preoccupied with their crippled rocket. The machine had flopped over like a wet noodle, the heavy payload on the nose bending the rocket back on itself until both ends were touching the ground at the same time. Jeb smiled to himself, was pretty sure that was not supposed to happen. The offending piece looked to be a yellowish ring with way too much flex in it about two thirds of the way up the tube . A cursory glance told him the engine was probably intact and could likely be reused. He moved some numbers in his mental ledger, then turned back to the trundle. 

Forty minutes later, Jeb was sitting alone in Wurlitzer's half way through his third drink. Somewhere out in the bog, the remains of his prototype sank into the grave it had dug for itself. And disappeared. 

 

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"This 'trim' thing didn't help."

"No. The controls are just too sensitive, even with the precision adjustments we made. It's not the wings, it's the control inputs. What we really need to do is find a way to adjust the sensitivity of controls on the fly, based on the airspeed of the vehicle."

"Hmph." Bill folded his arms, glared up at the cloudless sky. "That even possible?"

Bob glanced around the work area, the low angle of the rising sun casting shadows that made the clutter look even worse than it actually was. "No."

"Can we slow the thing down somehow?"

"No. Those motors are sealed at the factory."

"I'm starting to think this was a bad idea."

Try as he might, Bob couldn't think of a reason to disagree. Their latest attempt had been another disaster, the flyer shooting upwards in a series of increasingly violent S-curves that had quickly devolved into another looping crash. Jeb's quick reflexes had prevented the prototype from coming down right on top of them, but the junker had disappeared immediately after the test. Bob hadn't seen him since. 

Their remaining prototype sat by itself in the center of the yard. At Bill's insistence, Bob had mounted the vehicle to a gimballed frame so they could engage in some non-destructive testing. And the results had been disheartening, to say the least. Mathematically, at each velocity point, there was a specific pitch setting for the wings that would allow the vehicle to fly straight. But the velocity came up so quickly that there was simply no time to react. Worse, even the smallest adjustment of the control stick was more correction than the vehicle needed, resulting in a deadly oscillation where the operator couldn't help but over correct. That the Farlight team had encountered the same basic problem with their sounding rockets was small comfort-- Farlight had the financial backing of a major corporation and at least one major mining concern. They had their one remaining prototype, a beat up trundle, and a swamp full of junk.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" The scraping flash of a match preceded the pungent smell of tobacco. 

Bob sat down on the trundle's bumper. "Wonder what?"

Bill waved the cigar at the pile of junk. "How they did it. Back during the war. Were they just throwing Peninsulite technology around blindly, or was there some understanding of how it worked?"

"Well," Bob leaned back on the tailgate. "from what I've read, most of the stuff was pretty blackbox. The Peninsulites liked it that way and no one was in any position to argue. Near the end though, a lot of the belligerents started using home brew tech out of necessity. It was pretty primitive."

"And that?" Bill pointed the cigar at the prototype. 

"The original K2 was Peninsula tech, but the block two was a home brew reproduction. They built them right up until the end of the war. The only thing really note worthy about them. . ."

Bob trailed off, lost in thought for a moment. "The autopilot. The block two had a simple mechanical autopilot. But they only used it. . ."

"Son, I don't care what they used it for. Can we use it now?"

"Maybe. I have no idea how responsive it is. And the controls would obviously be in the cockpit, so I don't know how the probe core could access them."

Bill took a pull off the cigar, blew the smoke off to one side. "That last problem sounds like something a smart kerbal like you can figure out. As for the first, we're going to have to test it."

Bob frowned. "This is our last prototype. Our last probe core."

"I know, I have an idea. Do you have any idea where that good for nothing garbage slinger has gotten too?"

Bob shrugged, looked away. Bill chewed on the cigar. A sudden breeze carried the smoke away and then stilled, leaving the two in silence. A silence that was filled with a long, guttural snore, coming from the prototype's cockpit. 

Bill took the cigar out of his mouth. "Ah."

Bob smiled, shook his head, started for the prototype. "I'll wake him. . ." he stopped as Bill's hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Oh no, no you won't. This is delicious. I think it's time that junker got a taste of his own medicine."

 

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Jeb dreamed he was flying.

The dream had first come to him in childhood, the ultimate adventure, that if he could somehow go fast enough, he could reach the horizon and jump over it. It had lingered over the years, dashed finally by books and schooling and the knowledge that the real world was not as exciting and wonderful as his fantasy world had been. And yet still the dream came, familiar and wonderful, and he never turned it away when it did.

His aircraft shuddered beneath him, its engine straining and rattling more and more as the minutes passed. But Jeb would not relent, kept the throttle all the way forward, lowered the nose into a shallow dive to pick up speed. He was so close now, the line between land and sky drawing closer, his airspeed picking up. The radio on his console barked static, an annoyance, and he reached down long enough to flick it off. But the noise continued, more insistent, and now his aircraft was jostling harder, the air rougher, a bit of turbulence, and then one hard bump. . .

Jeb blinked his eyes open, smacked his lips, inhaled a deep lungful of air. The inside of the cockpit was dark, strange, and the whole of it was rocking around pretty good. Jeb's first thought was a storm, but the wind sounded odd, almost muffled. And there was something squawking at him from inside the cockpit. 

Jeb sat up slowly, yawned, stretched as much as was possible in the confined space. It was unnaturally dark outside the canopy, definitely not clouds. He fumbled for the switch that would bring the console lights up, found it, stared out the glass at the metal shell encasing the prototype. 

"Huh."

There was another bump, the seat absorbing most of the shock. The squawking was coming from a small tube shaped object with an antenna on one end, one of the new wireless handsets they'd picked up from Probodobodyne when they'd gotten the probe cores. Someone was trying to reach him. He tried to picture Bill using one of the new gadgets and failed, the man more comfortable with his cigars than even with a simple telegraph line. Bob then.

Jeb fumbled first with one of the glove boxes, got it open, fished out a half eaten hamburger. He unwrapped it slowly, gave it a sniff, took a huge bite and then thumbed the transmit key on the handset. 

"Jeb's Crematorium, you kill it, we grill it! Can I take your order?"

 

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Bob focused hard on the horizon through the front window of the locomotive, tried his best to ignore the sound of chewing coming through the handset. There really ought to be a law here, he thought. The Civil Communications Act, or something. Where had he even gotten food in there?

"He awake?" Bill's head appeared over the gauge stack, his hands working a pair of levers, the steam engine in the locomotive chuffing away underneath them. 

"He's eating breakfast at the moment." 

"He's. . .what? No, I don't care. How's the cover look?"

Bob looked back out the window, ran his eyes over the metal shell encasing their prototype, the whole of it secured to a flatcar that was in turn pushed along in front of the locomotive. The vibrations were picking up as the train accelerated, but the cover looked like it was still sealed. Bob gave a thumbs up. 

"Good." Bill adjusted a lever, checked the speed gauge, the needle fluttering at just over 140 kph. "Boiler pressure is as high as it's going to get. Get him ready, we only have about ten minutes at this speed before we reach the tunnel."

 

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"Right, give me a minute to get set." Jeb tossed the remains of the burger back into the glove box, fished the safety harness out of the seat cushions. Bill had actually had a good idea, wonders never cease. This might work, and would solve so many problems if it did. Jeb's eyes narrowed, stopped with the harness half clasped. How was the probe core going to do this? He shrugged, finished locking the harness in place. They'd figure something out. 

Now securely fastened into his seat, Jeb's next task was to ready the recording gear they'd installed in the cockpit for their static tests. The apparatus recorded both the rotation of the test stand and the inputs from the hand controller in the cockpit. It printed the output as a set of lines on a rotating paper drum, and the results of the previous tests were still visible as a set of ridiculously jagged peaks and valleys. 

The handset squawked. "Hang on, almost ready here." Jeb reached back behind the seat, hunted around until he found the hat. The fedora settled comfortably on his head, and he took a moment to set the brim just right. 

"Okay, I'm set. Let's do this." Jeb reached out and flipped the switch that would set the autopilot. He could just barely hear the sound of the gearbox behind the console. 

 

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"Okay? Okay!" Bob glanced back at Bill, who looked up from his gauges just long enough to nod. "Ready Jeb, in three. Two. One." Bob hit the plunger box that had been bolted just under the window frame.

 

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There was a quick sequence of sharp pops along the edge of the cover, splitting the metal parts along a seam and providing just enough force to lift the edges. Caught in the air flowing around the train, the covers peeled back and were torn away completely in the blink of an eye. 

The still air around the prototype was replaced with moving air, the wings suddenly generating lift that tried to force the vehicle into a nose up position. Jeb kept his hands off the controls, watched the autopilot react, the wings outside the canopy twitching in response to commands from the little gearbox. The motion inside the cockpit was barely perceptible, the wings keeping the machine stable on the test stand despite the sudden change in airflow. Jeb thumbed the transmit key.

"Nice and smooth in here. I think we may have a winner."

"Okay, good. We're coming up on a tunnel, let's see how it responds to that."

Three minutes later, the train and its now exposed cargo shot into the narrow tunnel opening at a high rate of speed, the airflow transitioning sharply as they entered the confined space. Jeb watched the output on the drum-- all of the lines fluttered gently and then quickly damped to zero. 

 

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The farmer stood on the rise, pointed, his companion squinting into the haze at fields below. At first there was little to see, but as his eyes adjusted to the sun glare he could make out, faintly, strange patches in the crops. They weren't dead, nor sick, or even overly healthy. And as individual plants they would never have been noticed. But the slightly odd manner of their growth was visible from afar as a series of thin bands, spaced a few kilometers apart and stretching clear to the horizon. The farmer looked over at his companion.

"Now, ain't that the oddest thing you ever did see?"

"Well, I dunno. . ."

"Ha! I knew it! Pay up friend, a bet's a bet, fair and. . .square?"

They both turned at the sound of a train coming around the bend at the base of the rise. It was pushing a bizarre contraption, and on that contraption stood a kerbal, dancing vigorously to some unheard tune and wearing nothing but an old fedora and a huge smile. 

"Aw, dang it!"

The locomotive's whistle blew loud and long, carrying from one end of the valley to the other. 

 

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"Okay, a little farther now. Just a little more. . ." The overhead crane eased the dummy payload down towards the rocket, the operator high above relying on the marshaling wands of the load masters to guide her. Just a little more. . .

The payload made contact, gently, and the crane halted at the bidding of several vigorously gesturing kerbals. A few minutes later, the payload was securely fastened to the top of the rocket and the crane had retracted back to its resting position. 

Kinsey stared up at it, her team of engineers at her back. The reinforcements were holding. "Okay team, nobody breathe. . ." There were a few polite chuckles. Quiet ones.

And then, someone sneezed. 

It echoed through the otherwise silent bay like a gunshot, and for a long moment no one moved. And then, there was the sound of groaning metal, building quickly, the rocket bending at the decoupler and slowly leaning into one of the catwalks running the side of the room.

"Well. That could have been a lot. . ."

The catwalk gave way suddenly in a shriek of overstressed metal, and then the one below it, and the one after that, cascading down to the bay floor in a huge mess of twisted debris. 

Kinsey threw her clipboard at the far wall. "I quit. Someone clean that mess up." She walked out of the VAB without looking back. 

 

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The curator sat on the edge of the display, lamented the loss of his precious museum. Oh, the building was still there-- he was sitting in it now-- but all of the important bits had been swept aside to make room for new displays and kiosks. 

Rockets indeed.

The skeleton was gone, the skull and a few other pieces of it moved to the small display that was currently holding him up off the floor. Hanging in its place were full mock-ups of the Exosphere 1 and 2 sounding rockets, along with a Dragonfly lighter. Not even the gift shop had been spared, the plush kinosaurs and wooden skeleton puzzles largely giving way to Kestes model rockets and toy science kits. At least those had some education value. He turned the curio over in his hands, a little porcelain lighthouse, the conciliatory offering from the building's new owners.

Maybe he could use it as a paperweight.

Today there was another large mock up taking up space that could have been used for something with academic merit. It was a small blessing at least that this particular display was temporary. Certainly, the disruption surrounding it had gone on long enough, and the curator would be more than happy to see it go. It had been all his students could talk about for weeks, that someone had created yet another flying machine, and that they would be running a contest for the right to name it. And if that hadn't been enough of a distraction, his students had found a way to win. All pretense of meaningful instruction had come to a halt while they scoured every dictionary the library had on offer. Why, they had even. . .

"Excuse me, sir?" The curator blinked, looked in the direction of the voice. 

"You're in my sight line." The photographer motioned to his tripod. "Would you mind moving? Thanks!"

 

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Jeb stepped back from the podium, smiled, gave the photographers time to make their shots. It had been a good idea, another surprise from Bill, letting the locals decide on the name for their new flyer. He had been a little dubious at first, but the press turnout and the reaction from the crowd silenced any lingering doubts. "And let's have a round of applause for the winners folks!" 

The kerblets bowled through the front ranks of the assembled press, clustered around the podium, suddenly seemed less sure of themselves in front of the cameras. All but one. She stood slightly apart from the others, made eye contact with the reporters, wore the little metal key around her neck like it was a press pass. Jeb smiled, moved around the podium, herded the group into a better arrangement for a photo without being too obvious about it. "So, what have we settled on? I'm going to be flying this glider soon, and I'd sure like to know what it's called!" The crowd chuckled politely, the kerblets more focused on him now than the cameras. 

"Well, we thought. . .uh. . ." One by one, they looked at the girl with the key. 

"We thought about it a long time, and we wanted to name it after an insect. . ."

Jeb nodded, his mind jumping ahead. Wasp? Stinger? Hornet?

". . .so we looked through the library for names, and it's heavier so it won't fly as long as the Dragonfly. . ."

Ooooh, Mantis! Grasshopper? Noisy Cricket!

". . .so we decided to name it the Mayfly!"

Jeb's smile froze on his face. A wave of groans rolled through the audience. Someone laughed. And the kerblets began looking around, their composure wavering under the crowd's reaction.

"Well, that's an interesting choice." Jeb decided to play for time. "What are your names?" 

"Tygh!"

"Laethandra."

"Bopo!"

"Polik!"

The remaining member of the group stayed silent, stared up at the prototype hanging from the ceiling, as though trying to see the winged insect in its shape. Jeb cocked his head. "That's a Kestes launch key, isn't it? They don't just hand those out, you have to earn them." She nodded.

"What's your name kid?"

The kerblet met Jeb's gaze, tipped her chin up ever so slightly. "Valentina Kerman."

There was a loud gasp from somewhere near the back of the room, some teacher or chaperone no doubt winding up for a lecture on the consequences of a falsely claimed kermanship. Jeb's smile was quick and bright, his memories wandering back to the wild days of stolen trundles and homemade parachutes. 

"That's right kid, and don't you ever let anyone tell you differently." Jeb straightened up, pulled the fedora off and, with just a bit of ceremony, plopped it down on the kerblet's head. 

"Hey, no fair! You already have the key!"
"Let me see it!"
"Oooh, let me hold it, let me hold it! I'll give it back!"

"Ladies and gentlekerbs!" Jeb raised his voice over the squalling, stepped back behind the podium, gestured towards the mock up. "It is my sincere pleasure to introduce to you our latest creation, the X-1 Mayfly!"

 

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"Those are on clearance, if you're interested. Buy one, get two free!"

Kinsey picked up the small porcelain lighthouse, ran a finger along the edge of it. "You need to dovetail these joints here along the sides, otherwise they might fail if the wind gets too strong." The sales clerk blinked, smiled, left Kinsey to wander the aisles of the gift shop on her own. The rain drummed softly on the overhead windows, giving the whole store the subdued feeling of a library. The few patrons left after the end of the christening ceremony kept to themselves.

Names were important. They had a way of giving things a life beyond simple function, a way of stirring people into pouring more of themselves into a project so that they might keep it going. But some projects weren't worth keeping-- she still hadn't bothered to name the wreck of parts junking up her VAB. This latest set back was going to cost them, and so far there was no fix in sight. Staging off the unneeded sections of the rocket had seemed like a good idea. It still seemed like a good idea. But the decouplers that had been provided just had too much flex in them, and the dummy payloads provided by Probodobodyne were just too heavy. And even if they could get the thing off the ground, they were going to run right into the same control problems Probodobodyne had encountered with their sounding rockets. 

She lingered in the gift shop, giving her crew time to clean up the mess on the bay floor. The rain was soothing, a calming effect that she desperately needed. The broom was back, swaying back and forth in her mind. She held the lighthouse in her palm, base up, tried to balance it on its top. She caught it when it tipped over and fell. 

The back of the shop held the remaining cast offs from the remodel. A prospector's hat. A ceramic nesting doll. A toy compass. Kinsey picked up the doll, its fixed eyes staring back at her, accusing. Why can't you make the rocket work? She lifted the lid off, pulled another kerbal out from inside it. And another, and another. And another. She arranged them on the shelf, her team perhaps, their own futures riding on her ability to make their project worth keeping. 

Kinsey frowned, fingers drumming on the shelf. She picked up one of the figurines, empty now, removed the lid. She turned the lower half of the doll over, looked inside it, stared at it for a long moment before picking up the lighthouse with her other hand. She turned it base up and, very carefully, lowered it down into the doll. She held it out, a long, slow smile, the lighthouse staying upright. She rocked it back and forth, the smile getting bigger as the heavy curio stayed put. Kinsey tightened her grip, dropped her hand suddenly, the lighthouse holding its orientation as the doll dropped out from underneath it. 

She caught the lighthouse as it fell. 

Kerbals were not built for running, but Kinsey made good time on her way back to the VAB. Her crew had had a long enough break-- it was time to build a rocket. 

 

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The museum was dark, the ceremony long over, the gift shop shuttered for the night. The Mayfly hung from the ceiling, backlit through the windows by the light of a nearly full Mün, its shadow playing across the other displays. A hollow, uneven scraping sound broke the eerie silence, culminating in a loud, echoing bang as the last of the now empty trash containers slid and wobbled into place. 

The janitor held up a pocketwatch, turned it until the face was visible in the dim light. Midnight. Not enough time to get home and sleep before the next shift. The cot in the back room of the VAB beckoned once again. 

The main floor of the museum, or display area, or whatever they were calling it now was clean and tidy again. It was incredible, just how much trash and mess a room full of kerbals could produce. The janitor took one last look about the large room, frowned, shuffled over to a small display tucked into a corner. There was a bit of light next to the large kinosaur skull that dominated the display, a little shiny something, wedged into the stonework. One of the kinosaur's teeth maybe? The janitor fished it out of the seam, held it up to the light, wondered how it had gotten there.

The little porcelain lighthouse sparkled in the glow of the Mün.

 

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Kinsey ducked her head under the viewer's shroud, the glare of the early morning sun giving way to the harsh glow of the projection screen. They would have a better look at the film later, but for now the playback equipment in the field would give them their first look at what had gone wrong. 

The prototype rocket had wobbled coming off the pad, and you could see the control vanes adjusting in response. It corrected briefly, accelerated, the view now lurching around as the camera struggled to hold the rocket in its sights. The oscillations in the trajectory came back, got worse, the rocket itself now starting to flex under the load. A few seconds later, the dummy payload wormed its way out from between the raised fuel tanks cradling it, flexed nearly 60 degrees off center. A few heartbeats later, the entire rocket came apart.

Kinsey leaned back from the screen, rubbed at her eyes, took a deep breath. It had worked, the new "Farlight" rocket making it to the pad and launching without bending itself to pieces. But, as predicted, the lifter had been unable to survive the oscillations introduced by the rapidly changing airflow along the control vanes. 

"It's such a terrible burden, being right all the time."

"Kinsey?"

"Nevermind. Let's close it up out here and get back to the extruder. I have some ideas." She didn't, but they didn't need to know that. 

Someone coughed. "Looks like those 'Junkyard' fellas are back." 

"Great. That's just great."

 

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"You fellas gonna clean up your mess this time?"

Jeb stood back from the pad, smiled, waited while Bob set the ignition coils into the Kestes motors. "Maybe. How much is it worth to you?"

"You'd better not hit any of our equipment!"

"No promises." Jeb shielded his eyes, stared out over the water at the rising sun.

"Better step back fellas, it May Crash." The Farlight crew laughed.

"Could be." Jeb smiled, made eye contact with each of them, one by one. "Then again, it May Fly." Bob walked up, nodded to Jeb, flipped a switch on their cobbled together control panel. 

Deep inside the probe core, an unused mechanical relay clicked a quarter turn counter clockwise. As far as the computer was concerned, the relay did nothing, but the rotation pulled at a slender metal cable welded onto the cylinder. The cable passed through a freshly drilled hole in the core's casing, and then through a similar hole in the back of the cockpit, before finally ending in a loop that had been fixed to a switch on the control panel in front of the Mayfly's seat. The cable tugged, the switch flipped, and the K2's mechanical autopilot engaged. 

"Well Bob, I guess we'd better get this over with, huh?" More laughter behind them. Bob smiled slowly. Jeb hit the ignition switch. 

 

The Mayfly leapt off the firing pad, straight up and way up, without the slightest hint of a twitch or wobble. It looked for all the world like it was mounted on rails. 

"Huh, that's weird." Jeb's tone suggested it was anything but. 

"You! How!" Jeb thought the poor woman's jaw was going to drop off of her face. "How did you do that!?"

"Magic." 

Kinsey stared, too dumbfounded to even get angry. Jeb seemed to have a change of heart, leaned in closer, lowered his voice. 

"Space magic." He winked and turned back to the controls. 

 

 

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It had taken Probodobodyne's engineers about thirty minutes to puzzle out the secret to the Mayfly's sudden success. 

"It's incredible, really. Those autopilots are almost 50 years old, and yet they can adapt to rapidly changing flight conditions and operate across a tremendous range of control sensitivity, from the lightest feather touch to a brute force, 'throw the stick across the cockpit' motion."

"I thought the K2 was homebrew tech?" Kinsey crossed her arms, leaned back in the chair. "I didn't think the homebrew stuff from the war was that good?"

"It's not." The rep sniffed, paused for a sip of water. "I imagine the manufacturer just copied the gearbox without really understanding how it worked. But apparently, they're very accurate replicas."

"Fair. Can we build our own replica? Integrate it into the rocket?"

"We could. But that would take time and money we don't wish to spend. My company has been in contact with several warehouses that have surplus K2's. We've already integrated the cockpit sections into the final version of the Exosphere Series Three orbiters. The autopilot should provide stability control for both ascent and on orbit operations."

"You did what!? How much do those cockpits weigh?"

"Calm yourself, they're only about two tons." 

 

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Jeb fastened the last clasp on his boots, straightened, checked the range of motion on the flight suit. It was old, surplus, didn't quite fit. But it was good enough. Jeb smiled. Somehow, things were always good enough. 

He looked out across the field, the Mayfly sitting ready on the firing pad, waiting. For him. There was a crowd gathered, more of Bill's magic, filling up the wooden grandstands that had sprung up in the weeks since their successful test. A sudden wave of cheering reached him from across the field, three stunt parachutists making a steep, swirling descent onto the area around the pad. Jeb couldn't help but be impressed, and truth be told a little jealous. That had looked like fun. 

"They're triplets you know." Jeb turned at the sound of Bill's voice, the later decked out in his finest suit. "News-sheets say they can practically read each other's minds. Sounds like hog wash to me." The two started walking in the general direction of the pad. 

"You're certainly dressed to the nines. Big plans this evening?"

Bill huffed, fussed with his tie. "While you're up there wowing the masses, I plan to make the rounds and chat up some folks that might actually pay for a flight or two themselves. It's high time this thing started making money."

"I don't know Bill, the engine business is starting to look pretty good these days. If Kinsey can get that rocket of her's working, that's five LV-T15s, plus the LV-420 on Probodobodyne's orbiter."

Bill grumbled, made to pull out a ciger from his suit pocket, stopped himself. "Diversify, diversify, always diversify. Waiting until things start going badly to hedge your bets is never a good idea. Those engines of yours may bring in a solid stream of revenue, if that rocket works, but the one thing they won't do is generate good press."

Jeb grinned. "Good press is my middle name." The two rounded a corner, started towards the first of the grandstands. "Relax Bill, you know me. I could charm the socks off of. . .a. . ." He stopped. An elderly kerbal in a rickety wheelchair blocked their path. 

"You! There you are! Why you no good, hurtful. . ."

Bill started forward. "Now see here! We're on important business. . ." He stopped as Jeb's hand tightened down on his shoulder. Hard.

"Mom? Mom, what are you doing here?"

"You mean, 'Why am I not in that place you stuck me in?'. Why, I know a thing or two about sneaking out of places. Learned from the best! Learned from you. And here you are again, chasing specticle, with no thought whatsoever about the people around you!"

Bill shook his head. "Jeb we don't have time for this. I'll make sure your mother is seen to, but we need to get you out there. The last thing we want is for this crowd to get bored."

 

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Jeb sat in the cockpit, locked away from the crowds and the noise, eyes closed, mind wandering. His mother had tried to live in their old house after his father had passed, but it hadn't worked out. She'd lived with him for a while, but after he'd sold his business he'd had to use a good chunk of the proceeds to set his mother up in a care home. She'd hated it. He'd hated it. But there was no way he was going to force his elderly mother to live out in a swamp with him. 

The radio squawked. "Okay Jeb, we're almost set out here. Give us about five minutes to finish up and let the announcers do their thing. Go ahead and start your checklist."

"Roger that." Jeb looked up at the sky, checked the harness one last time, started working the controls. He could feel the probe core winding up underneath him-- the Mayfly was running on its batteries now. 

 

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"Are you bored?"

The kerblet looked up at the strange old lady in the wheelie chair, nodded, scraped his shoe along the wood of the grandstand. 

"Well don't you worry honey. If they could get a safety pin to fly, my son Jebbie could find a way to crash it."

 

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"Jeb, you ready in there?"

"I was born ready Bob." Jeb checked the autopilot one last time. "Light it!"

The sudden crush of the motors drove him hard into the seat. 

 

"Attitude holding. Lots of rattle in here but I'm okay. What a ride!"

Jeb kept his hands away from the controls, let the autopilot do its work, the acceleration increasing as the heavy fuel burned out of the motors. The light coming in through the canopy dimmed as the vehicle entered a cloud.

"Got some clouds here, shouldn't be a problem. Rattle's getting worse, still okay. Wings are working overtime but the autopilot is managing. I think. . .whoa, yeah, speed indicator says we're approaching Mach 1."

 

The buffeting increased, but the autopilot held, the ride smoothing out as the Mayfly crossed through the sound barrier. The motors burned out shortly there after, the sudden lack of force kicking Jeb up into the safety harness. More padding on the harness. Don't want to bruise our delicate customers. "Motors out, I'm decelerating. Little bit of buffetting here, going transonic again. Okay, it's smoothing out. Real smooth now. I'm going manual." Jeb reached out and switched off the autopilot, eased the control stick forward, the Mayfly arching towards level flight. 

"Vertical speed is zeroing out, starting to drop. Looks like max altitude is right around 10,000 meters. . .I'm nosing down pretty good here but I should be able to level out once the air thickens up. Cold up here. The view is. . .it's. . .oh wow. . ." For five long seconds, Jeb ignored the gauges on the console and stared out at the sky. 

"Bob. My goodness Bob, you are going to love this."

 

 

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Bill had paid just enough attention to the launch to make sure Jeb wasn't going to crash straight away before making a bee line to the VIP section. His connections had gotten him access, and so far he had at least three "absolutelys" and a half a dozen "maybes" from people he knew could pay. Bill smiled, let himself relax a bit. He had schmoozed his way into an air conditioned luxury box that had a wireless receiver in it. They couldn't hear Jeb directly, of course, but the announcer was broadcasting information as he received it from the 'official' channels. Bob was handling things well on that end. From what he could hear over the public broadcast, the flight was going extremely well. Jeb had been up for almost thirty minutes already, and it seemed like the Mayfly was working a little of the Dragonfly's magic. Perhaps the name had been a good omen after all. 

Bill smiled, nodded, a few parting pleasantries before moving off to find the next group. He turned, suddenly found himself shaking hands with the First Minister himself. Bill's poker face held, but his heart almost stopped. 

"Fine work you boys have done here. Fine work. Wouldn't mind taking a ride in this 'Mayfly' thing myself, not that my security detail would ever let me near it. Good show on the naming contest, wall to wall press on that in Capitol City for three whole days. Good and bad press, but all press is good press."

The First Minister released Bill's hand, started to turn away. The announcer on the wireless either picked that moment to raise his voice or someone turned up the volume. Either way, it got the attention of everyone in the room. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've just received confirmation that the X-1 reached an altitude of 10,000 meters. That's just below the record for the highest glider flight, and well below the threshold of the old powered aircraft that used to fly before the powered flight laws came into. . ."

The First Minister paused. "That's a shame, that." He turned back to Bill, gave him a very meaningful look. "Our people have too long been hobbled by our past. It would have been nice to have broken that record. Both of them." The minister turned away and left Bill to wonder at the missed opportunity.

 

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"I'm sorry sir, but I don't have anything to sell you. We're completely sold out."

Wurlitzer huffed his frustration, pulled at his mustache. "How can you say this, hmm? I have a room full of tables that need to be covered, a street full of customers waiting to be fed! And you tell me you have no linens?"

"We don't have any linens. We're sold out."

"I suppose there is another restaurant that has opened then? Snapped up all your merchandise while I wasn't looking? Are you out of cookware then? Napkins as well?"

"No sir, just the linens."

Wurlitzer shook his head, waved the man off, stormed outside. Always, it was something. He sighed, looked up at the sky. And blinked. The laughter came slowly, built into a great rolling thundercloud that drew the attention of everyone on the street.

"Ha ha! Oh, Jeb-ah-die-yah!"

 

 

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Bob eased the Mayfly through a gentle bank, the low airspeed and responsive controls making the experience almost dreamlike. Jeb had been correct-- the view from 10 kilometers up was stunning. But down lower, where the air was thick enough to actually fly the machine. . .well, that was good too. The X-1's batteries lasted for about 30 minutes, but that only affected the probe core. The manual controls were entirely mechanical, meaning the pilot could stay up as long as he liked. 

Bob had been doing slow laps over the coast for the better part of an hour now. 

Bill had found them after Jeb's test flight, had told them of his conversation with the First Minister. Bill didn't seem to understand the technical problems, Jeb didn't seem to care. The two of them were dead set on a stratospheric flight, the first stratospheric flight, and Jeb at least was sure the X-1 was the aircraft that would do it. 

Bob worked the controls, brought the nose down to pick up a bit of speed, headed back in the direction of the Junkyard. The aircraft wasn't the problem-- Bob was fairly confident that an extra pair of motors would do the job if properly stagger fired. No, the problem was the pilot. The Exosphere sounding rockets had provided scientists with a good profile for Kerbin's atmosphere all the way up, and while Probodobodyne was being very coy with their gravimetric data the atmospheric data was available to anyone who wanted it. Bob had tried explaining partial pressures to Jeb, that even pure oxygen would not be enough below a certain ambient pressure. But Jeb was adamant. . .they weren't going to be up there very long, and so bottled oxygen and heavy flight jackets would suffice. Bob wasn't so sure, but at the end of the day it wasn't really his decision. Or his problem.

He made a pass over the Junkyard, banked back around, brought the nose down to shed off his altitude. At around 500 meters he pulled back hard on the stick, brought the nose up until the Mayfly was pitched a full 90 degrees relative to the horizon--straight up. The vertical speed gauge spun down, and Bob pulled the lever for the parachute when it swung past zero. 

 

 

________________________________

 

 

"This is it then? The final model?"

"It is." The Probodobodyne rep looked quite pleased with himself.

"No more last minute additions? No more surprises? More batteries? A toaster? Racing stripes?"

"No Kinsey." The rep straightened his tie. "This is it." He smiled. "For now, at least."

The cockpit module made the Exosphere Series Three look more like a flying machine and less like the sensor platform that it was. Probodobodyne hadn't even bothered to remove the seat, though they had at least stopped short of slapping wings on it. It had the bulbous nose common to the Exosphere rockets that had come before it, followed by a pair of tanks for the high test peroxide used by the orbiter's attitude control thrusters. The K2 cockpit section rode in the middle, followed by a bipropellant tank and the hypergolic LV-420 engine that would hopefully finalize the machine's flight path and keep it from coming down on someone important. The gravity scanner and wireless transmitter were mounted directly to the probe core-- the battery rings were attached to the peroxide tanks. 

"So. Is the rocket ready?"

Kinsey crossed her arms, rocked back on her heels, and slowly broke into a wide grin.

"It is."

 

________________________________

 

Bill Kerman hung on for dear life, certain that the X-1a was going to shake itself apart at any moment. They'd tested it of course. Twice. And it hadn't come apart then. But he didn't mind admitting to himself that the thing had looked a lot more stable from the ground. He screwed his eyes shut, suddenly not sure that any opportunity was worth this. But no, it was. . .he just had to see it through.

It hadn't been so bad at first, the new X-1a accelerating on just two motors. But those had burned out and the four outboard motors had hammered him firmly down into the seat. Bob had said something about the extra mass reducing the glider's stability, or something. Dash it! The Mayfly rattled hard, the straps digging through the thick jacket. They needed to add some padding or something. . .that was going to bruise.

The motors burned out, the vehicle slowing, the sensation only noticeable through the vertical speed gauge on the console. Bill tightened down the oxygen mask, huddled in the jacket. The sky outside was turning an ominous shade of black, ice starting to form on the canopy. Bill sucked at the oxygen mask, deep, slow breaths, but even so he was starting to feel dizzy. Bob had warned him that this might happen, but Jeb had reassured him that even if he blacked out, they would be able to guide the Mayfly down with the probe core.

Hardly reassuring. 

The glider coasted upwards, longer than the base model had. Outside, Bill could see the wings twitching, seeking some purchase in the thin air as Jeb started the pitch maneuver that would keep the Mayfly from falling straight back down to the firing pad. Had he waited too long? He couldn't quite tell, it was taking most of his concentration just to keep his breathing straight. The vertical speed gauge zeroed out, and Bill had just enough presence of mind to check the altimeter. A hair under 17,000 meters. That was good enough-- they had done it. 

Bill looked out through a gap in the ice on the canopy, would have rubbed at his eyes in disbelief if not for the goggles. The horizon was strange, not flat as it ought to be, but, curved. Rounded. He swore he thought he could see the sky end, the blue of it giving way to a deep, impenetrable black. He could see. . .he could. . .see. . .

Bill's last lucid memory before he lost consciousness was the sensation of the saliva in his mouth starting to boil. 

 

________________________________

 

 

"Bill? Bill, can you read us?" Bob frowned, looked up, the Mayfly cruising overhead at around 4,000 meters.

Jeb grinned. "Wakey wakey!" He wrenched the control stick, sending the glider through a corkscrewing dive. The radio was suddenly alive with the sound of sputtering bluster. 

"Nice of you to join us Bill! There's some folks down here with cameras that would like a word with you, if you're done with your nap!"

 

 

________________________________

 

 

The director slotted the large steel key into the console, turned it 90 degrees. A pair of heavy mechanical indicators thunked from a green SAFE to a red ARMED on the panel. A loud bell sounded through the control room. 

"Rocket is armed, controllers are authorized to proceed with launch operations."

"Roger Lead. All controllers, sound out status at my call. Tracking?"

"Go."

"Power?"

"Rocket on batteries, payload isolated. We're go."

"Guidance?"

"RCS pressurized, orbiter autopilot engaged. Go."

"Range?"

"We've. . .we've got, looks like a fishing boat in the lane Flight. Recommend we hold the count."

"Okay, let's. . ."

"Belay that." The director's quiet voice cut through the room.

"Uh, copy that. Range is go."

"Cryo?"

"Fueling complete, umblicals safed. We are go."

"Payload?"

The Probodobodyne rep hit a button on the panel in front of him. "Orbiter is ready."

"All stations report ready Lead."

"Understood Flight, you may proceed with terminal count."

 

 

________________________________

 

 

 

There were no grandstands, no speeches, no fanfare. Neither Farlight nor Probodobodyne had made any effort to attract the news-sheet reporters, who rushed outside to gawk with the rest of the residents up and down the coast, anticipating another fiery explosion. But this rocket did not explode.

It wobbled at first and then seemed to steady itself, climbing higher and faster into a darkening sky. It pulled away from the complex in a plume of steam, faded to five sharp points of light, the roar dimming to a rumble, and then quickly gone. The flight controllers inside the operations center hunched over their consoles, Kinsey breaking the tension with a loud whooop when the rocket's final stage detached and slid free of the empty fuel tanks it was nestled in. A short time later, one of the controllers closed the circuit on the orbiter's battery rings and cut it loose from the Farlight's spent upper stage. Twenty minutes after that, they knew, the screech of the carrier signal heralding the first of the gravimetric data.

They had achieved forever. They were in orbit. 

 

 

________________________________

 

 

Wurlitzer's was crowded, a crush of patrons that spilled in from the brightly lit street and filled both the tavern and the new dining area. It was loud, boisterous, a spontaneous celebration with no apparent reason. Bob couldn't help but smile, the tension of the past weeks bleeding away as he worked his way towards a booth in the back.

Jeb was waiting for him, the usual grin, had a wireless set on the table. Bob dropped down into the seat across from him. "Probodobodyne's new machine is working. Everyone back at the complex is happy as a kerbal in the sun."

"And six engines for us on each one of those. How does it feel, not being destitute?"

"What's that Bill is always saying? Diversify, diversify. After that business with the pipeline, I don't know that I'll ever let myself get comfortable again. Say, where is Bill anyways?"

Jeb smiled. "He's out diversifying."

"You know something."

"Always." Jeb leaned over the table, blew out a sharp whistle. "It's time everyone, settle down for just a bit and the next round's on me!"

Bob raised an eyebrow. 

"No, trust me, this is going to be good." He turned up the volume on the wireless set.

 

 

________________________________

 

 

The First Minister smiled to the audience, waved, stepped up to the microphones. 

"I bid you welcome, ladies and gentlemen, both to those of you assembled here in this hall, and those of you joining us through our wireless broadcast. As the First Minister of our beloved nation, it is my hope that this evening finds you well. And more than my hope, it is my job."

 

________________________________

 

 

"I never figured you'd be big into politics Jeb?"

"Shhhh, shhh!"

 

________________________________

 

"And we have not been well of late, have we? Once again, we have placed our hopes and aspirations on the altar of the Peninsulites, only to be disappointed. And so we gather here tonight, facing the prospect of returning to the way things were, of shortages and misery, of postponed dreams and languishing futures, waiting until the Peninsulites decide to grace us with their presence and trade yet again, because surely the next time will be different."

"But I say to you now, things are different. We look backwards, to our past, both with longing, and with fear. We beg the Peninsula to make us great again, and yet at the same time, we hate them for it. But the machines and the so-called gifts of the Peninsula can only take us so far, and today, in this moment, we have gone farther, of our own accord and on our own merits! My words are coming to you tonight thanks to a technology that was created here, in local labs by local hands. It was neither salvaged nor reengineered, but dreamt of and built by people not so different from yourselves. And from that technology sprung another machine, a flying machine, built from a literal fusion of our past struggles and recent triumphs, but wholly ours just the same. A machine which carried its creators up into the skies, to not only match the accomplishments of our ancestors, but surpass them. None of us have ever been so far above our world before. Not us. And not the Peninsulites."

________________________________

 

 

Bob blinked. "Really? Is that true?"

"Who cares." Jeb leaned in towards the radio, winked at Bob. "Wait for it, it gets better."

 

 

________________________________

 

 

"These intrepid souls have shown, definitively, that we no longer need to plan our future around the whims of the corrupt and heartless city states of the Peninsula. We can build our own futures, here and now, and take our place among the rising nations of our world."

"Tonight, I formally announce my intention to seek reelection to the office of the First Ministry. Though my administration has in the past had to walk a fine line between resisting Peninsula influence and courting it, from here forward it is our intent to break ranks and compete with them directly, pitting our recent and future firsts, in industry and science, against their advanced but stagnant regimes."

"To further this agenda, and to ensure that our future firsts are indeed firsts, I purpose the following measures. We shall open our commerce with our neighbors, at the risk of a Peninsula embargo, but we will take that step to ensure our independence and to provide other daring nations with the opportunity to join us, until it is not we, but the Peninsulites, who are isolated. We shall likewise open our universities, and instill in ourselves and our friends the ideal that knowledge is a thing to be cherished, and not feared. And finally, I purpose to assemble a cadre of the finest pilots and adventurers, to take the steps necessary to make our mark upon the world, to inspire our neighbors, to show the Peninsula that we are no longer afraid! We will make our steps bold. We will make our steps right."

"And we will make them first."

 

________________________________

 

"Jeb!" Bob rocked forward, couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you know what this means? Do you think we can get in on this? I mean, we're not exactly the largest operation. . ."

"Wait for it!" Jeb punched Bob in the arm, did a little happy dance right there in his seat. "It gets better!"

 

________________________________

 

"Bold words, but only words. And ours is a system that prevents any one person, elected or otherwise, from single handedly determining the course of our government and our nation. To further these words into actions will require the right people, the right talents, and the energy and skills of our best and brightest. As one small, first step towards that goal, I present to you my choice for the new Deputy Minister, to serve at my side, to advise and lead as he sees fit, and to represent and advocate for this administration in sessions of Council."

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our latest hero, Mr. William Tecumseh Kerman!"

 

________________________________

 

 

"Bill!" Bob just stared at the radio, the implications slowly sinking in.

"He shoots!" Jeb raised his glass. "He scores!" The crowd in the tavern erupted, the laborers and engineers and pilots and everyone else picking up the chant, drowning out the radio and thundering out into the street. "ONE OF US!! ONE OF US!! ONE OF US!!"

Nevermind the fact that Bill had been a rail magnate and wealthy business owner in the time of the pipeline. All they saw now was the photo of Bill hauling himself out of that Mayfly after he shattered the Peninsula altitude record. One of the best their nation had to offer. One of them.

 

________________________________

 

 

"Well." The director leaned forward, switched the wireless off. "This has certainly been an interesting evening. Thoughts?"

The night was unseasonably cool, the open window in the conference room letting in the fresh air coming off the ocean. Kinsey stretched, yawned, folded her arms across her chest. "If the Junkyard starts getting money from Capitol City, I bet those engines of theirs start getting more expensive."

The Probodobodyne rep sniffed. "We'll accept that to a point, but then I fear they'll find our probe cores are suddenly not available, at any price. It's a stalemate, but an acceptable one. We have a good backlog of contracts now, and the orbiters seem to be working well."

"Ladies, sir, forgive me, but I'm afraid that populist rhetoric is never good for business. How long will it be before Capitol City decides to appropriate your facilities, your funds, your personnel, all in the name of "The Cause". I think you need to recognize this as the threat it is."

The director frowned. "You have an idea then?"

"I do." The opposition leader steepled his fingers. "The Peninsula has been playing the long game, keeping themselves wealthy by keeping everyone else poor. One of the ways they do that is by exploiting the local populations. You've all seen the numbers, and you've lived the pipeline. Worker mortality has always been high whenever the Peninsulites are involved. Cut through the fiery speeches and this is just more of the same. These "firsts" will be dangerous, and I think we can convince people that this glorious path will be paved with the bodies of their loved ones." He leaned forward. "We'll play this as a safety issue, champion the technology just like the Minister did, but position ourselves so that our citizens stay safe and employed, building the machines that in turn take the risks."

"That sounds. . ." The Probodobodyne rep smiled , ". . .quite profitable."

The harsh tones of a steam calliope suddenly blared in through the open window, carrying across the swamp and quickly settling into the melody of a popular drinking song. "Don't be so sure of yourselves gentlemen." The director nodded to the window. "You may have more competition than you realize."

 

________________________________

 

 

 

"That was quite the speech Minister, if you'll pardon my saying so." 

"Thank my speech writer. And you can thank your ground crew. We're no better than the people we keep around us. Remember that."

Bill stared out the window a long moment. The cigar in his mouth was expensive, one of the finest available in Capitol City, but all he could taste were the ashes. 

"Oh come now, this is no time for introspection! We've an election to win. Ah, yes, good! Here I want you to meet some people. These are my cabinet members, they head the six committees that handle the day to day operations of the government. This is our minister of trade. . ."

 

________________________________

 

 

 

"Can they do it Kinsey? Could they really put a kerbal into orbit?"

The director stood looking out of the open window, the salty air bringing a bit of chill into the room. Outside, the dimmer stars were beginning to fade, the first signs of an impending sunrise. They had been up all night it seemed.

"They could put a corpse into orbit, I suppose. I had a conversation with the doctor this morning, turns out there is a pressure limit below which our lungs simply won't work, even with sealed breathing masks. From what I understand, their pilot was barely conscious when they pulled him out of their flyer, and he was only about a quarter of the way there."

"But, could it be done?"

Kinsey was silent a long moment, stared out the window herself. "Not with what they have out there at the Junkyard." 

"I see. Thank you Kinsey, that will be all."

 

________________________________

 

 

Trade. Agriculture. Finance. Justice, Education and Security. Bill had met with each of their ministers, and more than a few of their aides. The glad-handing had gone on into the wee hours of the morning, and now the eastern sky was graying around the edges. Bill sat alone with his new boss, the lights dimmed, the anticipation of a magnificent sunrise.

"Tell me. Did you really bring me out here just to provide an unneeded civics lesson?"

The First Minister looked over, took the cigar out of his mouth. "No, I didn't. Six committees on the cabinet, pulling the strings of power and keeping everything going while the Council squabbles. That's the way it's always been, at least since the war, and every kerblet learns their names in school." 

"But Bill, I shouldn't have to tell you that politics is rarely as it appears, and everyone has their secrets. There's someone else I want you to meet."

 

________________________________

 

 

Jeb had left the tavern early, too keyed up to even party, had taken the trundle back to the Junkyard. The clutter looked the same as it had when he left, the arc lamps on the vehicle cutting through the pre-morning gloom. But you couldn't miss the footprints, the tire tracks, the huge crate dumped next to the test stand. Jeb had checked around to make sure the trespassers were gone, but eventually curiosity had gotten the better of him. He had pried the crate open from the top, was staring down at it now, suddenly not caring if the interlopers had stolen anything or not.

It was cockpit section, roughly the same size as the K2 but sleeker, far more modern, plated along the bottom with some sort of form fitting tile. The only clue as to its origin was a pair of block characters stenciled onto the inside of the crate.

 

 

________________________________

 

 

The tenement tower swayed gently in the sea breeze, the wood creaking and popping as it did so. The janitor secured the rusting bolt lock on the floor hatch, sank down onto the little cot, bleary eyes staring through a paneless window at the rising sun. The little lighthouse found a place on the sill beneath the window, cradled beside an expensive pocketwatch that ticked away the hour. The next work shift was just far enough away to allow for a little sleep.

The wind gusted briefly, the view of the ocean swaying in response. The janitor found the motion soothing, her very own railcar in the sky. She could see kerbals down by the water, out along the beach. There were more of them there every day, ever since the pipeline collapse. Kerbals did not need to eat, could survive on sunlight and little else if it came right down to it. And so when times were hard they went to the beach, and many of them ended up staying there. The janitor looked down at her hands, the ink stains now replaced with blisters and calluses, dirt and worse crusted under her nails. Her back ached, her feet hurt, and she was so very tired. 

But the beach was a trap, a comfortable one to be sure, but a trap all the same. For while a kerbal did not need to eat to survive, it became harder and harder to think clearly with each missed meal. Those who started down that road rarely clawed their way back out again, and most ended up living happy but fruitless lives. Happy as a kerbal in the sun.

But not this kerbal. Not now, not ever. Richvan pulled the ragged curtain over the window, laid back on the cot, and was soon fast asleep.

She dreamed she was flying.

 

________________________________

[Ten Key]

With the holidays over (and the last chapter finally hammered back into the new forum ) I should be able to pick this back up and move it along more regularly now. I've been rolling the next chapter back and forth for a while now, trying to make it as "not boring" as possible-- we'll just have to see how it pans out. I am going to aim for next Tuesday as a release date, 1/11/16. Hopefully I can stick to the once a week cadence for a bit after that.

Thanks for your patience all. I really appreciate it. 

 

 

 

 

________________________________

Edited January 5, 2016 by Ten Key

[CatastrophicFailure]

Haven't read it yet, looks nice & long, just had to appreciate that awesome artwork. How'd you put that together?

[Ten Key]

You've already read that chapter. The forum deleted it during the "upgrade" and it took me a while to repost it. I'd gotten into the habit of periodically using the "preview post" function to keep the forum from logging me out. I'm going to have to work out a new system. 

I put the picture together in Photoshop, nothing fancy. 

[KSK]

3 hours ago, Ten Key said:

With the holidays over (and the last chapter finally hammered back into the new forum ) I should be able to pick this back up and move it along more regularly now. I've been rolling the next chapter back and forth for a while now, trying to make it as "not boring" as possible-- we'll just have to see how it pans out. I am going to aim for next Tuesday as a release date, 1/11/16. Hopefully I can stick to the once a week cadence for a bit after that.

Thanks for your patience all. I really appreciate it. 

________________________________

It's well worth the wait! 

If it's any help, I write my stuff offline in whatever text editor or word processor comes to hand then copy/paste it into a forum post. Works OK with the new editor if you remove the formatting after pasting, otherwise I find that the line spacing doesn't quite work.

[Ten Key]

Just a quick update here. . .

Things are pretty bogged down at the moment. Normally when I write I have a vague outline, but I typically let things wander where they may and the final product is often quite different from the original plan. But I'm to a point in the story where I can't do that anymore, and I have a fairly involved and fairly rigid outline for the rest of part one. And trying to string all of the various threads through that outline is. . .not working. 

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to proceed. The next chapter is "finished", but it's going to need a rewrite before I can send it out the door. Looking at the outline, I think I'm going to have to write out the next three chapters and then edit and polish them together before they'll work. No ETA here, but I'm going to keep plugging until things click into place.

At least I've mostly gotten the forums figured out now. The links to the individual chapters in the table of contents have been repaired, and periodically reloading a second instance of the forum in a separate browser tab prevents the forum from logging me out when I'm putting up a chapter.  

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

*patient encouragement intensifies*

That seems odd that the forum keeps logging you out like that. Isn't there a "keep me logged in" option somewhere?

[KSK]

  That used to be a real bear with the old forums. Sorry to hear that it's a problem with the new ones too.