Crash Landing: The tale of 3 Kerbals

Chapters

Chapter 1 : Liftoff
Chapter 2 : Still Waiting
Chapter 3 : Ascention
Chapter 4 : The Foreshadowing
Chapter 5 : Preperation
Chapter 6 : Possible Connections
Chapter 7 : The planets bend between us
Chapter 8 : Through telescopes
Chapter 9 : I'm Waking up, to ash and dust
Chapter 10 : The Lights
Chapter 11 : Presented with Fate
Chapter 12 : Accommodation
Chapter 13 : That handle shouldn't exist
Chapter 14: The igniters of fission

Chapter 1 : Liftoff

Year 4, Day 235, Hour 2, Min 56, Sec 23
Kerbal Space Center, Kerbin
Pegasus Mk4 SSTO

"This is Air Traffic Control to Pegasus 9, do you copy, over." said the relatively tired voice that came through Jebediah's left ear.

"Pegasus 9 to Tower, we hear you loud and clear over." said Jeb through his headset.

"Just giving you a heads up that the air around 10000m has a 20m/s crosswind relative to your accent path. Nothing you shouldn't be able to handle I'm sure" replied the tower in a slightly uplifted mood, hearing the sound of their most veteran pilot at the controls.

"Thanks for the update control, talk to you in a bit." said Jeb. And with that, Jeb turned off the radio inside the Mk2 cockpit and turned to face his colleagues. Well, one of them at least. Bob was standing at the side of the door in one of the few cabinets that this particular model of cockpit had. By the looks of things, he was getting a pre-flight snack.

"Bob, what are you doing?" asked Jeb curiously, already knowing the answer.

"Nu...fin...much, ju...t getin...a sand...wich." he replied, with a mouthful of bread and jam. Classic Bob. Jebediah sighed, got out of his seat, and then wondered where Bill could be. 'THUD'. There was his answer. He looked out of the hatch on the top of the cockpit and looked over towards the right wing, to see Bill, lying on the concrete floor of the Space Plane Hanger.

"Need I ask what you're doing?" Jeb sighed.

"Just checking the air intakes on top of the wings and fell out. That's all." He replied.

"That intake is 2 meters of the ground, are you sure you're ok?" Jeb questioned him. This wouldn't be the first time they had a kerbanaut in rocket or space-plane with a broken bone. Trust me, with multiple G's being pulled for extended periods of time, it does not end well.

"I'm fine." He insisted. Jeb then shrugged and climbed back in the cockpit. He then walked back over to in his seat and checked one of the many LCD screens trying to find the one that displayed the time until the next transfer window with their target.

Time Now
02:59:36
Next Launch Window for Goliath Warp Drive
03:27:00 - 03:28:30
Time Remaining until Window
00:27:24

He turned to Bob and told him to be ready in 5 minutes and to tell Bill to remove all the red flags from the pitot tubes that measure airspeed, altitude and AoA. After giving Bob the message, he turned the radio back on to contact the control tower for clearance to take off.

"This is Pegasus 9, requesting clearance for taxiway and runway for...lets see...30 minutes? That will give us enough time to troubleshoot any difficulties." Jeb asked.

"Yeah, that should be fine. There are no launches set for today and the next ship to enter the planets atmosphere isn't until Friday so yeah, take as long as you need." said control.

"Thanks, Jeb out." He turned to Bob, who was now sitting in the co-pilots seat running over a checklist for the different fuel tanks full of liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen and kerosene.

"Everything look good?" he asked.

"The plane is fully fueled, filled to the brim with snacks and all hydraulics are stable." Bill said with a grin on his face. He couldn't wait for the journey ahead of him. 6 months at the newly established Laythe base, and they'd arrive in the new Goliath Warp Drive.

"Awesome, lets get this on the tarmac then." Jeb said, all hyped up.
'KNOCK KNOCK'.

Jeb and Bob simultaneously turned to see the hatch juddering up and down violently. It suddenly flew open and Bill fell in straight onto his face. Classic Bill. After some banter and a rundown of how things were going to be run, the three kerbals were ready to go.

With the go ahead from the ground crew in the SPH, the plane was connected up to a yellow truck that pulled them out of the SPH. After the plane was completely out of the building, the giant metal doors closed, allowing the crew of Pegasus 9 to start up the 2 turbojet engines that each produced 225 kN at max power. The noise of them spiraling up was a familiar sound, but an awesome one none of the less. With all the pre-flight checks complete, the plane taxied towards the runway and then lined up with the center of it. With the engines on idle, brakes awaiting release and the afterburners ready to be engaged, the three crew members looked at each other, then smiled bigger than they had ever before. One final call to air traffic control was made.

"Control?" Jeb asked

"Yes? What's the problem?"

"Look under your desk."

"Sorry, could you say that again Jeb?" said the controller in a confused voice. When no response came, the controller did what Jeb had asked him to do. He looked under his desk to find a small, pink sticky note placed out of view. He proceeded to peel it off and then read the 2 words that were written in a very recognizable handwriting.

'Look up'

He did just that and saw the massive SSTO fly above the tower with millimeters to spare, shaking everything in the room, knocking the controller off his chair and when the magnificent piece of engineering passed, the hot air from the massive jets and afterburners melted the windows. The controller got up, walked over to his desk and picked up a pencil. He then walked towards the other side of the tower to a piece of lined paper which read 'Damage report'. In the first column which read 'What/who broke'/ He wrote '2 big glass windows from ATC' and in the other column, which read 'Was it Jeb?', he ticked a box and then went to cleaning the place up. 'The managers gonna have my head if Jeb keeps pulling stunts like that' he thought to himself as he began to pick up forms and paper off the floor. Most of the pieces of paper were damage reports...and all of them had a signature that read 'Jebediah Kerman'

Classic Jeb.

Author's Note

I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter of Crash landing. This is my first story so please criticize on grammatical errors or places where the story doesn't make sense. More chapters coming soon!

Chapter 2 : Still Waiting

01:23 am
Twilight's Home

Twilight sat anxiously on her couch on the ground floor of the Library she lived in. Her mane was a mess, she had dark, purple bags under her eyes and there were about five empty cups of coffee lying on the desk beside her. She was a mess. She had stayed up far too long again. She just had to wait a few more hours now.

Spike woke up to a blinding light hovering over his eyelids. He opened his eyes to see golden light spilling into his bedroom through a gap in the slightly ajar door. 'Is Twilight still up?' he thought to himself. 'She probably fell asleep on the couch. She'll probably need a blanket.' He thought. So Spike got up out of his basket and went over to a cupboard. He grabbed a blue, quilted blanket from it and went to check on how Twilight was doing.

He arrived at the bottom of the stairs to see Twilight, unconscious on the floor beside the couch, snoring quite loudly. He was surprised he didn't hear her earlier but wasn't surprised that she was asleep. 'The snoring might have been a factor in waking me up at this time.' he thought. He then walked over to Twilight and took away the empty cups.

"Really Twilight, you have to stop trying to pull all-nighters like this, it can't be good for you." He said under his breath. After clearing away the remaining cups, he grabbed the quilt from the bottom of the stairs, brought it over to Twilight and began placing, but then...

'DING DONG!'

Literally a millisecond after the doorbell was pressed, Twilight sprung up from the floor and galloped over in record time. This launched Spike way into the air and he came crashing down on a bookshelf, knocking everything off of it.

"IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE!" Twilight exclaimed. She threw open the door to collect her package from...Pinkie Pie?

"Uhh...Pinkie, are you the delivery pony?" she asked.

"No silly, although I would like to be a delivery pony, that would be awesome. I could deliver mail and packages and cake and sweets and muf..fins....and...ca....mmm...." she began drooling.

"So your not here with my package then?" Twilight said in a disappointed voice.

"Nope!"

"So why are you here Pinkie?"

"I brought you a midnight madness snack muffin!" She grinned widely. And with that, Twilight collapsed on the floor, completely stripped of any energy that inhabited her during her short lived adrenaline rush.

"Gee, what's up with her?" Pinkie asked Spike.

"She's been waiting to get her new Optizoom Telescope for about a week now. It was supposed to arrive two days ago but nothing has come of yet." He replied.

"I get it now!" she said. "Hey, do you need a hand cleaning those books up?"

"Uhh, yeah. That would be awesome!" Spike said. He would never turn down a chance to relieve some of the weight on his shoulders. Pinkie picked up Twilight, who was snoring louder than thunder, and placed her on her back. She then took her up to her bed. Spike took this opportunity to go to the toilet.

After he was finished, he checked on Twilight through a slit in the door. She was sleeping there peacefully, probably having a nice dream. Spike smiled. It felt good to see that his 'mum' so to speak was safe. He pulled himself away from the door and walked down the flight of stairs to the ground floor.

When he got down, he was absolutely stunned to see the place completely spotless. Not one book out of place, not one piece of furniture slightly angled and the place looked like there was a shimmer of polish on everything.

"H...ho...how did you do that so fast?" he asked, still stunned.

"It wasn't that much stuff. I only arranged the books by the authors surname, fixed a crack in the shelf and closed the curtains." she said gleefully.

"In under 3 minutes?" She just nodded. Spike just about fell over from speechlessness.

"Okay Dokey Loki, I gotta go Spike, Bye! she said.

"Wait. Don't you want something for doing that?" He shouted out of the door. But when he got to the door, he could already see Pinkie Pie flying through the sky, higher than the clouds. Over by the window he could see one of her classic Pinkie Pie Cannons just lying there, smoking slightly from the most recent blast. 'Classic Pinkie' he thought. He also thought that by now he deserved a well earned nap. So with that, he locked the front door, headed upstairs and climbed back into his basket. He pulled up his covers and fell sound asleep.

Lyra Heartstrings was a strange pony. She was always collecting abnormal objects and adding it to her collection of 'great things' as she proclaimed. Tonight, she was up near the border of the Everfree Forest digging for lost artifacts of an ancient civilization which she called 'The Kyans'. She had found a variety of objects relating to this ancient civilization. These included a giant red ruby which read the letters 'KS...' and a blurred out letter; a weird meteorite shaped rock with glowing green cracks all over it and a rusty helmet that was about the size of her own head, but a lot taller and thinner. It also had specks of red and white in some places. She had no way of linking these three objects together, but they just felt...connected. She was determined to dig up more evidence to show her friends so she grabbed her shovel at started digging.

After 2 solid hours of digging in random areas, Lyra was almost ready to give up when hit something. 'CLANG'. Something metal. She began to dig faster and faster, revealing more and more of this strange, black metal embedded in the ground. After another 5 minutes of digging, she began to see imprints in the metal. 'Maybe this is their ancient language' she thought. 'Or maybe a statue to a god they worshiped. She cleared the last piece of dirt and saw something that surprised her. There was a picture of what looked like a monkey, with a circular hat that had 3 stars on the left side. At the bottom, it read one word in plain equestrian.

SQUAD

'What could this mean' Lyra thought. 'Squad, is that their god or something. It would be weird to worship a monkey.' Lyra then spent the next half an hour trying to lift the giant metal object out of the ground but to no avail. After pausing due to exhaustion, she began thinking about the object. She didn't want anyone else to know about this thing. They might take credit for finding it after all her hard work. So she got a bunch of leaves and twigs and covered up the hole in the ground. She would definetly try to get that out soon. But not tonight. She was too tired for that.

And with that, Lyra went home for the night. Little did she know that the objects that she had in her possession were related, and all came from a distant solar system. This solar system also housed a race of small, adventurous kerbals, and her town was about to be visited by them.

Soon.

Chapter 3 : Ascention

Year 4, Day 235, Hour 3, Min 30, Sec 12
Low atmosphere, Kerbin
Pegasus 9 SSTO

The two turbojet engines of the Pegasus pushed the majestic plane higher and higher into the atmosphere, breaking records, the sound barrier and several windows in the process. The temperature of the plane outside was well below freezing even though kerbals would think the friction would heat it up. No, they weren't going that fast...yet. Inside the glorious piece of Kerbal engineering, the three Kerbinauts were having a great time laughing over what they had just done.

"Jeb, you timed that perfectly!" exclaimed Bill.

"Yeah! You missed the tower by millimeters, I was almost pressing the abort switch." said Bob

"Guys, honestly it wasn't that big of a deal. I do this stuff daily." Jeb replied to the two others.

"It was still pretty cool though." said Bill.

"Yeah, it was alright." Replied Jeb.

The plane was ascending at a steady rate of 30m/s making the time until the ignition of the main rocket motor about 12 minutes away. This didn't stop Bob from getting out of his chair and heading to the back of the cockpit to grab a nutrition bar from the cabinet. This was breaking protocol. Leaving your chair during the accent of a shuttle in any state was very dangerous. Jebediah new this very well and decided to play a prank on Bob, with the massive space-plane.

"Hey Bob, you really shouldn't be breaking protocol like that. You know how the public relations guy at the Administration building gets, right?" he asked in a polite manner.

"Look I'm hungry, and don't use any of this 'protocol' business on me. You are the definition of broken protocol." he replied with a unamused face.

"It's just that we're coming up to 10000m where the tower warned us about turbulence." Jeb said.

"Look, it's probably passed by now anyway... and why are you telling me this anyway. You're not nearly this considerate in a dangerous situation." Bob said, intrigued. After realizing he had been almost been caught, Jeb threw the plane down from flying above the horizon at 20 degrees to negative 10 in less than a second. This caused the plane to feel -4 Gee's throwing everything on the ceiling at 4 times its own weight. Bob flew up to the ceiling and smashed his head off the hatch to the outside world and it almost opened, which would have exposed the crew to about -56°C. After a mountain of swearing from Bob and laughter from Bill and Jeb, Bob finally got back in his chair and started having a go a Jeb.

"Why would you do that, I could have broken my neck!"

"I didn't do anything, there was a thermal we hit, causing the plane to drop in altitude very dramatically." Jeb said in a sweet voice. "You wouldn't have hurt yourself If you didn't break protocol." That last remark sealed the deal for Bob and was almost about to throw a shoe Jeb's way when Bill turned around with some good news.

"Well guys, we're about 30 seconds away from ignition of the LV-45 so strap in, we only shut it down in a dire emergency or the burn is complete, got that. There is only 1 ignition coil in it so any mess ups and that's it for a week. You guys got all that?" After a few nods from the rest of his crew members, he commanded Jeb to slowly lower the power on the turbojets when he ignited the motor. They could still harness a small bit of thrust from the jets at a lower power even with the ever thinning atmosphere.

"On my mark." Bill said. "Three...Two...One...MARK!" Simultaneously, Bill flicked the ignition switch for the liquid rocket motor and started throttling up the second throttle lever whilst Jeb slowly lowered the turbojets power. The sequence went perfectly. With the high training and experience of the crew, the change of power was almost unnoticeable. Whilst all this was happening, Bob was sitting at the back of that cockpit checking the fuel pumps and he turned and asked...

"How long until the switch?"

"Are you deaf?" Was his response from Bill

"No, why?"

"Didn't you notice the slow increase in Gee's, the spooling down noise of the engines or, I don't know, Me shouting MARK FAIRLY LOUDLY!?!"

"Apparently I didn't." said Bob. Bill and Jeb were lost for words. They continued their accent through the different layers left of the atmosphere, slowly increasing their apoapsis until it read 115000m (The peak height of their sub-orbital trajectory). After the main engine was emptied of fuel and they were free of the atmosphere, they were weightless.

"Ahh...this never gets old." Bill remarked. The other Kerbinauts nodded causing them to spin slightly. They all laughed about for a bit because it was roughly 20 minutes until they had to activate the RCS thrusters. They were having a great time, the best of friends having fun and laughing...in space.

Chapter 4 : The Foreshadowing

Fire. Fire was engulfing everything Twilight could see. She was running from room to room trying to find something, anything that would tell her Spike was safe. She kept calling his name over and over but she got no response. She was running out of air, space and time. If she had any chance of getting out alive, she'd have to leave now, and take the risk that Spike was already outside, or keep looking and maybe save them both. The odds for the second option were very low. But she had to take that chance.

She ran downstairs to where the bulk of the flames were. There was little room to maneuver so even if she did find Spike, chances of getting to the baby dragon were lower than winning the lottery. She called out again.

"SPIKE, ARE YOU THERE?!?" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"...*cough, cough*...h..hello?" said a voice. That wasn't Spike's voice, but it was still someone stuck in the inferno that was her home. She had to try and save whoever that was.

"WHERE ARE YOU...WHO ARE YOU?" she shouted over the crackling wood.

"Ov...ver....here." said the voice. It came from the kitchen. She looked for a way around the blaze but found no easy way. She could run right through the flames and risk burning to death or she could leave through the window and doom whoever was in her kitchen. She thought about it, realizing she wouldn't be able to live with the guilt knowing she could have done something to help this pony on the other side. Then she was struck with an idea. She turned to the right of her and focused on a bookshelf beside the kitchen and pulled it down with her magic. It slammed on the ground, but didn't break. It created a temporary path to the kitchen. She spent no time waiting at galloped into the kitchen.

The flames has not made it to the kitchen yet, giving Twilight about 2 minutes to act to save whoever had answered he previous call. The first thing that came apparent to Twilight was that there was a distinct white, metal object lying on the floor of the kitchen. She looked up and saw the hole in the roof where this object had come from. She looked back at the metal object and saw two decals on the side.

"N...S...A....and the other says K...S...P?" Twilight said analyzing the object.

There was a massive THUD from upstairs. Twilight looked up immediately to see a massive support beam cracking. The last splinters broke and it fell towards Twilight.

"AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH" Twilight screamed as she shot awake. She looked around frantically, but there was no fire, no smoke or anything. Just a really concerned looking Spike hanging from the ceiling by his claws. After finally coming to her senses, Twilight brought Spike down from the wooden beam he was clutching on. Spike then dusted himself off and began interrogating Twilight.

"Are you alright Twilight?" He asked first. After a solemn nod, he asked more questions about why he got so frightened, he ended up like a cat stuck in a tree, hiding from a dog.

"So let me get this straight. You were surrounded by towers of flames, you kept trying to find me, you ran downstairs to make one last check I wasn't in the building. You then heard a voice from the kitchen, you ran into the kitchen where there was a large piece of metal. At that point, the library collapsed and you woke up screaming." Spike said, summing up the whole story.

"That about covers it Spike." Twilight replied. She purposely left out the part about the strange decal on the side of the metal. She knew some ponyelse to tell that to. "Anyway, I'm gonna head into town just now and pick up some food. We're running low at the moment."

"Ok then Twilight, I'm gonna head over to Rarity's Boutique just now if that's ok." Spike said as he began to exit the bedroom.

"Not until you've done your chores first." Twilight said. That wasn't the response Spike was hoping for. Spike sighed and headed down the corrider and began to get the mop and bucket. Twilight giggled slightly but didn't let Spike hear. She then roses from here bed, brushed her mane until it was nice and straight and headed towards the middle of the market square where she intended to meet somepony that new lots of things about strange objects. She tended to treasure quite a few of them.

Lyra Heartstrings.

Author's Note

I just want to say that the overall feedback has been great so far. I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and just incase you are curious, it's not long until first contract...I mean contact.
*Jeb sighs*
Shut up Jeb, I'm trying to connect with the KSP fanbase here!

Chapter 5 : Preperation

Year 4, Day 235, Hour 3, Min 46, Sec 02
Low Kerbin Orbit (Trajectory = SubOrbital)
Pegasus 9 SSTO

As the spaceplane ascended towards its apoapsis, Jeb took it upon himself to enter in the maneuver the craft was going to perform into the on board computer, also known as 'Mech-Jeb'.

"Ok, we'll be burning along the prograde marker at 100% throttle...with the RCS thruster's...for approximately 54 seconds to ensure a steady orbit at 115000m above Kerbin." Jeb said.

"Hey Jeb, maybe make it 52 seconds." said Bill from across the cockpit, still trying to play snap with Bob.

"Why should I do that? That would put the periapsis significantly lower than the apoapsis."

"Well, we're slightly late, thanks to your shenanigans with Bob, so that orbit would be a few minutes faster, resulting in us catching up."

"Point taken Bill." Jeb then entered in 52 to the Mech-Jeb unit at went to join Bill and Bob with a game of snap.

18 minutes later

"SNAP!" Bob shouted.

"Damn it Bob, that's the fifteenth time in a row you've won." Jeb said.

"And also, stop hitting the cards so hard when you snap, it takes forever to pick them all up and I'm pretty sure we're already down 5 cards." Bill said

"If I didn't hit them so hard, you would hit them first." Bob replied. "Plus, they're my cards and I don't really care if I lose a few." Bob said victoriously.

"I'm pretty sure Mission Control cares Bob." Bill replied.

Uninterested in where the argument was going, Jeb went over to the map screen on the front console. It showed a nice and detailed 3D model of Kerbin, various satellites and stations with all of their trajectories and orbits. Their craft, the Pegasus 9, was highlighted from the rest by having a bright blue coloured trajectory (colour, NOT color(I'm British)) , and it's target, the Goliath Warp Drive's trajectory was a bright yellow. Also, there was a dull orange marker at their apoapsis. This was their maneuver, and judging by the counter in the corner, it was in 29 seconds away. Jeb strapped in and turned to the others to tell them to sit down, but saw their debate about loose playing cards becoming very heated. He decided to sit and watch, waiting for the perfect moment to tell them about the maneuver.

"But they could get lodged in a throttle, or distract a pilot!" Bill shouted.

"How could they get stuck in a throttle, they would just bend and fling off." Bob retaliated

"Guys!" Jeb said, getting their attention. "That maneuver is coming up pretty soon."

"How long?" they asked in unison. Jeb turned, looked at the screen, looked back with a cheesy grin on his green face.

"Round about...now." The craft suddenly ignited all 4 RCS thrusters on the back of the ship, accelerating it at 1.45 Gee's. Bill and Bob, not being strapped in or holding on to anything were launched towards the rear of the cockpit at 14.2 m/s^2. After slamming into the wall, they were pretty much pinned there for the whole 52 seconds. Jebediah laughing the whole time.

"Jeb...y...you bas..." was all Bob could muster as the force of the acceleration was making him struggle to breath. After the burn was complete, the three Kerbal's felt weightless once more.

"Burn complete" said the Mech-Jeb unit. Jeb then checked the map screen again to see the apoapsis was 115000m and the periapsis was 110000m. He then turned on the closest approach icon, and sure enough, they would be with 100m of the warp drive by the next orbit. Bill's estimate was pretty spot on. He turned and told his crew the good news and Bill smiled at his estimate being spot on.

They then decided who was doing what during the upcoming docking with the warp drive. It was decided that Jeb would pilot the procedure, Bill would give directions and monitor Mono-propellant usage to make sure they didn't run out of fuel and Bob would overlook the entire operation from EVA. He would also be using an inbuilt camera on his spacesuit which would be linked up to one of Bill's monitors he was overlooking. After everything was confirmed with all the Kerbals, they informed mission control about the procedure and they gave them the go ahead. Now they just had to wait.

1 orbit later

"Ok guys, I'm going to cancel out our velocity relative to the Warp Drive in a few moments. Are you all secure?" Jeb asked the crew. There was no messing around with this maneuver. That Warp Drive was millions of Kollars in the making. Damaging it even slightly would result in a massive loss in the KSP budget. The contractors of the mission would not be happy and they would probably pull out of the operation. The three Kerbals would also probably lose their jobs.

"Yeah, we're ready when you are." Bob replied.

"Ok, retrograde burn in 3, 2, 1, now." The small RCS thrusters all over the craft began slowing the craft down, relative to the Warp drive. After 15 seconds, they were floating just 163m from the target and traveling towards it a massive 0.1 m/s. Bob headed towards the pressurization chamber to put on his spacesuit.

"Ok guys, see you on the other side." said Bob as he opened the door. Just as he was closing it Jeb shouted 'Remember your Jetpack'. He'd left it once before and it was a good thing Lengus Kerman was their to put on his suit and pull him back to the ship.

"I will." he replied. He then shut the door, put on his spacesuit and jetpack. He double checked all the connections to make sure there was no chance of a leak and hit the big red button that read 'Depressurize'. On Bill's control panel, a red flashing light appeared signaling the sudden depressurization of the room behind him. It pressed the alarm to shut it off. Most Kerbals would think that having a alarm for a depressurization of the depressurization room would be pointless, but the hatch could break or debris could strike so it's good to have one just in case. Moments later, a second light appeared signaling the opening of the hatch to space. He pressed this light in as well, turning it off.

"CRRKK...This is Bob Kerman, I have EVA'd successfully and I'm moving into position. I'm turning on the camera now. Over." Bob said from outside the craft.

"This is Jeb, we hear you loud and clear." Jeb replied. "Hey Bill, how much mono-propellant do we have?"

"We have about 5 minutes worth if all thrusters were at 100% throttle." said Bill. Jeb nodded and began translating upwards towards the docking port of the Warp Drive. Then, a strange voice came over Jeb, Bill and Bob's headset.

"Were you guys forgetting about me?" the voice asked. Just after the strange transmission, the docking port of the Warp Drive opened up, and a Kerbal got out. No-one recognized who it was.

"Who are you, mission control didn't tell us their was going to be a 4th Kerbal on this mission." Bill asked.

"There isn't, but did it ever occur to you that plane you're in will need a pilot to land it home?" said the Kerbal. Silence. The Kerbal then began laughing. He activated his jetpack and flew over to Bob. As he got closer, Bob recognized the Kerbal.

Danny Kerman

"Hey Danny, haven't seen you in a while!" said Bob

"Yeah well, I've been monitoring this bad boy of a ship for the last 3 weeks. I hope you guys brought more snacks, it's almost out." Danny said.

"We did. Hey, could you also angle the Warp Drive's docking port towards us slightly, we don't have excess amounts of fuel and I really don't want to have to push this massive plane."

"Sure thing Bob, just give me a moment." And with that, Danny flew back into the docking port and took command of the Warp Drive. From outside, you could see various SAS units turning on and the massive beast began lining itself up with the spaceplane that was coming ever closer. After it was lined up, Jeb accelerated the spaceplane up to 0.65m/s and just waited for them to slowly glide together. After a few minutes, they were just 3 meter's apart so Jeb yet again slowed them down to 0.1m/s.

"Mono-propellant is at 45% Jeb." said Bill. " You also need to translate to the left by 0.21 meters."

"Thanks Bill, I'll take that into account." Jeb replied. They were becoming ever closer. 2 meters, 1 meter.

"Bob, are we lined up properly?" asked Bill.

"Perfect. You may activate the electromagnets now." said Bob.

"Roger." Bill activated the electromagnets...and nothing happened.

"Huh? Why aren't we docking? Bob?" Bill said very confused.

"The Warp Drive's docking port is positive, yours should be negative." Bob said

"Oh" After switching the magnet switch to the other side, the magnets instantly connected and the 2 ships were now 1. Docking Complete said the Mech-Jeb unit.

After about an hour of bringing surplus of supplies and bounty of snacks, Jeb,Bill and Bob waved goodbye to Danny through the docking port. He then flew into the Pegasus and closed the docking port from his end, subsequently closing the Warp Drive's docking port. The three crew then and inspected every single last piece of the warp drive to make sure everything was in check. You don't want a faulty warp drive do you now. After another 2 hours had passed, the EVA inspection was complete, the internal electrics were all functional and all computers were behaving normally, the crew of three Kerbals were ready for the jump to the Joolian system. Just one more orbit to go.

Author's Note

It's about to go DOWN!
"Or toward Jool."
Shut up Bill.

Chapter 6 : Possible Connections

Author's Note

There may be some formatting errors in this chapter, I haven't had time to edit this properly. Sorry.

Chapter 6 : Possible Connections

Twilight exited her home with a stride in her step. She was on her way to the midday market, which had just begun and was hoping to find a particular aqua pony known as Lyra Heartstrings. She was known to collect many strange objects and Twilight hoped that she would know something about the strange, white piece of metal she had seen in her dreams. Well, more of a nightmare actually!

As she made her way towards the 'mystical objects' stall owned none other than Lyra herself, she began to look at her surroundings. Today felt almost...more lovely than usual. A lot better than her experience last night anyway. Contemplating herself so much, she didn't notice Applejack backing up with a whole bucket of apples. She crashed right into her and everything went flying.

"Wooaah nelly!" Applejack shouted as she collapsed to the ground.

"Oh my Celestia Applejack! I am so sorry. Are you alright?" Twilight gasped as she looked around assessing the damage she had caused. All of the apples that Applejack was carrying were scattered all over the left side of the market. The stall where Applejack would sell apples was cracked slightly and Applejack's hat was covered in dirt.

"Yeah, I'm fine sugarcube. Say, are your eyes on the back of your head?" Applejack asked.

"I'm really sorry Applejack. I was just daydreaming and I wasn't looking where I was going."

"I heard you the first time Twi, it's alright. I'll get this cleaned up in a jiffy."

"But what about the bruised apples you can't sell now o...or the crack in your stall?"

"That stall was gettin old anyways. Twi, it's fine. Just get on with whatever you were doing." Twilight couldn't stand for that, she just had to give some sort of compensation for the damage. She forked out some bits from her satchel she was carrying and placed them on the stall.

"Here Applejack, have these to make up for the losses." Twilight said. Applejack stared at her bluntly. This was over double the amount the apples were worth and she wasn't taking any of them. Some of the apples were still able to be sold. Albeit at a reduced price but still.

"Twi, you know you don't need to give me that much." Applejack said politely.

"But what about the crack in your stall?"

"Mac'll be able to fix it up faster than Fluttershy with a hurt animal!"

"Ok, I'll take...this much back, but no more." Twilight said as she took away about 25% of the bits.

"If you say so sugarcube."

"Ok then, I gotta run now Applejack so I'll see you later!" Twilight said. She took off and galloped towards the market centre.

"Gee, someponys in a hurry." Applejack said as she packed up her things. She had nothing to sell, so staying there all day would be pointless when there's apples to be buckin'.

Twilight arrived at the market centre looking for the aqua pony at her stall. Sure enough, Lyra was standing at her stall, looking more bored than Twilight's livingroom's floor. Twilight walked over to her to tell her about what she had seen.

"Hi Lyra." Twilight said with a cheerful voice.

"Hey Twilight, it's been a while hasn't it." Lyra replied. It had been weeks since they had last had a conversation together.

"Hehe, it sure has."

"So did you come here to buy something? I have plenty of things on sale today. You could have this unique Wonderbolts keychain or a awesome looking stone I found in the Canterlot Gardens!"

"Actually, I didn't come here to buy anything, I came here to ask you something."

"Oh...ok then."

"Does the Group of letters N.S.A ring any bells?" Twilight asked. Lyra thought long an hard but the letters didn't seem to match anything she had collected or aquired.

"Uhh, nope. Not heard of anything with those letters attached." Lyra said.

"How about K.S.P?" Lyra froze. How did Twilight know about these letters? Had she found objects with those enscriptions on it? What if he wasn't the only one, what if...

"Uh, Equestria calling Lyra, hello?" Twilight asked.

"Oh sorry, just tranced out for a bit hehe, hey wanna buy some hats?" Lyra said frantically.

"Do you know something about those letters Lyra?" Twilight said in a stern tone. It was obvious she did, she just wanted to see if Lyra would tell her.

"......meet me round the back of my house in 5 minutes." Lyra whispered into Twilight's ear. Twilight nodded and walked indirectly towards Lyra's house. What was up with her? Why am I meeting her at the back of her house. Ok, now I'm sure those letters mean something more than just a dream.

After 5 minutes of walking, Twilight slipped into the alley that led behind Lyra's house. Sure enough when she turned towards the corner, there was Lyra. Twilight approached her and asked her a question.

"Why are we..." Twilight began.

"Ssh...quiet!" Lyra said. Twilight mouthed 'why' to Lyra. She signaled for Twilight to follow her. Twilight did so and they arrived at a pile of broken cardboard boxes. Slowly, Lyra began lifting the boxes, revealing a small wooden hatch that lead under her house. Just before she opened it, she asked Twilight where she had seen those letters.

Twilight whispered "I saw them in a dream last night. They really stood out to me. I knew you knew a ton about weird objects so I came I you." Lyra nodded, opened the hatch and the 2 ponies went inside.

Inside the basement, it was complete darkness. Lyra turned to Twilight and told her that they could speak freely in here. The first question Twilight asked was why they were here.

"We are here so we can speak in absolute privacy." Lyra responded.

"Ok second, what do you know about KSP?"

"Ok, as you know, I collect a lot of different things. About 2 months ago, I found what looked to be a helmet just outside the Everfree Forest. It was rusted, it had cracked glass and it has an inscription on the front. It read the letters KSP. I later dug there more and more, finding more and more random objects. The ranged from disks to flasks to weird black rocks. On there own, they looked completely unrelated, but I think they are connected somehow. And this, is my findings."
Lyra flipped a switch in the blackness of the room, revealing shelves and shelves of unique and priceless objects. One shelf was dedicated to all her newest findings. At the top of the shelf, it read 'The Kyans'.

"This is amazing Lyra. Some of these objects must be worth thousands of bits!" Twilight exclaimed.

"I know, they are very rare objects. Their value will only go up." Lyra smiled.

"So, do you think there is a reason that the words KSP came to me last night." Twilight asked, getting back to business.

"I don't know Twilight, this might just be a huge coincidence, or it might mean something a whole lot bigger." Lyra said.

"Yeah, hopefully just a coincidence though." Twilight said. Seconds later, Twilights stomach growled. Twilight looked down at her stomach, looked up looking embarrassed and the two ponies laughed.

"Well, I'm gonna head and get some dinner Lyra. Thanks for showing me this place!" Twilight said cheerfully.

"Yeah, but don't go telling everypony, this is just between you and me, got it?" Lyra said.

"You have my word Lyra." Twilight said. Twilight then walked back into the street and began making her journey home. She could wait to get some food, she was starving.

Chapter 7 : The planets bend between us

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 8 : Through telescopes

Twilight arrived at her house about an hour before sundown. Her mind was still racing about the events that had just unfolded. The fact that the letters KSP meant something to Lyra was simply unbelievable. She would have to create a project about these "Kyans" but until then, she had some dinner to get. She reached for the doorknob, pushed the door and face planted the wooden structure. There was obviously something obstructing the door.

"Spike, are you there?" Twilight called.

"Hold on a minute Twilight, I'm just moving something out of the way." said Spike. Twilight pushed against the door again but with more force. It still didn't budge. She tried using her horn to move whatever was on the other side, but since she had no idea what was obstructing the door, it was impossible to manipulate.

"Spike, what exactly is blocking the door?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, your new telescope arri..." Spike began saying before 'SMASH'. Twilight burst through the door at an incredible rate.

"It's here, it's finally here!" Twilight exclaimed. She checked the box for any damages and when she made sure there were none, she ripped open the box.

There it was, her new telescope. It was one of a kind, created for her specifications. Only problem was, it was in several pieces and was in need of assembly. She quickly grabbed all the metal, lenses and legs and galloped up to her room to begin the assembly of the telescope.

"So...do you not want anything for dinner then?" Spike asked.

"I'll get it later Spike." she replied. Spike shrugged and went to make himself something to eat for the time being.

Twilight had already put all the pieces in certain groups for easy identification. Lenses in one, legs in another, nuts and bolts in a third and so on. She was already reading the assembly manual, which turned out to have more pages than citizens that resided in Ponyville. After reading it through once, she decided to begin the assembly of the telescope.

Several Hours Later

Finally, after three and a half hours of following unclear instructions, fine tuning lenses and an empty stomach, the 7ft long telescope was complete. It was a sight to behold, sporting many tweakable parts and
many gauges. Twilight was ecstatic, she couldn't wait until she could use it. She walked over to the window to see how long it would be to it was completely dark. She drew the curtains and...no light entered her home. She turned to the clock with a very confused expression. It read 11:30. Wow, she'd spent a lot longer assembling that telescope.
'Anyway' she thought, 'No time to waste, I have stars to observe!'
Twilight pushed the massive telescope towards the windows and opened the glass, letting in a cold draft. This didn't stop Twilight, nothing was stopping her tonight. She first pointed her telescope at the moon. As she looked through her eye piece, she could see all the tiny craters that scattered the moon's surface that were not visible to the naked eye. It was breathtaking. She moved the telescope a bit more as she observed different parts of it. She swore she saw a tiny blue flag at one point but she couldn't locate it again.
After staring at the rocky surface of the distant celestial body for 30 minutes, she decided to observe more of the night sky. She only had 6 hours left after all! As she was adjusting the telescope once more, a bright white light appeared in the sky for a quick second, then vanished. Nopony saw the event, but they were about to meet the cause soon enough.

Chapter 9 : I'm Waking up, to ash and dust

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 10 : The Lights

Author's Note

There may be a few errors as I haven't had time to proofread yet. If you want a better experience of the chapter, wait until this is gone!

Chapter 10 : The Lights

Lyra was on the move. It had just passed the hour of twelve and the streets were in complete darkness. Apart from a few street lamps, it was impossible to be seen. This was good. It would mean that Lyra couldn't be followed, at least without great difficulty.

She was covered head to hoof with a solid black outfit that also masked her face. It made her almost untraceable, and with the minimal lighting in the surrounding area, it would be perfect for getting around.

Lyra made her was through town by using the backstreets. The chances of anyone taking rubbish out at this time would be unheard of. The highest threat for her would be two ponies having a one night stand, but that vibe didn't travel in this part of Equestria. If you look at Florieghda though...

She made her way to the outskirts with ease and was soon on a dirt path that headed straight for the Everfree Forest. It was very dark on the outskirts, so visibility would only be a few meters or so. She couldn't be seen now.

Lyra arrived at her destination just as she had planned. She headed off the path and into the long grass on the very edge of the Everfree forest. After another minutes walking, venturing deep into where nopony would go without a good cause, she stopped. She then pulled out a very dim torch from an inside pocket of her clothing. Turning it on, she pointed it down the way towards the grass, revealing its true daylight colour, which was a lot darker and browner than the other grass around it.

'Hmm' Lyra thought. 'I'll need to replace the grass soon, otherwise pegasus flying overhead might see it.'

After taking the time to carefully remove the layer of grass away from the hole, she shone her torch one again into the hole revealing the dark, tall monolith that she had discovered not too long ago. Lyra smiled. This was her big secret, and nobody else would know until she had done some series research into it. If she found a connection to something big, then she would publicize it. But until then, it was time to some analysis.

Lyra jumped down into the hole and unveiled a small kit of tools from inside her black gown. 'It's amazing how much you can fit inside the inside pockets' she thought . She turned to the dirt wall and pressed the back of the torch against it. She then twisted the torch into the dirt wall, sealing it in place, lighting up the hole, but nothing else. She turned back to the kit of tools and pulled out a hammer and chisel. The first thing she wanted was a sample of the monolith, so she could study it. It could tell her what it was made of.

She pressed the chisel against one corner and pulled the hammer back about 20cm. She then lightly tapped the chisel to see if the monolith was brittle. CLINK. Looking around, nothing had come off. Not even a dent in the rock. She tried again, but much harder this time. She flung the hammer at the chisel. CLANG. Still nothing. Lyra decided to hit it as hard as possible. It could be made of a metal alloy or something that the local blacksmith had said once. She pulled back the hammer as far as the dirt wall behind her would allow and flung it with all her might. PLING. The hammer hit the monolith. She looked down in disbelief as her brand new chisel was turned to dust. Stunned by the event, Lyra fell onto her rump and looked up at the impenetrable monolith. All of her other tools that she had with her were for analyzing a sample of rock or metal.

Looking further up, she saw the beautiful night sky, staring back down at her. All the stars twinkled to themselves, almost as if they were talking to themselves. Lyra just gazed up at them, smiling. She always dreamed of visiting a star or swirls in the night sky. She thought it would be cool to be able to walk from star to star without a care in to world. Unfortunately for her, the only thing that could even get close to the stars would be Pinkie Pie's cannon, and the could only reach Cloudsdale...just.

Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw one of the stars becoming increasingly brighter. It couldn't be a shooting star, they always moved from one side of the sky to another. It kept getting brighter and brighter. This started to worry Lyra. What if the shooting star was heading for Equeatria? Could it hurt people? She thought. The star became as bright as the moon did and then...disappeared. Gone, out of thin air. Lyra just looked up at the night sky in amazement. Was this a normal occurrence that happened of was Luna playing a prank of something. Then, one of the stars on the monkeys helmet on the monolith lit up a bright green colour. Lyra jumped up and gazed at the star. It was glowing alright, it wasn't her mind playing tricks on her. She checked the other side as well and sure enough, the star on that side was lit up too. This was incredible...and it meant something VERY significant. She may have uncovered something big, an event that could potentially occur. She was almost jumping from excitement.

Then reality kicked in and her internal body clock was flipping out. She needed sleep. 'I could take the day off?' She thought to herself. No, she couldn't afford not to sell anything at her stall. She was barely getting by as it was.

She packed up her things and climbed back out of the hole. She dragged the grass cover back over the hole and made haste to get home as soon as possible. Her mind was still racing about the light. It meant something and she new it. It was a shame she kept thinking it was something, but we know, it's not what...its who.

Chapter 11 : Presented with Fate

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 12 : Accommodation

"Bob, get over here. You might want to look at this." Jeb said to Bob in a less than confident voice.

"Why, what's up? Did you get the OTM working?" Bob replied as he approached the console.

"It's working alright, but what it's displaying is more than unwanted."

"Let's have a look then."

Jeb got out of the seat he was in to allow Bob to see the screen. Bob sat down and began observing the OTM, taking in all of its data. Jeb heard a just audible sigh coming from Bob. Bob then swiveled the chair around to face Jeb.

"Well...at least we'll go out with a bang." Bob said.

"Yeah, there's no denying that." Jeb said.

Meanwhile in the circuits room

Bill was finishing up on his full examination of the circuits room. Every little light that was visible was emitting green light and nothing was sparking. Satisfied with a job well done, Bill picked up his radio and exited the room.

As Bill was floating down the white painted metal corridor, he came to the T-juntion that he would take a left to head to the cockpit. Subconsciously, he paused and looked at the directions. On the left arrow, there was "Cockpit-Airlock 1-Snack Storage". On the right arrow, it read "Engine Maintenance-Airlock 2-Accommodation". 'Accommodation?' Bill thought to himself. He wasn't aware of any living quarters on this ship. Then again, he did skip the mission breifing to teach some teenage kerbals to make mini rockets with Potassium Nitrate and sugar. He was pretty sure a local school had complained about a mini rocket too to the KSC but he didn't pay too much attention.

After letting his curiousity get the better of him, he began floating towards the living quarters of the ship.

Apon arriving at the accommodation, Bill found three separate doors, each marked with the name of the current crew. Jebediah Kerman, Bill Kerman and Bob Kerman. Having a closer inspection of the door, he saw under the handle, there was a fingerprint scanner. Damn, talk about privacy. He approached his door and pressed his index finger against the scanner. The once dark pad came to life with a bright green light which went up and down his finger. A second after it was done, there was a female kerbals voice that said 'ACCESS GRANTED'. "Awesome" Bill thought entering his room.

His first impressions of the room were quite good. There was a bed that he could be strapped into so he didn't just fly off. There were several drawers and cupboards in the wall for storage. A bin labelled 'Rubbish for Disposal' that led into the wall and last but not least, a mini fridge. Looking up, that wasn't the last thing as there were more objects like a table and chairs with magnets on their feet on the ceiling. "Someone must have had some fun there.' He thought.

Feeling parched, he went to the mini fridge to retrieve a beverage. According to the sheet on the side, there should be at least 5 bottles of Koke inside. Apon opening the small door, he found but a small sticky note on the side of the door that was covered in condensation. He took it out and wiped off some of the water droplets. There was a small message written on the note but in very bad handwriting. Bill squinted really hard at the note to try and decipher what the message was.

"Data not hear...Death wat her ...Dann cos here..."

Bill sighed, dropped the note and exited the room in search of a drink leaving the note suspended in the oxygen environment it was in. What Bill had deciphered the note had said was...

"Danny was here!"

Author's Note

Sorry for the rather short chapter today. I promise the next two are going to be much more exiting than this one!

Chapter 13 : That handle shouldn't exist

Bill approached the entrance of the cockpit with thirst being his main priority at that time. Hopefully there would still be some drinks in the cupboards of the cockpit.

He entered the cockpit, still expecting the others to be doing something productive, like monitoring systems, but what he saw was his two best mates sitting a console with a pen and paper, writing stuff down. Confused about what his two comrades were doing, he raised his voice.

"So eh...whatcha doing there Jeb?" Bill asked.

"Writing."

"...care to tell me what you're writing?"

"My final transmission."

"What do you mean?"

Jeb simply pointed at the OTM without saying a word. Bill turned and floated over to the screen on the other side of the cockpit. He focused in on the ship on the map and followed the trajectory. It was at that moment that what Jeb had said, clicked. He leaned back in his chair. 'Wow' he thought. This was really it. They really only had… … …the best part of four hours to live.

He turned and got out of his chair and approached the two kerbal's once more.

"So I guess we don't have to worry about food, water and oxygen now right?"

Silence.

"R-Right…too soon. Hey, is there any spare pens and paper?" Bill asked. Bob picked a piece of paper beside him and a pen and passed them to Bill.

"Thanks..."

Bill just sat at a desk for a few minutes and stared into the paper. What should be write? Would this message ever be heard by anykerbal? Should be ask the others on what they have put or would that be too rude? In the end, he decided to just leave it blank. He had better things to do rather than write a message that could never be heard.

Still feeling thirsty, he went over to the fridge in the hall just outside the cockpit to get a decent beverage. Upon opening this fridge, he found another note. He picked it up, already wanting to punch Danny. He wiped off the condensation and read the note.

"Check up a bit."

What did that mean? He looked up and saw this particular fridge had a top compartment. 'This was an unusual design' Bill thought. He opened it up, hoping to the Kraken above that there was at least one drink in there. He opened the door and … YES. There wear over 15 bottles of Koke in the fridge. He went to grab one, but if slipped right out of his hand. He looked more closely at the bottle. There was sure a lot more condensation on it than usual. He went to grab it again, but more carefully this time. He was able to grab ahold this time around. He opened the bottle cap, expecting a small fizz…but nothing happened. He looked down the bottle opening to see if there was a blockage. After looking down the hole for about 2 seconds, the penny dropped. That's no fridge, that's a freezer.

Leaving the fridge and floating down towards the EVA suit room, he had one or more things to say to that one particular kerbal. Fucking Danny.

Bill arrived at the EVA suit room, still thirsty and angry at Danny. He really wanted a drink, but he could go a few more hours without one. Looking around the room, he saw his EVA suit floating in the corner, as he didn't put it away correctly after opening the first solar panel. He grabbed it and checked inside. Breathing in, there was one thing for sure, he'd need some odor eaters for this! He checked his suit locker for some of the sprays to clear the smell but there weren't any. "Damn" he thought. "I don't want to do my last space walk in this smelly thing." He looked over to his right and saw Bob and Jeb's EVA suits. "Should I take one?" He thought.

Bill was suited up and ready to go. He had his EVA suit air tight and pressurized and a comm's headset connected to the cockpit. All he needed now was a jetpack that had a suitable amount of mono propellant inside. Browsing through the 3 jetpacks available, he found that the second one had 94% in it.

Putting jetpack's on yourself though, without anyone to guide you, is very difficult. He kept trying to pull up one leg strap but the restricted movement of the suit didn't allow for much. Without looking, he put his hand on a handle on the wall to try and help push himself into the tight strap. He pushed harder and harder and then his hand on the handle fell. He turned and looked at the supposed to be unmoveable handle. What he was looking at, was not a handle…it was a lever and at the top there was a sign that read;

IN CASE OF FIRE, PULL SWITCH TO OPEN EVA HATCH

"...shit..."

Meanwhile in the cockpit

Jeb sat up from the chair he was sitting in, satisfied with the message he had created. Looking to his left, he saw Bob was still hard at work writing his down. He decided just to leave him alone for a while and let reality sink in.

He went over to the main console of the ship and looked briefly at all the different systems, monitoring them to make sure nothing would break.

Suddenly, there was a massive rush bang that came from within the ship. The ship started to rotate on the Y axis and red lights started flashing everywhere.

BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP WARNING! EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION! SECTOR E-4! EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION! SECTOR E-4!

Jeb was stunned. What the Kraken's name had happened?

Bob turned to Jeb. "What the hell was that?"

"I have no idea!"

Suddenly, there was a crackling coming from a headset next to Bob. He picked it up and listened very carefully.

"....CRRRK...m-m...da....CRRKK...off......CRRKKK....uctu.....e.....CRRRK..."

Jeb said "Who said that?"

It took the two kerbal's about half a second to answer there own question. Bill.

"Wait, why is Bill on the EVA comm's channel?"

"Oh God" Bob said. "Jeb, get to the second EVA room and equip yourself, he could be without a jetpack!"

"Way ahead of you."

Bob went over to the OTM system and zoomed way in on the ship. As he got further in, the area around the ship started to become filled with debris markers on the right side. Doing a quick scan, he saw about 30 objects, and one of them was Bill.

He pressed the transmit button on his headset and tried to contact Bill.

"Bill, this is GWD. Do you copy. Over."

There was a long pause. Then, Bob started to hear the crackling again.

"B-bil...CRRK GWD.....CRRKK...struct....no jet....CRRK!"

"Say again Bill, are you on structure or off structure. ON OR OFF?"

"...CRRK....structure.....CRRRRKKK....off stru....CRRK."

'Ok' Bill is likely off structure. 'Does he have a jetpack?'

"Bill, are you equipped with a jetpack?"

Seconds ticked by without a response. Looking at the OTM, the furthest debris was reaching 700m and none of it was changing course.

"Bill, do you copy, over?"

More silence.

"Bill. RESPOND, PLEASE RESPOND!"

Sweat was dripping down Bob's neck. He could lose Bill like this. They were going to go out together. He tried calling one more time.

"BILL, DO YOU READ. I REPEAT, DO YOU READ?!"

Silence.

Bob just sat there, watching the debris slowly get further away from the ship. There was almost no hope now. Then;

"CRRK....l"

Bob instantly started transmitting to Bill. 'Do you read Bill?'

"CRRK....Bob, it's just me. I've exited the ship and I am heading for the the debris field."

"....r-right, ok...head about...1.3km due east of the ship."

"Roger that."

Bob sat there, watching Jeb's icon on the screen slowly get faster and faster towards the debris cloud. He was closing in on the closest piece of debris. Time to alert him.

"Ok Jeb, you're approaching the first piece of debris. Can you see it?"

"Yeah, rendezvousing now."

A few seconds later, Jeb reported that it was stray jetpack. Bob then gave Jeb the next location of the nearest debris. Again, it was just junk.

This continued on for about 15 minutes, but nothing was found. Jeb had just turned towards the next piece of debris when he got a warning that he didn't want to receive.

Warning : EVA Propellant at 20%!

This piece of debris would be the last to be checked. Otherwise, Jeb would be stuck in space too. He radioed in to Bob to tell him of his predicament.

"Bob, I'm down to 20% propellant in this jetpack. The last coordinates will be the last I can check before I must come back. Please choose carefully, I have plenty of oxygen but not fuel."

"...Roger..."

Bob squinted at his screen, watching all the debris signs move pixel by pixel away from the ship. He was looking for any that moved even the slightest bit. Seconds past, but nothing changed. They all stayed on the same path. Bob decided to choose the third piece from Jeb and hoped to Kraken it was Bill. He sat and watched the screen carefully as Jeb flew pixel by pixel towards the highlighted debris. He was almost there when one path from an adjacent piece of debris changed by 3°. Instantly he began changing Jeb's target to this piece of debris that was hopefully Bill.

"Bob, are you sure?" Jeb questioned.

"It's the only piece that's moved on its own and it can't of hit another piece."

"Alrighty then."

Jeb began changing his course when he received another warning.

EVA Propellant: 14%

This was it, the final check. If this wasn't Bill, he'd have to go back empty handed. Approaching the debris, he began to see a faint sparkle. "Could it be his visor?" Jeb thought. He pushed on getting closer and closer. 500m. 400m. 300m. At 250m, he began seeing the outline of the object and it was very abnormally shaped and bright white. It could just be a distorted piece of metal. A few seconds later, that theory was ruled out as he began to see an orange shape on the white shape, and it was just big enough to fit a visor.

"Bob, possible confirmation of find...scrap that, POSITIVE conformation we've found Bill!" Jeb exclaimed as he further approached the slowly rotating object. At 80m he fired the retrograde thrusters on his jetpack and came to 0.5 m/s reletive to Bill. He got closer and closer to Bill and then...bonk, they collided. Bill's eyes suddenly widened to see JEB floating there, holding his arms, smiling greatly.

"Bill, are you alright?" JEB asked through the headset. Bill didn't reply though, all he could see was his mouth moving. What was wrong. Jeb mouthed the question to Bill who replied by pointing at his left arm. Jeb looked down to see the screen there which was black. It should have a display on it but it was off. It then clicked. He was out of power, and cooling down fast.

"Bob, I need you to target the ship for me, NOW!" Jeb said urgently down the headset microphone.

"Roger that!"

Jeb waited several seconds for the HUD to display the ship. Then I popped up just to the right of where he was facing. He looked at the distance to the ship and regretted looking. 5.4km. Could he even make that? There was no time to even consider it as they were getting further away as they thought. He grabbed Bill, mouthed to him to hold on tight and fired the prograde thrusters.

After completing the burn, they were now traveling towards the ship at 39m/s. Jebs jetpack fuel was only at 4% now so they only had enough to slow down and that was it. They were getting closer an closer, the ships apparent size getting larger and larger until they were about 300m away.

"Going for retrograde burn...NOW!" Jeb said down the mic. He applied full power to the thrusters on the front of the pack. Suddenly, the two kerbals began spinning rapidly. Jeb had forgotten about their asymmetric weight relative to the jetpack. They were spinning uncontrollably towards the ship at almost 80mph with barely any way to slow down.

Jeb turned to Bill whose mouth was wide open, but no noise came. He remembered from an old book he once read "In space, no one can hear you scream." He turned back to the ship, frantically trying to see a way to save them. With the ship only seconds from colliding with them, he spotted the door from which the original decompression came from. It was still wide open. He turned to Bill, smiled and shoved him. Bill went flying towards the opening whilst Jeb changed course heading straight for the anti-matter tanks. In what seemed to be Jeb's final seconds, he saw Bill perfectly slot through the opening and into the chamber. At least he had a chance.

Jeb turned towards the ship one last time, closed his eyes and accepted defeat once more. BANG. He felt himself being pressed up and forward inside his suit. Due to instinct, he opened his eyes to see himself looping inside one of the warp rings. He grinded to a stop, scratches all over his helmet.

"Jeb, can you hear me? Jeb?" Came Bob's voice down the headset.

"I copy, and you won't believe my luck. I guarantee it."

"And you won't believe ours!"

"Huh?"

"Guess what I just discovered going through a systems check while you were traveling back?"

"What?"

"2 LV-N Atomic Motors, and their just beside you. We can avoid smashing into the planet!"

"Wha?" Jeb said. He turned his head right towards the back end of the ship, and sure enough, there were 2 nuclear engines.

"Isn't this great?"

"This is awesome. Things just keep getting...*turns towards camera, putting sunglasses on*...beta and beta!"

Author's Note

Sorry 1: that was a terrible pun

Sorry 2: Not a lot of time for creating due to impending exams.

Sorry 3: Breaking Bad is addictive. It's a...hell of a drug. YEEEEAAA...ok I'll stop.

Chapter 14: The igniters of fission

CCSSSHHH was the satisfying noise of the airlock door being closed and locked. Jeb was so proud of his work saving Bill, he almost forgot to pressurize the airlock before taking off his helmet. "Careless" he thought. As he waited for more of the ships oxygen to be pumped into the airlock, he stared out of the airlock window, looking at the ever-bigger celestial body they were heading straight for. Peering closer, he could almost see a faint line on the lip of the body. "Could that be...an atmosphere?" He thought. "I suppose it's pretty common, but even so."

AIRLOCK PRESSURIZED!

To Jeb's relief, the room was full of rich oxygen, allowing him to take off his helmet. The sensation of cool air hitting his sweaty, green face was comforting, considering he could still be floating off into the distance, using up the last of his air.

KNOCK KNOCK came a noise from the other door in the room. He turned and saw Bob floating ecstatically outside. He signaled him to enter and he did so.

"Jeb, are you alright?" Bob asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. How about Bill, is he ok?" Jeb replied.

"Fine's pushing it Jeb. He did just hit the interior of the ship at excess of 40kph. He's ok though. Got a couple of bruises here and there but nothing's broken, so there's that."

"Take it he's in the medical room then?"

"Kraken yes, where else do ya reckon he'd be?"

"Still taking of his suit?"

"Fair point. Ok, you get that gear off and meet me at the medical room ASAP so I can diagnose you, to make sure you haven't broken a bone of or something."

"Be right there."

And with that, Bob pushed himself left out of the room and towards the engine room. About three seconds later, he flew past again saying "...wrong way...". Jeb faced palmed and continued getting his suit off.

10 minutes later

"Oh Kraken, this isn't good. You have severe internal bleeding around your lungs and your heart appears to be disconnected from the rest of your body!" Bob worryingly said.

"Bob, get of Surgeon Simulator and give me a proper analysis." Bill said annoyed.

"I've already checked as soon as you came in. You were too busy playing Simple Rockets on your tablet."

"So, am I ok?"

"Yeah, yeah. Your fi...oh crap. I accidentally cut his windpipe in half with a drill!"

"A drill?!"

Just then, Jebediah arrived through the main door. He flew over to Bob and asked him dramatically "Is he gonna make it Doc?"

"Yeah, he's fine. The question is, are you fine?"

"Well, I feel fine."

Bob frowned at him. "You said you were fine after you slammed the Spearhead Mk4 into the runway at 150m/s, destroying the tarmac, the plane and your legs!"

Jeb smirked. "Haha. Oh yeah, I remember that. Gene Kerman was not pleased."

Bob gave Jeb another stare. Feeling the guilt train hit him, he suggested he got his report done now so they had time to activate the LV-N rockets.

Several minutes later

"Well Jeb, looks like you're fine." Bob said confidently.

"Awesome, let's go burn out the way of this planet now!"

"Oh yeah. Bill is preparing the cockpit for the burn."

"Let's get down there right away then."

2 minutes later, they arrived at the cockpit. Bill greeted with a grin on his face. They were ready to not be swallowed by a planet. Not today anyway.

Bill went over to the OTS to see how much Delta V was required to burn just out of the way of the planet. He clicked calibrate and waited for the computer to calculate the answer. Meanwhile, Jeb was looking out of the main window straight at the planet, which was now only a few million meters away. On the rim of the planet, he saw a distinctive blue line. That planet definitely had an atmosphere, and it was blue like Kerbin's. He turned to Bob.

"Hey, do you reckon there could be life on that planet?"

"What do you mean life?"

"Life, as in us life. L-Look out the main window, it has a blue atmosphere like ours."

Bob looked out the window as instructed and saw the thin blue band around the outside of the planet. He turned to Jeb and said "Quite a few gases refract to give blue light Jeb. It's quite common."

"But it could."

"If it does or not, we're not finding out any time soon."

Bill came over to the two of them with the results. "Ok, to not collide with the planet, we'll have to burn along the radial out vector for 350m/s. With the weight of the ship, which is 1000 tons, the burn will take... approximately 20 minutes. So, we gave 40 minutes to start the burn before it is too late."

"Well, if that's the case, let's burn immediately!" Jeb said.

Everyone got in they're seats and prepared for the long burn ahead. Jeb put his hand on the throttLe and began a countdown.

"5, 4, 3...you did set the motors to this throttle, right?" Hemail asked Bill

"Uhh, yeah!"

"Ok, 2, 1..." Jeb began throttling up, expectin to feel some forces being felt, but there was none.

" huh?" He tried throttling down and back up but to no avail. From behind him, he heard Bob say the tragic words, "You have got to be kidding me."

Author's Note

Well it has been a while hasn't it!
First off, I'm back! I'm gonna try and release more chapters soon and there's nothing in the world that I can do to repay the debt of making you wait this long. So again, sorry. Happy reading.