//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 : That handle shouldn't exist 
// Story: Crash Landing: The tale of 3 Kerbals 
// by Jebediah Kerpony 
//------------------------------//

        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!"