//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: The igniters of fission // Story: Crash Landing: The tale of 3 Kerbals // by Jebediah Kerpony //------------------------------// 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."