Crash Landing: The tale of 3 Kerbals

by Jebediah Kerpony

Chapter 11 : Presented with Fate

"That sure is an exoplanet." Bill said with glee.

"That's...incredible." Jeb said. "Kerbal kind has never seen an exoplanet this close before.

"Hey come on, let me see." Bob said. They shuffled around allowing Bob to see through the top piece of glass. When his eyes focused in on the pale blue dot, his face could only be described as amazed. He just sat their, floating, looking up at this brand new world that they had discovered.

"Hey Bill, is it not about time we got all of the systems running so we can calculate whether or not were completely boned?" Jeb asked.

"Yeah sure...actually, I'll check on all the circuits down in the belly of this beast whilst you turn everything on." Bill said.

"Not a bad idea." Jeb said. "Here, take this radio so we can communicate if things go to shit...again." He chucked the radio at Bill who caught it with ease. He turned and pushed away from the cockpit and began traveling to the circuits room. Jeb turned to Bob, who was still in his own world just looking up at this planet they had discovered.

"Bob. Bob? Kerbin calling Bob?" No answer. Bob was being hypnotized by space. Jeb looked around and found a notepad.

"Hey Bob, heads up!" He called as he lobbed the notepad at his comrade. THWACK. Right in the side of the head. Bob flinched at the notepad, waving his arms around. After coming to his senses, he turned and looked at Jeb who was tumbling around with laughter.

"What was that for?"

"You were being hypnotized by the vacuum of space Bob. I had to something." Jeb said, removing a tear from his eye.

"Couldn't you have shaken me or something?"

"That would have required effort, and I was over here." Jeb said. "Hey, on another note, could you turn on some systems like the mech-jeb unit and the orbit calculator. Then we could find out if we're just passing by or we're about to be incinerated by a huge ball of Kydrogen gas." Jeb asked.

"Sure, I'll get right on it...right after I grab a snack. I am starving."

"For Kraken's sake Bob, really?"

"I'm hungry. Leave me be."

After several snacks had been devoured, Bob set to work on booting up the Orbital Trajectory Map to see where they were heading. Meanwhile, Bill had arrived at the circuits room. He opened the door to reveal all the electronic brain of the ship. Everything that was hooked up to the ship ran through this centre. He picked up his radio and turned it on. There was a sharp crackle while it booted up. The screen then displayed the well known Battman Electronics logo on the screen. Bill chuckled, knowing he once worked as an intern for that company. Some fond memories of his old friends came to mind and he smiled.

The logo then disappeared revealing the various settings the radio could be calibrated to. He set it to channel 0, the setting that broadcasted to all channels no matter what, to contact Jeb. There was no need for security here, as the chances of interception was zero.

Bill pressed the transmit button and spoke to Jeb, hoping he responded.

"Jeb, this is Bill, come in Jeb." Bill said into the microphone.

"..." Silence. He tried again.

"Jeb, this is Bill, come in Jeb, over." Bill repeated.

"Jeb here." said muffled voice. "We're just getting a snack."

"Without me?"

"Sorry, anyway have you reached the circuit room yet?"

"Yeah, I just got here. I'm gonna do a quick look around to make sure nothing is damaged. Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do."

Back in the cockpit, Jeb looking through all the systems that were booting up or that were already on. Two panels that caught his eyes was the Orbital Trajectory Map (OTM) and the Navigation Information Display (NID), which were both pitch black. He turned to Bob, who was observing the planet once more.

"Bob, did you...BOB!" Jeb shouted, grabbing Bob's attention. "Did or did you not turn on the OTM and the NID like I told you so?"

"I thought I did."

Jeb sighed. He pushed himself towards the column and faced the many touch screen that were at his disposal. He press one of the few physical buttons on the column to start up the OTM. The screen immediately lit up displaying a 3D render of Kerbin, their home, and a bar at the bottom that read 'locating ship'. When the computer relised it couldn't get a steady connection to any satellite in the Kerbol system, the bar read 'scanning surroundings'.

The screen then went black. The computer had completely crashed. He picked up his radio and began a short transmission.

"Bill, we have a problem."

Back in the circuits room, Bill was still scanning the different circuit breakers, flicking the occasional one back on but there was no outstanding damage. His radio from across the room then projected Jeb's distorted voice across the room.

"Bill, we have a problem."

Bill floated over to the radio and answered back with "What's broken?"

"The OTM is bugging out man, it doesn't like being in this uncharted environment."

Bill thought to himself. What could be the problem.

"Jeb, is it crashing on start up or at a specific point?"

"The process bar reaches 'scanning surroundings' and then black screens."

This was weird. Usually the system only crashes on start up or if the ship is unable to mo...

"Jeb, did you feel the ship moving at all when it reached that point?"

"Uh, no?"

Bill floated over to the manouvering breakers and inspected them one by one. One managed to grab his attention. The one that read 'link' had a red light instead of a green light. That meant no other external systems could interfere with the ships movement.

So, like any normal kerbal would do, he presses the breaker to green. He put his radio to his mouth and said "Try it now."

Back in the cockpit, Jeb started up the OTM once again and went through the normal procedure of waiting until it relised there were no connections available. When it reached the point of 'scanning surroundings', there was a familiar whir as the SAS units kicked into gear and the whole ship began flipping along the six main vectors of movement. Lasers were fired in all directions to calculate distance, speed and to collect orbit data. After receiving thousands of pieces of data, the computer began crunching the numbers, calculating an accurate trajectory to the nearest metre.

After 4 whole minutes, the ships OTM black screened again. Jeb was about to break through the wall into space when the screen turned on again to reveal a small triangular icon on a blue line. It was their trajectory. Jeb quickly grabbed the nearest mouse and drag clicked to face the planet.

He froze in his seat. He had followed the blue line...and it went straight through the planets surface. They were not on an orbit, they were on a collision course.

He selected the lowest point of the trajectory and right clicked. This places a manouver node and also states the time until it.

Time until Maneuver - 4:37:23

Comments

[Vanst]

Dun Dun Duuun!

[cultpony]

That's gonna be one hell of an aerobrake... READY THE MARSHMALLOWS!

[Jebediah Kerpony]

5299471 It's a shame deadly reentry was installed just before launch!

[Nameless cow]

5300905
Dont worry, I installed the airbags mod and fitted them with the XL variety

[Jebediah Kerpony]

5307060 I'm pretty sure the airbags would burn up on reentry as I'm thinking reentry will be in excess of 3700m/s but I suppose they could act as a cushion of one part of the ship survived!

[Muranuse]

5308835 *presses [alt]+[f12]*