Secrets, secrets, secrets

Bob deeply admired what the construction team was doing at KSC. The old radio telescope was being upgraded into a class II tracking station. “So why are we doing this?” Bob asked. “Well, Sir, we learned from our early satellites that there is a whole world to orbital mechanics and the new station will allow us to track positions and orbits more accurately.”  Bob nodded. He knew all this off course, but why now? why had the Science Board approved such an expensive upgrade? Surely that single launch on the Arrow would not be the reason? or was it the effort that Kerbia was putting in their new rocket? Either way, he liked what he was seeing and his mind this would help to track the gravioli particle beams that left up, skywards.

“Sir, Dr. Bob?” a kerbal wearing an airport uniform asked. “Yes?” Bob replied. “Urgent message Sir,” as he handed the communique. “REPORT TO AIRSTRIP AT ONCE. URGENT MISSION. CLASSIFIED DELTA-2 BRAVO”

Bob did not know what was going on or where he was going to as he boarded the CX105A Lightning and took off from the Kerbin runway. “Good afternoon, passengers. This is the Captain, I just received the coordinates and will be making a sharp turn, I will provide updates to our destination, as soon as I am allowed.” Bob looked at Erilorf, “Do you know what this means?” She looked difficult, “It’s classified, and I pushed to get you included. I can tell more when we are in Kerbia.” She replied. There would be a mishap before that, however.

“This is the captain again. Whoever thought of chartering this plane for this mission did not look at the range capabilities of the lightning. We are flying at 4km altitude with a speed of 170m/s but have a range problem! it is 650km to Kerbia the range of the plane is 400, please brace yourself.” Shortly after that he contacted the Kerbin Emergency Response Force and crashlanded on a little island between the Strait of Tut and the Sea of  Kolus.

The KERF happed to have a tanker plane on standby. Valentina took the CX-205A Dionysis off the runway and up in the air. It was the maiden flight of the C7 Aerospace designed plane. Similar to the reliable CX-2xx frame, but shorter and more maneuverable. It carried a lot of fuel but did not need a long runway, as per the specification of the KERF who often needed to land in rough terrain.

The landing went off without any problems and Valentina taxied the plane near the small personal carrier and refueled it using the new KAS connectors that she had brought along. “We need to make these a standard,” Bob told his travel companions and indeed that would happen shortly after.

When they finally made it to Defiant Kerbia, they transferred into the newly designed command rover of the KERF. Though there were still design updates in the pipeline to make it pull more weight, the current one (V-115 KERF CM) was well equipped for the long desert drive that lay ahead.

“What is that?” Bob said as his jaw dropped to the floor of the car. “The pyramids of Tut-Ach-Jeb” Erilorf replied. As the pyramids came more into view so came the little science outpost that the Kerbia Science Academy had built.

Cooperation between United Kerlands and Kerbia had always been hard, but Bob could not imagine how such a large find was kept hidden. “We have found evidence that goes straight against the Kerbal faith and we could not afford the chaos,” Erilorf explained. That being said, he understood his green little friend, it would mean revolution. They parked the car and Bob finally had his secret meeting.

“We knew we had to share it sometime, but we just kept putting it off,” the lead scientist explained. “But now we found something that we just had to share.” When Bob saw it he finally understood.

“By the Kraken! does this mean what I think it means?” Bob said. “Well, if you think we can decode the language now, you would be wrong, but we did manage to identify what we think are numbers or coordinates,” Erilorf explained. “But that is our solar system,” Bob said. “Yes, we think it means that Kerbalkind is not alone, and our ancestors lived elsewhere out there.”

“This will change everything”