The secrets of the ancients

The quest for a new drive

Camdous Kerman climbed the long ladder to the top-secret test site. He and his fellow scientist Arlan Kerman had reverse-engineered some more of the ancients tech and were preparing for another test. “What do you expect,” Camdous asked. “Wonderful things,” Arlan replied.

The engine hummed as it powered up. The plasma was building up and using both Xeon and regular LOx a simple but powerful and incredibly powerful engine started to roar.

“Thust is lower than I hoped for,” Camdous said. “Yes, but ISP is great. Look at these numbers.”

The power of the ancients

Several weeks later at the Island testing facilities, a hybrid engine design that was a direct copy of the A51’s came to life. Buzzing and squeaking it drained two SAFER fusion generators but it seemed to operate. Arlan looked at the data, “Yes, the only thing that is missing are gravity waves, it is time to harvest the gravioli radiation.”

The search for Graviolium

Back at the lab, this meant that Camdous would be working on his top-secret collector. It was expected to finished soon and could launch to LKO.

Deep in the night, Squirell 1 and 2 launched from the Woomerang launched complex. The public was told it was a regular communication satellite and it would be reported as a failed launch in the press, mocking the northern quality standards. In real life control of the pair of satellites was transferred to a secret lab at KSC2. They maneuvered the satellites in a polar orbit of 1 Mm and 3 Mm scouting for particles. The results were disappointing. Perhaps further calibration of the orbit would help.

A call for help

“So tell me again, where are we heading?” Jeb was puzzled. He didn’t understand why Camdous and Arlan had asked him to pilot the little Kingfisher without a flight plan. “Just  turn here and head North.” Alan said. “That airspace has been closed for the last few months, no-can-do Sir.” Jeb replied. “Camdous picked up the comms and radioed in his clearance. Flight J-334 was cleared to proceed to land at the Island runway and Jeb was puzzled even more. “Please taxi the plane towards the first hangar,” Arlan told Jeb after touchdown.

“What the … is that?” Jeb had to pick up his jaw from the floor. “This is the reason we asked for your help,” Camdous replied. “We have been exploring how the ancients built their craft and think we start to understand their take at aerodynamics and maneuvering engines, and we would like you to fly this prototype,” Arlen continued. “We don’t know how the shape will hold up, so be careful,” Camdous explained to Jeb who had already stopped listening.

An unusual design

The hull resembled the shape of the saucer pictures he had seen before from the crashed UFO’s and there had been talk of a saucer recovered from the ocean, but that was just rumor. He mounted the cockpit and powered up the craft. The controls were conventional, just that VTOL mode looked unfamiliar.

To his surprise, the craft flew very well. It leveled out at Mach 1 and a cruising altitude of 12 km. “If these are derived from maneuvering thrusters, then what was their main drive?” Jeb asked to himself. But he had little time to think about that, he was approaching the borders of the no-fly zone, or in his case: the stay-in-this-fly-zone in order to avoid detection. He turned the craft around and made his way back to the base.

There he switched engine and tried to use the VTOL manager. “Jeb to command, VTOL manager, engaged, trying to land on the tower.” Arlan turned pale and Camdous screamed in the microphone, “do not try to play games here Jeb, that is one of a kind craft, not a Mun lander. Reminding Jeb of how he crashed a Mun lander trying to pull the same stunt.” So Jeb wobbled down and tried to land near hanger 1.

Following the debrief Jeb surprised the two scientists: “I noticed the second saucer in hanger 2, it seems almost alien in origin and I really want to take a look at it.” Camdous turned red in horror, but Arlan could see the value. “I guess you are our most experienced pilot and Dr. Erilorf has spent months but not managed to get the command console to activate, nothing but grey squares. Perhaps he can figure it out.”

The ride of Tut-Un-Jeb-Ahn comes alive

And so Jeb mounted the historic saucer and went straight for the cockpit. “Hmm, no controls.” Arlen nodded, “Dr. Erilorf beliefs they were using a telepathic interface. “Jeb laid his hand on the console. With a chiming sound, the entire capsule came to life.

“Wauw, how did you do that?” Camdous looked puzzled. “I don’t know,” Jeb said, it just felt familiar. “We have been over this craft a million times, perhaps he has a mod gene,” Arlan said. Whatever the reason, the craft came to live and Jeb pushed some buttons.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Jeb said as it hopped off the hanger floor a couple of meters in the air. Arlan, who was just disembarking nearly fell from the deck. Then the craft fell back down on its tiny feet and remained dead. “Perhaps there was some residual graviolum,” Camdous offered as an explanation to the puzzled test pilot. “I wish Bob was here,” Jeb replied. He can make sense of this stuff.

That would take another 70 days, meanwhile, the Kerbal Alien Tech department would have lots of reports to file.