Val and Katsuki pushed the engines and after a small detour they ended up at their original track. It would take some time but then over the horizon, they saw a white piece of metal. It was Galahad. It had tipped over. Val brought up the sensors. “15-degree slope, it extends several hundred meters in all directions. Towing it is not an option.”
Using the small hinge on the Sojourner Katsuki managed to pull the craft in an upright position. She had moved two of the landing legs upward. A delegate procedure, but in the end the Galahad was moved in an upright position. Immediately it started to shift down the slope. “Whooha, Val tap the brakes.”
The Sojourner suffered while being pulled down but after about 50 meters the both of them came to a stop. “We need to work quickly,” Katsuki said. There was a lot to do to restore this vessel to a usable state.
One of the cool features of Galahad was an extendable hinge to lower cargo. Katsuki went to work. The Galahad was damaged in the landing. The top cone and docking thrusters were gone. But as in the past, the payload was well protected.
From spare parts, she created a field bed that could be used to carry Finni upwards. then removed the science experiment to create room for food, water, and oxygen but most importantly the canister of “Kraken Juice” as Val had labeled the orange glowing stuff.
Katsuki managed to transfer resources to a reconfigured buckboard container. She then used the crane to raise it and was able to get the parts within range for her to grab them and mount them on the Galahad. Meanwhile, Val had been working on the launch computer, she was confident that she could launch this battered vehicle. “It has fuel and engine, I can work with that.”
It took a long time to load the final supplies and all the data that the Sojourner had collected. Katsuki looked at the hinge, “we need to cut it loose before we take off, but we also need it to anchor the Galahad in place….”
Without the anchor, the whole thing would shift, so Katsuki deployed the drill. Hammered in the red soil. It would not last long, but long enough. She closed the docking bays, powered up the main drive and released the lock, “Val, she’s all yours! I suggest you don’t wake too late.”
The spacecraft boosted off, there was considerable drag without the nosecone. It made a couple flips, but Val could recover. There were many tons of equipment removed so the craft had fuel to spare. Never the less, she boosted in a high orbit. “It’s good to be in space again.”
From there it was standard circularization procedures, Katsuki was worried. “Finni is slipping away Val. How much longer?” This is where Commander Valentina shined. She pressed down on the console. The burn took longer than required, but got them to their destination quicker.
“Beale is on visal,” Val performed a manual rendezvous and docking at 5 times the speed the Mechjeb computer could do. She managed to park the craft within 20 meters of each other.
Docking would be another matter, the Galahad didn’t have the maneuvering thrusters to perform a dock, but Katsuki had automated the docking sequence on Beale, which homed in on them as soon as they matched speed.
As soon as they docked they moved Finni to a cryo pod they were able to stabilize his bio-signs. Then they began the long process of transferring supplies, data and reconfigure the cargo hold to accommodate their strange payload. Then it was time for a break and finally some rest.
Back on Duna, Sojourner is sent home but Spirit 04 woke up and was redirected to the strange alien spaceship. Taking a position on a hill it would observe the craft from a kilometer away. KSC was not convinced that this was the last engagement they would have with the Kraken.
KSC Archives 