Returning to Kerbin
The Sirkut’s engines sprang to life, as the craft was slowing down for its orbital insertion. The had completed nearly half of the calculated burn when the Nav team noticed the problem. “Gene, we’ve got a problem. They are coming in too hot, and the trajectory is all messed up, they are heading straight for Kerbin.”
“What the..” Kirus was not feeling well. Despite the relatively small acceleration of the Sirkut, thawing under acceleration had been highly discouraged and he started to understand why. “Get up Kirus, we need you to fire up the Falcon immediately.” did he detect a slight panic in Gene’s voice? “Sure thing Boss, fill me in on the why along the way?” He said as he left the stasis chamber he saw the others had been thawed too. This was very unusual.
Wehrdard left the capsule and collected the science from all storage containers, over 70 experiments had they collected. He held on tight to the rail, this was no fun under acceleration, but there was no time to spare.
20 minutes later they saw their home planet awfully close by, while they were still traveling at an extreme speed. “We are going to use the Sirkut as a heatshield to bleed off your speed. Hopefully, the Falcon can take the remainder to slow you down and land safely.” Everyone was silent, this kind of scenario had not been trained for.
The deadly descent
As soon as they hit the atmosphere the craft lit up. Solar panes, manipulator arms, comms equipment, probes, and RCS thrusters exploded before they hit the 50 km mark. The temperature in the Falcon was good, but the explosions were no sign of confidence.
At 16 km they separated from the remains of the Sirkut, flipped around and bled of speed with their heatshield. Thats when the red light of the parachute popped on. “KSC, we have no chutes, attempting to land on thrusters, tell Val I am in love with her,” Kirus said. “123 m/s 775m altitude,” Sampond was calling out the numbers, Wehrdard tried to calculate the best suicide burn distance.
They hit the water at 74 m/s, radio contact was lost instantly. Back at KSC the team kept their calm. The Orca was 2 hours out, the Neptune had dispatched a fast patrol ship though it may not get there sooner. Two aircraft had been scrambled that would reach the site in less than 10 minutes for a visual search and a helicopter with an unknown ETA.
They wouldn’t find a single piece of debris. The Sirkut went down with all hands, the first loss of life in the history of KSC was a fact. Today was a very, very black day.
The aftermath
As is the case with Kerbals, when the need is high, things happen, and before long a green patch of grassland at KSC Headquarters was cleared and a monument was errected.
In honor of the Kraken Seekers, the crew of the Sirkut, the second vessel in the Beale Class. These were Kirus, Sampond, and Wehrdard. They shall not be forgotten.
KSC Archives 