Cold. Barren. Dark. But for the first time in a hundred years, the void wasn’t entirely empty.
Most of them had been born on the cylinder, and that was the only view their generation had ever known. Not everyone who chose to be frozen survived the thaw. For him, the journey went by in a blink of an eye, but for his body, decades had passed, and his muscles had withered. Everything was sore. The centripetal force kept the gravity constant, but it took several months to get re-acclimated to moving.
But they needed a mission commander with actual experience for the landing, that could survive the entire journey. His backup pilot and two of the mission specialists were generational colonists, all their training could only be simulated. The Kestrel itself had been test fired through the journey, but there were no spare parts left.
Dourau was fast approaching them now. Decelerated from relativistic speeds, the Exodus coasted into Debdeb’s sphere of influence, slingshotting past the ice giant on the way to the inner planets. The swirling blue clouds were awe-inspiring, the whole crew stunned to silence at the first exoplanet visually observed by the Kerbal eye.
When the burn ended, the system was scanned again, and a moon around Dourau was found. Now called Bis, it would be the first solid ground they’d pass in a century. That was now his target - the first manned landing.
Exodus pressed onward to Gurdamma, and Starburst prepared to detach from the colony ship. The crew were silent as they finished their preparations, speaking only at a minimum to complete their checklists. Their suits fitted for moonwalking, shoulders strapped with mission patches, Solari flags for their nation, and the navy blue ensigns of their federation. The pilot’s national patch, faded green, white, and blue, was placed underneath the blue ensign - two flags curled, a delta in the center. What had become of their countries while they were gone? Many composed themselves as if they could be all that was left. Everyone on the ship acted accordingly.
“Ready to detach.” Rear Admiral Lithgow prompted over the comms. The five-man crew of the Kestrel all had their helmets and gear on, and the silence from their stations was the positive response.
“Copy, Starburst, make it back, will you?” The airlock began to hiss. Lithgow engaged the thrusters, and the Kestrel slowly distanced itself from the kilometers-long colony. Moments later, he began to reorient it towards retrograde.
“Let’s proceed.” The antique displays illuminated for the landing sequence. The broadcast was live, and the landing would be spectated by the whole ship - and in 3.9 years, by Kerbol, too.
Bis continued to approach them. Lithgow keyed the intercom again, in his native tongue.
“S’nami Bog.”
Good evening, for those who are just joining us, we are now tuning in to the broadcast being received live, from Debdeb, as the Exodus has arrived in the system, and the first manned landing on another world is underway. A lander has detached from the mothership, and her crew are now on the way to the surface of the first solid body in the system...
Code: Select all
Starburst, Exodus, we see you on the steerable, over.
Roger, Starburst is undocked.
Roger, how’s it looking?
Starburst has wings.
The Debdeb system is approximately 3.9 light-years away from Kerbol, so the transmission takes the same amount of time to reach our system at the speed of light. These signals are coming live from the Munar Far Side Observatory, and decoded into video and audio, originally communicated to us in 2208, and just arriving now...
Code: Select all
Starburst, Exodus, you are GO for powered descent.
Starburst, roger. On my mark, 30 until ignition.
Roger.
Mark… zero… ignition.
The astronauts are proceeding with their landing now, using one of their Kestrel dropships for the manned landing… The Kestrel was originally built in Basil and saw wide proliferation in the 21st century by the Tau Coalition, Jool Federation, and NEOCON, for logistics as well as combat in the System War…
Code: Select all
RADALT light’s on, standby... We don’t- we don’t have radar data.
Let’s proceed.
Copy.
Okay, 3,000 and 70.
Copy, 3,000, 70. Lookin’ good, Lithie.
The farthest planet in the Debdeb system, Dorau, is a blue ice giant, found to have its own ring and moons. The colonists discovered its largest moon, now named Bis, and have chosen it for their first landing site. Debdeb itself is a K-class star-
Code: Select all
PROGRAM alarm - 206.
What is that?
I don’t know.
Exodus, give us a reading on the 206 alarm.
Roger, we got - we’re GO on that alarm.
Send it.
Throttle down, 1,000 and 50…
Code: Select all
800 meters. 700. 35 degrees, down to 23.
Watch those boulders. Switching to manual.
Starburst, Exodus, you are GO for landing.
Roge, GO for landing- PROGRAM alarm! 207!
Roger, 207, we’re GO. Same type. We’re GO.
Roger, we copy it. 500, 20 down, 23 degrees…
Code: Select all
150, 10 down, pegged on horizontal velocity…
80, down five-and-a-half-
Watch your shadow!
50 meters, 3 down, five percent.
30 meters, 2 down, forward drift - okay - down a half..
10 seconds…
Code: Select all
Contact light. Shutdown…
…
Exodus, Bis Base, Starburst has landed.
Roger, Bis.
...And with that, Starburst 1 has landed on the moon of Bis. What we are observing now is Kerbalkind’s first manned landing in a new star system. After over a century in deep space, kerbalkind has finally stepped foot on a new world.
We’re told that Magdalene I was awakened when first reports of the impending landing was received, and - hang on - Now we appear to be switching to the live cam of the ladder, just extended- we can see now the first astronaut has departed the lander, and will make his way to the surface. The mission commander of Starburst 1 is descending now, and…
Code: Select all
YA delayu etot shag radi nashikh stran, radi nashikh narodov,
radi Boga-Imperatora Vikusa i radi neokonservativnogo uklada zhizni,
osoznavaya, chto segodnyashniy den' — lish' ocherednoy etap na puti
Solarii i Aenii v sostave Edinoy Imperatorskoy Federatsii,
kotoraya vyvedet vso kerbal'skoye chelovechestvo v kosmos.
...We will get a translation of his words to you shortly, as the astronaut prepares to plant the flag of the Exodus Program on the surface of Bis. Kerbalkind’s first words from a new world…
The flag is unfurling now, and that’s - wait…
I was… that flag which we are observing is - yes - that’s right…
The flag planted by the astronaut is of the UIF, of the 21st century… the departing colonists would not have been aware of the adoption of their current SysCom star flag. The Exodus crew, apparently, have decided to plant the flag of the federal UIF instead of Solaria or Aenia, the two groups of settlers on the mission, and - okay - we have the translation now, and these are the first words of the astronaut Alexi Lithgow spoke, from the surface of Bis, just moments ago:
“I take this step for our countries, for our peoples, for God Emperor Vikus, and for the neo-conservative way of life, knowing that today is but one next step in the journey of Solaria and Aenia within the United Imperial Federation which will take all of Kerbalkind to the cosmos.”
...
...I’m not sure what to say, perhaps, there are no words… so, for now… we’ll let you soak in this historic moment… and reflect on what it means for our country… and for the world…
