Chapter 1
A Long Shot
One year later ...
Gadwin Kerman sat in the space program's Mission Control room watching the events with interest. He had finally found the willing kerbonaut to make the journey, who was currently loaded aboard the probe that was sitting on the pad.
Gadwin regularly checked his data pad for updates on the interstellar probe to be sent to Eaglio. He, and he alone, had access to that data, letting the mission control personnel handle and maintain the launch process for the Eaglio orbiter probe.
The plan was for the Eaglio probe to enter into the moon's sphere of influence with a periapsis of 55,000 meters. That was above the moon's atmosphere of 50,000 meters, and allowed the probe to drop its apoapsis to 250,000 meters, letting the probe's instruments cover the entire portion of Eaglio's surface. Later probes would sample the surface, and settlements would happen later, most likely five years from today.
But today was the big day for the Eaglio orbiter probe. And its special payload.
KSPTT
On board the payload, the kerbonaut sat and waited. Patience was the key, and within several weeks, she would be on her way home.
It was a far cry from a year ago, when she was in an institution and being drugged for her "illness". She was taken from the hospital, and transported to a special research laboratory, where she was no longer medicated, but questioned for several weeks about her experiences on the other world, called "Rhode". Although she was wary at first, she warmed up to the staff, who were nothing like the staff at the other hospital. They cared.
Especially Gadwin Kerman. He seemed to understand, and she found she could trust him and tell him everything she knew about Rhode and its history relating to the ancient planet Kerbin.
On her flight suit, her name was stitched: ATHENA KERMAN.
So she waited for her time.
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Also in Mission Control, sitting in back, was a member of the religious council. Although he was listed as an "interested observer", just about everyone else knew what he was, and the power he had over them.
One of the things he also knew about was the extra payload for this mission. Just as the silence over the fate of Talia suited Gadwin's purposes, the payload suited the purposes of the religious council.
To describe the religious council as "power mad" and "corrupt" might be better understood if one was to call Adolf Hitler a "fanatical dictator". They believed in total control of the masses, while letting everyone think they had some control in their lives. After all, it was a far cry from millennia ago when the orthodoxy used extreme methods of torture as a means to keep the masses in line. This was more "civilized".
Thus, the religious council was letting Gadwin launch his payload, with the intent of siezing the results afterward, and using the data to construct their own ships to allow their loyalists to escape the doom of the planet. They, and they alone, were best suited to survive the coming stellar purge. The others, forget them.
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As the time to launch arrived, Gadwin watched with interest. He knew of the religious representative behind him, and their plans to take control of the data once the interstellar probe had returned. He knew what they would do to him and those who worked for the future. He had other plans as well.
The time arrived, and the great rocket carrying Kerbalkind's last, and best hope for survival, rose gently from the launch pad and ascended skyward. The boosters spent, they were dropped, and the center stage continued its burn into a near-orbit. Then, the engines of the main payload would fire, sending its payload to orbit, and on to Eaglio.
The race had begun to determine who would decide Kerbalkind's fate.
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Four days later, the probe entered the sphere of influence of Eaglio, and several hours later it reached periapsis, the lowest point in its orbit. Firing its main engines, it slowed down until its apoapsis, or its farthest point in its orbit, was above 250.5km. About a half an hour later it reached apoapsis, and fired its engine again, circularizing its orbit around Eaglio.
The probe wouldn't begin its studies until the next day, instead performing maintenance checks on its systems, as well as shutting down its main engine for safety precautions.
Now Athena could make her move. An hour later, as the probe lost contact with Mission Control by passing behind the moon, Athena separated from the main spacecraft and used her RCS thrusters to move her away gently. Getting a hundred meters from the main probe, she fired her engine retrograde, thus slowing her ship down so she would have a periapsis just above the atmosphere.
Of course, Eaglio wasn't her target. Her faster-than-light system required her to be much farther away from the moon than the mother ship that carried her there. She had to be over 1,000km from the moon, so at the time of closest approach to the moon, she fired her main engine prograde to accelerate her so she would reach the required altitude, which would be several hours later.
Since the mother ship was in a diagnostic mode, it wouldn't spot her on its sensors until she was well away from the moon. Most likely she would be in hyperspace at that time.
Periapsis came, she thrusted to a higher apoapsis, then almost two hours later she switched from the main engine, which was one of the new "Bussard" engines developed in one of Gadwin's research laboratories, to another one of his marvels, the faster-than-light Alcubierre drive. The switching was seamless, simply turning off the Bussard engine and turning on the Alcubierre drive. Rings unfolded from the midsection of the probe, and instead of accelerating with a pillar of flame out the back of the ship, the ship "slid" its way through space. All she knew was, push the throttle lever forward, and the ship goes much faster.
The ship, now named LAST HOPE, began its drive to destiny.
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Athena watched as the starry black skybox began turning a myriad of rainbow colors. A bubble of energy wrapped itself around the ship, and from her rear-facing cameras, Eaglio started sliding away quickly, then shrank to a point of light in under a minute, then disappeared altogether. An hour later, Suthe also shrank to a point of light, and Athena turned off the camera and placed herself into a deep sleep, to be wakened at periodic intervals for navigation checks.
