UMMU_Tester, born with such a boring name and depressed by the years of orange and brown skies on Venus station, had reached his limit. He decided to end it all. He donned the Thermo-Suit 1000 (TM) and exited the airlock. He walked around a bit to see the station one last time. This station, suspended by balloons, high above Venus had been his home for 15 years. He walked to the end of the runway, and stepped off.
Due to the station's high altitude, and the thickness of Venus's atmosphere, UMMU_Tester took a very long time to get to the ground. The brave pilot Francis Bowman, who happened to be sitting at the controls of a delta-winged spacecraft, named the Delta Glider IV. Bowman realized that he could save UMMU_Tester with some smart flying, and bring him back safely to the Balloon ship.
The DGIV took off with the hover mode (PRO200SPEC8), and dove toward the plummeting sky-diver. Brave Captain Bowman caught up quickly with UMMU_Tester, who had assumed the high-drag belly-facing the planet. Bowman established a descending hover with the on-board autopilot, and established a descent rate of 18 m/s. Bowman opened the nose cone, opened the air lock, and waited for UMMU_Tester to sky-dive himself into the airlock.
Once UMMU_Tester saw the brave deed from Bowman, he had a change of heart. Refuge aboard the DGIV could easily be had. Years of formation skydiving practice back on Earth helped prepare him for this salvation. By changing the pitch of the skydiver with the RCS thrusters, UMMU_Tester could maneuver to make the airlock and go home. A few minutes of tinkering with his angle of attack, and he was right in front of the airlock.
"Beep Beep: Too Far from Airlock"
Just a bit closer
"Beep Beep: Too Far from Airlock"
"Just another inch"
"Beep Beep: AIRLOCK CLOSED" said the entry computer.
But both the nose cone and the external door are open? This does not make sense.
Another try.
The situation was growing more desperate. The closer they got to the ground, the more difficult the rendezvous became. After descending through about 25,000 meters above the ground, the rate of descent, coupled by the thickness of the air blew away the nose cone -- disintegrated in a puff of wreck pieces. No matter, the life of UMMU_Tester is much too important! Captain Bowman thought.
UMMU Tester attempted another shot at the DGIV's door. It is getting hotter by the second. The outside temperature is over 250 C. This Thermo-Suit 1000 (TM) designed by the Venus-Tech Incorporated is definitely doing its job, all right. But it can not last forever. There was only so much more liquid nitrogen in its on-board canisters, to keep the suit cool. One more shot.
Just a few more inches, and the door will be in the grasp of the free-falling astronaut. This time, however the descent was too much on the hover engines; the temperature of the hover doors melted the hover engines. Francis was immediately notified of the failure as the Autopilot screeched with bingo; alerts flashing all over the control panel. With the hover engines gone, the DGIV plummeted to the surface of Venus much faster than the descent rate of the skydiver. Pieces of wreck scattered from the crippled DGIV.
Captain Bowman knew he had lost the battle to save UMMU, or "Oooh-Moo" as his friends called him. There was a brief moment, when the DGIV made a horrific cracking sound, Bowman and Oooh-Moo made eye contact. Words were not spoken, and they both knew that saving Oooh-Moo would now be impossible.
The altitude was a mere 20,000 meters from the surface, and Francis knew that he would never see Oooh-Moo again. Bowman fired up the main engines and pointed the nose toward the balloon station, 20,000 meters directly above. The alerts continued to blare with annoying fashion, and could not be silenced by continually hitting the reset button.
After a certain altitude, the temperature sensors on the nose cone's remnants cooled off enough to silence the annoying alarms. As Bowman climbed to the same altitude as the balloon station, he attempted to land the crippled craft. With the hover engines destroyed in the rescue attempt, this landing proved to be impossible. Bowman made eight valiant attempts to land, each one ended up being too high of a speed for the DGIV to settle on the runway. Now, there was no hope for Bowman, either.
With fuel running low, Bowman had one last chance: one last approach. He lined up a perfect approach, with as slow as he could get the DG. Captain Bowman grunted with the explosion and sudden rush of Gee-forces as the ejection seat shot him from the craft. Within two seconds, he had reached the apogee of the ejection. He realized also that his fate was doomed. He had misjudged the angles.
Bowman ejected right over the end of the runway. His horrified cohabitants of the Balloon station watched in horror, as they realized he ejected too late; or the DGIV was going too fast. Either way, Bowman ejected right past the end of the runway, and began a free-fall toward Venus; flying with the shattered remains of the now-empty DGIV.
Epilogue:
Bowman and Tester both probably cooked to death before they were killed by the fall. We don't think either of them had a successful parachute deployment. All hands aboard the vessel wept for the great friends they had lost.
I actually did manage to do all of these things; I don't understand why the parachute didn't deploy, and I don't understand why UMMU couldn't get aboard the DGIV when I pressed "E", despite the nose cone and airlock being open. Oh well.
