The White Knight

Kerbolrise

Both heroes rush to the Runway, closed for operations due the event, while chewing an energy bar as breakfast.

Once there, they were immediately perched on that magnificent plane's shoulder wings, waiting for the ideal light conditions - this is going to be a tricky photo session due the challenging lightening of an eclipse. It's going to be a long dawn...

Meanwhile, there's nothing left to do except burn some time with small talk. Great invention the intercom!

Bill : _ Oukey... How in Freezing Hell they gave us a White Knight?? I thought we had lost the Contract when you crash landed that Hypersonic Prototype they dearly paid for... On the maiden flight!

Jeb : _ One, I didn't crash landed: I landed. The damned thing bucked after touching down, and this is why I flipped nose-first. Two, there was a bug on the Landing Gears software, Will found it while doing the crash report. Believe it or not, it wasn't my fault.

After some dramatic seconds...

Jeb : _ This time...

Bill : _ Seriously? Well, so you probably saved a lot of very expensive Military airplanes from flipping over, besides I seriously doubt anyone in Kerbin would be able to land a freaking plane in a near zero RoD*1 again...

Jebediah laughs heartily, and replies:

Jeb : _ Jebediah Kerman, boldly crashing what no Kerbal has crashed before!

Will joins the laughing:

Will : _ I'm pretty sure I had heard it before...

Jeb : _ L-Aerospace's motto. Working with this guys is going to be entertaining! And fun!!

Will : _ Sounds like we found our peers...

Jeb : _ A source of inspiration on old school, high stakes and higher rewards flight testing! And coming from me, it's something!!!

Suddenly, a third voice cracks up in the intercom. It was Gus*6:

Gus : _ Oukey, ladies, gossip time is over. Walt's team is ready: touch up your makeup, smile, and wave!

And after some seconds...

Gus : _ Oh, yeah... You poshies would like to switch the intercom to private next time, you two will be the talk of the hallway for weeks! Can't wait to hear what they will say! (chuckles)

_ (ugh) Both sighed in unison...

*1 RoD : Rate of Descent.
*2 Walt Kerman: KSC's Public Relations manager.
*3 Wernher von Kerman: Head of KSC's Research and Development Department.
*4 Gene Kerman: KSC's Flight Director and head of the Mission Control Department.
*5 Test pilots refers to their planes as "she", not "it".
*6 Gus Kerman : head of the Space Program Operations.