#56: Banana Slug -Missed One

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WHAM!......Crunnnnch...Scrapeeeeeee!!!

.

Something hit the Banana Slug from behind and on the side, and hit it hard.

“TURTLE-UP” Shelby shouted over the all hands frequency, then he sent a code that he hadn’t bothered to tell everyone about. Instantly everyone wearing OmniSuits, and that would be everyone, was englobed. They Turtled-Up whether they wanted to or not. For those who were awake it took but a second to readjust for mobility. For those who were asleep it might have saved their lies.

Things were getting hairy.

“Leaking, leaking, Leaking,” Chad muttered to himself. He was viewing the damage in augmented reality. Dumb matter crumbled and broke when hit by a three thousand ton coal barge. Smart matter was made of sterner stuff and held up better but it still needed management. Chad quickly thickened SSmoke here, conjured braces to support dumb matter there. In short for a little while he was metaphorically juggling running chainsaws and using buckshot to stiffen up jello. A lapse of his attention didn’t bear thinking about. He manipulated the SSmoke to repair damage frantically. “Got that one and that one and that one....send drones to inspect...and that one and that one.”

Before everything was even patched up it happened again.

WHUMP!

But not as hard. It was more of a shove than a slam.

“That seemed to have helped.” Shelby said “I conjured some SSmoke into an inflatable tube around our waterline. A bumper so to speak. Anything hitting us at water level hits it first.”

And again.

SHOVE!

“Ah..getting better, making it thicker, didn’t feel that so bad. Sure uses a lot of SSmoke.” he muttered. “This is getting silly. Damn river must be full of those damn things.”

“You got that right” Chad said “Better stop. It looks like there’s a problem ahead. I sent a drone to check it out in front of us and something ain’t right. It looks like some barges knocked the supports out from under a bridge and the roadway collapsed into the river channel.”

“Oh bother” Shelby said “Send some Rowdies to find a way around it. Damn, a nice sand bar would be good about now. Or a mudbank. We could crawl up on it and get out of the way of these barges.”

“Ten Four” Chad said then he forwarded the orders.

Wilbur said “Me’n Cody got our hands full right now. Just so you know, all the big drones have got lights and sonar.”

A dozen Rowdies followed Karl’s lead, tele-operated a variety of drones, spread out down river. They were looking for a way around the pile up.

The Orcs were tele-operating the two largest Kraken. At first they perched the tentacled ones on the forward corners of the Banana Slug using the tentacles to push and shove barges and other river debris out of the way. They’d had to enlarge the SSmoke tentacles some in order to be large enough to do the job. Now they were HUGE! With their help the Banana Slug managed to get by the pileup. Having strong tentacles up front proved to be so handy that the Orc’s just fused them in place, they were much too big to operate as they had been anyway. The Banana Slug looked like a Banana Cthulhu.

Sure enough one of the Rowdies found an ‘exit ramp’ just ahead, a meander bend. If they could get around the corner one BF could fend any drifting barges away. It was deep enough and large enough that the Banana Slug could hunker down. They would still be below the level of the river but shallow enough that it could stick a peristaltic siphon up for air while they made repairs.

Carl told Shelby about it.

“Thank you Son. That’s wonderful. We might actually get out of the ‘ClusterF’ alive.” Shelby replied in heartfelt gratitude. “Hear that Chad? There’s an offramp ahead.“

They took it.

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They’d sit in the meander bend for a while. They didn’t know where they were going so they had no particular reason to be in a rush to get there. They just wanted to be away from the Barge Barrage. Shelby and the gang, in fact all of the residents of the Banana Slug worked hard to repair the damage and to further camouflage the SmokeShip. The Maggi, and The RowdyBunch were innovative, even some of the parents were useful from time to time (just kidding) Much of what was ‘fixed’ was stronger and better than it had been before.

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later...after the barge barrage had passed

“Ok folks” Shelby said. The PostMission Briefing was taking place, where else, but in Ernie's.“We dodged a bullet that time, more like an arty strike actually. It could have been much worse. We have Carl to thank for pulling our fat out of the fire.”

Everyone looked at Carl. Carl? Then they cheered. Carl wasn’t used to THAT kind of attention. He didn’t know what to do.

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The Next Episode is
#57: Banana Slug -Old Oil Change…
The Previous Episode was
#55:Banana Slug -Barges…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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