TEOTWAWKI
#15:Banana Slug: Stress
Shelby was pulling Command Duty, in the primary control center. It was located where the left eye would have been if the Banana Slug had been a live slug.
“Problem” Shelby muttered to himself. He absently set a low level alert on the command network. The other mages dropped what ever they were doing and rushed to their emergency stations.
The dragon lady just happened to be in the control center. She was fascinated by the way Shelby and the Mages had turned her island into a mobile platform. She’d been spending quite a bit of time in it as an observer. She handed Shelby a cup of coffee but knew better than to interfere by asking stupid questions. If Shelby needed help he’d ask for it. She was more or less tuned in parallel with him to the sensors. She could see what he could see. A bank of indicators had began to burn. They had begun to glow umber. Some were now orange and yellow. A few were flashing red.
“Stretch down south couldn’t stand the straaaaain.” Shelby hummed an ancient song absentmindedly while working intently. He immediately routed more SSmoke to the area in question. The red extinguished immediately, the orange dimmed to yellow slowly. The yellow slowly faded to blue. The blue eventually turned to green.
“Temporary fix. I don’t think we sprung any leaks. The problem was stress balance. We passed over a pit in the river bottom that torqued the base and almost popped a few rivets. If we had rivets that is. We best send drones to inspect.” Shelby said to himself. Then he spoke to the Dragon Lady rather than just muttering.
“I was afraid of that” he said “I halfway expected it to happen sooner. I just didn’t know where.”
“What’s the matter?” She asked.
“This is a lash-up. It’s SO southern engineered.” he drawled. She nodded. She’d known that. They were short on time so they’d done what they could do as fast as they could do it. They’d worry about detail later. Well now it was ‘later’. “The Banana Slug isn’t so much a design as an improvisation. I can see now that we’re going to have to make some major changes.”
“What kind of changes?” she countered. She knew what he was doing. He was speaking to her to as a means of clarifying his thought processes.
“I don’t really know for sure just yet. The banana slug doesn’t have a spine, or ribs, nor it it constructed according to any standard method. I imagine it’s stress analysis bears a remarkable resemblance to a banana split wrapped in cellophane.” he grimaced.
“Not bad for sittin’ but not good for gittin’.” The Dragon lady nodded.
“We’re going to have to do something to equalize all of the stresses. Hell we might as well do a complete rebuild. The term ‘buckshot in jello’ comes to mind.” he told her. “ But not right now. I could swear we just barely got out of town ahead of the posse. We need to keep moving but we need to move slow, stop often, and be grateful for the deeper water so it can relieve a lot of the stress.”
“You copy that Chad, Joshua?” Shelby asked. The other control centers had been listening in on the open channel. He’d noticed when they’d logged on.
“I copy” Chad said
“I copy” Joshua replied.
The drifter, Wilbur, had watched, learned, and stayed out of the way not saying anything. Shelby was forming a better opinion of him all the time.
“We’ll monitor stress levels for a few weeks. Keep a real close eye on it and be ready to preform emergency repairs when need be. Gather data, analyze it, then develop a model. Perhaps a solution will present itself. Once we put some distance between us and “the man” we’ll do something permanent” He said. “We can’t stop now though. We’re still too close.”
“That works.” Chad replied.
“Cody is on it” Joshua’s voice held barely restrained laughter. “if anyone can find a solution it’ll be him.”
The Next Episode will be
#16:Banana Slug: LotsaWatah…
The Previous Episode was
#14: Banana Slug : Rolling on a River…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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I'm
@everittdmickey
.
I write
SPECULATIVE FICTION
My books on Amazon.
I engage in political commentary
and
generally talk about anything that strikes my fancy
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Steemit
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Sola
When watching the LameStream FakeNews Media
it's hard to tell what’s true or when they are lying isn’t it? It seems that they are more interested in influencing public opinion than they are reporting the facts.
I never heard that term before, but it does give a very good description with few words. I can see a shit load of holes that need fixing, but then also all those little fracture lines between the holes that never get fixed that cause more problems down the line, so yeah, I see the need for a complete rebuild all because or three words "buckshot in jello". good nay great line.
Shelby along with his crew, should look for ways to reinforce the structure of Banana Slug; since it is weak to resist the tensions, forces to which it is exposed in this forced navigation; they must achieve the stability of the ship through an ideal balance of forces; with the Banana Slug in motion, it does not seem easy ... at least they have a good system to detect abnormal forces on the ship ... In addition to the flood, they are fleeing from pirates, looters, I think ... Shelby, Dragon Lady, Chad, Cody, Wilbur (the vagabond), Joshua are the characters in this episode (this character review is for me)
I can dig it, Aloha!
Wow so not only do you offer razor sharp insight on cryptocurrency, satirical political commentary but you are ALSO an accomplished fiction writer... You are making the rest of us look like slackers.
spare my blushes..
you're so kind.
Waiting the next chapter.