Sitrep: So, I'm watching videos on self-publishing on Youtube... mainly about other companies like IngramSpark.
Anyway, I got into Hailuo AI again and did some short videos of the covers. Oh, and I finished Upsilon Front 2 Pyrrhic Victory, its cover, and even the AI video for it.
On to the snippet!
Chapter 1
Imperium Capital
Eugene and Diedra came in to the morning briefing. At the top of the list was the confirmation of the plane crash in Duluth. Eugene sighed. "Damn."
"I know. Four people?"
"Five including the pilot."
Diedra shook her head. "Do they know the cause?"
"Several factors," Eugene said as he scanned the report. He knew overweight would be a major contributing factor right off the top. The crash brought back all sorts of bad memories for him.
"Max is not going to be happy," Diedra stated. "Ginger either."
"Yeah," Eugene agreed.
---+--+-{0}-+--+---
Max heard the news when he came in to the office. He had planned to get into the C-130 design again but instead he found himself fuming as he read the news. When he heard that the craft had been overloaded his temper reached new heights.
He immediately ordered the air fleet to be grounded to check for issues. The techs at the airport called back within the hour a bit chagrined, they had found some cracks in the oldest aircraft which justified the grounding.
He ordered everything to be checked with dye and a UV or black light. They had already changed out the engines before, now they checked both the spars and engines. Some engines had been replaced over time when cracks formed and caused leaks or failures, now they were finding many older engines with cracks in their blocks. Granted hairline cracks, but cracks that would eventually open up over time.
Metallurgy was clearly still an issue, Max realized. He sent an emial to talk to Wanda about it.
"Check our existing inventory again. Go through every engine block and spar before you ship it. I want to know if anything is getting past quality control."
Ctesibus nodded. Cecily did as well.
"What about the spars and overloading?"
"That can be cumulative. They start small from overloading. That can be because of weight or because of heavy winds. Either way we need to talk to Ginger and her pilots about the problem," he stated. "Get on the replacements now. We'll clear out our inventory in no time I bet. But get on that now and I'll deal with the fall out."
The others nodded and took off.
---+--+-{0}-+--+---
Julius went over another proposal to modify 2 PBY's since they couldn't figure the Hercules out. One would serve as a tanker, the other as a reciever and the actual air lift craft. The tanker, maybe more than 1 would go out and refuel in the ocean by a ship. Then it would deploy in the path of the air lift craft with the paratrooper commando team.
They would have to refuel in the air, something that they hadn't tried yet. Then they would have to fly over the pirate continent, do the mission on high out of reach, and then come back.
Dropping the commandos at night? He was leery about that. They had no intel on terrain, no intel on the ground. There was no means to resupply, communicate, or extract. The team at best would be 8 soldiers against thousands.
No, that plan was a nonstarter. They needed better options.
He was trying to pick at the problem when he got word about the conflict off the coast and then the crash and Duluth... followed by the grounding by Max.
"Shit," he muttered, copying Sergeant Waters. "It never rains but it pours sometimes," he said, using the gaijin's saying.
---+--+-{0}-+--+---
The reaction to the grounding came swift. Eugene and Diedra left the command center and the beleagured radio operators to find out what was going on with Max.
They found him with his staff in his office. He was clearly not happy.
Diedra frowned. "Hey Max, what is going on? We need those craft..."
"Crashed on the ground?" Max demanded as he shot Eugene a sour look. The other engineers winced.
"Not quite what I had in mind..."
"Then let me do my job," Max snarled. He sounded seriously pissed.
Eugene's eyes widened and he put his hands up. Diedra blinked. It wasn't often that they saw the engineer angry.
"Look Max, I'm sorry I'm coming off...."
"Whiny," Max growled. "I don't care. One crash is one too many."
Eugene nodded. Max was right about that. "Which we attributed to overloading, pilot error, and high winds."
"Yeah, and that's on the pilots. But the overloading cracks the wing spars. Do that often enough and bad things happen. I'd rather not have a wing suddenly crumple or fall off in flight."
Eugene winced.
"We're doing dye checks on spars, all structural supports, and the engines. Period. Fucking. Dot," Max said pointedly. "And a check of the hardware. I just found out that some idiots were reusing bolts."
Diedra blinked. "I thought that was fine?"
"No. Some bolts yes, but not all. Some are torqued to a specific spec and they are one use," Max explained.
The queen frowned in confusion.
"The bolts stretch in the holes. If you try to reuse them they won't fit right and they can snap under load," Ctesibus explained. "If you over torque them they can snap too."
The queen nodded.
Max knew she was just nodding along so he searched his desk and came up with 2 bolts. "Same bolt," he said. He held them up.
Eugene took them and examined them."First is stock. They both came like that straight out of the factory. The second is used," Max explained.
Eugene showed Diedra the length difference. She suddenly nodded in understanding.
"The good news is that they can take the old bolts and recycle them," Eugene stated.
"Yes," Ctesibus stated with a nod. "But we still have to have new bolts on hand to replace them."
"The other issue is cracks as I said. Which is a pain, which is why we only checked during the ninety day mandatory down time. But even that wasn't getting done right!" Max said as he threw his hands up in the air.
"To be fair, if they tore the engine and plane completely apart it would be down for several hafta and we'd have to send replacement bolts and parts," Ctesibus warned.
"Don't care," Max growled. He turned to his visitors. "We use a UV dye. You paint it on, then wipe it off. Then you hit it with a UV light. It sticks in the cracks and they florecese and show up."
"Eugene nodded. Diedra blinked.
"That is how we do quality control in the factories and in long term maintenance. But some people don't want to do it right. They hit areas where they can without doing a tear down, or skip areas that are hard to get at."
"Which leads to areas that are being missed," Eugene interpreted with a sigh. "Okay Max, you win."
"Thank you."
Eugene started to open his mouth. "Don't ask how long," Max growled as he held up an index finger. "Because I don't know."
Eugene closed his mouth and nodded.
"We're starting with the oldest birds. I'm ordering a mandatory engine tear down and check. Just be glad we haven't gotten into turbo props or jet engines yet."
Eugene winced but then nodded again.
Once they were outside Diedra looked at Eugene. "I know that the last two are harder, he's told that to us often enough in meetings. And I saw the models. But what else is wrong with them?"
"They have stronger thrust and can do more so pilots tend to abuse them more. Which means that they can wear faster. If the pilot does any high G, that is high gravity turns, it can put extra stress on a frame."
She nodded as her errant imagination envisioned an aircraft coming apart in the air. Damn the gaijin movies! "I think I'll stay on the ground for a while," she said with a slight shudder.
Eugene snorted and tucked her under one arm as they headed for their truck. "Me too," he said as he rubbed her shoulder.
---+--+-{0}-+--+---
Eugene and Diedra got back to the castle in time to recieve word back about the encounter with Ginger off the coast.
"The hits keep coming," Eugene muttered. "The time stamp is off," Eugene said as he looked at the message. He looked at the aides in the room. "Someone want to explain?"
"We recieved word but it was garbled. We wanted confirmation and details," Julius reported from the doorway.
Eugene and Diedra turned to him. He bowed and came into the room. "My apologies your highness," he said to the queen. "I was on hand to recieve the message and asked for the details as you left to visit with Max."
Diedra nodded. "No harm then. I take it all parties are okay?"
"Yes ma'am."
She scanned the document and her face went from impassive to angry. Eugene could tell because of some of the color. "They can't be serious! Give up the seas?"
"Yes ma'am. An empty threat. They have to know that we have the technical advantage."
"First they force down one of our aircraft, then hold it hostage, then raid our ally, then threaten our coasts, now this?"
"That's the thing with bullies," Eugene said thoughtfully. The others turned to him. "They will keep pushing to see what they can get away with. We haven't pushed back other than the strike on their ship earlier. They may not even know we did that."
Diedra frowned. "So, what do we do?"
"We find a way to make it clear that we are not going to be bullied. Then we find a way to get our people back. The problem is, timing and how," Eugene stated.
Julius nodded in grim agreement.
---+--+-{0}-+--+---
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