on January 27, 2011 by Skyler in News, Comments (1)

SpinDizzy Leaves Centripedus Waypoint

After two and a half months of refueling, repairs, and upgrades, SpinDizzy (known as SpinDizzy Alpha to the officials on Centripedus) is on its way once again, vaulting through deep space.

A large party of SpinDizzy’s residents made their way through the ruins of Squirrel City, down to the main control room. There they were met one last time by SpinDizzy’s Centripedus repair crew.

Timothy Mack’mali, SpinDizzy’s Repair Manager, looked around at the gathered crowd and stated, “We have come to you one last time to indicate every repair and improvement indicated in our documentation has been performed, and therefore it is time for your planetoid to take off and continue its journey.”

No objection was raised, much to the relief of the crew, and they made their way off to their next assignment, with several pounds of signed paperwork in hand.

Timothy says, “It is true:  You are unlikely to ever land here again.  In the 40 years I’ve worked here, I’ve never seen the same spindizzy twice.  I hope your stay has been pleasant and that you have many wonderful journeys through space in the years to come. As your planetoid has a habit of manual landings, you may wish to take manual control of the takeoff sequence.  Once you are safely away from Centripedus, you may pick your next path through space, and which refueling planet you go to.  There may only be one or two choices this far out.”

Centripedus’s crew departed, leaving everyone who intended to stay behind to pilot SpinDizzy away safely. Roughly half made their way to SpinDizzy Flight Control to work on piloting the craft, and the other half went to Astrogation, to manage navigation and point SpinDizzy at its next destination.

In Astrogation, the computer presented choices for three possible landing sites. Austin, handling internal communications, reported, “The leading candidate seems to be a planet in a double-star system which manufactures fishhooks. The others are a cold planet that seems to have some kind of civilization, and a neutron star.” The “fishhooks” referred to were the question marks that accompanied it on the Astrogation display; of the three choices, the computer had the least information about it.  After some discussion, a vote in Astrogation settled on the binary star system, and Chitter was given the honor of designating the flight path.

As the master SpinDizzy was spun up by Flight Control, it was noted that the sound was a lot softer than the old one, and that there wasn’t nearly as much vibration from it. Silvyr, one of the foxes managing in Flight Control, explained, “To be fair, the other one was a couple of decades past expected operational lifespan.  This one’s designed to last multiple centuries.”

Astrogation made its request to Centripedus to depart, and the request was quickly approved. SpinDizzy’s last radio transmission to Centripedus was sent by BunnyHugger, who was handling external communications in Astrogation: “Centripedus, this is SpinDizzy Alpha.  We have departed successfully.  Farewell and thank you.”

SpinDizzy’s next refueling landing is estimated to happen between four and six years from now. In the meantime, new improvements to the structure should keep SpinDizzians busy, including seasonal weather and a new transport system due to open soon that should allow movement to Spengo, SpinDizzy’s small moon.

BunnyHugger contributed to this report.

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1 Comment

  1. Claude

    Claude

    January 28, 2011 @ 12:50 am

    So, we’re nearing the edge of spindizzy-explored space? How cool is that!

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