Short Term Memory Loss

"Oh, what a night!
Late mid-summer of 2018
Flying somewhere we weren't meant to have been
What a G-Well, what a night!" - Tanager and Pastry Queen

After last week's long excursion to the alien ruins at the beach, everyone was ready to fly an easy, relaxing five-hour milk run. Leave at 1700, back at 2200. Legal and legitimate dip in the pond and some sandcastle fun. Snacks, playground, home. Plenty of time to chill and log some Z's afterwards. What could possibly go wrong?

Wait, so what just happened?

Until nearly the hour of scheduled launch, scant few pilots confirmed themselves to be flying the entire mission, and those included maggot Hedgehog and baby maggot Velocity, having teleported from New York for the weekend. Jobs were distributed, re-distributed, and shuffled around as more pilots made last-minute arrivals. While test-flying Mjollnir outside, Ravensson spilled off and whacked his shielded noggin pretty badly on the pavement and drawing blood in a few places as well. Pastry Queen and Shadowcat jumped into action as first responders, cleaning off his wounds and applying Boost's homemade salve. "So what just happened?" he asked.

Skunk told a joke, and Ravensson laughed.

"So what just happened?" he asked. Skunk told the same joke and Ravensson laughed again.

The asphalt aliens had gotten into his brain and left him with a case of short term memory loss! Mjollnir's headset was found to be loose, and when Ravensmom and Ravensdad arrived to fly Ravensson home, he remembered what had happened that caused the accident; he turned the handlebars to avoid a pothole but the wheel didn't go with it.

After Ravensson was sent on his way, the fleet launched under a still-sizzling Daystar towards the Mystic Heavy Nebula, taking a relaxing flight path through Davis Constellation and Medford System. A can got caught in Eat My Shorts's navi thruster, sending Lordmcfuzz sailing over the handlebars and onto the grass. He miraculously escaped unscathed (is he actually a cat?) and a 4-HARV pileup was most narrowly avoided thanks to some quick maneuvering by the front of the fleet.

The nebula and the nearby beach was full of food families when we arrived, and this pilot thinks it felt pretty darn weird to be wearing a swimsuit while immersing in radiation on a SCUL mission! On shore, Pastry Queen, Hedgehog and some others constructed a wonderful sand castle and sand SCUL head, Velocity wasted no time in chalking our logo near where we parked the fleet, and Silfr stood (or, lounged?) watch over our things from the shelf they'd constructed for Apex's lower bar. What a cool ship.

Antlers and RadMax had been in communication with Tanager and Pastry Queen, intending to join the mission at the beach, and Antlers arrived around 2000. There was no sign of RadMax, and it eventually was revealed that she'd been marooned in a strange star system with no map to guide her and a sinking Daystar! Someone proposed that we mount a rescue mission, and our milk run turned into maybe something a little stronger. Shadowcat, having earlier planned to intercept as well, was advised to reconsider as the fleet headed in the opposite direction.

With our lasers firing, we flew through unfamiliar, g-well intensive territory, in desperate need of snacks. The Fleet Admiral had not planned for this and he began to run out of fuel as we approached the lonely waystation where RadMax had taken shelter. Nevertheless, he valiantly hauled himself atop Cloudbuster and pushed on until Funkenfurter's distress beacon was visible in the distance by the way station. We hailed RadMax, welcoming her back into the fleet, and everyone was eager to at last partake in some S.N.A.X. Antlers shared a tiny, delicious watermelon and some carrots, and Skunk's legs were going bonkers so he mainlined snacks till his legs stopped shaking. Those G-Wells were something fierce.

But just as the way there was all negi G, the way home was all posi G, and we zipped through the Fells and Medford System like rockets! (Not the pilot. He was elsewhere doing something horny. Involving horns.) We briefly stopped at a playground to fulfill the last mission objective, Velocity sticking a barnacle somewhere up high. As we made our final approach, a CBU started sprinting alongside the fleet on the other side of the street, and Lordmcfuzz flew over to him in hopes of a high five atop Eat My Shorts!, and there was some unfortunately spilled Funkin' Gonuts coffee on the CBU's part. Landing on the auxiliary launchpad (we'd all had enough G-wells), Skunk praised the fleet's much improved dart formation and declared Mission Success. Medal of Strength was awarded to Ravensson for his injury (say what?), Tanager nominated Pastry Queen and Shadowcat for Medal of Valor for their quick and compassionate first aid, and someone also nominated Skunk for Valor for persevering through the G-wells.