Augment My Chopper

It was a beautiful day in the ‘ville as the lucky 13 pilots gathered around their fearless mission leader Dr. Claw. He outlined the plan of attack to Salem; A straightforward flight with very few hills and smooth sailing to the witchy city. But still, there were murmurs of uneasiness among the fleet. Should we really go to the eldritch city with such a number?

Danimal had been having terrible luck already trying to get their new ship ready for launch. The wheel didn’t seem to want to go on right. They christened it Worrisome, a feeling all were having.

With a single command the fleet was off into the beautiful sunny day. But the bad luck of Salem was already upon us because we had not traveled 100 ft. before we had two mechanicals. Fortunately, they were minor ones. Just a dropped propulsion transfer conduit and sonic disruptor.

After that, though, it was very smooth flying to Salem. The 65 degree temperature allowed the fleet to move at an excellent clip and in no time at all, we had reached Salem!

The fleet had been screaming for ice cream since they left the fort. That dear cyborg Dr. Claw eventually had to give in to their demands even though it was against his cybernetic nature. Everyone melted for the delicious flavors at Luna Melt. While we were enjoying our sweet melty molecules, we were met up by Smitty of the Bike Church. The gang squealed with delight at Smitty and his gang’s wonderful new creations they made this year.

After some delicious ice cream molecules, Dr. Claw saw that the gang needed more refueling and so the fleet struck out a few clicks down the road in search of more savory molecules. Pilots picked up some taco molecules and then the gang flew to the Bike Church to feast. Once at the bike church, pilots admired and played with all of the new ships Smitty made this year and also enjoyed old favorites.

Then the time came to transport into Augmented Reality. The gang took out their droids and were instantly sucked into another dimension. This dimension was very odd indeed. We knew that there was ART in this dimension and that we must find it. But the question was “Where?” Pilots looked high and low. Down at the edge of the pier and down by the beach. Eventually, we found the ART. Pilots especially enjoying a levitating, revolving ball of heavy nebula ships all packed together. But there was still an Elephant in the Room to address. A lot of this dimension was terribly two dimensional. Many pilots quickly tired of the two dimensional limits of this dimension. They warped back through their droid portals and spent the time instead admiring the view and the heavy nebula ships of the Salem Maritime National Historic Station.

It was around this time that pilots began feeling the strong need to dump fuel. Unbeknownst to them, the mysterious curse they had been trying to avoid all day had descended. This curse began with the closing of the closest fuel transfer station at 1800 which was before any pilot could use it. As one, a cluster of pilots made the decision to dump fuel adjacent to the transfer station in hopes to send a communication to Salem that SCUL requires fuel transfer stations to be open later than 1800.

This done, the fleet launched and was pleasantly surprised to be able to meet up with the Salem Bike Party along with Smitty. This marked the first time in SCUL history that SCUL has flown alongside a Bike Party. Unfortunately, travels with the Bike Party had to remain relatively short because our numbers had reached critical mass. After leaving the SBP, we found ourselves right back at…

Salem Maritime National Historic Station. No one could quite fathom how we had got there until we realized…we were stuck in the other Augmented Dimension. We put aside our fears for a moment and put on a brave face as our newest pilot perilous was knighted with a knightsaber of pure night. We then began a new tradition of recreating the revolving ball of ships from our newfound dimension around perilous.

During our last hour in that system, Salem's curse did its best to prevent us from dumping fuel. After the knighting, many pilots attempted to dump fuel into the heavy nebula. Around that time, an Imperial Guard who had been patrolling our particular part of space noticed that one of our number was leaking fuel into the heavy nebula. The Guard helpfully pointed this out to the unfortunate pilot and then continued on his merry way.

After escaping the Imperial Guard, the fleet generated speed and once again tried to warp out of the alternate dimension we appeared to be stuck in. We clearly did not go fast enough to break the dimension barrier because we saw a CBU and his mini CBU spawn one time. Then again further down the trajectory. Then again. We began rubbing our eyes and wondering if we had found the glitch in this Matrix. Then we saw the same CBU and his spawn for a fourth time.

We were nearing the Somerville system and still trapped in the other dimension when Skunk saw lights up ahead. It appeared to be…other pilots but not from our armada. How could that be? Skunk began to fear that there might be another fleet of pilots in the Somerville system besides his own. When he took a closer look and discovered it was not other than Lieutenant Bane Thunderwolf!!! Even though the fleet had not sent out an official SOS, Bane’s mysterious lupine senses had detected a disturbance in the fabric of his dimension. He had followed his intuition along with his fearless crew of Taco, Shadowcat and fstop. The sheer force of the convergence of their powers was enough to shatter a rift from our alternate dimension to theirs and we were able to travel through back to where we belonged. Bane masterfully intercepted the fleet just in time before we took a turn and were lost to our original dimension forever.

We celebrated Bane and his crew’s bravery with many hearty cheers and continued home to our snug base in our snug little dimension. We put aside thoughts of what strange eldritch misfortunes had occurred in other dimensions out of our thoughts. Until such time as they might no longer be ignored and intrude again…