AIL Alpha

48 intrepid pilots gathered under the Daystar in a universe far, far away. For all but four, this would be their first mission. Brave and stubborn Pastry Queen took on the dual tasks of Mission Leader and Navigator, instructing the fleet of baby maggots, via a translator, into the alien language. The maggots received basic commands incoming, oncoming, ease up and company halt, while port and starboard remained in their mother tongue. They were informed that these rules were for their safety, and they must stay between PQ and tailgunner Bane Thunderwolf.
Maggot Goku and his battalion of Racoons, of the Universe Lithuania, sent out a call to pilots to come help bring the funk overseas. Explorers Bane, eXceSs and PQ came first, to help transform abandoned parts into glorious ships. The baby maggots had spent three days decorating frames before SCUL showed them the ways of cutting and forming metal.
At high noon under the glorious Daystar, with transport escort for mechanicals, snack bag, and medibag, the burgeoning fleet set off from Dreverna to nearby Klaipeda System, 7 metric ly away, where Klaipeda was holding their annual sweatbox festival. The universe of Lithuania is noted for its absence of g-wells, and the starlanes were flat and smooth. eXceSs and Ban had tried to preflight every ship before departure, but a few were overlooked, most notably a bomber. Within the first mly, there were 4 mechanicals called, two for a chain drop almost immediately. As default Comsat Monkey, eXcesS wove back and forth, maintaining important communication. As they proceeded, the bomber had several chain drops and the bombardiere powered the ship. One of their mechanicals occurred halfway up a short negi g-well and PQ called for the whole gang to spacewalk the remainder because she hadn't test flighted AIL blueberry pie, and it struggled to generate enough power through design flaws.
Local transports were unused to seeing the high quantity of pilots and ships flying and the skyways grew very congested in fits and starts. In the center of Klaipeda System, pilots came around the bend and entered a green oasis. blueberry pie couldn't handle the turbulence and threw PQ while the maggots surged ahead, thankful for impending Shore Leave.
Pilots had one metric hour to explore the sweatbox festival, gathering unsavory snacks, sweating in heated, humidified mobile habitats, or immersing themselves in the freezing asteroid belt or heated, mobile heavy nebula. As they set off to explore, Scul veterans remained in the transport, repairing ships damaged in flight. This included the HARV Standardized Non-compliance flown by Bane, who had to change onto a new ship for half the ride. Food everywhere were wearing strange space suits (or lack thereof) with ridiculous felted and peaked winter shields and PQ later saw more than she expected for the price of admission.
As shore leave ended and pilots returned, several could not be located. In the interim, pilots practiced newly acquired anti-gravity tricks including juggling moon rocks, spinning the rings of Saturn and other silly things. When the missing maggots eventually returned, everyone lined up again to spacewalk back onto the starlane. Despite heavy oncoming space winds, the fleet moved much more smoothly and quickly on the return trip. They obeyed commands better, and stayed posi, except the tandem. It lost a rear booster and the pilot had to drop it and himself in transport.
After that, everything went according to successful mission. Some sheep escaped their pen and tried to join us but got spooked last minute. Entering the last 2 mly, PQ led sever rounds of whoops and hollers to celebrate a successful mission. The fleet cornered on a dirt road, throwing Pastry again, but they had made it safely back to the fort. High Fives all around.

All points in metric.
14 metric LY