Mission Summary
A seasonal favorite returns once again, brought to you by your festive mission leader, Pastry Queen. Pilots donned their most seasonally appropriate attire, and set out to properly celebrate the reason for the season. Navigator Dr.Claw took us more or less on a beeline to North Point Park, where festive fuel dumps were had. We stopped at the fancy boutique refueling station to procure overpriced snacks, before pressing on under the Zakim, through Paul Revere Park, past the Constitution and assorted fishermen along the Harborwalk, before reaching our destination at the legendary giant bandsaw, where we held a magnificent white elephant gift exchange. During the festivities, Dr.Claw and Tango hightailed it back to Northpoint, where a backpack had been inadvertently jettisoned into the deep recesses of space but was successfully retrieved. Some of the choicest gifts of the night: some rainbow suspenders, a massive portrait of
a football player throwing a kitten hail mary, a jigsaw puzzle with 3 bonus decorative rosette handsoaps older than half the pilots present, a Super Friends t-shirt, and a handful of secondhand books of
questionable subject matter (possible re-gifting opportunities for next week's mission?). After all the "gifts" had been opened, we played two rousing rounds of Kickin' Claus (somehow without drawing the ire of the building's sentry) before departing back toward base along the adjacent highly technical leg of the Harborwalk. Back at Paul Revere Park we crossed the locks, where SweetJP impressed all by not dismounting from Trinity. Dr.Claw briefly led us down a rarely-explored dead end under the Boston side of the Zakim Hyperspace Byway, before regaining his bearings and taking us on a leisurely jaunt down the Dudley White Wormhole along the Charles Asteroid Belt and back to base, where Pastry Queen declared sufficient holiday cheer had been spread for mission success.
* Medal of Valor to SweetJP for successfully navigating the entirety of the locks atop JVH Trinity
* Medals of Chic to Meownderthal, Stella, and End Cash Bail for their fabulously festive Christmassy outfits
Mission Report
It's the most SCUL-ful time of the year! We celebrated SCUL-mas once more, flying a battalion of jingly, tinsely, festively attired pilots through the wormholes and starpaths of our fair city. Pilots gathered pre-launch to ensure that their persons and their ships were appropriately bedecked for the holiday season, fastening jingle bells to our helms, draping garland over our shoulders, and (in Spud's case) affixing a very special guest to his warp-capable transport ship. Mission Leader PQ declared that inadequate adornment would constitute immediate mission failure, and the battalion rose to the challenge. Stella handed out her lifetime's supply of jingle bells affixed to bits of pipe cleaner and Truck Stop immediately put some through her ear gauges. DrClaw made like Rudolph and led the fleet through the darkness, SweetJP and Trinity replaced funk with festivity on life support, and Cadet Ohmnibiscuit joined us on her third mission, flying Sloth.
Our mission was full of merriment and only one mechanical. Soon after departure, Tango declared WAR ON CHRISTMAS and blew a plasma casing, necessitating a company halt while PQ assembled a pit crew to patch and boot War's primary thruster. Spud busted out the Jordan almonds (Christmas's most perplexing candy) and mild snacking ensued. Upon repair of the thruster, we flew on to Harvard Constellation to get (as always collecting many high-fives and, on this mission, many befuddled "Merry Christmas???"es), before arriving at the (Boston Convenience) for refreshments. As we arrived, we realized that we'd picked up a terrifically friendly Klingon, Cash/Cache, who joined us for most of the rest of the mission and was great company
1. After pilots had obtained their preferred treats, we headed to the Portland loo for a classy fuel dump and the initiation of a SIDEQUEST. After a quick jaunt through the Lynch Dingy Recreational Zone, we flew through the newest warp corridors in Camberville to fly through the Charlestown Imperial Fleetyard to the Spaulding Biomechanical Repair Station. This is the point where Tango realized that she and her backpack had parted ways in the foliage near the Portland loo. While DrClaw led her back to retrieve it, we engaged in the traditional SCUL gift swap. PQ broke out the traditional dodecahedron of fortune to determine our gift swap sequence, and much merriment ensued as various gifts were opened. The stars of the night were definitely Spud's gift of two
very large original paintings: "Brady Passes a Kitten" (Tom Brady grasping a tiny kitten prior to (presumably) yeeting it (why???) on one canvas and "Starbucks or Dunkin?" (a very elegant Afghan hound and very smooshed-face French bulldog on the other.)
2 DrClaw and Tango returned just in time to participate in Kickin' Claus, where Lordmcfuzz showed off their skills with the furthest kick of the night and Tango and Spud attempted a challenging two-person kick (Spud piloting and Tango braced in his cargo hold to launch Claus in to the stratosphere.) AceHole also used his head by innovating a Claus propulsion technique, following a kick with a shield strike.
As SCULmas eve drove to a close, we departed for home base. Another trip through the Imperial Fleetyard (past a very confused midshipman in a security booth, would love to read that report to his CO) and on to the Gridley Locks, where SweetJP earned a medal of valor for (somehow!) piloting Trinity successfully through the locks without mishap (dude's got skillz) and DrClaw took a rare wrong turn down a dead end, necessitating a company halt and about-face in a narrow corridor. Spud's transport ship needed some manual assistance in about-facing, as he and DrClaw wrestled her up and over the edge in order to turn her around. (Somehow Santa did not end up in the water - Spud's good at lashing down his cargo.) Once DrClaw got us reoriented, we headed onto the Esplanade to dodge salad and head back to the fort. The atmosphere coming off the Charles asteroid belt was fresh and breezy, the tunes were bumping, and the pilots were enjoying vibrating their forks to make their bells jingle. We flew so far and so long that we exhausted our Christmas tune playlist and had to resume our usual funkitude as we grew nearer the fort, causing our early-morning festive greetings to the increasingly scarce civilians to be met with even more perplexity than earlier in the mission.
We arrived back at the fort in the early hours of Sculmas Morn, where PQ declared our SCULmas mission to be a complete success and sent us forth to spread the good news of SCUL to the masses. Cosima distributed oral hygiene sticks and medals of Chic were awarded to Stella's handmade light-up Christmas tree dress, End Cash Bail's red-and-green colorblock ensemble topped off with a lovely cardinal
3 apron, and Meownderthal's festive red tutu, green tights, and gorgeous maquillage.
1. I wonder how he explained his evening when he got home. "I got kidnapped by a bunch of mad starpilots and they played Christmas carols and gave me presents and kicked Santa around. No, I did not hit my head at any point. This all actually happened."↵
2. LEGITIMATE SALVAGE from artist Jeff Danglo↵
3. Bird, not high-ranking clergy.↵