SHIP'S LOG:

The Sadie Hawkins

Billy Nails 6/21/2025 9:56pm

Well kid, when ol’ Billy Nails told you the Captain would be back, he wasn’t fibbin! But I’ll admit I wasn’t picturing him showin’ up in the barn out of nowhere. Not that we haven’t seen our share of weird business on The Sadie Hawkins. The crew is rarin’ for a real Sky Sailor victory feast but the Captain wants to keep things quiet till we get this all sorted out, and Starry and Hettie still ain’t accounted for.

But the Captain’s got a bit of concern and it doesn’t bode well. See, he told me about what he’s been through, and how he found his way from the bad guy’s hideout straight into our barn! Now, Langpa fur and Frinlic plumes are real popular with the fashion industry here on Uranographia, but what are they doin’ with their own portal right into our tack room? I’m afraid I’ve got to tell Ms Amalasuintha the bad news.

Starry Skye 2/27/2025 10:55pm

And there it was. The tiny box, all tied up with string and in very clear handwriting in black pen: THE SADIE HAWKINS.

The box that contained the Hettie's chrysalis.

"My friends asked me to acquire it for them. They're collectors."

"They're poachers," I said.

"When did you become an animal rights advocate?"

"When did you become so ruthless?" I answered.

"Excuse me, do we even know each other?" Cat asked.

Though I was from only a short time ahead in Cat's Future, I guess I had changed a lot. I'd met Hettie, and the crew of the Sadie Hawkins. Back during my time with Cat, I guess I was a lot more self-centered. I was a different person.

"Because you're not the Starry Skye I know. You seem like a different person..."

And that's when I walked out from behind the curtain. The me from here in the past.

Armando Lupiz 11/3/2024 11:55pm

With another pop and a flash, I found myself in a barn. A dusty, hay-filled barn at mid-day. Light streamed through the windows, lighting up the dust motes swirling into the rafters. I was apparently in the tack room, which sported leather saddles and bridles of all sizes and construction hanging from the walls around me, as well as a few of the familiar display boxes I'd seen in other locations.

And luckily, there were no goons. No heavies, no muscle, no foot soldiers of whoever was behind Luna's prenatal abduction, ready to abduct me, or worse.

"BLLLAAAAAAAA! BLLLAAAAAAAAAAAA!" came a bleating from somewhere else in the barn. Some kind of "barn animal?" I went to investigate.

Captain Armando Lupiz
(The Sky Wolf)
In need of some new boots

Billy Nails 7/11/2024 11:07pm

Well what did I tell ya, kid? Sky Sailors might seem like a testy bunch, full of hot gas and knives, but once they get their basic needs met and met well they start a wonderin' what it was made them so angry in the first place. Between you and me, kid, most of them didn't have a real stable childhood, and taking to the skies turns out to be a pretty darn good way of processing all that trauma. Or at least keeping a step ahead of it. But sit them back on land in the right environment and there can be a lot of healin'. You've seen it at the dances -- all that sobbing and hugging between the local folk and our crew. Not that I've been keeping a particular eye on you, but you were always made of a finer stuff, truth be told. Ms. Amalasuintha thinks so too. Anyway, if anything, I'm frankly gettin' a little worried that when the time comes, getting these sailors back in the Sadie Hawkins might be more work than I'd bargained on. And we will be getting ol' Saidie back up in the air, don't you doubt it. We just gots to give the captain and Starry enough time to get our poor little Hettie outta danger, and you better believe they will. They just need a bit more time.

Starry Skye 3/20/2024 11:58pm

"Ah, Starry. We've been waiting for you."

It was Cat Tracer, the second most amazing zero-G cat burglar and pickpocket in the Tarantula Nebula. And love of my life, some years ago.

Except it was those years ago now, again, here, in the past. Her present. Where the old toothless hag had sent us to save Hettie, the Fire Breathing Plasma Moth. Who was the love of my life now, as much as anything.

"Hi Cat. Who are your friends in the suits?"

The heavy syndicate types were lined up behind her in the electric light of the warehouse. They did have nice suits. Looked a little like pinstripe, mohair, houndstooth, seersucker... but made of iridescent fabric, colors and sheens I'd never seen. Fabric that could have only come from the impossible animal trade.

"I can smell them from here," I added. "Smells like death."

One of the heavies reached inside his jacket.

Cat gave him her side eye. The side eye I'd fallen in love with, once upon a time.

"Let's keep things civil, shall we Star?" she asked. "We've gone to great lengths to bring you here. I think it's time we had a little catch up."

Armando Lupiz 11/23/2023 10:22pm

Soon the goon squad moved on, searching the seemingly endless rooms of the library. But even if I made it back to the room I'd started in, the one that contained that luminous scarf that had somehow transported me to this library of the future, what then? I'd assumed if I'd touch the scarf again I might end up back in the tailor's shop--who would absolutely have an armed welcoming committee waiting for me. Was that the only way back? To give myself up to this mysterious group who'd kidnapped the chrysalis of our beloved Luna, the giant space moth, even before she was born?

I looked around this strange showroom again. Old fashion magazines strewn on the table, mannequins dressed in haute couture of the past, glass display cases of hats and boas and... a soft iridescent glow coming from one in the corner.

If it was another of these "time travel scarves," where would it lead? Even further from where I needed to be, no doubt. Another hopscotch into the future? Or the past? Things were tangled enough already. But to return the way I came would give our adversaries an advantage I refused to give.

I opened the glass case and picked up the scarf. Little blue lightning bolts caressed my fingers.

Captain Armando Lupiz
(The Sky Wolf)
in a shiny new scarf

Billy Nails 6/30/2023 11:55pm

See kid I told you you might get to appreciate the simple life. Oh no need to blush, ol' Billy knows all about it. And there ain't one member of this crew who hasn't had a little taste of it themselves. I mean farm life, of course. Sky Sailors are the first to decry the life on the ground, and the more you've got your boots in the mud and the manure the more we're likely to heap on the insults. But I think it's fair to say all that spit and vinegar is just a mask--a mask to hide away a burning desire, deep inside...

Don't get me wrong, kid. When the captain and @Starry Skye find their way back--and I know they will--they'll be needin' our help and boy are we gonna give it to them. But after that debt's repaid, well, it's never to late for a Sky Sailor to turn up a new leaf...

Starry Skye 3/10/2023 11:50pm

It wasn't surprising Dip Squealer didn't know anything about Cat's heavy connections. Dip might know a lot, but ultimately he's just a dumbass among dumbasses. Real pros would never have anything to do with him, and their secops would keep Dips and dips like him out of any serious loops.

But the exospectral quill shards, and the liquid crystal bluefur, and the colors nobody's ever seen before -- that sounded exactly like the exotic animal trade. The seriously deep dark animal trade, specializing in the impossible to find--the extinct, the mythical, the hyperreal. And there was a place in deep in the most rotten underbelly of Uranographia Fields where that kind of trade took place: Shady Bottom.

I wasn't about to hail a cab or take the monorail. So I took to the rooftops. This used to be my element--using my agility and star-class dance moves, leaping over ledges and pirouetting over pipes and diving over neon signs and laundry lines. There was a reason I'd been known as the most amazing zero-G cat burglar and pickpocket in the Tarantula Nebula... before my time on the Sadie Hawkins. Before Hettie, the Fire Breathing Plasma Moth.

But then there was Cat Tracer. There was a time we were tight. Real tight. Things fell apart there at the end. But I sure don't remember any fancy clothes syndicate guys hanging around way back two years ago. Which was also now. Seems like I should have known. And where was I, these days, anyway? Some kind of rule about not heading yourself off in the past...

Before long I'd leapt and flung myself over the rooftops of Uranographia Fields all the way to Shady Bottom. One of the decrepit warehouses had a loading dock open and the lights on. Almost like they were waiting for me...

Armando Lupiz 12/7/2022 9:52pm

"So where'd he go then?"

I'm on the podium. With the other showroom dummies.

"The door was locked from the inside, right?"

I'd had just enough time to tear the coat and a hat off one of the mannequins. I'm standing in the back.

"Well... thinking about it... I may have just started kicking it."

"You didn't try the door first?"

"It just seemed like the obvious place he'd be. I mean, it's 'the room.'"

A tiny piece of dusty cobweb made its way from the stylish pillbox and veil I was wearing down into my nose.

"Yeah, and he's not in 'the room.' And he never was."

"Well... yeah, ok. We looked under all the tables, right?"

"Right."

"Let's move out then."

"Roger."

...

"Shut the door?"

"Let's leave it like we found it,"

"Yeah that's not exactly possible."

"Shut it as well as you can."

CALUMPH


"aaaaaaaaaachooo!"


Captain Armando Lupiz
(The Sky Wolf)
dressed in the slacks

Billy Nails 9/15/2022 11:34pm

I'm glad to see you settlin' into life here, kid. You've got yourself your own hovel, keepin' it swept, putting in a full day's work at the Langpa ranch and goin' to the dances on Friday nights. I'm sure you've seen how ol' Billy Nails has come across his own bit of treasure, in the form of Ms. Amalasuintha. I'll tell ya' kid, ol' Billy Nails never pictured he could get used to life on solid earth, but I suppose that's because I'd never met anyone like Ms. Amalasuintha. She's been around the block -- much like yours truly -- but we both seem to be at a place where keeping the garden kept and cleaning out the Frinlic Coop makes for a full life. Especially when you've got a peach as cute as Ms. Amalasuintha to share your meals with. Now you know I'll keep The Sadie Hawkins ship-shape in the barn till we hear from the captain and @Starry Skye, but till then, I think we all ought to appreciate a little down time.