I'm proud to back the Kickstarter for Jumpdrive Studios' XO: a retro sci-fi strategy game. You know I love Kickstarters where the fans can level up. XO's backer missions are great. And one of them involves creating fanfic.
Caveat: I haven't played the game yet, so this is a personal vignette (risking a touch of Mary Sue). Once I've played XO I'll do one that's big picture. Jumpdrive, thanks for letting us play along!
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League Volunteer
You've seen some derby?
I volunteer, I mean I used to volunteer, with the Skyport Roller Girls. Thanks for taking us in! Temporarily.
…
I want the biggest one you can spare. You tell me!
…
Sure. I can type that myself, if I can just lean against -- oh, thank you. That's better.
This will go into the record? I mean, for as long as this ship…? That's great.
It's for my wife, Kyra.
Standing still, she looked ordinary. Corn fed, freckles.
But when she moved, her grace and power turned heads. On the track? Sheer bloody poetry, sliding an opposing jammer out of bounds. The way she watched the whole pack helped us score points. And her jokes...
Last season she was elected captain. This year she got injured, but she was coming back. The steel plate in her ankle was all healed up.
Then the evacuation.
We used our connections, got the team onto a ship. Families and friends, all listed as "league volunteers" whether they were or not. But really, they all had been. You can't do derby without support off the track.
Just dizzy. I shouldn't have doubled down on the morphine, it's making me ramble.
Then the explosion.
I threw my body in front of Kyra's but I couldn't stop her from getting a second steel plate, this time in her head.
Triage took one look at me. Too much of my body is burned.
Ha! That's lymph, these are tears. Both clear, easy to get 'em confused.
Almost done.
If your officer here releases one and shows me how to work it, I will take our team's old barge and drift it right into one of those … not the harvesters that maybe have live humans still on them, but the others, the ones shaped like lobsters. Plenty of those to choose from.
I'll try to time it as Kyra would have. Detonate before they can stop me. Score one more for the league.
Thank you so much for, um, escalating my request. I'll stay here, dripping on the keyboard, until you let me know.
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JC Chatelain
July 2015
Speaking of fanfiction: I also support the Organization for Transformative Works, an international resource and archive for all kinds of works created by and for fans.
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