A couple of people wrote fanfic in the Skybreak thread on CYS, I asked them if I could paste it here because I loved them both:
Posted by Gower:
Dr. Paul Pothelwaite, genius, biologist, archaeologist, space-based scholar–according to his business card–perched on a low bit of vaguely horizontal rock on the potato-shaped rock that he had discovered. It was his planetoid, one of several that he had discovered.
He was naming them after various minor Trojan heroes in the Iliad. This one was Dolon. The next would be Glaucus. He hummed and smiled and made a brief–no, a medium–no, to hell with it, a very long entry in Logbook #346 about the mineral composition of this bit of Dolon. A slight irregularity of color. They will be most interested when he returns to Skybreak to offer a brief talk at the Academy of Cosmic Lore.
Web, his top-hatted and impatient graduate student, paced, raising some dust. “Are you done? Are you done?”
“I am still observing. You shall never attain your degree if you are impatient. We are taking in the galaxy. We are seeing its wonders and distilling a bit of its knowledge for later scholars to quaff. Catching a speck of all there is to know, like a grain of pollen caught in amber.”
“I’m not a graduate student, for the fiftieth time,” Web said, thumbing the edge of his stiletto in his pocket. It would be so easy to…
“Think of the treasure we’ve collected so far,” Dr. Pothelwaite said.
“You left behind that silver at the bottom of the lake.”
“First of all, it was lithium.”
“Still valuable! You left it behind to take a picture of some statues.”
“What a wonder that was,” Dr. Pothelwaite said. “Precious elements are essentially eternal. But a photograph is a unique artifact.”
Web took off his top hat and affected his most silver-tongued attitude. “Listen, I know a particular heist we could pull off. It would be so easy to…”
“No, no need, my aspiring professorial friend. I have already here the greatest treasure a man could want.”
If he says ‘knowledge’ I really will stab him.
Dr. Pothelwaite stroked the shining green beetle that he had found in the swamps of Noog and who had ridden on his shoulder ever since. “I have your devoted companionship, Web.”
“You paid me!”
“Regardless.”
“I steal from you regularly!”
“I know. It says ‘genius’ on my business card. But without you to share my discoveries with as I make them, this would all be somehow empty. Come, Web. Let us see if we can find a blue beetle. Oh, this galaxy is so vast, and full of so many little scholarly delights. Do not gnaw your fingers like that, Web. Come!”
Posted by puddlebunni:
I decide to stop worrying so much when the stars start melting into each other.
I try for another deep breath but it feels like I’m sucking in nothing at this point, the green glow of my oxygen meter having switched to emergency red about 30 minutes ago. Or longer. I tap at the meter on my visor in empty hopes of a glitch or something. Heh, who am I kidding. I’m as good as gone. Maybe got another 20 minutes in me. Can’t really tell much of what’s going on when there’s no sunset or sunrise and everything is jet black. Really, this planet is crazy. It’s like a pebble in a void.
Don’t get smart with me, kiddo. “Aren’t most planets pebbles in the void if you think about it?” Well, of course but this one is so flat and so empty that the only thing left is the sky above, which is black. Just stars. The stars don’t look hopeful. They just make you feel smaller than anything else, and they’re so far away their light is more like specs of maybes and loneliness.
I’ve spent my whole life in the cosmos. I’ve never felt lonelier.
I’m on my back, the specs of those maybe stars shifting from milky to blinding to gone in an infinite cycle of brain melting eye strain. I can’t get much of my thoughts together, now. Though there is fuzzy little click. I squint as a string of purple letters fly through the corner of my visor. It’s like a punch to the stomach. Honey.
_HELLO MARVY OH NO OH IT LOOKS LIKE YOU SUSTAINED SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO YOUR SUIT WOULD YOU LIKE ASSISTANCE?
Poor Honey. I can only imagine how worried she must be. But I don’t think I can smooth talk my way outta this one
“What can you do?” I mouth, weakly.
There’s quite the pause before the purple letters sheepishly appear again.
_IM SORRY I DONT KNOW
Honey is a sensitive soul so I try to think of how to word things properly to make her feel better about all this, but I can’t come up with anything that will do it. I picture her numbers going wild and her screens blinking frantically, trying to whip up some kind of…Magical scientific computery equation thing that will get me un-broke and safe at home. Sue me, I ain’t a computers guy. Don’t know a thing about the techy business. I just know Honey feels things a whole lot harder than I do, even if I do got flesh and bone.
If I’d learned techy shit, maybe I wouldn’t be here.
If I’d got around to being a half-way decent pilot, I’d most certainly not be here.
Heck, even a couple of karate classes or something to build up my stamina. Give me better lungs. I should have never smoked. I should have never tried that heist. I should’ve never screwed over the Boss. I’m a sneaky bastard, I’ve got at least 6 different spaceport ID’s and more names than the galaxy’s got moons. I hop around a lot.
Honey’s the only one who gets to use my real name.
_MARVY IM SORRY TO TROUBLE YOU BUT WHEN DO YOU ESTIMATE THAT YOU WILL RETURN
Shit. Now I just feel guilty. “Not in the cards today, Hon.” I sputter weakly. “I think the tank’s pulling from the bottom now.”
_OH NO OH THATS THATS THATS IM WELL THATS NOT GOOD
_VERY NOT GOOD
_
_IM AFRAID I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS
“That’s normal.”
_THAT IS SOMEWHAT A RELIEF THEN
“A relief?”
_I THOUGHT THERE MIGHT BE AN ERROR IN MY SYSTEM
“Never change, Hon. You’re doing just fine.”
Somehow, I feel a little relieved too, like I’m doing it right. The dying thing. I’d expected to get shot down in an alley somewheres by the Kalyook or fall off a roof and break my neck during a last minute escape. I was never a big planning guy. I’d just assumed I’d be the throw away headline on yesterday’s paper, and all the time between then and that was the big leadup. Never thought I’d just disappear.
The planets empty and cold and the lines of the text are sorta blurring together but I know that my ship is writing something nice to me. I’m very cold now. My chest has got a stone in it. My ears are filled with a parade of tiny beeps.
I think about that time when I’d bandaged up some kids at this random no-place village in on of the farther Gammas. They didn’t know dirt from Adam. They’d banded together to give me a couple silver, everything they had. I never spent it. I think it’s in my pocket right noe.
On a chilly little pebble, alone, I find myself smiling at a jet black sky.
_I WANT TO SAY IM SORRY MARVY
Don’t worry about it. Damn, it’s cold.
_BUT I PROMISE I WONT FORGET YOU
It would probably be better if you did, in all honesty.
_MARVY YOUR VITALS ARE DROPPING
_MARVY
_MARVY
_AH
_
_MARVY I WANTED TO SAY
_THANK YOU FOR PRESSING Z
Thanks, back into space with me!