 |
| Click to embiggen! You know you want to! |
God's Apples and Cable were already there so I grabbed a seat next to them and started swapping stories. Cable pointed over to one of the big bay of windows circling the deck and said, "Rixx? See those lads over there?" It was hard to miss them, about fifty boys of various ages hanging around, some of them seemed to be fighting. "I see 'em."
"Well they watched the entire time you fought that Proteus... and, well, they was cheerin' for you!" My eyes narrowed, "You don't suspect they are red spies do you?" They laughed and Cable punched me on the shoulder, "Nah mate, you have yourself a fan club."
A fan club? As much as even being near a window in Station makes me nervous, I got up and wandered over to the group. They saw me coming and quickly encircled me. "It's him!" "Wow!" "He's more handsome than I thought he'd be! ( Yes, a few girls were also among them.) I raised my hands and told them to be quiet. I looked around them all for a moment, young, enthusiastic, low-class and high, a representative mix of Station personnel children. "What's going on here?" I tried not to sound menacing.
One of the very young boys came forward, he was carrying something in both his hands. He raised them to me and I saw what he had. In his left hand he was holding a model of the Fed Navy Comet, in the other... as I came to learn later it was a rather popular Rixx Javix Action Figure. "We were just playing that time you took on five baddies in yer Comet!" That sparked another wave of questions and the rest of the afternoon quickly became a blur.
That was last week. Since then I've been introduced to the clubhouse, a makeshift room at the top of the sentry mast where you can see several parsecs into surrounding space - they even have a running DotlanX4000 on a monitor so they can watch me as I travel to other systems. I haven't met them all yet, I understand there are several hundred in this station alone. ( Yes, there seem to be other chapters as well. )
I've taken it upon myself to keep an eye on them. My wife seems to be eternally amused at the entire affair, but she's embraced them as well. These are sons and daughters of the station dwellers, workers, traders and builders mostly. There are a few orphans, none that I made so thankfully. I suspect those may not be excited about the YJAC.
I was a young boy once. My heroes were soldiers of the Caldari, those brave men and women who protected us from the Gal. Until they let us down and my home was burned, my parents murdered and I was sold into slavery. And while my path has led to a different course, it still means something that my efforts to protect ( even in my own way ) the citizens of Hevrice, have not gone unnoticed. And who knows, maybe among these young children, burns one or two of the next generation?
Until then I keep a Rixx Javix Action Figure in my CQ. Y'know, for sentimental reasons.