Tales of Cpt Vedosi...

Tales of Captain Vedosi: Svae
Part the First:

Haven't been around Heinlein Station in a while. It's been nearly two months longer than I expected. I've been lost, y'know. In a wonderful place, too. Name of Svae, 's what the locals told me.

Is there any more of this Stardust? This is a good vintage, very good flavor. You should have some yourself. None of that station-made beer, the stuff is aquatic bilge. Anyway, I've promised you a story.

Not really sure what happened. I was making my annual run to Autumn and never made it. The computer ran some strange error messages at me. "Unknown location, Z-axis skip, drunkard's walk." You know what any of that means? I didn't. Still don't, except it means the stupid machine couldn't figure out where it was and it stopped recording. Maybe it was some kind of wormhole and the system couldn't handle the input. It's not important. There was a bright flash, the power died for nearly a minute. Thought that was the end. Dying in the dark, air running out, the whole ship shaking. The Wanderer died on me, and she wasn't passing on without taking her captain with her.

It came back on just as suddenly. Lights flipped on, air started going again. The computer still acted weird, but it stopped yapping about errors. It just wouldn't answer some questions. The comm system also stopped responding. I made a lot of calls, trying to get some help, but nobody answered. Couldn't connect with anyone, or anything. There was a planet on the sensors, one without any ID, but I was feelin' a bit desperate. Ship on the fritz, no idea what was going on, all that. Landing was the smartest thing a Centauran could do.

This place...well, you've seen the fairy tale vids? This looked like it could have been one of those places. No spaceport, no station. It was inhabited though. Lots of things running around that place. Things like you haven't seen, dragon-catthings with masks and furry Humanish things with Catthing ears and--wait, I'm gettin' ahead of myself.

I set the Wanderer down in what looked to be a field. There was a river sort of thing nearby, but there was also some kind of-eh, I guess you'd say it was a mine. Not a proper ship tearing apart asteroids, mind; not much more than a hole in the ground with a bunch of natives dragging out rocks. Still, there were people. I figured maybe they'd be able to help.

Now don't ask dumb questions like "How did you land the ship?" You know I can fly alone, and the system seemed fine. Doesn't take a computer to land where it's clear, even if there is no ground help. Wasn't the prettiest landing, but I didn't crash and burn. Still here, waiting for more Stardust, so that kind of thing should be obvious to someone bright like you. Back to my story, now.

Funny thing, the people stared at me when I went to them. They were Human, s'far as I could tell. Small ones, maybe a head and shoulders shorter than yon Lunan girlie, but they were normal grav anyway.  Acted like they'd never seen a Centauran before. Turns out, they hadn't.

"What is that thing?" said one of them. Took me a moment to figure out the meant me.

"I'm Captain Vedosi!" I said. Never hurts to introduce yerself, even if the locals look at you like you've only got two legs. No offense. Actually, there were proper six-legged things. I'm off track again. Basically, the Humans stared at me some more. Two of them, a dark haired fellow and a younger one with big blue eyes. Pair looked like brothers, the oldest about...what? Twenty-five, maybe, an' the younger would be pushing it to claim sixteen.

"I need some help," I said.

"Is it a spirit?" the younger kid asked. His brother smacked him good in the head.

"No, it's not a spirit, stupid. It's a...It's a Terata."

"Terata don't look like that."

"Sure they do. Some of them do. They use magic to make themselves look different."

I decided to set the boys straight. "No, no, not a Terata. I'm a Centauran. Forest Centauran, from Piriv City. You know, on Menage." The blank looks on their faces told me they had no idea what I was going on about.

"Where am I?" I asked 'em.

They stared at me again. Finally the younger one said, "Um, like, what place? You're at my dad's Aduro mine."

"Never heard of Aduro, and I don't know your da from a Chlorotian in an aquatics tank," I said. "Could you give me the name of the world, at least?"

"You're joking, right?" said the older one. Apparently, he'd convinced himself I really was a weird magical Terata thing. "We live in Svae. Everyone knows that!"