What Galaxy is This?

"What galaxy is this?" I asked as I slid into the pilot’s seat. I had been dozing in my cabin but the abrupt drop out of light speed had startled me out of a pleasant dream and propelled me forward to the cockpit. An unscheduled departure from light speed also had the unfortunate side effect of making me slightly nauseated and I swallowed hard to prevent a reoccurrence of my lunch, even as I scanned the displays for answers.

My co-pilot and partner frowned at the instrument panel in front of it. "I don’t know," it answered, "and before you ask I don’t know why we left light speed either."

Its voice always sounded to me like it had a mouth full of gravel that it couldn’t spit out but I was used to it after five ship years of working together. I was also used to its ambiguous sexuality. Right now, as its six hands danced over the keys, it appeared to be stuck on male. I couldn’t pronounce its proper name, Asdfghjkl, so when it chose male form I generally called him Andy.

Right now I wasn’t concerned with Andy’s identity crisis. I was more worried about why we were now aimlessly drifting without power. One of the first things I had noticed was the lack of engine hum as I had hurried forward. "Engines are completely off-line," Andy reported. "Shutting down dampers and firing thrusters to slow our drift."

I nodded, still absorbed with the display scrolling in front of me. Andy was a competent pilot and I wasn’t worried about the actions he took. I wanted to know what had caused our problems. "Did we hit something in light speed?" I asked, even though I couldn’t find a damage report.

"Negative. No damage reported."

"Do we have thrusters? Can we maneuver and find a close planet to land on?" I questioned.

Andy frowned at the displays and then tapped lightly on the screen with one hand. "We have minimal thrusters and can maneuver."

"Find us an M-class planet then. I’m not about to try to diagnosis this in space. I’m going to go put some clothes on."

I had been sleeping in underwear and had run to the cockpit without really getting dressed. Now I made my way back to my cabin and pulled on a ship suit. I also picked up my belt and threaded it on as I made my way back to the cockpit. One of the advantages of working with a Qualtia was that he in no way saw humans as sexual beings. In fact, my lack of multiple arms and inability to change sexes was a distinct turn-off.

Better dressed now and ready to face whatever was required, I slid back into my seat. Andy looked up at me. "I found a planet. It will take us about four hours on thrusters only."

I nodded. At least we were close to a planet with breathable air. "What type of technology do they have?"

He shrugged, a distinctly jarring movement since it fluttered all six of his arms. "I don't know what galaxy this is. There isn't any information in the databanks about the galaxy we're in. Since I have no exploration files, I have no information on their technology."

I nodded. "Let's land away from civilization if we can. We can decide to approach them later if we need help."

I left Andy to manipulate the thrusters and get us to the planet. I wanted to climb down to the engine room and see if I could figure out what was wrong. If we didn't have to land on the planet, it would make me happier. One too many bad experiences, including one with a monkey type humanoid and a blaster, had made me extremely leery of uncharted planets.

After sliding down the ladder to the engine room, I dropped to the floor and turned to face the machines. The comforting hum that I could normally hear and feel throughout the ship wasn't there. The machines themselves weren't vibrating and working.

An hour later, after climbing over, under, and around the engines as much as I could, I still couldn't find anything wrong with them. There was no mechanical reason for our exit from light speed or our inability to return to it. I wiped the grease off with a rag kept in the engine room for that reason and climbed back to the main level, then made my way to the cockpit.

Andy was expertly guiding the ship using only thrusters. He looked back at me when he heard my step behind him. I winced when I realized he hadn't turned around but had simply rotated his head one hundred and eighty degrees. No matter how many times he assured me that it didn't hurt him at all, it still bothered me. "Did you figure out what was wrong with the engines?" he asked.

I dropped into the pilot's seat. "No. There doesn't appear to be anything at all wrong with them. How far are we?"

"Another three hours. You should be able to pick up the planet on sensors now. Maybe get us some information."

I transferred sensor controls over to my panel and began searching with long range sensors. In a matter of moments, I began to get readings from the planet. Since we were primarily a salvage vessel, we had spent a lot of our profit tweaking the sensors in order to be able to track salvage when it was farther away. Now, even though we were out of normal sensor range, I was already receiving data regarding the planet.

I scanned the data as sensors began to report. "Looks like their technology level is the same as late twentieth century Earth. So be careful in case they have satellites." I transferred a topographical map over to his system and highlighted a slightly mountainous region. "Let's try to land in that area. It looks pretty uninhabited."

He logged the coordinates into his navsystem. "I think you're right. Better break out the weather gear. No idea what we will find."

"I'll have the sensors track weather while I go locate the gear. Any idea where we packed it?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

I nodded and released myself from my seat straps. "All right. Contact me on the comm if you need something. And I'd stick to one sex while we're on planet and maybe stay out of sight. Who knows what types of humanoids these people have seen."

"See if you can pick up broadcasts too," he said. "Might give us an idea of the type of humanoids there."

I leaned over the console and tapped in the appropriate commands, then made my way to the back of the ship. I could cross from one end of the ship to the other in under five minutes at a fast run and even walking slowly I could do it in less than fifteen. Since we were such a small ship, we didn't have much storage space. We tended to store a lot of our salvage outside, strapped to the ship but some of the more delicate components were stored inside. We also stored our weather gear in a small alcove. This didn't necessarily mean it would actually be there when I went looking for it though. I dug through the alcove. Two pairs of boots, a book, some strange toy of Andy's that I suspected was sexual in nature and really didn't want to know about, some shirts that belonged to my ex-partner and lover, and a spare pistol with power packs later, I still hadn't found the weather gear. I put the stuff back in the alcove and opened one of the storage bins. In the third one I finally found the weather gear. I bundled up the coats, pants, and boots and carried them to the cabins. I deposited Andy's on his bed and then dropped mine in my cabin.

We were now an hour away from planet fall.

I spent the next hour sifting through the data that the sensors had gathered while Andy wrestled with the thrusters. As he got closer to the planet, the gravity began to pull us inward. He had to reverse fire the thrusters to slow us down when the gravity grabbed hold because otherwise we would enter the atmosphere at too fast a rate and ignite our fuel. I left him alone to concentrate, this maneuver would take a delicate touch and I didn't want to disturb him.

Andy kept to a high altitude once we had entered the atmosphere. The less time we were visible to their radar and satellites the better. I didn't want to create an incident with us involved. Andy had turned the view screen on and I scanned the terrain visually and mechanically looking for some place to land. I knew Andy was good enough to land in the smallest possible place, I just needed to find a clearing large enough. "There." I pointed and transferred the coordinates to him.

Andy turned off the thrusters and allowed the ship to drift for a moment before engaging the landing gear and hovering. He set the ship gently down.

We worked quickly through the shut down sequence, long practice had made us proficient and we completed it in record time. "Temperature is twenty degrees Fahrenheit," I informed Andy as we both unstrapped. "I'll pull on weather gear and go check out the ship. Start running full diagnostics." I hauled on the weather gear and switched on the heater, then hurried outside before it overheated me.

I was up on top of the ship, prying up a panel to look at the innards when I heard the noise.

My hand went to the pistol at my hip and I drew it as I turned in the direction. My senses were a bit screwed up from being planetside but I was still able to locate the noise quickly.

A small humanoid crouched at the tree line. It, I couldn't tell at this distance if it was male or female, held a bow with an arrow notched and pointed at me. It was hunchbacked, but I realized after a minute that the lump was a pack not a deformation. I straightened up gingerly and stood on top of our ship. It tracked me with the arrow. Carefully I slid my pistol back into the holster and held my hands away from my hips. I waited, counting my heartbeats, as the humanoid studied me. I knew I was fast enough to draw before the arrow hit me but didn't want to start an interplanetary incident by killing a native.

I was surprised that the humanoid was carrying a bow. With the level of technology available, I would have assumed a native would carry some sort of projectile gun or a rough version of my energy pistol. I kept my hands away from my holster as I walked carefully across the top of our ship. The hunter tracked my movements and watched me closely as I clambered down the ladder to the ground.

I couldn't move as gracefully or as quickly as I was used to in the weather gear but somehow I felt slow and steady was better when approaching this unknown entity. Andy and I didn't make many contacts with unknown species in our line of work. One part of me was curious about this humanoid, another was having silent hysterics, while a third part wanted to scream for Andy to help me. As I got about ten steps from the native, it fired the arrow. I felt it thunk into me and looked down in surprise at the lack of pain. The arrow was sticking out of my weather gear, right where my heart was, but it hadn't penetrated more than a couple of layers. I could feel it pressing into the heating coil there but luckily it hadn't punctured it.

The hunter had quickly notched another arrow as soon as it fired but now it stared at me in stupefaction as I calmly pulled the arrow out of my chest. It rose out of its crouch, still holding the arrow trained on me, and began to back away. I said the first thing that came to my mind to stop it, an old cliché line from the movies I watched when I had downtime, "We come in peace."

It cocked its head to one side and chittered back at me. Apparently it understood that I had said something but it couldn't understand what I was saying. I fumbled in one of my pockets, making sure to keep my movements slow and non-threatening, and finally located the translator Andy had cobbled together one day. I hoped that he was right when he said it only needed a couple of words to make sense of a new language. Of course we hadn't ever tested it on a language we weren't already familiar with.

I turned it on and pointed it at the alien. As I waited hopefully for it to make sense of what the native was saying, I considered that this hunter was probably more scared of me than I was of it. I had had some experience with different species just due to the nature of my business and my partner was a Qualtia after all. This one had probably never seen someone who wasn't their species. I took a few moments to study the creature as I waited for the translator to warm up. He or she, I still couldn't tell its gender, looked like it would be about chest height on me. Since I only stood five feet, six inches without my boots on, that made the alien pretty short. It was bundled up completely with only the tip of its nose showing and a space where I assumed its eyes were. The pack weighed it down slightly and caused its feet to sink into the snow. I had factored this in when I gauged its height and still figured it wasn't taller than chest high on me.

The translator beeped and then let out a high pitched squeal that caused us both to jump. I dropped the translator, bobbled it, and caught it before it disappeared into the snow. I shook it off and checked to be sure it was still on and working.

The humanoid began chattering more empathically now and in a faster, higher pitch. Gibberish began to pour out of the translator but none of it was distinguishable as actually words. I shut it off after a few minutes of that before it gave me a headache.

Now I was stumped. I needed to communicate with this creature, let it know we weren't a threat and that we would be leaving as soon as our ship was fixed but I didn't know how. We were at an impasse. I didn't dare approach any farther and it appeared to not trust me enough to come closer or leave. I carefully kept my hand away from my pistol and my body still.

We stood there for what seemed like an hour, just staring at each other. My legs were beginning to get shaky from standing in one semi-crouched position when I heard the hatch behind me open. I didn't even turn around. Only one person could be coming out of the hatch and I was curious to see the humanoid's reaction to a Qualtia.

A Qualtia is a strange sight even to someone who is used to seeing them. Each one stood about six and a half feet tall although they varied by five inches either way. Only about two feet of those six were their legs though, the rest was the torso. Each Qualtia bore six arms, three on each side, that they could manipulate individually or all together to move objects or complete tasks. Their faces were squashed flat as if someone had ironed them that way, with only a small hole for the nose. Qualtias in the female form have four breasts not the two that humans have. One set is high on the chest and even with the first set of arms while the second is even with the third and lowest set of arms. In male form, the torso is flat and looks extremely elongated.

I couldn't see Andy from the angle I was standing at but I assumed he stood atop the ship and looked down at the scene before him. After a moment I heard him call out in the language that the humanoid had used. It straightened up and lowered the bow, chittering back at Andy.

Feeling more secure now, I turned so I could look at both of them at the same time. "You speak its language?"

"Yes. She's a Xanthorf. I didn't realize they lived this far out though." He chittered something else at the alien who then began to make its way across the snow towards me. "I invited her inside. If you're finished looking at the ship, you should come in too. I wouldn't want you to get frozen."

I waited until the Xanthorf passed me to make my way to the ship. She watched curiously as I opened a side hatch so we didn't have to climb up on top of the ship to get in. I stepped aside and let her enter first. As soon as I was inside and had sealed the hatch, I began to strip out of my weather gear. When I had stripped down to my ship suit, I gathered up the weather gear and shoved it into a cubby. The Xanthorf had watched the whole procedure silently.

Andy came back into the entry now that I had stopped moving and chittered to the Xanthorf. She replied in kind and began to struggle out of her own gear. "Tell her I'll help if she wants," I told him.

Andy relayed something to her but she shook her head and began to struggle out on her own. "She's fine," he told me, "Her name is Zhara."

I looked at her, unsure of how to greet her. "Hello, Zhara," I finally said. She turned and chittered at him. As he listened, she shed the last of her weather gear and I was surprised to see that she looked like a small child with purple skin.

She was perfectly formed in every way, just like a child and only came up to my waist. She had a slender build with perfectly round breasts and womanly curves that had been hidden by her gear. The only part that made her not human was her coloring. It was a beautiful shade of lilac. Her hair which swung free now was a deeper purple that reminded me of violets in full bloom. Her eyes were even purple, another shade still, caught between the two shades of her skin and hair.

Andy was conversing quietly with her as I studied her but suddenly he became agitated and waved his arms around as he spoke. "What's wrong?" I asked, worried that we had let a threat into our ship. I wasn't protected by the weather gear now and even though Zhara hadn't made a move toward her bow, Andy's reaction was making me nervous.

"Nothing. Nothing," he replied way too fast.

"Andy," I warned. "Tell me what's upsetting you."

"She hasn't ever met a Qualtia before although she's heard of us. She wanted to know why I was traveling with a Talaman and why I wasn't settled in a sex."

I frowned. I was aware that Qualtia eventually settled on one sex and stopped changing but Andy had never made a decision and since he didn't travel with another Qualtia I didn't think it really mattered. It was only when Qualtia were ready to settle down and marry and have children that they needed to make a decision. Since Andy was traveling with me and wasn't interested in me, it had never come up. I assumed when he met someone he was interested in, he would choose a sex and an aduIt name. I had taken to calling Andy's sex switching his identity crisis and never thought much about it. I had no idea what a Talaman was. "What is a Talaman? Why are you worried about her asking about your sex choice?"

"You're a Talaman. It's their name for human. And I should have picked a sex years ago. I just haven't been able to make up my mind. I'm not upset, Captain, I was just surprised to have her so knowledgeable." He turned away from me and began chatting with Zhara again. After a few minutes, he turned back to me. "Zhara is a mechanic. She thinks she can fix our ship but would like some salvage in exchange."

I looked at her bow. "Mechanic? What type?"

He laughed. "Don't be fooled by her bow. Xanthorfs are some of the best mechanics I've ever met. They prefer to live a simple life. Although they have a high level of technological ability, they don't want to pollute their home so they live very simply, except for a few select locations on certain planets. I've seen their cities on other planets. If she was really trained there like she says, she just may be able to fix our ship."

I shrugged. "It can't hurt to have her try. Go ahead and promise her whatever she wants if she can fix it. As long as we haven't already agreed to sell it to someone else."

I left them alone to work out the details and made my way to the cockpit. I spent the next three hours updating our star charts for this region. We had enough information from our scans on the way in to create a very complete star map. I intended to file this away and keep it under a very special pass code so that only Andy or I could access it. For some reason, I did not want people knowing where this planet was.

As I finished updating the chart, Andy and Zhara wandered into the cockpit. Zhara was covered in grease now but looked pleased with herself. Andy was smiling broadly. "The engine's fixed," he exclaimed happily.

"How? What was wrong?"

"I'm not entirely sure what was wrong but it should work now." Andy dropped into his seat and began to run the preflight. I spun around and began my own part of the preflight. Within moments, we had everything up and running. We had tweaked the engines to start quicker from cold start than was typically normal and we knew almost immediately that all engines were on-line. Andy and I looked at each other and grinned. He turned and began to chitter at Zhara. Even though I still couldn't understand him, somehow I knew he was thanking her profusely.

He went back to the alcoves with her to assist her with the salvage she wanted and then helped her off the ship. Within minutes, he came running back and slid into his seat. "Is something wrong?" I demanded.

"Nope but I think we should go. The Xanthorfs are not overly fond of visitors that overstay their welcome. It was understandable that we landed in distress but now that we've been repaired, we need to leave." As he spoke, he ran quickly through the remaining checks that needed to be completed.

Within moments we were lifting off from the planet and headed for space.