Episode I: The Starchasers and the Santum of Ktheron
WARNING: Hostile meteorlogical conditions detected. Recommend exiting atomosphere until storm-
The Starchasers are a down-on-their luck, rag tag group of alien misfits just trying to make it in this crazy galaxy they call home. Led by Captain Goose, they’re sassy, they’re scrappy, and they’re broke.
The full text of Starchasers and the Sactum of Ktheron is available on the Constellara website.
The gas giant Tasiliset VII should have loomed in the sky of its sixth moon, but the air was thick with yellow dust and ash, shrouding them in twilight. The Bronco bucked at an errant gust from the roiling, whirling storm, and Captain Goose tightened his grip on the bridge console. The indicators that read “engine” flashed red for a moment before returning to their dead gray. He decided to count that as a victory, nothing else about this landing was going right.
“Just a bit more,” Kulirik ordered the bridge. “We’re close, I can feel it.”
The leopard-patterned Srassen shot Goose an apologetic look. Among the crew’s many issues with the Star Sage was the way he seemed to think he was in charge. He certainly lived up to the snooty reputation the scholars from Astrent had earned. His long ears drooped where they poked out from his long straight orange hair. Goose was always surprised the Srassen was only as tall as his nose. Probably a psionic trick.
On the starboard side of the bridge, a spindly, six-limbed Sudaorn buzzed along with her flashing green light on a mosaiced wall of screens. They’d had to remove the crew chair there to fit her large insectoid carapace, but it was more than worth it. There wasn’t a computer system in Constellara she couldn’t hack, including the Bronco’s. Goose had first brought Sarah on because ol’ Grandpa Starchaser forgot to write down his ship’s password.
“He’z right, captian!” Sarah said, pressing her mandibles together in a facsimile of lips. “The singal iz faint, but I’m definitely getting readingz. There’s a pathway on this moon.”
After six month’s chasing “psionic sensations” there had better be. They’d had to defer too much maintenance at Kulirik’s insistence he’d only pay them once they found the phantom gateway between worlds. Goose’s list of problems was growing long. First there was the engine panel, then the fuel injector, then the aft cargo airlock, then the stuck vent in Gill’s bunk, then- he was getting ahead of himself.
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The full text of Starchasers and the Sactum of Ktheron is available at pathsofconstellara.com website.