Captain Jack Harkness sits in a spaceship that is about to crash. Now where have we heard that before? But this time there is an escape pod, at least. Not that he'd strictly need it. He hasn't been able to die for a long time now.
The escape pod, as it turns out, is a shoddy pice of junk just like the rest of the ship. It does a crash landing too, albeit with slightly less velocity, so there is that.
Jack crawls out of the wreckage with his dark blue coat torn to shreds, coughing blood. He just about manages to roll on his back before he loses consciousness.
When he wakes up the noon sun has just barely started to rise above the mountain tops hovering at the edge of his field of vision. He's still in the shadows.
Mountains. There are a lot of them and they certainly seem to contain more thunderstorms than he has ever seen before in one place and he has seen a lot of places.
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It takes him a day of walking around to find a path by sheer chance and another until he reaches the first house. He manages to only not-quite-die twice on the way and considers it a rousing success.
The house is small, just a tiny mountain hut. Not that you could build anything bigger here, in a place where most of the ground is vertical. The hut contains a family of four and a sick cow.
He has to knock for sixteen minutes before the sound is heard above the roaring thunder. They think he's a ghost first and – when they realize he's very much alive – a demigod, a wizard or at the very least someone who has Lady Luck by his side, front and possibly behind. A thick blanket around his shoulders Captain Jack merely smiles faintly, blows on his tea and doesn't mention falling off a cliff.
He walks on the next day, following a rough path through the mountains that is supposed to lead to a village of some sorts. The country he is in is called 'Lancre', that much he knows by now. But what planet he is on, let alone what time he is in, he has no idea. He suspects it's one entirely without space flight and the thought fills him with dread because it means waiting around for a couple hundred years until technology has sufficiently advanced.
The goatherd had told him to ask for the local witch once he got to the village. She'd be able to help him. A witch? he'd asked, incredulously. Ya, a witch. Don't you have witches where you come from? Not exactly, no, he'd answered, shaking his head and emptying his cup of tea. Well, I'm sure Mrs. Ogg can help ya, one way or another. And if she can't there's always Mistress Weatherwax.
When he reaches the village it is noon, the sun blazing and not a cloud in sight. He marvels at the speed the weather changes with; that's mountains for you.
He attracts quite a few stares walking down the road but then he always does so he hardly notices. Winking at the ladies (and some men), smiling at the kids, it is all second nature to him.
The local witch – whatever that means – isn't here, they tell him. She went into those woods to see Mistress Weatherwax, they say with frightened voices, quavering in their boots. You'll want to wait for her here Mister, not go to Mistress Weatherwax's cottage. We've got a nice inn here with good beer, I'm sure Nanny'll be back by tonight and then you can see her tomorrow. You don't wanna go into the woods.
Jack goes anyway or maybe just because.
Following a narrow path he finds the little cottage easily enough. It looks like something out of a story book. The old garden door swings open before him. He raises an eyebrow and checks for the opening mechanism. He can't find one but the door swings shut anyway. Interesting. He walks up to the door and knocks.
A woman opens the door; a short, round woman with red cheeks and a hearty smile but her eyes are as sharp as any knife. He reckons this must be Nanny Ogg so he gives her his most charming smile and a dose of 51st century hormones and introduces himself with a salute. Captain Jack Harkness, at your service. I am a traveller who is...very lost as it seems and I was told you ladies might be able to help me.
They ask him in.
Nanny looks him up and down in a way that tells him all he needs to know. The other woman, who is sitting calm and upright at the small table inside, is not charmed by him so easily. She is about as old as Nanny Ogg but that is where the similarities end.
There is tea for two on the table and Nanny bustles to make another cup for him. Mistress Weatherwax's blue eyes fix him with a piercing stare as she asks who he is and what his business here is. When he shows her his card she merely snorts derisively.
Don't you try any magick trick on me. 'Tis just a blank piece of paper. Tell me the truth.
And so he does or at least as much as he dares but Mistress Weatherwax doesn't do half-answers. There will be no lying here. He eye-flirts with Nanny while he talks. He can always tell a lady who knows how to have a good time.
After he is finished talking there is silence for a long time but he doesn't break it. When she finally speaks her eyes are fixated on the wall behind him. I cannot help you.
He closes his eyes, lowers his head in defeat. What now?
She keeps speaking. I can't help you but there might be...people who can. She pauses for the tiniest moment and draws a sharp breath through her nostrils. Wizards, she says flatly and with derision in her voice. All they do is flash and bang...but me thinks flash and bang might just be what you needs.
Nanny Ogg grins. You'll need to go to Ankh-Morpork then, she chimes in. Shame you just missed the mail coach. Now you'll hafta wait a fortnight. You can stay at my house if you want, 's big enough. Got plenty of bedrooms.
Her eyes twinkle a certain way as she says it. Jack doesn't usually go for older women but this twinkle says, I might be old but I can still show you a few tricks. He accepts with grace and a wink. Mistress Weatherwax gives her friend a Look that doesn't speak volumes, it speaks a single page but it is one that Nanny Ogg has read a hundred times before.
Those will be interesting two weeks. He is looking forward to them.
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Jack leaves wistfully, with food in his pockets and things in his repertoire he has never seen before. Some of them include bananas. The mail coach is slow but steady.
After arriving in Ankh-Morpork he manages to get arrested on his second day. It is not his city record but it's pretty close.
Perhaps he shouldn't have tried the psychic paper again. It had worked just fine when he had showed it to the corporals and they had been prepared to let him go but then Commander Vimes had taken a look at it. For him it had immediately said 'Captain Jack Harkness – Con Artist'. Vimes was a man who wanted to see the truth.
Jack makes a mental note to rethink the whole psychic paper strategy – at least on this planet.
They let him out of the cell after three days. It wasn't too bad although he still isn't entirely sure what he was arrested for. Jack doesn't bother with it too much though, it is hardly the first time this had happened to him.
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He finds the wizards at last and congratulates himself on not giving up on the psychic paper just yet. He is fairly certain he won't remember the page long fancy title the Dean of Unseen University reads out but he doesn't have to because the Archchancellor takes care of that for him by telling it to every wizard who dares come into his line of sight in a loud booming voice befit for the announcer of an intergalactic football game. One who is lacking a megaphone.
The 'wizards' really are wizards, even if he doesn't want to believe it at first. 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' comes to his mind. Some bloke from Earth had said that once, he can't recall who it was. Maybe it is technology but they don't seem to have the slightest idea of what Jack is talking about; insist that it's magic and he has admittedly no clue how any of their stuff works. His sonic screwdriver doesn't work. He decides to just let it go and chalk it up to live's mysteries.
Whatever it is the strange men in pointy hats do – it works. Roughly two Earth days before the crash Captain Jack Harkness finds himself on a far outpost of civilization at the geographical end of the universe, which is a couple billion kilometers away from where he meant to go. A few more and they might have shot him beyond the event horizon. Close enough.
He never finds out that the world he was stranded on was a disc carried by four elephants standing on the back of a turtle. That is probably a good thing.