Tancred T. Tankred the Twelfth stepped out of his T11 Senault Starcruiser and onto the damp ground of the third planet in the Sol system. The local primitives called the planet Earth, but Tancred referred to it as Nothing, mostly for the simple fact that, other than a few barely evolved primates, there wasn’t a damn thing of worth on the entire rock. And, if nothing else, Tancred was interested in making discoveries of worth. One could say it was his destiny, his fate, to find new places of repute and items of renown previously unknown to the galactic community. But this Nothing of a world was hundreds of lightyears from the galactic core and dozens from the nearest technologically advanced planet of any significance. Nothing was essentially a worthless ball of rock in a worthless arm of the galaxy occupied by worthless primates who could barely harness fire without burning themselves up. Why he had actually landed on Nothing was still a bit of a mystery, but Tancred had learned long ago that his “antennae vibrations” usually led to important finds and discoveries, and he was extremely serious about making important finds and discoveries. Tancred the Twelfth, discoverer of discoveries and finder of finds, walked slowly across the spongy ground immediately in front of his ship and took in his surroundings. He had landed on a sweeping and vast steppe covered with spindly clumps of green vegetation and completely devoid of trees. The terrain undulated in endless waves of gently rolling hills in every direction. As he had flown over the area in search of a suitable landing site, he noticed a large herd of hairy and horned, four-legged animals. They seemed docile enough and grazed on the sparse vegetation in a relaxed and unworried manner, completely ignoring his presence and undisturbed by the winding down of his ships sublight engines. Now on the ground, he realized that the massive herd of shaggy quadrupeds was located to the east of his ship. To the west, Tancred was surprised to see what looked like a collection of rough dab and wattle huts. The environment seemed inhospitable for anything other than the large vegetarian herd animals. Then again, perhaps those semi-sentient primates followed the beasts as they moved across the steppe, killing them for resources and taking their huts as they go. Moving from caves into portable homes, along with developing the skills and knowledge to build those homes, was certainly indicative of a far more advanced evolution than Tancred first thought. They would definitely be capable of living a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering. Tancred shook his head-capsule. He didn’t give a damn about the inhabitants of Nothing, they were too backwards and insignificant to be considered a real discovery by the Society of Galactic Exploration, regardless of what they had achieved on an evolutionary scale. But analyzing his surroundings and classifying and categorizing species was nearly an involuntary reflex for him at this point in his long life of exploration. Having discovered over a thousand habitable planets and meeting hundreds of sentient life forms of varying degrees of evolution, Tancred had become accustomed to mechanically processing new information as it developed, quickly sifting through the useful bits and filing the rest away for deeper contemplation at a later time. In truth, that simple trait had probably saved his life more often than any of his numerous combat skills or piloting abilities. But it shouldnt be necessary here. He was fairly confident that he had only one quick thing to find and then he could be off Nothing for good. He liked that thought and began jogging towards the collection of huts he had seen from the air. That seemed as good a place as any to start looking for whatever it was he was here to find. It may seem strange for such an accomplished explorer and consummate discoverer of worlds to set down on a random planet in the hopes of making some historic discovery based on nothing more than an odd twitch of his antennae. But that’s simply what makes Tancred T. Tankred the Twelfth such a peerless galactic explorer, and that’s what made his eleven namesakes before him equally unparalleled during their time. The Tancred Hive are legendary across the galaxy for discovering more hospitable planets, sentient beings, priceless artifacts and mythic relics than any other advanced lifeforms ever to have explored the interstellar vastness of space. They are gifted with an uncanny intuition for locating key discoveries and finding important things. If truth is told, Tancred the Twelfth has an even better talent for psi-sight than all of his forefathers combined. He’s been known to follow an “antennae vibration” across entire sectors only to discover worlds, artifacts or beings straight out of galactic mythology and legend. The Lost City of Sitnalta is the first to mind when recalling the many achievements of Tancred T. Tankred the Twelfth. Supposedly a fictional creation of the ancient Puglugian poet Homerotidus, Tancred found the Lost City of Sitnalta under thousands of feet of water on an ocean world in the Celphi Percei binary star system. According to first-hand accounts, Tancred filled his expansive carapace with air and then dove to the mythological city, fully exploring every nook and cranny before emerging breathless and wide-eyed with tales of what hed seen. To Be Continued.... A first draft of a potential submission that I am thinking about making to a print publication magazine of fictional short stories. This is about half of it.......Hrrmmmmm.... not to sure about it. Needs a lot of work before submitting it.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 19:15:01 +0000
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