The Brief Tale of How I Came To Be The 'Crab' I Am

From The Pardusian Chronicles

[edit] Part I

I never really knew my family, I was seperated from them at a very young age. I know I was born on skara, but not really where. I don't know my exact age, but I'd guess it would be about four galactic seconds, give or take a tenth.

I know some of you might prefer a meassurment in earth years, for you I can tell that one galactic second would be equal to seven and three 13ths of those.

As we ska'ari normaly can communicate through telepacy with one another, our old languages have almost dissapeared, but some of us, like me, have names inherited down through many generations. I have tried to trace down the meaning of my name but there has been some difficulties. I beleive Shael'kut would rather be spellt somewhat like Shafhwl Kwhwt, but it is almost impossible to even write it in the galactic standard trade tounge, even harder for humanoids to pronounce. Hense Shael'kut is what I use, and as ' isn't an allowed character in the star pilot register, Some of you might know me as simply Shaelkut or even Shael.

As to the meaning of the name, just until a few weeks ago I thought I had figuered it out, but I might have been wrong, as my most recent research indicates that it might be something completely different. I'm still not sure, so I'll wait with sharing it with the rest of you until I can validate this last meaning of it. I can't simply ask my relatives for the origin of the name, as I don't know them, and there where lots of different Ska'ari tongues back in the ancient ages.

I was most probably seperated from my family after one of the attacks on Skara, commited by some renegade federal star pilots at the time I was still just a baby. Many people took refugee to planets further away from the cluster center and it must have been during such a mass take off I was put on the wrong ship. I grew up on the now lost desert planet of Krat'shewa and was raised in a small peasant family. We were lucky enough to live under the protection of sheik Nak Habu. You would not say he was considerably fare or anything like that, but at least he didn't allow his servants to starve and he paid us relatively well (well, at least if you compare him to neighbouring sheiks such as the infamous Mak O'turu).

Well, as the ones educated in the imperial history would understand, I couldn't stay much more than a (galactic) second on Krat'shewa before this planet got involved in the conflict. Appearently some of the renegades had, after retreating from Skara, been establishing a large scale drug industry in the system and they where making huge sums of money through exploiting workers from the planet. The imperial officers wanted to make an example of these renegades, having finally thrown them out of Skara they needed to regain the trust of the citizens. As you all must know, they managed to stop the renegades, but as the conflict grew worse more and more fighters got involved (of course The Pardusian Inquisition had to step in, no offense ment to the current inquisitors, but I have no problems understanding why some people still get chills when ever they hear your name), it was soon obvious that not only the slave traders would be erridicated from the planet, but the entire eco-system had been fataly wounded.

After several (local) months of battle, plauges had started to terrorize the residents and the planet was totaly drained of water. Being a desert planet this would mean death to everyone that wasn't evacuated from it. The Imperial commanders had focused so much on the fighting, that they had neglected to finance their freighters and in a desperate attempt to save some of the residents, they made a list of criteria for which people to be prioritized. No one over an age of 3 and a half galctical seconds would be allowed on except, women with children, and as I was adopted without any official papers, my step family had to remain.

I was then taken to the imperial capital on Skara. The former emperor abdicated and left the throne for the current emperors father. His first action at the power was to build large residential areas for all the survivors of Krat'shewa, we would be guaranteed a better life on Skara they said, and they would let us live in these buildings without paying any rent the first g.s. (galactic second). We where offered several jobs, anyone hiring a survivour of Krat'shewa would get twice the salury for the first Skara year from the government. I got a deleivery job down at the space docks and that was where I first came head to head with a real life Star pilot...

[edit] Part II

Working down at the docks was a great experience, and has helped me to develop contacts that still are of great help, being a star pilot. Work was not nearly as hard as it had been for Nak Habu back at Krat'shewa and for the first time I had the possibility of spending time reflecting about my past.

I was still a kahr (probably 'teenager' would be the best translotion) but as I was taking care of myself already I was pretty much grown-up already. I realized that to find answers, the best source would be the great library in the town center, so I started by learning to read and then moved on to use every avaliable weekend in the lbrary just mentioned. I hoped that by reveiling the true meaning of my name I could also trace my down heriatge and maybe one they find to where my family had dissapeared.

As I wrote before, there where a great number of ancient tounges, and trying to map them all and find context I went through a great lot of historical litterature, both the part based on actual excavation and preserved artifacts, considered to be facts and the more unsecure parts based on mythology and legends. I started taking history classes at the University of Skar and I also got to learn every history/mythology scholar of the region more or less personally.

Each time I thaught to have found the answers I was looking for, a new possibilty appeared and had to be investigated, and as the tales took me further and further away from my home, I realized that I might even have to search on other planets. I knew that I would never be free to go where ever I wanted unless I got my own spaceship, but before that I could always use my position at the docks to go stowaway and reach whatever nearby bases and planets the ships where headed for. To be sure I would get back safely, I only went aboard the ships I recognised as regular to the docks of Skar.

Well, I could probably tell you quite a lot of fantastic stories from these explorations, of which you'd probably not even beleive half, but I'll leave this for other occations. Even though I spent many years, and truly loved the path of adventure I was walking, I would never be satisfied in this way, it was ever more clear that I would need a ship to call my own, but now the good times where over. The period of free living quarters had expired, and I would never be able to afford staying in Skar and at the same time save money for the ship. I had already drained most of the resources of the library to, so I decided that the best place to go would be the desert planet of Canaab.

You might think it sounds a bit weird that I would want to live on such a planet once again, but I can assure you that with the right connections, and the extremely low land values of such a planet (making the living cost very low, even if water needs to be imported), there a few places better for a youngster to grow his funds. Canaab was also the fastest growing economy of the empire at the time so I packed my things (mostly research notes), sold my appartement rights and left. And with the help of a Keldon star pilot named Ledina, who had become one of my best friends, I got a well paid job at the docks of Canus (to humans also known as "Dog City"), and started to save up for my very first Rustclaw...

[edit] Part III

There are few places where one can expect to actually get paid in credits on a d-class planet, there are not many, but there are still some. The space docks is such a place, as the workers there shares the same contracts and benefits as the workers of any space dock. Because of the combined fact of this and the extremely cheap living quarters on such planets, there are few places where you can earn more money, hense it is tough to get a job there without some good connections.

Ledina was my good connection, we had been close friends for several Skaran years and I had been allowed to accompany her on several trips to the cluster edge planets, once she even took me as far as Ackandso base in the Keldon cluster. Being a Keldon working in the Skara region she was very familiar with the pass between the Keldon and the Ska'ari clusters and often took the short route passing through An Dzeve system and Canaab. She usually brought some water with her from An Dzeve and this had made her very popular by the docks. Thanks ton her they could offer free water for their workers and it wasn't very hard for her to get me a job there.

I took me just a few days to get settled, having lived on a similar planet before and under much worse conditions. I knew good enough to drink as much as I could while working and buying food directly from the freighters as they landed. The ship I wanted together with the standard equipment would cost me just above 30 000 credits and my salury was about 40 credits per tick, and as one tick is about 1/14 000 gs, It would take me about one earth year (1680 ticks) to save up for it. My living costs where low enough to allow me save up more than half of my income, but I spent some of it on things that might discreetly be called "not so essential" commodoties.

Anyhow, I ended up with a nice little Rustclaw and went on my first very own exploration trips. After a few years of adventures I decided that joining the imperial fleet would be the next logical step, as it would grant me permission to a few more sectors and also a high rank in the fleet would probably make it easier for me to get information about the battles over Skara so many years ago. I advanced quickly and was awarded a spactre in which I travelled back to the Canaab region and joined up with the group of pilots that had committed themselves to it and the neighbouring system. This group is known as P.o.t.w.o.r. or to some "The Silent Order" and it is classed as an official alliance, mainly consisting of imperial pilots, but also a few federal ones (even the federal starbase Temple of Doom is supplied mainly under the name of this great group of people).

throigh the exploration of these systems I also got to know a close friend of mine, Nova. As he is also registered as a writer of these archives, I will leave any further details to him.

There are many gaps in this auto-biography, of which I hope to fill many, but for now I'll leave this as the brief story I promised in the title. I hope you have enjoyed this story and that you will also read whatever story I chose to add next. 'Til then, best of wishes and good luck.

--Shael'kut 13:21, 9 February 2006 (PST)

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