Tribes

                                        

                                              
Nahuel settled into the shuttle seat, feeling the bio-mechanoid fibres of the ship mould around his tired body. The Panthari laid his  arms on the upper guidance system, feeling the electronics respond to his body. A slight twitch of his right hand had the doors to the shuttle seal with a whisper of sound, the flesh of the ship closing off as if there had never been an opening. His second set of arms reached to the control spheres, long elegant fingers dancing across the surface of the crystaline globes as the ship hummed into action.
                              
Nahuel's mentor Tokala sat in the navigators chair, allowing the younger Pantharni to Captain the shuttle. It was Tokala's job to judge Nahuel's competence, and see if the youth was worthy of becoming a full Pantharn. Gone would be the trappings of the learner, and instead Nahuel would assume the role of his maturity. Tokala had pride in his young charge, though he worried about the Panthari's tendency to allow his mind to wander to fanciful musings when he had no specific task at hand. Nahuel was one of the restless ones, those souls who seemed drawn to roam instead of remaining with the Tribes as was expected.
                              
"Show me what you can do." Tokala's voice rumbled out, a thick purr to his words. He was relaxed, unworried about his ward's abilities and his face reflected that ease. The Pantharni race was humanoid in that they walked upright on two legs and had a mostly human configuration of limbs. Excepting the fact that Pantharni are born with an additional pair of arms and a prehensile tail, they appeared rather like humans when they were relaxed. However, the Pantharni race was also quite strikingly close in some features to the human world's lions. A thick mane of hair protected their head, neck and chest, ending in a trail of hair that vanished into their short body hair. They did not have fur, but instead a silky soft layer of body hair shorter than even the panther's fur. This body hair would often have great variances in colour and markings, and although when relaxed their faces were mostly human, when a Pantharni was angered their faces developed a more muzzle like countenance and their teeth were known to descend down into fangs.
                              
Nahuel guided the shuttle out of the docking bay of this trading station. He had found a navigational chart to where the O'oolem swarmed at this time of year. The ethereal creatures survived in the atmospheres exuded by certain gas planets, building up momentum by flying around the planet's orbit in ever increasing speeds until they could swarm away to a new planet as their migrating instincts took over. They were giant, colony-ship sized creatures that were impossible to see unless they were moving slowly, and as they had almost no physical mass, they were devilishly hard to locate and track. The Panthari had collected several different reports about a migration being spotted not too far away and he hoped to reach the planet before they were too fast to see. That would be a superior display of careful navigation and maneuvering as well as additionally revealing the Panthari's abilities to sieve through gossip to find useful information.
                              
The shuttle responded to Nahuel's quick finger flicks with deft precision, seeming to dance it's way through the vacuum of space. He focused on the task at hand, making micro adjustments to thrust and velocity, attitude and angle of flight as the small shuttle made it's way through the astroid belt separating the Pantharni space colony and colonized planet from the series of gas planets a mere spiral of galaxy away. The Pantharni race had several space colonies towards the inner spirals of this stretch of galaxy, finding the string of habitable planets and reformable satellites most appealing. His species adored great varances of environment, with some of the Tribes preferring plainlands and others wishing for desert. There were few that had great love of the water laden planets but even there the Tribes found a way to flourish.
                              
However, the astroid belt was extensive and hazardous, allowing only the very lucky, talented and insane to venture through. The field extended out past the gas planets Nahuel wanted to explore, and beyond them seemed complete mystery. Because of the dozens of ships that ventured forth, none had returned to offer explanation of what had been found. Most of the Tribes that sent scouters out to find more planets now refused to send any others out, not willing to risk the living metal of their precious ships. Their technology was advanced, and sometimes sentient, making each piece a living thing and worth respect. But Tokala and Nahuel were from the canyon plains Tribes and they had allowed these two unique Pantharni the freedom to explore as necessary. Because Tokala was one of the Chieftan's younger siblings and her most trusted Advisor. He was currently training Nahuel in the hopes that he will be the next chosen embodiment of Baguera, his Pantharni Tribe's spiritual leader. If Nahuel was the one they were waiting for, he would become the next Cheiftan's consort and be father to her offspring.