Star Wolves - The Tribes of Yggdrasil: Book 1

Chapter 2

Year: 2128 / Planet: Unnamed / Star: Procyon A 

   Brothers will fight and kill each other,

  sisters’ children will defile kinship.

  It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife

  an axe age, a sword age

  shields are riven,

  a wind age, a wolf age

  before the world goes headlong.

  No man will have mercy on another.

  - Voluspa

  A silvery-white star, Procyon A, hung low in the sky, caressing the horizon and bathing the landscape in pearly beams of light; it reminded Haldor of the bleak Arctic nights back on Earth. Growing up in Oslo he’d learned to appreciate the generous summer days where the sun never set, though, as if in payment for the privilege, the Arctic nights were equally long and not nearly so pleasant.

  Standing at the edge of a crater he watched as Procyon B, a white dwarf, and little brother to Procyon A, crept above the horizon. It was an awesome site. Two milky siblings greeting the day.

  A malicious wind interrupted his musing and tore his jacket’s hood down from his head, allowing sleet to dampen his hair. The wind’s icy fingers began piercing his body, burning Haldor’s skin wherever it gained purchase. Pulling his hood back up, he shivered, then marched toward his shuttle amid deafening thunder claps, wincing with each eruption. The thunder evoked his grandfather’s tales of Thor fighting the frost giants. When you hear thunder, his grandfather had said, you know Thor is doing battle with the jotuns. Haldor missed those stories. Even his name reflected those stories: hallr thor, meant stone of Thor in Old Norse.

  Haldor Olsen, or just Hal to his friends, was a spiritual man; he honored the Norse Gods—both the Aesir and the Vanir, as his forefathers had done. Three thousand years past, his ancestors regaled their children with the tales of the old gods, of jotuns, dragons and great wars; those tales became legend, the legends became myth, and the myths were soon faded memories on crumbling parchment. The coming of Christianity, and the advent of technology, replaced the old stories with new ones, and men soon forgot the desire for valor and honor; they cared only for the acquisition of new things and to live ever more hedonistically. 

  Once men began to ply the stygian oceans between the stars, they began to re-discover the truth of the myths. They were not alone as many wanted to believe. The multiverse was indeed a place of danger, filled with the evils of old legends; although this realization would not come fast enough. 

  A red strobe illuminated the area under the ramp of Hal’s shuttle; he pressed a button on the remote at his wrist, then with a whine, a pop, and some hissing, the ramp began to lower, allowing the florid interior-lighting to seep out. Hal was relieved he would soon have a reprieve from the frigid wind and driving sleet; although it was a short distance from the crater to his shuttle, it seemed an infinitely long walk. 

  The ramp made audible contact with the ground, after which he homed in on the warmth of the shuttle’s interior. Seated in the navigator’s chair was a youngish East Indian woman, who swiveled around to stare at him with her electric-blue eyes and a crooked smile. "About time you got here!" she chided. 

  "Loki's balls, woman! It's freezing out there!"

  "It is. You look a bit like a wet cat,” Nila said, laughing.

  Hal smiled. "The ship ready to go?"

  "Prepped and ready, boss."

  “All the data we need collected?”