Prelude Part 3: Year 4991, OTT

Not in the last five hundred years had the Olafson Burg look as spectacular as it did today. Gone were the rag-like remnants of cloth; replaced by brand new flags in vibrant red. But not only Olafson red waved in the stiff breeze of Longnight winds, but there were also black flags with the silver falcon of the Ragnarssons. The obvious cracks and patches of crumbling concrete had been filled with expensive Duro-Crete or were simply hidden behind a decorative banner.

A brand new Hydrogen generator hummed happily in the basement right next to the burned-out 1000-year-old scrap heap of the old one, sending electricity to a thousand lamps or more.

Volund caressed the fine dark red leather he was wearing and found his long fur-trimmed cape quite regal.

The heavy golden clan chief necklace was around his neck and his right hand was on the hilt of Hevnen, the great broadsword of the Olafson clan. He once again felt like a clan chief should, proud, mighty in stature and looks. He stood by the window of his chambers.

This was the second year of this season’s Longnight. Temperatures already dropped to -15 °C during the dim day and reached -20 °C at night. In another year, the ocean surface around Olafson Rock would be thick enough for a man to walk or drive across to the other burgs in the vicinity.

The temperatures were unimportant to the Lowmen, Bondi, and Freemen laboring outside to make the burg fit to hold a wedding. It was tradition to hold the wedding at the groom’s home, otherwise they could have already moved to the much bigger and well-kept Ragnarsson Burg.

Fortunately, this burg was not small and there was ample space for all the guests. Erik Gustav had given him a more than generous advance on the bride’s dowry. He had never seen such a sum on the readout of his Union Bank Account and the two coffers filled with Iridium coins standing behind him were to pay the local merchants and the workers. After all, only clan families and members of the free families in town were Union citizens and had bank accounts. The rest of Nilfeheim still relied on good old-fashioned coin-based currency.

His son Isegrim stood in the middle of the courtyard, dressed quite similar to his father, but with the addition of a Nubhir wolf mask. These masks were tremendously popular among the Neo Viking warriors, as they gave them a fierce and frightful appearance and the leather and pelt kept their faces warm. In the bright light of the floodlights, he was an eerie sight as his breath steamed between the permanently growling fangs of the Nubhir mask and made it almost look alive. There were much cheaper alternatives and until recently the Olafsons were forced to tie a piece of Fangsnapper fur before their faces.

The Ragnarsson clan had the largest Nubhir wolfs and the biggest Nubhir farm. Ragnarsson leather and fur were far superior to Olafson leather and more expensive.

Volund watched his son order the workers around, making sure everything was perfect before the actual wedding would take place. Volund turned, took a pitcher set for him on a small table by the window, and filled his empty tankard with more of the warmed ale. His eyes fell on a two-dee picture image, a traveling Image Taker and Knife Sharpener had made of his wife, Grimhild. Many years ago. He raised his drink and said, “I wish you could be around to see all this. Thanks to the upcoming wedding of our son to the oldest daughter of the Ragnarsson clan I could now afford all the beautiful things a chief’s wife deserves. Most of all I could now afford a flier and take you to the Union Clinic instead of seeing you die in child labor.”

He drank and as always imagined seeing that special glitter in her eyes. “Our stubborn firstborn has seen the fair child of the Ragnarssons and he has forgotten all about everything else. I just wish our beloved Hogun would return. We Olafsons are fast to anger and fast to break all things around us, including the bonds that make a family what it should be.”

He was glad that he was all alone in his chambers as tears dropped into his massive beard. “I have never treated you the way you deserved to be treated, and now that you are gone, I miss you and too late I realize how blessed I was. I pray to Odin to give Isegrim the wisdom to not make the mistakes I have made.”

With a sigh, he took his own wolf mask and decided to visit the mount of rocks under which he had buried her and the stillborn baby girl that should have been his daughter.

HOGUN

Several light hours away from Nilfeheim and beyond the orbit of the systems outermost planet was a small ice ball called Hel with nothing on it but an automated SII – GalNet Repeater. A moment later a rugged, boxy-looking spaceship dropped out of quasi space. Not all that many spaceships made it to Solken System. Other than the occasional freighter and the monthly space bus, there was almost no traffic. The dull brown ship of finest Karthanian engineering was certainly not a space bus. Even though this Karthanian built Super Cruiser had freight bays, it wasn’t a freighter either. The openly displayed weapon turrets pointing in every direction made it clear that this was a ship of war. While the ship and the openly displayed weapons were perfectly legal, some of the hidden ones were not.

The Ship Master of this hulking craft was a massive Petharian. The rest of the crew were, with few exceptions, members of the physically strong and extraordinarily durable species of the Union. There was a Maggi Sauron, two Oromarls, three Purple Throat Shiss, four Triple Strongs, and a former Plato Slave. They had all gathered on the bridge of the ship they called the Great Dame. In their midst stood a human, he was neither the smallest nor the weakest aboard.

The Ship Master said to the big human, “We are here, this is Solken System.” He turned to the Purple Throat Shiss at the Comm Panel, “Go and hail the spaceport, call for landing instructions, and make sure you transmit our transponder codes. I don’t want them to call any Navy asset to check us out.”

The Shiss did what he was commanded to do and hissed to the Sauron sitting next to him, “That is something we should avoid indeed.”

The Petharian again addressed the human, “Hogun, I sure hate to see you go, you have been a true brother in arms. Are you sure you want to leave us? I would gladly increase your share, but I have offered that before.”

The big man had a strange expression on his face as he looked at the planet they approached. “Rathuur, no man could ask for better friends as I have found in the ranks of Rathuur’s Brigands, but I am going to marry the girl that is waiting for me for so long. And then I want to settle down, take over that little inn she inherited, and have some kids. No amount of credits could change my mind.”

The Petharian put one of his arms on the human’s shoulder. “I have never met a man more honorable, more dependable, or a being able to best me in a contest of arm wrestling.” He finished with a chuffing laugh.

The ship belonging to this famous, barely legal mercenary outfit dipped through the planet’s atmosphere after it received landing permission.

It took Hogun almost an hour to shake all the hands, claws, and similar appendages as he made his way to the landing ramp, but finally he had said his last goodbyes, shouldered a big Duroplast box, and stepped foot on Nilfeheim for the first time in years. As he made his way to the passenger terminal he could already hear the Grand Dame as the mercenary ship had reversed her Arti-Grav and climbed back into space.

Hogun could not blame them for their haste. While Rathuur’s Brigands were a legally registered mercenary outfit, with a solid reputation and no federal rap sheet, some of the weapons both the ship and the mercs used were anything but legal.

While the outfit would never do anything that could harm the Union or go against Union interests, having a Petharian outfit leader almost guaranteed that at the least, they weren’t as law-abiding as perhaps they should have been.

Most of the contracts that they fulfilled were targets outside Union Space and laws had little meaning there, however some of their jobs could be called acts of piracy.

Hogun turned and raised his eyes to see the ship disappear into the lead-gray sky. Then his gaze scanned across the mountains of snow that had been piled to the sides of the spaceport landing field.

On the other end stood a Meteor freighter loading densely packed blocks of ice and snow. The freighter had the logo of the Silver Hawk Emporium on its side. So, rumors were true, the Ragnarsson clan was associated somehow with Silver Hawk, Inc. The company logo and the heraldic hawk of the Ragnarssons were almost identical. Silver Hawk Inc. was not the biggest Company out there, but even he who had spent most of his off-planet time in the fringe regions or beyond Union Space had heard of the Silver Hawk Emporium stores that seemed to spring up at every spaceport.