Chapter XIV – Uncharted Territory

As predicted, travel though the uncharted star system was extremely boring. At first, Mathias asked every few hours whether the sensors had picked anything up; then only once or twice a day; then once every other day. And now it seemed he had given up entirely.

This was rather disheartening for the rest of the crew. Whatever the man lacked in leadership ability he made up for with sheer personality. Usually, he was able to keep crew moral up through even the hardest of trials by simply staying optimistic. But now it seemed his reserves had run dry, and when Mathias began feeling depressed the feeling was infectious.

When Mathias was not moping about the ship trying to annoy the others into entertaining him he took to sharpening his knife collection, which did not particularly need to be sharpened, and even attempted to read a book loaned to him by Aleksander, but gave up after only a few pages. Even he was not that bored.

Aleksander and Eiríkur spent most of their time in the bridge, as usual, poring over the data from the sensors, which did not reveal much. However, they usually had Peter at their sides, and could occupy themselves with showing the boy how the ship worked. Peter also spent a good amount of time down in the engine room with Berwald, and sometimes Tino, because that was the closest the ship had to familiar scenery. And though the others could keep him entertained the boy was undoubtedly most attached to the engineer.

And on the sixteenth day since passing through Hrimthurs it was Peter who brought the news. "Planet! We found a planet!" The boy bounded into the galley where Mathias and Eiríkur were doing what they could to pass the time, which for Mathias was mostly sighing melodramatically and occasionally whining about having nothing to do while Eiríkur was attempting to read a book whilst ignoring the captain. When Peter burst through the doorway they both stopped and looked up.

"A planet?" Mathias asked in disbelief.

The boy nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah, a planet!" he exclaimed, so excited he could not stand still. "The sensors found it!"

Then suddenly Eiríkur and Mathias scrambled out of their seats, instantly forgetting about what they had been doing. Immediately Mathias was rushing past the boy on his way to the bridge, shouting orders with only half his attention. "Get Tino and the Swede," he said over his shoulder.

Unsure who the order had been directed at Eiríkur and Peter stared at each other for a moment before Peter offered to go and ran toward the ladder leading down to the lower deck. The boy climbed down as quickly as his short legs would allow him and jumped the last few rungs, landing with a light clang on the metal floor. "Berwald! Tino!" he called as he spun around and headed toward the engine room. Bursting through the door a moment later Peter found the two men standing apart from each other and looking slightly rumpled. Tino's hands were quickly smoothing down his mussed hair and attempting to look casual; he had a smudge of grease on his cheek. Berwald straightened his glasses, his shirt partially untucked.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked curiously, confused by their unusual appearance.

"Nothing," Tino answered quickly.

"We found a planet," the boy said, easily shrugging off the subject without further question, which was a relief for the two men.

"Really?" Tino's lavender eyes went wide with surprise.

"Yeah! On the sensor! Come and see," Peter enthused.

"We'll be there 'n a minute," Berwald replied. "Gotta finish somethin' first."

"Okay," The boy agreed easily enough, and turned around to head back to the upper deck. Obviously their activities were of no concern to him, which was a relief to the two men.

Tino and Berwald were only a minute behind Peter when they finally arrived on the bridge. Although their arrival was not without a moment of joking from Mathias, who could not resist the opportunity to tease Berwald, the captain was quickly silenced by swift smacks from both the engineer and Aleksander.

"If this idiot is done, I'll show you what we found," the pilot said, ignoring Mathias' small whines as the captain rubbed the quickly forming bump on his head. With a quick motion over the controls Eiríkur brought their findings up onto the main screen. It displayed a very empty star chart, showing only what their scans had picked up of the system. "This planet we picked up a couple days ago," Aleksander pointed to a dot on the screen, "but the scans show it's a gas giant, so not the one we're looking for. It did give us somewhere to focus, though, and today we picked up this one," he moved his finger to another dot on the screen. "It's orbiting the same star; solid surface and the right distance away to support life. If it's not Asgard it still might be habited and we might be able to get some more information."

"Might?" Berwald asked uncertainly.

At that Aleksander could only shrug. "We don't know anything about this part of the galaxy. I don't even know how many star systems are hidden in here. This is the best lead we've got at the moment. With luck it will provide us with some more clues. At the very least I expect it will have water and perhaps some food we can use to replenish our supplies."

"I hope it has booze, we ran out a week ago," Mathias added less than helpfully.

"That would be nice," Tino agreed. "And fresh fruit."

"Fresh anything," Mathias corrected. "I didn't think it was possible, but I'm actually getting tired of pickled herring." This comment earned the captain a few strange looks from his crewmembers, but they all went largely unnoticed.

Aleksander charted a course toward the planet. The entire crew buzzed with excitement even though their destination was still at least a day away. Peter could barely sit still. "I've never been to another planet before!" he exclaimed enthusiastically, sharing this information with each of the men multiple times, and wondered aloud what the planet would look like. Was it like Svartálfaheim? Or was it completely different? As he imagined the possibilities the boy's eyes lit up and on more than one occasion he had been caught staring at that old out-of-date calendar on the wall. Mathias had taken it down once to let him look through the pictures of mountains, lakes and forests.

The others were excited as well, but their excitement was tempered with nervousness. There was no way of knowing what they would find, and their last planetfall had not been terribly pleasant, to say the least.

A day and a half passed before they settled into orbit around the planet. Once more the crew crowded into the bridge to stare out the main window at the world below them. From above it seemed harmless, peaceful even; green and blue, with swaths of brown and white where mountains reached up toward the heavens. But they did not dare descend without knowing what they were getting into.

Aleksander and Eiríkur ran as many scans as they could, looking for signs of life, civilization, and anything that might cause them harm. Behind their seats Peter bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, unable to contain his excitement. "It's beautiful!" the boy exclaimed. He had never seen a landscape of green and blue before, confined as he had been to the desolation of Svartálfaheim. "When can we go down? I wanna see it closer!"

"Calm down, little man," Mathias said, placing his hands on the boy's shoulders to calm his excited movements. "We'll be down there soon enough. Aleks has to make sure it's safe first. Don't want to get shot out of the sky on accident."

"Oh," Peter murmured, and settled down slightly. The idea of getting attacked was not particularly appealing.

It did not take very long for Aleksander and Eiríkur to finish their scans of the planet. And surprisingly from above there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. "There's one fairly large settlement," Eiríkur explained as they went over the readings. "It doesn't seem to be very advanced. I think it would be safe to land nearby."

"If it's not very advanced then this probably isn't Asgard, huh?" Mathias asked, clearly disappointed.

Aleksander shook his head. "I don't think so. There are no satellites and the buildings are small… I would say they're less advanced than we are."

"Let's go, then," Mathias decided. "Maybe we'll get to make first contact!"

The ship set down in a field a few kilometers away from the settlement that their scans had picked up. So far there was still no sign of advanced technology. In fact, what little they could make out of the settlement appeared to be agrarian; a sprawling town where buildings are farmland wove together seamlessly. But there was little sign of the people so far, and that was slightly concerning. Tino supposed the people had seen them coming, but hoped they had not hidden or gone to prepare themselves for battle.

Because they were still uncertain of what they would find or the sort of welcome they would get, Aleksander did not shut the ship down fully and decided that he would stay back to watch over it while the others went out to explore. In case they needed to make a swift getaway, he explained.

This suited the others just fine, especially Mathias. As his crew got ready to go explore he cornered Aleksander in the galley. "It's good you're staying," he said. "It's much safer here, I'm sure."

Aleksander only scoffed. "I can take care of myself just fine, you know," he muttered.

"But it's still better for you to stay here," Mathias argued, "You don't have any fighting experience."

"But it's alright for Eiríkur to go?" Aleksander asked, turning cold eyes up at the captain.

Mathias realized his mistake in an instant, and quickly tried to make up for it. "That's not what I meant. I mean –," He did not get to finish before Aleksander's fist connected with his jaw. It was not a hard punch, but enough to shut him up. Surprised by the blow, Mathias stepped back, and Aleksander used the opportunity to escape. The pilot did not move fast enough, though. A moment later he was stopped again by Mathias' arms wrapping around his waist. "Aleks," he whined, pulling the other man against his chest despite protest. "You know I just want you to stay safe."

"You're an idiot," Aleksander muttered, but relaxed into the other man's arms for a moment. "I'd be perfectly fine and you know that. They're probably waiting for you outside."

Mathias sighed and released his pilot, but not before placing a kiss on his cheek. "I'll see you tonight, then," he said, and ran off to meet the rest of his crew. They had opened the cargo bay door, because they did not anticipate a hasty retreat, and the rest of the crew was waiting on the grass just outside.

Tino was crouched down in front of Peter. The poor boy looked a lot better than he had when they had found him, cleaned up and well fed, but he still did not have any proper clothing. Now he was wearing one of Eiríkur's shirts, the teen was closest to him in size but his clothes were still too large for the boy.

"Peter you should stay here with Aleks," Tino was saying to the boy. "We don't know what we're going to find here. It might be dangerous."

"But I've never been to another planet before," Peter whined. "I want to see it! I want to meet aliens!"

The sniper sighed and raked a hand through his hair. They had obviously been doing this for a while and he was running out of things to say. He turned his gaze helplessly toward the others in search for any help. For some reason the boy had latched onto Tino as a sort of surrogate parent, which was a hard test on Tino's non-existent child care skills, although he still followed around Berwald as though the engineer was his idol.

Taking pity on the gunman, Berwald stepped up and placed a hand on Peter's shoulder. "If the aliens're nice ya can come meet 'em later," he said. "Just don' want ya to get hurt if they're not."

"Yeah?" Peter turned his gaze up toward Berwald, grinning from ear to ear. "I really want to meet them."

"If they let us we'll stay here a few days," Mathias interjected. "Gotta replenish our supplies."

"So I can see them then?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Yep," Mathias confirmed. "If everything goes well."

"But for now you should stay here and keep Aleks company," Tino concluded, standing up again and dusting off his pants.

"Okay," Peter said, and nodded. "You better make friends with them," he added sternly before turning and running back to the ship where Aleksander was waiting for him. The others watched until he disappeared into the ship.

The clearing where they had landed was separated from the settlement by a section of the forest that covered a large portion of the planet and a small ridge. They would have to hike a ways before the reached that settlement, so the men quickly shouldered their things and started walking.

There was no path to speak of. The trees, not unlike those from planets in more familiar star systems, were not so close together that they made walking difficult, but the smaller plants that covered the ground pricked and tugged at the men's clothing, frequently leaving behind uncomfortable thistles caught in the fabric that resisted all attempts at removal. Although they had appeared harmless at first glance, these plants quickly proved to be quite annoying.

"This planet sucks," Mathias complained as he paused to pull a particularly nasty thorn out of his pants before it worked its way into his boot. They had been walking for barely twenty minutes up toward the crest of the ridge but had not made very good progress.

"We should look for a better path," Eiríkur said. "There's probably animal runs through here. I can't imagine anything living here would willingly walk through this stuff."

"Why didn't you say that before we started?" Mathias said. He managed to pull the thorn free and threw it into the bushes.

"I didn't think walking through this stuff would be such a pain. It barely goes up to our knees," Eiríkur replied.

"Let's just keep going," Tino said. "It might take us longer if we try to find a path now. But we can look for one on the way back."

With an annoyed sigh, Mathias agreed. "Okay, let's keep going," he said, and they were off again.

After an hour of trekking up the ever steepening rise of the ridge they finally reached the top. Here the men allowed themselves to stop and take a break, leaning back against the trunks of trees as they caught their breath. The thistle plants were slightly thinner here, but none of them trusted enough to sit down. A short break, and then they were off again. Moving downhill now, their progress was much quicker. Except when Mathias lost his footing and slid straight into one of the thorny plants before catching himself on a tree. They spent fifteen minutes just pulling all the thorns out of his clothing.

Eventually the trees began to thin, and through the gaps the men began to make out the shapes of buildings and walls. As they approached the edge of the forest the crew became even more cautious. Although their scans of the planet had not picked up any signs of advanced technology, this was the same system supposedly home to legendary civilizations. There was no telling what they might encounter here.

Hovering in the tree line the four men stared out toward the settlement, now quite obviously a well populated city, in an attempted to gauge the situation. The city did not appear very advanced. The buildings were low, none more than three stories high, and built of wood and stone. A low wall surrounded most of the city, although there were areas where expansion had caused buildings to be constructed beyond the protection of that wall. The people must not have had much fear of attack from others.

"Well, it doesn't look dangerous," Tino said optimistically.

The others agreed with him. The city was, in fact, rather quaint from their perspective. The question now on all of their minds was how to approach it. Everyone knew you could not just saunter into an alien settlement as though you owned the place, especially when making first contact.

"There's people!" Eiríkur exclaimed suddenly, though his voice was hushed. He pointed down the slope toward the structures, where a small group of people had emerged.

"They look human," Mathias observed curiously. And they did, at least from this distance. The group that had emerged appeared human, although their clothing was different from anything the four men had ever seen. Their garments were loose, flowing in an almost non-existent wind. As the crew stared down at them curiously one of the figures turned to face them.

"Shit," Mathias said in a harsh whisper as he ducked behind a tree with the others, none of them considering how bad a hiding place it really was. "Maybe we should have left Berwald behind; he'll scare them off for sure."

"Don't be rude!" Tino snapped, also in a whisper, and punched the captain in the shoulder.

Mathias yelped in pain when the punch came much stronger than expected and was immediately hushed by Eiríkur, "Be quiet, they'll hear you."

"What do we do?" Mathias asked, feeling a momentary panic that was uncharacteristic for him.

"We should go talk to them, that's what we came here for isn't it?" Tino replied.

"He's right," Berwald agreed.

But none of them really wanted to go. Of all the people to make first contact with a new civilization, these four men were probably not the best example of their kind and they knew it. There was a short moment where they all waited for someone else to leave their ineffective hiding place first, but none made a move.

Then, with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, Eiríkur stepped forward. "This is stupid," he grumbled in exasperation, and started walking down the hill.

As soon as Eiríkur's intentions were clear, the others scrambled after him. Aleksander would kill them if they let his little brother go meet aliens by himself. The crew emerged from the tree line together, Mathias hurrying to take the lead again so no one would mistake Eiríkur for their leader.

As they drew closer to the small group of natives the crew could make them out more clearly. Four in total, matching the number of their own group, a woman and three men, although it was a bit difficult to tell them apart. All four had long hair that was such a light blond as to be nearly white and dressed in similarly light garments. In the bright sunlight they seemed almost to glow. And they were tall. Even the woman stood nearly the same height as Berwald.

"We have been expecting you," The woman spoke, a smile on her face as she looked at the four men.

"You were?" Mathias asked.

"We saw your ship land just beyond the ridge, and knew it would only be a matter of time before you came to us. We did not expect you would be so shy, however," She said, and there was amusement in her voice.

"We just wanted to make a good impression," Mathias said.

Eiríkur scoffed quietly from behind him, "Too late for that." And he ignored the glare that Mathias sent his way.

"It has been a long time since we have had visitors from another world. My name is Vala," the woman continued as though Mathias and Eiríkur had never spoken. "Please come inside so we may talk comfortably," she offered.

The crew shared a look amongst themselves, silently considering whether it was safe to do so. Eventually, though, Mathias decided that they had no choice. This was probably their only chance to get the information they needed about this portion of the galaxy. The captain nodded his consent, and the crew followed their hosts toward the city.

End Notes:
Vala – Anglicanized version of Völva, an Old Norse term for a seeress or sorceress.

Author Notes:
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