Wisdom in the Dark

Chapter 2 - Myra

While the Pyc Family Ting bustled with activity for Myra’s impending wedding, Myra was lost in her thoughts.

It should have been Vlad.

Myra’s late lover had been dead for over fifty rotations, yet the loss still stung her heart. It was perfect – Vlad and Myra weren’t genetically related and they had been madly in love. Everyone in the Pyc Family knew they were perfect for one another.

Then the neighboring Sebrle Family attacked, and Vlad was killed in his Silf. It had happened so suddenly that at first Myra hadn’t believed it.

But there had been no time to mourn. Myra was the elected leader of the Pyc Family. Myra had to stand strong in the eyes of her people and burry her sorrow deep down. The wake period after Vlad was killed Myra ordered an attack on the Sebrle to pay them back in kind. Myra had her justice, but it didn’t bring Vlad back to life or fill the hole that was left inside Myra.

“Myra?”

Myra looked up at her attendant, Ylya. “What?”

“I said the Wodniki requested permission to land,” Ylya replied. “The’ll be here shortly.”

“So soon?” Myra asked.

“It is the day before your wedding.”

“Right.”

“Your mother is waiting for you at the tarmac.”

Myra stood and smoothed her jacket. “Then I suppose that’s where I should be, too.”

Each step became harder and her feet seemed heavier as Myra trudged out of the Pyc Family Ting and toward the village tarmac outside the dome. Myra put on a tough mask for her Family. She had to do this. But she dreaded her wedding more and more the closer she came to the tarmac.

“I know my opinion doesn’t matter, but I know I wouldn’t mind being matched to a man like Jak Wodniki.” Ylya leaned in close to Myra as they walked, her voice hushed. “I think I’d forget it was an arranged marriage after just a few moments with him between my legs.” Ylya giggled.

“It is a good match,” Myra agreed, though her tone was neutral where there was heat in Ylya’s voice.

Myra had met Jak on several occasions in the past. Jak was half a cycle younger than Myra, and his maturity level showed. Roughly half a dozen rotations before Vlad’s death, Jak had bested Vlad in a competition of speed and strength. Myra had been impressed, until Jak postured like a bull and taunted Vlad for the loss.

Would such cockiness be the hallmark of their marriage? Myra wondered.

Myra found Jak physically attractive. She wanted a strong, decisive man who could handle himself on the battlefield, in the Ting, and in the bedroom. And some would call Jak’s grandstanding a sign of confidence rather than arrogance. Myra knew Jak was a good match to ensure clean genetics within both the Wodniki and Pyc Families.

But he wasn’t Vlad.

Vlad is gone, Myra told herself for perhaps the thousandth time as she reached the tarmac.

“Aren’t you seing Bretik?” Myra asked Ylya as they approached the Pyc Village control center.

Ylya snorted in response. “Only seeing. And would you really call Bretik a man?”

Myra conjured the image of the spindly man, his face locked in a constant look of being lost. “He. . .has his redeeming qualities, I’m sure.”

“If he does, I haven’t found them,” Ylya spat.

Myra found her mother Mytla within the small control center built into the side of the dome next to the tarmac. Mytla sat hunched in her wheelchair watching the tarmac expectantly, her caretaker Anna standing close behind her. The three traffic control personnel sat at their stations in front of Mytla and tracked the incoming shuttle on flat screen displays in front of them.

“Status,” Myra demanded as she entered the control center, her voice strong.

“Touchdown in T-minus ten minutes,” one of the traffic controllers, a woman who was barely two cycles old, said.

“Head up, back straight,” Mytla said, still gazing out the window of the control center toward the tarmac. “Never show submissiveness, even to an ally.”

“I know, mother,” Myra spat back, but she unconsciously stood straighter.

“He will try to conquer you,” Mytla continued. “Don’t let him. But neither should you be able to conquer him.”

Myra became frustrated with her mother. “Then what can be done? Who wins?”

“Balance, of course.” Mytla turned to face Myra. “Both of you have to win. Together.”

Myra looked away from her mother, tired of yet another lecture. Instead, Myra gazed up at the fireball in the sky that was the shuttle’s thrusters. The egg-shaped craft had finished its entry into Callisto’s atmosphere. The shuttle had turned it’s aft toward the ground, and used its thrusters to slow its descent.

Three objects circled the Wodniki craft as it descended. The Silfs had been deployed the moment the shuttle had burned through Callisto’s atmosphere. It wasn’t that the Wodniki didn’t trust the Pyc, they didn’t trust anybody, and Myra didn’t blame them. She would have done the same thing.

The shuttle finally touched down on the tarmac, throwing up smoke and dust as it did. The egg-shaped vessel stood two stories taller than the one story control center, and roughly five hundred meters distant from the two identical Pyc shuttles that sat silent further down the tarmac. The trio of Silfs were next to land, their main thrusters swinging down to become the legs of the machines, arms folding out from under the wings. The Silfs “stood”, and the front of mechs rotated forward to become the head.

“Quite the display,” Mytla said.

Myra agreed. No one could begrudge the Wodniki for defending themselves from possible attack, but the show of force wasn’t lost on Myra. The Wodniki showed they could deploy three Silfs without worrying about the defenses back home. The Pyc Family, on the other hand, only boasted a compliment of four Silfs – still a formidable force, but not enough to provide the flexibility the Wodniki had.

“Shall we go meet our future in-laws?” Mytla asked.

Myra turned and walked out the door to the control center without a word.

The dust had settled around the Wodniki shuttle by the time Myra, Mytla, and Anna approached the Wodniki ship. Part of Myra was apprehensive. She wanted to make a good impression on her future husband and his family. Another part of Myra dreaded this meeting. She had to do this for the future of the Pyc Family, but she didn’t want to.

As Myra reached the shuttle a slice of its ovoid shape opened out and down, becoming a ramp, and a moment later an older gentleman and a woman strode down the ramp side by side. Myra recognized them as Jan and Ata Wodniki. The Wodniki couple were surrounded by four guards cradling combat rifles and wearing green, black, brown and tan body armor and helmets over plain clothes.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mytla,” Ata said as she reached the bottom of the ramp and strode onto the tarmac. “How are you?”

“In a wheelchair,” Mytla said with a wry smile. “But Wotuos has seen fit to allow me to keep my wits about me.”

It was clear Ata didn’t know how to reply to that, but barely skipped a beat and turned to Myra.

“And how are you Myra?”

“I’m well, thank you,” Myra replied.

“And where is your son?” Mytla asked.

Jan motioned to the nearest Silf to Myra’s left. “He’ll be here shortly.”

A moment later the “chest” of the Silf folded down, then two more panels folded out like the petals of a flower to reveal the pilot inside the rotating spherical cockpit. Jak had already removed the jet black neural interface helmet, and extricated himself from the Silf’s torso the moment it was open. A rope ladder fell from within the Silf, and Myra watched as Jak clambered down it with practiced ease.

Though everyone waited on Jak, he took his time walking from the Silf to where his parents and Myra stood. An easy smile creased his shaved faced, and he ran a gloved hand through his short auburn hair.

As was customary, Jak approached Mytla first. He cradled one of her frail hands in both of his, then raised and kissed it gently. “Hello, dear mother.”

Myra thought Jak was being too formal, but Mytla nodded approvingly.

“And hello, dear son,” Mytla replied. “Soon to be my actual son-in-law.”

Jak placed Mytla’s hand tenderly back on the arm rest of her wheelchair before he turned to Myra.

“It’s a pleasure seeing you again, Myra.”

The pleasure is all yours, Myra thought.