The Galactic Bride

Aki and the others had to rely on Kahwool now to get them out of the palace. She seemed unready for this kind of responsibility, but they had no option now. She took them back into her room where their kal'mar gowns were still on the floor next to the ruffled mass of comforter by the bed. She ran passed that and went to a book shelve. Pushing against it, it spun around to reveal a secret passageway. The sad thing was that if Kahwool knew about this passageway, the Minister did too.

"Let me go first." Aki told the girls. "Guards are bound to be ahead."

"But-" Kahwool went to protest but he interrupted her.

"Trust me." Aki patted Kahwool on the shoulder.

She allowed him to take the lead. Sure enough at the exit were two guard, holding rifles. The odd thing was they were face outward, not into the the passage. He stopped the girls and pressed his finger to his lips telling them to be quiet. Hana got the earth gesture then pantomimed placing her hands over her mouth to the others.

Aki snuck a head. The guards were foolishly looking outward still. He formulated a plan in his head and went into Contest mode. Going behind one guard, wrapped his arm around her neck and face her towards the other guard. The other fired blindly at her friend. Using the shot guard as a Mari-shield he ran forward and knocked the rifle out of the trigger happy guards hands. Then with her disarmed him slammed an elbow hard into her face. She fell over like a floppy bag of potatoes.

"Are they dead?" The Mari concubine asked as the other girls joined them.

"No." Aki said and kicked the shot guard in the stomach. She groaned. "The guns aren't set to kill. They want us alive, remember."He collected their weapons and distributed them among the girls. He took the knives they had on him. This was what he was used to, not pistols and rifles. He looked at Kahwool, needing her to led them again. She looked hesitant, but did her job. The snuck into a large garden that led to a runway. There ships and transports were parked. There were a number of them as some were from the guests of the upcoming wedding. Along with the ships there seemed to be a new set of guards roaming the area.

"I can't see my yacht." Kahwool whispered. "There's too many ships around."

"We'll deal with that when we get to it. First we need to take out the security."

Aki kept hidden, his mind racing. There was no way Hana, Kahwool, and the other girl could fire their pistols as accurately as the guards could, even if they caught them by surprise. He needed a plan. He couldn't sit around and think about it all night as their hiding places in the garden wasn't really that great.

But opportunity came to him. He saw a guard hassling a tall Nimbonian woman. From what he could gather she was taking a stroll and a good number of them surrounded her. He couldn't tell who she was, but she was causing a distraction. He looked to his little arm.

"Think you can hit them standing like that?"

They all nodded, looking white faced. Standing in a clump and staying still was an easier target. They blasted away. The guards started to fall one by one. As they were doing so, Aki leaped from the hiding spot and took out the remaining guards who weren't clustered over to the pedestrian. He didn't want to kill them, so he just used his brute force to knock them out, then used their own handcuffs to shackle their feet so they couldn't do anything.

When he returned to the girls, they were over the mass of guards they shot, kicking away weapons. The Nimbonian girl was on her knees holding her head, clearly not wanting to be attacked. He would have ignored her and moved on, but when she looked up, his heart skipped a beat.

"Anura?"

No, it was't her. It was the younger sister, the girl who looked like an almost exact copy of the General. She looked into his eyes, not recognizing him at first, then she raised up and embraced him. Her body was shaking, obviously she had no clue what was going on.

"I have to go…" He didn't even know the sister's name. "The guards are after me and Kah- the Minister's Daughter." Aki explained as quickly as he could. "Mari and Nimba want a war, and are using us to form an alliance."

"W-What?" The sister let go of him.

"Forget her, lets find a ship and go." Hana reminded him. He wondered if she did so more out of jealousy than out of urgency.

"If you need a ship, you can have mine." The sister spoke softly.

"Great." Aki felt relieved.

She led them in a jog to her ship. It wasn't a transport, but looked to be one of those small fighters that flanked the transports that kidnapped him and Hana from Earth. Kahwool stopped in front of it and looked disappointed.

"I can't pilot that. Does anyone else know how too?"

Of course no one else did. Aki could forgive Kahwool, she obviously was out of her element.

"We'll just have to find something else."

"I can fly it." The sister said, looking unsure of herself as she said it.

"No. We shouldn't ask you to do that. We have to leave the sector and hide somewhere. There's no telling where we're going and when we'll be back." Aki explained. He looked at the fighter and realized something. "If you have one of these you must be in the Nimbonian military. You could get in trouble."

She looked conflicted. "But… I want to help."

Aki shook his head. "You'd be throwing your life away by doing that. Think about what your sister…"

"I am! She would have helped you, wouldn't she?"

Bad choice in words. He wasn't thinking straight. He shouldn't have brought up Anura. But before he could think of a way out of this, pistol fire came from around the fighter. They all had to take cover. Then he saw it. The guards were chasing someone else. Holding her arm limply was the very person he dreaded leaving behind. Lani was ducking and weaving from the oncoming guards.

He didn't need to tell the girls to start firing. They did so anyway. Aki was quick to leap into action. Most of the girls shots were horrible, but it was enough to distract the guards and allow both Lani and Aki to turn around and take out the stragglers. His heart pounding in relief on seeing her. He really hated the idea of leaving her behind.

"Are you okay?" Aki looked down at her arm.

"It's stunned. If they hit me full, I'd be sleeping right now. If I'm being honest, I'm really sleepy now." She told him.

"Escaped your guards then?"

"No. I was going along with what they were telling me to do. Then they let me go. I was making my way back to the room, then the palace went on full alert and I over heard some servant say you and the Minister's Daughter were eloping. I knew that wasn't really what was going on. I mean, they just were holding me captive, so something was going on with you. I knew you'd probably try to leave the planet, so I came here."

They joined the others, and Lani told them she could fly the ship. Aki doubted that, her eyes were barely awake from the stunner blast. Kahwool's concubine seemed to think it was a little to convenient that Lani should happen to show up when they needed a pilot. Kahwool had to explain who Lani was, then the girl went silent.

"I can still fly it for you." Anura's sister insisted.

"You've done more than enough. I don't want you to get wrapped up in this any more than you have too." Aki looked at the familiar features of Anura's sister and pictured the General's head being chopped off her neck by his own hand. He couldn't face her anymore, and turned away.

"I want to help! I want to do this for my sister!"

Kahwool was looking around, feeling nervous. "We shouldn't wait around here anymore. The sky will be filled with ships soon. We better go."

Anura's sister pushed her way past them and opened the fighter's door. It would be cramped. There were six of them, and they had to fit into a small area that wasn't made for long travel. But they had little choice. They all hopped in. Lani took the co-pilot's seat and the rest sat in the back.

"Where are we going?" Anura's sister called from the cockpit.

Kahwool looked at Aki, then at Anura's sister. "Musa Minor."

"What?" Nearly everyone exclaimed.

"We can't go to Terra-3. We can't go to the planet below. All those places they'd look first. The homeworlds of the great races are out too. But no one would think that Aki would want to go back to Musa Minor. That's why we're going there. No one uses it, except for Contests. And the time for contests is over."

Aki shook his head. "No, anywhere but there."

"But it's the perfect spot. Once we're there for a month or so, then we can move on to somewhere else." Kahwool reasoned logically.

The engines hummed and everyone felt the fighter take off. Anura's sister wasn't waiting for Aki's permission. No one else seemed to agree with Kahwool's assessment, but they didn't really have an alternative. All Aki could think of was the terrors he experienced on Musa Minor and his mind shut down. Maybe Kahwool's plan was smart, but his body was rejecting it, like a child refusing to take a life saving shot from a needle.

"I can't go back there." He whispered, feeling shame in himself for seizing up in fear.

Hana reached for his hand and held it, but at the same moment Kahwool reached of it also. There was a moment that the two of them looked at each other. Before now they didn't really have the chance to meet. Now Hana saw the beauty in front of her not as an friend but as a rival. Kahwool seemed to sense this right away from Hana. She took his hand from her grasp and held it herself.

"What are you doing?"

"She's my wife…" Kahwool spoke cooly.

"Go play with your concubine! Aki-chan needs me and doesn't have time for you to play house." Hana spoke, unafraid. Now that they were all fugitives, class made no difference in her eyes.

The ship bumped and swerved, as clearly the two in the cockpit were avoiding traffic. They probably were being chased. Part of him wanted to be captured. If they were, he didn't have to go back to Musa Minor.

"I'm not playing around, she's my wife now. She's my responsibility!" Kahwool kept on.

"I've known Aki-chan since childhood, I know what she needs!" Hana grabbed Aki's other hand and pressed it against her chest.

"Don't get in my way, you Terran lofat!" Aki didn't know what a lofat was, but it probably wasn't a good thing. "You're just a concubine, your services aren't required for the moment! Especially oral ones."

"Oh, you're so dead!" Hana leaped over Aki and tried to wrestle Kahwool. There wasn't much they could do in the small space and the rocking of the fighter.

Kahwool's concubine pulled Aki from the fray, and watched the two go at it. He tried to focus on the girls, but his mind just kept going back to Musa Minor. They all would be relying on him to survive. And worst of all Anura's sister was going there too. He seized up in a panic and hugged his own knees.

Out of no where a pair of arms wrapped around him. He didn't look up, he continued to bury his face into his hugged knees. He didn't need to know who it was. The concubine had noticed him freaking out again. How humiliating. Even in his fear he was embarrassed. Someone he didn't even know had to console him because he was losing his mind. He could vaguely here Hana and Kahwool shouting at each other, but his fear and embarrassment was drowning them out.

"Hey! Stop acting like children!" The concubine shouted.

"Aki-chan!" Hana's voice sounded startled.

The two must have tried to come over and comfort him as well but the concubine stopped them. "You've done enough! Sit over there and calm down."

They must of obeyed her. There wasn't another peep out of them. The concubine focused on holding him close and petting his hair. His shaking slowly started to stop, but his fear remained. He would have to watch them all die, he knew. How could he take care of all of them on Musa Minor on his own? Lani and Anura's sister had training, yet, but there was more to surviving that knowing a few tricks. And this time, there was no one to fight, no one to steal supplies from. All that military fighting technique wouldn't do a thing where they were going.

"Shhh… It's okay… You won't have to kill anyone…" The concubine whispered into his ear. "I'll look after you, okay?"

A pampered palace lover would look after him? The thought was just amusing. But it was enough to make him start to calm down. He knew that he had to be the General in this situation. Lani couldn't take charge, she was a Major, but she wasn't a leader. And Anura's sister… she seemed just as unsure of herself as Lani was. He had to become Anura. Like she did for him, he had to make sure they won.