Of Families IV

IV. Evasion

Alysianna threw off her blood splattered jacket as she entered the home she had set up for her sister and niece.

“Akhiko! Miyuki!” She called, worry thick in her voice. Pulling her sidearm from behind her belt, she checked the magazine and ensured there was a round chambered and ready to fire. There would be more men coming soon, she was sure of it.

“Akhiko!” She shouted again, panic starting to claw at her. If the Black Eagles had already come here; if she was already too late….. No. Don’t think of that. Focus.

Alysianna moved from the foyer area and began checking rooms. Kitchen clear. Dining room clear. She entered the foyer area again on her way to check the living areas when motion at the top of the stairs drew her attention.

“Alysianna?” Akhiko asked as she stepped more fully into view. “What is it?” Her gaze fell to the pistol Alysianna held loosely in her hand. “What has happened?”

Swiftly climbing the stairs, Alysianna took Akhiko by the arm and led her back toward the bedrooms. “I need to move you. Pack quickly, leave anything that isn’t vital. I’ll explain more later, but we don’t have much time.”

The Moritsu siblings shared many traits, among them the tendency for decisive action. Akhiko didn’t ask further questions, but immediately went to wake her daughter and gather what they would need for a trip. Alysianna rushed back down the stairs and took up a position by the front door, keeping an eye out down the approach for any signs of the abduction team she was sure must be coming. Nothing yet, but it was only a matter of time. Zealots never give up, never stop.

The five minutes it took Akhiko to get Miyuki ready and gather the necessary items once again had Alysianna on the verge of panic. Her heart hammered away at her ribcage, and she was sure that if her body put any more adrenaline into her system, it would prove fatal. As her sister and niece came down the stairs, she took a last look around and led them outside.

Ten minutes was spent in a ground car getting to the orbital shuttle Alysianna had come down to the planet in; and by the time they reached it, her nerves were close to shot. Attempting to keep her eyes everywhere at once was beginning to give her a headache, and every moving shadow, every sound had become a man ready to attack. Motioning her sister and niece into the passenger compartment, Alysianna slid into the pilot’s seat and began the engine prestart sequence. As soon as the control board lit up, she keyed for a flight control systems check, and prepared to take off.

A glow on the horizon drew her attention out of the view port, and looking back toward the house they had just fled showed the tell tales of a massive building fire. She had been right. No one was safe from the new order. Once again paranoid politicians and their rabid dogs were forcing her away from what she had come to call home. No words, no questions. Run, or die. Alysianna shook herself slightly and turned to check on her sister and niece. Both were in their seats and strapped in. It was time to go.

Transit to orbit was uneventful, no fighters appeared in pursuit, no ships moved in an attempt to interdict the small shuttle as it emerged from the clouds and smoke and made its best speed toward the station in orbit.

"Alysianna, what in the world is going on?" Akhiko asked from behind her.

"Do you remember Mjalnar?" Alysianna asked without turning her head. Her eyes were locked on the sensor board, continually searching for any indication that the men on the planet had friends in space.

"He was the one with you when you rescued Miyuki and I from my ex-husband, yes?"

Alysianna nodded. "He was recently unmasked as a spy for the State, and had been passing them information about the Federations war preparations for a long time. Certainly well before the current war began." Memories crashed against the inside of her skull, and she fought them down and shoved them into the little locked room of her brain from where they had sprung. "The fascist bastards of the SDII decided that the Leadership of Strix as a whole was guilty, or at least suspect; and when they came, it wasn't with the intent to arrest me."

"You killed them?" Akhiko's tone made it less of a question than a statement, but Alysianna answered it anyway.

"They were all still alive when I managed to escape the situation, though a few would have died without prompt medical attention." She shook her head slightly as the memory of blood spraying across the walls, and the feeling of bullets digging into the desk she overturned to use as cover swept over her. "I triggered the com system to the emergency signal before I ran. Paramedics should have gotten to them fast enough."

Akhiko sat silently, waiting for her sister to continue.

"I still didn't know about Mjalnar at this point, and managed to get a message to him and set up a meeting with him and his wife, on a backwater planet in Essence. As I arrived I overheard him confessing everything to Sabette. I could hardly believe it, but I immediately confronted him. Sabette had a choice to make..... love, or loyalty. She chose love."

Silence hung heavy in the shuttles pilot compartment for nearly a full minute.

"I killed them both." Alysianna said.

The memory of the event ran through her head against all her efforts to hold it back. The rain slowly soaking through her clothing. Hearing the voices as she approached through the foliage. The cold anger in her gut at the betrayal. The suddenness in which the pistol appeared in her left hand, and her katana in her right. The tense words exchanged as Sabette held a pistol on her head, and she returned the favor with her own pistol aimed at Sabette and her blade extended out to rest against Mjalnar's neck. Sabette's head exploding as a momentary distraction let Alysianna take the initiative. The pain from the hand to hand fight with Mjalnar that led to him laying on the ground, holding his stomach in a vain attempt to hold his intestines inside the horrific wound she dealt with her katana.

But most of all, the blood. Hers. His. Sabette's. She could still taste it, smell it..... feel it.

"I knew the Black Eagles would come after you next, to try and force me to come to them." Alysianna continued once she felt able to speak again. "I didn't know if they would kill you, but torture is not beyond them. They wouldn't hesitate to hurt you, or even Miyuki if they thought they could use you to their advantage."
The sisters sat in silence, watching the station grow larger as they entered the docking pattern.

"What do we do now?" Akhiko finally asked.

The shuttle came around a final corner, and Alysianna's Tengu-class strategic cruiser came into view, sitting in the hanger deck's magnetic docking field.

"I know some friends that can help us. We leave the Federation, and don't look back." Alysianna's eyes hardened. "They can burn in hell with the rest of the liars who support empires built on bloodshed. I'll die before a give up my honor, my morality." Her tone changed slightly, threads of uncertainty and lost hope creeping in. "Even if that means I never have a home again."