The Galactic Bride

"Get up!"

Kahwool's sleepy face appearing into his newly open eyes. She was looking as bewildered as he was. The blankets were flung off them and the cool of the night touched their skin. Hands reached in pulled both of them up. Aki was in a daze. He had so sound asleep that for once he wasn't alert. But as his feet touched the floor he finally woke up completely.

Slamming an elbow back, he knocked down the body behind him. Then he leaped for Kahwool's attacker. They had no defenses, as they were holding the Minister's daughter, and were easily knocked down. Another shadow came for them and soon were flung on top of the first attackers raising body. Aki reached for Kahwool's hand and pulled her gently behind him.

The attackers were all groaning, until one snapped their finger's three times. The lights came on. Aki's eyes blinded. All at once the attackers charged them. Blind or not, Aki spun out of the way, and dragged Kahwool with him. But as his eyes became adjusted to the light, he soon realized what was going on.

The attackers were the servants, and behind them all was a pale looking Minister Were. She was watching with amazement at the mess in front of her. One of the servants had a bloody nose, but the rest just looked roughed up. Obviously Aki wasn't their favorite person at the moment.

"Clearly it was a bad idea to come in unannounced. I apologize Lady Kezri." The Minister spoke was genuine amusement in her voice.

"Olma?" Kahwool still was half asleep. "What's going on?"

"What happened to your veil, Kahwool?"

"I'm tired of wearing that."

"Don't be a brat, put it back on."

As the girl did as she was told, Aki had another question. "You didn't answer your daughter's question. Why did you wake us up?"

"Both of you, put these clothes on." The Minister answered with a snap. "We are going to the temple."

"The temple? Why?" Kahwool was replacing the veil. Her yellow-like eyes really were emphasized when she wore that.

"Just hurry up, I'll explain on the way."

Kahwool obediently did as she was told, but Aki stood where he was, staring a hole into the Minister. What was she up too now? Was she trying to establish her dominance once again? What was the point of all this? When Kahwool returned she was dressed in a typical Mari arabian looking outfit. She walked over to him carrying his modified bear-version. She lightly handed Aki his clothes looking just as confused as he felt. Part of him wondered if she was just going through the motions or if this was some sort of Mari tradition and if she knew what was going on.

"Come."

The two of them followed the Minister into the hallway. As they walked, Kahwool trotted along side of him yawning sleepily within her veil. Aki now knew that the daughter wasn't play acting. She still looked like she hadn't really awaken yet. She even unconsciously scratched her butt in a most unlady like way. It was sort of cute.

It was as long of a walk as the day before, as the temple was a ways away from Kahwool's room. Everyone, but him, were winded by the time they got there, especially Kahwool who was having trouble keeping awake as it was. The interior-temple was huge, but was empty. It reminded Aki of pictures of big European cathedrals more than any temple he'd imagine. Waiting for them at the pulpit was an important looking women that probably was the Head Priestess of the chapel.

Suddenly Aki got the idea. "We're getting married now?"

Kahwool gasped, suddenly fully awake at that statement. "What? No! We can't get married now! My dress is in the room, and none of my friends are here!"

"Relax!" Minister Were quickly tried to silence her daughter. "We're still having the official ceremony. But we're having a quiet one now-"

"Why?" Kahwool interrupted, asking the very thing he wanted to know.

"For reasons that don't concern you."

"This does concern me! I want to have my real wedding the way I planned it out. You said that since you picked out my wife, I got to pick out my wedding. This is completely unacceptable!"

"I told you you'll still have your ceremony…."

"It won't be the real thing!" Kahwool stomped her foot. "Why do we have to get married now? The wedding isn't that far away anyway. Why do you have to ruin the one thing I wanted!"

"Stop acting like a child, Kahwool!" The Minister shouted at her in frustration.

Aki thought Kahwool was bringing up all excellent points. "Why do we have to marry now as opposed to later?"

The Minister looked angry now. Perhaps she thought they might have been too sleepy to argue, he didn't know. But after the fight he had, he was fully awake. And now that Kahwool's dream wedding was dashed, so she was as well. The Minister closed her eyes, taking a moment to collect her thoughts, then decided on a little bit of truth.

"There is a threat. It's nothing to worry about yet, but there are whispers that the wedding ceremony will be interrupted. So as a precaution, I'd like the two of you to officially marry now, so if something would occur later everything will be fine."

"Why would anyone interrupt us getting married?" Aki asked her. If Hana had her way she would, but that would just be stupid with all the aliens around. No, it couldn't be just one person who threaten to ruin the ceremony, this had to be something political.

"I'd rather not say."

"Well I'd rather know." Aki forced the issue.

"Don't talk to me that way you little-"

"Or what? Obviously I'm so important to whatever plans you have that you're putting up with me. Go ahead. Call off the wedding. Kill me. Do it!"

Kahwool looked from one to the other, then she crossed her arms underneath her chest. "Olma, just tell us. We're wasting time arguing, aren't we?"

The Minister's eyes never left him as she spoke. "There are certain groups that were unhappy with the Contest's outcome. They feel their champions weren't given a fair chance and the winner got some unfair advantages. That talk lead to an untrue conspiracy that the Mari government played a part in picking the winner. If that were true, I certainly would not have chosen a hidden-seed savage like you as the wife of my daughter. Nevertheless, that's what they believe. That's why they may crash the wedding… and perhaps do something reckless like kill you or even my daughter to stop the union of Mari and Nimba."

"The Wahco and the Tyro, in other words." Aki sighed heavily.

"B-But why?" Kahwool seemed a bit lost. "We've been in an alliance for centuries! Why would our wedding matter so much?"

"Because Nimba has the best spacefleet in the galaxy, and the Mari have a whole sector of natural resources to fuel a war. They believe that this wedding will form a military alliance. That we'll dissolve parliament and conquer the others."

"And they aren't wrong, are they?" Aki snorted in contempt. "Say what you want, but in the Contest Nimba had 4 representatives, one a military general, and me who was trained by one. Wahco and Tyro might of had more people, but no one had training. General Anura was supposed to win."

The Minister wouldn't say anything, but her silence confirmed his theory. Aki shook his head, pacing. Perhaps that was the reason why Anura didn't know she was part of the Contest until the very day of it. Her family purposely kept that from her and the rest of the galaxy so there wouldn't be a protest. All the while she must have been fed orders to train a Nimba contestant in order to accomplish two things: to ready herself for the contest, and train a younger possible winner. It was chance that Anura picked him to train and put them together in the Contest. The Contest on their end was played out like he thought, but behind the scenes the gamble was placed on Nimba to win so they could have a power-couple wedding.

"Oh it must of killed you when Anura and I killed those two Nimba girls." Aki shook his head, trying not to laugh at the insanity of it all. "Suddenly it was just down to us. You only lucked out because Wahco and Tyro turned on each other."

"Enough. All that is irrelevant now. This alliance needs to happen regardless of what you think. Get on with the ceremony."

"No way!" Kahwool clearly had not understood most of what was going on, but knew she was being used. "This really sucks, Olma!"

"We don't have time for this, get married or by the Goddess I'll be forced to do something you'll regret."

"You can't make us!" Kahwool shook her head.

But she could. Dragged into the temple were two young girls. Aki didn't recognize one of them, he knew the other one was. Hana was in her Mari clothes and being dragged into the room with a guard's hand on her neck and a pistol pointed at her head. The other girl, a pretty looking young Mari, was in the same situation. Kahwool squealed and went to run over to the girl, but the guard pressed her pistol firm to the Mari girl's head, stopping the heiress in her tracks. Hana's frightened eyes looked at Aki, tears flooding them.

"All the cards are on the table now young Terran. Both your concubines will get shot right here and now unless you get married. And if you allow their deaths to happen, my daughter's best friend and your Nimbonian fiancée are next."

"Olma, you can't do this!" Kahwool started to cry.

"Shut up you spoiled little brat. Get in front of the priestess right now!"

Kahwool, defeated did as she was told. Her whole body was quivering.

The Minister narrowed her eyes at Aki. "You too."

He had no choice. He couldn't remember how the alien ceremony went. Kahwool and the two concubines were crying, that's all he knew. He did what he was told and just repeated thing priestess said, or else duplicated movements the priestess told him to do. The ceremony went in a sort of haze, then ended. After both he and Kahwool signed some document, the Minister and her guard just left the four of them in the temple. Kahwool immediately ran to her concubine and sobbed into her shoulder.

Aki walked over to Hana, who was wiping her eyes with the side of her arm. He embraced her as well. It took less time to calm her down than it did the two Mari. Hana was more confused than she was scared. Well, not that a gun wasn't pointed at her head didn't rattle her. She was confused about everything, so he explained what had been going on. When he did so, he realized both the Mari concubine and Kahwool were listening to the explanation. Obviously he was the only one who figured out the whole reason behind the secret wedding.

"They don't need to have the celebration anymore. But they'll still have it. They want someone to cause an incident at the wedding so they have an excuse to go to war." Aki finished up the explanation.

"This can't be happening." Kahwool's concubine shook her head.

"If that's the case… you and what's-her-face might die." Hana looked worried.

Aki nodded. If one or both of them died, the better. Aki was a hero, Kahwool was an innocent. War would rise to the public's lips before the government even mentioned it.

"That's not going to happen. If Olma wants to start a war, let her start one on her own. I'm not going to that ceremony." Kahwool stood up, tearing off the veil on her face with disgust. "Aki… let's get out of here We'll get on my private ship and just leave."

Hana looked shocked. "We're going to run?"

Kahwool nodded, still looking shaken, but firm in her decision. "I don't want my death to be the cause of a war. I just want to be… to be happy. So lets go. My people won't kill us, they need the Tyrian to do that. We can escape and go somewhere safe."

"Where would be a safe place?" Aki asked. "We can't go back to Earth, they have no defenses."

"We go some place that they'd never look for us." Kahwool said. "Trust me, I know where to go. We should go right now."But what about her fiancée?" The concubine asked, pointed to Aki.

He wondered about Lani as well. No doubt she was being held by guards should the wedding plans not go according to plan. He'd have no way of finding her, even if she was released by now. Still Lani would be protected because she was part of the Nimbonian military and engaged to him. He knew that if he didn't go along with the wedding and had killed the concubines, they didn't have political backing to kill a Major in the Nimbonian military. That was a bluff. Lani would be safe if they left.

"We can't take her." Aki felt horrible for saying it. "We have to go tonight!"

"Oh no… Lani-chan." Hana whimpered sadly.

"Come. We better go before Olma decides she messed up by leaving us alone." Kahwool shook her head, trying not to cry again.