Chapter 5 - Akana's Plan

If there was one thing one didn't have to tell a Shakanar warrior twice was an order to kill. Killing was their meat and potatoes, as the Terrans would say. Prolonged torture followed by a slow agonizing death and a host of other crimes provided the spice that made killing that more enjoyable for them. But the taking of human life was, and always would be, the main course in their twisted feast.

The walker fired twice. It was fast, but Aki was faster.

Twice she ducked and twisted, jumping over a low wall and tumbling down into a gully, all the while holding Kir tightly. And now - perhaps because he was now used to it - the same little boy who was so afraid a few moments ago while up in a tree showed strangely little fear as his sister ran for both of their lives.

She ran, crawled, and rolled her way down the gully, desperately trying to evade the walker that was still searching for her. As the gully ended, Akana waited until the death machine had its metal back to her. With the palm of her dirty hand clapped gently over her little brother's mouth, she scarcely breathed as one of the legs of the walker slammed into the side of the ditch beside them, sending clots of dirt rolling over and partially covering them.

She looked up, painfully blinking through the dirt covering her face, realizing with horror that its legs were so tall that she only saw them halfway up before they disappeared into the haze of smoke, ash, and pulverized buildings and people.

Standing up, Aki made a mad dash to a sunken enclosure surrounded by a ring of statues and tall thick bushes. She quickly observed that a long circular bench of the finest marble ran along inside it, forming a circle.

Stopping for a moment to take a breath, Akana now realized that the Shakanar - for their own twisted reasons - were out to kill her and her baby brother. As they both lay down under the marble bench, Akana devised her plan.

And then - with all the cunning of a seasoned Leptonian warrior and the love of a sister for a brother - she put her plan into effect.

Removing her brother's tunic, she ripped some of the branches from the bushes, hastily covering the green bundle with Kir's dirty tunic. She then pushed him deep under the bench and behind one of the wide support columns. She cupped his little face with her hands, and spoke gently to him.

"I want you to stay here and not make a sound until Ma, Deesha, or one of the Amazon ladies comes for you!"

"You mean like - um, hang go seek?" he asked.

Aki smiled in the midst of her terror. "That's right, honey - just like 'hang go seek', only I want you to stay here and not make a sound." She kissed his forehead once, then added, "Now hide your eyes and promise me you won't peek."

"I promise," he added, cupping his hands over his baby face.

"Oh Great Mother," Aki thought with a sickening sensation. "This is just what my grandmother did with my mother when she put her in the air duct, right before she was killed by the Kirlians!"

Pushing the thought firmly from her mind, Aki patted the child's head, relieved that his eyes were covered. Just as Commander Alia Napolipolita hadn't wanted her daughter to see her own ugly and brutal death, Akana had no wish for her baby brother to see what she was sure was about to happen to her.

"Tell Ma and Daddy I love them both, won't you?" She smiled and added, "and the two rugrats as well!"

"I will," he promised, not knowing what the goodbye really meant. How could he? He was only four.

Making sure that he still had his hands over his face, Akana jumped up and ran from where her brother was hiding. When she was twenty or thirty yards clear of him, she stopped - and waited.

She did not wait long.

Within moments, the walker's control center had spun it around and it began to pursue her. She began to move as well, ducking and dodging strafing runs from its cockpit, all the while clutching her brother's tunic, stuffed with leaves from the small bush.

Of course, from a distance, the Shakanar officer looking down upon her mistook the bundle of foliage for the form of Kir Azenath of the House of Napolipolita. She was sure of it.

"I can see the little bastard's green hair," she chuckled to the gunner. "Aim right for the back of the head. Take it off clean, above the eyebrows. Then go for the girl."

"Right between the eyes," the gunnery officer murmured dreamily.

Akana ran down a row of buildings with the walker hard behind her, its giant feet pulverizing holes in the marble roadway large enough in which to drop a fully equipped Amazon war chariot. She soon realized that her Shakanar pursuers were merely playing with her, since they could have blasted her dead a number of times.

But now, the chase was over.

Akana ran into a dead end alley, leaving herself with no place to run or hide.

Determined to die as her mother's daughter, Akana promised herself to make her death something that would make her mother proud. A death, perhaps, worthy of the granddaughter of the martyred Commander Alia Napolipolita, who had not backed down to the Kirlians who had stolen her life and had spilled her blood and had left her ruined body for her terrified little girl to find.

Akana stood tall and defiant before the instrument of her own certain death. She raised her head and looked up.

"I am the child of Alie Saphedris Tuzoia, spice trader of the colony world of Anathasia, and Aysheia Lisia Napolipolita, commanding officer of Her Royal Majesty's Starship Pallas Athena," the girl said, staring into the walker's clear dome at the grinning and ugly faces of the conscienceless women within.

" - And I am not afraid of you!

"Weapons locked on target, Commander!"

Instead of giving the order to fire, the Shakanar leader instead gave the gunner a short barking laugh full of arrogance and disdain. "Why waste a shot? Besides, I can think of a more entertaining way to splatter these two abominations!" She nodded to the driver, who nodded back with full understanding and approval.

With that, the walker raised its massive metal foot above Akana's head.

It paused there for a moment - either for effect, or perhaps so its inhabitants could fully savor the double murder. In any case, the three Shakanar had every intention of sending it down to crush the life out of their prey, leaving nothing of Napolipolita's beloved children but a bloody smear on the cracked marble pavement beneath them.

xxxxxxxx

Still in low orbit, the Shakanar mothership Revenge prepared to unleash its most powerful and deadly broadside upon the island below, when suddenly a streak of red and blue tore its way through the great ship's armored hull.

Screens were raised at once, force fields were instantly reinforced, and the great vessel's emergency bulkhead doors slammed shut. These measures did nothing to stop the mothership's continuous and violent shaking at the hands of the Man of Steel.

"Admiral Chitai! The screens are failing and the ship's keel is in danger of splitting. A few more blows like that, and we'll be helpless!" the helmswoman reported.

The mad Admiral Chitai answered her calmly. "All will be well. I've already planned on this freak's possible intervention." Turning to one of the ship's weapons officers, Chitai ordered, "Fire our little surprise!"

xxxxxxx

Beneath the great ship and in the sky above Themyscira, Diana had taken on a score or more of Shakanar attack craft.

Laser fire and pulsar force beams bounced off her bracelets at incredible speed. She ducked and dodged the missiles fired at her, never stopping in her determination to disable more and more of the alien fighters.

The Shakanar pilots fought with a frenzy even beyond them, for this was The Demon who now faced them. Every Shakanar from the High Desert of Mur Sejanus to the Outer Rim had heard the horror stories of what The Demon had done to their Sisters in the past. Hadn't that prophecy in the Book of Deeds referred to Her, and to Her Coming to plague the Daughters of Gorath Zunda?

In short, even these brutal women were terrified of Diana, Princess of Themyscira. This only added to their blood lust.

Quantity has a quality all its own. No matter how fine a warrior might be, numbers do count. But luck is also a factor, and at this moment in time, Diana's luck had turned against her.

While successfully ducking one missile, she ran headlong into another one directly behind her. The resulting combined explosions even stunned the remarkable Amazon princess known as Wonder Woman.

She began tumbling helplessly back to Earth.

xxxxxxxxx

In the Palace far below her, C-ko had been watching her best friend A-ko as she stared at its solid walls. The Cygnan princess would have had to be blind not to see the worried expression on her face, and perhaps that was the reason she gently placed her hand on A-ko's broad shoulder.

"I know how worried you are. As your friend, I'm telling you - go be with your mother!"

"I can't," A-ko retorted. "I have to stay here and look after my brother and sister and - the rest of you." After a few moments of silence, she turned back to C-ko, fixing her with a glaring look. "Besides that. What makes you think I'm worried?"

C-ko came as close as she ever would to outright exasperation with her friend. "Only you and your father could stare at a blank wall and see just what the hell is really going on! I'm not stupid, you know. And as your friend, I'm asking you now - is your mother all right?"

A-ko's lip quivered. "The more fighters she knocks down, the more there are to take their places. The fact that she's using less than lethal force isn't helping matters any."

"Then go and help her!" C-ko begged.

"But, I - "

"But nothing," C-ko snapped back. "You did your duty to us. Everyone knows that. You have no reason to hang back now! I promise that Biko and I will do everything we can to look after your brother and sister!"

A-ko was silent for a few moments, her pretty face a mask of worry.

"Go on, now," C-ko shouted, stamping her foot. "Leave! Go where you're needed!"

The two best friends exchanged a quick hug.

Within seconds, A-ko Magami had shot down the corridor and out into the bright sunshine.