To Begin at the Beginning

Posted on Fri May 31, 2013 @ 11:09pm by
Edited on on Sat Jun 1, 2013 @ 10:21am

646 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Refit and Reorganization
Location: Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
Timeline: Backpost

The letter came as a shock. She had three more weeks in her leave time but it seems Time and Starfleet waited for no man--or woman. She was disappointed for she'd gone eight months without seeing her brothers and another year without seeing her parents. Her father Kono was station on some base on Bajor and her mother's ship was in some classified zone no one wanted to talk about. That only meant one, infuriating truth, the USS Duffrain was doing something the Federation as a whole would never approve of. She hated those missions. They made you lie to parents and brothers and breaks everyone's heart.

She shoved a few unmentionables into a smaller bag then added them to the bag she was packing.

This would have been the first time all of them would have been together in years. All of them Ano, Haku, Kano, Aliyani and Aiyan. But no. She had been recalled. In a way Aliyani was jealous of the rest of her family. Haku and Ano would get hugs from their mother. That was the one thing she missed most of all--Aiyan's hugs could cure everything--every heartbreak, every scraped knee, but most importantly every broken heart - that was the crucial one and deserved to be mentioned twice.

Aliyani Kalikona'i shook off her depression. Other than going AWOL there was nothing she could do. They called and she went running like a mindless puppet. But she knew what it would be like when she signed up.

Frustrated, she stuffed another scarf into her bag of delicates and zipped it shut. She leaned out the window with it. "Eh!" she hollered.

Her brother Ano looked up and she dropped the bag at him. He grunted when he caught it and carried it to the front of the house. She knew he was just going to put it. Smiling she went back to packing her actual bag. Ano didn't want her leaving so soon and as much as she agreed with him work was work and it had to be done.

"You're not finished packing yet" Haku barged into the room and climbed to the bed. He sat in the middle of the bed.

"Ever heard of knocking, crap-for-brains?" She laughed.

"I don't know when I'll see you again. I'm milking it."

Aliyani smiled, dropped the shirt she was folding and sat beside him. Resting her head against his shoulder, she inhaled deeply and went silent for a moment before speaking. "I know. With your deployment and Ano's career I don't know how we can still call ourselves family. We rarely see each other and sometimes it breaks my heart. But them's the breaks."

"Dad is trying to find you a husband, you know." Haku laughed softly, his shoulder rose and fell beneath her head. "Said he's afraid you'll die alone on these ships."

"Yeah well, dad doesn't know what he's talking about."

"I worry about you too. You're so beautiful, and talented and..."

"Haku!" Aliyani said in a motherly voice. "Not you too. Don't do this. I feel bad enough as is."

Haku held up both hands as though in surrender. He went silent and Aliyani went back to finishing up packing. When she was finally done, she tossed the bag out the window just as she always did to Ano and finally all three sat on the porch with a beer as the sun went down over the trees of Molokai. She took a long drink and inhaled.

"You know, when I'm abroad these ships, I miss the small things--like real air," Aliyani spoke silently. "I can't wait to get back here. And every time I'm here..."

"The time we have here is never enough," Haku continued for her.

The three clinked their glasses together, and sat back in the beauty of the dying sun and the silence of their companionship.

 

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