The One That Got Away

[Sonja]

Five days ago...

Sonja was standing in a large room, lonely and afraid. Biting her lip, she stared at the double bed, or rather, what lay on it. It was her Star Of Terra medal. The one she had given to Ivan on the day they married.

She was just staring at the bed, an unending flow of tears falling down her cheeks. Her eyes were open, no sound escaped her throat.

Her head dipped down, Sonja pulling the locket that Ivan had given her in exchange. The picture on the first side, showed Ivan's family. The second, showed him as a toddler, being held by his family. It was all Ivan had had to remember his family, and he had given it to her.

Sonja had no idea what to do. She had no idea where he had gone, what had happened. As far as she could remember, Ivan had been detained for psychological reasons. She knew in her mind, this simply wasn't true. Ivan wasn't crazy or unstable... There had to be something more...

Four days ago...

"Suicide!? But.. but how! Why...?" Screamed Sonja as she read the letter addressed to her. A death note.

Married a scant four weeks earlier, how could this have happened? Nothing was going wrong, everything was fine. Or at least, it should have been fine.

As tears had started to fall on the letter in front of her, the Verde alarms sounded, and a rumble shook the station. To distraught to care, Sonja completely missed the battle razor shots streaming from the hangar deck of the installation, thereby missing a Corsair gunboat with the markings The Kerensky's Honour hastily engaging cruise engines.

With all the bustle around her, she stood out like a sore thumb.

The shock was unbearable.

Three days ago

All the messages she had received, from command, from her peers, since the day before had been deleted. She didn't even listen to them, too busy wallowing in her loss. She had been trying to supervise the repairs to Verde, but she honestly couldn't care less. Her mind kept wondering, and she displayed great weakness to those around her. Whispers were passed quickly among the residents of Verde, and soon most of the population knew what had happened.

This was too much.

When she was returning to her room, head hung low, her comm device bleeped again. She picked it off her belt subconsciously. About to delete the message, she accidentally touched the "display message" button. As she had realized her mistake, she decided to read it. After all, it couldn't hurt just to read one small message, could it?

=================================

The message had been read, and Sonja again stood like a statue, in shock at the words on her communication unit.

What she had grown up with, what she had believed, what she had fought for and risked her life for, all a lie.

Without further adieu, Sonja immediately made for her fighter, picking up the locket and Star of Terra from her room as she went. As she entered the still heavily damaged hangar bay, she saw her Raven's Talon again. The guns on it, which Ivan had bought her on the day they became engaged. As even more tears welled up in Sonja's eyes, she wiped them away and entered her fighter. Without a word, she started up the engines and flew out of the hole in the station. The dockworkers just gazed at her wake, confused expressions on their faces.