Star Rebellion (2 page)

“So you’re telling me that one third of this ‘elite team’ that you have can possibly put an entire organization of people at risk?” and that was Moscow. I was wondering when he would entire the shenanigan again.

Arctic smiled at him, though his gaze was as frosty as his name. “Not at all. All three of them can do so. This team, though very high functioning, can get into quite some trouble, though that wasn’t what I was referring to with Firestar. Every single person in this building, under my command that is, has an ability, though not completely similar to each other's, that can put everyone else at risk. This ability,” he said before Moscow could protest again, “is not in itself dangerous, though some can be used for dangerous purposes. The reason why it can put us all at risk are the people who would exploit the ability, and I can assure you that none of my members would do something like that, especially not anyone among this team. I have all my faith in this team.

“Now, if you have any more questions, I hope that you will come to me privately to ask them, and if I deem that they are pertinent enough to explain to the entire meeting, I will do so. If you do not have any further questions, then please proceed in signing the paper at the very back of the packet that I had given all of you upon the beginning of this meeting.”

We could hear the Mister Vatican telling the Rome dude that he shouldn’t worry and trust in God’s faith that nothing bad would happen before Darkstar motioned for me to turn the camera off. We had gotten all the information that we had wanted to get.

Darkstar crawled back across the opening of the vent and I let Fire follow him in second this time before I took up the rear. We had quite a few things to talk about once we got back to our rooms.

The journey back to the kitchen was a lot more boring than when we had come through the first time, but that was only to be expected. It was, however, a relief to finally slide out of the vents, even if it had to be craftily done headfirst.

When Dark and Fire were on the floor, I picked up the vent covering from the counter and put it back in place while screwing it on. One of the screws, however, wasn’t fitting in properly so I called out behind me. “Hey, can one of you guys give me a light or something?”

“Sure thing.” The lights flickered on and I was about to say thanks when I realized that the voice was way too deep to be either of my friends.

I shakily turned around to see Gravelstar leaning against the wall next to the lights and door. “Footprints. On. My. Counters!” he shouted before thrusting mops and rags in our hands and placing a sloshing bucket of soapy water on the floor. “Clean. If it isn’t spotless by the time I return, you will wish that you had stayed in your beds like nice little rebels.”

The irony of that sentence wasn’t even funny in this situation, though if I wasn’t scared out of my mind I probably would’ve laughed.

“Nice going Waterstar,” Fire muttered under his breath once Gravel had disappeared.

“Shut up,” I said while flicking water at him.

“Don’t,” Dark said seriously before we could get into an all out cleaning supplies fight.

We both consented with our heads down and I soaked my rag in the water before attacking the counters. You could hardly even see the shoe marks!

I don’t know exactly how long we had been cleaning, but I was really starting to understand the term of ‘elbow grease’ when Gravelstar came back with Arctic close behind. Oh yea, we were in trouble.

I threw a dirty look at Gravelstar before he left. Arctic pulled out a chair at the small island that was used to prep the large amount of food that was required to feed an entire rebellion. Yea, I was stalling my mind from the lecture by pointing out meaningless facts.

“I would ask what you were doing in the vents, but I believe I have a fairly good idea of it already.”

We all had the brains to at least bow our heads and seem as if we regretted our little venture.

“What all did you hear?”

Dark played advocate for us as he leaned against the mop. Slacking in cleaning, too, clever kid. “We got to the vent opening when you started passing out papers, then left when you had sat down and started talking about questions and such.”

“What are your thoughts on it?”

“We haven’t discussed it together yet….”

I spoke up, “We still have our own opinions though.” I glanced at Darkstar. He merely shrugged. “It seems like we can’t do much without the approval of foreigners, and that what we need to do is fairly urgent, almost more urgent than negotiations could allow.”

Arctic nodded his head in consent, and then looked at Firestar.

“I noticed that you said I hadn’t any ability, outside of the thing that everyone here has. Why haven’t you told them about us?”

“I said you didn’t have an ability because I am unsure of what it exactly is. There is something different about you, Firestar, and I believe it has to do with the year you were alone in the Barrens, but that is something to discuss at a more normal time. I haven’t told anyone outside of the Star Rebellion about our special abilities because it would cause quite a disruption on our sister planet. People would decide they want powers similar to us, and the things they would do to you to try and get those powers are horrible. Scientists would be willing to dissect you alive if they thought they could achieve something from it.”

We all nodded in agreement with his explanation; it really was a good reasoning, and from what we had seen in Earth movies, some guys would do almost anything to get what they didn’t have, which was kind of scary when you thought about it. I was curious about Firestar's time in the Barrens though. He didn't remember much about it, but when he was around four years old, he was found by himself in the dead landscape that was just past the villages that cooperated with Star Rebellion.

“Did you mean it when you said that we were an elite team?” Dark questioned from his side of the kitchen. It almost looked as if the shadows were melding themselves around him.

“Yes. I have full confidence that you could pull off this mission with flying colors. Yes, you have had some mistakes in the past dealing with the concerns of controlling your powers,” he glanced at Firestar, “and the effects that trying to improvise a new plan can have,” this time looking at Darkstar, “and let’s not forget rushing into things head first without any thought or reasoning,” this time he looked at me, “but you have yet to badly fail at any mission we have assigned you, and I doubt this one would be any different.”

We mulled over this in silence for a bit, still robotically cleaning Gravelstar’s kitchen. “Were you being serious about the demons? Like, is there a good chance that that could happen?” I asked the question after I had considered it for a while; he might’ve only said it so that the Earth leaders could get a real taste for how risky this mission could end up as.

“Yes, there is a good chance, but only if you fail. As long as the King of the Underworld doesn’t have a reason to blame humans for the disappearance of his prized pets, then all should be fine.”

“How could he not blame us? Like, obviously it would have to be stealth, but still, who else is to blame besides humans?”

Arctic’s mouth tipped up in a smile. “Demons are interesting creatures, and easily turn against each other in times of self preservation. As long as none of them see you sneaking them out, which if everything can go as planned, that won’t happen, then they will simply blame some other demon to make sure that their King doesn’t plan on torturing them.” The way he spoke of the demon’s King torturing them so lightly made chills run up my spin. Apparently that wasn’t uncommon in the Underworld, but of course! Torture should be common where everything evil resides. Damn logic is right again.

“When will this mission start?” Dark asked. He would be the one trying to get the intel, so it was definitely him who would be starting first. Fire had the easy part of being used for facts and strategy as we went along, and I was the weapons master. We weren’t needed until later.

“Tomorrow, though you won’t be going to the Underworld for some time, I think. It all depends on how quickly you could get the information from the other side.”

“Yes sir.” Darkstar nodded his head once before becoming silent for the rest of the time that Arctic was there.

Fire and I drilled him with a few more questions on strategy and weapon usage before he finally left, after saying that we were released from our kitchen duty because he thought that the kitchen was now sparkling enough, and if Gravelstar had an issue with it, then Arctic didn’t know what else would please the man.

As we were heading back to our rooms, Dark questioned us. “Do you guys think we should go through with this mission? You know that it is always possible for us to back out. It’s one of the pacts for being in Star Rebellion.”

“’Course we should! We’ve only been doing serious mission for just over a year with the Rebellion and we're already one of the best!” That was Firestar, being loyal to Arctic’s word as usual, along with slightly egotistical. But here, when you can brag about something, that means a lot.

“Or Arctic at least thinks we have what it takes to be the finest. You heard what he said; he doesn’t know how soon we would actually be going into the Underworld. It could be years from now for all we know.”

Fire rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. If it was possible, he was even more stubborn than I was.

“We’ll just have to trust him,” Fire said as he unlocked our room door and entered. We all crashed onto the beds in exhaustion.

Now that I look back on this day, I realize just how innocent we had been at the time. Two years and a month marks the day since this happened, and boy did we improve. I mean, I’m a solid seventeen years old, making me at least an adult now.

CHAPTER 1: Discovery

DARKSTAR

“He’s an imposter! A spy for the Star Rebellion!” A raspy voice shouted out.

I didn’t even look back at the New Order of the Perfect Calsh World official. You see that really long title? Back at headquarters we just say NOPCW; it makes it a lot easier. But this wasn’t the first time someone had suspected me. I counted to five and right on mark another official spoke up.

“Hardly! That’s our best field reporter, Jacob. He’s as much part of Star Rebellion as the commander is. Take this guy out of my sight; he needs a new medical program.”

Every NOPCW place I’ve been to had at least one person who was smart enough to be suspicious of me. Of course they should be. Jacob stood for Junior Apprentice Collector of Basic-info. It had taken a while for Arctic to come up with an acronym for that ridiculous name. I didn’t really care for it, but on this side of the world you needed normal names, plus if I went by my real name, Darkstar, it’d be a dead give-away that I’m with Star Rebellion. Even these thick-headed idiots could figure that out.

What exactly is Star Rebellion? To be obvious, it’s a rebellion. We fight against an injustice, as all rebellions have. In my opinion, we’re a bit slow about it. We try to be fair and we want to use the Mystic Animals, which make Calsh a livable place for non-mutants, I’ll get to that delightful explanation, equally for everyone. The NOPCW is our only real enemy, to be honest. They are nasty though, and yea, we go to extremes at times in trying to fulfill our cause, but they are even worse. Just imagine the capitalists on your planet, then multiply that by evil. Their only interest in Calsh anymore is to farm it for resources, turning the planet solely into an investment versus a place to live and prosper. And yea, if they had just stuck to the areas that no one wanted to live anyways and had left us natives alone, then sure, we’d be fine. Instead, they tried to get us to move
and
impose themselves as our governing force. Long story short, we didn’t like that. If you want the full story, go check out a book in library about Calshian history. I’m sure one exists. In case you didn’t know, Calsh is this planet connected to Earth through some fancy wormholes. We get all the pollution and smog that would otherwise have killed
your
planet by now. Makes you want to rethink throwing a gum wrapper on the ground, now doesn’t it?

Now that we’re done with that delightfully informative sequence, let’s visit how my life is about to get really brilliant. I turned the corner and walked straight into the brilliance. Really, it was just a person. Not good, but because of my training two things happened. One, I didn’t fall off balance or get knocked around like some bozo would, and two, I almost nailed this person in the jaw, that was, until I saw who it was.

I’d seen her around Star Rebellion’s public headquarters before. She was an ambassador for the NOPCW…I think. Instead of punching her, I moved my arm enough so that I caught her as she fell.

“Oh my,” well, I almost said Angels but that would’ve blown my cover. Of course I didn’t believe in religion, but these uptight freaks didn’t allow slang. Mental eye-roll. So instead I continued, “Are you alright? I’m so sorry that I ran into you.” In the NOPCW guys are always way polite to the chicks. Manners are so annoying.

“Oh no, really it’s my fault. Chelsea warned me if I kept running around here this would happen,” the girl said as she balanced herself. “Hi, I’m Maegan, Ambassador of the NOPCW.” Maegan said, sticking out her hand and giving me a wide, white smile.

              “I’m Jacob, NOPCW’s field reporter. I think I’ve gone with you once to the Star Rebellion’s headquarters,” I said, shaking her hand.