Star Rebellion (27 page)

Lightstar was still being trigger happy about the demons that were skirting around the car, but it seemed like everyone had taken out almost all of the demons, which resulted in Cerberus pretty much being walled in on all sides by bodies.

Yea, that wasn’t a pretty sight.

Firestar came over to help us. “I think I’m gunna need some more brandy,” he joked as he took my bag and loaded it into a storage compartment. His clothes seemed stiff with the blood already.

“Should I drive?” I asked cautiously.

“That’d probably be a good idea.” He grimaced as he let his arms back down.

I nodded and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Give me a crash course,” I said as he took the seat behind me.

Fire swiftly pointed out the gas and brake, and explained just how sensitive Cerberus was to the first. He told me to ignore the array of buttons to the side of the steering wheel, saying we probably didn’t want to know half the stuff Ice had tricked the car out with. I nodded and put my hands on the wheel of the car. It obviously wasn’t my first time driving, but still, this was an Icestar produced car, that in itself was pretty nerve-wracking.

Once everyone had gotten settled back into their seats, I pulled the start lever and Cerberus roared to life, as if it was itching to drive again.

It was tricky trying to maneuver the car over the pile of dead bodies, though the spikes that Icestar had attached along the wheels definitely helped big time.

Chapter 15: Glow in the Dark

DARKSTAR

The drive back was very uneventful. Like even more than the drive there. I think there was a total of maybe two demons that were stupid enough to get close, but if the glowing red eyes in the distance meant anything, they definitely weren’t done with us yet.

A messenger was waiting for us in the mess hall. “Arctic wants you back in the conference room from before immediately; leave the unloading to other people.”

And sure enough, there was also a team of pre-teens waiting to unload Cerberus. Waterstar made sure that they knew not to set off a grenade, but she could’ve been nicer about it. She’s just a tad obsessed with the safety of her weapons.

Arctic and Ares were both at the map still when we got there, and Vlad was flipping through pages in a binder rather quickly, only pausing to scratch something down on a notebook to his left.

“We’re back,” Water said in a sing-song voice as we entered the room.

“How’d it go?” Ares asked while Arctic stayed focused on the map. There was a stunning lack of sticky notes on the right side of it now.

“Not too shabby. We learned that the demons are very attracted to Cerberus, and that Water was itching for an excuse to use a hand grenade the entire time we were there.” Fire put in jokingly, messing up Water’s hair at the end. She smacked him. Again.

“I was by myself, and there were two demons. What else was I supposed to do? Scream like a little girl?” Water crossed her arms over her chest defensively and I had to hold back a smile.

“That’s what most girls your age would do,” I put in. She glared at me and raised an eyebrow; Water had never been like most girls.

“Glad that things went well on your end, but how much weaponry were you able to transport back?” Ares ran his hand through his hair, which looked like that had already been done quite a few times. I wondered it was a nervous tendency of his. If so, what was he nervous about?

“Yea, we got two bags of ammo for AK-47s along with spare guns, probably close to thirtyish hand grenades, more machine gun ammo, but no physical guns for it, and then a decent array of handguns and short blades.” Water ran down the list, using her fingers to count out everything that we managed to procure.

“How much is left?”

Water shrugged. “Not sure; we were able to clear out the room, though some of the stuff did get messed up in the grenade fight. I believe it was also a smaller room, but was closest to our entrance. The armory where we had gotten the stuff our first time around was much larger, and had more assorted equipment. I think this one was just a restock room.”

Ares nodded his head once, and then looked back at Arctic. “I wish I could say things have been going as well on our side, but it doesn’t seem like it. There’s a bit of an issue on Earth.”

“Did more demons come?” Fire stepped forward, as if he could jump through the map and go kick some demon ass.

“Not necessarily; the demons from Seoul, here in South Korea,” he pointed at a small country on the top right side of the map, “and from various places in China,” he dragged his finger along the coastline of a much larger country, “have started forming packs, which isn’t uncommon, but not the easiest thing for demons. They don’t like sharing anything, and often get into fights. Anyways, these packs have started moving further inland, and with it being summer in the northern hemisphere, that’s where Korea and China are, it’s not too cold in the north for them.

“There’s another country up in the far north, what’s called a first world country like China and South Korea, which means that they have resources and can more or less fend for themselves. Russia spans from here to here.” Ares dodged around Arctic and moved his hand from close to South Korea all the way over to the other ocean, stopping right before a group of peninsulas.

“That’s one country?” Waterstar asked.

“Yup, probably the largest land mass of one, though the Asian border side, the side near China, is less populated, except on the coast. It’s a wasteland called Siberia over there; really hard to survive in.”

“So, what’s the issue with Russia?” I asked, not seeing a problem yet.

“They’ve threatened to launch nuclear missiles at both South Korea and China, namely the cities where large demon populations are. When Russians feel threatened, they take measures against it, and aren’t afraid to do so either.”

“Well, this is Earth though, right? These ‘first world countries’ they can take measures against things like this, can’t they?” Fire asked.

“In normal conditions, yes they could. Since they have been trying to keep demons at bay for two days now, and the machines that are able to keep back missiles are in more desolate areas, the demons have already taken out chunks and have made them non-commissionable, according to my associate in Italy.”

“How does this involve us?” Forest asked. I could tell by the slant of his eyes that he was seriously considering all of this. He had a point; Earth politics had never involved us unless it came to them wanting to come back here. We didn’t trade anything important between the worlds since the Rebellion had been able to make harvestable land a couple of decades back.

Arctic finally turned away from the map, where he had drawn a few lines crisscrossing along it. “A few ways, actually. Firstly, Ares thinks it might be possible that the missile will take out large groups of demons initially, but after the explosion, the demons will be able to thrive on the radiation that comes from nuclear warfare. Secondly, one of our portals opens up into Beijing, one of the places in China that missiles are aimed at. That means the radiation might film through the portal and onto Calsh, which it would either way, but in a higher concentration than normal with a direct route.

“And finally, it would cause complications that would bring Calsh into, since all of humanity is fighting the demons. As soon as the demons are eliminated enough that China could spare some troops to fight against Russia, they will. The United States, a strong ally of South Korea, has assured me that they will try their best to negotiate with them to not start war with Russia until the demon problem is completely under control, but it would be much harder to hold China to a similar agreement. As I was saying early, that once we get our resources here secured and the demon population manageable, or at least in the surrounding area, we were going to send about half of our forces to Earth. If two large world powers are caught up in a war, then that would be putting our citizens at an even greater risk, which isn’t something I’m keen to do.”

Arctic folded his hands and looked around at use expectantly. I think only Forest and I understood everything, what with our background in politics and such. I turned to my other teammates, “Basically, it will indirectly affect us by them trying to fight two front wars, one against demons, and one against each other.”

“Not to mention Russia has been itching to make people glow in the dark since their Cold War,” Foreststar interjected.

“Glow in the dark?” Water asked, looking a tad on the mischievous side.

“Something that radiation does. And no, you are
not
allowed to experiment with nuclear weapons,” Arctic put in quickly before glaring at Forest who merely shrugged.

“Hmph, fine. Then what’s the plan?” Water asked, crossing her arms.

“Well, a few things will happen on Calsh first, but then we’ll send you, Darkstar, and Firestar up to Earth. The Russians haven’t launched any missiles yet; they had merely sent a message to Seoul and Beijing to evacuate if they could and warning them of what they were doing. What you three, plus Ice, will do is first two of you will go through the St. Petersburg portal and get an audience with Moscow, calling him Mister Moscow will be appropriate enough, Calshians have never used their proper names. You will ask him to please go to the Vatican first and foremost, while the other two requests the same thing from Mister Beijing, and you’ll enter the Beijing portal. While you four are on Earth, Vlad, Forest, and Ares will go through the Rome then Divine portals and try to get a conference with the Council of Angels, hopefully to get them to agree with helping humanity. If that doesn’t work, then I will have to take a different approach to the meeting at the Vatican. If they do agree, though, then we will simply be indebted to the Divine and humanity will live to see another day.”

Arctic sat down and tented his fingers once more. I spoke up first, “Do you have a specific thought for who should go to which country?”

Arctic nodded his head. “Ultimately it is up to you to decided, but I suggest that you and Fire go to St. Petersburg while Icestar and Waterstar go to Beijing.”

“Why?” Waterstar asked immediately.

The corner of Arctic’s mouth tipped up. “You and Fire are a destructive pair, and I think that Moscow will take more persuading to not attack, while China has the larger demon population, so if necessary, yours and Ice’s expertise in fighting may be useful to them, if he accepts the help.”

I nodded my head in consent. Persuasion. I could do that quite well. “How soon do you need them in Italy?”

Ares spoke up this time. “No later than midnight of Saturday, which is today, Vatican local time.”

“What time is it there now?” Forest asked, finally speaking up again.

“They’re quite a few hours behind us, so three in the morning. Be careful, St. Petersburg is two hours ahead of them, while Beijing is ten hours ahead. So it's five am and one pm, respectively.”

“Got it. What do you need done first on Calsh?”

“Nothing, go to Icestar in the infirmary, you can leave once he is ready. I’ll stay here and get everyone else situated and under control; I’m planning on some raids to our natural gas fields soon where I’ll set up an outpost, and from there it’ll go onto the harvesting land. I’ll go through the Rome portal by ten o’clock their time. Vlad, Ares, and Forest, please try to send at least one of you there to meet me and give me an update and what the verdict is with the Divine, no, I’ll stay Earthbound.”Arctic added the last part as Ares started to say something. Instead, the dark haired man simply nodded. “We will meet in Vatican City, in front of the Pope’s lodging.”

We were just heading out when Arctic spoke once more. “Water, please stay behind a moment.”

We all looked at Waterstar, but she obviously had no clue what was going on. She shrugged her shoulders and stayed in as the rest of us left from the room. We all crowded along the doorframe to try and hear what was going on. I heard Maegan's name brought up a few times, along with a defensive, unintelligible statement from Waterstar. As Water was opening the door to leave, we all backed away to make it seem like we hadn't been eavesdropping. Arctic's voice carried out after her. “Remember, any more offensive instances and we'll have to decide on something.”

“Alright teams! Let’s set out! Oh! That’s what we should do, establish team names again. I doubt Mystic Team will work for us anymore, especially since we have a new member…” Waterstar started rambling on like she usually did, and I mostly tuned her out, contemplating what had happened in the room with Arctic.

The walk to the infirmary was spent with her having a one sided debate on if we should be team demon killers or team purge. Fire and I both kept quiet; it was best not to encourage her at times like this, else she’d manage to go on for hours.

I knocked on the door, my knuckles rapping against the templar’s cross.

The same nurse from before opened the door and at first I was surprised, but then I remembered it had actually been quite a while since we were last here. “Is Icestar…?”

“Yes, right this way,” she opened the door a bit further and we followed her down the row of beds that made up the main infirmary; there were ten beds, but only a few of them held patients that had required intensive care. Ice’s was at the far end.

The nurse briefly checked all of the monitors that were surrounding Ice before leaving us. Waterstar walked up to the head of Ice’s bed and poked him in the cheek, as if it was the most natural thing to do.