Star Rebellion (40 page)

              Real boring.

              I sighed again and looked in front of me, hoping that someone had appeared in the hallway I was walking down while I had let my mind wander. Nope, still no one there. They should tighten security here.

              I looked at my watch. Almost five o’clock, that wasn’t good. I had spent three hours here already, which kind of surprised me. I guess it had taken longer to move across all of those buildings and fight the guys earlier. Who would’ve known?

              I kept walking at a pretty even pace. I wasn’t even trying to be stealthy anymore, though I didn’t feel like hurrying. I’ve ran headlong into fights before, and it wasn’t anything I had enjoyed. Last time I did that, I had been swatted like a fly by Lucifer. Damn had that been a pain in the ass.

              I wondered if he actually was dead. I mean, the guy had been revered like a god, and shouldn’t it be next to impossible to kill a god? I mean, we technically didn’t kill him. Vladimir did. We had all been knocked unconscious, thanks to Ice and I, but according to Kuro we had managed to paralyze Lucifer, that had to count for something, right?

              I turned another corner and met the stairwell. Guess I should start going down again now. I hope they hadn’t had a chance to move Darkstar and Erik anywhere else. I did not feel like searching through this entire building, nor did I think I could within the necessary time frame.

              Three hours.

              Three hours to get them out, make sure we weren’t followed, collect Mr. Beijing, and get on a plane to Rome.

              My fists clenched briefly before I kicked the door open. Someone on the other side stumbled backwards and the door shut itself once more from the force of the rebound. Immediately I had a pistol in hand. I would edge the door open slowly this time.

              The guy on the other side was covering his nose with both hands and swearing around the blood that was seeping between his fingers. At least found someone else in this freaking building. Took me long enough.

              Another few minutes passed by before the guy had enough sense to look up at me, and then realize I wasn’t part of the terrorists. He started speaking in fast paced Russian and I shook my head. I motioned with the gun at him and he shut up.

              Some things were just a universal signal.

              “Where is your boss?” I asked slowly and clearly, probably enunciating the words more than I ever had in my life. Hopefully he could speak English.

              The guy looked at me blankly and worriedly. Apparently not.

              I sighed. How the hell was I going to charade a terrorists boss?

              At first I thought of a few different techniques I could try, but shook my head after discarding them. I wasn’t going to act a fool during this.

              I took a step closer and the man looked down the stairwell. Maybe there were other members further down, I thought almost hopefully. This guy wasn’t too entertaining; I mean, he wasn’t even reaching for a weapon. Who the hell had trained him?

              I motioned with my gun for him to put his hands up higher and then I riffled through his pockets. I uncovered a few papers and briefly scanned through the handwritten, Russian letters.

              Looks like he was a messenger. I guess I would give him some slack for not trying to fight back. But only a little.

              I shoved he messages into my pocket. I would have Erik translate them later, assuming I could get him and Dark out.

              No. Not if. I would.

              I was feeling merciful at this point and sent a flip kick to the guy's stomach. He double over coughing and I proceeded down the staircase, hoping that mercy didn’t bite me in the ass like it did for most people. I had enough ass biting on my hand right now.

              The stairwell ended at the third floor. It hadn’t helped me progress down that much, which was pretty damn depressing. Two floors did not seem like that much right now, considering the three I had left to rummage through.

              I entered the third floor hallway and looked around. My gun was still in hand, though I was relaxed. I would rely on instinct to take over if someone came charging at me.

              I walked down the hall to my left. The staircase access had been in a corner of two intersecting paths. There wasn’t really a particular reason that I chose left, really, besides the fact that I could see natural light streaming through the windows, as meager as it was. The sun was still a ways away from the horizon, but if I remember the one geography class I had taken a while back, it would stay daylight here for almost twenty hours at this time of the year.

              The hallway eventually dead ended after a few turns, and I hadn’t seen any separate halls during the entire length. I cursed to myself and jogged back to where the staircase was and noticed that the door was slightly ajar. I debated kicking it open when someone behind me coughed.

              I whirled around and took a step back into the hallway that dead ended. I wasn’t keeping my back to any area I hadn’t been, and yea, there were doors behind me, but I would just have to hope people weren’t in them.

              “You are the Englishman?” The cougher was male, probably only a few years older than me, and had surprisingly tan skin for this climate.

              I was, naturally, suspicious of him immediately. It wasn’t like I would find an innocent bystander in the midst of the Russian terrorists headquarters.

              “I’m not English. I speak English.” Natural defense mechanism one: sarcasm.

              The man shook his head, an amused smile lightly lifting the corners of his mouth. “My master hadn’t told me you would be rash.”

              “How is that rash?” I asked with my brows furrowing. This guy was of the breed that normally pisses me off, apparently. Thinks he is better than the world for no solid reason whatsoever. I liked to kill guys like him.

              “You clearly are in the underhand position. If you were smart and cunning, you wouldn’t say anything that could be perceived as rude.”

              I rolled my eyes. He didn’t know what Calshians were made of. “What makes you think I’m in the underhand position?”

              “I have four other men here with me.”             

              I shrugged. “And I took out six others on the roof.”

              His eyes narrowed. I’m sure he already knew this tidbit of information, but I bet he was hoping I wouldn’t bring it up.

              His voice was still level, and I had to give the man credit for being able to keep a pretty solid poker face. “They were vermin. Terrible fighters. My master only put them there because he had doubted that anyone would try something as mental as going through the roof. Apparently he had underestimated his stars.”

              “I’m not his star.” I kind of liked being referred to as a star. Made it seem like we had some grand scheme with destiny going along behind our every step. We became exotic with that name. I just wasn’t this ‘master’s’ star.

              “We’ll see about that. I, by the way, am Dmitri.” I wasn’t given a chance to say anything else. Dmitri lunged forward and I pivoted around, easily dodging his first attack. I knew it wasn’t supposed to be an attack, just a way of testing me. His hands were in the wrong positions for him to actually do anything.

              We kept moving, almost making a dance of this. He would suddenly go forward and I would match him pace for pace. Dmitri increased the speed, but I never fell behind. I didn’t try and take the offensive yet, either. I would see how this all would play out.

              Another reason that I let it keep going this way was because of the foretold other men here. As long as Dmitri believed he was winning, he wouldn’t call for reinforcements. Hand-to-hand combat would be a bit more interesting with five opponents versus gun fighting six.

              I ducked under Dmitri’s first real punch, but hadn’t moved fast enough for the second that came swinging in from the left, catching me in the temple. I retreated back a few steps, angrily glaring at him. Dmitri had predicted the way I would duck, or had fast enough reflexes to react to my movement. I had been told before that only Calshians had those kind of reflexes.

              Either he was smarter than I was giving him credit for, or this guy was not from Earth.

              I took a tentative step forward, then another. Dmitri stayed where he was, his arms calmly folded across his chest. His back was to the stairway door, mine was to the hall I hadn’t been down yet.

              I wasn’t sure who was closer to his back up goons.

              I paused a moment, then burst forward, feinting to right, left, and then kneeing him in the gut. It was a low move, but he hadn’t expected it. The Rebellion hadn’t taught us to fight honorably. It had taught us to survive.

              I retreated back down the hallway that I thought was safest. The dead end hallway, for those of you who had already forgotten, and only a few steps.

              I was honorable enough to let the man catch his breath before we resumed this dance of ours.

              “That was low.” His remark was obvious as he stood back up, one hand still over his stomach.

              “Survival of the fittest.” Yes, we were taught Darwinism on Calsh. That planet is practically the epitome of his theories.

              Dmitri chuckled. “Fair enough, shall we resume?”

              I shook my head. “One, do I even get a choice? Fight you or surrender. Two, can’t I just make my jolly way downstairs, get my friend out of here, and go about my jolly damn business. I’m trying to save the world, your world and mine, from these demons, y’know.”

              Now it wasn’t just a chuckled. Dmitri was fully laughing. “The solution to that is simple enough. Just nuke them all, like the government wants.”

              I glared at him. “You do not know anything about demonology. If you did, then you would know that that solution is highly impractical and impossible. The demons would just multiply by the thousands if we just started firing nukes left and right. Not to mention the mass amounts of radiation it would produce throughout both of our planets.”

              “You speak of both of our planets, and the only one I’m aware of besides mine is Calsh. Are you a Calshian?”

              Crap. These guys were a lot less informed than I had thought. “What the hell makes you think I am of Calsh? There are plenty of planets out there besides those two petty ones.”

              “If Earth is petty, why save it? Earth and Calsh have a direct link to one another, it would make sense that you are from Calsh. I knew that if you weren’t of the Earth then you were definitely of Calsh. You do not need to lie to me.”

              “Why not? Are you going to say something stupid like that you are my friend?” I took a step toward him in mock outrage. I could use this debate to my advantage. I needed to get closer, to be able to attack.

              Dmitri replied likewise and stepped toward me as he continued, fist thrown to a side in emphasis. “Right now, yes! We want similar things. If you would just stop helping the damn government, then we wouldn’t be fighting. Your friends would be safe downstairs!”

              “I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you want. I have my orders, and my orders do not care if you live or die. My orders only care about what they say.”

              “Oh and what is that, pray tell.” Dmitri threw up his hands and paced around before glaring at me, waiting for my reply.

              “You really think I am foolish enough to fall for such a ploy? You really are thicker than I had expected.”

              Natural defense mechanism two: pissing people off so much that they fight like an idiot.

              Dmitri lunged for me again, but this time it was out of rage. Never fight out of rage, you make stupid mistakes.

              I literally stepped toward the side, grabbed his fist as it flew past my ear, used his own momentum to twist his arm around and bring him to his knees.

              “Now who is the fool?” I quietly asked him as I heard the rushed footsteps behind me. I’m sure if I decided to turn around I would see four men with guns aimed at me as I held their leader to the floor on his knees.

              “You,” Dmitri whispered back. He started laughing, and didn’t stop. I looked down at him a bit worried, and hoped he wasn’t contagious.

              I looked over my shoulder at the men standing there. “English?” I asked, not really caring about the reply. All they did was aim their guns even better at me. They were sighting down the barrels, probably about to shoot without a moment’s notice.

              One of my hands was on Dmitri’s shoulder, right next to the pressure point. There’s a reason to actually plan out where you hold a guy to keep him from moving, in case of situations like this.

              I started pressing down on said pressure point while looking the guys with the guns in the eye. It didn’t look like I was doing anything, so they weren’t attacking. Discreteness has its advantages, never doubt that.