Star Rebellion (23 page)

Remembering something from what seemed like ages ago, I yelled over the music to be heard. “What is up with your hairstyle?”

Forest looked over at me and grinned with only one side of his mouth. He turned his music down enough so that we could comfortably speak. “I got the idea from some Japanese bands that I listen to at times. One of the bassists has his hair in this style, short in the back and then the bangs spiking forward. Then I just go the bangs streaked green in customary Rebellion fashion.” He motioned over to one of the posters on the wall, and sure enough there was a man who had the same hairstyle, except his was blond with a little bit of black.

I nodded my head. “That's pretty awesome. Do you have to gel it?”

Foreststar legitly burst out laughing. “Of course I do. What do you think keeps it like this? Magic?”

I rolled my eyes and shoved his shoulder before yawning. “I probably need to get going. I swear I am going to crash any second.”

Forest nodded and before turning the music up said, “Don't bash yourself too hard, though a bit wouldn't hurt that arrogance of yours.”

I flipped him off and Foreststar gave a stupid wave by wiggling his fingers. I walked out the door and by the time I was at the end of the hall, there was a heavy bass line blaring from his room again. The tract sounded vaguely familiar this time.

Instead of going back to my room where Dark and Water were, I wandered aimlessly through the halls. I was tired, but restless, which was mostly the reason that I had left Forest's room. Even though he was pretty chill, I didn't want to stay standing around. In an antechamber near the mess hall, there were rows of cots on floor, most of them filled by wounded people. I’d estimated close to a hundred had been wounded on the initial fight with the demons. From what I could tell, there weren’t many people who didn’t look like fighters there. The Rebellion was composed of around five thousand people, give or take a few hundred, but not many of those were fighters. Or experienced fighters at least. A hundred men out is a big deal. Currently, there were more fighters below the age of twenty-five than above it, which was more or less common, but that also meant that there weren't many experience fighters. People either died or lost their young feeling of invincibility and transferred to another department in the Rebellion when they hit their mid-twenties crisis.

As I wandered around, my mind was filled with a mix of my own thoughts and then my power visions. One second I was remembering Sunstar’s grip on my arm as she was being pulled away in the Shadowlands, the next I saw towering skyscrapers lit by a blood red dawn, plumes of smoke lazily drifting on an almost nonexistent breeze. Calsh didn’t have skyscrapers. I thought back to when Arctic had mentioned how populated Earth cities were being target, and I wondered if this was one of the ones he listed, or if it was a more minor city. One day I wanted to go climb one of those skyscrapers. I don't mean take the stairs to the top, I mean scale the side of the building and hope to hell I don't fall.

I finally came full circle back to my room and saw that the door was cracked open. It wasn’t exactly unusual, especially since I was still out. They’d probably left it open for me, even though I had been gone for a few hours.

I stepped inside, but left the lights off in case my teammates were asleep. I pulled my shirt off and fell onto my bunk and closed my eyes, listening to the night sounds. The whirring of Rebellion generators, the buzz of the security lights outside, the slow dripping sound of liquid falling into a puddle.

I had almost slipped into sleep when it occurred to me that nothing normally dripped. There weren’t faucets or any plumbing in the room, and it sounded different than the torrent of rain outside. I sat back up in bed and squinted to try and see better in the dark room. Dark was sprawled across his bed with an arm hanging over the side like he normally would, but Water’s was empty; the blue covers were pulled back as if she had been there recently.

“Darkstar?” I whispered.

He didn’t move. That was highly unusual.

I sprung out of bed and slammed my hand against the wall switch next to the door. Glaringly bright light made me squint once again, but I could see a dark splotch on the ground near my friend’s bed.

“Dark?” I said louder this time, hesitantly creeping over to his bed.

The splotch was blood; I could see the deep red color as it streamed further and further from the puddle. It was flowing down Dark’s arm slowly, its origin was somewhere inside his shirt.

“Crap,” I muttered as I slung my friend over one shoulder, trying to avoid stepping in the blood with my bare feet. I half carried, half dragged Dark down the hall toward the cots near the mess hall. I was shouting for help, but no one was coming. Our section must have been on the scouting shift this time around.

I staggered into the main hallway intersection that led to both Forest’s room and the makeshift infirmary. My vision was getting blurry and I was stumbling down the hall. Dark’s blood had coated my back and soaked through the bandages some medics had used to cover up scratches from when Ice and Forest blew up the staircase. It felt like it was burning my skin, absorbing my energy.

“Help!” I shouted again, my voice cracking on the single syllable. I made it a few more steps before falling into the wall and slipping to the floor. I heard my head thud against the hard ground, but I didn’t actually feel anything. The last thing I saw was someone rushing down the hall toward me, their black hair stained even darker in areas. As my eyes closed, I could’ve sworn I saw white wings unfurl behind him.

FORESTSTAR

I ran down the hall, following the sound of Firestar’s voice. My stereo had been between songs when I had heard his shouts, and I had almost mistaken them for the intro to another one of my heavy rock songs.

I turned sharply around the corner to the main intersection and saw Vatican leaning over Fire. I halted immediately and stepped back out of sight, leaning around the corner to watch what was happening. I was unsure if the man had seen me or not, and if he was what Fire had been yelling for help about.

As Vatican shifted Fire onto his back, I saw that Dark was also on the floor, blood weeping from some hidden wound, showing up in bright contrast on the white floors.

I quickly ran through a mental assessment of the situation. If the Vatican was an enemy, then he had been able to fool Arctic along with taking down what I believed to be two of the stronger members in the rebellion. But if he truly was on our side, then I was pointlessly standing behind a wall when I could be helping him get Fire and Dark to the infirmary, which they clearly needed. The latter also meant that there was some other enemy loose within the halls of the Rebellion, which definitely was not encouraging with the current situation. If he had been the Vatican I had been ambassador too, then this situation would be completely different. Then again, that Vatican had been practically useless.

I stepped out from behind the corner. I trusted Arctic’s judgment of this man. “Can I help?” my voice sounded eerie in the otherwise silent halls.

Vatican turned around nimbly, somehow managing to keep Firestar on his back. He relaxed slightly as he recognized me, but I could tell that he was still tensed. Vatican didn’t trust me completely either. That could be both good and bad.

“Can you carry Darkstar? I heard Fire shouting, and when I came running down the hall, he collapsed.”

I nodded once and slid one of Dark’s arms across my back before heaving him all the way on. I never realized just how much muscle this guy carried on his slim figure. I admit, I was jealous.

I followed Vatican’s lead, but we weren’t going to the infirmary. Instead, from what I could tell, we were going in the direction to the mess hall, which was one of the main ways to get outside. Maybe I should’ve gone to Arctic first.

Just before we reached the mess hall, Vatican turned into a doorway to the right. I followed him and was surprised to see a line of pallets in one of the Rebellion’s antechambers. Only a small portion of them were filled, and from what I could see, none were seriously injured.

When a nurse finally saw us, she rushed over and directed us to the blanketed pallets that were at the end of a row of patients. I more or less let Dark fall to the pallet on the floor; my shoulder was numb to the bone, something I hadn’t realized until Dark’s weight was gone.

I pressed my hand to my shoulder to try and massage the feeling back in when I felt how damp my shirt was. I pulled my hand away quickly and saw it stained with blood. Was that the cause of the numbness? How would blood make me numb though? I knew some of it was mine from the cut I had previously, but that hadn’t been anything major.

Someone pushed me toward another pallet and said sit. I turned to see Vatican looking at me in concern.

“Remove your shirt also, and wipe the blood on your hand off on it. I think it might be toxic; it’s all over Firestar too.” The man left to go talk to the nurse and I removed my shirt as directed. The stained portion of fabric was as stiff as a wooden board and was difficult to take off.

A second nurse came over to me. She had a pretty smile and her hair was mostly an iridescent blue, with thin black streaks. She had taken the dying of hair pretty liberally. “Hello, my name is Ulyssesstar,” she said, gently shaking my hand.

“What’s a Ulysses?” I asked, confused. I had thought that all star names were placed after something in nature.

“A type of butterfly, they have blue wings. I understand your confusion though. Alright, so Foreststar right?” I nodded once. “I will be taking care of you today, the man over there said that you were having issues with your shoulder?”

I nodded again. “He thinks the blood is toxic.” I turned slightly so that she could see my back more clearly.

“Is it yours?”

I shook my head. “Mostly not.”

“Then who’s?”

I looked over to where Darkstar was lying. She followed my gaze and when she looked back at me, I saw pity in her eyes. That was really starting to annoy me, how all the girls in the medic field looked at fighters with pity, as if their lives were terrible. I mean, I technically wasn’t even a fighter.

“So that’s why you aren’t one for words right now. Don’t worry, the doctor here is excellent, I’m sure your friends will be fine.”

I looked away from her, annoyed still. I'm only 'one for words' when it is someone who I value the intelligence of. She sighed before grabbing some wipes from a trolley and cleaning up my shoulder. “These wipes are soaked in rubbing alcohol and brandy. They’re things from Earth that should help bring the blood flow back to your shoulder if it is just simply numbing, along with cleaning you up.” She giggled a little. She also placed a warm cloth over my shoulder, I assumed it was also to help with blood circulation. “The doctor will come by when he has the time, please don’t leave until then.”

I rolled my eyes as she left. Of course brandy came from Earth. Hell, I had probably brought the containers she was using with me on one of my recent trips.

“What’s with the pissy face?”

I looked up and saw Vatican standing over me. The wordage her used still confused me greatly. I had expected it to be more formal and I-am-in-charge-of-the-Catholic-Church like, but it wasn't. He smiled faintly before sitting next to me and looking over at Ulysses, who had joined a gaggle of girls that were throwing the occasional glances over at my friends and me. Their sentences seemed to be punctuated by giggles.

“Ditzy nurses. That’s why.”

Vatican chuckled. “Not all of them are that way. Some are working quite hard.”

“Really? All I see are full time gossipers and part time nurses.”

“Look at who’s helping the doc with Dark.”

I had to crane my neck around a trolley and some people that were standing to find out who he was talking about. I first saw the lab type coat that the nurses were wearing with the sloppily sewn on Templar's cross, then the blue and blond striped hair. “Water?” I looked around the room a bit more, to see if there were other nurses working. Fortunately, the majority were diligently working on patients. It seemed as if there were only a few girls who weren’t taking it seriously while their male, and female, counterparts worked.

“Yes, among other, more experienced nurses. She was adamant that she would help. Apparently she got restless at some point in the night and had gone out looking for Fire, then came across this area. They had been short staffed at the moment, so they gladly accepted her help.”

“What exactly is this area?” I asked, as people started shouting around us. Someone’s condition had escalated and they were getting him transported to the infirmary, probably the same as Ice.

“It’s a minor infirmary; the major cases who need immediate attention, like Icestar for example, are sent to the infirmary that the Rebellion has always had. The rest of the patients are sent here for minor things. The doctor who’s with Fire right now is an expert on demon wounds, or well, as expert as you can get in the short time.”

There was something about how Vatican had hastily added the last part that added to my doubt about him. “And how do you know this? Aren’t you more or less new here?”

“The gossipers told me.” He smiled and waved as a few of the girls looked over. They quickly looked away and giggled with the rest of the group.

I leaned back against the wall behind me, watching the proceedings as they happened. People came and went frequently; it seemed like most of the injuries that were coming in the nurses could fix with basic wrappings.