92: Child of the Stars

Before 2032, the Stardust Girls group represented the absolute peak of global pop culture.

They were an idol band composed of five girls from different countries, each possessing an angelic face and figure.

The leader and lead vocalist was Lin Wei from China; she was poised and dignified, possessing a voice like heavenly music.

Jessica from the United States was the group's main dancer; her long fiery red hair and passionate personality were adored by many.

Anastasia, born in Saint Petersburg, was the band's guitarist. Her image was like an Ice Queen from a movie—cold, aloof, and seemingly unapproachable, but quite a few fans loved exactly that.

There was also Misato Nagashima from Japan and Isabella from Brazil; one was sweet, cute, and full of youthful energy, while the other possessed a wildness that allowed people to appreciate the Samba style.

Their songs and dances were mostly about sweet romances and carefree youth—in short, all that stuff about love and dreams...

In peaceful times, they were like five brilliant stars, weaving a kaleidoscopic dream for young people all over the world.

Their lives were filled with flashing lights, concerts, and the earth-shattering screams of their fans.

Perhaps the biggest worry in their world was how to bring greater surprises to their fans at the next world tour, or what dazzling gown to wear at the Grammy Awards.

At that time, they thought life would continue like this forever, filled with flowers, applause, and illusory bubbles.

Until that day.

It was an ordinary afternoon, and they were in a training room in Los Angeles, filming a dance practice video for their upcoming new album.

When the music came to an abrupt halt, their agent walked in with a grim expression, holding a tablet up in front of them.

On the screen, a CNN anchor was reporting an emergency news bulletin in a solemn tone they had never heard before.

"...The alien fleet has entered the Solar System and engaged the Earth Defense Force. To win this war concerning the survival of Human Civilization, starting today, all member states of the Earth Council will enter a wartime state. All production activities will serve the war effort, and most entertainment activities will be suspended..."

The girls stared blankly at the screen, then at each other's equally panicked expressions, and finally at the California sunshine outside the window that was still dazzlingly bright.

The war had intruded into their lives in such an unreal way.

...

In the early stages of the war, the whole world fell into chaos and panic.

All of the Stardust Girls' performing activities were indefinitely canceled. The company's executives argued endlessly every day about how to transfer assets, but faced with a disaster that would affect the entire globe, they didn't know where to transfer them to, because if the war was lost, there would be no safe place on the entire Earth.

As for them, they were like five canaries trapped in a golden cage, collectively settled in one of the company's mansions in Beverly Hills, watching the world become unfamiliar bit by bit through the internet.

They scrolled through videos, seeing supermarket shelves swept clean, long queues in front of gas stations, those once glamorous politicians on television desperately appealing to the public to stay calm, and also the endless doomsday theories and various bizarre cults on the internet.

For a time, they really thought the end of the world was coming.

The five girls from different countries could only comfort each other in the mansion, spending one sleepless night after another.

The most emotional one, Jessica, often had nightmares at night, dreaming that huge alien warships covered the entire sky, razing the cities they relied on for survival to the ground.

Until the outbreak of the decisive battle at the Moon.

That space battle near the lunar orbit made all of humanity feel the cruelty of war so intuitively.

They remembered that night, they gathered on the villa's terrace with all the company staff, looking up at the night sky that should have been peaceful.

They saw silent flashes like supernova explosions lighting up one after another next to the Moon. Each flash would cause a gasp from those around them.

Everyone knew that each flash could represent a warship full of young soldiers turning into dust in the cold universe.

This war was not unrelated to them.

Jessica's brother served as a captain on a frigate in the First Fleet; every night, she would endure the nearly one-minute delay between Earth and the Moon to have a video call with her brother.

Lin Wei's father was a botanist and one of the maintenance personnel for the ecological cycle system at the Guanghan Palace Base; he sacrificed his life during the rebel fleet's orbital bombardment of the Moon. When the news came that most of the Guanghan Palace Base had been destroyed, the girls saw the usually strong and independent Lin Wei shed tears for the first time.

The relatives or friends of the others were more or less closely linked to this war; it concerned the fate of every one of them.

Until the news of the victory in the decisive battle arrived. That day, the Stardust Girls saw the most beautiful and moving side of the human species.

People of different skin colors hugged, cheered, and cried on the streets all over the world.

Those barriers and prejudices that once existed for various reasons seemed so insignificant in the face of the shared victory.

And as an idol group with huge global influence, they also had the urge for the first time to do something with their singing.

This time, they didn't want to sing those songs about petty love anymore; they wanted to write a song for this great victory, for those sacrificed heroes, and for this civilization of theirs that was reborn in the flames.

After getting the support of the company's leadership, the five girls locked themselves in the recording studio. They stopped thinking about complex choreography or gorgeous styling, and just repeatedly watched and listened to the footage and communication recordings sent back from the front line.

The commander's calm and resolute orders, the pilot's roar of "For humanity" before launching a suicide charge, the cries of joy of the survivors after being rescued by the Saint-class rescue ship...

They repeatedly watched the shocking scene where that silver-white giant ship, descending like a god, used that destructive beam of light to tear open the dawn of victory for humanity.

All emotions, all images, all sounds intertwined and collided in their minds, finally turning into melodies and lyrics.

They named this song "Children of the Stars".

Its melody was no longer as light and sweet as their previous works; it was sometimes low and tragic, as if telling of the cruelty and sacrifice of war, led by the steady voices of Lin Wei and Anastasia.

Sometimes it was high-pitched and passionate, praising humanity's unyielding spirit of resistance, led by the explosive Jessica and Isabella.

And Misato Nagashima's sweet voice interspersed within, representing the dawn of hope and peace.

The lyrics had no romance, no youth, only stars, fleets, artillery fire, and home.

"...We are the children of the stars, born in the blue Cradle,

Once thought the land beneath our feet, was the edge of the world.

Until that strange horn, blew in the silent night sky,

Only then did we realize our insignificance, we were already in the hunting pasture..."

"...The burning warships, are the brightest medals in the night sky,

The lost lives, turned into eternal starlight in the Milky Way.

We use our flesh and blood, to build that final wall,

On the ruins of despair, waiting for the dawn of the morning light..."

"...Look! That light tearing through the darkness! It is an arm from afar!

Listen! That song of victory, is echoing in the universe!

No more hesitation, no more confusion,

Because we know, the direction of home, is in that azure light..."

When they sent the demo of this song to their agent and the company, they joyfully evaluated this song as a timeless sound that could not be measured by traditional commercial value.

This song had a power that could touch the deepest part of people's hearts.

Finally, with the support of the cultural department, this song was produced into the most magnificent MV in history.

The MV was interspersed with a large amount of real battlefield footage as well as interviews with surviving soldiers and the families of the sacrificed heroes.

The five girls took off all their gorgeous makeup and costumes, wearing the simplest white shirts, standing in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling porthole of the Babel Space Station, using that beautiful blue planet as their background, and making a deep confession to the entire civilization with their most sincere and pure singing.

When this song and its MV were released simultaneously to the whole world on the first "Earth Unity Day" after the war victory, the resonance it triggered was unprecedented.

Its influence covered seven continents and four oceans; it was no longer just a pop song, it became a battle anthem belonging to all of humanity, a song of the era that remembered sacrifice and victory.

It ignited the flame of hope in the heart of every survivor, and played the most solemn requiem for those departed heroic souls.

And the Stardust Girls group was evaluated by mainstream media because of this song as "a group of singers of the era who sang for the entire civilization".

They also gained a special fan—

Grey Wind.