Happily Ever After (The Lunar Chronicles story continuation)

Chapter 10: Public Address

Kai seated himself at his desk in his office facing a camera that had been put up, which would send out a video feed of him out to every newsfeed on Earth. The Earthen leaders had all decided so. Normally, prime minister Bromstad, leader of the European Federation would be responsible for the public address, but they had chosen Kai instead, as he personally knew Wolf and Scarlet, and had better relations with Luna, and no one wanted to risk worsening the situation.
The camera started rolling.
"Dear citizens of Earth.
Last night a terrorist attack was carried out by former Lunar soldiers. The attack was not specifically aimed at the European Federation, but targeted the town of Rieux where the first public wedding between an Earthen and a Lunar was recently held.
Our intelligence tells us that a missile was launched from Luna, and hit Rieux yesterday 22:17 local time. As of now, the missile has claimed the lives of 54 people and injured 172, and has destroyed property of nearly all citizens." Kai paused while he thought about all the remaining, who had lost family members and friends. Would they stay or would they move somewhere safer?
"I would like to clarify that the attack was carried out by an individual terrorist group, not by Luna. It is not an act of war. The government of Luna has condemned the attack, like all six nations of Earth. The mutual cooperation between the Earthern Union and Luna will perpetuate and will not be influenced by this." Kai only hoped this, yet he didn't believe his own words for knew from experience that there would be people, both Earthen leaders and their citizens, who would fail to separate the terrorists from the rest of Luna.
"We are working with Luna to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
I ask you to carry on living your daily lives, because it is the only way to fight this battle."
The camera stopped rolling.
Kai stayed seated, trembling. He had managed to stay calm and emotionless during his public address, but he could let it out now. Someone had targeted Scarlet and Wolf, not just their town, them specifically, just because of the wedding, just because he was Lunar and she was Earthen, to target the relationship between Earth and Luna, which had finally been improving for the first time in decades.
And the timing had made it all worse. Had this attack come during a time of war, people would have added it to all the other horrors, and the attack would have drowned in statistics, but the attack had come during a time of peace, new and fragile peace. That made it hit ten times worse. People only just felt safe, and now an attack came and threatened the existence of all that.
Kai thought about when he had first heard about the attack. He had been waiting in the bunker under the palace with Cinder for an hour before they resurfaced. Thorne and Cress had sent them down there, they had known about the missile and had assumed that the palace was the target, but they had been wrong. How had Thorne even known? Kai had had no clue how, of all people, Thorne and Cress knew before him, before anyone. Kai had received the news only few minutes later. Rieux had been hit by a missile coming from Lunar terrorists. No one had ever seen such a thing before. Even during the Lunar War, no one had sent a missile from one planet to another, and the terrorists had done it successfully on their first try, meaning they knew their physics pretty well.

"Did you get any news from Scarlet and Wolf?" Cinder asked Kai.
"Wolf is safe, but Scarlet was injured. She's alive, but in the hospital." Kai's tone was monotonous. For some reason he kept believing that he should keep calm, but a fire roared inside him. Rage. He wanted to throw an old ceramic vase out the window, wanted to take a painting and smash through it, wanted to rip the pages apart of the report on his desk about fish in the Indian Ocean, because none of that was important, not compared to this. However he didn't do all that, he doubted the house staff would appreciate otherwise.
There had been tragedies, accidents and massacres before, the mutated Lunar soldiers sent by Levana had terrorised Earth only two years ago. All of that had pained Kai of couse, but it had always been distant, he had been trained to keep it distant. This attack on Rieux, however, felt so personal, directed to his closest friends, all those hours of training training didn't help anymore.

A communication link was set up for the meeting between all Earthen leaders. Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom had requested a meeting between all main Earthen leaders.
"First of all, the United Kingdom would like to give their condolences regarding the latest attack in the European Federation." Queen Camilla said, followed by other nations giving their condolences as well.
Prime minister Bromstad of the European  Federation thanked everyone.
"We have called this meeting to discuss the Earthen-Lunar relation." Said Queen Camilla
"Australia has had the same concerns," said Governor-General Williams, "we accepted the terms of the Lunar migration thinking it would be safe for our citizens, but the attack on Rieux has proven us wrong."
"Wait a minute," said Prime Ministed Kamin of the African Union, "it's been only two years since migration between Earth and Luna was legalised, do you wish to compromise the progress that has been made?"
"That is not what we're discussing," said President Vargas of the American Republic, "it's about safety, can we allow migration between the two planets if we don't trust the citizens? There has been one attack already, how many more will come?"
Kai felt a rage growing in him. If this continued, everything the Rampion crew had fought for would have been for nothing.
"The attacks came from Luna, restricting migration wouldn't have made a difference." Said Prime Minister Kamin.
"I agree," said Kai, "we can't punish the entirety of Luna for one rebel group."
President Vargas raised his eyebrows before he spoke, "Do you not believe we should react at all? We cannot simply ignore the attack. There has to be some sort of consequences if we want to avoid another attack."
"I agree, but we also cannot give what the rebel group wants. They want to destroy the relation between Earth and Luna, we cannot allow them to do so."
"Emperor Kaito, are you certain you aren't allowing your personal life to cloud your judgement?" Governor-General Williams asked.
Kai widened his eyes as he felt his chest heat up. "If you are referring to my engagement, then you should know that the attack on Rieux targeted some close friends of mine." Kai wanted to say that he hadn't left his desk for days, hadn't been able to visit Scarlet and Wolf, that he utterly hated the rebel group behind the attack, but that he despite that still wouldn't in his wildest dreams would have considered any hostile action against Luna. "So yes, I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between my personal life and leading a country."
"My apologies, I meant no offence, of course," said Governor-General Williams.
The meeting went on, but nothing definitive was decided upon, except that more meetings should be held in the future to further discuss the issue, but Kai didn't think it needed to be discussed. It was a horrible event that should never be repeated. So they shouldn't be discussing whether they should act, they should be discussing how they were going to prevent it from happening again.