The drugs, as Stari told me, were a way to control the body’s reaction to the upcoming process. If you didn’t want the blood to splatter everywhere? Then you told the body not to splatter. Wanted the arm to raise every time you came close to nicking a nerve? Then tell the body to do it.
Within minutes, the surgeon had removed the first object with a device much like the tractor beam that abducted me back on Earth. It sucked the object toward it slowly, one millimeter at a time. Then the doctor closed the patient up by using a laser tool and not stitches.
I felt embarrassed about our medical technology back home. They would think we were still in the Middle Ages with the way we cut and diced people up.
The surgeon performed the same procedure on Klang without any issues. He placed the two devices on a plate. He handed it to Stari. These, at least, were covered in blood and there was no mistaking what they were.
“Trackers,” I said.
Stari had turned as white as a ghost. She immediately marched out of the surgery studio and into the observation room. She rinsed the blood off the trackers. Then she dumped them in a metal box and slammed the lid shut. She pressed her hands to it as if it made a difference.
Stari’s emotions were on a hair-trigger. One wrong move and she would explode.
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“We have to get rid of them,” Stari said. “We’ll take them far away from here. We only need one more day. Not even that. Just until morning. The Changelings haven’t showed up yet. Maybe something’s wrong with their system. Maybe they use a different computer to track them?”
That didn’t sound right to me. The Control Room would use the same system to trace all tracking devices. It was more efficient that way. And I thought Stari knew that too.
“If they knew we were here, they would have attacked us already,” she said. “I’ll take them myself. Make sure the job’s done right.”
It was too late.
The Changeling siblings knew what was going to happen. That was why it triggered such a reaction in Chax’s gut.
They knew they were going to win.
“None of this will matter when we attack,” Stari said. “In the morning, there’ll be no stopping us.”
Was she being realistic? Or was she being naive? It was hard to tell.
Thump.
The gentle thud made the lights in the ceiling wobble. The shadows danced.
“What was that?” I said. “Earthquake?”
“We don’t get them here,” Stari said. “Maybe it’s one of the ships. I never should have left the mechanics by themselves. They’re as likely to destroy the ships as they are to fix them.”
But she didn’t leave.
She knew it wasn’t caused by one of her ships.
Thump.
Dirt drifted down from the ceiling and dusted our heads.
I shared a look with her. Our eyes lowered to the metal tin clutched tight in her arms.
The tracking devices.
The Changelings had tracked them here.
Thump.
The wall in the surgery studio bent inwards.
My heart was in my throat.
They were here.
They were coming.
“We have to warn them,” I said.
Stari slapped a hand on a button.
“Get out of there!” she yelled, her voice booming from speakers inside the surgery studio. “Get out of there now!”
The surgeon and his nurses peered at the glass window at us. Terrified and frozen to the spot.
One of the nurses broke ranks and sprinted toward the door.
She never made it.
Smash!
The wall exploded inwards, sending a tidal wave of concrete, rock, and debris flooding into the surgery studio.
A giant pair of drill bits demolished the ceiling, bringing it down in a cascading snowfall.
The machine was huge, wider even than the surgery studio. Two lights glared brightly. One red, the other broken, revealing the white bulb underneath.
It almost looked like it was winking.
Above it, through the thick cracked glass window sat the creature at the controls.
A Changeling.
The engine revved as it came further in the room. It knocked into one of the operating beds and spilled Klang across the floor. His sister was already buried beneath an avalanche of dirt. Klang blinked his eyes, still unable to move his arms, as a fresh wave of soil swept over him. He screamed but it was too late.
The digger turned to one side. The Changeling soldiers squeezed through a gap made by the machine and entered the surgery studio.
They were heading for the door to the observation room where we were standing.
The door was open.
I slapped a hand on a big red button marked “CLOSE DOORS.” Metal shutters slithered down the observation window and slammed into place over the door.
Stari grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back.
“Come on,” she said. “The security system won’t hold them for long.”
The Changelings fired at the shutters on the inside of the room.
Stari cradled the metal box containing the trackers to her chest as we stole into the hallway outside the surgery section.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
A few minutes ago, the base was bumping with hope and excitement. They were just hours from changing the trajectory of their futures.
They were going to be free. All they had to do was fight, and they were more than ready for it.
Now, their dreams stood tattered and broken.
A wall exploded, drawing a scream of surprise from my throat. The thick concrete crushed a Yayora mechanic to the floor and flattened him beneath its immense weight.
Stari bolted through the base, dragging me behind her, weaving between the Yayora soldiers heading in the opposite direction, marching with weapons drawn.
Stari stopped one soldier and pointed to his blaster.
“Give me that,” she said.
The soldier handed it over and switched to his rifle.
Stari led me to the command center. Inside, it was a hive of activity. Grandpa barked orders, sending soldiers to confront each breach that sprung up on the huge screen.
Already, there
