She tapped me on the back of the forearm, sending me a coded message. She was doing it right in front of the audience, the cameras, everybody…
And no one had any idea what it meant.
Except us.
PREPARE YOURSELF, she tapped.
FOR WHAT, I replied.
FOR FREEDOM
My mouth felt dry.
HOW, I tapped.
SIBLINGS NOT REALLY SIBLINGS
A shiver rose up my back. Not really siblings? What were they? Cousins? Or did she mean…
No…
I glanced at them out the corner of my eye. They looked the same, exactly as I remembered from when they adopted their Yayora disguises…
Except they seemed smaller and thicker around the chest.
But there was something in the flicker in one of their eyes…
Stari?
WE WILL LEAVE AND ESCAPE. TAKE OUT CONTROL ROOM AND TURN OFF DEFENSES
OKAY
I waited to see if there was anything else she wanted to add. When there wasn’t, I took her by the hand and squeezed it tight.
I’d risked my life to save hers, and now she was doing the same for me. I felt angry at her for throwing her life away, and proud of her all at the same time.
This woman drove me crazy!
Quus pressed a finger to his ear and turned to address the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we sure have an action-packed show for you tonight,” he said. “Right now, we’re getting footage of the destruction in the Yayora base. We’ve got a live feed. We should be getting an image any second now…”
Maddy reached a hand back and placed it on the Changeling siblings’ hands on the sofa headrest. They gripped it so tight, their fingertips turned white. They’d been working on the base their entire lives. It was what was supposed to help them defeat their conquerors and move on with their lives. To see it in the state it was currently in…
Stari stared at the screen without blinking.
The images flicked on and presented a thick cloud of dust. A beam of light switched on and made the cloud grow brighter and even more difficult to see.
“As you can see, folks, the destruction is pretty much complete,” Quus said. “There’s not much chance of any survivors emerging from an explosion like that.”
He provided running commentary as the images shifted through parts of the base I couldn’t identify.
But Stari and her buddy could.
I hoped they could control themselves—at least until we got off the stage. Then they could go haywire and destroy as much of the Control Room as they wanted. I wouldn’t stand in their way.
“Hold up,” Quus said. “What was that back there?”
The camera swept along the debris to a row of dead Yayora bodies.
The audience gasped.
“There, you see, ladies and gentlemen,” Quus said. “That’s what happens when an inferior species thinks they can overpower the might of the Changeling empire.”
“We’ve got a fresh one here,” a voice on the monitor said.
“And here, another,” another worker said.
The camera turned to reveal a group of Changeling excavators working to free a pair of bodies from the soil.
Maddy’s hand tightened painfully around mine. Her eyes boggled.
She’d seen something. When I checked over my shoulder, I saw Stari had tensed too.
I turned back to the screen.
What? What had they seen that I hadn’t?
Iron Hoof’s lips curled back from his teeth in what I assumed was meant to be a smile. He loved seeing those dead bodies. I guessed his only regret was that he hadn’t been the one to cause them.
The workers on the screen dug the dirt away and pulled the pair of creatures from the piles of dirt. They laid them beside the other dead Yayora bodies. The two bodies were roughly the same size. Their faces were mirror reflections of each other with small differences between them.
Twins.
They wore soiled contestant uniforms.
A deathly hush filled the studio as the same thought passed through their minds.
“Wait,” Quus said, “aren’t they the…”
He let the sentence hang.
Aren’t they the Changeling siblings?
That’s what he wanted to say.
But the words never reached his lips.
He turned, slowly, to peer at the Changeling siblings standing behind the sofa on his talk show.
The audience was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“You’re not the Changeling siblings?” Quus said.
A broad grin spread across the Changeling siblings’ faces.
“Afraid not,” Stari said.
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Iron Hoof stood up from his seat and reached for his blaster pistol.
Stari had the jump on him and fired first. At such close proximity, the plasma ate through his armor and burst through the other side, slamming into a set of lights that fell from the ceiling and smashed to the floor. The audience members barely managed to leap out of the way.
Iron Hoof pressed a hand to the hole in his chest and then slumped to his knees. He collapsed into a messy pile on the floor.
The fake Klang leveled his blaster at the presenter, who raised his hands.
“I’m just a pawn!” he said. “I just do what I’m told.”
“So do I,” the fake Klang said.
He pulled the trigger. Quus slumped forward in his chair. His green blood flowed from the open wound in his chest.
It was pandemonium after that.
I didn’t have it in me to gun down innocent members of the audience—even if they were complicit in the murder of countless alien species for their entertainment.
I didn’t have the same issue with the Changeling soldiers that rushed into the studio. We fired back at them and took off into the backstage area. We weaved between the stagehands that tore their headphones off and bolted for the nearest exit.
It was nice to see them with a little terror in their eyes for a change.
“We need to get to the Control Room!” Stari said. “Where is it?”
“This way!” I said.
I led them toward an exit. Two Changeling soldiers burst in with their pistols drawn. Stari and her comrade dispatched them with ease.
I took the opportunity to wrap my arm around Maddy’s waist and draw her to me. I planted my lips on hers for another taste.
“I love you, my
