As soon as the sun had set on the peaceful planet of Heralda, the girls and Chamberlin set off on their first mission for the Resistance. They made their way across a rocky field, then stopped.
Chamberlin huffed, “We can’t possibly be walking to the Ice Desert?”
“Perhaps we should have taken the space bus,” Rhea said, snapping her fingers. “No one would have guessed it was us. Oh, wait—our logo is painted across the side. That just might have been a giveaway.”
“But the Ice Desert is … far!” Chamberlin whined.
Juno grinned. “Don’t worry. I have a different idea.” She whistled, then called out, “Skitter!”
Juno’s little pet came scuttling out of the shadows. The furry little ball of muscle looked up at Juno expectantly. “Skitter!” she cooed. “Who’s a big girl?”
Skitter grunted—blurp!—and began to grow.
Blurp! Blurp! Blurp!
With each loud blurp! the little creature grew bigger and bigger. Soon, she was five times her usual size.
She continued to grow until she was towering over them all. “Mount up!” Athena ordered. “This little beast will bounce us over.”
The now enormous Skitter bent down and the girls climbed onto her back. “Whee!” Hera cried. “Giddy-up!”
Chamberlin looked skyward. “Why must everything be so complicated?!” He groaned, then reluctantly let Juno and Rhea help pull him up onto the mount. “Where are the seat belts?” he asked, digging around in Skitter’s fur. “I refuse to let this thing blast off without a safety net of some kind!”
“You’ll be fine. I’ve done this a hundred times.” Juno tapped Skitter’s head, then hollered, “Bounce away, Skitter!”
Fewer than twenty minutes later, the princesses and Chamberlin set down at the edge of the Ice Desert. Across a wide, icy plain, there was a large warehouse of some kind. It was all lit up, a beacon in the middle of the barren landscape. The girls hopped off their transport, and Skitter set about letting out some of his excess air.
Pffffft! Pffffft! Moments later, Juno’s little pet was back to her normal size.
Juno gestured to the warehouse across the icy plain. On the edge of the stark white building, a giant red GEELA logo shone brightly. “So … our mission is to find Geela’s secret warehouse and figure out what kind of weapon she’s building?”
Rhea nodded. “Someone might want to let Geela know that putting her logo on the edge of a supposedly ‘secret’ warehouse isn’t the best way to keep it a secret.”
“The first part of the mission was easy,” Athena said. “But the next part—sneaking inside and getting a look at what she’s building—won’t be as simple.”
“Maybe someone should stay here and be the lookout?” Chamberlin suggested. “We could have some sort of sign, if I see any danger approaching!”
“Quit being such a worrywart, Chamberlin,” Hera said, giggling. “I’m sure Geela isn’t even on Heralda.”
But as the girls and Chamberlin hustled across the icy landscape and drew closer to the warehouse, Geela’s evil laugh echoed out around them.
“What is that?” Chamberlin asked, whimpering.
“I think it’s Geela’s laugh,” Athena cringed. “Creepy. She must be nearby. So we’ll need to be even more careful not to be seen.”
“Thank Grock for our all-black outfits,” Hera murmured. “If it weren’t for this clever disguise, I’m sure we’d have been spotted by now.”
The girls and Chamberlin peeked around the side of the warehouse. There was a team of guards stationed in front of the doors. They were both outfitted with stun guns and full armor. “Looks like we have no way in,” Chamberlin mused. “I guess we should turn back.”
“I have an idea,” Juno said. She whispered something into Skitter’s ear. The little pet nodded once, then began to snort again. She ballooned up to the size of a large dog, then bounded past the guards back out into the Ice Desert.
“What was that?” one of them shrieked.
“Looked like a flying ball of fur!” the other answered.
“What are we supposed to do?” the first asked.
“Uh…” muttered the second. “I guess we should probably investigate?”
The two guards raced away from their post, trailing Skitter across the icy wasteland.
“Go!” Athena said. Moments later, the six of them were scrambling through the unguarded side door of the warehouse. They crouched low, trying not to be seen. The warehouse was one large room, with a maze of ducts and passageways crisscrossing overhead. There were machines everywhere, churning and buzzing and clacking as they created new weapons for Geela.
“Will Skitter be okay?” Hera asked, glancing nervously back at the door they had entered from. “I feel just awful leaving her out there with those two horrible guards.”
“She’ll be fine,” Juno promised. “I’m sure she’s having a blast playing tag with her two new friends.”
“Look!” Athena whispered, pointing up into the center of the room. Floating in the center of all the warehouse’s hustle and bustle was a small, egg-shaped pod. Inside the pod … was Empress Geela. She stood tall and imposing, drifting over everything inside her protective bubble. Her awful pet, Tibbitt, was perched on her arm.
The girls hid behind some ductwork, hidden just outside Geela’s line of sight. “Professor!” Geela cried out. Her voice echoed around the entire facility, amplified by some sort of sound system that ensured everyone would hear her while she inspected the goings-on from inside her floating chamber. “Show me my newest invention!”
Chamberlin scurried under a large pipe and covered his head with his hands. The five princesses, however, craned their necks for a better view. “This must be the weapon Captain Hansome wants us to report back on!” Luna said, stating the obvious.
On the ground, a large alien in a lab coat pulled an enormous tarp off a huge piece of machinery. Emblazoned on the side of the machinery was FOG-O-NATOR.
Empress Geela pushed a button inside her pod, and the floating chamber swooped in closer to the enormous machine. “With this weapon,” she declared, her voice echoing even louder in the huge warehouse. “I will be able to shroud the planets of the Pentangle in a permanent fog. The sun will no longer rise and shine. The planets will be cloaked in gloomy, glorious darkness—all day long!”
Hera gasped. “That’s terrible.”
“We need to report back to Captain Hansome immediately,” Luna whispered. “He and … the Resistance … have to destroy it before she has a chance to use it!”
“Are you serious?” Juno asked in a hushed whisper. “You think I came all this way—and got this close to one of Geela’s weapons—just so we could turn back and quit before the fun part?”
“Aren’t these black spy suits the fun part?” Luna asked.
Juno shook her head. “We’re going to destroy it. The Fog-O-Nator is never leaving this warehouse.”
“That goes against Captain Hansome’s instructions,” Chamberlin protested. “He specifically said you were to find out what kind of weapon she was building and report back so … the Resistance … can figure out how best to destroy it.”
“By the time we report back,” Athena said, “it may be too late. We need to destroy it now!”
Moments later, the girls and a very nervous Chamberlin climbed up a narrow ladder on the far end of the warehouse. “We just need to get up on this ductwork,” Juno said, racing up the ladder effortlessly. “We’ll have the perfect view of the weapon’s moving parts from overhead.”
“In case anyone cares,” Chamberlin mumbled. “I have a fear of heights…”
Behind him, Rhea asked, “Is there anything you’re not afraid of, Chamberlin?”
Chamberlin paused for a moment, considering. “Doughnuts,” he said finally. “And tea.” As he began to climb again, he said, “But wait … cold tea gives me the willies. And sometimes, doughnuts have sprinkles. There is always the chance a sprinkle could fall off and go in your eye and—well, I guess that’s to say, perhaps I’m also afraid of doughnuts.”
Once they had all reached the top of the ladder, the six of them scurried cautiously on all fours across the web of ducts. From overhead, they had the perfect view of the Fog-O-Nator. Now, to figure out how to destroy it—without being destroyed themselves.
Below them, the professor was explaining the inner workings of the Fog-O-Nator to Geela. “There is only one weak spot on this weapon,” he explained.
“That is unacceptable!” Geela shrieked, her voice ringing out from one side of the warehouse to the other. “I don’t believe in weakness.”
“Well, Your Greatness, we have done our best to make this weapon as strong as possible—but in order to finish it in the timeline you required, we were not able to perfect the input valve.”
“Explain yourself in my language,” Geela screamed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t make me feel foolish, professor!”
“Yes, Empress,” the professor said, cowering under Geela’s floating pod. “You see, there is a tube just here—” He pointed to a huge metal pipe that reached up toward the roof of the warehouse. “This tube sucks in air that is then converted to fog. If something were to fall inside this tube while the motor was running, well…” The professor broke off with a shrug.
“Well what?” Geela screeched.
“Well … the entire machine would be destroyed,” the professor said with a meek smile. “It’s a weakness, I admit. And for that I’m sorry.”
The girls exchanged a look.
“Turn it on!” Geela ordered. “I want to see how it works.”
“But Empress,” began the professor. “We’ll fill the entire warehouse with fog in a matter of seconds.”
“Don’t ‘but Empress’ me,” Geela barked. “Turn it on.”
“But—”
“No buts!” Geela pointed a long, perfectly manicured finger at the professor. “Do it!”
The professor flicked a switch and the Fog-O-Nator roared to life. “Just give it one minute to warm up,” the professor said nervously. “Then you’ll see what kind of power you will soon have.”
“We need to move fast,” Juno whispered urgently to the other girls. “You heard what that guy said—this place is going to be filled with fog in no time. We need to jam that tube and move on out.”
“What are we going to jam it with?” Rhea asked.
Before they could figure it out, Geela’s voice rang out over the loud speaker again. “Doughnut!” she blurted. “I want a doughnut while I wait for it to warm up.”
A guard raced across the warehouse floor, a tray of doughnuts balanced precariously in his hands. As the girls watched, the guard tripped on a loose piece of machinery … and the tray of doughnuts flew up, up, up. They twisted and spun in the air, flying in dozens of different directions. “Chamberlin, watch out!” Athena cried as one of the doughnuts—a glazed one coated with rainbow sprinkles—raced straight toward him. The doughnut made contact with Chamberlin’s leg, and the sprinkles scattered everywhere. One of them spun and twisted through the air, then hit Chamberlin in the eye. With a delicate shriek, Chamberlin tumbled off the ductwork and dangled over the Fog-O-Nator.
Juno and Athena both lunged for him, grabbing his arms and pulling him toward safety. But it was too late—Geela had already spotted them. “Someone is in here! Destroy them!” she screamed, as fog began to fill the air.
“We need to go now,” Rhea said as Geela’s floating pod raced toward them. Several of Geela’s Android army began to shoot at the girls. Because of the fog shrouding the warehouse floor, the shots all missed. Instead of hitting their intended targets, the blasters blasted a huge hole through the warehouse wall.
“My cardigan,” Chamberlin said, tugging at his sweater sleeve as the girls pulled at his arms and legs. “It’s stuck. I’m caught on something.”
“Take it off,” Athena ordered.
Chamberlin shrugged his arms out of the sweater. The girls pulled him the rest of the way up, leaving his sweater dangling from the ductwork by one loose piece of yarn.
“Let’s go out through one of the holes in the side of the wall,” Juno ordered. “We’ll have to jump.” She whistled, long and loud.
As the six spies raced toward a huge blaster hole in the outside wall, Athena snuck one last glance back at the Fog-O-Nator. “I can’t believe we failed,” she growled. “Because of a doughnut.”
But then, something amazing happened. Empress Geela’s floating pod whooshed into Chamberlin’s sweater as she raced after the five princesses. The force of the impact knocked the sweater free. Gracefully, the hand-knit cardigan fell down, down, down—straight into the Fog-O-Nator’s precious, delicate input tube.
With a mighty glorph! the machine belched and groaned. Sparks began to fly, and the whole thing burst into flames. Geela screamed. Fog swirled around the girls as they jumped out of the hole in the side of the warehouse and leaped toward the ground below.
“Ha ha!” Geela’s voice rang out from inside the warehouse. “That is a sixty-foot drop. The intruders have all fallen to certain death.”
But she couldn’t have been more wrong.
Just before the five girls and Chamberlin hit the icy ground, they bounced off a squishy nest of purple fur that had been waiting to catch them. “Good girl,” Juno said, patting Skitter’s huge, inflated back. “Now, it’s time to get back to the space bus. Our first rebel mission is over!”