“Get out of there!” Juno kicked at a sleek hologram of Geela in the middle of the living room. She leapt to her feet, her heart pounding. Juno had been trying to get a workout in, but Rhea and Hera were watching TV and it was completely distracting. Especially when they changed the channel and landed on Geela’s Rocky Remodel. When Juno saw Geela’s new renovation project, she had nearly lost it. For on this week’s episode, instead of remodeling her own home, the empress was renovating Junoia’s royal palace and broadcasting it for all of the Pentangle to see. “How dare she?” Juno growled, lunging for the hologram over and over again. “Get out of my house!”
Rhea flicked her wrist, making the hologram disappear. “Juno, it’s just a hologram. You can’t hurt her from here.”
“You guys!” Luna came running into the living room, her cheeks flushed. “We just got a message from Bradbury.”
“Another one?” Rhea asked, rolling her eyes. “How many times a day does that guy write to you?”
“Thirty or forty,” Luna said with a shrug. “I’m keeping our fan base engaged. Oh, and I pretend I’m you girls in some of the messages—I hope you don’t mind.” Before anyone could answer, Luna went on. “But anyway, Bradbury just invited us to play at his uncle’s wedding on Junoia! The band they had originally booked bailed at the last minute—they couldn’t get off their planet because of some sort of travel restriction or something—so he asked if we could make it.” She turned to Chamberlin and asked, “Can you get us to Junoia in a hurry?”
Chamberlin nodded. “We aren’t far from there now. We could be there in a matter of a few hours.” He drummed his fingertips together and whispered, “I do love weddings.”
“I’ll tell him we’ll do it!” Luna said breathlessly.
“A wedding?” Juno asked, her eyebrows lifted. “Seriously? We’re wedding singers now?”
“It’s a huge wedding,” Luna told her. “There will be five hundred people there, and some of them are important.”
She poked at one of the images, and a brand new video of Bradbury began to play. He had uploaded a video to the message boards on the SPACEPOP fan homepage a few minutes earlier. In the video message, big, fat tears rolled down Bradbury’s cheeks as he spoke into the camera. “I love you so so so so much,” he said earnestly to the camera. “You’re all so inspiring and … and … I just want to be you!” He rubbed his face, composing himself just enough to whisper, “I promise all the SPACEPOP fans out there that I will find out absolutely everything there is to know about our favorite band and report it back to you. Consider it my sacred duty.” Bradbury sobbed again, and the screen went black.
Luna clapped. “Oh my Grock, he loves us! We made someone cry!”
“Is that a good thing?” Hera asked.
Luna nodded vigorously. “I’ve missed having crazy fans,” she said. “Princess Lunaria de Longoria was worshipped and adored. And now, my alter ego Luna, SPACEPOP’s lead singer, is worshipped and adored, too.” She sighed.
Athena frowned. “Don’t you think we should worry about this video? Just a bit?”
“Bradbury vowed to find out everything there is to know about us,” Rhea added. “We don’t want anyone to know everything about us. That’s the whole point of being in disguise—we’re keeping secrets.”
Luna brushed her off. “Bradbury’s harmless.” She bounced away from the computer and began her pre-show makeup and hair routine. “Besides, he booked us a great gig—we should be grateful. Stop being such worriers.”
* * *
As soon as the SPACEPOP tour bus set down on Junoia, Bradbury knocked on their door. “I’m so glad you could come,” he said, breathless. In a sing-song voice, he added, “This is going to be a-ma-zing!”
He led them into the wedding venue—a beautiful stone garden, filled with waterfalls and small bonsai trees that seemed to glow from within. Bradbury ushered them past crowds of caterers, florists, and waiters. “You can get ready in here,” he said, opening a door to reveal a sheltered changing area. “I didn’t want to freak you guys out or anything by telling you this before you arrived, but … my uncle is actually a concert promoter here on Junoia. If you do a good job today, there’s a really good chance you’ll get some new bookings.” He crossed his fingers and wiggled them in the air. “Fingers—and toes!—crossed.”
Juno crossed her own fingers and managed a thin smile. “Fingers crossed.” She patted him on the shoulder, then made her way into the dressing room.
Bradbury blushed, avoiding Juno’s gaze. Rhea couldn’t keep herself from laughing—it was obvious to everyone that Bradbury had a major crush on Juno. But it was just as obvious that she terrified him more than a little bit.
“Hey, Bradbury,” Juno said from inside the changing room. She held up a big pile of fur. “What’s with all the fur in here?”
“Fur?!” Hera screeched. “The poor animals!”
“It’s not real fur,” Bradbury assured her. “No creatures were harmed while making your costumes.”
“I’m sorry—” Athena said, her face stony. “Our what?”
“Your costumes,” Bradbury said, more loudly. “My uncle and his fiancée—his wife now, I guess!—are huge animal lovers.” He looked at Luna, obviously confused. “In my messages, I explained that everyone at the wedding was asked to dress as his or her favorite animal—extinct or otherwise. We got five costumes ready for you—an otter, a fox, a cat, a chimp, and a narwhal. It’s all they had left at the costume supply shop.”
Luna glared at him. In a steely voice, she said, “You want us to dress … as animals?”
“I told you that in my messages,” Bradbury said, his voice strained. “And if you don’t play, my uncle won’t see how amazing you are, and the gig with the Vorks tomorrow night won’t happen, and—”
“Luna?” Athena said, cutting him off. “Did you read Bradbury’s whole message?”
Luna grinned sheepishly. “Not exactly. He sends a lot of messages.” She turned to Bradbury. “What gig with the Vorks, Bradbury?”
“Wellllll,” Bradbury said. “You know the Vorks, right?”
“As in, the number one band in the galaxy?” Rhea asked. “Yeah, we’ve heard of them.”
“Wellllll,” Bradbury said again. “Vindee, their lead singer, really likes your sound. She told my uncle to check you guys out, and if he likes you, too—well, he was going to book you as the opening act for the Vorks tomorrow night at the Junoia coliseum. It’s a sold-out show—forty-five thousand fans!”
“Are you serious?” Luna shrieked.
“Totally,” Bradbury said. “But the catch is, you have to impress my uncle first. And to impress my uncle, you’re going to have to slip into these animal suits and sing your hearts out at the reception tonight.”
Luna grabbed the cute cat costume before anyone else had a chance. “Dibs!” she yelled. “Let’s do this thing, girls. We’re going to open for the Vorks!”
Despite the band’s bizarre costumes, the SPACEPOP performance at Bradbury’s uncle’s wedding went really well. The best part of the night, though, was when Bradbury’s uncle announced to the entire wedding party that SPACEPOP would be opening for the Vorks the next night at Junoia’s coliseum. The girls all threw off their animal heads and cheered, then played “We ’Bout to Start Something Big” for a very excited crowd. They kept things hopping until well after midnight. By the time they got back to the tour bus, each of the girls was ready to curl up into a ball and hibernate.
But before their heads could hit their pillows, Chamberlin rushed into their room. “Your Highnesses, Captain Hansome is waiting to speak with you.”
“Congratulations on booking your first major arena show,” Captain Hansome said when the girls had gathered around the screen. “I have more good news for you.”
“You’re coming to visit?” Luna asked in an unnaturally high voice. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and beamed at the captain’s hologram.
“Uh, no…” Hansome said. “But! The Resistance would like to request your help. This will be your biggest mission yet. I think you will enjoy it.”
“We enjoy all your missions, Captain,” Luna cooed.
Captain Hansome chuckled. “Wonderful. Now, as I was saying: your mission. While you are on Junoia, we would like you to track down the hidden server that houses and distributes all of Geela’s television and radio broadcasts. We have information that this server is tucked away underground, in a carefully guarded bunker.
“We at … the Resistance want to shut down Geela’s media circuits. If we can blast the server to smithereens, we will shut her down—for a while, at least—and take the opportunity to show her what it feels like to be silenced and controlled.”
“Just like she’s doing to the people of the galaxy!” Hera said, eyes wide.
The girls all nodded. Hansome was right: this was the mission they had been waiting for. It was time to shut Geela down.