Chapter 7

The LunaDome Arena was a living storm of color and sound. Thousands of spectators filled the tiered seats, their glowbands pulsing in rhythm to the thundering bass. Outside, the transparent dome shimmered under the reflected light of the nearby crater, and inside, the air itself seemed to hum with energy.

Zora stood center stage beneath the swirling holographic auroras that gave Silver Veil its name. Her jacket, woven with reflective filaments, caught the lights and refracted them across her shoulders—ripples of silver, violet, and green that made her look like she was part of the display itself. Each time she raised her arm to strike a chord, she seemed to ignite the air.

Behind her, Natalia was a blur of precision and rhythm, the drumsticks flashing as they struck the set in perfect sync with Sophie’s electrified riffs. Brax leaned into his bass line, the deep vibration shaking the floor, while Brian’s keyboard melody soared above it all—rich, haunting, full of light.

Delta stood just offstage, arms folded, lips tight but smiling despite herself. Everything was running like clockwork. The crowd roared, chanting the band’s name, and even Finn—retired though he was—was grinning in the wings, mouthing along with the lyrics.

Then, in an instant, it all came undone.

The lights flickered once. Then again.

The shimmering holographic veils overhead began to stutter and distort—waves of light breaking apart into jagged shards of color. Zora glanced upward mid-song, the rhythm faltering just slightly as the auroras fizzled and blinked out. The dome plunged into half-darkness, illuminated only by emergency strips and the pale gleam of the lunar landscape beyond.

Gasps rippled through the audience. The music stuttered, feedback howling through the speakers. Sophie turned sharply toward the wings, motioning to the tech crew.

“Power drop!” she called out, her voice barely audible over the murmurs. “That’s not a random fluctuation—someone killed the holograms!”

Zora adjusted her mic, trying to keep the energy alive for the crowd. “Hold tight, Las Estrellas! We’re just giving Luna a minute to catch its breath!” Her grin was quick and bright, but her eyes found Sophie’s. The look they exchanged said it all. Sabotage.

Natalia, meanwhile, leapt from her stool, crouching beside the stage platform where a tangle of holo-cables ran. She spotted a small maintenance panel smoking faintly near the junction hub. Kneeling down, she saw someone already there — Dulce Esperanza, dressed in a flowing white jacket, her hands gripping a stabilizer rod as she tried to keep the power relay from sparking.

“Careful!” Natalia shouted, dropping beside her.

“I’m not doing anything wrong!” Dulce said, breathless but steady. “The system’s shorting—I’m trying to keep it from blowing out completely!”

Natalia had heard Zora and Sophie voicing their concerns about Dulce. But their eyes met for a split second, and Natalia understood: Dulce wasn’t part of the problem. She was helping. The panic in the air softened slightly—one small, genuine human act amid chaos.

From above, Sophie barked orders into her wrist com, trying to coordinate with the LunaDome’s tech crew. “We’re rebooting the hologram system manually—ten minutes tops if they don’t melt it first.”

Zora kept the crowd engaged, launching into an improvised a cappella riff while the others scrambled. Her voice carried strong and defiant through the half-lit dome. “You didn’t come all this way for silence, did you?” The audience responded with cheers, clapping to keep the rhythm alive.

Brian moved to his keys again, improvising a soft counter-melody to back her up, and soon Brax joined with a subdued bass hum.

Backstage, Delta paced, her expression carved from steel. “If this was deliberate,” she muttered to Finn beside her, “someone’s getting very bold.”

“Or very stupid,” Finn replied dryly. “Messing with Zora’s show is suicide.”

At the base of the stage, Natalia and Dulce managed to stabilize the damaged cable. The hologram indicators began to blink back to life, one by one. As the auroras flickered on overhead once more, the lights cascaded in waves of silver and emerald—like the Moon itself exhaling after a held breath.

Zora threw a triumphant look toward Sophie, who nodded in return.

“Alright,” Sophie said into her mic, voice low but fierce. “Let’s finish this thing properly.”

The band roared back to life as the crowd erupted again, the dome now alive with color.
Still, beneath the adrenaline and music, a shared unease lingered — Zora’s intuition, Sophie’s suspicion, and Natalia’s newfound assurance that Dulce Esperanza might not be the enemy they thought she was.

For now, the show went on. But in the shadows beyond the stage lights, someone else was watching, noting every reaction, every recovery, every face.

Finally, the last chord thundered through the LunaDome like a sonic wave, vibrating through the silver decking and reverberating across the transparent shell above. Zora’s voice lingered in the air, drawn out by the echo of the dome itself, before fading into a crescendo of cheers and applause that could have powered the holograms on its own.

The auroras overhead shimmered one last time—emerald and gold, silver and indigo, rolling in perfect sync with the crowd’s chant: “Zora! Zora! Aurora!”