When flying around deep space, there were only a handful of phrases that could bring forth an unpleasant alarm; oncoming asteroids - obviously, any form of damage was cause for immediate concern, and more importantly, any sighting of Galra troops, but nothing caused a sense of anxiousness to slowly rise up as did the sentence the four of them heard over their com-unit.
"Guys, I'm picking up a signal." Keith, the Paladin of the Red Lion, had been watching his radar closely for the last few minutes. A steady red dot bloomed and faded on the holo-screen to his right. It looked close, being only two inches away from his center point, but from his view screen, he couldn't see anything but the empty, star dotted blackness of space.
"Same here," affirmed the Green Paladin, Pidge. "It doesn't seem to be moving. Doesn't seem hostile either. I think it's a distress beacon."
Distressing or no, such a distraction was always cause for hesitation. In a galaxy - a universe - infested with Galra, they could never be too careful. One slip up and they could easily be overpowered. A distress beacon would be the perfect lure for an ambush. Or... it could simply be someone in trouble. They hoped for the latter.
"Looks like our training will have to wait." Shiro decided. The Black Lion turned and lead the way towards the source of the beacon. "Might as well check it out."
"Aw," Lance whined, "I was finally getting the hang of zero-g maneuvering."
The sight of five large, robotic lions would have been quite the sight if there were any habitable planets around to view them - of which there were none. So far, they had come across very few planets, planetoids or even moons fit enough to sustain any form of life. The strange, spineless, gray sponges on the last moon didn't count - although they were very polite and offered them some freshly crushed moon rock.
"What kind of ship would be way out here?" Keith asked as the red dot on his radar slowly slid closer to the center point. There wasn't an inhabitable planet anywhere in their immediate location, Coran would have found one by now.
"Keep on your toes. It could be a trap." Shiro warned.
"I'm not ready to go against any more Galra guys!" The yellow Paladin, Hunk, said hurriedly.
Pidge chimed in again, "I don't think it's Galra. Look."
The ship in question slowly came into view against the dark background. The hull was dull and gray, looking worse for wear in every sense of the word. The signal beacon was right in front of them, though they could hardly believe such a craft could even be sending out a signal. The closer they moved, the more they discovered how desolate it looked. There were no lights, no signs of anyone moving around inside.
"Maybe they're not home?" Hunk asked, hopeful.
"Then who would be sending out a signal?" Keith replied. The Red Lion had moved towards the back, or what he assumed to be the back of the craft for closer inspection. There was a large tear through the ship's hull, cutting a giant, jagged hole from one side clear to the other. Whoever, or what ever, had been inside most likely wasn't anymore.
Lance's voice was slightly higher in tone. "Maybe the signal's busted?"
"Should we leave it?" Pidge asked.
"A distress signal is still a signal," Shiro said, "there might be someone still in there. Isn't helping those in need something Paladins are supposed to do?"
Their Lions were good to remain stationary, and providing what little gravitational pull between one another and the ship, any chance of them drifting off was limited. The five Paladins parked their robotic felines atop the ship, exited, and powered their way to the ship's breach using their suit jet packs. There was no air pressure or gravity inside, leaving them to slightly hover in the confined space of what was assumed to be a hallway. The inside looked just as worn as the outside, though it appeared not from the weathering of space - as that was nonexistent. The damages the ship received must have been initial, before it was abandoned. Still, it didn't help the atmosphere everyone was feeling.
Due to the lack of light, their only form of illumination came from the flashlights of their space suits. Otherwise, they were surrounded by darkness.
"Can spaceships be haunted?" Hunk asked, "I'm pretty sure if there was a haunted spaceship, we're on it."
"Ghosts in space? Get real." Lance's voice wasn't much more confident than Hunk's.
The other three remained calmer than their two comrades, though they shared their own caution to the scenario. There was a slow groan of metal overhead, which caused Hunk and Lance to leap closer together.
"Calm down," Shiro said, though his tone held an edge. "it's just the ship settling."
"Settling from what?" Lance's voice was straining to keep level. "We're in space! There's nothing to settle from!"
The group pushed on. The quiet of the ship was almost numbing. It was large, filled with hallways leading to dozens upon dozens of rooms. All were empty. Anything that wasn't bolted down was spaced after whatever hit it ripped a hole in the hull. What ever didn't float outside remained within their enclosed spaces. Various items that proved this ship had, indeed, held people at one point. Clothing, accessories, books, dishware. It was a sad scene.
Keith had noticed a toy of some sort floating in the corner of an open room. "What do you think happened here?"
"Ten bucks says it was Galra." Lance said, "If there was anyone left alive in here, they probably took 'em hostage or something."
A spluttering of electricity suddenly lit up the hallway LED lights in the ceiling and floor, flickering several times before blinking out again. A pressure seal door at the end of the hallway jarringly tried to open and close, failing to do both. For a brief second, it was as if the entire ship had come alive again in a cocophany of various bits of machinery moving. Lance and Hunk, who were already close enough as is, were inclined to remain inseparable at the back like their space suits fused together.
"This place is haunted! Let's get outta here!" Hunk panicked.
"Relax!" Pidge snapped, startled more so by Lance and Hunk's reaction than her own nerves. "If the ship had generators, they're probably just malfunctioning."
"Let's keep goin'." Shiro propelled himself ahead of the group and turned down a hallway connecting in a T junction. He was following signs posted up on plaques at every corner, which displayed what lay in the direction they had turned, not that he could read them, as they were in a language text unlike Earth's. One could guess they had been in the sleeping quarters and were slowly drifting closer to the living spaces. The small bed chambers opened up into larger rooms with sitting areas, empty bookshelves, tables and chairs turned over and floating still in the zero-gravity. Still, no signs of life.
"Where exactly is the distress beacon coming from?" Keith asked.
Pidge raised her armored wrist and silently called forth a pale teal holo-screen. The radar opened once again, showing a closer scale of the map. "Somewhere ahead of us. My guess is the command center."
The ship was so large, finding such a location would have been a miracle, and yet, they were somehow graced with such a coincidence occuring within twenty dobashes of boarding the ship. Like the rest of the craft, this place was also empty. The modules and command panels were black and lifeless. All save for a red dot flashing near the edge of the furthest command board. The five of them gathered around, unsure of what to make of their discovery. Yes, they found the beacon but no one around to have started it. They watched the slow dim and glow of the red light.
Hunk had been surveying the rest of the room, scrutinizing every detail for some sign of.. something. Then he noticed something off in a joined room through a large open doorway. "Uh... guh-guys," he stammered, "guys there's... there's s-someone over there."
The words caught their attention. The four looked in Hunk's direction to see what he was pointing at with a trembling finger. He was correct. They could see a dark silhouette of person. The five of them froze. The person was not moving, in fact, they were firmly seated in a bulky chair facing away from them. If they had noticed their entry, they hadn't made it known yet. A long moment passed before Shiro took the lead in slowly propelling himself towards the doorway.
Once all five of them entered the joining room, they waited for some form of response. Nothing. It was then that a worse thought struck them. There was a person here, sitting in zero-gravity, zero pressure, without a flight suit on for oxygen. They weren't moving, and everything looked abandoned and untouched for who knows how long. Thoughts of what might happen to a body in zero - gravity after a period of time was a gruesome thought none of them wanted at that moment. Still, they had to be sure. To confirm the beacon was faulty, that the craft was a lost cause - or a salvage scouters dream.
Shiro, being the appointed bravest one of the group currently, moved forward using the side command panels to pull himself around the chair. The others gauged the severity of the situation by the look on his face. Surprise. Shiro was surprised. Seeing as how the person hadn't wildly leapt at him or alarms and traps didn't go firing off in that instant, the others deemed it safe enough to also have a look for themselves.
The surprise was warranted. In fact, they were shocked.
"A-a girl?" Lance stammered, then dropped his voice into a strained whisper as he turned to Keith, who was closest. "What is a girl doing here?"
"Why are you asking me?"
This girl, as he had said, looked untouched by the ravages of space and zero gravity. She sat in the chair, legs together, hands in her lap, with her eyes closed and head slightly tilted to the right. She looked as if she had just dozed off in a light nap. There was no dust to collect on her, but she had the look of someone who had been sitting there a while. Her skin was a light colored pigment, her hair tan and long, cut in a severe line just below her shoulders. Poking out from where human ears would have been were something similar to Allura's ears - although flatter and extending towards the back of the head. Her expression was gentle, framed by fringe, she showed no signs of distress over her current surroundings. She wore a space suit that gave off the impression of an interstellar flight attendant, pale in color with silver accents. Around her head was some sort of minimal headset. She looked to be no older then the senior cadets back at the Garrison.
Shiro took one for the team and gently took the strangers shoulder. Her body was stiff, as when he applied pressure, her entire upper torso moved as a result. The control bridge was numblingly quiet until Hunk verbalized their silent question.
"Is... is she-?"
"I - don't think so," Shiro replied. They might have asked how he knew for sure, but it was a question none of them needed an answer to. "but if she's not.. I don't know what she is."
"She looks normal." Pidge observed, her nerves shaken but more or less collected. She kept herself stationary by holding onto the back of the secured chair. "She doesn't have a helmet. How can she survive in space like this? If she's not dead that is.."
Keith had been inspecting the room for any other signs of life. Aside from the five, now six, of them, the bridge was empty. "Maybe she's hibernating?"
"I'm pretty sure air is an important part for hibernation." Lance retorted.
"I know that-"
Their dilemma was unanimously thought. Should she be moved from the vessel, if she was in fact alive and in some state of hibernation? Or was she serving a purpose by remaining in this chair.
"As far as we've checked, there's no other people on this ship. If she's alone-" Shiro thought aloud.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! " Lance waved his hands in dismissal of the decision Shiro was coming to. "Are we seriously gonna bring a strange, dead-but-not-dead, looking girl with us? What if she's some crazy, man-eating space alien that's only sleeping to lull us into a false sense of security?" His suggestion was met with arched brows and unamused expressions. Although it held a truthful concern, their sleeper looked about as harmless as Pidge.
While they decided their course of action, peppered by Lance's insistance that things could turn similar to a movie about a carnivorous, hunting alien, Pidge had been idly looking around the room. The floor was lined with narrow glass panneling that reminded her of a network grid. Upon closer inspection, they weren't black, like she had thought, but simply dim from a lack of power. Underneath the glass she could see tubing. Perhaps some sort of power wiring, she wondered.
She noticed a rather numerous amount branching out from the base of the chair. It looked plain enough, why did it warrant so many connections? Suspecting a holo - screen panel was hidden somewhere, she rounded the chair to inspect further. In doing so, she accidentally bumped her elbow into the sleeping girl. She moved in response, just enough for Pidge to notice something.
"Whoa... uh.. guys? I solved one question.. I think."
The groups' attention was turned back to their smallest paladin, who gathered the girl's hair in one hand over her shoulder. Previously hidden by hair were three wires tethering the girl's lower neck to the chair. In light on recent movement, one had become detached.
A thought dawned on all of them.
"She's.. she's a.." Hunk started.
"Robot." The others finished.
Their shock was cut short as another blurt of electricity brought the silent ship to momentary life, as if some theatrical substitute for lighting. Various holo-screens flickered on, displaying data streaked with corrupted pixels. The glass paneling of the floor lit up a dazzling blue, showing connective power running through the bridge. This included the tubing leading to the chair.
A strange, short, distorted noise like a chime reached their ears, broken up by static. It was over before they could find the source. Hunk and Lance had practically lept into each other's arms in alarm, but their shock at a little power burst was nothing compared to their slight change in environment. Her eyes were open. The crew was stunned into stillness. She didn't move, her expression remained calm. Her eyes were lilac colored, a small ring of light circled her right iris akin to a loading circle.
No one said a word. Screens and lights continued to flicker. Something in another part of the ship made a tremendous noise, something heavy must have crashed over or fell apart. The power spluttered a second longer, then collectively shut off. The only light in the room came from their suits, and the small glow emitting from her eyes, which were still open. Then like the rest of the ship, they dimmed to black, slowly closing as her head tilted forward. Needless to say, the others hardly felt inclined to move, or even speak.
"W-what just happened?" Lance whispered.
Pidge, who had against conscious judgement moved next to their protective group, answered. "I-I told you. It's the genera-ators." A distant low sound of grinding metal shook the entire ship.
"Let's get outta here," Keith said, "this place is falling apart."
"But what about-" Pidge was cut short by Shiro, who had switched back into leader mode.
"Bring her. We're not leaving someone in a collapsing ship."
One after the other, they jet pack boosted out of the control bridge into the hallway. Hunk stayed behind to assist Pidge. "Uh.. how-how do we-?" He asked hastily. "Do we ask permission first?"
"I have no idea."
"Guys!" Shiro called from the doorway. This jumpstarted the two to move.
"Take now! Apologize later!" Hunk decided as Pidge unplugged the last of the cables. Hunk unclipped the harness buckle. With nothing to hold her to the chair, she floated upwards. Pidge watched in mild awe as the panel along her spine slid shut, looking like unbroken skin, covered by the wrinkled panel of the flightsuit. Hunk took the girl in an underarm hold before following Pidge into the hallway.
Thankfully, the ship didn't tear itself apart as they made their way back to the hull tear. Before hopping out to return to their lions, Shiro turned to Hunk. "You okay with taking her back?"
"H-" Hunk glanced down at their unexpected cargo under his arm. His mild hesitation lingered as he replied. "Uh- yeah! No problem."
Allura's castle, which doubled as an impressive spaceship in and of itself, was easy enough to locate on their scanners. They had returned nearly a vaga later than they had anticipated. The door to the control bridge slid open, announcing the return of the paladins. Allura had been waiting for them at the control platform. The holoscreens blipped out when she noticed their entry. Coran, who had been surveying the ships scanners, also looked over at them.
"Ah!" She was relieved. "Welcome back. You took longer than expected. Did something happen?"
Coran joined the princess. "We noticed a faint distress signal near where you were supposed to be training."
"I take it you found something?" Allura added.
Shiro, the first to enter, removed his helmet. "Yeah, sorry about that. We checked out the signal and... well, we did find... something."
The group moved to either side to allow Hunk entry to the room unhindered as he was carrying the seemingly lifeless body of the girl in both arms. Allura exchanged a worried glance with Coran.
The girl was deposited on the recessed sofa of the lounge chamber. The paladins were returned to their comfort wear of choice before rejoining their odd company. They had far too many questions, and no clear way of obtaining any answers. Allura and Coran were relayed the events that had happened, from the discovery of the beacon to having returned with their cargo.
Allura looked over at her, her expression both worried and puzzled. "You suspect she might be.. artificial?"
"Not exactly 'suspect'." Pidge answered, fixing the ear piece of her glass frames.
Hunk leaned over, cutting off any further explanation to add his own. "She had all these cables plugging into her like she was connected to the ship like a... a... human flash drive or something."
"Well that is interesting." Allura was slightly amused by his enthusiasm - she had no idea what a 'flash drive' was.
Lance had gotten over his nerves as he was looking down at the girl, his expression rather somber. "Do you think she'll just wake up, like before?"
It was a legit question, but not one any of them could answer. They all looked to one another, unable to come to a conclusion.
Keith broke the tension. "She did wake up a bit on the ship... she can't be - y'know - broken, right?"
"Maybe broken is exactly what she is." Pidge's expression was one of deep consideration. A thousand thoughts buzzed through her mind. "Could I have a look at her?" The crew looked at her curiously. Of course, none of them were tech based engineers, they weren't on her same thought process. She remained on the sofa, her hands in her lap and looking rather small, but she spoke with confidence. "If she's a robot, she's basically a computer. I know how to work with them, maybe I can get something out of it- her."
The idea held water. The task seemed suited for no one better.
"Then she's entrusted to your care." Allura decided with a smile.
Pidge now had to share her sleep bunker with, not just a computer unit, but an entire catatonic person all in one. Shiro provided the lifting power to move her all the way to the sleeping quarters, and it was there she would remain until Pidge could figure out how to get her functional again - that was, if she even could. It was an easy sounding task. Altean tech somehow ran along the same structure as Earth's. Pidge only had to apply a little guesswork and most things worked out alright. She was just dealing with another machine. How hard could it be?
As it turned out, it was a little more difficult than she estimated. Galra tech, though advanced, was still fairly basic when it came down to its components. Rover had been easy to reprogram with a bit of wire rerouting. What she was dealing with was an entirely new entity of tech. Way more complex than a Galra drone bot. She needed to cobble together several crude adapters just to allow her access between her laptop and the girl. The challenge alone took up the rest of their quintent.
The first night sleeping was... interesting. Pidge felt bad to leave her lying on the chamber floor, so she fashioned a bed from spare blankets and pillows. She looked comfortable at least. The actual sleeping part was a little more eerie. Pidge was slightly haunted by the idea of the girl randomly powering up and proving Lance's suspicions of a carnivorous alien had been correct.
The following 'morning' marked the official start of her new task. Cables extended to and from the girl to the laptop. She ran several programs that would allow her to bypass the powered down hurdle. Once inside, she could find what made this unit tick, and not the time measurement kind. Only, when the data displayed on the laptop screen, Pidge was met with a new hurdle.
"What the-" She looked closer. The symbols and letters were all jumbled, in many cases, distorted in such a way it resembled scribbles rather than anything legible. "Most of the data is corrupted. No wonder you're not working..."
As the same with many machines, she needed to pick around the corruption to find useful data. Her fingertips tapped fluidly on the keyboard, creating its own sort of white noise that Pidge drowned out with her own concentration. When a particularly loud gurgle interrupted the otherwise quiet room, she knew it was time for a break. She stretched her arms and back to alleviate the cramp from sitting hunched on the floor.
"Geeze, what time is it?" She looked at the clock display on her mobile device. "Whoops. Well I definitely missed breakfast... and lunch." She stood up with another stretch to her legs with a groan. She wasn't entirely eager to ingest more of their supply of flavored food goo, but it was all they had. She was in such high spirits about the droid that she would have foregone eating all together. She loaded her plate with the gelatinous, green foodstuffs and headed back to her room.
When in the blackness of space, it was hard to tell what time it was by visuals alone. They really only had the use of Altean time, which was marginally slower than Earth time. Pidge already knew her sleep schedule was out of whack, and took to registering her own level of exhaustion to know when to call it a night. Even then, she ignored it.
Through burning eyes, she watched the lines of coding scroll across the screen. In the end, it seemed the sheer passage of time itself had corrupted most of the stored data. The failing generators powering the droid on and off probably didn't help either. She practically had to do an entire re-installation of an operating system just to get access to further intel.
Whatever had been stored in here had almost been completely lost. If she had been left out there in that drifting ship, who knows what would have happened to her in the end. The thought of a person being slowly erased in such a way was sad. When she was able to access the personality and profile data she made it her mission to copy the code text for text, or as close enough to it, to ensure something was still there.
By the next morning, Pidge was noticeably exhausted. She was hardly bothered when Lance nudged her on the side of her head after breakfast. Her eyes were all the cue anyone needed to know she hadn't gotten a wink of sleep.
"Hello~" He called, prodding her with a knuckle. "Anyone home?"
"Nn.." Was all he got in response.
They had training practice that afternoon. Droid or no, they were the Paladins of Voltron. They needed to stay sharp both physically and logically. Pidge was so out of sorts with lack of sleep and her mind full of coding and text that she messed up most of her courses. She was second behind Lance getting tagged out of the droid firing circle, was completely at a loss of how to guide Hunk out of the invisible maze, and was smacked on the head by the Gladiator not once, but four times. Allura may have chewed her out on it but it was mostly in one ear and out the other. As soon as training was over, she left the group to return to her work. She simply had to get it done. The more things worked out right, the more she was baited to see the droid in action.
The doors to her room slid open, and she was met with a surprise, one that nearly landed her on the ground in cardiac arrest at the tender age of sixteen. The girl had been sleeping on the floor when she left, but now she was sitting upright. Her back was to the doorway, her head dipped down, giving Pidge a skin crawling sensation. If her head starts rotating, I'm out. When nothing happened, she slowly inched into the room, setting her helmet on the small table near the door.
"Uh... hello?"
There wasn't an immediate response, not verbally anyway. The quiet was filled with a slight hum and click of a hard drive. The girl raised her head slightly. What emitted from her was a short barrage of static and garbled words, but Pidge was sure she heard a 'good afternoon' somewhere in it. She walked over the mess of cables to stand in front of the girl. The droid took notice of her feet, then looked up until they were looking eye to eye. She said nothing else, did nothing else, as if awaiting further instruction. Something in her right eye was circling around the pupil.
"She's loading.. go figure." She had done some major reconstruction on the software, the droid was bound to be caught up in trying to sort through it all. After a short pause, the droid's eyes began to dim. "No, no, nonono- wait!" It was futile. She had powered down, still sitting up. Pidge returned her to her lying position.
A small smile of pride slowly crept onto her face. She had done it, sort of. Not only had she reprogrammed an unknown alien tech, but it was trying to function after all the patching around she did. The news would have to wait. No inventor or developer would show off an unfinished project. Once she was out of her flight suit and back into casual clothes, she returned to her task.
"Maybe... she has some sort of on switch?" She wondered as she took a seat next to the body. She moved to all fours to inspect the visible surfaces. Not behind the ears, or on the neck, there wasn't a button near her collarbones. She guessed accessible ports were marked by movable fabric on her suit, but the only area she'd seen was the access panel on her back. There weren't any buttons or switches there, just plugs and extendable cables. One step forward, a big tumble backward.
"Augh, I'm not getting anywhere with this." She sat back down with her head hung low, scratching the side of it. She looked at the droid in mild agitation. "Would be easier if you could help me out a little, but I guess that's not - aah!" She yelped.
The same sound she heard back on the ship sounded again. Through the lagging, clipped out notes, she was reminded of a cellphone chime, or maybe a computer booting up. Made sense. The droid's eyes were open again, wide and alert but unfocused. Beeping and whirring filled the room. Her arm moved, her fingers twitching like sensation was creeping into them. The color dimmed, the movement stopped, she became still once more.
Pidge's heart was hammering. "How.. the heck did that happen?! What'd I do?" Once her breath was steadied, she collected her thoughts and looked down upon the slumbering droid. What exactly had she done? All she had verbally said was sarcastically asking for help. She hadn't expected an actual response. Unless..
"'Help'? Was that it?"
Beeping, whirring, her eyes opened again. The girl sat up in such a swift motion that Pidge toppled over in surprise. The droid stared ahead for a moment, before her head slowly - and rather eerily - turned to face Pidge. "H-how may-may-may I he-elp yo- kssshh." The voice lagged, snagged, and was obliterated by garbled static. The sound cut out all together as the droid immediately powered down. She leaned until she was about to fall backwards, hard.
Pidge was quick to move, although in the end she wondered why she had even bothered. Having an adult sized, heavy piece of machinery slammed onto extended arms over a hard metal floor was by far the most uncomfortable thing she had recently had to endure. It wasn't like a droid made of metal was going to hurt itself falling backwards.
Something was keeping her from fully booting up. Pidge wondered what might be causing the block as she massaged the painful spots of her freed arms. Maybe she installed something wrong? One semicolon in the wrong place could throw multiple errors. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but she was going to get to the bottom of it. She steeled herself with determination as she reached for her laptop.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had gathered in the dining room for dinner. There was one empty seat.
"Should one of us go get her?" Allura asked, tentatively.
"I'll do it." Shiro offered as he rose from his chair.
Pidge's hands finally stopped ticking away at the keys.
"Okay, one more time," she drew a breath and spoke clearly and steadily. "I need help."
Eyes open, noises, check. Audio, che- and she's out again. Pidge pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off an oncoming tension headache. If her hair wasn't already short enough, she might have started pulling at it. A computer that was out of commission for who knew how long couldn't be expected to work like it was brand new, she had to remind herself. A knock on the metal chamber door made her jump.
"Pidge? It's time for dinner." Shiro's voice came from the other side.
Nooo, she was so close. She was in her element. She couldn't stop now. Maybe if she stayed quiet, he would think she was asleep and leave?
"C'mon, bud, you gotta eat something."
Dang it.
The door slid open.
"How's it goin'?" He asked. Pidge was still sitting on the floor.
"Well, she's doing better... I think. I got her moving, so that's something." Her voice would have been enthused had she not been so exhausted from thinking, and perhaps and little crestfallen.
Shiro offered a comforting smile as he entered the room and set a hand on her shoulder. "You need a break. I'm positive she'll still be here when you get back."
"Trust me, she's full of surprises." Pidge didn't feel all too convinced but Shiro was persuasive, and her stomach had been hollering at her to eat for several hours now. Maybe a break would at least allow her mind to rest.
As she stood up, Shiro spoke again. "Let me know if you need any hel-"
"Whoa, nonono!" Pidge practically lept up to cover Shiro's mouth with her hands. He was understandably taken aback by the reaction. Pidge looked back at the sleeping droid. After a pause she answered. "It's her activation phrase."
Shiro understood quickly and recovered with a small cough. "Right, well, the offer's out there."
Pidge was grateful for the offer and joined Shiro back to the dining hall.
Still, her head was full of text, codes, and jumbles of corrupted font. The droid was an electronic puzzle. She couldn't put off the challenge. Lance had been explaining to Keith the plot of the movie regarding the man-hunting alien, as the latter had been unaware, and the former took the responsibility of graciously bestowing upon him the knowledge. Pidge hadn't been listening, idly tapping the end of her spoon on her untouched plate.
Hunk casually leaned over and whispered, "If you're not gonna eat it..?"
"Go right ahead," she slid her plate over. She wasn't feeling the 'food goo supreme' Coran had cooked up for them. Even if it was a slightly different shade of the usual green.
Allura had noticed her disinterest in eating. Though she was concerned for her friend's well being, she also understood prying wasn't always the best maneuver to figuring out what was going on in other's heads. She spoke over the table to her. "So, Pidge, how is our 'friend' doing?"
"Better," Pidge's face brightened some, "I mean, she's not getting worse, anyway. But most of her info was damaged so I don't know how much I can actually save."
At the fall in confidence, Allura praised, "You're the best with computers, especially with our Altean technology. I'm sure you'll crack it in no time."
Pidge tried to smile, but her face felt heavy. The lack of decent sleep the last three days, plus afternoons filled with training wore her down physically and mentally.
"What do you think robot girls are into?" Lance asked, inviting himself into the conversation, "Think she'd be impressed by a giant robot lion?"
"What happened to 'man-eating space alien?" Keith retorted.
"Hey, that is no way to talk about a lady!" Lance reprimanded.
Once dinner was over, everyone split off to do their activity of choice. Hunk, Lance, and Pidge were left in the hallway.
Hunk yawned. "I am not meant for combat training. I'm drained." To accentuate his statement, he rubbed a sore spot on his shoulder. "I'm gonna get some beauty sleep."
Lance patted him on the back. "Hate to break it to you, big guy, but no amount of sleep is ever gonna make that face beautiful."
"Oh, ha ha-"
The thought struck her like a freight train. Drained? Why hadn't she thought of that before? She had been so focused on getting information out of a machine that she forgot one basic step to getting any form of tech going.
"Hey, Pidge, Coran showed me this cool card game, do y-"
"Sorry, I gotta do something," she rushed past him so fast, she might have been a blur.
Lance was left alone in the hall. "Aw man," he shrugged, "guess I'll play with me, myself, and I. At least I can't lose."
Pidge rushed back to her room and stood in the doorway as the doors slid open. She let out a breath. Good, she hadn't moved... again.
The laptop showed no changes, the coding window was still open. She gently pushed the droid onto her side. "Let's see, it should be around here somewhere." She poked her fingers along the access panel for a port she must have missed. "Ah-hah!" She moved a quarter sized indent with a push of her finger. It slid out of the way to reveal three prong like structures. Once pulled, it extended into a black cord. "Guess you were taking a little charge up from the laptop. Sorry about that.."
Only one problem now. Allura's castle didn't exactly have power outlets. She'd have to tap directly into the castle's power source, which was located at the heart of the castle.
Shiro hadn't been aware the castle even had an archive - library room, although when he thought about it, it made sense. The castle wasn't just a ship, it had been a monument of power at one point on their home planet. Of course, it was bound to have the history of their world stored somewhere. The holo-data logs of archives made the absorption of information much more interesting than words on a page. Though Allura was using her time to refresh her mind on older information, everything was completely new to Shiro. Though Altea was gone, he felt he could learn all about it from the archive room alone.
"I guess this is useless information," Allura had been idly watching the scrolling teal screen of text. It blipped and closed into, what Shiro could only vaguely describe as, a minimal frame of a flat book. "It has been nearly ten thousand years. Altea is gone. It's all obsolete."
"Don't say that." Shiro's voice was stern, but soft. "This information is priceless, even more so now than ever. If Altea really is gone, this place is irreplaceable."
Allura smiled sadly at his words. "Before I was put into cryo-sleep, Zarkon had been attacking my home. I can't imagine there would be anything left."
Shiro tried to remain steadfast in his assurance. "Like you've said, it's been ten thousand years. That's a long time, even by earth standards. Altea might still be there, in some form."
"Do you really think...?"
Shiro smiled, "Only one way to find out, right?" He looked at the towering shelves of data logs. "Until then, this is all we've got."
"Thank you, Shiro."
He grinned at the thought. "Your archives might be like our Alexandria."
"Alexandria?"
"It was a library on Earth. It had a bunch of information about all sorts of things. Until.." He paused. After the conversation they just had, he suddenly didn't want to finish that story. "Ah, never mind. It's an old story."
The archive door slid open.
"Shiro?" Pidge asked.
"What's up?"
"I'm gonna need that help you offered earlier."
The power source of the entire castle was an item called a Balmera crystal. The blue mineral was produced and harvested from an ancient creature of it's namesake, a Balmera. How it powered a giant, futuristic castle-spaceship was beyond the Paladins' understanding, but they weren't about to start complaining. Shiro's help came in the form of transport. He carried the lifeless-like body of the droid girl behind Pidge as they made their way through the castle to the command center. The crystal was suspended above the control podium which Allura used to control the ship.
Pidge knelt by the main control panel and pulled it open. The weight of the droid must have not bothered Shiro, as he waited patiently.
"So.. she's really a complete robot?" he looked down at the girl, "Like.. sci-fi robot?"
Pidge didn't look up from her tinkering within the metal box. "Yep, from what I've seen, everything about her is synthetic."
"Besides the ears, she looks completely human.."
"Her 'ears' are actually communication modules. While working on her, I learned they're detachable." Pidge gave a bashful smile, as for a full minute she dreaded having already broken her.
"People back home would flip if they saw this," he marveled.
"Honestly, they'd flip if they saw your arm. Even our 3D printing tech isn't that seamless. Plus it's like a power generator. You can put her here."
"Guess we're not as advanced as we thought." Shiro deposited the droid beside Pidge.
"Not by a long shot. Thanks. You can head back."
"You sure?"
"If everything goes right, I think I can handle it from here." Pidge adjusted her glasses and opened the laptop with a confident grin. Shiro had departed as Pidge began hooking up all the cables.
"Hopefully, you'll feel better after this." She plugged the droid's power source cable into the open port inside the control panel. Nothing happened. She remained sound asleep. There was no clear indicator, no flashing light, to show she was charging. For all she knew, Balmera power might have been incompatible with whatever she originally used.
Only one way to find out.
She took an anxious breath. "Can you help me?"
A window opened on the laptop screen. A command window of some sort.
Activation phrase, accepted. Initiating start up...
The alien number to the right of the window began to count into double digits. Several other command codes auto-typed themselves. Pidge watched with hitched breath. Much in the same way as before, her eyes opened first, staring ahead blankly. A much smoother sounding wind instrument like chime, only more tech sounding. Then, she pushed herself to sit up.
Please don't shut off, please don't shut off..
The soft sound of whirring and clicks faded away. The droid was sitting up, facing away from Pidge, but she could see something change. A look in the droid's eye shifted literally in a single blink. Her unfocused gaze became curiously alert. She looked at the view in front of her, taking in the detail of the vast room. With a turn of her head, the droid took notice of Pidge, who stiffened with apprehension. The droid pushed her hands on the floor to rotate her position to face her, and sat quietly.
"Uh.." Pidge began lamely. "Hi?"
The droid remained quiet another second before replying. Though her expression was calm and gentle, the clipping static that came out of her was jarring.
"Ack! I forgot about that! Hang on," Pidge snatched the laptop at her side. A few minutes of clicking and typing passed. The droid continued her observation of the power chamber. "Okay, try that again."
"Good afternoon." Her voice was as gentle as her composure.
Pidge was at a slight loss of what to say suddenly. She smiled weakly.
The droid's expression became puzzled. "My apologies, but my facial recognition software has failed. I am unable to find who you are."
"Yeah, some stuff might have gotten a bit scrambled. Is everything else working okay?"
The droid paused, "It appears everything else is running as it should. Might I inquire your name?"
"Everyone calls me Pidge."
"Pidge. The name does not appear anywhere in my data banks." She lowered her head slightly. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Uh, likewise." Pidge smiled more confidently. Talking to a droid felt like talking to any other person. "So, uh, what's your name?"
The droid's eyes lit up slightly. It seemed to be a small indicator that she was running a process. Then she looked rather lost. "It... it appears I do not have a name." Her tone sounded confused.
"Right," Pidge realized. "A lot of your info was corrupted. I tried to save what I could. I guess your name wasn't one of them... Sorry about that..." The droid looked far more upset at this information than Pidge had felt. Natural, she supposed. "What else can you remember?"
Another quintent had come and gone. The castle-ship remained adrift in space, but they could not do so indefinitely. Their power needed a chance to recharge, plus a few minor repairs needed to be taken care of, lest they were caught by another Galra ambush. Through vigorous scanning, Coran had finally found a planet suitable for human, Altean, and other life. It would only take 'a shake of a Yalmore's tail' to reach, as he put it.
The crew, sans Pidge, were hanging around the living room chamber of the ship.
"Anyone seen Pidge?" Lance asked idly as he lay down on the sofa. "She's still on the ship, right?"
As if being summoned, the doors slid open to allow in their very enthused friend. "Guys, guys!" Once she had everyone's attention, she continued. "There's someone I'd like you to meet." She took a step to the side revealing the person standing behind her.
There was a collective wave of vocalized awe. The last time they had seen her, she was in a state of disrepair, but now she stood up looking awake and alive as the rest of them.
"You- you-" Hunk stammered, his surprise getting the better of him. He was the first to approach, as if to ogle at her more closely. Understandable, his specialty was more mechanics based than digital tech. "You got her to work?! Uh, no offence-"
The droid smiled. "None taken. You are correct, while there are something things still in repair processing, most of my functionality has returned."
"There's still some things we're kinda patching up. She's a version one-point-oh, if you will." Pidge added.
Allura took a step forward. "Please, come in and make yourself at home."
They took a seat.
"Are you feeling better after your mishap?" Allura took a seat beside the droid.
She nodded, "Much better, ma'm. I apologize if I caused anyone trouble."
"No trouble at all, little miss." Coran answered. "It's a pleasure to have you on board."
Allura smiled warmly and gestured a hand to herself. "My name is Allura. This ship is my castle. This is Coran, my adviser and helmsman."
Coran tugged at the collar of his blue suit proudly. "Also navigator, and expert chef."
There was a detectable distaste in Lance's tone. "I wouldn't say 'expert'." Coran shot him an offended glare.
Allura gestured to the others. "These five are the Paladin's of Voltron. Shiro, pilot of the black lion, is the head, quite literally." The boy raised a hand in quiet greeting. "Keith is the red paladin, and pilot of the red lion. Hunk, the yellow. And you already know Pidge, the green. And the blue paladin is-"
The vacant seat to the droid's right was suddenly occupied. "Is the one and only me. How's it goin'? The name's Lance."
All together, the attitude of the room dropped. Allura's eyebrows were arched. "You can ignore him.."
"It's a pleasure to meet you all. I would give you my name but it seems to have been lost with most of my data."
"You don't remember your name, at all?" Shiro asked, surprised.
"No, sir. Although, I do have my model number; nine-three-eight-dash-L-E-four-six-three."
"That's.. quite some name," he replied.
Although the others in the room seemed annoyed with Lance's overbearing interest in the droid, she hardly seemed bothered. "So, uh, Nine-eight- uh," He couldn't remember the numbers. "Where ya from?"
The droid had easily been looking Lance eye-to-eye, but once the question was asked, she looked down to her knees. "I don't remember. So much of my data had become corrupted. I really only have the basic functions. In a sense, I have been reset to factory settings."
"We found you in an abandoned space ship," Keith offered. "A pretty big one."
The droid processed the information and looked concentrated in thought. The others noticed the visible vibrancy in her eye color.
"Uh, maybe we shouldn't ask her those kinds of questions yet-" Shiro warned. Asking someone who couldn't remember anything was a rather pointless endeavor.
"A ship," the droid responded. "bound for -" the word that followed sounded like the audio feed malfunctioning. A verbally spoken corrupted word. "Transport-ople-suppl-" Her voice sounded a little too automated. "Emergency - breach - warning - evacua-"
"Oh," Hunk muttered, clearly offended. "good job, guys. You broke our new friend."
The sounds clipped to a stop and the droid's expression softened to one of puzzlement as she looked back up. "I am unable to recall anything."
They exchanged glances.
"I'm so sorry. I must be a burden to you all."
"Not at all!" Allura assured, resting her hand atop the droid's. "It's an Altean's duty to help those in need. And seeing as how there's no other options, you're welcome to stay with us."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah!" Hunk chimed in. "This castle's big enough to house another person, Nine- Eight... uh.." He lowered his voice, lifting a hand to the side of his mouth as if it would make his question any more discreet. "Hey, do you think there's maybe an easier name to call you by?"
The droid considered the question, then looked to Pidge.
"Whoa, don't look at me. I can't even think up a name for a hamster."
Lance, with his palms on his lap, leaned forward slightly. "Technically, you are the Frankenstein here."
He had a point, Pidge admitted. She raised a knuckle to her chin. After a moment, she answered, "How about LE?"
"...Ellie?" Keith clarified.
"Her model number has an L and an E in it. So.. LE." Pidge said, smiling. She turned to the droid. "What do you think?"
"You would like to give me the name 'LE'." She returned the smile. "I like it." Pidge smiled in response. "Well then, to return to our previous conversation. It is a pleasure to meet you all. My name is LE."
Hello and welcome to my attempt at contributing to this fandom! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! As a side note, if you can't tell by the time this story was published, season 2 wasn't even out yet. So while reading this, assume it takes place sometime... somewhere.. at least before the end of season 2. Thank you for reading!