"Pirates?!" Allura exclaimed, feeling a shudder through her spine. "You can't be serious, Kolivan. Those people can't be trusted!"
"They've been allies of the Blade for a while now and we could always count on them. They'd do anything, anything, to defeat Zarkon. They, too, are victims of his cruelty."
"But still…" Allura's voice came down to a whisper, obviously shocked by the outcome of the conversation.
"Remember how months ago you believed all Galra were ruthless people and none of them could be trusted? And here you are, standing in a Galra rebel base. Planning the revolution with us. You can't say pirates are all the same without meeting them once. They have their ways, we have ours, and you have yours. But we have a common enemy and this is all that matters." She hated to admit it, but he did make a valid point. Even so, the suggestion made her uncomfortable.
"But Kolivan," started Shiro, supporting Allura, "you can't blame us for not trusting them. I mean, we can't possibly ally with such people, who cheat and lie and steal and -"
"Scarlet Kaida's ship crew is different." Kolivan cut him short, his voice leaving no place for doubts or buts. "They only attack Zarkon's troops and bases now."
"Now?" picked up Hunk. "What do you mean now ?"
"This is part of our contract with their captain." Kolivan paused, looking at all the paladins around the table and the two Alteans next to them. Maps and pens were spread across the table, along with empty cups of energy drink that Lance had called coffee. The few days had been tiring, and the sleepless nights had a toll on the Voltron team. They needed to strike Zarkon now. "Plus, they are the only ones who managed to get in and out of Zarkon's fortress without them noticing. We need their help." The statement brought all paladins to snap to attention.
"They did what?!" All the paladins were shocked. Zarkon's strongest fortress invaded by mere space pirates, that was one thing. But the fact that they managed to get out? That was a first. Without them noticing? That was unbelievable.
After a long talk with them arguing back at how reckless the idea was, they reluctantly accepted to meet the crew and their captain. Kolivan was right: They couldn't deny new allies. Not when they were at war. Not when they needed every possible help they could get.
The enemies of my enemies are my friends, right?
And so, they were back in the Castle, heading for the location Kolivan had given them. "Don't be late", he had said before their departure. "They don't like that." His voice had betrayed slight amusement as he had said that… Whatever could that have meant?
"Are we really doing this?" Hunk asked, fidgeting in his seat. "Meeting with pirates in an unknown location?"
Pidge twitched at the word and worked harder on her computer, trying to find out more about the place where they were going to wormhole the whole castle. Anything about the atmosphere, or about its inhabitants, anything.
But she could find nothing on it. Nothing special, no planets, no recorded space rock fields, or dangerous areas. Just an empty area of space, as if, as if someone had just pulled out a map pointed at a random point and declared it their meeting point, Pidge thought, sulking in front of her screen. She didn't know if the intuition she had meant good or bad news for them, and she dreaded finding out.
"We'll have to trust Kolivan on this," started Allura, "after all, every mission we went with him went good and he often put the sake of his men and his own safety in danger to get us out of tough situations. Let us not start losing trust in our friends again, we've seen the consequences of such things in the past already." She flicked her eyes to Keith, making it obvious she was referring to her reaction when she had learned about Keith's Galra legacy. The red paladin seemed to have forgiven her since then, but she still couldn't help blaming herself for that. And she'd make sure not to make the same mistake twice.
They all had agreed they couldn't just wormhole the whole castle. Allura and the paladins were to go to the meeting point on a smaller ship while Coran kept his watch over the castle and would be able to wormhole it to the location if they raised the alarm.
/
"So, what do you think they'll look like?" asked Lance, excitement evident in his voice, as they all landed on the ship that had appeared just a tick after them. His mind was running wild with memories of the pirates' stories his mother would tell him before he fell asleep: wooden legs and eye patches, treasure on lost islands, beers, rough laughter and… skeletons and blood.
Yeah, maybe it could be great if they'd stop at the beers, on their "why are we pirates" checklist. He gulped.
"Don't let yourself get fooled by the appearance of the ship, Lance," warned Hunk, "or we'll be obliged to refresh the memories of your last encounter with pirates to you."
"I thought we were best friends Hunk! I feel utterly betrayed here!" Lance answered in a sulky voice.
"I kept the audio files if you need more details," whispered Pidge in the com with her devilish grin.
But Lance couldn't help it, the ship just looked like the pirate ships in his childhood stories. It basically was a pirate boat. But in space. Yeah right. If their captain was named Albator he didn't want to think of the diplomatic catastrophe his laughter would create.
"Lance. Focus, please." Shiro winced in the com. Goal. Now, he too had the theme song in his head, sorry not sorry Shiro.
But he focused back on the mission anyway. Only to confirm his thought that no one was on the deck. It was completely silent. Empty. "So, I knew we weren't to expect a welcoming ceremony but like, someone to indicate the way would haAHH. What was THAT?!" his voice turned into a high-pitched yell.
A huge black creature had appeared, in front of them, into a swirl of black shadows. Out of nowhere. Into thin air. Like it was nothing. Teleported.
Sometimes Lance wondered why all the space meetings had to start with a heart attack. But at least he wasn't the only one to had stepped back. The space dog was, after all, big. Really big. And looked really deadly.
The black creature suddenly turned back and began walking towards an entrance. It stopped and turned its big head towards them once again. Waiting, as if they were expected to follow that.
"Do you think it's... leading the way?" Hunk was bewildered as he voiced Lance's thoughts. He hoped on quiznak that wasn't the case.
"Let's find out." And Allura followed after the creature. Yeah, maybe she was more used to deadly black creatures that could appear into thin air just like that, in a blink of an eye. She was an alien princess after all. Lance's brain added "Can dogs turn into Death Eaters?" to his mental memento anyway. He gulped and followed after Allura, despite his intuition telling him he was making a mistake.
They stepped into a dim lit corridor, and even though Lance didn't waste any time on trying to discern what was glued and pinned to the walls, the difference between this and the Castle or the Blade's ships stroke him. This wasn't a simple ship: it was a home. And all the walls they passed were covered in what could only be memories and souvenirs of the persons who inhabited this ship, just like his mother did at home, plastering the empty halls with pictures of the family, drawings, and decoration.
The creature led them down wooden stairs, turning at another corner before stopping in front of a door, from which the music they could all hear for a few minutes outside now escaped, and nudged it with her snout before disappearing once more.
Shiro and Keith pushed the door open, hands ready to take their bayards at any moment if the situation they'd face inside was any sort of trap. To their surprise, the door creaked open to reveal a huge room with a high ceiling, wooden panels, and plants. A warm light was bathing the place. Lance would have called it welcoming and cozy if it wasn't for the whirlpool of shadow that materialized again on the other side of the room, at the feet of a young woman with a grin on her face and a sword at her belt.
Okay, Lance hadn't expected that. Not the fact that the captain was a woman was bothering him, he just hadn't expected her, them to look so... human. In the room, next to the walls, was the crew and, even if he spotted some blue skin, pink wings, greenish tails and big fangs, most of them looked more human than every other alien he had met since he had become the blue paladin of Voltron.
The woman standing in front of them stared back at him, before returning her gaze to the others. Even if she looked human, her attire was anything but usual: a red hood down on her shoulders, brown pants tucked into knee-long steel boots, and a black sheath tucked between her belt and the green cloth beneath. She looked more like Robin Hood than a pirate if he had to be honest.
Not a sheath he realized after a moment, but a blade. The blade itself was dark as ebony and seeing the gleam it reflected under the light, it seemed it was as sharp as Keith's own dagger.
Keith was eyeing the blade too and... Was that awe in his eyes? Great, he was surrounded by madmen in love with blades and swords. Cool.
"Welcome aboard the Scarlet Kaida, paladins, Princess." She paused, a smirk tugging at her lips. "The Blade told us about your arrival, what do you want from us? I didn't know the mighty paladins were ready to seek help from pirates." She mocked them with her grin.
"The leader of the blade had told us of your… accomplishments in the Galra fortress. We are here to meet with the Captain of this vessel." Alura spoke cautiously.
"And the captain you shall meet, Princess." Lance whipped his head upwards just in time to see a silhouette jumping from her spot in the ceiling, blue coat floating in her fall. Had she been there all along? She landed on her heels, clicking on the wooden floor, and flicked upwards the hat she was wearing, revealing a long braid of brown hair and an ocean of freckles under her bright eyes.
"Captain," sighed really-sharp-black-sword woman, "will you never stop your dramatic entrances?"
"Never!" she laughed, and walked toward her and ruffled her hair, "and come on, I know you all love when I do that!"
Lance had been so focused on the ebony sword earlier that he had not realized how short really-sharp-black-sword woman was. She was now bickering with her captain on how not professional her attitude was.
She looks so young, thought Lance, bewildered by the appearance of the person that claimed to be the leader of this ship and its crew.
"So, what," she smiled, sarcasm in her voice, "Lance McClain, a 17-year-old earthling gets to be the paladin of a giant lion robot, and I, Lucy Fair of Atlantis, can't be a good captain?"
Great. Lance had now vexed the captain of a pirate ship because said captain could read minds. (Punny names and drama entrance though? Lance really hoped she was going to be an ally because he already liked the girl.) She stared him in the eyes, patting the head of her hound with one hand, who now had flames flicking around its tail, a growl in his throat, and a deadly glare in his eye. Good, even the pet seemed to be overprotective of his master.
"She." stated the Captain. "Our Merryn is a she and she is not a pet. She's part of our crew, just like anyone else. We wouldn't have broken through Zarkon's fortress to rescue a simple pet."
"So, it's true?" asked Shiro, not at all shocked by what she had just said. They had freaking broken through the Galra empire's fortress to rescue their dog comrade?! A very powerful and scary doggo who could do magic, Lance had come to understand that, but still. What had space done to their level of extraordinary tolerance?! Had it just become normal to Shiro now?! That, or he was just better at keeping his poker face on. Yeah. Probably.
"Yes, it is, and pardon me for not introducing myself properly earlier." The shorty… The woman next to the captain, Lance corrected himself after meeting the former's death glare, interrupted. "My name is Julie Teerah Eterna, first lieutenant of the Scarlet Kaida!"
"And after, Jijii, it's me who isn't professional", grumbled Lucy.
And with that, Jijii, Julie Teerah Eterna, first lieutenant, Ms. really-sharp-black-sword woman, stuck out her tongue at her captain. "I never said I was Lu'," she shrugged as if such behavior was absolutely natural.
Lance couldn't believe what he was seeing. And it seemed the others couldn't either, judging from the puzzled looks they could no longer contain. Hunk looked at him in disbelief, and Lance gave him his best "I don't know any moreman" shrug in return.
His thoughts flipped back to the corridor walls from earlier. Home. Family.
The black hound, Merryn, Lance reminded himself again, fearing the captain's ire, barked and the two women stopped their bickering.
"Yes, Merryn, you're right." Spoke the captain, tapping the head of the dog with a gentle gesture (If she could speak with her dog now, Lance was definitely going to lose it). "So! Paladins! What do you want from us exactly?" Lucy asked. As if she didn't know already.
"We have our plan to defeat Zarkon. And Kolivan told us you were the fitting crew for the job of getting us in."
Captain Lucy Fair didn't pretend to think about it really hard, didn't fake any internal debate, nor did she try to negotiate. "Count us in" she replied right away, in a determined voice, one hand resting on Merryn's head the other on her amethyst dagger at her belt, its purple color gleaming under the light as she shook Allura's hand. Purple.
"Don't take that as recklessness, Princess" spoke the first lieutenant. "Just like we said before, we knew you were coming. Kolivan told us what it was all about."
"And no one on this ship will deny an opportunity to beat Zarkon's ass and make him pay," the captain said, finishing her lieutenant's sentence. "No one. Especially not for the final battle," she huffed out a laugh and, agreeing with her words, all her crew cheered. She turned her back from the six of them, her blue coat swirling once again, and flicked her hand upwards, revealing more and more crew members, hidden by her magic until now. They were everywhere, sitting on the same mezzanine she had jumped from, on benches next to the table in the room, more on the walls than there was a second ago, but, most importantly, behind them, as well. So, the hound hadn't been the only one to lead them here, uh?
Pidge gasped next to him, unable to hide her surprise. "Don't you think it's a threat, Princess?"
"Quite on the contrary, Pidge. She's proving that she could have defeated us, or even worse, in the blink of an eye, with the flick of her fingers, a wordless order in their mind, but she didn't. And she wants us to know that." Allura smiled, "I'm starting to understand Kolivan's words now."
In a heartbeat, the mood inside the room had changed to a more cheerful one, music resonating through the walls, cheers, and laughter filling the small space, people dancing and singing all around, the captain and her lieutenant themselves twirling and fluttering in the crowd. And soon enough, Allura and the others were swallowed in this cheerful mess.
/
Hours later, they had all settled around a huge table, eating, while the music still played (but on a much lower level than earlier this time). Coran had joined them too on the deck, when the lieutenant asked, "how about our payment though?"
"What payment?" asked a tipsy Allura.
"You don't think you're going to get our help for free, right?!" Julie sounded offended.
"Isn't saving the universe from the yoke of its evil emperor enough of a satisfactory reward?" Coran answered, combing his mustache.
"Ha-ha, that's a good one!" Lieutenant and captain burst into laughter. "You're not being serious here?" they said in unison after seeing the paladins' confused faces. "I'm afraid taking care of the emperor won't fill our bellies." They exchanged a look. "We know what will though," and they turned their head in sync to Hunk, "Mr. yellow paladin" they trailed, batting their eyelashes, "we've heard you're quite the cook. Would you mind sharing those precious recipes with us?" they closed in on him, their looks turning from gingerly to intimidating.
"I guess I can't say no," he stuttered. It's not like they were just for the group…"
"Yay!" Both girls high fived and dived in their plates once more.
Lance couldn't believe his eyes. Space pirates, hellhound, mind reading, a party in the middle of an alliance treaty, and now puppy eyes for a bunch of recipes? And all in a few hours!
Kolivan's words came back to his mind.
Scarlet Kaida's ship crew is different
For sure, they were quite different indeed.