Freefall
There was no way the escape pod was going to clear the blast radius of the exploding ship. Haxus had three different readouts on the pod's control panel and a siren screaming in his ears to tell him that. The screen giving him visuals on the ship showed that Voltron hadn't noticed their flight yet-the massive robot was busy shoving one lion's-head fist through the cruiser's hull and blasting away, each strike closer to the fuel tanks than the last, and when they finally hit those, the ship was going down.
"Haxus," Sendak grated from the opposite side of the pod. He sounded unfazed, but a quick glance showed the commander's ears were flattened against his head.
"Brace yourself," Haxus replied. "The ship's going to blow. Shockwave eminent in-" Voltron smashed through the fuel tanks- "Five ticks!"
He was a little off. The pod pitched violently, rattling as shrapnel pummeled the hull. Haxus gripped the control panel like his life depended on it, bracing his feet against the floor to keep from sliding. Behind him, Sendak hit a wall and, from the thud and the grunt that followed, the floor too. You didn't swear at your commander, but Haxus desperately wanted to. Of course Sendak had thought he wouldn't need to brace.
The pod leveled out, and then the siren was screaming at him again. They were descending. Fast. Too fast. His claws clattered on the controls as he dismissed warning screens, pulled up diagnostics.
"What's going on?" Sendak demanded.
"Left thrusters are offline."
"Can you get them back before we crash?"
"I'm working on it." The diagnostic panel flashed at him. "Not fully. There's shrapnel in the emissions ports. I can get them twenty percent functional-"
"Do it!" The pod lurched again, and Haxus heard Sendak slide across the floor, armor screeching off steel. "Now!"
Haxus didn't waste the breath it would take to answer. He pulled up the thruster controls. Another warning flashed, telling him all the risks of putting the left thrusters back into commission. Explosion was top on that list. He ignored it, and the alert from the right thrusters indicating that they too had taken damage. He felt the thrusters re-engage as a jolt through the floor and, moments later, a slowing of their fall.
"Thrusters are back online, but we're still going to land hard." The altitude warning was up now. Impact eminent. Ten ticks remaining. Nothing he could do to stop it. "Brace!"
Sendak grunted in response. Haxus dropped, tucking himself beneath the control panel and hoping it would be enough to stop any debris from falling on him. Five ticks. Four. Three. Two. One-
The pod jerked violently, slamming Haxus up against the underside of the control panel and then back against the floor as it bounced off the planet's surface. He braced himself more securely against the legs, hanging on as the pod skipped three or four more times before coming to a rest. Dust and chunks of the ceiling rained down, clanging off the top of the control panel. Aside from that, the pod was deathly silent. Haxus's innards clenched.
Then, hidden by the dust cloud, Sendak coughed like he was trying to eject his lungs. A tick later, he gasped out, "Haxus, report in." Haxus didn't respond, still trying to get his breath back. "Haxus. Answer me."
"I'm here," he wheezed, crawling out from under the control panel.
The air in the pod was thick with white dust-insulation from the walls, most likely. Not a good sign. It meant structural damage, probably serious enough that the pod would need major repairs if it were to ever fly again. He waved an arm, trying to clear the air, and coughed when the dust hit the back of his throat. The dust settled enough to give some visibility, and Haxus choked again, this time to smother his laughter. Sendak was coated in it from head to toe. The only part of him visible and its proper color was his left eye, the organic one. He was wiping at the cybernetic on the right, trying to clear the dust from the lens and only succeeding in smearing it. The commander blinked at him, looking dazed.
"Are you alright?"
It took Haxus a moment to respond, gathering his thoughts and running a mental checklist of his physical condition. "I'm fine. You?"
"A bit battered," Sendak replied, rubbing the back of his head. "But I'm alright."
Haxus scowled. 'A bit battered,' in Sendak-speak, meant 'I feel like I've been used as a practice dummy by a band of recruits in basic,' and in this case it also meant he hadn't been able to brace himself for impact and had probably been thrown around the pod. "You'll have to let me look you over, make sure you aren't injured."
"I said, I'm alright," came the snarled response.
Haxus dropped it. "Let's see where we landed," he suggested.
Sendak hesitated, then nodded, which was even more worrying. Usually he didn't like Haxus taking the reins for anything, which Haxus ascribed to his being one of if not the youngest commanders in the fleet-and was definitely a new development since his promotion, because he hadn't minded listening to Haxus before-so his acquiescence was another indication that something was wrong. He pressed his palm to the panel on the door, which hissed open with no resistance. A small mercy.
There was a second small mercy waiting outside. Arus's sun was half-sunk beneath the horizon, dim enough not to blind Haxus when he emerged. A third mercy, not quite so small-they'd landed in a canyon of some sort, out of sight of Voltron's base but near enough that the plume of smoke from the ship's wreckage was clearly visible. Good. They could scavenge the wreck after dark-historic records said that the Alteans had been a diurnal race, and if Champion's sleeping patterns and physiology had been any indication, his species functioned during the day as well. None of their enemies would be out investigating at night, if they even thought that he and Sendak had survived.
The commander stumbled out of the pod and, apparently thinking Haxus wasn't looking, leaned heavily against the panel beside the door. His ears were lowered, but Haxus couldn't tell if it was just stress or pain from the angle-the two looked very similar on Sendak.
"Commander Sendak," he said, keeping his voice low. "If you'll allow me to-"
"No," Sendak snapped, cutting him off. "Check the pod. See what's running and what needs repairs. I'll secure a perimeter."
"Sendak-"
"Haxus. Don't. We need to get that pod out of sight before sunrise, before Voltron can come looking for us. I want to know what needs repaired, and quickly."
The glare and the soundness of his reasoning was all it took. "Yes, sir," Haxus said. He ducked back inside the pod, where the dust had finally settled to the floor, and tapped on the control panel. It flickered to life, which was a relief, and Haxus set a full system scan.
What came back was...not good. The shrapnel in the left thrusters had overheated them, and they would need serious repairs to work again. Communications and navigation were both offline-he suspected damage to the transmitter, if not the wiring. He had cabin lighting controls, but the dust was, as he'd suspected, insulation, and the life support systems were damaged. The air filtration and recycling system was offline, as were the thermoregulators-the pod was going to get awfully hot and stuffy when the sun came back up. The biometric scanners were also offline, but according to their diagnostic, they would be a quick fix and not require spare parts. Not so for the other two. The ship would have parts to repair them, but whether or not those parts were intact…no. They were moving the pod to cover first. He could worry about life support systems later, after he repaired the thrusters.
Haxus returned his attention to the thruster diagnostics. Burnt-out wiring, shrapnel in the emissions jets, heat damage to the tubes...at least the right thrusters were intact. They showed some minor damage to the jets, most likely caused by shrapnel, but nothing had caught and jammed. Small mercies. He grabbed the pod's toolkit, exited, and scrambled underneath.
Left thrusters first. A large chunk of the cruiser's hull was lodged in the jet, bending it out of shape. The edges and walls were blackened, and his sensitive nose wrinkled at the scent of smoke. He pulled the pry-bar from the toolkit, wedged it behind the shrapnel, and wrenched at it until the twisted metal came free. It clunked down a hand's breadth from his head. He shoved it aside, enjoying the clatter as it slid across the ground and out from under the pod, and set to work pulling the burned wiring from the inside of the jet and replacing it with fresh wiring from the toolkit, and pushing the warped walls of the jet back into position.
Heavy footsteps came to a stop near his head, and without thinking, he said, "Sendak? Would you give me a hand with this?"
Sendak's enormous prosthetic slid under the pod. It scraped against the undercarriage and lit the space with the glow from the quintessence chain that linked it to the attachment on the commander's shoulder.
Haxus groaned. "That wasn't funny the first time you did it, and it isn't now."
Outside of his range of vision, Sendak huffed with amusement. "I secured our perimeter. What do you need me to do?"
"Get under here and bend the right jets back into shape. They were damaged in the blast."
The prosthetic slid back out, and a moment later the commander wedged himself under the pod on the other side. Haxus tipped his ears, listening for any sign of distress, and, sure enough, Sendak hissed in pain as he pushed himself further under to reach the jets. He hurriedly pushed his jet back into its proper position and slid back out, then padded around to Sendak's side. The commander's feet just barely poked out from under the pod, and Haxus stood so he was straddling them. When he slid out a couple doboshes later, Haxus sat down, hard, and pinned him in place.
Sendak glared, his ears flattening aggressively. "Get off."
"Not until you let me check your injuries. I know you were hurt when we landed."
"I've told you, I'm fine-"
"Don't lie to me. What are you going to do if Voltron shows up and you can't fend them off because you were wounded?"
Slowly, those massive ears tilted from aggression to submission. "Alright. Just let me up first. You'll need to remove my armor."
Haxus would have teased him for it if Sendak's inability to remove his own armor hadn't stemmed from the large, unwieldy prosthetic he was using instead of his normal, more functional one, which had gone down with the ship. The oversized, clumsy thing was an experimental prototype the Druids had fitted Sendak with the last time they'd stopped in at the Galactic Hub, and both of them had critiques of it-namely, that it was too large and awkwardly-shaped to be useful outside of a fight and made a clumsy weapon during one. He undid the latches on the commander's armor with ease, then hesitated, fingers lingering on the opening for Sendak's under-suit. Sendak nodded, and Haxus removed that as well, peeling it to the waist.
Once that was down, the injuries were obvious. The compression from the suit had held his organic arm in position, but once freed it looked twisted out of the socket-forward, fortunately, which would be easier to fix. It was impossible to see bruises through Sendak's thick fur, but a quick brush over his chest and back earned startled gasps of pain that said Haxus would need to look them over more carefully, to make sure it was just bruising and not broken ribs. And there was a lump swelling on the back of his skull where he'd obviously smacked his head on something, though he was showing no other signs of a concussion.
"And your legs?" Haxus asked.
"They're fine-" Sendak started, but cut himself off when Haxus glowered. "...My knees might be a bit bruised, but nothing's broken."
Haxus nodded. "Alright. I'm going to put your shoulder back in its socket. Lie down on your back."
Sendak complied, and Haxus crouched next to him and tried to remember what little medical training he'd received back in basic. Most dislocations were remedied with the soldier on his stomach, but Haxus hadn't wanted to risk it in case Sendak's ribs were broken and the pressure drove them into vital organs. He bent Sendak's elbow to 90 degrees and then, slowly, rotated his shoulder outward. Sendak yowled and cringed, and Haxus flinched a bit, jerking the arm and tearing another cry of pain from the commander. He released Sendak's arm with one hand and went for his ear, rubbing at the base until Sendak's gasps of pain faded to panting. His eye squeezed shut, whole face taut with pain and breath ragged.
"Just a bit longer," Haxus said, returning his attention to the arm.
"You...can always just cut it off...if you can't get it back in place," Sendak ground out.
"I will not amputate your arm over a dislocation," Haxus huffed in reply, and rotated Sendak's arm a little further. The muscles in his shoulder jumped and spasmed, writhing under the fur. Sendak's fangs sank into his lower lip to keep from crying out again. Deep blue blood welled up around his teeth.
Several long, tense doboshes later, the arm jerked up and back into place. It took a few more ticks for the muscles around it to stop twitching and jerking, during which Haxus kept his hold on Sendak's arm. It wouldn't do for the larger Galra to make any hasty moves and dislocate his shoulder again, not after all the work they'd just put into setting it. Eventually the spasms subsided, and both of them slumped against the stony ground, breathing heavily. Haxus opened his eyes a tick or two later, counting his breaths to calm down. Six ticks in, pause for two ticks, eight ticks out. Repeat. Sendak was still gasping on the ground beside him, thick-furred chest heaving like he couldn't get enough air. Haxus reached for him, claws easily brushing through the thick fur at the commander's ruff to scrape against the skin beneath. Sendak tilted his head, pressing the side of his face against Haxus's palm, and Haxus resisted the urge to smile.
They sat like that a couple ticks longer, and then Haxus scrambled to his feet. "I'm going to get a brace for your shoulder and a cold pack from the first aid supplies. Do not move."
Sendak cracked his eyelid open, managing a smirk. "I don't recall dying and putting you in charge," he said.
Well, if he was making jokes, he was fine. Asshole. But, then again, Sendak used death humor as a coping mechanism, and if he'd learned anything during their stint as crewmates, before the campaign that had cost Sendak his arm and won him the attention of Emperor Zarkon himself, it was that he coped more aggressively when he was injured or anxious. Maybe he wasn't alright. Or maybe Haxus was just overthinking things, as usual. Not that his overthinking hadn't saved lives before, but usually it just made him anxious or ended with him off on a tangent and Sendak putting one of his frankly enormous hands over Haxus's mouth to shut him up-
He shook himself out of his thoughts and re-entered the pod, opening the hatch for the first aid supplies. The cold packs were easy to find-practically at the top of the kit-but the braces were buried somewhere near the bottom, and looking them over, Haxus had his doubts about whether or not the brace was going to fit. The average Galra soldier was significantly shorter than Sendak, and much slimmer, and most equipment the military provided was designed to fit the average. He'd just have to hope the largest setting would be big enough, that was all. He paused, studying the inside of the cabinet, and then grabbed and activated one of the handheld biometric scanners. It wouldn't be as precise as the pod's scanner, but it would be enough to get a read on Sendak's other injuries.
Sendak was sitting up by the time Haxus exited the pod-of course he was, he hadn't listened to anyone even when they'd both been grunts-and had finally gotten the insulation dust off the lens of his eye. He was holding the injured shoulder awkwardly against his body, and his ears were tilted to an angle that definitely said 'pain'. Haxus sighed.
"That arm had better still be in its socket," he said warningly, sitting down next to Sendak and ratcheting the straps on the brace as far out as they would go.
"It is," Sendak replied, flattening his ears as Haxus strapped the brace around his upper arm and shoulder. The chest band just barely fit around his broad torso-Haxus had to actively fight with it to get it to close. Then he squeezed the cold packs to activate them and draped them over Sendak's shoulder. The commander slumped bonelessly, head lolling on his neck and tension fleeing his limbs. Haxus just barely managed to keep him from flopping over in the dirt.
On second thought, having Sendak lying down might make getting a scan easier-no contortions of muscle to interfere with the handheld scanner's weaker beam. Haxus lowered him slowly, then took a step back and aimed the scanner at Sendak's chest. A red beam of light flashed from the end of the device. Haxus ran it quickly over Sendak's torso, then sat himself down to analyze the results. He heaved a sigh of relief. No broken bones, just bruising. His armor had done its job after all.
"Update me on the status of the pod," Sendak said. Haxus jumped, and glanced at him. Sendak hadn't moved yet, lying still with his organic eye closed and, judging by the position of the rim, the aperture of the cybernetic shut as well.
"Nothing good. I think the thrusters are repaired enough to move it to cover, but navigation, communications, and the life support systems are all offline, and there appears to be some structural damage to the pod itself. All that dust came from the insulation in the hull."
"How much of that can we repair?"
"There should be spare parts for comms and navigation in the pod itself. We may be able to scavenge parts for the life support systems from the cruiser, depending on what condition the wreck is in, but I don't know how much of it will be left intact enough to salvage." He hesitated. "Or if anything is left. Sendak, we may not be getting off this planet after all."
Sendak huffed. "That sounds familiar. Now where have you told me that before?"
"The Sekir campaign."
"And we're not dead on Sekir, are we?"
"No."
"Then we'll get off this planet too. Triumph or death."
"Triumph or death," Haxus echoed.
Arus's sun finally sank below the horizon, dropping the light from 'bright but tolerable' to 'Galra comfort zone' in a matter of ticks. Sendak didn't move-probably gathering his energy for when he did decide to get up-and Haxus sat patiently until the last of the golds and oranges in the sky faded out to red. His ears caught the soft click-whir of Sendak's eye's aperture opening, and then the commander heaved himself upright and began pulling his under-suit back up. Haxus waited, avoiding looking at him, until Sendak literally snarled in frustration when he realized he wouldn't have enough range of motion in his shoulder to get his suit back in place. Listening to him getting aggravated over not being able to do something was one of the perks of Haxus's position-Sendak made awful, hilarious noises when he got angry. He sounded like he was choking on a hairball, and Haxus could make that comparison because he'd heard it happen before. Long, thick fur was a choking hazard.
"Haxus," Sendak grumbled.
Haxus turned to look at him and couldn't restrain a laugh. "How did you manage to get yourself tangled in it?"
"I don't know." A pause. Ears lowered. "Help me."
They reached the wreckage of the cruiser a varga later, after moving the pod under the cover of an overhanging rock. There was nothing that could be done about the crater from the crash, but Sendak hoped it could be mistaken for something natural-especially after he and Haxus spent half the varga clearing up chunks of metal from the crash site. His lieutenant had complained, but he knew they couldn't be too cautious. They were alone, with a damaged pod, no way to call for backup, and their best fighter injured. Not to say that Haxus wasn't a competent fighter in his own right, he was just better with tech than combat, and knowing that Champion was with the Voltron paladins made Sendak very, very reluctant to have Haxus anywhere near a potential fight. Without Haxus's mechanical expertise, he would be stuck here on this gritty, wasteland planet.
Just from looking at it, Sendak could tell salvaging parts from the ship would be...interesting. The cruiser was in two parts, thanks to a blast from one of Voltron's hands (heads?), lying a quarter-klik apart after their fall from the atmosphere. He glanced up at the planet's large, nearly-full moon, wishing he knew how to measure time by it so they could be out before dawn.
"This will go more quickly if we split up and each search half of the ship," Sendak said.
Haxus flattened his ears. "That's a bad idea. I may need your assistance to move debris, and you might need me should your arm give out."
It was sound reasoning, but Sendak didn't like it. "We don't know how long this planet's rotational cycle is. I would rather not risk being caught out here when the sun comes up and the enemy emerges."
"You think they'll come directly to the crash site?"
"I think there's a possibility. If I brought down an enemy ship within striking distance of my base, my first move would be to check the wreck for survivors, at the very least to make sure none of my enemies remained alive to attack me or deliver information to their higher-ups. If the Voltron paladins are intelligent, they will investigate our cruiser sooner rather than later."
"All the same, I would be more comfortable if we stayed together. If Voltron does catch us out here, we will be safer if we can fight as a team."
Haxus had a point there. "Alright," Sendak said. He started down the slope to the near half of the cruiser, the half containing the bridge. Haxus scrambled after him, pebbles skittering past as the shorter Galra slipped and skidded.
The inside of the wreck was still warm from the crash, just enough to make it uncomfortable. Sendak went in first, eyeing the walls. He half expected them to cave in at any moment. Haxus followed a few paces behind, prodding at panels and scanners to see if they still worked and grumbling under his breath when they didn't.
They ran across the first cluster of sentries a couple rooms in. The droids were a tangle of metal limbs and damaged blasters, sprawled in an eerily corpse-like fashion across the floor. Haxus just walked around them, checking the panel on the far side of the room. Sendak paused and nudged the pile with the toe of his boot. Nothing. Then the lights on three faceplates lit up, glowing magenta as the sentries reactivated and began to move. Haxus shrieked, and Sendak looked up from the robot pile on the floor to his wide-eyed lieutenant.
"I-I didn't realize they were still operational," he said, shame-faced.
Sendak chuffed. "Maybe you should kick them next time to check," he replied. Then his brain kicked into gear. "Wait a tick. Haxus, if some of the sentries are still working-"
"-Then we can keep our attention on repairing the pod and getting in contact with the main fleet instead of worrying about security," Haxus finished. "They may not keep the paladins out, but we'll be ready for them when they get past the sentries." The three operational ones finally worked free of the pile of broken sentries, lurching to their feet. None of them was in good condition, but they were working.
"I'm going to see if I can find any more functional sentries," Sendak said. "Keep looking for any active panels to check the cruiser's life supports for working parts."
"On it," Haxus said.
Sendak waited until he was out of earshot of the room before breaking into a sprint. He knew Haxus would have scolded him for it, something about running not being good for his bruised ribs, but what Haxus didn't know would only hurt Sendak. Pain was a temporary condition anyway; he'd already suppressed the ache in his shoulder, and hurrying would get them clear of this half of the wreck much more quickly. Saying he wasn't comfortable would be the understatement of the cycle. If there was one thing his training had taught him, it was to not come back to a location the enemy could trace you to unless it was absolutely secure, and that was the one thing the ruined cruiser wasn't. There was no way to secure it. It was big and broken open like an egg, and all of his training, all of his instincts screamed to get out now.
He located another fully functional sentry, one functional airborne drone, and one sentry that was damaged enough to be worthless in a fight but could be stripped for parts back at the pod before he met back up with Haxus at the bridge. The lieutenant had somehow managed to get the main control panel up and running, and when he heard Sendak come onto the bridge, he turned and shot Sendak the most delighted look.
"Good news, at last," Haxus said. "The air filtration system and thermoregulators are still intact, and the power backup is intact and functioning."
"Excellent," Sendak said, and meant it. "Can we retrieve it?"
"It might be a bit much for you to carry," Haxus replied, eyeing him dubiously.
"Not me. The sentries can handle the heavy lifting."
"How many more have you found?"
"One fully operational, one for salvage, and a drone." Haxus's eyes lit with unabashed glee at that, and Sendak headed him off before he could go on a tangent about sentry repair. "We should retrieve the crystal and any parts you might need for the life support systems and check the other half of the ship, quickly."
Haxus saluted and hurried for the nearest vent. Sendak waved the sentries after him and descended, heading down into the bowels of the ship, where the backup power system was stored. Every battle cruiser in the fleet was required to keep a Balmera crystal on board as a power backup, just in case the quintessence fuel system failed. Out in the black, power loss could be fatal within a few vargas. Sendak had assumed the crystal had been shattered when the ship went down. Finding it intact was a miracle. He shot a quiet thank-you to whatever being was watching over him from the Astral and ordered the sentries to uncouple the crystal from its base and bring it along with them. As an afterthought, he grabbed a set of power cables from their hiding place in the base and slung them over his shoulder. They would come in handy somewhere.
The back half of the cruiser-well, back third, if you wanted to be technical-was in worse shape than the front half. The fuel tanks had been located back there, and the back half had exploded and crashed rather than just crashing like the front half. Sendak was on edge, but also itching with anticipation. Their quarters had been located in the back part of the ship, and he'd left his preferred cybernetic arm tucked under his bunk beside its repair kit that morning since Haxus had suggested trying on the prototype one last time before they gave it up entirely. He regretted that now, with the clunky prosthetic weighing down his shoulder.
He regretted it more when the only way in they found proved just narrow enough that his prosthetic got caught on the way in. Sendak wrenched at it, wincing at the strain to his left shoulder, then grabbed hold with his biological hand and tugged. Stuck.
"...Haxus?" he called, turning to his lieutenant...or, rather, to the space Haxus had inhabited when he'd gotten stuck. Haxus had vanished into the soot-blackened interior of the ship. "Haxus!" Nothing. He was gone.
Sendak snarled and returned his attention to the prosthetic. If he hadn't tried to pull it in earlier, he probably could have forced it back out. As it was, the ragged edge of the hole he'd climbed through was caught in a groove in the prosthetic's surface. The other side of the prosthetic wedged tight against the other side of the hole. He shoved at it experimentally. No give. He couldn't brace against it, not with the scaldingly hot ribbon of quintessence linking the forearm piece to the one on his shoulder. If he turned the prosthetic off he could probably shove it back out the way it had come in, but there was no guarantee it would turn back on. But maybe…
He grabbed the prosthetic again, tensed the link between the two pieces, braced one foot against the wall, and pushed off. No give. He tried again, a little more aggressively, and the prosthetic gave a little, metal scraping on metal at a pitch that made his ears ache. Sendak sighed and braced his other foot against the wall too, trusting his whole weight to the prosthetic, and shoved.
And flew backward when the wall bent inward, freeing his prosthetic too quickly for him to react. He slammed against the floor and slid three body-lengths down the hall, and would have gone further if he hadn't run head-first into Haxus's legs. His lieutenant glowered down at him.
"Where were you?" he snapped, sounding stressed.
"Stuck at the entrance," Sendak replied. He raised the prosthetic for emphasis, then rolled back to his feet. Haxus shot him an exasperated look, like Sendak was an untrained cub he had to watch. A trio of damaged sentries lurched out of the darkness behind him, and Sendak felt his ruff rising at their surprise appearance. "I'm going to check my quarters."
"For your arm?" Haxus asked. Sendak nodded.
His quarters were scorched black along the wall closer to the hull. The bedding on his bunk was burned to cinders, which didn't bode well for the fabric case his toolkit had been stored in. Sendak crouched beside the bunk and peered beneath. The narrow space was so black with soot that his eye's aperture ratcheted open another notch to allow in even more light, and he reached in to feel for the pieces he couldn't see. He found the arm first, scorched black and coated with a fine layer of soot, and blew on the ports at the upper end, the ones that linked the prosthetic to his nervous system. Soot blew back in his face. He reached back under, fumbling for the replacement pieces and tools he would need to repair any damage done to the prosthetic. Most of them were present, but the replacement port was gone, as were some of the smaller, more fiddly tools. Sendak's fingers ran across a gap in the floor panels that hadn't been there before and he knew instantly where they'd gone.
"Frex," he muttered, scrabbling at the gap. His claws went in, curling around the bottom edge of the gap into the open space beneath. Well, that was it, then. Those tools and the port were gone.
"Is something wrong?" Haxus asked from the doorway.
"Some of my replacement parts and tools are missing. I'll have to do without." Sendak hefted the prosthetic. "Let's go. We should get back to the pod before daybreak."
Haxus raised a brow at him, ears tilting to match its arc. "Are you sure you can get back out again, Commander?"
Sendak cuffed him over the head as he brushed past. "Rude."
"Thank you," Haxus said smugly.
Sendak wheeled around to mock-glower at him, still moving up the hallway. "What would high command say if they knew how you disrespect your commander?"
"That you should be removed from your post if a few comments from an underling make you break down. 'Weakness is an infection,' Sendak."
Both of them laughed at that one. It was the second military mantra of the Galra Empire (the first being 'Triumph or Death'), but by this point in their careers, they could mock it with ease. After all, who was going to call them out on perceived weaknesses when they were the only living Galra for light-cycles around, especially when the weaknesses in question were 'letting your subordinate mouth off' and 'giving a shit about your crewmates'? Particularly when they had been one of the most successful pairs in the fleet since Sendak was promoted-he recalled at least one occasion when Prorok had pulled him aside at an officers' meeting and mentioned something about wanting to know his secrets for his good relationship with those under his command.
Treat them like proper Galra instead of drones, maybe, Sendak had wanted to say. He'd made eye-contact with Thace across the room instead, tipping his ears sympathetically in reply to the lieutenant's long-suffering look. Haxus had caught him afterwards and teasingly needled him for 'cheating on him with another, fluffier lieutenant,' which he'd denied vehemently. Though that, of course, had set off rumors of fraternization Sendak had been forced to quash before they got out of hand.
He eyed Haxus's back as the smaller Galra slipped past him to retrieve the sentries and was glad those rumors hadn't borne any sort of fruit, not even an investigation into any potential misconduct. Haxus was an old friend, the only person Sendak trusted unconditionally-though they were still relearning how they fit together, seventeen cycles after his promotion to commander. Sendak relied on him for all the things Haxus could do that he couldn't, like work magic with technology or properly repair his arm when Sendak damaged it in a fight, or fit into small places for infiltration or any of the other small, miraculous skills Haxus seemed to pull out of nowhere.
The trek back to the pod was silent except for the sentries' heavy steps. The night had dimmed a little-a quick glance up told Sendak that the moon had set while they'd scoured the wreck for parts. He could see Haxus's brain going a million kliks per varga, ears tipping back and forth and brow alternately furrowing and smoothing out, probably working out what he could salvage from the damaged sentries to repair the more functional ones, what he could do to fix the pod with the parts they had. The little bastard was cute when he was thinking.
As they ducked back under the overhang where they'd hidden the pod, Haxus finally spoke. "I'm going to begin repairs on the sentries."
"I'll check the perimeter again," Sendak said, relieved. He could get a little space for a few doboshes-
Haxus scowled and said, "You should rest. Your injuries won't heal if you push yourself too hard-"
"And what if something has crossed our perimeter and seen the pod? We know next to nothing about this planet's natives. If they're sentient, how long do you think it will take them to make contact with Voltron? Not long, I bet, and that time will be halved if they've seen us. I'll check the perimeter…" He hesitated a tick, weighing the pros and cons. "And then I'll rest, so long as you take a look at my prosthetic. I would be more comfortable wearing that than this." He shrugged his left shoulder, temporarily relieving the tension in the joint from the weight of the monstrosity.
Haxus studied him with narrow golden eyes, and Sendak had the feeling his lieutenant was wondering how easily he could be taken down and forced to rest. He came to a conclusion quickly enough. "Alright, but don't push yourself and come immediately back if you find anything."
Sendak didn't reply verbally, but he tipped his ears in acknowledgement and gave Haxus his fondest look before heading off to set a new and check a new perimeter.
Once he was around one of the canyon's walls, he leaned against the cool rock and closed his eye. He was tired already. He'd been up the better part of a quintant on board the ship, and exertion, excitement, and injury hadn't done much for his energy levels since. He considered hurrying through the perimeter check to get back to the pod and catch a nap, then weighed it against the prosthetic on his shoulder. Sleeping in prosthetics was always a bad idea, but this one had the potential to do him real injury and he didn't need both shoulders out of commission. And if he slept, and Voltron showed up…
Haxus flashed across his mind's eye, many cycles younger and crouched against a muddy forest floor, blood-streaked and wild-eyed, surrounded by the bodies of their former crewmates. No, sleep would be a bad idea. He couldn't leave Haxus to handle the paladins alone. They'd tear him apart-Champion would tear him apart. That was not going to happen. Not when he'd already promised they would make it out. They just had to fix the pod. They had to fix communications. If they could call Central Command and get hold of High Commander Prorok, he could contact Subcommander Ilvek at Balmera X-95-Vox and have a ship dispatched to their location for extraction. And if Voltron's new paladins were as untried as he thought, they would have enough trouble forming Voltron that an extraction could come get them and jump hyperdrive to get out before the Lions combined. Yes, that was it. Fix the comms, call in a rescue. He just...couldn't sleep until then, that was all. He'd managed it before. He could do it again.
Sendak finished the perimeter check in a few doboshes-nothing of note at all, not even footprints in the sandy grit-and picked his way back to the pod. He slipped back beneath the overhang on the back side and walked around to the front.
Haxus had, apparently, done some housekeeping. Drifts and heaps of white dust from the inside of the pod settled all over the ground, scattered with more debris, cruiser shrapnel and damaged pod alike. Haxus himself was seated in the doorway of the pod, tinkering with parts from a disassembled sentry at his feet. He glanced up as Sendak approached, then returned his attention to his machinery.
"And how does our perimeter look, Commander?" There was the barest edge of mockery in Haxus's voice.
"Clear," Sendak replied. He stepped up into the door and sat down beside Haxus to peel off his boots.
Haxus looked offended and reached up to shove playfully at Sendak's left shoulder. "Keep those disgusting things away from me."
"These?" Sendak asked, raising a boot. "Or these?" He shoved his foot in Haxus's face to illustrate that one, and yelped when Haxus grabbed hold of the offending extremity and ran the pad of one finger down the sole. Haxus smirked and did it again. Sendak started to lunge for him and froze when his ribs protested, flaring with pain at the abrupt movement. Haxus let go of his foot immediately.
"Are you alright?" he asked. His ears tipped in concern, eyes narrowing slightly.
"I'm fine," Sendak replied, scooting a little further into the pod and resting his back against one of the walls.
Haxus was in front of him in an instant, undoing the clasps on his armor. The weighty chest piece fell free with a clank, and Sendak leaned forward to help with his leg armor. Haxus swatted his hand away, flattening his ears and glowering in a way that said 'don't even think about it, I will handle this'. He leaned back against the wall and shut his eye, letting the aperture of the cybernetic whir closed as well.
And then Haxus's hands were on his left shoulder, the weight of them on the prosthetic. Sendak snapped his eyes open and grabbed one of Haxus's wrists. "What do you think you're doing?" he growled.
Haxus stared back firmly. "You can't sleep in this, Sendak." Oh, he'd dropped the teasing titles now. That was serious. "You will hurt yourself if you try."
"You can't take it off. Haxus, you know how long it takes to get this piece of garbage to work again. What if the paladins get to us while I'm resting, and we can't get my arm working in time? You can't possibly think to fight them all at once and survive."
"They won't. They're day creatures, Sendak. Let your guard down for one tick, will you? The sentries will keep them off long enough, if they even show up." Haxus kept one hand on the prosthetic, the hand Sendak had immobilized, and reached up with the other. His clawed fingertips caressed the back of one of Sendak's ears, scratching gently over the base. Sendak resisted the urge to lean into the touch.
"I'll only be napping, Haxus. When I do sleep, I'll let you remove it, but until then…" he trailed off and shot Haxus an emphatic glare.
It took three ticks for Haxus to cave. "Alright." He stroked Sendak's ear again, base to tip. "I'll see what I can do with your regular prosthetic while you rest."
Sendak nodded a thank-you, his eyes sliding shut before he could stop them.
He spent the next couple of vargas wandering in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of his surroundings but unable to move. His right shoulder throbbed. His left ached dully, phantom pain his cybernetics never did a damn thing for. His ribs hurt too, faint and distant pain that occasionally woke him when he slid too far down the wall and folded just wrong. He must have cried out at some point, because he wandered back to awareness with his head in Haxus's lap and a cold pack draped over his injured shoulder, Haxus's hands carding through his ruff and stroking his ears. Haxus was talking, too quietly to hear. He wandered back out of consciousness and came to alone, before sinking back under.
Sendak came back to full awareness as the sky outside began to lighten. His ribs still ached slightly, his right shoulder felt stiff and sore under the warming cold pack, and his head was fogged with bad sleep. The inside of his mouth felt dry and gritty. He sat up slowly and started a stretch. The brace stopped his arm mid-rotation, and the weight of his prosthetic dragged at his other shoulder, but his back popped a tick later and that made it worth it.
"Haxus?" he called, glancing around.
His cybernetic eye targeted a flicker of movement by the opening of the pod, and he whipped towards it. Haxus, his head jerking back up. Bleary gold eyes blinked at him.
"...Sendak?"
Sendak huffed, pushed himself to his feet. "Now who should be sleeping?" he said, tilting his ears to a rakish angle. He padded over and sat back down next to Haxus, leaning his right shoulder against the smaller Galra.
"I finished repairing the sentries," Haxus said drowsily. His eyelids slid to half-mast. "Two of them are on perimeter duty, two are here...and the drone-" he yawned, jaw-crackingly- "is working perfectly. I should...get to work on the pod…"
"You should get to work on some sleep," Sendak said. When Haxus didn't move, he added, "That was an order. Turn in for a couple vargas and work on the pod when you're not exhausted."
"Yes, sir," Haxus replied, and immediately flopped over onto his back.
The sound of his breathing evened out a few ticks later, and Sendak stood quietly and moved out for another perimeter check. Haxus putting the sentries on guard duty didn't mean Sendak would stop patrolling. He'd seen what Champion had done to the sentries on the ship. These ones, no matter how well Haxus had repaired them, would go down just as easily.
A/N: Well, I'm alive. My apologies to anyone following any of my other stuff-I started college, and then Voltron, and that ate up all of my time and inspiration.
Anyone just here for this: hi! Welcome! Yeah, I'm a little late to hop on the appreciation bus for two (probably) dead Season 1 villains, but...well, here I am. This is a 4-parter, just warning you, updating Sundays after this.