The ground below Hunk rumbled and vibrated from the repeated explosions of the Galra trying to blow the Lions out of the sky and the Lions firing back. The team had split into two groups for the mission, Pidge, Keith, and Lance were in their Lions while Hunk, Shiro, Allura, and several members of the Blade of Marmora were handling the ground combat. Hunk, personally, would have greatly preferred to be in his lion, but the mission had required a technologically inclined person on the ground. That combined with Shiro not being able to pilot Black, but wanting to help resulted in Hunk going with the ground team to provide cover fire as well as one of the two long distance capable bayard users.
The rumbling became more insistent as the air battle got closer, so Hunk picked up the pace on the way to the next checkpoint. A drone came charging down the hill at him, Hunk fired twice and the drone fell down broken. He took a deep breath and started up the hill again, "Uh, Shiro, not to be a downer, but are you sure the Galra aren't at the checkpoint already? That was the third one I've had to shoot down."
Shiro's voice came over the coms, "Sorry Hunk, they seemed to have deployed just above us on the hill. I'm getting as many as I can, but some are slipping through the cracks. We need to make sure to stop them before they reach the village."
"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Hunk shouted in reply taking out another drone that had burst out of the woods straight at him. "Shiro how much further until the shield generator?"
"Not long, only a little bit further now. You can make it Hunk! I'll guard this area to keep the drone busy so you can head up to the generator and get the shield going again." Shiro replied panting slightly as he presumably fought more drones.
"Right. I guess, okay. You're the boss. You're sure you've got it covered?" Hunk was concerned, they weren't really supposed to split up it was very hard to provide back up from a mile away. He wasn't Lance, he wasn't a sniper and he couldn't hit a target from that far away. He had a canon, it covered a further distance than Shiro's arm, or Allura's whip, but still he didn't have Lance's mile range.
"I'm positive. I'll be fine. We need the shield up, now." Shiro replied sharply, grunting as if he was suddenly attacked.
"Alright, I'm going, I'm going. Keith, update on the air battle?" Hunk started up the hill as fast as he could, keeping a careful eye and ear out for more drones.
"It's going- whoa Lance, watch it!- okay. It would be going better if we could go after some on the ships up in atmosphere– but there's too many drone fighters right now. How long until shield is up?" Keith reported, with only minor interruptions.
"I'm not sure, I'll need to evaluate it once I get there. Shiro and I got swarmed by drones halfway there. Also, this will be my first time with this sort of technology, so I'm sorry but I really don't know." Hunk apologized as he ran, he figured truthfulness would be better than a false estimate, but it made the situation sound worse than it was.
There was an explosion from ahead, "Uh oh, someone please tell me that was not the shield generator." Hunk groaned in exasperation. The whole mission would be a failure if that was the shield generator.
Hunk saw the Red Lion do a passover, taking out several fighters. "Well, good thing buddy, that was not the shield generator. It was however the protections around it, looks like the natives booby trapped it pretty well before they fled. I can hit further down the path some and drive them off to investigate to free you up some time. How close are you?" Lance's voice came over the coms.
Hunk calculated the distance in his head, "I should be about a lion and a half ahead of Shiro near the path but in the woods. So herd them away from me please, bro."
"I'll try, good luck!" Lance called, and the Red Lion sweeped overhead again, much closer to the ground. Hunk could see Red's tail laser charge and Hunk was suddenly struck by how close Lance was.
"Lance, wai-" Hunk's call was cut off as the laser beam struck and the whole mountain shook. All the traps the locals had set up on the mountain seemed to have triggered as well. Hunk watched with growing trepidation as the explosions seemed to be heading straight for him, and he started to run as fast as he could deeper into the forest.
There was a sudden roar, too close, far too close, and suddenly Hunk was thrown through the air with a cry. Hunk had the brief thought that he was extraordinarily grateful that he was wearing armor as he hit the ground and skidded several feet. He coughed for a minute, but another roar of an explosion had him struggling to his feet. He quickly, shakily, closed his helmet visor to stop from breathing in the dust and debris from the explosions.
Hunk took a few staggering steps breathing deeply, trying to figure out the cause of the tight feeling in his chest. The roaring of the mines the locals had apparently booby trapped the mountain with started to fade as they got further away. Hunk tried to ignore the insistent ringing in his ears to try and focus on the coms.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I hate it when people don't tell us things. Like mentioning you had trapped the entire mountain would be important to know. Oh shit. HUNK! HUNK!" Lance voice cracked in panic. Hunk tried to focus, patting himself down to check for injuries; other than the ringing in his ears and the vague tightness of his chest, Hunk's armor had absorbed most of the blow.
Hunk could vaguely hear Pidge's voice reaming out Lance on the coms. Hunk's focus wavered and he lost a few minutes as he finally, finally, reached the shield generator. Hunk coughed a few more time, patting his chest lightly and he finally was able to focus. "Guys, I'm okay. I just-" he coughed twice more, "-got to the shield generator. Give me a few and I think I can fix it. Lance, please. No more distractions?"
"You got it dude. No more setting off traps that apparently weren't important enough to tell us about! Good luck buddy, you got this!" Lance crowed, the relief in his voice almost physically palpable. Hunk could almost feel the tightness in his chest loosening up, even as it lingered vaguely, barely enough to pay attention to in the middle of a mission.
"Hunk, you're sure you're okay?" Keith's voice was tight and angry. Hunk knew Keith was far more protective of the team than he was willing to admit, and injuries were a sure way to send him into mother hen mode.
"My ears are ringing a bit, and I got a bit of dust in my throat, but the armor held up. Time to get to work." Hunk reported, and focused in on the shield generator. He rolled his eyes as he took in the strange wiring habits of the species, but at least the power was obviously labeled for once.
Hunk took a second to analyze the lengths of the wires and where he approximated they were supposed to connect. Once he could figure out the power relay, the rest would be simpler. As he started moving and connecting wires he started muttering quietly, "Of course, I get the worse role on the mission. Yeah, go fix an alien machine that can save their species that they sabotaged. No, there are no people left alive who know how to fix it. Of course not. So who drew the short straw again, me! First getting my lion, then the Balmera, then the Weblum, I always get the short end of the don't get shot while you fix a circuit mission. I'm never trusting a mission Coran gives me again. It'll be easy, he said. Sure. Easy. Alien circuits are easy. Just like breathing." Hunk's hands had been moving steadily over the circuit board making connections, lights on the control pad to his left we flickering into existence as he connected more and more of the circuit board as he ranted. He blinked when he noticed all the wires were connected, well, once he got here that hadn't been hard at all.
Hunk turned his com on as he started to investigate the control panel, "Guys I've got it powered up so now is the time to get outta the nearby air space, I'm not sure how big this is going to be."
"Right, time to go. Let's lead away the ones that are left." Keith gave a pause while those in their lions scattered away from the shield generator out to the other edge of town. Once Keith thought they had cleared enough space he called, "Hit it, Hunk!"
Hunk hit what he was pretty sure was the power and then turned up what he thought was the range. A tiny very concentrated iridescent bubble appeared, radiating from the shield generator but only extending just past Hunk. Hunk grumbled, turned off the power and started moving the levers around more. He pulled the energy output back some and shifted the lever next to it fully over, hopefully that one was the range. Hunk took a deep breath and flicked on the power again, slowly a bright white light gathered at the peak of the generator. Once it hit the brightness of what Hunk considered a star at close range, the iridescent bubble shot out in all directions. The bubble reached out and covered the nearby town, Hunk watched as several drone fighters smashed into the iridescent bubble and were destroyed like they had just run into a wall.
"Shield is up and operational, just be aware that I'm pretty sure its gonna be indiscriminate with smashing things." Hunk called over the radio, stretching slightly before he got ready to go find Shiro and the drones inside the shield with them. When he stretched in just the right way he felt a sudden pressure and felt like he couldn't breath in deeply. Hunk figured it was some minor bruising from getting thrown around by the explosions and decided to worry about it later.
"Got it, thanks Hunk! See you on the other side!" Pidge called, cheering when she took down another squadron of drone ships by herself by tricking them into ramming the shield. Hunk smiled and took off down the hill again to go help Shiro get rid of the leftover foot drones.
When the battle finally ended what felt like hours later, Hunk returned to the shield station with a couple of the locals to show them how to perform maintenance and operate the shield in case the Galra came back. He was still having some problems breathing, but so long as he took his time it didn't seem to be much of an issue, so he put it off as a thing to deal with when they got back to the castle.
Hunk walked the locals through the steps of safely repairing wires, on the different settings he'd figured out on the control panel, and how to tell when a part needed to be straight up replaced, not just patched. And then he went through it all again, and again, and again until the locals actually seemed to retain the instructions and the shield generator almost looked sparkling new from the continued attention. He kept explaining, as clearly as he could, until his voice was hoarse, his torso ached from all the leaning over to demonstrate, and his head spun from exhaustion.
By the time Hunk escorted the locals back to their homes he was near the end of his endurance. Sure they could have spent another day to teach the people about the shield generator, but the galaxy was large and he was almost certain they would be either doing training tomorrow or back out on a rescue mission, so he finished the lesson today. He ran out of energy by the time he reached the steps in the Castle and ended up sprawling on the steps to take a break to breathe. The pain in his chest was distracting, but not as bad as he supposed it could be, definitely not healing pod worthy, so Hunk grabbed some pain killers and headed to the kitchen for a snack.
The kitchen was empty, which Hunk had rather expected it was rather late when he finally got back, except for a tray of Lance's (in)famous apology space enchiladas. Apparently Lance felt guilty for setting off the traps on the mountain even if he couldn't have known about them. Hunk smiled to himself as he dished out a couple and went to sit down. He let out a slight gasp and kept shifting his weight as he tried to find a comfortable way to sit. The painkillers were kicking in so it didn't hurt, but each time he shifted it felt like something wasn't sitting quite right. Hunk grumbled unhappily before deciding to ignore it and start in on his food, he hadn't had time to eat since before the battle and he was starving.
Hunk took a bite and considered the flavor profile, spicy but not overly so, a nice texture and all together he considered the enchiladas one of Lance's better attempts at space cooking and made a mental note to tell Lance so when Hunk ran into him next.
Hunk hummed to himself as he took the plate over to the space dishwasher, frowning as the vibration reverberated oddly in his chest. The warm food in his stomach added to his exhaustion resulted in an almost unbeatable wave of sleepiness and Hunk nearly sleepwalked back to his room, waving slightly as he saw what he was pretty sure was Keith leaving his own room. He thought Keith waved back but he wasn't sure as he entered his room and finally, finally, was able to shuck off his armor.
A glance down at his chest showed a larger amount of deep purple-blue bruising than he expected but would completely explain his continuing discomfort. Hunk sighed and pulled on his pajamas gingerly, carefully avoiding touching the bruising before collapsing into bed, the sweet call of sleeping pulling him under in seconds.
What felt like barely seconds later Hunk was ripped from his sleep by the blaring 'imminent attack' alarm. Hunk groaned and rolled out of bed, gasping as a sharp pain flared in his chest causing him to cough uncontrollably. He struggled in vain to get his breathing under control as he stood to start dressing, his focus wavering like he was going to pass out. He sat back down on his bed, the impact from just that making the coughing worse. Gasping he reached over to his desk to grab his helmet and slid it on.
"Hunk? Hunk where are you? We need Yellow's canon, we're getting swarmed by drone fighters right now. Hunk?" He could hear Keith's voice, worried, frustrated and just as exhausted sounding as Hunk felt.
Hunk continued coughing, a wet sound occuring as Hunk registered a fine mist of red-brown droplets on his hands. He tried to stand again, staggering off his bed again towards his armor, "I- can't. I can't breathe."
"Fuck. Shiro! Go grab Hunk and get him in a pod. Now! Lance do the-" Keith got distracted by the battle occuring around him as he was giving out directions.
Hunk knew Shiro was coming for him, but Shiro probably had already made it to the bridge and coming back would take time he was almost certain he didn't have. He changed directions, heading towards his door, coughing all the while, making a desperate flailing attempt at opening the door. Each time he coughed there was more of those awful red-brown droplets mixing in with bright red ones and Hunk knew. He had taken the same emergency medical courses as the rest, the blood combined with the chest pain he had been ignoring gave him every sign. At that moment, Hunk knew that he wasn't going to make it to the pod, it was too hard to breathe, he could barely think, the edges of his vision were going gray and all he could wish for was that Shiro would make it to his room so he wouldn't die alone.
As if summoned by thought alone the door opened to the frantic face of Shiro, who seemed uncharacteristically shaken. Hunk reached out with the last of his strength and pulled Shiro in so their heads bumped together and Hunk could focus enough to look Shiro in the eyes. He could see the sad realization, the pain and horror of their former leader who always tried to protect them. His vision faded and his hand slid down Shiro's armor, and quietly he heard Shiro's voice, "Goodnight, Hunk."