Chapter summary: In which Lance is bored, gets blown away, and suddenly wants boring back.
2: Blows
"We still need to retrieve the Blue Lion before we can help Balmera," the Princess said, studying the readouts on the bridge view screens.
"But how are we going to move it with its shield up?" the green paladin, Pidge said.
Pidge. What a weird name.
"Do we have a tractor beam like that Galra battlecruiser?" the yellow paladin asked curiously.
"I'm afraid not," Coran, the crazy, orange mustache guy, said.
Honestly, what was with that mustache? Lance was ready to swear it was a creature living on man's lip and not a real mustache.
"You'll all have to dredge it up from the sea floor with nets," Coran continued.
"How are we going to reach it if it's underwater?" the Champion asked, stepping closer to the readouts hovering over the Princess's control pedestal.
Lance couldn't help the small flinch whenever he heard the Champion's voice. Haggar had claimed the Champion as her own personal experiment and all the Druids knew better than to mess with Haggar's things. Lance respected the most powerful Druid alive, but he wasn't stupid. He'd sooner die than be in the same room alone with her.
Although, his blue gaze dropping to the Champion's Druid-designed arm hungrily, he wouldn't mind poking that. For such a small thing, it packed enough quintessence-backed force to stop and hold Commander Sendak's newer arm. That, in and of itself, was worth Lance's attention.
And he'd missed the whole conversation. Quiznak.
He sighed in annoyance. This is why he wasn't a master yet. He was too easily distracted by things. It wasn't his fault everything was so boring. The Galra were all the same. Smash this! Blast that! Build this! Torture that!
So. Boring.
He let his chin sink into his nest of folded arms on the vent floor and sighed. His legs kicked back and forth in boredom. The bone mask he'd pushed up his head so he could see clearly was slipping again but Lance didn't really care. Until it fell over his face effectively blinding him. Then he cared.
Muttering, he pushed the mask back up and out of the way again so he could see the bridge, and stiffened. They were gone. Everyone was gone. Quiznak, where did they go? Wait. Calm down and listen. Lance had gotten used to tracking the small crew living in the castle by their voices. They weren't quiet.
They teased each other, pulled pranks, trained, messed up fantastically-there had been several times when Lance had had to leave them to their own devices or risk giving himself away from his cackles- or talked. The Princess and the Champion were apparently the leaders of this little mismatched group, but even they had their moments of goof-ups. That one time the whole group instigated a particularly dramatic food fight would be forever ingrained in Lance's head.
It was that moment, that Lance realized he wanted that. He missed it; the camaraderie between equals. He missed having someone to talk to, someone to tease and prank and train with. He missed…people. Watching people was amusing for a little while, but Lance needed interaction. He craved it.
All the quiet was beginning to wear on his mood. Grumbling in low tones, he pushed himself up, promptly bonking his mask on the roof of the ventilation shaft, knocking it back down over his face. He groaned a bit more loudly than he probably should have and clamored back through the shaft.
All this crawling and climbing was giving his hands and knees calluses. He hated calluses. They always started as friction burns or blisters which was bad enough. But the rough skin afterwards? Disgusting. No one liked rough skin. If he was interested in rough skin, he would have approached a Galra.
Frak, just the thought of that made him gag. He'd be quiznaked before he spread his legs for a Galra. Fur or scales. Neither were very attractive in his opinion. Some of those ears though… So fluffy!
He arrived at one of the wide, vertical vent intersections and listened. There was a faint rumble from far below. Wait. Was it… Was it coming closer?!
"What the-!"
Too slow!
A blast of hot air punched him in the everything and up he flew, screaming the whole way. Garbled in those screams were words that would probably make even a seasoned Galra Fleet Commander like Sendak look at him sideways. Then, just as suddenly as the blast started, it stopped and down he fell, again, screaming the whole way.
One of his desperately pinwheeling arms smacked the side of the air vent and his seeking fingers latched onto a ladder rung. He grunted when his shoulder took the brunt of his full body weight jolting him to a stop. His other hand lashed out and gripped another ladder rung saving his face from a smashing into another rung by a mere tick.
Frak, those Lions must be taking off. He'd forgotten how close he was to the Lions' hangers and launch bays. The backwash of the takeoff must've been funneled through the vents. He'd have to remember that for next time.
He whimpered. Please don't let there be a next time.
He hung from the ladder rungs for several ticks so he could regain control of his racing heartbeat.
"I did not sign up for this," he sighed and heaved himself up into the nearest horizontal vent.
He didn't even bother to crawl away from the intersect. He just slumped to the floor in a limp puddle of Druid.
"I wasn't trained for this," he whined. "This was just supposed to be a temporary assignment. Just ride on the commander's battlecruiser for a few cycles on my own before going back home. I was not supposed to be blown apart and crash land on some quiznak-foresaken planet," he pushed himself up to his hands and knees, "get blown up again and even electrocuted this time by a green, sabotaging maniac," he pulled himself forward despite his entire body shaking like a leaf from adrenaline, terror, and relief, "and I was not supposed to get stuck in an maze of vents that like to blow me up and down again!"
Hot tear tumbled down his face. Forget following those color-coded idiots. Forget the color-matching Lions. Forget the stupid, flying Castle, forget his duty as a loyal Druid of the Galra Empire, forget this whole nonsensical insanity. He pounded a quivering fist on the metal surface beneath him.
"Frak everything, I just want to go home!"
"Did you hear something?" Shiro said, tilting his head up to the high ceiling of the main hanger.
"Hmm?" Coran said, turning to the black paladin. "How do you mean?"
Shiro shook his head slowly. "I thought I heard…"
"Shiro?" Princess Allura said, placing her hand on Shiro's shoulder in concern. "What is it?"
"I could swear I heard a voice," Shiro said. "Or, at least I think it was a voice. It sounded like a scream."
Allura frowned. "There shouldn't be anyone else in the Castle now except for us," she said, looking up at the vents. "But after Sendak, we can't be too careful. I'll have my mice search the Castle just in case. It would put my mind at ease and it would give them something to do."
"Thanks," Shiro said, flashing the princess a grateful smile. "It's probably nothing, but just in case-"
"Better safe than sorry," Allura said briskly. She crossed her arms over her chest in a self hug. "Sometimes paranoia is a good thing."
The black paladin smiled sheepishly before turning his attention to the large hanger door on the far wall, sealed shut. He came down here at least once a day and just listened. He could feel the Black Lion's presence behind that door. It was like a pull that never stopped tugging him towards it or a steady wind that insisted on blowing him off the sidewalk.
"Do you think this'll work?" he asked.
Allura sighed. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I hope it does. When all of the Lions get here, the seal on the Black Lion should break. But without a paladin for the Blue Lion…"
"It's a game of chance," Shiro said, nodding.
"We need Voltron to fight the Galra on an even playing field," Coran said wearily. "The five Lions alone are powerful, but together they're unstoppable. But with only four Lions-"
"Three if the Black Lion's seal isn't broken," Shiro added.
"Yes," Coran sigh. "With only three Lions and the Castle as backup, we'll have a chance against a few Galra battlecruisers, but against Zarkon…"
The advisor didn't need to continue. They were all painfully aware of the situation they were in. Pidge, Hunk, and Keith barely managed to defeat Sendak's battlecruiser when it was the only enemy ship in the vicinity with their Lions even with Shiro helping in a small Altean pod. Defeating a whole fleet of battlecruisers would be a gamble at best, suicide at worst.
"We'll find a way," Allura said firmly, her mouth set in a grim line. "We have to."
No one spoke for several ticks.
"Erm, should I worry about the others trying to bring the Blue Lion back here on their own without supervision?" Allura asked wryly.
Shiro winced.
"We'll have a better view from the bridge," Coran said, moving to the lift with Shiro and the princess trailing behind.
It took forever to find his way back to the air vent with the best angle of view over the bridge. He still needed to find his bone mask which fell when he was so rudely blasted by takeoff backwash, but that wasn't as pressing as finding a way home.
Lance wanted out.
Maybe it was the endless maze of seemingly inescapable vents getting to him, or maybe it was the continual attempts to blow him to bits, or maybe he was just quiznaked and no longer gave a frak about patience. Whatever. He wanted out. He wanted to go home.
He probably should've attempted this days ago, but he'd been too interested in not being seen to try something this daring. No one was on the bridge at the moment, but he knew better than to immediately hop out into the open. People like Coran tended to forget things and come back to retrieve them at inopportune moments. The experiences of one too many Masters catching him in the middle of attempting a new trick weighed on his mind.
He could not be caught.
He needed to go home.
So he waited for a full thirty ticks before working the screws holding the vent cover in place loose. Quintessence work like this required patience and precision. His fingers were the gun, the quintessence was the bolt, and the screw was the target. He never missed a target.
Four screws clinked to the floor far below but his grip on the vent cover prevented it from following with a louder clatter. Tucking the cover against the vent wall, he wriggled out of the opening and looked down. It was a good ten span drop to the bridge floor, easy. If he let himself freefall, the result would be a sprained ankle at best and a broken leg or two at worst. He could afford the first, but not the latter.
If only he was good at sustained levitation. Pursing his lips, Lance took a deep breath through his nose and pushed himself the rest of the way out. He tucked his head and upper body midfall so his body and slowed his descent with what little levitation skills he could conjur so he landed on the bridge floor right side up.
He didn't stick the landing though and the sharp pain zinging up his right leg was proof of that. A pained cry escaped his lips before he could stop it. That ankle was definitely sprained; so much for his dreadful levitation skills.
Lance swallowed back tears and limped to the main pedestal underneath the Castelship's giant Balmera crystal. He waited for the control columns on either side of the pedestal to rise before placing his hands on them. The curvature of the hand rests fit his palms nicely as the holographic displays and view screens came to life. The view of the expanse of space was definitely more beautiful from down here than from the vents along the walls by the ceiling.
Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to admire the view. Crazy Mustache, the Princess, or worse, the Champion could walk onto the bridge at any moment. He had to be quick.
Balancing his weight between his right hand and his left leg, Lance reached up and typed in the contact codes for the first Galra officer he could think of. When he finally received the indication of a confirmed connection, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
"Who is this?" the Galra on the view screen demanded.
Lance opened his mouth to speak, then slammed it shut. Druids weren't supposed to speak outside of certain circumstances. Besides, he knew his voice sounded young, too young to be taken seriously by someone as high up in rank as Subcommander Thace. Best to play it safe.
He watched as yellow eyes focused on his purple hooded and cloaked form and widened in shock.
"Druid," Thace murmured warily.
Good. Even without his mask visible, Lance's station was acknowledged. Without speaking, Lance uploaded the Castleship's current coordinates as well as the crew's plans to visit a Balmera and prepared to transmit the data to the subcommander. He had no way of knowing which Balmera, but hopefully Thace could figure it out.
He hesitated before sending the message. Should he? He shouldn't. He would regret it.
Frak it.
He typed a brief message, attached it to the data, and sent it. The instant he received confirmation of the receipt, Lance cut the connection. The last thing he saw was a look of surprise on Subcommander Thace's face before the view screen went black.
Now he had to figure out how to get back into the vents with a sprained ankle and without getting caught. He staggered away from the pedestal and stared up at the vent high on the wall. He really should have thought this through better. There was no way for him to successfully climb up the wall with his ankle in its current state. He could levitate up, but the resulting migraine and nosebleed would be too big of a problem to deal with.
A flashing light caught his attention.
Quiznak. Someone was using the lift!
He had to get out of sight now or they'd kill him. But where…
The lift.
It was worth a try.
But first, he scanned the floor for the four screws from the vent cover and found three. Only three. He spent precious ticks frantically looking for the fourth screw before finally giving up and hobbling to the lift doors.
Focusing his quintessence in his fingers, he crafted nails of purple-tinged light which he wedged into the crack between the doors. The rush of air inside the lift shaft pushed up by the rising lift whistled through the crack, aiding him somewhat. Once he had a grip, he pulled the doors far enough apart to slip between them.
He could see the lift rising through the shaft two levels below him and held out a foot. The instant, the lift roof touched his foot, Lance leaned, put all his weight on that foot, and saw white.
He barely caught himself on the shaft's far wall and slid to the floor as the lift beneath him came to a stop. Had he been a tick later, his leg would have been crushed and possibly severed, if he'd been lucky. As it was, he didn't feel lucky.
He hadn't even thought about using his right leg to plant himself onto the lift. The searing agony causing him to bite hard into his arm to muffle his screams was definitely not a sprain. He must have fracture his leg as well as sprained his ankle in that botched landing. Since he'd avoided putting too much weight on it until now, the fracture bone remained in place.
From what he could feel now, the bone had shifted. He had no way of knowing how far or how serious the break was. He was certain it hadn't broken the skin, but that didn't make it better. All that meant was he didn't have to worry about carrying for an open wound and fighting a potential infection. He did have to figure out how to get off this quiznak-foresaken lift, back into the air vents, and hide until Subcommander Thace tracked the Castle down and captured it.
Then he would be free. He could get the medical care he knew he needed and go home. He missed his family.
Slowly, carefully, he released his arm from his mouth and focused on breathing. He braced himself on his hands and knees like he had for the past several days, taking care to keep as little weight on his right leg as possible.
Think of something else. Anything else. Anything but the pain. Breath and distract.
Alright. He couldn't move the lift from up here so he would have to wait for someone else to board it and take it to a different floor. Preferably a lower floor. There were more vents further down to help keep the engine cool and circulate air into the main living quarters.
The living quarters would be the best deck for him to reach, so long as no one was there to see him. The next best was the hang bays. The vents in both of those levels tended to be near the floor. He didn't feel like standing right now. He wasn't sure he even could stand.
He needed water.
His stomach growled and he groaned, wrapping an arm around his very empty belly. The green goo he'd eaten the other day wasn't enough to last him much longer unless he rested. He would have to find his filched bottle of water as soon as possible. That would take the edge off.
He should also probably replace the bridge's vent cover and screws. Hopefully, no one would find the missing fourth screw on the floor. That would be hard to explain.
Come to think of it, his mask was missing too. It must have blown off in the launch backwash earlier. He would have to find that too. The last thing he needed right now was to be caught because some snoopy paladin found his mask and remembered they never made sure a Druid's body was actually dead and not just unconscious.
Blessedly, the lift dinged and began moving downwards. He would get off at whatever level above the one it stopped at, pry the doors open, and slip into the nearest vent. As soon as he was hidden, he could crawl back to his makeshift nest in the vent nexus closest to the living quarters level and get some much deserved rest.
He should probably set that bone too.
This was too much. He wanted boring back.