Learning Curve

Chapter 2

"No," said Allura, "I want to take them down." She slammed both side sticks forward, but instead of roaring into action, the Red Lion remained still. Allura jerked the levers back and tried again to no avail.

Since turning control of Red over to the Princess, Keith had done his best to separate himself mentally from the Lion. Red had not returned the favor. Keith could feel every ounce of her displeasure. She had tolerated this arrangement long enough and now she wanted her chosen Paladin back before she resumed the fight.

"Red Lion," said Allura, her voice urgent, but not distraught, "we can't let the Garla follow us back to the Castle or relay our location. We need to take them out quickly."

If it was possible for an AI to telepathically snub a person, that was what Red was doing.

Keith remembered something Shiro's classmate, Lana, had told him: Women, unlike men, ask for directions. So, if a smart, strong, independent woman does not ask for your opinion, then assume she knows what she'd doing. Lana and Shiro had been neck in neck for first place standing at the Garrison and she had been the backup pilot for the Kerberos mission.

So Keith kept his mouth closed, letting the battle of wills play out in front of him.

"Lion," Allura's voice was sharper, more commanding this time, "I am aware that your desire is that I hand over the controls to Keith. His temperament and personality fit with yours and it is the reason I chose him to be your Paladin. Remember that, I chose him before you chose him," she paused, letting her words sink in.

"You are part of this team, part of Voltron, that is not optional. You have every right to be unhappy with this temporary arrangement but you will do your part." Allura took a deep breath, "Now, I am going to pilot you, and you are going to respond, like you would for Keith, like you did for my father, Alfor, and together, we will defeat these Galra. Because from now, until I say otherwise, I am the Red Paladin. Capisce?"

Keith could feel Red in his mind. She was confused, indignant, awed and eager. That's why the Princess is in charge, he told Red.

Allura rammed the side-sticks forward. This time, the Red Lion roared and vaulted off the asteroid. Keith considered complimenting or cheering Allura on; it didn't seem necessary. There was one thing, though, "Capisce?" asked Keith.

"Lance has been teaching me useful Earth slang," said Allura, "did I use it in the proper context?"

"Definitely," said Keith. Allura allowed herself a small smile which was unexpectedly pleasing to him.

The monitor flashed an updated location of the smaller Galra ship. The Red Lion charged after it, catching it by surprise. Allura fired her lasers and the fighter ship dodged. She urged the Red Lion forward and it cut the distance in half.

"It has some sort of shielding," said Keith as the lasers scattered.

"We'll just have to get closer," said Allura. The Galra swung tight around an asteroid and Red followed. In another moment it would be close enough to take out with the plasma gun.

"Allura, look out!" The fighter had been the bait, drawing them into a trap. Allura and Keith both saw the larger ship a second before it launched what looked like a volley of golden balls. The orbs hung lazily in front of them before detonating. Red took damage. The smaller Galra ship, also in the line of fire, exploded into nothing.

"He destroyed his teammate," said Keith. Allura's focus was elsewhere, looking for an escape. With multiple alarms reporting damage, she barreled away, just ahead of their foe.

"How badly are we damaged?" she asked.

"Red can handle it." Keith assured her. He braced himself as the Lion took them on a wild ride, trying to elude the fighter and its weapons. This wasn't a normal Galra ship. It was faster, more agile, and he'd never seen them use weapons like this. The pilot was top-notch too.

Allura was keeping ahead of the new ship, but just barely, and they could only take one more direct hit. She cut behind one rock, dove and arched backwards on the next. Still, she couldn't shake the Galra. Keith watched the Princess's manic eye movements over the readouts trying to take it all in. He'd seen his classmates in such a state, usually just before they misjudged the situation.

One of the golden orbs skimmed the Red Lion's back left foot, and the explosion hurled them sideways. Allura got Red under control just in time to avoid the next round. The explosions gave them just enough cover to dart forward through a tight cluster of asteroids and momentarily lose the Galra. New emergency notifications were popping up all over the screens.

"Keith," Allura began in a quiet voice. She stared at the displays, a look of resignation creeping into her features. Before she could continue, Keith jumped in.

"Remember, you said the Red Paladin flies more by instinct more than skills," He placed his hand on her shoulder, the way Shiro used to. "Trust your skills."

Allura didn't say anything, just nodded, and launched the Lion forward.

They came out flying parallel to the Galra fighter. It curved to meet them, but not as tightly as the Red Lion, nor as fast. Keith steadied himself with his other hand as they charged it. Allura came up alongside the ship. The pilot tried to twist his ship so as to blast them with his thrusters, but Allura was too quick. Red's jaws clamped down on a wing, her leg slamming into the back of the ship. Lion and ship's combined momentum sent them tumbling.

From their angle Keith could see the smoky cover of the cockpit and the details of the seal printed on the ship's back. It was similar to the standard Galra insignia, but its arms were narrower and more graceful with an extra circle around the center. It reminded Keith of one of those warning labels used at the Garrison - the one for radioact-no, he corrected himself, biohazard.

Besides him, Allura gave a little gasp. Red's jaw lock loosened and the Garla ship burst free. Or most of it. A lion-bite-sized bit of wing remained in Red's jaws. That would put a damper on the ship's maneuverability. Its pilot seemed to realize his predicament as well. Instead of turning back at them, it engaged its engines and took off at warp speed.

Allura was taking deep breaths, as if trying to calm herself. Keith's hand was still on her shoulder. He gave a short squeeze before removing it.

"Nice job," he said, "Red Paladin."


"I'm just saying, it's been like three vargas already, doesn't that seem to be stretching things?" said Lance, "I mean, how long did it take you to learn to fly your Lion, Pidge?"

"Lance," barked Pidge, "Change. The. Subject." She scowled back into her screens.

She appeared to be scanning through alien images but she kept sliding them off screen when Hunk looked. Coran was busying himself at the bridge's navigation station. Hunk would like to run some systems checks himself, but it was difficult with Lance's nonstop pacing.

He'd been asking for assurance that Keith and Allura were focused purely on flying maneuvers continuously since they'd left, nearly three vargas ago.

Honestly, it did seem like Keith and Allura were taking their time out there. Not that any of them saw women in general, and the Princess especially, as some kind of conquest, but if Hunk was the betting type, he'd put his money on Keith. That guy had the strong, silent and messed up vibe that women, in Hunk's experience, generally fell for.

"It just seems-" began Lance.

"Hey, I know," Hunk needed to change the subject before Pidge threw something at Lance, "how about we have Coran tell us about who the other Paladins were. That would be distracting in an informative way, right?"

Pidge looked up from her monitor. "Ooh, that sounds promising. Spill it, Coran,"

"Well, I'm not sure-" began Coran.

"Not this song-and-dance, again" said Lance, "we've totally bonded with our Lions, knowing who used to warm the seats before isn't going to change our relationship."

"I was going to say," said Coran in that offended voice he did so well, "that we might want to wait for the Black Paladin to return."

"Why?" said Lance, "Keith already knows who previously piloted his Lion. I, for one, am tired of you dropping bombshells about their identities."

"Bombshells?"

"You know," said Pidge, counting on her fingers, "the black Paladin was an evil megalomaniac bent on taking over the universe. The Red Paladin happens to be Allura's dad. The Yellow Paladin was a woman, just tell us who they were already."

"Wait, the yellow Paladin was a woman?" asked Hunk. "I mean, wow. And I can totally see it." Yellow had a motherly vibe to her. And she was at her strongest when she was protecting others. Just one more reason that Hunk was sure he'd got the best Lion.

"Yeah, she was an Altean named Lithelia," said Pidge.

"Correction, she was one fourth Galra." Coran never passed up opportunity to explain things to the Earthlings. "Her grandfather was a Galra ambassador to Altea who fell in love with an Altean general. Their story has been immortalized in verse"

Coran closed his eyes and began,

"There was a young Galra from Rarms,

Who found Alteans not lacking in charms.

A strong woman he spied,

So when he caught her eye,

He went native with a native in arms."

"It's clever because 'in arms' could mean an embrace or refer to Lithelia's mother's military background," explained Coran. not for the first time, Hunk couldn't decide if Alteans enjoyed pulling his chain or were just plain bonkers.

"So, she was a good part Galra, like Keith?" Please be a good Paladin, please be a good Paladin, begged Hunk. He didn't need any more angst right now.

"Oh the Paladins were all good and wonderful people," Coran assured them.

"Except Zarkon," said Pidge.

"Err, yes," said Coran, looking momentarily uncomfortable, "Pidge," he said more brightly, "the Green Paladin was a Seltevian. His name was R'tchkiki." How did Coran's tongue manage that kind of linguistic gymnastics?

"Seltevian?" said Pidge, "as in the race that built the Lions?"

"Yes. R'tchkiki was their official representative. Personally, I suspect the Seltevians didn't trust us not to void the warranty. He was yellow and green, quite tall, lots of tattoos, and he had these amazing eyes." Coran got a melancholy, lost look in his own eyes.

"Now," he turned to Lance, "the Blue Paladin-"

"Was a round, furry alien with body odor who only spoke in grunts," interrupted Lance. Hunk recognized the look on his friend's face.

"What? No-"

"A twee, eight-year-old genius with an annoying, squeaky voice and an early bedtime," Lance was trying to sound dismissive, like he didn't care.

"A child? of course not," said Coran, his confusion suddenly changing to a smile, "what else have you got?"

"An emotionless, pasty-faced android whose goal in life was to become a real boy, and who complained incessantly about people not being logical." The mask of pretending not to care was starting to slip. Any human would notice that Lance was steeling himself for disappointment. But, of course, Coran was not human.

"Wrong again! You aren't very good at this game," said Coran, "I'll give you one more guess."

"Some dork who's not cool like all the other Paladins," said Lance, "the odd-looking, pathetic, always-needs-rescuing, comedy relief type character. I know how this narrative goes, go ahead and tell me, I can take it."

Coran blinked a few times and then cleared his throat. "Deogan was Altean and considered quite handsome. And I'm not just saying that because we were related. He was my older cousin and, frankly, I thought the world of him." The wistful smile was back, ten-fold.

"Handsome?" asked Lance, looking less despondent, "Like, cool handsome?"

"I'm not sure if his body temperature was outside the normal range," said Coran cautiously, "He was, however, hmm, how do I put this…"

Everyone leaned in.

"As you're aware, the Alteans were a race of diplomats," began Coran, "Well, there's the usual diplomatting. You know: Hello, how do you do, it looks like you've got an armada of warships surrounding this developing planet, what if the planet's inhabitants were to give you exclusive rights to distribute the natives' intricate and highly coveted woven baskets and in exchange you park your fleet elsewhere, oh, and did we mention the Federation of Altruistic Alien Races will be arriving shortly with their state of the art Peacemaker class 5 warships? That sort of diplomatting."

"And then," Coran sighed, "then there was the type of diplomatting that Deogan was involved in. The type that involves the quiet and usually discreet movement of money, information, and heads of state across the galaxy, and, sometimes, less quietly, involves explosions, gun shootouts, and the heads of the heads of state moving across the galaxy."

"You mean," Lance's grin had become watermelon-sized, "he was a special-ops, secret-agent, spy?"

"I'm afraid so," Coran had bent his head so he couldn't see the blissed-out look plastered across Lance's face, "but all that was before he became a Paladin, so you shouldn't feel too bad."

"Bad? Coran, this is the most awesome thing you could have told me," said Lance. "Tell me, was he good with the ladies?" Lance did the eyebrow thing.

"Oh, he was good with everyone." said Coran, doing the eyebrow thing back.

The way the conversation was going, Hunk was half-frustrated, and half-relieved when Keith's and Allura's faces popped up on the main screen.

"Coran," said Allura, "we were attacked by three Galra fighter ships. Two of them were destroyed, but one escaped and may be on its way to alert the empire to our location."

"Princess, are you okay?" asked Coran. She looked all right, and there was a definite sparkle in her eyes.

"Yes, we are both fine. The Red Lion fought remarkably well," Allura assured him. "However, we should depart this system sooner rather than later. How are we doing on prisoner evacuations?"

"The last set is packing up now and almost ready to head out," said Coran. "We were waiting for your return to open a wormhole and send them to the Datubuni system."

"Good," said Keith, "that should leave us plenty of time, the asteroid belt makes for a good barrier. No sign of P'Talaquos, then?"

"No," said Coran, "she somehow slipped away. Things were fairly disorderly after the battle."

"Do you supposed P'Talaquos escaped on that ancient Altean ship?" asked Pidge, "I was able to track it as far as the Datubuni asteroid colonies using its residue Quintessence, but its next jump was cloaked and I lost it."

"Not possible, P'Talaquos was in the Unilu warship firing on the Altean ship before it jumped," said Keith, "I'm not sure who was flying it, but they weren't a friend of P'Talaquos."

"It could be …" began Lance and then got quiet. Everyone waited, "it could be what that Galra Mavalok was after. He said he had his own mission."

"Are you saying a single Galra was able to reactivate a 10,000 year-old Altean castle grade battleship and get it to execute a wormhole jump?" asked Allura, "That's impossible. It is impossible, isn't it Coran?"

"Well, the universe is a strange and surprising place," said Coran, "We did just fight off an alien from a race that was thought to be extinct for just as long. Slav, what do you think?"

The multi-armed weasel-owl alien suddenly rose up from behind Hunk, causing him to jump out of his chair.

"Galra are about as far down the Quintessence spiritually meter as it is possible to measure," said Slav, "and you'd need an extraordinarily high level of pure Quintessence to power that sort of jump. So, it's a very low probability. Taking into account Bayesian priors and-"

"What if Mavalok was part some other alien?" asked Keith, "Kolivan said there's lots of hybrid Galra."

"He did look a little-" Pidge began.

"Short," interjected Lance with a smile, "like Keith."

"-different," continued Pidge, "than most Galra soldiers we've encountered."

"What did his eyes look like?" asked Coran, "Did he have corneas and pupils?"

"Nope," said Lance, "standard full yellow."

"Then he's likely full Galra, they all have yellow to white eyes. Unless they're female, then it's red to black. Always convenient when there's an obvious gender feature, leads to less faux pas and unintentional marriage proposals."

"It can't be that easy to hide such a ship," said Keith, "I'm sure we haven't seen the last of him."


"To conclude," said Mavalok, "the repairs I have described make the Kyanite fully functional for transportation, long term sustainability, and wormhole jumps. The ship's Altean weapon system needs work, and given that no one has worked with these systems in 10,000 years, it will be trial and error for a while. But I think it's doable, we've already figured out the shield defenses."

The other Galra present nodded in approval and Mavalok stood a bit straighter. He glanced towards Commander Emaksolam, a particularly burly Galra with a full beard, bushy hair and a mighty pair of incisors any Galra would give, well, their teeth for. Mavalok had joined the rebel operation to fight the Galra Empire's oppression, but he'd be the first to admit that, under Emaksolam's leadership, raiding Empire transports and sabotaging their bases was a lot of fun.

"Good work, Mavalok," he said, "We'll devote resources to the weapons later. Our priority is to transfer as much of our base to the Kyanite. I've received word that Prince Lotor is moving his base of operations to the Alonial Ring, so we will no longer have the luxury of operating in the open here. We don't yet have the resources to fight off him, much less the rest of the Galra empire, and so our operation will need to go undercover. Arrangements have been made to relocate to the Datubuni asteroid minus the key members of the organization in contact with the Galraina. As long as we're not mistaken for the Castle of Lions we should be able to employ our new jump technology in future endeavors. I have sent each of you your orders. We'll be leaving in six vargas. Meeting adjourned."

As the Galra filed out, Emaksolam motioned to Mavalok, "If you please, stay a moment."

Emaksolam closed his office door. Mavalok wasn't significantly shorter than most of his comrades, but standing next to his commander, he felt diminutive. Or, as insolent Lance had put it, a short stack.

But then Emaksolam would probably dominate any Galra. Mavalok had no doubt he could best any Galra soldier, or member of the Blade, those so-called rebels.

"I want to thank you personally for successfully delivering the warship. I had a backup plan, but it would have been a compromise," Emaksolam's voice was a tad softer and his lips twitched upwards as if on the way to a smile before stopping and returning to their natural slight frown. "I also wish to go over those details I asked you to censor from your official report, namely your interactions with the Voltron Paladins."

Mavalok tried not to stiffen. He'd actually been relieved not to have to admit that he'd been captured by the Blue and Green Paladins and forced to cooperate with them, or that he had relied on Lance's skills as a pilot and his shuttle's stealth technology to follow P'Talaquos to her base. And there was the matter of giving up the device their scientist had engineered to block P'Talaquos's mind control. Of course, Mavalok had been completely upfront and honest with these details in his written report to Emaksolam, which made this one-on-one even more awkward.

"These new Paladins have caused the Galra Empire, and Zarkon in particular, a great deal of inconvenience, in a very a short time span. The Blade seem to have thrown their lot in with them. I'm contemplating whether forming an alliance with the paladins might be advantageous. What can you tell me of them?"

"Well," this wasn't exactly what Mavalok had been expecting, "I only met the Green Paladin briefly. She's female," Mavalok snuck a glance at Emaksolam to see if he was surprised or disapproving, but he gave no indication either way, "obviously competent, and significantly more intelligent than the Blue Paladin."

"And your impression of the Blue Paladin?"

"Permission to speak frankly, sir?" asked Mavalok

"Of course," said Emaksolam.

"He is the most annoying, thick headed, full-of-himself hedonist I've ever had the misfortune to be stuck with. And I once hitched a two quintent ride with a transport full of Toborans."

Emaksolam raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"He's also," Mavalok took a deep breath because this was the hard part, "loyal to his comrades, astute, adaptable, gregarious, and not completely hopeless as a pilot."

"So, on the balance?"

Mavalok made a face, "I don't hate him."

"And that's the reason you gave him our only Apocrytean mind blocker?" Emaksolam's voice wasn't obviously angry.

"I had to," said Mavalok, "without it Lance would have awoken the sentries, and then both he and the Red Paladin would have been under P'Talaquos's control. And it was due to the Lions, the Black Lion especially, that I escaped with the Kyanite."

"You said the Paladin's name was Lance?" Emaksolam said the name carefully.

"Um, yeah. I must have forgotten to write that in my report."

"Anything else you might not have mentioned?"

Back in uncomfortable territory. Mavalok didn't think his commander was interested in hearing about the time Lance had defeated an evil mermaid queen or the other tales he'd used to entertain Mavalok as they tracked P'Talaquos's ship. "Um," he racked his brains, "oh, the Red Paladin is part Galra."

"Part Earthling, part Galra?" Emaksolam turned away and walked towards his desk.

"Yeah, um, Lance called him Keith." And a bunch of other insults that made it seem like Lance was trying too hard.

Emaksolam stood silent and still for a long moment. Finally, he said, "That is an interesting wrinkle and something we should keep between us." He turned to Mavalok and handed him a data cube. "Here's your next mission. I believe you'll find it engaging."


The Yellow Lion guided the final cargo ship to the blue wormhole. "Have a great trip!" Hunk signed off as the ship disappeared. Well, that was the last of them. Hunk turned back to the castle.

"They're safely off, Coran," he reported. It felt good rescuing P'Talaquos's prisoners. Not that Hunk thought that the assortment of Unilu, Datubuni, and other likely mercenaries would learn from this experience and make the universe a better place, but at least they weren't assisting a psychopathic monster alien. He hadn't seen P'Talaquos, but given Keith's description and the way she cocooned her victims around the space station, that was probably for the best.

"Good work, Paladin," said Coran, "Now get to your hangar, we're about to wormhole out of here ourselves."

Hunk felt the castle jump moments after the hangar doors closed. After mentally assuring Yellow that she was the best Lion ever, he went over to her storage bay where he had stashed a couple interesting artifacts that he'd found. Or maybe a several, or a several severals. Oh, alright, he'd gone a bit Pidge crazy, but they had all looked so interesting and potentially useful, and besides, the castle wasn't lacking in storage room.

The door hissed open and Hunk jumped back at the sight of two figures. He went for his Bayard and then stopped. He'd seen these two before. Maybe he should have done a final head count.

"Um, Coran? Princess? Guys?" Hunk said into his intercom, "Can you come down here? We've got a slight, make that two, slight problems."