Y'all flatter me.

Part Three

They have to change destinations when Shiro hears drones in the ducts. They end up at his room, keeping the lights on their armor off in case a sentry passes overhead. Shiro is glad the room is dark; Pidge won't see the dent in the wall from when Shiro had punched it in frustration some time ago. He regrets hitting the wall now, but there is nothing to be done.

"They just made things much more complicated," Shiro mutters, crossing his arms while he drags his mind back to more important matters. "We'll have to be careful when travelling around."

Pidge hums an affirmative. "So what do we do? I can't do much with just the sensors built into our suits."

Shiro tips his head back so it rests against the wall. His eyes pick out random shapes among the darkness that disappear when he looks straight at them.

"Shiro?"

"One second," Shiro says, keeping his tone soft so Pidge knows he's not snapping at her. The thought of Allura, Lance, Hunk, Keith, and Coran in the hands of the Galra has been a constant burn in the back of his mind, and ignoring the resultant stress has been getting harder every minute he stays still.

They are running low on information, but they have weapons and a way to get more if necessary. The Galra troops don't know where they are and don't consider them enough of a threat to go on full alert. Their friends are all still alive, and they have a likely location for where they are being held.

Shiro nods to himself, and then clears his throat. "Alright, Pidge. I've got a plan." Or the beginnings of one, he adds silently.

It's odd explaining in the dark, unable to see much of Pidge's expression, but Shiro has managed stranger feats. "We have to find where they boarded. From there we'll infiltrate the Galra battleship. Disguises won't work, so we'll have to stay hidden for as long as possible."

"If you get me near a terminal on their ship, I can hack it, maybe get a map," Pidge says. "Then we can find and rescue everyone."

Shiro nods, though Pidge can't see him. "Sounds like a plan."

Getting to the breach turns out to be the easy part. It takes only an hour of searching, and in the end they simply follow a patrol until it heads back to where it came from.

Getting through the breach is the hard part.

Shiro counts four drones with glowing red highlights on their armor and a soldier before ducking back behind the corner to avoid being spotted.

"What's the situation?" Pidge whispers, the whites of her eyes barely visible.

"They used one of the airlocks," Shiro replies in the same quiet tone. "Forced the doors open. I counted four sentries and one guard. No sign of any of them moving anytime soon."

"There aren't any vents closer to the airlock," Pidge mutters, casting her gaze to the ceiling.

"No, there aren't," Shiro agrees. "This won't be easy."

They spend a minute planning, and when the latest patrol walks through and shows no signs of returning, they act.

Pidge sends out a hologram that sprints past the guards, drawing their attention. While they are distracted, Shiro drops the four sentries with five shots from his rifle—he's out of practice with traditional weapons, much to his irritation—and then gets close enough to tackle the soldier before he can call for help. They hit the ground hard, and Shiro pins the Galra's limbs as best he can.

"How many of you are there?" he demands, glaring at the Galra's yellow eyes. They make him sick to his stomach. "Where have you put the other paladins? How did you find us?"

The soldier just grins. "Success or death," he says.

Shiro's muscles lock.

"Success or death," the warden growls, yanking Shiro from his cell. His clothing nearly tears in the Galra's grip and the ground is hard under Shiro's shoulder. His breath is ragged, his ribs still sore from the match the previous day. "Which will it be today, Champion?"

The guard bucks under Shiro and throws him off, reaching for his gun. Shiro activates his arm but knows he won't be fast enough to deflect the shot—

Green lightning arcs over the guard's body and he slumps with a strangled noise, his eyes sliding shut. A few paces away, highlighted by the soft green light of her Bayard, Pidge stands and stares at Shiro. Her face is pale.

"Shiro, are you okay?"

He shakes his head to clear it and manages a nod. "Yeah, Pidge, I'm okay. Thanks for covering me."

He doesn't spare the guard so much as a backward glance as he and Pidge board the Galra ship.

Shiro realizes they aren't in a regular Galra battleship by the third hallway. The corridors are too narrow, and the design is subtly different. He doesn't recognize the layout. Shiro opens his mouth to say as much to Pidge, but the signature stamping of metal on the floor has him ducking around a corner instead. He and Pidge wait for the patrol to pass, hands hovering near their weapons just in case.

Shiro's heart is beating just a little too fast, a little too loud. He isn't sure whether his tension is from the lack of sleep or his surroundings.

The patrol passes.

"This isn't a normal ship," Pidge whispers. Shiro nods.

"I was just about to say the same thing. If you get the chance, get information about this ship. I don't want to be caught by surprise like this again."

Five turns and one patrol later, they find a side room with a bank of monitors on one wall. Shiro rushes the three sentries inside and takes two out while Pidge handles the third. Shiro then drags the robots out of sight and closes the door, leaving Pidge to hack the terminal.

It takes her several minutes.

"Done," Pidge declares. She taps her wrist and enters a few things on the screen that pops up. "I shared the map with you, and downloaded the basic schematics of the ship. It's not much, but it should work."

"Did you find where they're holding the others?"

"Sublevel three," Pidge says. "I think they were trying to trick us by saying sublevel four."

"How could they have known we were eavesdropping?" Shiro pauses to think. "Unless they didn't, and were trying to spread misinformation throughout their forces. We would have picked it up at some point."

Pidge nods.

The door opens. Shiro has turned and dropped the first sentry with a shot in a second but he isn't fast enough to stop the other drone from sounding the alarm. The robot goes down a moment later. Shiro and Pidge are already moving, Shiro practically dragging Pidge by the arm.

"Time to move!"

Pidge takes the lead, consulting the map every few turns and slowly getting them closer to where the Galra have imprisoned Allura, Coran, and the other paladins. Every time they are nearly cornered, Pidge finds a way out. They use their shields to deflect the shots when possible, but it proves difficult when running.

Finding their friends won't mean anything if they do it with twenty drones on their tail.

Shiro pushes Pidge in front of him. "Keep going! Don't worry about the map, we just have to lose them!"

Pidge runs faster, but Shiro can tell by her ragged breathing that she's flagging. Academy conditioning can only do so much, but Shiro makes sure to keep pace. He isn't going to leave anyone behind.

A bolt scorches the ground right next to Shiro's foot. He grits his teeth and keeps running.

They round a corner and take off, only realizing when it's too late to turn back that the walkway stretches over a vast empty space and there's only one way to go. Feeling his heart hammering in his chest, Shiro pushes Pidge as much as he dares, trying to say encouraging words despite how his lungs aren't getting enough air.

The walkway shudders under their feet, the metal ringing with each stride. Fifty yards to the other side. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten.

A blast, a scream, and Pidge is gone. Shiro lurches to the railing, hand outstretched even though he's far too late, screaming Pidge's name, heedless of the gunfire raining down around him as the drones get closer.

"PIDGE!"

He desperately scans the space below, searching for any hint of the green paladin.

"Pidge!" he yells again, throat burning. "Pidge, respond!"

There is a crackle of static from his helmet. A bolt hits Shiro's right arm and he puts his shield up, but he isn't paying attention to the drones. He listens to the comms with frantic focus.

"I—I'm okay," Pidge says, but her voice is strained.

"What happened? Where are you?" Shiro thinks he sees a glimmer of green but he can't tell whether it's actually Pidge or just his eyes seeing what he wants them to see.

"Something hit my back—jetpack's damaged. I caught myself on the wall with my bayard, but I think I pulled something. I can barely move my arm."

"I'll—"

"No! Shiro, you've got to go."

"I'm not leaving you!" Shiro says, ignoring the red warning flash on his visor that indicates his shield is about to break.

"I'm way out of your reach, Shiro. Besides, they won't look for me down here. I'll be okay. But you have to go."

"Pidge. I won't."

"You will." She doesn't sound fourteen with that much steel in her voice. "If they catch you who knows what they'll do. Run!"

The animal terror that rips through Shiro at the thought of being captured again is enough to send him running, though he keeps glancing back. "Keep in contact!"

"Of course! I'll find a way up soon."

Somehow, Shiro's luck holds long enough for him to slip away from the guards. He hates to think it, but without Pidge, losing the drones is almost easy. He's faster than them, and more maneuverable.

He spends a few minutes catching his breath, listening to an alarm blaring in the background. "Pidge, what's your situation?"

"Can't talk right now. Climbing."

So she wasn't captured. Good.

Shiro pulls up the map Pidge had sent him, quickly orienting himself. The long walkway had taken him to the side of where the prison cells were. After committing the map to memory, Shiro steps back into the hall with his rifle in his hands.

He's careful, avoiding patrols when possible and taking a circuitous route so that the Galra won't know what direction he's coming from. He has to reload his rifle at one point, the magazine running out of charge right as a patrol is rounding the corner. Realizing he won't be fast enough, Shiro throws the rifle hard at one drone and takes its partner out by jamming his right hand through its chest. The one the rifle had knocked down meets the same fate.

Collecting his rifle and reloading it, Shiro keeps moving.

The lights change from purple, to green, to scarlet. He gets a few flashbacks but grits his teeth through them. There will be time for that later; he has to rescue his friends now.

That thought doesn't stop them from coming.

He runs across three more patrols, taking two down at a distance and ambushing the third when it rounds a corner. When he makes it to the hall of cells, he has to hang back several turns. There are more than twenty guards in the immediate area, half of which are actual soldiers.

"Pidge, you there?"

"Yeah. Made it out of the pit."

A small amount of the tension between Shiro's shoulder blades eases. "We need a distraction. Something that will draw the guards away from the cells."

"How many are there?"

"At least twenty. It'll have to be a big distraction."

"Uh."

Her tone makes him instantly suspicious. "Pidge?"

Shiro hears her clear her throat. "I, um, may have swiped a few grenades from the armory."

Shiro stows the lecture for a later time. "Those will work. Just make sure you're well clear of the blast zone; we don't know how big of an explosion those things will make. Give me the signal when you're in position."

"Roger that."

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