Arusian Crusade: Pressure Point
Chapter 3: Defender of the Universe

...Yeah. Still alive. I blame a combination of real life, the Voltron Twitter RP (ya'll rock!), and the fact that this was quite possibly the WORST. CHAPTER. EVER. (If I've ever said that about a chapter prior to this one, I take it back.) I'm sorry! Should be back in the swing of things now, though... enjoy!
(fixed weird editing glitch, thanks Raelee!)


Most people found the chill of the catacombs to be foreboding. Allura knew that, and could respect it. Empathize with it, even. But she could not bring herself to fear the cold—it was familiar, welcoming, and she slowed as she entered the crypts. Focusing herself. But more than that, just accepting the embrace of the spirits.

It had been too long since she'd come down here... fighting Doom was important, of course, and rebuilding her planet was even more so. But perhaps she'd overdone it. She knew—in her own mind as well as from Nanny's worried scolding—that she also needed to leave a few moments for herself. The rest of the team found time to do some things for themselves.

Any interest she might have had in Arusian court literature was now quite gone, so spirit talking seemed like a good alternative.

Besides... she had questions.

Sometimes it was tempting to take the ritual on a sort of autopilot. It was simplicity itself, by now, she'd done it so many times... but no. Anything but full attention would be a sign of grave disrespect. So Allura focused carefully as she arranged the candles in a circle around her father's tomb. Seven candles, for the seven pillars which bound the world of the living to that of the dead.

"Shala mistor," she murmured as she lit the first candle. Piety. The duty owed to these ghosts by those who followed.

"Kavion." Transience. Time was fleeting.

"Dal." Reciprocity. Mortals routinely crossed into the realm of the dead, why shouldn't the dead be able to cross back, if only briefly?

"Roktvi." Wisdom. Required to perform the ritual, forever sought by its practitioners.

"Mazrada." Eternity. Death was eternal, but so was life—the unending cycle which spirit talkers paid full reverence to, even as their touch rippled the boundaries.

"Immentag." The soul. Indestructible, transcending both realms.

"Arus." Harmony. All things in harmony...

The flames pulsed. Floating from the candles to rest over the heart of the tomb, animating the spectral image which appeared before her. "My daughter." King Alfor's ghost smiled. "It is a pleasure, as always. What troubles you?"

What troubles me. She wished their conversations could start out differently than that once in awhile, but really there was nothing to be done for it. Something almost always was troubling her when she came down here, and that was how it had to be—spirit talkers did not disturb the dead for social calls.

"Father... we've been fighting the Drules. Defending Arus. We've been successful, and our people are beginning to rebuild. They have faith in us, and hope in the future again."

The specter's smile broadened. "Indeed. I am proud of you, my daughter; more proud than I can say. And yet, you do not seem pleased by these developments."

"Oh, I'm pleased." Allura sighed, moved forward, rested her hands on the tomb and looked up at him. "It isn't about not being pleased. But when does the cycle end, Father? It seems like no matter how badly the Drules are defeated, they only surge back stronger. They attack, we defend, our people rebuild, the rebuilding is put in danger if not destroyed outright."

He studied her carefully, sympathy sparking in his pale eyes. "It is a difficult path, Allura. But this world is worth fighting for as long as necessary, is it not? War carries no deadline, no expiration date. You bear the Blue Lion's key; I think you know this truth."

Though his tone had been gentle, she flinched at the scolding words. Not that she'd phrased her own question well anyway. "Of course. But that... isn't quite what I'm asking."

The dead king nodded. "I am listening."

Allura took a few shallow breaths to steady herself, looked around at the flameless candles before focusing on her father once more. "I've always been told, believed, that destiny is something greater. Is Voltron just a tool to hold up an endless stalemate? I remember you and Coran debating the pilots, bringing the Alliance in. You said you expected the project to be... to accomplish greater things..." She lowered her eyes. "What were your goals, Father? What are we to do with this champion you raised?"

"Ah." He crossed his arms. "That is a difficult question. In some respects, the project was a mystery to all of us... even those who worked on it most closely." Frown. "It was my hope that we might change the balance of power between the Alliance and the Supremacy. To convince the Drules peace, rather than cold war, was the wisest course."

She nodded. The words made sense. And certainly, it did seem Voltron had caused the Drules to rethink their policies—if perhaps not in the way her father had intended. "Then we are to act in the service of some greater cause?"

"As to that, I cannot say." Alfor studied her. "What I might have done, had I lived to oversee the knight's deployment, is not relevant any longer. Circumstances are changing at every moment, and it is as I have told you before. Guiding the warriors falls to you, my daughter. You must do what you feel is right."

...What I feel is right. Again. "Father, I don't know what I feel is right!"

Immediately she felt foolish for the outburst. Childish, beyond childish... but he moved forward and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. His touch burned and froze at once—the candle flames, the chill of death, coming together into a peculiar sensation that was as comforting as it was startling. "Have patience, my daughter. When the time comes, you will know."

There was something more than mere confidence in those words, Allura realized. The transcendent wisdom of the dead. She couldn't ask about it. Yet she couldn't stop herself. "Will the time come... soon?"

Alfor smiled, and his image vanished.


Another day, another alarm, another occasion for the team to drop everything and sprint to the control room. The commander of the Voltron Force found himself uncharacteristically annoyed by the interruption as they rushed in; he'd been thrashing Pidge at Go for the first time in weeks.

Maybe we should just play in here next time.

Coran was typing furiously, with Swiss sitting on one of the panels watching every move with her glowing golden eyes. "False alarm," the old man yelled over the still-howling sirens. "It's not an attack, just an incoming distress call."

Nodding, Keith took a position behind him anyway. "Why would someone direct a distress call here?"

"They didn't; it's a general alert, goes out to a quantity of local units, and Alliance presence in the Denubian is scattered enough that we're considered 'local' for much of the galaxy." With a scowl, Coran finally managed to silence the alarms. "Still finding new system glitches every day... anyway, judging from transit time and direction, this seems to be sourced on the Outer Rim."

While he certainly hadn't memorized the star maps, Keith knew perfectly well where Arus was situated in comparison to the rest of the Denubian, and arched an eyebrow. "You weren't kidding about having an odd interpretation of 'local'. May as well give it to us since it got here, though."

"Of course. The signal is coming in over a general Alliance frequency. The encryption is in our database, but it's very old..." The advisor frowned, typing in a few new commands. "Text only, coming in under the signature of a Colonel Ixli. Still decrypting." While one hand raced over the panels his other tightened on his cane. A nervous reflex, one the team recognized by now.

Keith was feeling it too; he didn't know what such an old code might mean, but he doubted the implications were good. "Can you trace it?"

"Working on it." Something beeped. "Decryption complete. Yes. General alert request for aid from Kaasen IV."

Kaasen IV. He knew that name, but the exact relevance was eluding him... wait. No. Realization hit hard, and he glanced back at his team to see that their smallest pilot had gone deathly pale. "Full report?" he asked, perhaps too quickly.

"It's very brief. A Drule fleet is inbound and the Alliance's primary outpost is out of commission, with a robeast on the ground. The message is tagged as Code Gray."

The commander nodded his understanding. Code Gray indicated that interstellar comms were expected to fail shortly; such reports rarely had time for details. "Any force estimates?"

"Only that the fleet was of irregular composition—several unknown craft sighted. Though if their identification codes are as out of date as their encryption, that may not mean much."

"They probably are," Pidge said quietly.

Coran shot him only a brief glance, still focused on the monitors. "Oh, you're familiar with the planet?"

"Local name is Balto. Most of the people don't even know they're part of the Alliance, not much point in keeping shiny up-to-date equipment."

"Ah! Balto, yes, I do know that name..." Coran hesitated. Looked at the screen. Looked at Pidge. And suddenly the reality seemed to sink in. "...The, ah. The signal originated about twenty minutes ago, and the defensive emplacements were holding all forces off the ground at the time." His tone was kindly, hopeful.

The young pilot stared right through him, focused on the screens. "At the time."

"...Yes." The advisor shot him an apologetic look. "As I said, the message was short. No estimates on how long they might last."

"Right. But it doesn't make any sense." Pidge kept staring blankly at the main monitor, as if the sheer illogic of the situation put it beyond his comprehension. "Balto is a peaceful planet if you're not on the ground, and it certainly doesn't have any tactical significance, why would it be a target?"

Keith fielded the question only because the little pilot seemed to be pleading for an answer, for someone to make sense of things for him. "Balto must offer something to the Alliance."

"Yeah. Mining rights on the moon. Big on germanium and rhenium." Keith knew the elements to be critical components in skip drives, but Hunk was the only other person in the room who seemed to grasp the significance. Pidge didn't notice he'd lost them. "Even if that were enough reason to attack, they're not attacking the moon, wouldn't the signal have mentioned it?"

Very true.

The commander found himself thinking of the Rift War. Each kingdom had its own combat tendencies, of course, and the Ninth had barely participated in that conflict. But it hadn't been uncommon for a few kingdoms to simply pick out an undefended planet that wasn't hurting anyone and raze it to set an example. The Fourth had been particularly egregious with the tactic...

Which was, ultimately, why they had their Red Lion pilot now.

He looked around at the others. Lance looked almost as pale as Pidge; his thoughts were probably tracking in the same direction. Hunk was watching his friend rather than the monitors, while Allura had her hands over her mouth and was trying very hard to not let them notice she was biting her nails.

Okay. Know what? There's no need to stand around here panicking. We can do something about this. "Well." Keith turned to Black Lion's chute. "Let's go find out what's up, then... and put a stop to it. To the li—"

"—Commander, are you mad?"

Blink. Had someone just interrupted his deployment order? That had never happened before. Even stranger when he realized who'd done it. "Coran?" He walked to the black door and frowned as its motion sensors failed to activate; it had been locked from the console. "Come on, open the chutes, we've got to go!"

"I'm afraid you can't."

"What? Why not?" Keith glared at him, pale eyes meeting gold; out of the corner of his vision he saw Hunk put a hand on Pidge's shoulder, as if worrying that the small pilot might do something rash. Though really, Pidge didn't look like he was interested in jumping anyone; his eyes were still fixed on the monitors, though he must have read the message a dozen times already.

"Lieutenant, please." Coran's tone remained as respectful as ever, but Keith noted the use of his Alliance rank and most certainly understood its significance. He may be commander of the Voltron Force, but his enlistment status was technically rather low. "I must remind you that Voltron is the defender of Arus, and Arus remains under near-constant attack. Are you going to abandon that duty? Your primary mission?"

"We're not abandoning anything! But—"

"—Besides." The advisor's hawklike features softened, slightly. "Balto is nearly twenty hours away, even under the fastest interstellar travel methods available to the Alliance. Doom's attacks are swift and brutal... it's incredibly unlikely you would make it in time to be of any help."

Keith frowned. Swift and brutal, yes, but a planet was a big place. "How long was Arus under bombardment when Zarkon attacked?"

"About two days..." Coran paused, seeing where this was going. "But that was an extraordinary circumstance, the attacking forces were under orders to burn everything to the ground, that is not a regular tactic of the Ninth Kingdom."

"Not a regular tactic. But it's been known to happen!"

"Lieutenant—"

"—Enough, Coran. Keith's right."

Everyone turned to the blue-suited figure who had, up until that moment, been hanging a bit behind the rest of the team; Allura was now standing in front of Blue's chute, arms crossed. Her expression was calm now, but her gaze was locked on the old man in a way that made Keith a little uneasy, and he wasn't even the target. As if those soft sky-blue eyes might turn to pure ice in a moment.

"Princess, you of all people must understand. If Voltron leaves Arus, where does that leave our people if Zarkon strikes again? All we would have left are the castle defenses."

"That's not entirely true. We've been fortifying the settlements. And no matter what, we won't sacrifice another world for our sake, not when they're asking for our help." Allura's voice was firm. "I don't know what exactly my father intended to do with Voltron, but he believed the project would be a benefit to the Alliance as a whole. We're going, because if it's in our power to save any world from being burned to the ground like Arus was, we must try no matter how slim the chances..." She looked at Pidge. "And because we protect our own."

He said nothing, but the gratitude surging through his eyes was unmistakable.

"Princess..." The advisor's jaw worked for a few moments, seeking arguments, not finding them. He was in charge here. Keith was sharply aware of that, remembering Allura's explanation of Arusian politics, wondering if this might be where the baronet finally put his foot down.

Then, bowing his head, Coran took a step back. "Perhaps you're right. Go ahead." He typed in a command and a hydraulic hiss echoed around them, the doors unlocking again. "Please, be careful... and good luck."

Answering nods from the team; Keith saluted to cover his sigh of relief. "All right. Now then... to the lions!"

A yell from behind him. "Hey, mouse patrol, all aboard that's goin' aboard!"

Swiss gave an indignant chitter and bounded off the consoles, clinging to Hunk's sleeve as he ran to Yellow's chute, and they were gone.


As Yellow Lion came to life around him, a new realization hit Hunk with all the sudden savagery of two crush cars meeting head-on. He didn't want to have to bring it up, but it was critical, and they would all notice it in a matter of minutes anyway. No sense wasting any time.

"Guys, I hate to be the practical one here, but we don't have a navigator."

"Oh hells," Lance muttered. "Well that's gonna be a problem, now isn't it?"

Keith's voice broke in, as thoroughly unrattled as ever. "No problem at all. We can contact the Denubian clearinghouse." Each galaxy with an Alliance presence maintained a navigation center, where ships without their own navigators for any reason could call in and request a course. "Just tell them what kind of warp tech we're running and... oh, damn." Suddenly he sounded a lot more rattled.

"Yep." The team's second gave one of his classic I-hate-it-when-I'm-right sighs. "That is definitely going to be a problem."

Swiss squeaked.

Hunk bit back the burst of swearing he'd wanted to let out and looked at the mouse. They'd aided the construction of the lions, surely she had to know something, didn't she? "Okay, Swiss Miss, if you've got anything to show me this would be a good time. Tell me there's a way for these kitties to go rock-hopping."

"Skriikk." She trotted across his consoles and pressed a button near one of the side monitors, bringing up a star chart; Arus was represented as a glowing white dot in a sea of gray specs. "Skwii-skwik shrikik."

"No idea what you just said..."

"Skwee." Words came up on another monitor. Map is there. Using it your problem.

Thanks for the encouragement. Shrug. "Somethin's better than nothin', girl, so thanks for that!" He opened comms again. "Guys, third auxiliary monitor to the lower left, hit the button with the star on it. Brings up charts, but I'm not seeing any way—or anywhere—to get the coordinates."

Silence for a time as the others presumably checked up on this, then Pidge broke in. "It's... oh, wow... we don't need coordinates, they're programmed right into the chart, just project the map to your main touchscreen and you can pick the destination. No waypoints, which means it's... it's gotta be a straight point-to-point system, do you guys have any idea how rare that is? I've never seen one that works over more than about a hundred light years, but this one seems to think it can get us anywhere in the galaxy, and I bet it's right, this is a whole new level of—"

"—Pidge." Allura's voice was gentle as she broke in. "You're rambling."

"Huh? Oh, sorry, it's just this is seriously tech that doesn't exist, and we are totally going to have to run about a hundred scans on it when we get back, because the Alliance doesn't even..."

Hunk sighed, shook his head, opened a channel to the princess. "Just let him rant."

"Is he going to be okay? I mean, will he be able to keep it together for this?" She sounded almost as worried as he felt.

Good question. He wasn't sure he had an answer for it. But then, he knew there was only one valid answer. "Don't worry, Princess. He'll pull it together once things get hot, he always does."

She made a vague noise of acknowledgment, closed the link. Something told Hunk he hadn't reassured her all that much.

As usual, the lions assembled in front of the castle. Green Lion was pacing in a tight circle as Black looked on; Hunk was certain there was a bemused look on the lead machine's regal face. "Come on, come on, let's try this out!" Pidge half-whined as the others approached. "It's gonna be awesome!"

Does he really think he's fooling anyone? Doesn't matter. Play along.

Red Lion's den was furthest from the castle, so Lance was the last to join formation. "I'm with the kid, let's get this done." There was a dark intensity in his voice, even more than his usual enthusiasm for killing Drules. No need to ask what that was about.

"Right." Black Lion stepped up in front of the others, staring into the sky. "Pidge, it's your planet. Send us the location."

A brief pause, then the star chart lit up; a second planet was glowing white, right along the edge of the galaxy. Hunk looked at it for a minute. So... that's where Balto is. He'd seen images of his little buddy's homeworld, of course, but never on a star chart. It looked so... distant, alone... he wondered, briefly, if any other Alliance forces were trying to move in response to the distress call.

Somehow, based on all he'd heard, he doubted it.

"Destination locked." Black took a few more steps forward; Keith sounded tentative, not quite certain how to deal with this. He was used to ordering skip drive jumps, after all. Not commanding... whatever it was the lions had on board. "Everyone in formation, and launch!"

Hunk fell in beside Green Lion, hit the confirmation button on the touchscreen, and proceeded to leave his stomach behind on Arus.

"Dude!"

"Whoa."

"Holy hells, what just...?"

The lions kicked into the sky with a round of furious roars, closing ranks on their own; not only had Hunk not done anything else with the controls, he wasn't even touching them. He could see a brilliant green aura wrapping around the lion next to him before golden light gathered around Yellow, pouring through the lion's eyes to wash out the cockpit. He squinted against the glow, but it faded quickly—the glass was darkening, blocking everything out.

A barely perceptible jolt, and all sensation of movement ceased.

"...Okay then." Lance sounded a bit breathless. "That was fun."

"Beats intergalactic jumps."

"Is there anything that wouldn't beat an intergalactic jump?"

"Crashing into a star and dying. Maybe."

"I've never been on an intergalactic jump..."

Three pilots answered Allura at once; Pidge was absent from the comms. "Don't complain!"

"I'll take your word for it."


Transit was going smoothly, probably. Maybe. Potentially. Hell, he wouldn't have noticed if Green Lion were doing back flips in extradimensional space at this point...

It just doesn't make sense.

Doesn't make sense at all.

Doesn't make the slightest tiny bit of sense.

The words cycled through his mind like a mantra as Pidge stared at the emptiness on Green's viewscreens. Balto, under attack, really? It was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard of. Thinking about it was not making it any less ridiculous.

He should stop thinking about it.

Yeah, right.

Coran had mentioned the defensive emplacements holding out. Which was amusing, because Pidge hadn't even known his planet had such defenses. The Alliance did a damned good job of masking their presence on that xenophobic world... at the request of the people, of course. One of the very few things Tenra and Sryka could agree on.

He wondered if they were regretting it now.

You can't dwell on this the whole trip, Pidge. No matter what you're flying into, you do NOT want to get there a nervous wreck. Now cut it out. Do something productive.

Sighing, he started doing a status check, and froze at what he saw.

"Um. Guys, we're accelerating."

"Yeah, so?" Lance asked. "That's good, right? We'll get there faster."

"Sure. It's good. It's also theoretically impossible to gain momentum while in extradimensional space... but yes, it's good."

A low whistle from Hunk. "We're not just accelerating, we're accelerating fast. Princess, how many more laws of physics are these things gonna break before all's said and done?"

There was a long pause before Allura answered. "I... don't know, to be honest. I wasn't close to the technical aspects of the project, you know, but I don't remember any mention of Voltron's interstellar systems." Another pause. "Wait, no. Father did mention once that he was glad he wouldn't have to install any skip drives. But Arus has been using skip drives for a century; this technology must not be ours."

Keith's voice broke in. "Well, what else can you tell us about Voltron's legend? Anything? Alliance xenomythology really only covers the barest details. Who could possibly have built something like this in the first place? This is thousands of years old, and it's beyond everything we can even imagine."

"I don't know much more about the legend," the princess answered apologetically. "According to Drule tradition, Voltron's creators were annihilated after Sarga shattered him, but that's just a footnote to the stories. Nothing about who those creators were, or even why they built a knight to face down the First Empire to begin with."

"Well that's convenient." Lance sounded frustrated. Pidge had a feeling the frustration had very little to do with actually learning about Voltron's origins. "So they've got a giant robot demigod making a mess of them, their goddess destroys it, they wreck the people responsible for the robot. Classic self-affirming myth with no basis in reality. Except for the part where your father dug the damn robot up. Someone had to have built it!"

The princess kept her cool, maybe realizing he wasn't trying to take things out on her, maybe just used to Lance being Lance. "The First Empire had many enemies. As to what civilization could've had the power? It's impossible to say. The Ninth Kingdom, weak as it is, has been the primary power in the Denubian pretty much throughout recorded history..."

"Wait, wait." Now it was Hunk's turn to interrupt, sounding confused. "The Ninth is weak?"

"Hawkins mentioned that," Keith pointed out. "During our initial briefing, remember? The Ninth Kingdom is traditionally the weakest in the Supremacy. Though," he sounded thoughtful, "none of my political science classes ever explained why that might be. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense when you consider there's no real competition in the Denubian, not even another Drule kingdom."

Allura gave a rather un-princesslike snort. "Oh, that's easy enough. It's because of Voltron."

Pause. "I'm not getting the joke."

"I'm not joking. The legends are clear, and Father found confirmation in Voltron's own databanks when he started the project. The knight was very effective when it was deployed. It went from planet to planet, destroying all military and industrial resources, then moving on. The First Empire's presence in the Denubian was almost eradicated. Even after Voltron was defeated, as best we can tell, the Drules weren't able to reclaim many of those worlds—all the infrastructure was gone, and most of the population died out before relief forces could get there."

"Voltron the Destroyer," Pidge murmured. Everything suddenly made sense... everything except why the hell Balto had been dragged into this battle, of course, and he shook his head to clear it. Too late. He cast about in his head for another question, another diversion. Something that wasn't about the planet they were headed for at impossible speeds. "But that was how many thousand years ago, and the Ninth is still reeling? Doesn't seem logical."

"Sarga," Keith whispered. His tone seemed to indicate everything was suddenly making sense to him, too. "The Ninth has a long and glorious tradition of lunatics on the throne; Zarkon's quite the outlier. And their patron is a goddess of chaos when the rest of the Supremacy favors gods of order. If it hadn't been for Voltron, the Ninth would be serving order too... but her influence... saved them, but also crippled them?"

"That was Father's theory," Allura agreed.

"Uh, okay, guys? Loving story time here and all, but there's just one little problem with all this theorizing." Lance's face appeared on the monitors, frowning. "That would mean SARGA IS ACTUALLY A THING."

Pidge blinked. He hadn't been aware there was any debate over whether Sarga was actually a thing. "Yeah, and?"

"So you're telling me the Drules are doing the religion thing right and we know it and we're just what, fighting them for kicks? Because hell is lovely this time of year? Come on. No way."

There he goes with the hells fixation again. Truthfully, Pidge wasn't quite sure what Lance was getting all grouchy about, but then... a few of those military history classes he hadn't skipped had been on religious wars, hadn't they? Right. Humans considered this stuff very important.

He might've said something fairly tactless, but Keith jumped in first. "Relax, Lance. The Alliance has documented proof of the existence of several Drule gods—though Sarga isn't one of them. We also have proof of a few hundred deities belonging to various Alliance races. Including the one we're driving right now, in case you'd forgotten. They're real beings, no doubt about it, but are they gods in the metaphysical sense? That's a whole different question."

Silence.

Hunk broke it. "Chief... let's not talk metaphysics now, huh? Or better, let's not talk metaphysics ever? We're inbound, anyway."

We're what? Pidge's eyes widened as he returned his attention to his instruments. The big guy was right; they were on the final approach to Balto, to the extent that 'final approach' meant anything going at several thousand light years per hour. He typed in a few commands and Green Lion's monitors displayed what he wanted; the entire trip had taken slightly over two hours.

That's impossible.

An alarm sounded; return to reality was imminent. Pidge closed his eyes for a few moments, steadying himself as Green Lion smoothly breached the dimensional barriers, focusing on the battle to come. But at the same time, he couldn't help thinking about what they'd just learned... what this knight had been created for didn't sound all that noble, really. Yet here they were.

It was just like Keith had told Yurak, months ago. Voltron the Destroyer was no more.

Voltron the Defender had arrived.


"Sir! We have inbound contacts. Five ships, about corvette-sized, but the energy readings... oh. Oh, no. Sir, we have a problem!"

"Stop stalling and give it to me, Grayl."

"The lions have arrived!"

The lions have WHAT?

For a moment, Lotor regretted demanding answers so quickly, hunching over at his command console and staring at the instruments as his aide sent him the scans. The readings were unmistakable, but at the same time, the couldn't say what they said so clearly. To be here so quickly was impossible. No known method of interstellar travel could account for it.

But what was Voltron, if not unknown?

"Sir, the lions are on a trajectory for the planet. If they've noticed our presence they seem to be ignoring us."

"Well by all means don't get their attention." If Voltron tried to attack the Enyos, it would learn the hard way how volatile the ships were. A massive crater along the equator, visible without magnification from space, marked where the Baltans had learned the same thing. Not that the lesson had accomplished much—weak as they were, the orbital emplacements had only seemed to double their ferocity after the first Enyo went down, crater or not.

There were no orbital emplacements left now, of course. But even then, those on the ground had attacked the ships as they began drilling into the planet's crust. A futile gesture, yet... they still fought, as though their furious spirit could make up for their lack of weaponry.

Lotor wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Were they trapped animals, lashing out, unable to recognize and accept the inevitable? Or were they noble warriors fighting to their dying breath, defeated and yet unbroken?

Matters were so complex outside of the classroom. No black and white here; even honor, which had once seemed like such a clear and sharp blade, was written in shades of gray. The only certainty he could have about the Baltans was that by the end of the day, they would all be dead...

He still wasn't sure how he felt about that, either.