Arusian Crusade: Deployment
Chapter 3: Unit Cohesion

Thanks for the reviews! Hopefully this won't disappoint.
No egos were harmed in the writing of this chapter... much.

It had been so easy to get Keith to agree. Too easy. That worried Hunk; he was certain he must have missed something and would end up regretting this project. But for the moment he decided to count his blessings and watch the show.

"Let me get this straight." Colonel Hawkins leaned back in his seat and studied the group, eyes narrowed with concentration, expression otherwise unreadable. "You're less than a month into your training schedule, and you'd like to take a week of leave in order to perform an extended team-building exercise. Otherwise known as a road trip."

"Yessir. That's... pretty much it." Keith was actually squirming.

Hawkins' gaze fell on Lance, then on Hunk. "So which of you is responsible for this?"

"My fault," Hunk admitted with a shrug.

"All me," Lance declared at the same moment.

...Oh, so that's why it was so easy. They exchanged startled looks, and Hunk couldn't help it. He laughed.

"Great minds think alike," Lance chuckled.

"Yep, and so do ours!"

Hawkins looked between the two of them again, then returned his attention to Keith, who shook his head as if to say see what I was up against? Then, amazingly enough, the colonel actually smiled.

"It took you long enough. I've been waiting for a team-building proposal since you were given this assignment." He leaned over the desk. "This is a high-stakes mission with many uncertainties and few solid facts. We cannot afford stress fractures in your team. You are being granted extraordinary leeway for this operation, and I can hardly deny this request. You're released for exactly one week, as of noon tomorrow."

Keith blinked. Blindsided, clearly. Hunk was pretty sure their commander had been prepared to argue passionately for the request, no matter how he might feel about it personally. Accepting it that easily had thrown the whole thing off. Finally, "I, uh. Thank you, sir!" He shot off a salute and motioned for everyone to leave.

Nobody even dared to speak again until they were out of Hawkins' office, out of the building, and out on the street. It might shatter the moment.

"He seriously just okayed that without a second thought, didn't he?" Pidge finally asked.

"He seriously did," Lance agreed. "That guy's actually kind of awesome for an officer."

"King Alfor's got to be some kind of... something." Keith shook his head. "I've never heard of the Alliance being so accommodating to a bunch of cadets, special mission or not."

"They owe us for this omega protocol mess." Pidge sounded bitter; Hunk empathized. They'd gotten another shot at pulling the sim coding, but it turned out everything about omega protocols had been scripted on Arus. Neither of them could make heads or tails of the programming language and, after stalling for a good half hour, had been forced to admit defeat.

Hunk found it irritating, to be sure, but Pidge had taken it as a grave personal failing. Emphasis on 'personal'. And he was pretty mad.

"Dude, you guys, cut it out. I do not want to hear the words 'omega protocols' for the next week." Lance gave them all a reproachful glare. "We are on leave. We're gonna go out and have fun and make total fools of ourselves for the duration, and then you can go back to talking business. Not until!"

"Okay, fair enough."

"Wait a minute." Keith looked over the group. "We do at least need to set some ground rules."

Lance and Hunk turned looks of pure disbelief on Keith. Pidge coughed, trying unsuccessfully to hide a laugh, and even Sven arched an eyebrow.

Naturally, it was Lance who finally voiced the objection. "You cannot have ground rules on a road trip, Keith. They are mutually exclusive."

The commander frowned. "Okay, let me rephrase that. We need to set one ground rule. Namely, Lance, you may not attempt to drag race any law enforcement officers we may or may not happen to stumble across."

"Hey, wait a minute! You can't just give me a rule that nobody else has to follow!"

"Fine, then nobody's allowed to."

Lance glowered for a moment, then his expression shifted to a wicked smirk. "Actually, you know what? I think we could have some fun with this rules thing. Let's each make one. Keith's rule is no racing cop cars. My rule," his gaze fell on Sven, "is no maps or GPS."

The navigator crossed his arms and smirked right back. "Bring it on."

Pidge and Hunk looked at each other for a moment, then nodded, and Pidge sat back on the curb. "My rule is no hotels. Campgrounds all the way."

"I've got a super tricked-out RV we can use," Hunk added. He'd go for any excuse to drag that project back out. "And my rule is no restaurants after 4 PM. Campfire cookin' every night! I'm an expert, I promise." He looked at Sven, who didn't look to be in any hurry to jump into this discussion. "You've still gotta come up with one, you know."

"I was just waiting to see what you were going to do." Sven was still smirking. "Mine is, all rules are optional."

Four jaws dropped. Lance was the first to recover, groaning and punching his friend on the shoulder. "You bastard. You magnificent bastard."

"Hey, wait." Pidge's eyes went slightly unfocused, as they always did when he was concentrating, and he turned a thoughtful expression on the ground. "Are you saying just our rules are optional? Or are you saying your rule's also optional so we have the option of making our rules not be optional?"

Everyone stared at him, then at Sven, who looked back at them and shrugged. "What're you all looking at me for? He wins."

The RV Hunk had volunteered for the trip was larger than Keith's dorm room and nicer than his aunt's officer quarters. It had a GPS, of course; Lance would be watching that like a hawk to be sure it went unused. It also had two generators, a fully equipped kitchen, the most advanced internet and satellite hookups available, and...

"...Is that a chandelier?"

Hunk looked at the crystalline light fixture in the back of the vehicle and shrugged sheepishly. "I thought it was a nice touch. Needed something unique."

"Check out the leather," Lance grinned, stretching out in the driver's seat. "You build this for the Luxray circuit?"

"Yeah, but it didn't really take." Hunk must've noticed the odd looks he was getting from everyone but Lance, because he quickly explained, "Luxray's the luxury racer circuit. Crush cars are about making anything into a wicked road ripper, y'know. But this baby was always a little top heavy for the track. Damn shame, it was fun while it worked..." He sighed happily, lost in memories for a moment, then shook it off and began stowing suitcases.

Pidge took a flying leap into the over-cab section, then flopped back over the edge and stared upside-down at the rest of the team. "So where are we actually going? I don't know a thing about Earth geography."

"I wasn't really worrying about a where," Lance admitted. "Kind of figured I'd just take turns that look interesting, and let Mister Bring-It-On over here figure out where we're at after the fact." He motioned to Sven, who was studiously ignoring him. "But if anyone has suggestions we'll see what we can do."

Keith looked to Sven also. "What do you think, good excuse to head for Japan?"

"If only." Their navigator gave him an odd look. "That would take more than a week... and we'd get a little bit wet."

"What, you mean this thing can't swim or fly?"

"Nah, afraid not..." Hunk's eyes widened and he looked at Pidge, whose expression had become just as eager. "But those are both great ideas and we'll get on them as soon as this trip's over, right little buddy?"

"Already making plans!"

Keith sank back into one of the seats with an exaggerated moan and covered his face with his hands. "My God, what have I done?"

"You aren't fooling anyone, Keith." Lance's tone was almost scolding. "You are laughing behind that double facepalm."

"Untrue."

"You are. You're laughing on the inside."

Well, yeah. There was no point trying to deny the truth of that, so he gave in and started laughing on the outside also. He'd resigned himself to being the only sane man on this trip, but that didn't mean he couldn't have any fun.

To that end... "I've always wanted to see the aurora borealis," he suggested after regaining his composure. "Think we can make that happen?" He was looking at Sven again—after all, not only was he the resident astronomer, he'd grown up in Norway and had some first-hand experience with the subject.

His friend frowned, considering it. "Can't make any promises, but there has been a lot of sunspot activity lately. All we can do is head north and hope."

"Is that all? No problem." Lance made a great production of yawning. "Keep driving north until we hit water. Boring. Entirely possible, but boring."

Pidge crossed his arms, still upside-down. "I have no idea what an aurora borealis is, which seems like a good enough reason to go for it. Is it really going to be too boring for you, Lance? Because I can hack the steering system up a bit if you like."

Their pilot—or was it just a driver for the moment?—reddened slightly. "That's okay. I think maybe I can deal with boring after all."

"You sure? Because it's no problem, really. I can have you wishing for omega protocols in five minutes..."

"Didn't I already say those words were off limits?"

Keith chuckled, watching the two argue, then was distracted by Hunk flopping into a seat between him and Sven. "You know, if you two really want to go to Japan, you should've said so a little earlier. I could arrange that no problem. My grandparents live in Tokyo, and they're always complaining that I don't come visit enough."

"No kidding? I had no idea you were Japanese."

"On my mom's side." Hunk snorted. "Where d'you think I got a first name like Tsuyoshi?"

"...Did not know that either. I think your nickname suits you better."

"Yeah, I hear that." The big engineer threw his hands behind his head. "Ah well. It is what it is, and all that jazz. What about you, Keith? With a name like Kogane..."

True enough, as far as it went, but Keith's family was actually several generations removed from the islands. "Yeah, sure. I know karate, aikido, kenjutsu, and quite a few other Japanese words." He gestured to Sven. "Actual useful knowledge is more his deal than mine, really."

"Really." Hunk arched an eyebrow. "I've been avoiding asking this, but since it's come up now, I didn't know they had Japanese Vikings."

Sven shrugged. "What, you've never heard of adoption?"

"Ah! That does explain—"

"BUCKLE UP BACK THERE!" Lance bellowed, cutting off all conversation. "We're rolling before this maniac starts cutting wires!" Pidge said nothing, but looked very pleased with himself.

Keith sighed and strapped himself in. "Right then. All units, commence Operation Herding Cats. Tundra or bust!"

As darkness fell on their first day of travel, they found themselves somewhere with a lot of trees and mountains. And traffic. Lance pulled off at an empty lot and the group disembarked. "Alright navigator, pop quiz number one. Where are we, exactly?"

Sven looked up, studied the sky for a few moments. "We're in Gatlinburg, Tennessee."

His friend's jaw dropped. "You can seriously tell that just from the stars?"

You just keep on thinking that. But he wasn't going to be able to keep up the charade for long, so he shook his head. "There was a sign, Lance."

Lance hit him. Again. That was turning into a theme on this trip.

Pidge had scrambled to the top of the RV and was looking up at the mountains to their east. "Ought to be a few decent campgrounds here, anyway. Look at this place." His eyes were shining as he dropped back to the ground. "I could stay here all week."

"Sure," Hunk agreed. "We'll pick you up on the way back to the Garrison."

"Hey!"

"What? I'm just tryin' to help!"

The team returned to the vehicle, and within the hour had a camping permit and a spot in the middle of a national park Sven had never heard of in his life. Terrestrial geography actually wasn't one of his stronger points. Lance and Keith had a cheerful campfire burning within minutes, and the group sat around the flames watching Hunk cook hamburgers over the coals.

Turned out the big guy really was good at this. Sven didn't even like hamburgers and it was one of the best meals he'd ever had. And he wasn't alone.

"That was amazing, Hunk." Lance was finishing off his second burger as he spoke. "Where'd you pick this up? I'm pretty sure I've never seen Cooking Out 101 on the electives list."

"Secret family campfire recipe!" Hunk answered proudly. "I did tons of camping when I was a kid. Mom and my brothers were all the outdoors-y types, and they felt like it was some grand calling to drag me'n my dad out of the garage at least once a month." He tossed a few new pieces of kindling on the fire. "After I learned to take apart the grill and put it back together, I figured I may as well learn to use it. Went from there."

Pidge was nibbling on potato chips and looking around the edges of the fire circle. "Will you guys be terribly offended if I sleep outside? I mean, the camper's nice and all, but it's been ages since I had a night under the stars."

"You camped out a lot too?" Lance asked.

The small engineer hesitated. "Umm. Not exactly." He looked at Hunk, who just shrugged, then seemed to relax. "My, uh... my kind aren't looked on too highly back on Balto. I grew up on the streets." He looked to the sky. "Every night I'd find a nice open roof, and lie down and count the stars until I could sleep. It never even occurred to me back then that there were people on other planets looking at our star the same way."

Aha. So Pidge was a street kid. Suddenly he made a lot more sense, actually.

Lance pitched his paper plate into the flames and stretched out on the ground. "You too, huh? I used to sneak out of my house once my parents were asleep, and run to this pond we had out back... I loved trying to count the stars in the water, then looking up to see how few I was really seeing."

Sven shot his friend a sharp look, and noticed Keith looking startled as well. Just for a moment. But Lance did not continue that train of thought, did not mention the night he'd once told them about... the night the stars had moved. The night the stars had fallen.

Instead, he added, "Heck, that's how Sven and I met back at the academy. Stargazing out at the cape every night, and sooner or later we got sick of seeing each other and not even knowing each others' names."

Well, that was one way to describe their first meeting. Sven waved it off. "You make it sound so poetic. You might have been out there for fun, but I was doing homework!" He decided not to elaborate either; no sense mentioning how many punches had been thrown over the matter.

Lance rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You suffer for your art. The question is, are you gonna stay out here with us tonight or hide in the van?"

"It's not a van," Hunk protested. "That is a recreational vehicle. And if this is where we're going with this discussion, I'll just lock it up tonight so everyone has to sleep outside."

Somehow, the whole team ended up looking at Keith. Maybe it was because he was their commander, and even off duty they looked to him for leadership. Maybe it was just because he'd stayed out of the discussion so far. He was staring into the sky. Finally, realizing the others were all waiting for him to say something, he leaned back on the rock he was sitting on and shrugged. "I don't have any stories about the stars, guys. May as well come up with one now."

Hearing his friends tell it, sleeping under the stars was something romantic and lovely, but so far all Keith was getting out of it was discomfort. He shifted uneasily in his sleeping bag and sighed. It was ridiculous. The ground was rough, the forest was noisy, the moon was shining straight in his eyes, and the air smelled like campfire smoke.

Never again.

The crickets or tree frogs or whatever the hell was chirping merrily away in the trees did have one advantage. They were loud enough to drown out Hunk's snoring—thank God for small favors. But it wasn't enough. Sighing again, Keith stood and stretched, trying to ease out the soreness from lying on dirt and twigs for two hours. He clearly wasn't going to get any sleep until he outright keeled over from exhaustion.

Nobody else seemed to be having trouble... he studied the team in the moonlight. Hunk was sprawled wildly across half the fire circle, snoring away. Lance was cuddling with his pillow, looking almost endearing, while Sven was curled up deeper in the woods, where the ground was padded by pine needles. Pidge... Keith frowned. He didn't see Pidge anywhere, only his empty sleeping bag. Looking around wildly, something green and too bright caught his eye from... above?

The kid was sleeping in a tree.

Slapping a palm over his face, Keith decided to go for a walk.

Camping was not shaping up to be a great success, but he was glad to be trying it out. Keith would try pretty much anything once. But he always seemed to fall back on the same things. Discipline, honor, structure. As much as Lance ribbed him about not having any hobbies, he practiced the martial arts more for pleasure than for business... perhaps he was just meant to be a soldier, by nature and by blood. None of this really bothered him, but he did recognize his interests might be a bit narrow. So he tried new things.

In any case, the fact that sleeping on the dirt was obnoxious didn't prevent him from appreciating the outdoor scenery otherwise.

The park was beautiful in the moonlight. Fog was just starting to settle in; this range was called the Great Smoky Mountains, and now he knew why. The chirping that had been so maddening before was fading into the background now that he wasn't trying to sleep, and he heard owls softly calling to each other—once he was certain he even saw one, a shadow with rustling wings that vanished before he could fully focus on it.

Keith walked for half an hour, stopping for a few minutes to gaze at the shadowy peaks and watch a creek flashing silver beneath the stars, then returned to the campsite. He actually wasn't tired at all now. Maybe he could just sleep while they were on the road tomorrow...

All was as he'd left it at the fire circle, except Lance was sitting up, eyes wide, nearly hyperventilating as he clutched his pillow close.

Uh oh.

"Lance!" He kept his voice low. Best not to wake anyone until he knew what was going on, for his own sake and for his friend's. "Lance, what's wrong?"

"Nothing!"

Well that was convincing. Rather than ask any more questions that would get silly answers, Keith grabbed the trembling pilot by the arm and dragged him deeper into the woods. Best to get him away from the others, hopefully get him feeling a little more comfortable. Then, with any luck, make him talk.

As they moved down the path Lance did seem to relax, slightly, but he was still shaking as Keith half-pushed him into a sitting position by the creek. "I can tell something's wrong, so don't try that again. You want to talk about it?"

"No." Shudder. Reconsidering. "No, I... I will, I've gotta. I... Keith, look... what happens if we win?"

Keith blinked. "Win what?"

"The war!"

Oh. Okay...? Maybe it was just because he was tired himself, but Keith could not force himself to fully grasp what Lance was trying to get at. It was there, at the fringes of his consciousness, just barely eluding him. "Well... the Alliance would be at peace."

"The Drules would be gone."

Gone? That would be one hell of a victory. He didn't voice the thought; slim as the potential was, it wasn't entirely unthinkable. Not possible with technology and politics as they were now. But in the future, who could know? "Wouldn't that make you happy?"

"Wouldn't it? Shouldn't it?" Lance shook his head vigorously. "I was dreaming..."

Obviously. Keith kept that one to himself also. "About winning the war?"

"Yeah." Shivering, the other pilot pulled his jacket closer and gave his friend a pained look. "The war was over and the Drules were gone and I... I didn't have anything left, Keith! I didn't have anyone to hunt... anyone to hate... anything to live for..." His eyes were glittering; it was impossible to tell if it was just the starlight, or a hint of unshed tears. "But I'm not like that... am I?"

"Of course you're not!" The denial was reflexive. Forceful. It was not insincere, but Keith hadn't really thought about it, either. It couldn't be true, because Lance so desperately wanted it not to be true, and anything but a denial would devastate him. Yet... ultimately the answer was so much simpler.

Lance stared into the water. "I don't want to be like that," he murmured.

"You won't be. You aren't." Keith walked over and gripped his shoulders. "You've got us."

"I've got you," his friend repeated as if he didn't understand. But he was calming now. "I've got..." Silence. He looked up. "Thanks."

"You going to be okay?"

"Yeah. This... isn't all that uncommon." Lance stood, avoiding his gaze. "I think it might get better now. Because I think you're right." He sighed. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Lance." Searching for words took him a minute. "It's good that you're thinking about it... worrying about it. That's how you know you're still sane."

"Yeah... yeah." A faint smile. "Thanks, Keith. I feel a lot better now."

"Excellent. If you feel better, I feel better." He meant it.

This time when they returned to camp, sleep came much more easily.

After two and a half days on the road, they hit water. Judging from Lance's irritated reaction, it was not the water they were supposed to be hitting, but it was water nonetheless. Which meant they were pretty much lost.

Lance blamed Sven, Sven blamed Lance, and Pidge smuggled a peek at the GPS in his wristcomp.

"We're in Michigan."

Hunk gave him a startled look. "What happened to you not knowing anything about Earth geography?"

Pointing to the device after making sure Lance wasn't looking, he smoothly lied, "There was a sign." Shrug. "Don't ask me what it means, or where Michigan is in relation to anything else."

"We're way north and a little west of the Garrison, then. Michigan was a political entity at one point, and kept its regional name after the Reformation," Keith explained. "It's actually two peninsulas that aren't naturally connected."

"Seems like a silly arrangement. What brought that on?"

"I'm not sure. Something about a war with Ohio."

Pidge did not remember any war between a Michigan and an Ohio from military history, but then, he and Hunk had made a point of skipping most of those classes. Commander Tetsuya's twice-weekly torture chamber was in fact off of their revised schedules, which just proved the Arus Expeditionary Force was the greatest assignment ever.

Historical non-conflicts aside, both driver and navigator seemed to find the name of their location useful. That was the important part.

"This must be one of the Great Lakes, then?"

"Must be. The Upper Peninsula ought to suffice for this trip, to be honest."

"Excellent. Is there a bridge somewhere around here?"

"How should I know? It's your continent."

"What do you mean it's my continent? It's your planet!"

Obviously sensing where this was about to go, Keith jumped in. "There's a bridge at the very northern tip of the Lower Peninsula. It's pretty famous, actually. You two should read up on your architectural history sometime."

"I was studying architecture," Sven muttered, "but the only bridges we ever heard about were the ones that fell down."

Pidge and Hunk exchanged glances. They'd both seen a few architecture classes in their day. "ARC204 with Captain Talbot, huh?"

"None other."

Lance steadfastly refused to waive his rule about maps, and stopping to ask directions was certainly out of the question. The only other option was to find north and just start following the coast, which was precisely what they did. Soon enough, they were across a very long bridge and in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Pidge was impressed. Spending most of his time in the technological haven of Galaxy Garrison, he'd gotten the impression most of Earth was like that: a highly developed planet with no natural beauty left. He was glad to have that misconception corrected. Not that he had anything against technology—quite the opposite—but there was a balance to be drawn between steel and wood, the buildings and the forests.

He wondered what Arus was like. Colonel Hawkins had described it as largely agrarian, so maybe it was something like this... green and beautiful, though perhaps more fields than trees.

It was quite late by the time they found a campsite on the shores of another lake, and set up for the duration. With a week of leave, 'the duration' would only be a couple of days, but Hunk was treating it as if they were about to be cast into the wilderness for months.

"Alright, listen up! We're all gonna have to follow Keith's example and sleep inside while we're here. Too cold to sleep on the ground this far north, you'll get sick, and I do not want germs and snot in my masterpiece." He patted the side of the RV. "Breakfast is whenever we wake up. Lunch is whenever we get hungry. Dinner is whenever it gets dark. Any questions?"

"Do you realize it's pitch black outside and we haven't eaten?" Lance asked.

"Workin' on it!" Yanking a metal fire ring, a grate, and some wood from the cargo section, he proceeded to do just that, throwing steaks on the grill and launching into a lecture on the proper preparation of s'mores.

They were off to a good start.

Nighttime was a waiting game.

Arranging themselves on a dock near their campsite, the team kept occupied by telling ghost stories. Hunk had a formidable arsenal of traditional campfire tales, while Keith was an expert in paranormal military lore. Sven had both Norse and Japanese mythology to draw on, and Pidge had all kinds of street superstitions from Balto.

Lance had heard a few spooky stories that he could easily have retold, but preferred to make it up as he went along. So far he had a perfect record going; three stories, three twist endings, three lunges at Hunk which caused the big engineer to scream and try to hide behind Pidge.

Now Hunk was wise to the trick, of course, no longer entertaining the illusion that Lance surely wouldn't go after him again. He sat with a stubborn set to his jaw and defiance in his eyes, just daring the current storyteller to try it a fourth time. Everyone else kept shooting him amused glances, anticipating that hilarity was about to ensue.

That was fine. More than fine. Wonderful, actually. He was telegraphing this one, staying a step ahead of the others who thought they knew what to expect. They had no idea.

"...but when she opened the closet, there was nothing there... and then... RARRRGH!"

He lunged. Just not at Hunk.

Sven yelped and jerked backwards; the first problem with that, of course, was that he was already on the edge of the dock. Flailing out to balance himself he grabbed the closest thing he could reach, which happened to be Lance. Who had already overextended his own center of gravity quite a bit.

...Ah crap.

SPLASH.

The lake hit him like a ton of bricks. Very, very cold bricks. He got a mouthful of fishy-tasting water which was at least, thankfully, not salty—there were some benefits to being camped by a lake rather than an ocean after all. Recovering and scrambling to the surface he found Sven already with his head above the water, holding one of the dock supports and cursing up a storm.

Upon seeing his friend surface, he favored Lance with a glare that really ought to have turned the whole lake to ice. "I will kill you in your sleep, Lance."

The three still on the dock were laughing like maniacs. Lance wasn't worried about the death threat; he got those fairly often. He laughed too. "Oh, man, that was worth it. That was so worth it. The look on your face..." Fighting the weight of his drenched clothes, he made his way over to the dock as well. "I would do that again. I would do that a thousand more times."

"Go for it," Sven shot back. "You'll get hypothermia before I do." But he was grinning, too, as the initial shock wore off.

He had a point there, Lance mused; this water probably barely ranked as cold by his standards. It wasn't a battle he was likely to win. Best to reconsider. Or at least wait until they got somewhere with a warmer lake.

"You two need some help?" Keith chuckled, kneeling over the edge and reaching out to his soaked friends.

The two in the water exchanged glances. Lance knew exactly how to respond to such an offer, and the cool, wicked glint in Sven's eyes said his thoughts were on the same page. "Sure, Keith, thanks for volunteering. You know what they say..." Paddling over, Lance grabbed their rescuer's right hand while Sven took his left. "...Misery loves company!"

Both yanked as hard as they could, and Keith went tumbling into the lake with them.

He came up within about five seconds, coughing and sputtering and spitting water in all directions. "I'm going to kill you both in your sleep!"

"That's okay." Sven was laughing so hard he was doubled over, as much as was possible while still clinging to the dock. "We'll die happy."

"Absolutely."

Something was still missing: they had two teammates who were still completely dry. Before Lance could even start thinking about how to remedy that problem, it was solved for him.

"Hold your breath, little buddy!" Pidge tensed at the warning, but it was entirely too late; Hunk lifted him up and pitched him into the lake, then took a flying leap into the water himself. "CANNONBALL!"

Before Hunk could resurface, Pidge dove under the water and came back up with the big man's headband. "Trophy!"

This was shaping up to be excellent, actually. Lance knew an opportunity when he saw it; he studied Pidge for a few moments, made sure Hunk actually reached the surface, then came to his decision. Removing his shoes—dead weights that they were—and pitching them to the bank, he swam over to the small pilot and seized the band before he could react. "Keep away!"

He darted back and hid behind Keith, who looked very affronted and responded in the only logical manner: by grabbing the headband and dunking Lance's face in the water.

"Oh, it's on."

It was probably just as well the aurora didn't put in an appearance that night; they were all so busy trying to drown each other that they never would have noticed it.

The next day was quiet, as everyone seemed to decide that the lake fiasco had been enough excitement for a 24-hour period. Lance taught the group Valkanian Straights, a poker variant popular on his home colony, and soundly thrashed the whole team before Pidge revolted and started chasing him around with a chess set.

Given his natural talent for mathematics, Sven had been the only one who actually took Pidge up on the challenge. Silly thing to do, really. He lost—badly—and they went back to poker by the fireside until it got dark, then stared at the sky telling horror stories about professors until retreating to the RV to sleep. Still no aurora.

Their final day at Lake Superior started out with Hunk cooking pancakes. Over a campfire.

"Now you're just showing off," Lance accused as he drenched his breakfast in syrup.

"You complaining?"

"Of course not."

Sven laughed softly and picked distractedly at his own pancakes. He was thinking. Today could go one of two ways... it could be very peaceful, with everyone talking and taking in the scenery, waiting for their last nightfall in the north. Or it could be a complete disaster where they tried to fit as much chaos into one day as possible.

As it happened, the weather decided for them. It started raining.

"You cannot even be serious," Pidge complained as they all piled back into the RV. "Haven't we gotten wet enough this trip?"

"Relax, little buddy." Hunk was already setting up shop in the vehicle's kitchen. "We'll pop some popcorn and watch some movies. Everyone pick one. Got a super big screen TV in this beauty."

"Of course you do," Lance chuckled, flopping into a seat and jumping right back up with a yelp as the entire wall behind him lit up. "AGH! ...Dude, that goes so far beyond big screen it's not even funny."

"I thought it was funny," Keith countered, sitting against the opposite side and drawing his knees to his chest. "What kind of movies do you have in here?"

"Anything Pidge can pull off our internet hookup."

"Therefore, anything," Pidge clarified.

"Keith wants to watch Yamato the Blood-Borne," Lance offered helpfully. "It's the only movie he ever watches. I think it might be the only movie he even knows the title of."

Their leader threw a stray knight from Pidge's chess set at his friend, but did not actually argue the point. He couldn't have argued it if he'd wanted to. Because Lance was right; the three of them got together for movie nights on a regular basis, and Keith always brought the same film to the party.

Pidge typed furiously on his wristcomp, then pitched his voice as deep as it would go—which wasn't very deep at all, really, but Sven gave him points for effort. "A war drama about the climactic Battle of Gemini IV. Five stars. Gripping and powerful. A masterpiece of human emotion, team spirit, and the trials of combat." He rolled his eyes and resumed his normal voice. "I am shocked, Keith. Shocked."

"Oh, shut up and download it."

"Shut up? Shut up? You told me to shut up! I'm so proud of you. We'll get you a personality yet."

Keith found another knight to throw at him.

A salty, buttery aroma began drifting through the confines of the vehicle, and a few minutes into the movie Hunk planted a hubcap-sized bowl of popcorn in the middle of the team. "Eat up, guys, cuz this is gonna be lunch. Dinner, too, if this rain doesn't let up."

The rain did not let up during Yamato the Blood-Borne, which was its usual gripping and powerful self. Nor did it let up during Road Rats, a racing comedy that had the whole team in stitches—Hunk's choice, obviously. Nor did it let up during Akira X, a remake of a very old and very famous animated movie, which got Sven some incredulous looks when he suggested it.

By the time Pidge started threatening them with Oliver & Company—whatever that was—the downpour had trailed off into a steady, gentle shower that nonetheless was enough to keep them indoors. Lance, his curiosity apparently sparked by the movie threat, insisted they actually go with it. Turned out Oliver & Company was an ancient cartoon about singing cats and dogs; they made it through the first ten minutes before he started stabbing Pidge with a bishop.

"Hey, you asked for it!"

"Yeah, and I know better now. Turn that atrocity off and track down Echelon Six, would you?"

Echelon Six was a comedic spy film; Sven and Keith had seen it twice before, and excused themselves briefly to make a new batch of popcorn, since Hunk was thoroughly transfixed by the movie.

"Looks like we're not going to see what we came for," Sven observed, a little apologetically. If the rain and clouds didn't lift very quickly, there would be no chance of seeing the lights even if they were active that night. "We'll get you up to Norway yet, though." He had attempted to invite his friends for a visit more than once, and while Lance always made it, Keith's schedule always fell through.

There was warmth in his friend's pale eyes. "It doesn't really matter, Sven. I think our mission's been more than accomplished here."

Hysterical laughter from the other side of the RV; the movie's titular spy had just gotten himself stuck in a cat carrier. Sven looked back and grinned. "Fair point."

By the time that movie was over, the rain had lifted, but Hunk was expressing some doubt that he could start a fire after the soaking the ground had just gotten. "Maybe best to just do dinner inside tonight anyway. I brought some frozen pizzas, just in case." He sounded disgusted at his own proposal.

Lance's jaw dropped. "Don't tell me you don't like pizza."

"I love pizza. When I make it. This stuff? Hardly worthy of the name!" He pulled three slabs of frozen dough, sauce, and cheese out of the RV's freezer and began warming up the stove. "Call me a food snob."

"You're a food snob."

"Damn straight."

"Hey guys..." Pidge was up front, leaning over the dashboard, staring at the newly clear sky with wide eyes. "Check this out! Nobody told me you had zegrana clouds on Earth."

Sven had never heard of such a thing; admittedly, his grasp of esoteric English was far from complete. Then again, Pidge's grasp on English was similarly incomplete, and zegrana surely did not sound typical of the language. Wondering which of them had just hit the linguistic barrier, he moved up front to see what the kid was looking at, and was rewarded with a blast of verdant light.

"...Keith, you'll want to get outside right about now." He looked at Pidge. "What does zegrana mean, exactly?"

"Oh, sorry. I think it's literally something like 'sky curtain', why?"

Keith had not actually gone outside, he'd joined them in the cab. Briefly. He was already halfway out of the vehicle when he fielded the question. "Because that's what we call the aurora borealis."

Pidge drew back, startled. "Oh! Well why didn't someone just say so?" He joined the others as they scrambled outside, staking out positions and watching the colored fire writhing in the sky.

"Why should we have to say so? Maybe if you got out of the Dungeon once in awhile you'd learn these things," Hunk teased.

"Awww..." The little engineer put on his best whiny child act, which wasn't remotely convincing to anyone. "You know you miss my charming company when I'm not hanging out with you 24/7."

"Well, I do feel better when I can keep an eye on you and be sure you're not starting any bar fights."

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

Four voices answered in perfect unison. "NO."

Sven dropped into the rain-soaked sand, next to Keith. "Everything you were hoping for?"

Silence for several moments. Keith was gazing into the night, shifting greens and reds reflecting in his eyes, and for a moment it looked like he was somewhere else entirely... vanished into space, leaving the earth far behind.

It faded swiftly, and he nodded. "Everything."