"Zarkon! How did he find us!?" Allura gasped as Sakura, and Keith ran up to the rest of the team.
"His commanders must've radioed him from Olkarion." Keith said, everyone looking at him.
"We need to wormhole, now! Everyone to your stations. We've got to put some distance between us and Zarkon!" Shiro ordered, everyone quickly ran to their seats. "This could be the fight of our lives! Sakura how are you feeling?"
"Good enough to fight!" Sakura answered with a nod, and no sooner had said that the fighter ships started shooting at the castle.
"That's sure a lot of fighters!" Hunk said, eyebrows scrunched.
"Allura, can you evade these fighters? We can't have them following us through the wormhole." Shiro asked.
"I can try." Allura said, putting up the barrier and used its boosters to get away. But Zarkon's fleet continued to go after the castle.
"Keith, Lance, Sakura, let's lay down some covering fire." Shiro said, the three nod and a screen came up with two hologram handles. Grabbing the handles, they directed their defense drones to shoot lasers at the ships.
"Lance! Incoming, 12 o'clock high!" Pidge called out.
"Got it!" Lance replied and got his defense drone ready, but Keith's drone suddenly pushed it aside and and shot the incoming ships. "Hey!"
"Sorry! Gotta be quick!" Keith remarked. Lance responded by knocking his drone into Keith's.
"How's that for quick?!" Lance shot back.
"You!" Keith growled, and the two drones started hitting each other.
"What are you guys, 6!?" Sakura yelled, jamming her drone in between the two drones to seperate them. "I'm gonna knock your heads together!"
"Stay in your zones!" Shiro added.
"Yeah, Keith!" Lance yelled with annoyance.
"Keep calling out those fighters, Pidge. Hunk, how are the defenses holding?" Shiro called out. Hunk rubbed his tired eyes and squinted at the screen.
"I don't know. 10%, 15 maybe? Everything's a blur. I've been up too long. I have tired eyes!" Hunk whined.
"I know we just came off an intense battle, but we've got to stay focused, just until we jump." Shiro said.
"And when is that?!" Keith yelled, right after the ship got hit again.
"They're still too close! We need to gain more speed!" Coran exclaimed as he accelerated the ship.
"I've got an idea! Hold on!" Allura shouted, the ship suddenly went faster, pushing the Paladins to the back of their seats.
"Allura, what are you doing?!" Sakura asked.
"I'm going to use this moon's gravity to gain speed and put some distance between us and Zarkon!" Allura explained as she directed the castle and they entered the wormhole, escaping from Zarkon and his fleet. But the alarms still continued to go off as the castle traveled through the wormhole.
"We got away from Zarkon, how come we're still on alert?" Lance asked.
"Coran, what's going on?" Shiro asked.
"Oh, no! Teludav lens malfunction!" Coran gasped with panic. "We're about to exit this wormhole a lot sooner than we planned!"
The wormhole exit appeared, and the castle went through it, arriving in a place with ice floating around.
"Whoa. Where are we? Looks like some sort of iceberg graveyard." Lance commented ass they gazed at the masses of floating blue rocks.
"Coran, what's the status?" Allura asked in a tired voice, sweat dripping down her face.
"Checking that now." Coran said with his eyebrows scrunched. "We didn't make it to our exit point, but we're several galaxies from Zarkon's fleet."
Suddenly Allura collasped to her knees, gaining everyone's attention as she sat on the platform.
"Allura!" Everyone ran over to her, Coran and Shiro helped gently sit her up.
"Oh, no, you look exhausted." Coran panicked at the sight of Allura's sweaty face. "You must rest. You've been exerting way too much energy. "I'll go check on the main turbine and figure out what's going - AAAH!" Allura and the Paladins flinched at the loud thump sound and looked up to see Coran's body smacked into the wall.
"Whoa! You alright?" Lance asked. Coran groaned as he pulled himself off the wall, his whole body looked all wet and shiny. He put his hand against the wall as if nothing happened.
"I'm fine. Look, I tell you what, I've probably hit a slippery spot on the ground there. S-Someone please wipe that up there!" Coran answered, while pointing to a large puddle at his feet.
"You're sweating. You might have a case of the slipperies." Allura gave a small smile as she sat on the platform, the Paladins' standing around her.
"What? No! No, that's an old person virus, and I'm not old. I'm young." Coran denied, his face wet with sweat as he held up his hand, a water ball growing on it and he hid his hand. "Well, youngish."
"What are the slipperies?" Lance asked, curious.
"It's a common Altean virus that occurs later in life." Allura explained. "It's not harmful and usually only lasts a couple of days, but it causes one's body to secrete extremely slick fluid."
"Ew, gross!" The Paladins gave Coran a disgusted look as they stepped back and huddled towards each other behind the Princess, while Coran moved to a new spot with slick fluid appearing underneath him and he moved again and was met with the same thing.
"Yes, it is gross, so it's a good thing I don't have it!" Coran said with anxiousness and irritation.
"Coran, it's nothing to be embarrassed about." Allura assured him as Pidge ran off to a corner to barf in disgust.
"I'm not embarrassed because I don't have it!" Coran complained, opening his arms with the dripping slick fluid coming off them, Sakura ran off to join Pidge. "And, now, I'm actually going to leave because I've got to fix the main turbine!" He huffed and walked towards the door. Tried to. He kept trying with no progress until he slipped and started to slid towards the exit. "QUIZNAK!" He yelled, screaming loudly as he slid down the corridor.
The male Paladins, along with Allura was silent as they blinked in confusion at what just happened.
"Alright. Since Zarkon has no idea where we are, this is the perfect time to focus on our next step." Shiro was the first to break the silence. Keith, Lance, and Hunk looked at him and slouched their shoulders with heavy sighs. "Maybe we can find that secret group, the Blade of Marmora. Pidge, where are those coordinates?"
"Wait, hang on." Pidge said, leading forward on her chair, the screens popped up and and she typed away. "I'm so tired, my brain's not working."
"Yeah, neither is mine." Lance grumbled, while slouching.
"Hello, all. I've checked the engines." Coran said, a screen of him appearing in the main screen.
Sakura blinked as she sat slouched in her chair. "Already?"
"That was fast." Pidge added.
"Well, I slipped right down." Coran slipped again and stood up with a large bump on his head. "Anyway, the good news is, the Galra fighter did minimal damage. I flushed the turbine and it's fine. The bad news is, the teludav, or wormholer, as you Earthlings call it, is in bad shape. Several scaultrite lens-stones of the magnifying beam generator are cracked. As you know, the magnifying beam generator uses a crystal to convert Altean energy into usable fuel. That supplies the power needed to wormhole. Well, anyway, I need to remove the cracked lenses and readjust their trajectory temporarily until we can replace them. I'll also need to divert power to make up for the lost energy. Anyway, it's going to take at least a quintant."
Hunk groans.
"Alright, we'll hide the ship ad get some rest while Coran comes up with a work around. "Tomorrow, we'll be sharper and refocused."
XxXxXxXx
Sakura rubbed the back of her head with her right hand, while her left rested on her hip. She was wearing a one piece swimsuit, over it is her favorite one piece white Beachwear Resort Wear Kaftan Beach Caftan Ladies Dress.
Suddenly she heard screaming.
"That sounds like Lance." She frowned as she turned and looked up to the airduct, it fell open and Lance and Keith dropped down. Lance fell on his knees and face, while Keith landed on his butt. The boys groaned.
Lance peeled his face off the floor. "Hey Sakura." He greeted, trying not to blush at her swimwear, but he couldn't help it. "Huh?" He blinked as he looked behind her.
Keith grunted as he picked himself up. "Huh?"
"What the heck?!" Lance cried.
"Yeah." Sakura folded her arms. "I miss Earth pools."
"Stupid Altean pools." Keith grumbled, folding his own arms.
XxXxXxX
Suddenly the water of the pool dropped down, pulling Lance, Keith, and Sakura into the stream, pulling them up into the water like a whirlpool - before dropping them back down. Lance, and Sakura both screamed, while Keith groaned.
"What was that!?" Sakura gasped, sitting on the floor.
"Some kind of Altean trick to do, before actually getting into the pool?" Lance offered, as he rubbed his head.
"We better find out what's going on!" Keith said, as he picked himself up then helped Sakura up.
"Please tell me, it wasn't Zarkon." She whined.
"We need to get to control!" Keith replied, hurrying out. Sakura, and Lance looked at each other before running after him.
XxXxXx
The Paladins, minus Shiro arrived and took their seats at their controls.
"They found us again? How is that possible? Is that possible? That doesn't seem possible!" Lance cried with panic.
"Right now, we must figure out a way to get out of here!" Allura stated.
"Or, we can stay and fight. Now's our chance. Form Voltron. Enough running!" Keith suggested.
"It's too dangerous!" Allura argued.
"Allura's right. We can't take on Zarkon and his entire fleet. Remember what happened at Zarkon's command center. We wouldn't have escaped if the Blade of Marmora hadn't shut down the shield." Shiro said. The screen soon popped up to show Coran still sliding back and forth.
"The turbine's up. Still working on the worm-AAA!" Coran suddenly slipped and landed on his butt, before falling on his head, then laid on his stomach on the floor. "Uh, guys, I think I'm realizing now that I do, in fact, have a case of the slipperies. I'm sorry I yelled at you, Pidge. I may need your help, after all."
"I'm coming down!" Pidge said as she quickly got up and ran to help.
"Let's clear a path!" Shiro said, and the castle left the giant ice and fleeing from the fleet. Keith, Lance, and Sakura pulled out their defense drones and kept shooting at the ships.
"Lance, there's a fighter advancing on your nine!" Keith called out.
"Thanks for the heads up! And you've got one going for the lower barrier." Lance replied.
"Good eye!" Keith commented just before he shot the ship.
"Ok, buddy, you're mine." Lance grinned, before his controls disappeared. "Huh?! What's going on? I lost control of my defense drone!"
"Mine too!" Sakura panicked.
"I got both of ya covered!" Keith said, before his own controls disappeared. "Uh, I don't got you. Oh, there must be a system failure."
"Nope, that was us!" Pidge said, a hologram of her appeared, Coran can be heard in the background screaming. "We're diverting power from non-essential systems to get the wormhole generator working."
"Shooting bad guys is pretty essential!" Lance yelled, irritated as he stood up from his chair.
"We lost secondary controls! Thermal regulator's offline!" Hunk informs in a panic. Soon after, they left the ice graveyard, Zarkon's ship followed after the castle. Then the particle barrier went down. "Oh, no, there goes the particle barrier!"
"Ok! Try it! We should be able to make one very small jump ... I hope." Coran said, Allura closed her eyes and a wormhole opened up in front of the castle, The castle went through it, escaping Zarkon and his fleet again.
"Oh, no! The lenses are breaking down even more! We'll be out of the wormhole even sooner this time!" Just as Coran said it, the ship exited the wormhole, bringing them to a large brown vortex of wind.
It was now quiet inside the control room. Lance was slumped in his chair, Keith was leaning on his right elbow with his chin in his palm, Sakura had her knees pulled up to her chest as she hugged her legs and her chin rested on her knees, Shiro sat in his chair facing forward, and Hunk had fallen asleep in his chair.
"Zarkon keeps finding us. It's like he knows how to track us down. Maybe he planted some kind of tracking device." Shiro muttered.
"Well, it is nothing on the ship. The castle would have detected any tracking devices." Allura said.
"Until we figure out exactly how he's doing it, we should assume that he could show up at any minute." Shiro turned to look over his shoulder. "So stay alert."
They all heard loud snoring, they all turned to Hunk who was fast asleep. His sleep bubble popped and the big guy awoke with a yelp and stood up, frantically getting into a defensive stance.
"OOH! What's going on!? What are you guys doing!? What are you looking at!?" Hunk yelped loudly.
"You woke yourself up snoring." Keith deadpanned.
"My bad." Hunk apologized, with his head hung low.
"Coran, what's our status? Any good news?" Shiro asked, a hologram screen of Coran and Pidge showed up in the main screen. Coran was moving around like an ice skater, while Pidge busied herself with the controls.
"Actually, there is a bit of good news. I'm finally getting used to these slipperies. My mucus glands are working at an incredible rate!" Coran happily reported, while Shiro gave a blank and annoyed look.
"Any good news about the teludav?" Shiro asked, not amused at all. Coran stopped, and looked serious.
"I'm afraid not. The last jump overloaded the lens-stones. Now, even more of them are broken. I'm going to try some readjustments to change the beam trajectory. Until then, wormholing away will be impossible." Coran explained.
"Hey, there's a giant metallic storm ahead of us." Pidge said, referring to the planet in front of the castle. "I think we can hide in the eye of the storm. It should give off enough interference so we can't be tracked."
"It worth a shot." Shiro said. The ship made it's way into the center of the storm, descending further down.
"Brilliant, Pidge. We're essentially invisible to any radar, radio waves, universal scans, or any other known technology." Allura smiled. But suddenly the alarms started to go off, and they looked up to see Zarkon's ship looming above them.
"No!" Allura eyes widened. Zarkon's fleet came towards the opening of the storm. A hologram screen of Pidge and Coran appeared on the main screen.
"Ok, I don't know how he found us, but it definitely wasn't with normal instruments!" Pidge informs.
"It's me." Allura said, looking down. Everyone turned towards her. "It's been me all along. That's how they found us on planet Arus!"
"It doesn't matter, Princess." Shiro said, standing up. "We're in this together. We're gonna get out together."
"Uh, how? We're trapped!" Hunk asked.
"We need to form Voltron and go through the storm." Shiro answered firmly.
"What!?" Sakura cried, jumping out of her chair with eyes wide. "O-o-out there!?" She stammered. "Shiro, I am petrified of storms!"
Lance was on his feet too. "We can't go out in that! What are you, nuts!?"
"Yeah! W-W-What do you mean?! W-Why would we do that!?" Hunk stammered as he yelled.
"It's risky, I know, but it's our only chance. We have to go through the storm, then lure Zarkon's ship away, giving Allura some time to get into open space." Shiro said.
"Then what?" Allura asked.
"Then, we wormhole away." Shiro answered, he turned to look at the main screen with a serious expression. "Coran, remember how you said getting this Castle to wormhole is impossible? Well, I need you to do the impossible."
XxXxXxX
Everyone ran for their Lions and formed Voltron. "Team, let's draw those fighters out!" Shiro yelled.
Voltron flew upwards towards the fleet, going towards the storm with the fleet following after Voltron.
"I think it's working! They're following us!" Keith yelled. "Kura, are you ok!?" He asked as Zarkon's fighters started to explode as they followed Voltron into the storm. "Sakura!"
"Doing fine for now!" Sakura cried. "They can't follow us in this storm! It's tearing them apart!"
But Voltron was affected as well.
"The debris!" Hunk yelled. "It's gonna tear us apart, if we don't do something!"
"Pidge, we're gonna need that shield!" Shiro commanded.
"On it!" Pidge called.
"And, Keith, the sword!" Shiro added.
"Yes, sir!" Keith said. Voltron formed the shield and sword an moved forward, slicing the debris that came toward it or using the shield to protect itself from the debris, but Voltron got hit from behind.
"Legs, I need everything you got!" Shiro ordered.
"Roger! Engaging lower thrusters!" Hunk yelled.
"I'm right there with ya!" Lance yelled. Voltron used it's lower thrusters to stabilize itself, letting Voltron fly right out and enter into space. Zarkon's ship followed Voltron, which gave the castle a chance to escape.
"It worked! They escaped!" Hunk said. Suddenly they felt a constricting force on them. The team yelled.
"What's going on!?" Keith yelled.
"My lion!" Hunk shouted. Voltron was being pulled towards Zarkon's main ship.
"Zarkon ... Zarkon's taking control of Black Lion again!" Shiro yelled, groaning.
"Fight it Shiro!" Sakura cried.
"I ... I can't!" Shiro grunted.
"Fall back!" Keith yelled as the boosters fired up again. Voltron's legs and wings engaged their thrusters but they were dragged towards the Galra. Suddenly something shot at Zarkon's ship, releasing them from Zarkon's grip.
"Paladins, now's your chance! Get out of there!" Allura cried out as the castle shot at the Galra. Voltron quickly got away from the ship.
"Shiro, are you ok?" Sakura asked.
"I forgot how intense Zarkon's connection to the Black Lion is." Shiro replied as Voltron got farther away from Zarkon. "We have to keep our distance, or risk losing Voltron. Let's disband and get back to the Castle."
The lions disbanded and went back to their hangers in the castle, but they hadn't wormholed yet.
"Why haven't we wormholed yet?!" Keith asked annoyed. Coran appeared on their dashboards.
"Because we can't! We're missing several scaultrite lens-stones!" Coran said, eyebrows furrowed. "They've shattered! Gone! Don't exist! Sloven-day-ho! That's Altean for "gone"."
"So we're trapped here!?" Sakura cried with panic. "Can we panic now?" She cried with a big sweat drop on her head with her face sweaty.
Keith appeared on her controls. "It's going to be ok, Kura." He tried to reassure. "Try not to think of the storm."
Sakura was on the verge of tears as she pulled her knees up and hugged her legs. "It's all I can think about! I BLAME YOU FOR THIS, SHIRO!"
"Wait, did you say scaultrite? I've seen that somewhere before. I think Hunk was making some terrible cookies from that stuff!" Pidge said. Hunk growled from the insult.
Everyone got out of the Lions and met up with in the room where Coran is in as he scanned the 'cookies'.
"Unbelievable! These cookies do have trace elements of scaultrite." Coran is amazed, staring at Hunk's so called 'cookies'.
"Could they work?" Shiro asked puzzled.
"They might be able to hold for one jump, but we'd still need several people actually physically holding them. And, if the trajectories were calculated just so."- Coran trailed off, making his way to into the scaultrite tunnel. The Paladin's eyes widened as they looked at each other.
Soon the Paladins was positioned in the most weird places in while holding the cookies in their hands. Both Sakura and Lance were hanging upside down while holding a cookie in each hand, Keith was in front of Sakura as he's stretched to his extreme.
"It just warms my heart that people are enjoying my cookies." Hunk said with a smile, as Coran placed the last cookie on top of his legs.
"Ok, there. Now, nobody move if you want to live." Coran stated happily.
"WHAT!" Sakura screamed with wide eyes. Everyone gasped as the castle shook again, Sakura let out a cry of fright.
"I think I moved! I think I moved!" Lance cried frantically.
"Well, then move back to where you think you were!" Coran yelled from the safety end of the tunnel. "Okay, now, I'm going to monitor the beam from out there."
"Wait, Coran! How dangerous is this?!" Hunk cried with panic. Coran stopped and turned to everyone.
"Honestly, this is the most dangerous thing I've ever seen, or heard of, but since we're probably going to die anyway, what the heck, let's give it a shot! Good luck, gentlemen and gentleladies!" Coran yelled the last part as he saluted to the Paladins. "It's been a pleasure. Don't touch the lasers!" He said as the door to the tunnel closed. Everyone was frozen at their positions, scared out of their minds at what was going to happen to them. The lights in front of them started to glow brightly.
"We're gonna die! We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" Lance sobbed out loud.
"Hold tight, Lance!" Pidge said, standing sideways and holding two 'cookies' sideways. Sakura whimpered as she chewed on her lower lip. Both she and Lance screamed, but they heard a frizle and the Paladins noticed the room getting darker.
"IT'S NOT WORKING!" Coran screamed.
"Coran, what's happening? Zarkon's right on top of us!" Allura cried out.
"The stones aren't reflecting properly! I need something to shine them up! Oh Wait a second. I think I've got it. Hit the wormhole in ten ticks!" Coran ran in and used his slick skating skills to to make his slick appear on the scaultrite.
"What's happening?" Sakura asked.
"No one move! I've got to shine these stones! Good thing I've got a case of the slipperies!" Coran said as Allura started to count down. Coran quickly shined the cookies with his slick. But Hunk's cookie wasn't shined and Allura started the teladuv. Everyone screamed at the beams hitting their cookies. Coran shot forward, shining the last cookie before hiding between the gaps of the lenses. The wormhole opened, letting the ship in before closing in just before Zarkon's large beam hit them.
The door opened to reveal Allura behind it. "Great work, team! We made it! Huh?" Allura blinked when she saw all the Paladins with their armor burnt, smoke coming off of their bodies. Both Lance and Sakura yelped as they fell from hanging on too long.
"Are, are, are we alive?" Sakura's voice is shaken as she was shaking like mad as she clung tightly to the scaultrite.
Keith shook his head, getting out of his haze. He then he turned and helped Sakura stand, and she clung tightly to him.
The Paladins all sighed in relief.
Coran came out of his hiding place. "You did it Paladins! And no one got killed!" He smiled happily, then frowned. "Huh?"
The Paladins all glared at him murderously at him.
"Now Paladins." Coran said nervously. "Nothing to rash!" He said as he hid behind Allura, but she just side stepped. "He's all yours team."
Coran looked at her with wide eyes, he turned and quickly skated off screaming with the Paladins chasing after him.
XxXxXx
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