Arusian Crusade: Pressure Point
Chapter 6: After the End
Long chapter is long.
It's been awhile since I said this, so, thanks for the reviews!
The jumpgate course they'd used to retreat from Balto had been short. There was no need to return to Korrinoth without confirming the mission's success, after all... and Lotor was in no particular hurry to get back there anyway. He still deeply resented this assignment, and the lion knight's arrival only made it sting worse.
Exterminate some harmless animals, then flee a true challenge? Hardly what he'd been hoping for when he demanded to face Voltron.
Selfishly, he hoped the knight hadn't done anything foolish like land on the planet again. There would be no glory in destroying his nemesis like that. Of course, if he'd really wanted to prevent that he could've warned the humans what was coming. But he did have his limits. Personal glory and his own desires could never be allowed to overshadow the mission so thoroughly.
"Lirik, report."
She saluted, then looked at her screens. "We lost the Vigilante at the jumpgate. Light damage to a few ships from proximity to the explosion. Seven of twelve deployed monitor drones are still transmitting, checking the feeds now." A pause. Lotor was certain he saw a brief shudder run through his aide as she pulled the recordings, and nodded in quiet satisfaction. "...The planet is gone, sir."
"And Voltron?"
"One drone has it in sight. No apparent damage from the planet's destruction."
It wouldn't be proper to be pleased with that news, so he wasn't. "Very well." He looked over the bridge crew. "I want all of you to be very clear on something. This was a mission, successfully completed. This was not, in any way, a victory."
The Admiral Lionbane's chief gunnery officer, a pale, grumpy old warrior named Torath, crossed his arms and frowned at his commander. "All due respect, sir, we eliminated a whole planet of Alliance vermin at the cost of a single destroyer. If that isn't a victory, what is?"
Lotor scowled back at him, eyes glowing fiercely as their gazes locked. "Children could've carried out this attack, Torath. It's nothing to be proud of. Victory will be destroying Voltron; nothing more, nothing less."
To his surprise, Torath glared right back at him. "With all due respect, sir, your obsession with honor is clouding your tactical judgment. But more importantly, it's clouding your leadership! What purpose does it serve to tell us not to take pride in victory? Do you want this task force's morale to remain at rock bottom?"
Glancing around the bridge, the prince took a quick assessment of his crew. Nobody was jumping to agree with Torath, but nobody was jumping to disagree, either. Most were just watching their prince and commander, perhaps fearing how he would react. Or perhaps wondering if he could uphold his own authority... yes, such a challenge had to be answered.
But what was the answer? As he was realizing himself... if honor was a clear and sharp blade, it was one that could cut in many ways. Perhaps this would prove beneficial; to ensure once and for all that his whole task force was on the same page.
He nodded, stood, paced before the command chair. "Torath, did you hear nothing I said when Commander Varkor was relieved of his duty... and his head? Honor is not an obsession. It is one of the Supremacy's founding principles, one of our core values. It is what differentiates us from the Alliance vermin we so successfully eliminated."
"Of course, Sire." A few eyebrows raised at the shift in title. "But isn't it preferable to succeed than to fail with honor?"
"Only if one fears failure like any common, craven Earthling." Lotor was unpleasantly reminded of his father's orders to destroy the planet in the first place. Honor is a guiding principle, not a suicide pact. "Were we not all taught that the sting of defeat is the greatest of teachers? Shall we abandon our ideals for the sake of avoiding such lessons?"
That seemed to get through; Torath hesitated. "...You make a very fair point, sir."
"Then consider it carefully." Lotor gave him a short salute. "Make no mistake. I am pleased to have my warriors voice their concerns, and respect your courage in doing so. But on this point there will be no negotiation. If my methods are not to your liking, you are welcome to request a transfer. I'll even put in a good recommendation for you. But..." He bared his fangs in a snarl. "If you remain and look to undermine my authority, you will find me to be much less generous."
The gunnery officer's eyes widened and he returned the salute, then bowed low. "No, sir! I would not do such a thing."
Nod. "Very well. You'll have time to consider. After all, we have successfully completed a mission, and will be given some time before deploying again." He turned to his helmsman. Mission complete, concerns of the crew addressed, no need to linger here any further. "Snuff, return us to Korrinoth."
"Aye sir!"
He didn't send a mission report ahead. Let his father wait.
When Keith regained consciousness, it took several very long seconds for him to grasp what he was seeing. Where he was. When it all came flooding back, it was all he could do not to cry out in horror, as the nature of the burning asteroid field in front of him suddenly became all too clear.
Balto was gone. Not merely razed like Arus had been. Not even blasted to uninhabitable bedrock, the worst any Drule kingdom had ever done to a target world before. Destroyed utterly. Rendered nothing but fragments of stone and cooling magma and dust.
He'd never heard of an attack like this in his life...
He hadn't even known it was possible.
Looking down he realized his controls were all dark. Voltron had been shut down somehow. Shut down but not destroyed? It didn't make sense. And as the last moments of the battle started to clarify themselves in his mind, he was certain they were too far from the ruined world. They'd been nearly in the atmosphere when the core began to destabilize.
Wrenching as it was, he forced himself to go over those last moments again. Trying to sort out what had happened next. The planet beginning to break up, that was clear, vivid in his mind—too vivid. But after that? He thought he had a vague sense of pain. And then he was waking up.
His reflection in the darkened monitors brought his combat senses back. Figure it out later, get a status report now. We're sitting ducks out here. Reflexively his hand went for the comms, then he sighed and mentally kicked himself. Start the robot up first, then try to open the comms...
And suddenly Keith realized he had no idea how to start the machine back up. Usually the lions were activated by placing the keys in their slots, but his key was already there. A quick scan of the consoles gave him nothing that looked like a start-up button, so he tried pulling the key from its slot and replacing it. Nothing happened.
"Okay then..."
Normally he would've asked Pidge or Hunk to figure it out, but that required having active comms, which was sort of the problem. There was always his wristcomp... except for the fact that his wristcomp was sitting in Black Lion's shuttle back on Arus along with his regular uniform, because the devices were pretty much redundant while in the lions. Or so they'd thought.
He would be establishing a new policy about that when they got home.
A more careful study of the consoles, still nothing. You've got to be kidding. Of all the issues they could run into out here... there was one other option, he supposed. One that was deeply strange to even think about, but it was the only idea he had left.
"...Black Lion?"
A glimmer in the back of his mind, the sensation of electricity sparking there. But more than that, there was a feeling of exhaustion, powerful enough to make Keith's eyelids flutter for a moment before he snapped himself out of it. Then an affirmative. Presence.
Okay, that was an answer. He tried to make sense of it, put it into some context. "Black Lion, can you... tell me what happened?"
A sense of abruptness, then a momentary flash of pain—enough to make him catch his breath, but gone before he could cry out. Then that same flood of exhaustion again. Underlying it all there was a sense of confusion, maybe even curiosity.
"You don't know either?"
Agreement. More confusion. Pain, then exhaustion... then repeating those sensations over and over, as if to make sure it was getting through.
Which he could really do without right now.
"Okay, I get it!" To the extent he was going to, at least. "Sounds like it knocked you out. Knocked me out, too. Um, look, Black, can you... wake up all the way?" He tapped the dim consoles. "We need to get home."
Confusion again. Keith was really starting to wish he could teach the lion words. Didn't have to be a lot of words, just basic conversation... hell, yes or no would do right now! But there didn't seem to be much point in complaining about it. And then, just as he was about to ask again, a soft growl echoed around him, rippling through Voltron's body. A growl, building into a roar... one monitor flickered on. Another.
Despite himself, Keith breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you okay, Black? How about the others?"
First an affirmative, then a hesitation. As his own screens came to life he could see the other lions starting up as well. Yellow came online, then Blue, then Red... and then it stopped. Green Lion's icon on the status monitors remained dark. Keith's stomach dropped a little; Black Lion sent along a sense of worry just to make him feel worse.
"...Thanks, Black."
The feeling he got from that was as wordless as always, but it could only mean you're welcome. He sighed. Great. Either my lion has no sense of sarcasm, or it has a better sense of sarcasm than I do.
In any case, it was time to get to work. Comms. Right. "Team, report in."
"Yellow's online, chief." Hunk sounded like he'd been waiting for the order, though his voice was unusually low.
"I'm here," Allura reported right after him, seeming a bit dazed.
Lance responded last, sounding groggy, but still very much himself. "Yeah, um, what the hell just happened?"
"That's not a report," Keith grumbled halfheartedly. "I'm not entirely certain, and Black Lion's only been able to tell me so much. As best I can understand it, Voltron was shut down somehow, maybe the shock wave took it and us out."
"Shock wave?" his second repeated. "What shock w..." The question trailed off into a long, low string of curses in a language Keith couldn't place at first. It was only when he caught some Japanese followed by Norwegian that he realized Lance was actually going through several of the languages in his impressive repertoire. "Chief. Tell me you flew us away from Balto while the rest of us were out. WAY away."
The commander sighed. He couldn't do that, and he could tell from his friend's tone that Lance knew he couldn't do that. "No... no. We're still there."
More swearing from Lance, and a soft gasp from Allura. "Do we have any survivors?" she asked after a moment. "Any of those shuttles that might have made it off the surface? I'm not reading any signals, but with so much debris..." Her voice was almost too hopeful, straining too hard; she knew the answer as well as the rest of them. And after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, she seemed to decide there was no reason to make any of them say it. "...What about Pidge?"
"Green Lion's still showing as offline," Hunk answered before Keith could. "I, uh, sent Swiss over to go check things out."
...Right, he brought his mouse. That probably answered a question Keith had forgotten he wanted to ask. Namely, how Hunk had found the star charts when they were getting ready to leave Arus... had it just been a few hours ago? Felt like forever and then some. "Okay. Guess we'll wait for her report then. I don't think we can fly like this." He frowned as he finished the statement; could Voltron make the extradimensional breach with one of its limbs inactive but attached? He didn't even know what the applicable theory on that was.
Pidge would probably know.
Sven would definitely know.
Neither of them were available just now...
Something that he could only describe as indignation flooded through him. Just for a moment. It took him a few more moments to realize it was a message from Black Lion, and another several to notice that his hands were clenched brutally around the controls, as if he sought to strangle the life from them. "Oh." He let go quickly. "Sorry, Black."
A glimmer of forgiveness.
Calm down, he scolded himself, leaning back a little. Freaking out isn't going to solve anything. Stay cool, get your team up and running and home. Then you can freak out. As well you should, because the Drules just blew up a planet in front of you, and since when can they do that, exactly? Not to mention why... and why this planet?
Before he could dwell too much longer on that, he heard a banging in one of the access hatches behind him. The cover on one of the smaller vent shafts fell off with a clatter, and a glint of bluish steel tumbled out to scramble up onto his consoles. "Skwik!"
Not bad. Part of Keith was surprised the mouse had been able to navigate Voltron's internal structure so quickly. Part of him realized Hunk had probably sent her out before the lions even started up again. "Hey, Swiss. You've got a report for me, I hope?"
"Skwee-skwee-skwik!" The gold-eyed mouse stood in front of him and squeak-clicked further, words appearing on a monitor behind her. Little green man sleeping, but motor still running. Want wake?
Keith blinked, taking a few seconds to make sense of that, then nodded. "Yes, please."
"Skrik." Swiss vanished back into the hatch.
While he was waiting, Keith let himself sigh and sink back in his seat. How the hell had they reached this point, really? Bound to mystical sentient lion ships who communicated through enigmatic impulses, relying on robotic mice as support troops? If anyone had told him back at the academy that his first deployment would be like this, he'd have laughed like a maniac. And then promptly gone into accounting.
Green Lion's status icon came alive on his monitors. He waited for a few moments, then it became apparent the little pilot wasn't going to check in on his own. "Pidge? You there?"
The response came over a private channel, low and a little slurred, as though Pidge were speaking through a thick fog. "Here. Gonna strangle Hunk's mouse. Bit me."
Under any other circumstances, that would've been enough to get a laugh out of the commander, but of course this was definitely not the time. He decided to cut right to the chase, get it over with. "Are you okay to set your interstellar drives? We need to get out of here, get hom—" He clamped down viciously on that word before it could fully form. Bad word choice. Bad word choice. "—get back to Arus."
A pause. Then that same vaguely hazy voice. "Green's online. Interstellar drives ready. Says you have to set the course."
Sure enough, Black Lion's star charts had popped up, complete with an alert that Green Lion was attempting to set a course and a small green dot indicating Arus. Keith supposed that made sense, it wouldn't do to have each lion plotting its own course in formation, after all. But he didn't enter the commands quite yet.
"Pidge, listen... if you want to talk, any time..."
No answer. Or at least, no verbal answer; the channel they'd been on promptly closed.
Shaking his head, knowing there wasn't much more that could be done for it here, Keith set Black Lion's destination and let Voltron take to the stars.
It had been late at night when they returned, but Hunk had not slept well. Who could blame him? The trip back to Arus had seemed to take forever, cloaked in an uncomfortable silence that they'd all tried once or twice to break. But nobody could sustain small talk after where they'd been, what they'd seen...
Okay, saying they'd all tried to break it wasn't quite right, anyway. Pidge had gone back to sleep under the watchful eye of Swiss, before they'd even breached the dimensional barrier. And he'd stayed that way. Hunk could only hope that oblivion had been a merciful one... Yellow and Blue Lions had carried Green back to its den rather than waking its pilot again.
His little buddy had seemed peaceful enough when Hunk carried him back to the castle, but who could know?
Upon waking today, or at least upon deciding to give up on ill-fated attempts at sleep, he'd found a message from Keith on his wristcomp. Meeting in conference room E, 9 sharp. Wonderful. The chief was probably going to try to run them ragged to get everyone's minds off what had happened yesterday. Which might be an entirely valid idea, the big engineer admitted to himself, if he weren't half asleep.
Whatever. Sulking wouldn't help, sulking never helped, so he went to grab some coffee.
The kitchen was deserted when he got there. One by one, the others did arrive just to prove they were awake, getting some coffee themselves and leaving to run through quick morning workouts. All agreed they had no appetite, a sentiment Hunk shared... to his own great surprise. When was the last time he hadn't been hungry? Sheesh.
Pidge never showed up. The team quietly agreed to let him sleep.
The problem with nobody sticking around in the kitchen was, it meant nobody was there to prevent massive caffeine overdoses. Five cups of coffee later, Hunk was no longer tired, if perhaps excessively twitchy. Way to go. That's gonna be all kinds of fun when Keith is siccing you on Strawman for the hundredth time later, but at least you won't faceplant!
Meeting time was fast approaching, so he returned to his room to pull on a uniform, then headed out again... and froze as he saw who was standing at the other end of the hall. "Pidge?"
"Hunk!" His young friend smiled brightly. "Hey, what's going on around here? It's late, my alarm clock's in pieces, and nobody ever came to wake me up."
Well. That was interesting... he took a few moments to try to figure out exactly how to handle this. But subtlety wasn't really his thing, and deception felt wrong. "We, uh... I'm not sure about the clock, but we just figured you wanted to be alone after... you know... what happened yesterday..."
Suddenly Pidge went deadly cold. Just for a second. He seemed to try to shake it off, but his eyes were emotionless when he looked back to Hunk. "What happened yesterday?" he asked in a voice that was utterly soulless. Empty.
...Okay then!
What was he supposed to say to that? He flailed for a few moments, staring at his friend, trying to decide exactly how to answer that. Whether to answer that at all, perhaps. "Uh... well... you know..." A beep from his wristcomp, echoed on Pidge's, saved him. Five minute warning. "Uh, c'mon! We'd better get to the conference room, huh? Don't wanna be late! Keith'll kill us in our sleep! Let's go!" He realized with a slight frown that he sounded every bit as desperate as Pidge discussing warp drives yesterday, and shut his mouth.
"Right..." The other engineer's voice was still a little bit hollow, but he seemed to be recovering as he fell into step beside Hunk. "Are you okay, big guy?"
What kind of question is THAT? "As okay as I can be expected to be, I guess?"
Thankfully, Pidge seemed to decide it wasn't worth pursuing, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.
Conference room E was one of the smaller briefing rooms. No need for something big. It was just the five pilots and Coran, locked in together, all eyes on the commander of the Voltron Force as he slowly paced around the room.
Finally Keith stopped and looked over them all. His gaze lingered on Pidge for just a moment longer than the others, and the small engineer simply stared back, impassive. As though he couldn't imagine why his boss would be singling him out.
"Okay. Late last night we received a short, preliminary report from the Alliance. This information is classified at the highest levels." Keith spoke softly, forcing them all to hang onto every word. "It does not leave this room under any circumstances. It probably shouldn't have even made it to this room to begin with, but Marshal Graham felt we deserved to know."
Hunk arched an eyebrow. The marshal himself had intervened for them? That was something.
"It's not something any of you are going to want to hear," their commander continued, his eyes now locked on the floor as he started pacing again. "Not something I want to have to tell you." At that he shot another brief glance at Pidge, barely noticeable, but of course Hunk couldn't help noticing. "But he's right, it's important... no matter how unpleasant."
He'd never heard Keith ramble on like this. The tension in the room was building and it was all he could do not to just say—
"—Spit it out, Keith," Lance snapped in a voice that was almost as nervous as annoyed.
Their leader nodded. "The Ninth Kingdom sent the Alliance an official diplomatic explanation for the destruction of Balto. They're claiming it was a justifiable act of war—that the Alliance took psychological warfare to a new low by raising a god, and the Drules are just acting in kind." He stopped pacing and his voice lowered still further. "Balto was chosen specifically as a blow against the Voltron Force."
Time stopped. It wasn't so simple as the room going quiet; you already could've heard a pin drop in the place, other than when Keith was actually speaking. But it seemed like the entire team had forgotten to breathe as one.
It was all Hunk could do to make even his eyes move. Pidge had gone several shades paler than normal, but otherwise he simply remained motionless. Staring at his commander as if he expected further elaboration. As if he didn't realize everyone was slowly turning their attention to him to see the eerie lack of reaction.
Come on, little buddy. Say something. Punch someone. Do anything!
But he did nothing.
Coran was the one who finally broke the silence. Saying what Pidge would've, if Pidge were there rather than this dead silent ghost that took his form. "The Drules should have no way of knowing to choose that target." His tone made it clear he had an idea of how it had come about.
"Exactly." Keith nodded. He wasn't staring openly at Pidge, but his eyes kept flicking in the small pilot's direction and his expression became more troubled each time. "There's a traitor somewhere in the Alliance. Someone who sold out a planet, who facilitated the end of an entire civilization... and who's still there, able to do more damage." His eyes narrowed. "You understand why this is classified. Besides us, only the Grand Council knows the truth."
Allura spoke slowly, horror in her words. "How... how can someone do that? Betray a whole planet for... what?" She tore her eyes away from Pidge only briefly, long enough to give their commander a helpless look. "What could possibly be worth it?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Lance snarled. He wasn't pacing, just standing in front of a chair shifting his weight restlessly, smoldering. "Some bastard bureaucrat decided cold hard cash was more important than a few billion nameless people on some planet he'd probably never heard of. Easy decision when you've got no soul."
"Easy, Lance. We can't know for sure." Keith sighed; he sounded tired. Or perhaps a little hollow himself? Their commander believed in the Alliance, and its command structure. Having that faith suddenly broken couldn't be easy on him. "All we can do is catch whoever it is and ask."
"Ask?" Lance scoffed. His gaze flicked to Pidge as if looking for support, but found none; the little pilot wasn't looking at him. "How about beating the miserable bastard to a pulp until he begs to tell us everything, huh?"
Allura shot him a startled look. "Surely that's a bit much?"
"Like someone taking Drule blood money would talk willingly?"
"...Won't matter until they find the guy." It seemed as if Pidge had finally realized he was the center of attention. If anything it made his gaze more distant, and when he spoke there was no hint of emotion. "And it sounds like the Alliance had better get on investigating that. But why tell us? Not really our jurisdiction, is it? I'm going to go do some repairs." He stood, unlocked the door, and was gone before anyone could protest.
"Wait, Pidge—"
Hunk put a hand on Lance's shoulder, silencing him, not that it mattered since the little engineer was already well out of earshot. "Give him some space."
"I know, but... but..." The other pilot closed his eyes, snarling in frustration. "Hells! I know what it's like to lose your home, but losing your whole world... he can't take that by himself!"
"No," Hunk agreed. "He can't. But we can't tell him that. When he's ready, it'll come."
Those brown eyes that were usually so warm and cheerful fixed on him, glittering fiercely, filled with frustration. "Dude. You can't be telling me all we can do is sit around and watch and wait! There has to be something—"
"—Do you think I like it any better than you do?" Hunk snapped, finally losing his grip on his own temper. "That's my best friend who just watched his planet blow up right in front of him! You think if there was anything that could be done for him I wouldn't be doing it?" His voice dropped to a low, fierce growl. "Just forget about it!"
Lance's gaze erupted into the familiar inferno. "Back off, big guy. Pidge is my friend too, don't you ever bitch me out for being worried about him!"
"Worry about him all you want on your own time. But I swear to god, Lance... if you press him even a little, you make things the tiniest bit worse, I'm gonna break you in half. Assuming he doesn't beat me to it. You got it?"
"Hunk!"
He felt Allura's hands wrap around his arm, forced himself not to shake her off. But he didn't want to be calmed, either. Everything that had happened was suddenly crashing down on him, imploding. And even Hunk had limits...
Earthquake.
Foundation cracks.
Temporary.
Settle again.
His eyes widened as the fragments of words shot through his mind. The sensation was familiar, yet every time he'd felt it before, the words had been just beyond his grasp...
Yellow Lion? Was that you?
A sense that was definitely a yes, along with more words. The voice sounded... tired, somehow, as though the words were a terrible exertion. Heart of resolve. Settle!
He blinked. As quickly as his anger had sparked, Yellow Lion's presence seemed to soothe it all away in an instant. Or was it just the shock outweighing any other feelings? A couple more blinks and he looked at Lance, who was glaring at him and being held back by Keith; even Coran looked ready to jump up and stick his cane in the middle of things if needed.
"...Sorry," he muttered, though he wasn't entirely sure he was. Sorry for the outburst, anyway... not sorry for looking out for Pidge, though he knew Lance was right about that, too... he sighed.
Lance hesitated a moment, then nodded. "It's okay, big guy. Been a hell of a couple days, right?"
"Yeah."
Keith's death grip on Lance's shoulders let up, and Allura slowly released Hunk's arm. "On that topic," their commander said after a moment, "I thought we'd just... take the rest of the day off. Do what you have to, you guys. Okay?"
Oh, really? That was a pleasant surprise. Answering nods, and the group dispersed.
Hunk wandered the castle for a solid ten minutes before his brain consciously recognized that he didn't know what to do with himself. He wanted to be with Pidge, but if Pidge wanted company, Pidge would damned well let him know he wanted company. No sense going against the same 'advice' he'd just delivered to Lance so emphatically...
Frowning, he headed for the control room and jumped down Yellow Lion's chute.
As he entered the den, a further calm seemed to set in; the cool semidarkness of the cave always had a stabilizing effect. His lion peered down at him with its usual vaguely grim expression, granted by the squared jaw and deep scar. "Morning, Yella Fella. Can we talk?"
Yellow growled. Or at least, he thought it growled. It could've just been a desert wind whipping outside the cave... no. No way. It had been his lion, he was sure of it. And why not? If it could speak to him...
And it had spoken...
"So, uh..." He stretched out on one of Yellow's front paws. "Thanks for bringing me back down to earth earlier. I needed that." He chuckled at the unintended pun, then added, "I didn't know you could do words! You've been holdin' out on me!"
The lion responded immediately, a glimmer of acknowledgment for his gratitude, but mostly its answer was a sense of utter confusion.
Hunk cocked his head. "What's wrong?"
Now the sense of confusion strengthened, sharpened. Yellow was asking a question. He had no idea what the question was, but the feeling of question-ness was unmistakable. One might even say unquestionable. And then, with a surge of supreme effort, the question made its way through.
Words?
Oh. Well. That was about the last thing he'd expected to have to explain. "Um... yeah. Y'know. Words. Uh, they're what you use to talk. Or what we use to talk anyway, you usually don't, but you did just now, and back when you were tryin' to calm me down, and yeesh, now I'm rambling again, huh? Seems like that's going around the last couple days."
Amusement. He'd noticed some time ago that Yellow Lion was fairly easily amused. That or he was just that funny; perhaps a bit of both. Then another feeling, a jarring contrast—scorn, almost contempt, but it wasn't directed at him. A jumbled mix of impressions. Effort, confusion, annoyance.
Hunk frowned. "...Okay, uh, that's a bit much, Yellow. Maybe you're the one rambling now?" A flash of exasperation. "Sorry! Uh, give me a minute then..." The lion helpfully responded by sending him the surge of feelings again. Stronger. And this time, they flowed together to make some sense. "You just told me words are overrated, didn't you?"
A congratulatory spark, then an affirmative.
Hunk wondered about that congratulations; could lions be sarcastic? He almost asked, but decided he didn't want to know. "We're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one, Yella Fella. I kinda like words, they're useful."
Doubt. But then an acceptance. Agree to disagree it was, apparently.
It wasn't until quite a bit later, when he returned to the castle to make lunch, that he realized what had happened. Not only had Yellow soothed his temper when he most needed it... it had managed to keep him from dwelling on Pidge.
Well played, Yella Fella. Well played.
Keith had gone to beat up Strawman. Lance had wanted to do the same. But Keith... damn him and his calm discipline anyway. He was standing there focusing himself and being all technically sound and all that junk, and Lance just wanted to do was scream and flail and throw punches until he passed out. Having someone so calm next to him totally killed the mood.
Of course he knew the calm was a construct... his friend's manner of dealing with stress was to withdraw into himself, that was all. Channeling into lethal, focused strikes rather than venting wildly in every direction.
Knowing what the chief was up to did not make him any more tolerable, so Lance had stormed out of the courtyard to find something else to do. He wasn't really surprised when he found himself on the balcony overlooking Mount Ahriman.
What did surprise him was that someone was already there.
"Allura?"
"Hey, Lance." Allura was sitting with her knees drawn to her chest, gazing up at the sky, the overcast reflecting in her clouded eyes. "What brings you out here?"
"Dunno, really. Just looking for something to do." He shook his head in annoyance, walked forward and leaned over on the railing. Staring at the volcano, Red Lion's home. "Keith's already got a date with Strawman and I like the view out here, so here I am."
"Hmm... yes, I imagine you would like this deck," she agreed with a nod, her gaze trailing down to the glowing lava. Both were quiet for a moment as they took in the view, then she spoke again, hesitant now. "Lance, since you're here. Can I ask you something that might be... a bit painful?"
"That's a good way to really make me excited about saying yes," he grumbled, then fell silent when she turned and scowled up at him. "...You can ask, but I'm not going to promise I'll answer, is that fair enough?"
"I suppose it's all I can hope for." Something odd flickered in her gaze. "Back on Balto, or at Balto, I guess. When the planet exploded... what do you remember? I know we were all knocked unconscious, but the more I think about it, the more things don't quite add up."
Oh. Of course she wanted to ask about that. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. Hells no she wasn't getting an answer. Forget it! He was absolutely not going to think back to that moment, because the dreams last night had been more than bad enough.
"What's to add up?" he snapped, opening his eyes and glaring. "There was a planet. Now there's not." Despite his annoyance he sat next to her, glowering out at the volcano, trying his best to look unapproachable. Which he was really quite good at, but the princess was pretty good at seeing through that sort of thing, too. Spirit talker and all.
Damned inconvenient.
"Lance..." She was frowning. "Here, forget I asked that, but... talk to me? You've been taking this almost as hard as Pidge. In your own way, I mean, but..."
He glared at her, again, not caring at all for how easily she read him. Was that really any of her business?
...Then again, what else could he expect? She, alone among the Voltron Force, didn't know his reasons. Maybe he should go ahead and explain himself; after all, the Drules had razed her home too. "Sorry." His tone was a bit calmer now. "It's just... when I was eight, those blue-skinned bastards destroyed my village. Killed everyone but me. Not because a bunch of farmers and stuff were a threat; they were just making a political point. And ever since then I've promised myself I would fight them, stop them. Avenge my family... avenge everyone. But..."
Allura watched him, her eyes sympathetic, placing a hand on his. "But?"
Sigh. "But I also said when I joined the academy that it was never going to happen again. Not on my watch. Nobody else was going to lose their home like that, not if I could help it." His fists clenched, nails digging painfully into his palms. "Balto wasn't a threat either... just another political point! But most of all... we were there, Allura. We were RIGHT. THERE. And there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it!"
She looked over, met his eyes. Smiled sadly. "I understand, Lance. I do. I meant what I told Coran before we left, I... never want another world to see the same fate Arus did. Let alone something so much worse." Her hand tightened over his. "And there's more, isn't there? Not only could we not save Balto, we can't even help Pidge."
Lance winced, swallowed hard, his throat suddenly terribly dry. She had him pegged, all right. Damn her anyway. "Yeah. I know Hunk's right, I mean, the squirt's a ball of sharp pointy edges. He doesn't want warm and fuzzy. I don't want to dump warm and fuzzy on him! I just wish I could do something. Doing nothing might be what helps, but it sure doesn't feel like doing something."
"I know." Allura rested her head on his shoulder, staring at the sky again.
He tensed. Oh, Keith would so kill me if he were here right now. But what the hell? Keith wasn't here, and it wasn't like they were doing anything anyway. Just a couple of teammates comforting each other. Being all warm and fuzzy. Maybe there was something to be said for that after all. On rare occasions only, of course.
"Damn," he muttered, as the glow of the lava began to evoke images of Balto's shattered surface in his mind. "I hate those Drule bastards."
"I hate them too," she agreed softly. "I shouldn't. Hatred isn't... proper, isn't admirable, doesn't solve anything. But how can I not? Those monsters took away everyone I cared about."
"You've got a right to hate." He frowned, remembering. Conversations on this topic, conversations where he was solidly on the other side of the discussion. Should he really be encouraging this? "As long as you don't go overboard, thinking killing them will solve everything. I've been there... and trust me. It's not a pleasant place to be."
She cast him a curious look. "I appreciate the advice." It looked like she wanted to say more than that, but he gave her a warning look and she fell silent. Limits. He wasn't going to tell her everything, for crying out loud.
Lapsing into silence, they continued to watch the volcano. Or the sky. Or maybe it didn't matter what they were watching, exactly. The landscape before them was a planet, intact and rebuilding, not broken forever by the touch of the Drules. Right now that was more than enough.
He'd told them he was going to do repairs.
Repairs? Whatever. Something needed fixed, all right, but it wasn't the lions.
Pidge had no idea what was happening to him. Intellectually he understood. Balto was gone. That was the word. Gone. He didn't know how it was gone, just...
Inside his chest there was a gaping void he couldn't place. It was worse than gone.
Why couldn't he just...
What had happened yesterday?
Why couldn't he remember?
Casting back through his mind he only remembered waking up, finding the fragments of his alarm clock scattered across the floor. Actually his whole room looked like the aftermath of the apocalypse, he'd wondered at first if Drules had made it into the castle. Surely Hunk would've mentioned that, though, when Pidge asked what was going on.
Balto. Gone.
It didn't matter. Yesterday didn't matter. What mattered was his planet, somehow lost.
Jyari?
She was gone too. He knew it because there was no other possibility, knew it because the shredding wound in his guts couldn't mean anything else.
Gone because of him.
Yes. That was what Keith had said, wasn't it? Balto had been destroyed to get at the Voltron Force, and only one of them had any reason to care.
Damned well worked, hadn't it? Or had it worked when he couldn't remember—that was it. It hit him like a waking nightmare. That was what he couldn't remember.
He'd been there.
He'd seen.
The image flashed in front of him. A planet, achingly familiar. Except magma was surging from an ever-expanding network of chasms, flames were shooting out from the core, and slowly but surely the whole world was crumbling before his eyes...
"No!"
As if chased away by his scream, the vision faded, but the reality only burned ten times brighter. Whether the image was there or not didn't matter.
He fell to the soft dirt in front of Green Lion, lowered his forehead to the ground and let the tears fall. Alone. Alone though he knew the others wanted to try to help him, to comfort him... but there was no help this time. No comfort to be had. Only the blackness in space that had once been a planet, the blackness mirrored as a gap in his own mind.
It hadn't happened.
So long as he didn't remember, perhaps it wasn't true.
So long as he didn't think about it, it didn't have to hurt.
Something nudged his shoulder gently. Too hard to be a person, much too large to be a mouse. Looking up, squinting through the tears and dirt streaking his glasses, he found Green Lion's huge silver muzzle only inches away from his body.
"...Green?"
It nudged him again, growled softly.
"How are you..." He fell silent. The lion couldn't really answer that question, and right now he didn't even care. Placing a hand on the shining steel, he rested his head against the lion's lower jaw. "Thanks."
It was quiet again, motionless. As though it had taken all of the metal beast's effort just to get so close on its own.
Pidge remained there, soaking in his lion's presence, its closeness. And sooner or later, sobbing against the cool metal, he fell asleep.
Politics.
Lotor stood next to Haggar, behind his father, and tried not to snarl at the nine crystals arrayed before them; one for each of the other nine kingdoms of the Drule Supremacy. The comm crystals both projected and transmitted, and were arranged in such a manner that if he looked at one monitor, he would appear to the person on the other side to be staring straight at them. A poor substitute for meeting in person, but it would suffice under the circumstances.
Under normal conditions, the Supreme Council met deep within the Andromeda Galaxy on the sacred world of Naraku: seat of the ancient First Empire, neutral ground to the ten kingdoms. Such was old and glorious tradition, but every so often it was simply impractical. The last time the Council had met via crystals rather than in person had been at the height of the Rift War, when transporting the rulers of the kingdoms across enemy lines had seemed rather foolish.
Today the reasons for such a gathering were not practicality, but urgency. And it was really just as well. The shouting match which had ensued from the opening moments would have disgraced the venerable chambers of the Grand Hall... in the remote gathering, it was allowed to continue. Let the assembled rulers get it out of their systems. After about ten minutes, though, it was clear things weren't going to die down without some sort of intervention, and there was business to attend to.
"ENOUGH!"
The roar came from Vyrketh, young lord of the Eighth Kingdom, who undoubtedly hadn't anticipated this turn of events and looked deeply unamused by them. He'd held his throne less than a month, but it was the Eighth's turn to 'host' this illustrious event. Tradition had to be maintained. So here he was, attending his first Supreme Council meeting of any sort, trying to preside over the most contentious gathering in living memory.
Of course he was unamused.
Lotor felt a good deal of sympathy for the frustrated young face on the monitor, forced by politics and duty into a position he had no desire to be in. A familiar tale, indeed.
Vyrketh glowered at all of them for a few moments, waiting for the chatter to die down, then spoke again. "Decorum will be maintained. There is no need for an emergency session to reduce us to yowling animals." He glanced at the withered old advisor behind him, as if to make sure he hadn't crossed a line himself, then continued. "Now. The Ninth Kingdom is currently in a state of war, and its actions are what brings us here. As such, honor demands they be given the first chance to speak. Your Imperial Highness of the Ninth, King Zarkon, what say you?"
Scowl. "I have very little to say." Zarkon's glowing eyes traveled over the comm crystals arrayed before him, his gaze piercing each of the other rulers. "The destruction of an Alliance world of minimal value is hardly worth this Supreme Council's attention, let alone an emergency session. Our actions were well within our rights as the superior force."
"Your justification for exterminating insects isn't the issue here, King Zarkon," a harsh voice countered. Krai Soltorn, General of the Fourth Kingdom, had a derisive sneer on her face as she spoke. "It's your compromising matters for the rest of us. Are you not aware that the very existence of the Enyo model is unknown, and was previously unsuspected, by the Alliance? They will be wondering how you did what you did; you've tipped our hands and revealed what was once a fine trump card."
"On the contrary, Most Exalted General. The justification is of the utmost importance." King Dharlok looked concerned and a little bit scornful, neither of which were unusual. Perhaps owing to their remote location in the Kisenian Galaxy—untouched by the Alliance—the Tenth Kingdom held to the old ways quite stringently indeed, and often seemed to consider even their Drule brethren to be barbarians. "As you say, the Alliance was unaware of the capability of the Enyos, and we may be unaware of similar weapons they can wield. By using this power so lightly, has not the Ninth invited the Alliance to escalate matters for equally trivial reasons?"
"Trivial!" Zarkon growled, but not loud enough for the comm crystals to pick up. Behind him, Lotor and Haggar exchanged glances but said nothing; Lotor wasn't quite certain trivial was the wrong word to use. The witch's expression was unreadable... but on the other hand, 'unreadable' was a far cry from 'approving'. She didn't seem terribly pleased to be here either.
There was a moment's hesitation before anyone else spoke up, then the scale-skinned Queen Lirinska entered the conversation with a look of worry in her eyes. "Indeed. We've made it clear enough to the Alliance that the Ninth is acting on their own, and thus far they've been quite honorable in keeping the battle where it belongs. But one wonders how long it will be until they decide to take out their frustrations on the rest of us. The Third Kingdom certainly has no desire for open war at this time."
Soltorn scoffed. "Is the Third frightened of humans, Royal Serenity? There are those who'll protect you if you've no stomach for a fight."
Immediately, Lirinska's teal eyes flared with light and rage. "We have no need of your protection, General, especially not when you define the term as slaughtering innocents because you can't stand against the enemy's true forces! It's a wonder you aren't singing the Ninth's praises for—"
"That will be enough," Vyrketh snapped. "We are here to discuss the current actions of the Ninth Kingdom, not the Fourth Kingdom's behavior in past wars."
"His Lordship of the Eighth is correct, enough of this! With all due respect to the illustrious council members..." Zarkon spoke through gritted teeth, and his eyes gleamed dangerously. "I hasten to point out that none of you have had an ancient god awakened on your doorstep. The challenge faced by the Ninth Kingdom is unique. I have not asked for aid, but I will not have my tactics questioned from afar!"
King Grae broke in before anyone else could yell back. "Calm would be advisable at this delicate stage." The wolflike leader of the Sixth Kingdom had a soft, almost gentle voice, and the Sixth was known for its patient outlook. No one was going to snarl at him. "King Zarkon is correct. Our brothers in the Ninth Kingdom face a battle unlike any other. We cannot understand, and thus, ought not seek to intervene from any angle."
Oh. Lotor's eyes widened slightly as that sank in. He shook the expression quickly, no sense showing even a glimmer of weakness. His father's expression had barely flickered; a slight baring of his fangs was the only indication he'd even heard the words. And grasped them.
"Wise thoughts, as always." Dharlok gave a nod of grave satisfaction. "It is as both the Imperial Highness of the Ninth and His Grace of the Sixth have said. Let the Ninth Kingdom answer to those they have provoked, and prove themselves... or not."
Lotor bristled under that implication, and noticed—with grudging respect—that his father again masked any reaction. "That is all we ask, Honorable Majesty."
Lirinska started to say something, but Vyrketh cut her off impatiently. "Very well! The Ninth Kingdom has explained their actions and made their request to this Supreme Council. They would be left to their own devices. We will vote on this solution, and should it fail the vote, then you can go back to bickering like children!"
Several of the images in the monitors flinched. Lotor couldn't suppress a slight chuckle, which got him a glare from his father and a glance that might have been amused from Haggar. Good of the fourteen-year-old to remind you all of your manners. Duly chastised, are we?
The vote was rather one-sided, really. Unsurprising. Only the Fourth and Fifth Kingdoms had any interest in leaving their options to intervene open. Lotor knew perfectly well their votes were due to their general warlike preferences, and not an expression of support for the Ninth's actions.
But he was realizing something else, as he stood dutifully at his father's side and listened to the judgment of the Supreme Council being passed down. The scornful looks weren't merely being cast at King Zarkon himself. They traveled over the Ninth's entire delegation... the young prince clenched a fist as the political realities sank in. Oh yes, his father had ordered the strike. But he had carried it out. And so he, too, was tainted by it, as surely as if it had been his own idea.
...Surely that couldn't have been his father's intent.
With night falling and no sign of his little buddy for the last twelve hours, Hunk decided that making sure Pidge at least spent the night in the castle wasn't pressing too far. Not really. He'd claimed he was going to work on repairs, and most likely he'd gone to check on his own lion first...
Had the lions all together, let alone Green Lion by itself, really taken twelve hours worth of damage? Not hardly, but it was a place to start. He headed for the control room and jumped down Green's chute.
He always found Green Lion's den to be a little jarring. It was the same as Yellow's and yet completely opposite at the same time... an identical layout, but damp rather than dry, the ground made of soft dirt and cool moss rather than hard stone and warm sand. He'd noticed something similar about Red and Blue's dens; both were the same-shaped platform surrounded by an encroaching liquid, but one was water and the other magma.
It seemed like an awful lot of work to go through, just for a little symmetry. He wondered if there was more to it. But how could they know?
The lion was crouched on all fours, hunched over, which was decidedly not how the big cats usually parked. Moving around the metal beast he saw why. Pidge was curled up against Green's lower jaw, fast asleep again, tears still streaking his face.
"Oh, little buddy..." He sighed. "C'mon. Let's get you back in." Gently, he eased Green Lion's key from the pouch on Pidge's belt, then lifted his friend and moved into the cockpit. "Hope you don't mind, Green, I'll be quick... gotta get your pilot here back to the castle, is all."
Something surged in his mind. Brief but sharp. Literally sharp; he yelped and pressed one hand to his forehead, the other still occupied keeping Pidge in place on his shoulder. It was gone in an instant, but it reminded him of something else... the time he'd piloted Blue Lion while Allura was training, the time he thought he felt a flicker of relief from the craft...
Oh, no. No, no, no. He could deal with Yellow Lion discovering words today. He could not deal with Yellow discovering words and someone else's lion trying to talk to him. Rather than saying anything else he decided to just get this over with, settling his friend in the rear seat and sliding Green Lion's key into its slot.
The lion didn't start.
It snarled.
"Hey!" Hunk hissed as the cockpit shook from the sound. "Take it easy, you're gonna wake him up!"
Green growled again, much softer, not enough to rock the craft this time. The consoles remained dark. And he knew from many rounds of maintenance that this lion didn't usually have any problems flying for him.
"Okay." His voice came out a little sullen. He wasn't stupid; he could see what the lion was getting at, and really didn't want it giving him another headache. "I get you... you want him to stay here... just be sure you watch him, okay?" Picking Pidge up again—his friend didn't seem to have noticed all the movement and noise in the least—he left the cockpit and set him down in a particularly fluffy patch of moss near Green's head. Then he looked at the lion again, eyes narrowed. "I mean it, Green. You take good care of him, or you answer to me. And I'm the repair guy, so that ain't an idle threat!" He held up a wrench from his belt and waved it around for emphasis.
The lion growled again; he thought it might be laughing.
Hard to say what to make of that.
Chip could not begin to imagine why he'd been pulled out of Intro to Aeronautics. Well, he could imagine quite a few reasons for it, but all of them should've involved his roommate being yanked right along with him... he made a habit of not doing things that could get him into trouble unless Daniel was around to share the blame.
This never took much convincing, actually. In fact, Daniel came up with just as many crazy ideas as he did.
Worse than being yanked out of class alone was being yanked out of class alone and taken to a colonel. His guts were starting to twist now; he'd done nothing that should draw the attention of such an officer, other than his own professors, and this wasn't one he'd ever seen before.
"Cadet Chip?"
Well that was new. He usually got Cadet Stoker, at least until he corrected people, and with some professors even that didn't work. "Yessir." Quite belatedly he saluted.
The man's expression was grim; he didn't bother to introduce himself, though the nameplate outside had identified him as Colonel Mahzun. "At ease, cadet. I'm afraid I have to deliver some bad news."
Syrankar.
Chip's whole body seized up. It had to be Pidge, it could only be Pidge. He was out there, after all, fighting the Drules. Standing at the front of the war in the Denubian. And if he'd lost Pidge...
No. The panic subsided as swiftly as it had set in. Pidge was still alive, because if his brother were dead he'd have known it long before some colonel had to call him in. But then why was he here? Certainly Jyari was in no danger.
Certainly.
"Yesterday a Ninth Kingdom fleet launched a surprise attack on Balto," Mahzun said quietly. "They employed weapons no Supremacy force has ever used in battle... we have no idea to what end." The colonel sighed. "There's no way to break this gently, cadet. Your planet no longer exists."