Author's Note: I admit, this chapter would have taken less time if I hadn't been focused so much on writing the stuff that comes after this. I want a happy ending, people! I want the fight over. But we're getting closer. Thanks for your patience and your reviews! (Both just make my day.)
Chapter Nine
Keith convulsively cleared his throat, gripping the controls until a cramp developed in his forearm. "Red," he rasped. Everything had gone so quiet. Her auxiliary lights did not activate; the cockpit so dark that Keith finally closed his eyes against the strain of trying to see. Then he squeezed them shut harder as something Lance had done while blind suddenly made sense to him. Keith felt like all the veins in his body were going to break - overstretched rubber bands, but if Lance could keep his panic checked for days, then he could do it for however long it was going to take him to figure this out. But it was hard to think over the stress of the sensory deprivation. No sound except his own. And absolutely dark. So, so dark. The kind of dark that has a weight. He unbuckled himself from the pilot's seat, feeling too constricted, trapped. He needed to move, touch things, escape. He coughed against his will, shook his head, and pinned his chin to his chest, tapping his fingers restlessly on the console. How was he going to get out of this?
The Red Paladin relies on instinct, but that wasn't always a good thing. In the heat of a battle where fractions of seconds counted, sure, but alone in tight spaces where there was no way out? Now his instinct was working against him, screaming at him to flee, to tear out of the lion, to use brute force to fight his way to the surface of the planet again. It suddenly seemed a good idea to him to pry open the cockpit and somehow dig himself out. It felt completely possible to break through the indestructible glass of the display. Not only possible. Necessary. And now!
"Hold still," he told himself impatiently, out loud, struggling for control over his flight or fight response. Neither of those options was going to help him here. Opening the cockpit would just drown him in dirt. He had to think of a better plan, quickly, before his air ran out. Had Coran ever told them how many minutes of breathable oxygen was available in the closed system of an unresponsive lion? Had there been training on that? He cleared his throat, then growled at himself for doing it. There is nothing in your throat, Keith, he berated himself, hating how his mind was making it real.
He twisted in the pilot's chair, knowing that if he left it he would drop toward the back of the cockpit, that Red was lying on her back, the display facing the sky when they'd landed. He heard himself make a strange moaning sound as he thought of the sky, the freedom it represented, how far it was from him right now. His knees tucked into the closed angle of the seat, his fingers clutching the backrest as he leaned his forehead down onto the edge, curling his body over as if he were kneeling on the soil outside. He pushed against the seat, then pulled, channeling the panic energy into a rhythm, a miserable rocking.
"All right, Keith," he said. "You got what you wanted. Everything stopped, so now what are you doing to do?" Push, pull, push, clench. Another awful sounding moan. What was he saying; nothing had stopped! Everything was still going on. The Galra were still just outside the atmosphere. The Green and Yellow lions were still fighting. Shiro was probably in the same predicament he was in. And Lance – where was Lance? Had he joined the Yellow lion in fighting? Had something awful happened to him? Was he ok?
"Red!" He growled again, hearing something in his voice that he did not like, crunching his knuckles between his helmet and the seat as he pressed his head down against them. "You gotta snap out of this. I need you –" he choked on the words, coughing. God, what was he doing? Why was his throat constricting like that? Why couldn't he stop it? He tried holding his breath, repeating denial. This is a closed system, sealed against the vacuum of space, and you're wearing your helmet. There is no possible way for dust to get in. None. It's all in your head; you're psyching yourself out. Knock it off and think! But then he coughed again, harder this time, and something gritty and gross shot up into his mouth from his lungs.
He gagged, revolted, barely taking the time to open his visor enough to spit it out quickly, not caring where it landed so long as it was off his tongue. He shoved his face against his arm, breathing raggedly. What was that? That wasn't in his head or a byproduct of low oxygen levels. He held his breath again so he wouldn't have to hear his own panting. You've got to calm down, he gave himself a lecture. You're wasting your air; you're focusing too much on the memory of this place. Yeah, but what the hell had he just coughed up? He felt his circulation speed increase. Maybe the dust was getting in. Maybe he was drowning.
Maybe he was already dead? Maybe in a few minutes he'd want to be.
Overwhelmed, he rolled to the side, stretching his body as far down as possible before releasing his grip on the pilot seat. As expected, he dropped to the back of the tilted cockpit. There was a sliding exit door under his feet, he could feel the slight indentation with the toe of his boot. There was room to pace here, which he began doing immediately, trying to find relief, trying to focus, one hand against the wall. Or was it the floor? He kept his head down and his eyes closed, shuffling over the door, one side to the other, and back again, thinking furiously, trying to keep his attention pinned on the resolution instead of the enormity of the problem. Trying to stifle the carnal sounds that kept threatening to rumble out of his chest. He'd hated it when Lance made sounds like that. He couldn't start doing it too. But he was so alone here.
"No! She's still with you," he reminded himself about Red. He paused a moment to put both hands against the wall, touching the forehead of his helmet against it too. It didn't feel that way. His connection to her had shut off as quickly as the darkness had settled into the cockpit. Like she was drained of quintessence already, like he wasn't even inside her. He could be anywhere right now. Their bond evaporated. But that wasn't true; it couldn't be. Lance said so.
Against his wishes, Keith thought back to the final moments of being in the canyon with Lance, when Blue had come to get them. Thought about what Lance had been telling Pidge as he'd been busy fighting Galra. She never left you. You're going to have to pull. But there was no way that Lance had pulled Blue. He'd been unconscious. He had no strength left. His voice was quiet, muttering nonsense, eyes closed, head hanging like a corpse.
A sense of urgency surged through Keith in a hot flash, muscles along his arms tightening against his will as they remembered holding on to Lance. He needed to get back out there. What was going on outside? His fingers closed into fists against the barrier of the wall, and he gave in to the urge to beat them against the metal, terror mounting in his heart as he noticed that even that sounded wrong. Stifled. Too tight. He coughed, allowing himself to sink to his knees, leaning against his lion. Drained. Was it actually harder to breathe in here than before or was that some other trick his mind was throwing at him?
"We sure as hell aren't dying down here," his memory told him, playing back the abrasively encouraging comments he'd given Lance before, desperate to remember the secret. "No one's dying." And yet, he couldn't think past the dark, couldn't wrangle his sparking, anxious mind into any kind of productive plan. Could not stop clearing his throat. How much air was left? It wasn't looking good for any of them.
"Red," he begged. "Please." He prostrated himself at the back of the cockpit, pulling off his helmet completely so he could rest his cheek against Red, the alloy cold against his skin, feeling his lungs stretch out in strange ways as he drew deeper and deeper breaths. How to reach her? How to pull like Lance had instructed when he couldn't find a hold? He saw Lance in his head, looking down into his bruised and bloody face in the canyon, felt his weight against his aching chest, heard himself telling him that he was a pilot, that Blue needed him. Don't give up.
"Don't you forget it," he'd said, almost violently. He tried to remember for himself. It was so hard to concentrate here in the dark.
"I am Red's Paladin," he began with the first unalterable truth, amazed at the rasp in his voice. How long had he been trapped in here? What happened to time when he was alone? Why did it always bend and warp? He exhaled. "We are the right arm of Voltron." He pushed back to the first time he'd ever actually believed that, when the idea of connecting with a sentient robot had become real to him, when he noticed that he had opened up to the possibility. It had taken Shiro's survival and return, Blue's awakening, a trip through a wormhole, and half a dozen other never-in-your-life occurrences before he'd even considered accepting it. And he'd been the last one. No surprise he was struggling so much to pick it up again now when the stakes were so high.
"You'll just know," Shiro had said, and the others had echoed. "You'll be able to feel it."
And he'd scoffed inside because feelings had never gotten him anywhere. The majority of them hurt, so he tried to keep as far away from them as possible and most of the time didn't recognize what they were as he experienced them. But Red. She wasn't pain. She was quiet, powerful acceptance. She was warmth and quicksilver, freedom and light even though right now she felt so cold under his cheek.
"Concentrate," Lance encouraged in afterthought.
Keith had always hated that instruction. It was so unspecific and came from so many sides. It had no starting or end point. There was no way to measure for progress. Still, that was the only place he had to start, and coming from the only person who had been able to succeed in calling his lion back from this planet. He'd have to try harder.
"We need to seek level," he told Red, then went as still as possible. He pressed so tightly against her that he could feel distinctly his heartbeat and breathing, but even these subconscious workings of his life systems seemed too big. They weren't going to merge by being physically close. He needed to go further in. They weren't connected at the heart or even in thought. It was their souls that met. The thing he needed to concentrate on was the quintessence. His. Hers. And the dormant dust that covered and threatened them. He removed his gloves to gain more sensitivity in his surroundings, positioning his fingertips against the metal, trying to connect. Trying not to rush, knowing if he did he'd just have to start over, losing more time he didn't have.
He imagined his quintessence the way he had once seen it contained on a Galra ship, golden, its own light source. Imagined it in the stripes of sunlight that had beamed down into the canyon, the tiny dust motes floating, part of the planet and the sun at the same time. Rivers and veins of gold that flowed all through him, around him, and out of him, pieces that he could breathe in and out like the dust, weightless enough to travel in a wave like light, sound, or heat but strong enough to power the sunrise.
"Let me in, girl," he encouraged, trying to put will into his words as he flattened himself against her, pushing his fingertips, his breath warming the alloy under his face, understanding spreading as he spoke. She was scared, so scared, trapped and closed. She had a tight hold on her quintessence, locking it to her to keep it from being tapped and stolen. He felt like he was trying to hold hands with someone who had their fingers clenched, pushing hard in order to help. "I get it, but if you don't open enough for me then we're lost. You're holding too tight. I know it's a risk, but you need to let me in so I can get us out of here. The others need our help, Red; I'm . . . running out of air. And I know you're scared; I am too, but we have to work together here. I am your paladin. I'm going to save you."
And there she was. A fragile give where he could slip through. He coughed, but felt the tightness in his chest open slightly, felt the streams of quintessence flowing, not as freely as they once had, but no longer completely restricted. He felt a rumbling beneath his body. He pushed himself to his hands and knees, hanging his head, feeling enormously vulnerable, her emotion and his. Still incredibly shaky and frightened. But no longer quite so alone. It almost felt as though he'd gained a second heartbeat.
"Red," he half gasped in relief, noticing how low his oxygen levels were. He rubbed his hands against her in circles, realizing that she was still struggling, that she had cut herself off from him for his own protection, and hers, that he had forced their connection open against her will. But this time he had to protect her. "Use me, Red," he encouraged. Whatever strength I've got; it's yours. He knew it wasn't much, wasn't anything. But even if they tried and failed, he'd rather die wrapped in her warmth than gasping for breath in the cold darkness. He thought again of Lance, feeling a twinge in his side. There were suddenly things he'd like to say to him. He hoped he was ok; he had to be ok. Because no one's going to die, he reminded himself. He'd already made that decision for all of them.
The rumbling grew stronger as Keith became abruptly lightheaded. He felt the pull on his spirit and steadied himself against her side. A brightness appeared beyond his closed eyelids as Red activated the dull auxiliary lights. Keith was able to see the shadowy cockpit for a moment before the lights went out again.
"It's ok, Red," he encouraged, faking the confidence they were going to need. "Try again." He began pulling on his gloves, but flinched to the side as something grainy splashed him in the face. With his remaining ungloved hand, he scrubbed across his forehead, fingers coming away unmistakably gritty. Dirt. He could hear it now, falling from the exit panel at the top of Red's head, from the walls, from any tiny crack in the cockpit, distressing little pings and pops of doom. He shoved his hand into the second glove and grabbed for the helmet on the floor at his feet. Time to get out of here.
He felt in his soul that Red was on the verge of retreating again. In opening herself to Keith, she'd left herself vulnerable to the planet too. And it had probably been waiting for that. The lights faded on, staying dim, revealing small piles and lines of dirt that had squirmed past her defenses. The entire cockpit shook with the strain of keeping it out, of being bombarded from the outside. Keith could see it falling, streaming down as if he were in the bottom of a huge, cracked hourglass. Inside his heart, Red trembled.
"Don't do it, Red," he commanded, suddenly understanding what Lance meant when he'd said they would have to pull. Keith searched inward, seeking the place inside his soul where his and her quintessence merged, wishing he could grab it and wrap it around his waist, anchor her to the dock on his belt as easily and securely as a length of Altean rope. His hands clenched involuntarily, attempting to hold something intangible. "Stay with me."
Keith looked up past the falling cascades of dirt, navigating the best way to get back to the pilot's seat from where he stood. He'd have to be quick about it; everything now was so tight and unsteady. The lights flickered and faded, Red shook and quivered, Keith's own lungs wouldn't cooperate, forcing him to cough. In frustration, he kicked at a pile of dirt growing rapidly at his feet, then cringed inside as the dust flew up in an impossible semi-sentient cloud. The red lights dulled and brightened almost like a pulse, and between the moments of vision, the dirt in the cockpit began to materialize into a somewhat recognizable shape. Keith tried to breathe evenly, maintain his control over his bond with Red, hoping she understood that it was too late now. The only way out was through. He willed her to open up more, draw enough of him into her to power herself out of the dirt where she could turn, where he could leap back into his seat. From this angle, he couldn't get back to the controls.
"Enough."
It was more a feeling than a word, the way Red communicated, but it boomed through the cockpit with enough force that Keith instinctively tucked, his fists near his ears. The shockwave of the instruction had stolen a beat of his heart.
"Red?" He checked as the lights dimmed, as his heart raced to make up for the missing beat. It hadn't been her; he knew that, but even though it had startled him so badly, he still wanted it to have been. But she remained silent, too guarded for talk. Blackness hit the cockpit, followed by the faint glow of the light. So hard to see past the on and off, past the swirling dust. It was giving him a headache. Keith tried to make another leap to somehow catch the pilot's seat and swing himself up.
"Don't fight."
And this time Keith really did hold still because those were actual words. He grounded himself immediately with both hands on Red, head down and preparing for something terrible. He was alone in this cockpit, he had to be, but he had heard a voice to the side, quite close. No, voices. Words that were barely discernible through the bruising rush of a mudslide. A rasp of sandpaper, something breaking, an old man speaking through a reeded instrument, a child whispering through sticky cupped hands against their mouth. The lights went down, the pauses between them growing longer.
"Red," Keith growled, unnerved, his voice catching hard in his throat. He crouched and made a jump, his fingers hitting the seat just barely. His neck muscles tightened, very purposefully keeping his face from turning toward his left. There was movement there, he could tell even without seeing it. He desperately didn't want to see it. Whatever it was could not be good. Closed system, he tried to convince himself. You're alone. But the presence was undeniable. Absolutely impossible for anything to be in here with you. Then what was over there? No, don't look! "One more time," he coaxed, backing up to see if a running start wouldn't help.
He felt the limits of the cockpit against his back and set his heel against the wall to use it for a push. He waited for the lights. Don't look left. The red glow began on the floor, and Keith launched himself forward only to collide with something dense and powerful that pushed him to the side, throwing him to the floor where he began coughing.
"I need you," the voices told him, as he recovered with his eyes on the dirt covered floor, furious and frightened at the same time. This was no longer something Keith could ignore. The lights brightened enough to see the lines of dust snaking around Keith, moving with a purpose, one entity now instead of individual grains. His flight response woke up with a vengeance as he regained his footing and lifted his gaze to see exactly what it was that should not have been able to get in.
Something hot and heavy hit his stomach at the same time his shoulders hit the barrier of the cockpit. A monster had joined him, a biological impossibility, not human, not Galra, not dust, somehow a mixture of all three. The red lights illuminated a semi-humanoid form, a disaster of a creation. A chimera pieced together of dirt and random body parts. Keith recognized a Galra tail and ear, one ear. There was a human leg and arm on one side, half of a Galra hand on the other. And most revoltingly of all – Lance's pure blue eyes and Keith's own jawline on the face. His eyes. It seemed like an inexperienced and childish god had tried and failed to put together an animal, had formed a shape out of clay and then stuck broken pieces of organic material to it.
"What the hell?" Keith groaned, disgusted, then noticed as the lights began to dim again that the tendrils of dirt that rooted all over the floor were twining up his ankles as he stood horrified by what was in here with him. He wrenched himself free, dashing to the other side of the enclosed space, scattering the dust as the creature opened its gruesome, muddy mouth and the lights went dark again.
Keith tried to stop panting, knowing he would hear and see better if he took his helmet off but also knowing it would be the worst possible thing to do. He was already having trouble breathing even with the protection of his helmet. But where was it? What was it? What did it want? No, he knew what it wanted – it wanted to suck his quintessence like a vampire, that's what it wanted. How was he supposed to fight it? Why did it have Lance's eyes?
"Give her to me," the voices came through the rush of his bloodstream and terror. Keith choked on the dust, moving slightly around the outside of the cockpit, doing his best to keep as much distance between them as possible until he came up with a fighting strategy.
"Red!" Keith shouted. We need out; we need to escape right now! The lights tried to come on again, but only long enough for Keith to see the monstrosity with Lance's eyes bearing down on him, the entire cockpit flooded with blowing dust. Seized with the overwhelming urge to move, Keith surged toward it, hoping to use it as a potential vault to get himself into the pilot seat. He planted his foot somewhere in the indistinct midsection, shoving off the shoulders with both hands. But touching it proved a mistake. Instead of being solid, whatever it was sucked him down, like he'd jumped into quicksand. A trap.
"Stop," said the voices. He could actually hear Lance in the mix of it now. He writhed against it, using all his might to disengage, unable to move or breathe properly. Now what?
"Not happening," Keith yelled even as he squirmed, twisting his head away so he wouldn't be face to face with Lance's unnerving gaze. It was too disturbing. Why on earth were Lance's eyes on that face? He couldn't think of anything worse. "Get off me!"
"I need all of you," the wheezing dust told him with the voice that knew no age or true tone, slowly pulling Keith into itself. "My people, my children."
"What are you talking about? What the hell are you!?" Keith demanded, unable to really get the upper hand, feeling himself sinking slowly into the mess, all his cells thrashing to be free, felt Red slipping away from him. "Red!"
"There's not enough," the voice went on, nonsensical, as if speaking were not something it was used to, as if thought did not move in a linear fashion for it. "What you've given me is not enough."
"I didn't give you anything," Keith protested, knowing he wasn't getting through, that there was no logic in the voice, that whatever held him might not be alive at all even though it somehow behaved that way. The cockpit filled with the sound of a rockslide and Keith's soul filled with borrowed emotion, a strange mixture of confusion and desperation. The entity that held him suddenly dragged images out of his memory and presented them at the forefront of his thoughts. He saw Lance's blood dripping into the dirt, saw the tiny wet patches near his boots where he tried to spit, his hands missing whole fingernails, and he suddenly understood what was going on.
"There's not enough." It was Mallea speaking, the planet's very soul, thinking that Keith and Lance had been trying to give it quintessence in shedding their DNA onto the soil. That it was using some of what it had already to manifest itself in this Frankenstein tragedy of a lifeform, puzzling together a mutant of the Galra soldiers it had already destroyed, Lance, and Keith himself. "They won't come back unless there is more. Give her to me."
It was seeking the catalyst it needed to reverse what the Galra had done, reanimate the dust into its former life. But Red had already explained that no matter if they were all sacrificed to the planet, it still would not work. And then they'd be dust with it, dormant, trapped forever.
"Oh no," Keith moaned, more to himself than anything. He strained to get away from Mallea, as far as he could with his arms sucked in almost to his shoulders, the dust vines covering his feet and wriggling up to his knees as he was slowly amalgamated into the dirt. The lights remained on, but continued to dim, fading slowly to darkness. Keith thought that if they went out this time they probably would not turn on again.
"It won't work," he tried, a last-ditch effort to reason with a creature that existed in a different plane than he did. He wasn't sure that it could even hear or understand completely what he said. But his mouth seemed to be the only thing he still had power to move. Come on, Red, his soul called out to her. If something's going to take my quintessence, I'd rather it be you. Take it all if you need it, but don't stay here and let this thing bridge through me to get to you. "This won't help you. Let me go; we can figure out a way, but not if you kill us first." He paused, gasping, as he felt dirt seeping into his uniform at his throat. He clenched his shoulder up to his ear as if that would stop it. His pulse became painful and tense.
"Let me go," he begged again.
"I need you all," it explained, making Keith sick. What did that mean? The others – had it already gotten to them? Was Keith the last one? He coughed, his chest aching, the strain of trying to get out exhausting him, the thought that his team was already lost quelling any will he had left to fight. Red was the last thing keeping him together, their hold on each other fraying at the edges, breaking strand by strand as Keith was pulled deeper into the soul of the planet, his quintessence draining out of him, his life and the light going quietly darker as he weakened. If he let go, what would happen? Would everything just stay black and quiet? What was on the other side of this nightmare?
"My children," Mallea repeated, its one focus and wish.
My team, Keith echoed in his head. Everything hurt now; it was as though he'd never left the planet that first time, that he was still just trapped here, that he would always be trapped here. Except this time he really would be all alone. Lance was likely gone already, and in a few moments, Keith knew he wouldn't have the strength to hang on to Red anymore either. Pull, Lance had told them, but Keith hadn't been able to do it long enough or hard enough to get out. Mallea pulled harder, an all-encompassing void. He tried to take a breath, even a shallow one. The oxygen in the cockpit was also exhausted, and Keith let his head fall to one side, nothing left in him to even squirm against the itchy, irritating streams of dirt invading any weak point of the uniform, assimilating him into dust.
"Red," he whimpered with the dregs of his energy, knowing it would be best for her now to cut ties with him, that maybe he shouldn't have forced her to open to him in the first place, and yet, he didn't want her to leave yet. He wanted her with him here at the end, for his last breaths. He didn't want to be alone. Red, you should leave me . .. but, please don't. Not until after. He thought of his friends – Shiro. Hunk. Pidge. And Lance. Would he ever see them again? His eyes stung now, dirt apparently entering into him from everywhere at once, making them water. Why? His heart wailed. Why had they even come to this place? Why hadn't they listened to him, made their escape while it was still available to them? It had all been so pointless.
Keith coughed and half-cried in the coming darkness, the whirlwind of dirt. If only they had paid attention when he'd said not to come back. If only Allura . . .
"Damn you, Allura," Keith wheezed, fury forcing the words out of him against the crushing pressure on his ribcage. But somehow it felt good, protective, better than just limply submitting to his own destruction. "You should have listened to me," Keith maintained, speaking to someone he would never see again. "If you hadn't been so stupid. You just can't save everyone." The red of the lights brightened outside his eyelids. Red still trying to come back online even though it was hopeless, still trying to save him. Most of Keith's quintessence had already been sucked out of him, becoming one with the lifeless dirt, the planet's insatiable need for energy. "You idiot," Keith grunted, each word a puncture in his lungs. "You can't save anyone."
He clung to Red and his rage now, just as he'd gripped tight to Lance in what he'd believed were his final moments in the canyon. Anything to keep him from acknowledging what was actually happening here. He could not bargain with the planet, could not break free of its hold, could not be a participant in his own death. So he held desperately to the tendrils of Red's quintessence, comforting still even though she was trembling, weak and terrified, and he held tight to his anger, letting it fill him completely, squeezing out any fear. Allura, he repeated, an incessant shout that banged inside his head as hard as his heartbeat. Why didn't you listen?
Red's quintessence suddenly solidified inside him, making him gasp. It was as though she had frantically grabbed tight to his wrist to yank him up and out of the dust. But not exactly. It was more like someone else had used that last thread of connection to join them deep in the earth, here in the last seconds. It wasn't Red holding him. Something bigger than that held on to them both, channeling strength and steadfastness. The lights flared up, brighter than ever, and Keith opened his eyes only to squint at the intensity.
"There you are," Allura said in his mind, her tone tearful in relief, the waterfall of her voice cleansing away the dust. "Keith, hold on."
The cockpit shuddered violently as it pressurized, the dash lights winking on all at once as Red gained enough power to activate. Keith found himself confused. What was going on? Where was the energy coming from? How was Red doing this? Allura?
"Stop," Mallea wailed, and Keith realized that he might make it out of this after all. He was going to beat this son of a bitch planet twice! The weight of its hold on him was loosening, the dirt dissolving off his limbs; he felt himself being pulled away, out of the mire. He looked at his captor, at Lance's stolen eyes, only to find them full of anguish and longing; something twisted inside him. "I need you."
Keith turned away as Red jerked herself forward, fighting against her own prison, both of them renewing the struggle for freedom. The cockpit tilted as Keith ripped himself finally away of Mallea's hold, feeling it crumble away from him as Keith's quintessence was pulled out of it. He made a leap against the shifting wall and kicked himself up, scrambling into the pilot's seat as Red flipped herself around. The display cleared; Red propelling upward and breaking through the crust that had kept them in darkness.
"Keith!" He heard his name called through his helmet radio, everyone shouting it at once. He took a deep, satisfying breath and jammed the lock shut on his seatbelt, reaching forward immediately to flip a switch on the panel in front of him. The one that would open the cockpit.
The doors released and created a wind tunnel of the space here in the open air; Red's velocity sweeping clean the dust. Mallea's spirit cried out as it was blown apart by the force, ripped to pieces and cast out to float as individual specks back to the dead surface of the planet. Keith pulled in to himself, clenching his stomach muscles, coughing as they rose higher and higher off the cursed soil. If his teammates were speaking to him now, he couldn't hear over the scream of the wind through the cockpit, over the bewildered triumph in his heart that he'd somehow made it out.
He kept the cockpit open until he'd gained enough elevation for it to be dangerous. He wanted it free of every speck. It was only when Red growled at him that he reversed the doors, closing himself in again. The bond they shared tightened as they climbed higher, speeding up to break through the atmosphere barrier.
"You ok, Red?" He asked her, breathless. "Close call back there."
She projected agreement, relief, and resolution. Keith wanted to take her for a couple laps around the planet, wanted to stare down at it from a safe distance and taunt it that it hadn't beaten him. He wanted to loop Red in a flare of resentment. She acknowledged his emotion, but did not share it. They were a little too human for her. She just wanted to get as far away as possible and join the rest of the team. Oh yeah, the team!
"Guys?" Keith called out, hoping for an explanation, pausing before he asked what happened so he could cough. One by one, lions appeared on his display, still frantically moving, still taking out Galra fighter ships as quickly as they could. The Green lion was there, fighting alongside the Yellow one. Shiro pulled the Black lion beside Keith, and a little ways off, there was Blue . . .struggling but still holding her own in the battle.
"You did it," Shiro congratulated and confused him. He'd done what? And what happened with the Green lion? How had it gotten free? What had he missed?
"What happened?" Keith asked, trying to catch up. "Is everyone ok?"
Instead of answering, Shiro shot forward against a fighter aiming for Keith, sending fiery pieces of debris showering over the dash. Keith shook his head, physically attempting to switch gears from where he'd been in quiet, still, and dark back into the battle at hand. If he wanted a discussion, it was going to have to wait.
"Are you?" Lance's voice echoed his last question back to him, the tiny query sinking hard into his chest, emphasizing the ache that hadn't fully left him yet. Time distorted around him, sparking, exploding, and Keith realized that he was surprised and overwhelmed to find himself still alive. He didn't trust his voice for a response; fortunately, he was interrupted from having to give one.
"Later," Shiro said authoritatively. "Let's get this finished first. Form Voltron!"
Oh hell yes, Keith thought, maneuvering Red into position on Black's right flank with Blue soaring in a rush behind him, quintessence plugging in to a center connection, all of them fusing as one – the polar opposite of the solitude he'd just come from. Power channeled through Red's controls up through Keith's spirit, so hard it was almost painful. They were all there, so close that he couldn't differentiate one from another, from his own soul. Adrenaline practically boiled in his blood stream; he felt the corners of his mouth lift in an unconscious smile for just an instant before he heard Hunk, just barely over the hum of his pulse, the roar of the assimilating process, innocently putting words into the system that chipped at the purity of what was happening, casting worry and doubt like a shadow.
"Hang on, Allura," he murmured. "It won't be long now."
What?
"Keith!" Shiro barked, electrocuting his attention. "Blazing Sword!"
The only way out is through, he told himself, forcing his concentration on one thing at a time, leaning over to twist and punch his bayard into the panel that would activate the weapon. But even though he believed that, his consciousness still pulsed incessantly with confusion and need. He needed to know what happened to Pidge, and Allura, needed to figure out what was going on with Lance, if anything was going on at all, needed to learn what Allura had done to herself to save him. Had she hurt herself pulling him out? Did he owe her his life? The thought made him thrust the bayard harder than necessary. The last thing he wanted was to be indebted to Allura. The last thing he wanted was for anything to happen to her because of it.
The tide of the battle turned as Voltron trust the sizzling energy sword into the first warship, tearing a fissure through it lengthwise from tip to tail. Far below, forgotten, the dust settled on the surface of Mallea.
