Chapter 9: Pidge
Pidge stepped out of the elevator that the spiral staircase wrapped around to the base floor and proceeded to run down the hallway toward the Green Lion hangar. The bay door opened when she walked in and she grabbed her laptop from the side table. "Hi girl, just came for this." Pidge raised the computer up to the lion. She waited for a reply, which didn't come. The quiet made her hesitated, but then she ran out of the hangar. "Okay, see you later."
As Pidge ran out of the hangar, she looked back once more at the Green Lion before the bay doors closed and the moment they shut, Pidge ran into someone.
Pidge looked up at the figure, towering over her, and she jumped back.
"Where are you sneaking off to?" Silver hair asked.
"Nowhere."
"You know it would be nice if you helped out, instead of sneaking around, and tinkering without permission."
"Sorry, I got to go." Pidge slowly inched her way around the Altean.
He crossed his arms and shook his head disappointed. "I guess it's out of habit."
"Sure. Bye." Pidge took off running down the hall.
"Don't run. If you get hurt, you will have to show up for your check ups you've been skipping." The Silver Altean called as Pidge ran, but she didn't look back this time, but continued to run and climb, her laptop tucked under her left arm until she reached the generator room and saw the familiar giant lightning bolts on both sides of her. Keith was leaning against the control panel at the center.
"Wow, that was faster than I thought it would take."
Pidge met him at the control panel, breathing heavy and trying to catch her breath. "I ran all the way here after I saw Silver hair."
"You saw the Altean again? Where?"
Pidge was still trying to catch her breath but she got out, "Green hangar door."
"I see, well lets hook your laptop up and find out who he really is."
Pidge shook her head, "Not here." She grabbed his hand and tugged him along behind her to the far side of the generator room and through another door into a side room on their right.
The room was lit by the rectangle blue outline like a brick pattern covering both sidewalls and the back wall with a control console in the center. Pidge went to the center and opened the console panel underneath then ran a cord to her computer. Pidge sat down cross-legged and began tapping away at her laptop.
Keith walked around the room. "I thought you said you needed the generator room?"
"Nope, I just thought that would be easier to find than here. This is the storage system. Well, half of it. The side room on the left also is a storage unit. If we continued down the hall we would have reached the room where King Alfor's AI was stored. "
"Can't you access all data from any console in the castle?"
"Probably, but why try possibilities when you can go directly to the source. Also, this room is kind of out of the way so no one will bother us. I thought you might appreciate that." Pidge said, continuing to type on her laptop, connecting to the console's mainframe.
"Thanks, and I am sorry about earlier."
"I'm in, accessing personnel files now. If you want to make it up to me, tell me the name you got."
"Therron."
Pidge typed the name into her computer and a single file opened on the screen with a photo in the top left corner of a silver hair, dark skin, and pointy-eared Altean. "That's Silver hair. How did you know his name?"
"He told me in a dream."
"Well I saw him standing in front of me only a few minutes ago and I wasn't dreaming. How did we see the same person?" Pidge asked staring at the photo.
"I'm not sure, but I think Red might be trying to tell me something."
"Maybe the Green Lion is trying to do the same." She scrolled through the file, which listed generic information: birth, gender, eye color, hair color, and height. Pidge scrolled down until she reached lineage. "Keith look," Pidge pointed at the screen.
"He was King Alfor's brother."
"Younger brother," Pidge added, following the family tree bracket lines. Pidge narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, as she looked it over the tree, noticing several brakes in the lineage before it connected again.
"What is this symbol mean?" Keith pointed to a repeating golden diamond that's top folded out.
Pidge saw the symbol, which also lined up with the brakes. "I think it means King or crowned." Pidge pointed to Allura and King Alfor's names, "See both their names have the symbol, but Therron doesn't have it."
"But Allura's just a princess."
"Well, crown princess then. Also look here, this tree line continues until this point and there is no symbol, but on this new tree line that lines up with the first has the symbol. I guess a different person not connected to the original was named King or Queen, but see it switches back two lines down."
"Okay, does it say anything else about Therron in this file? What he was like. As the younger Prince, what did he do?"
Pidge scrolled up and open another attached document to the file. The page was written all in Altean. "Ugh, I really hate not being able to read Altean."
Keith was leaning over her shoulder his face inches from the screen. "Any guesses?"
Pidge pushed his head away from her screen, also hating being crowded. "No, but I think I can translate it. It's going to take some time. Let's see if there is anything else first." Pidge went back and clicked on a second attached file, but the file wouldn't open. Pidge clicked on it again, but nothing happened.
"What's wrong?"
"The file won't open." Pidge typed in an override code to bypass the link and connect her to the document, but after she tried to access the file again a notification popped up. "That's weird." Pidge typed in another code, but another notification popped up saying locked file.
"What?"
"It won't let me access the file." Pidge tried a third time, but got the same pop-up, "I can't get around it. Maybe Allure or –"
"No." Keith snapped, startling Pidge. "Sorry, Pidge."
"It's okay."
"It's a lot to take in. I could tell my dream was more than just that, but seeing this file and Therron's picture makes it very real."
"I get it. I don't know how I feel having hallucinations of this dead prince."
"Pidge, I think he was dangerous."
Pidge thought back to her first hallucination in the hallway where the blond had pulled her behind him. The more Pidge thought about it the more she felt how disrespectful the guy had acted to a prince. She knew Coran still called the crew out whenever they were disrespectful to Allura and she wasn't their princess, but this Altean stood up against Therron. "I think you're right and the other Alteans felt the same. Did you happen to see a blond Altean?"
"Yes, his name is Lux."
Pidge started typing in the new name. "Oh quiznak. I think we have hit the Liam equivalent for Altea."
"Ugh." Keith dropped his head.
"Well, the translator is going to take a while." Pidge shrugged, "Might as well."
"Okay, start at the beginning."
Pidge started running the translator on the document then went back to the personnel results for Lux. "File 1 or 9,628."
Pidge turned toward Keith, whose jaw hung open.
Kestle:
Sorry, this chapter is late. I had a hard time writing it :(
I was also trying to get a better understanding of the outline of the ship. (It didn't go well)
Chapter 10 still to come out Saturday and Chapter 3 will also be updated in the next few hours for grammar and consistency with the later chapters.
I hope you enjoy chapter 9. Please comment if you like it or on the story as a whole. I would like to know what you all think.
Thanks again for reading :)
