When Lance settled into the pilot's chair of the blue lion and opened the communications channel, there was already a lively stream of chatter between the other members. "Hey, guys," Lance said as he joined the group.

"Glad to see you finally joined us, Lance," Shiro's voice said. Lance momentarily caught his breath and swallowed the hesitation down; Shiro's voice had been normal; warm and welcoming and not ... that.

"Yeah," Keith's voice from the red lion. "You'll never guess where I found him."

"Keith!" Lance said.

"He was fighting with the mice for the breakfast scraps," Keith continued, as if Lance hadn't said a work.

"You promised you wouldn't tell," Lance whined, exhaling in relief as the others laughed. "I was hungry."

"Oh!" Hunk said. "I know you missed breakfast, Lance, I brought some snacks for you!"

"Hunk," Lance said with a sigh. "How, exactly, are you going to get those snacks to me?"

"Oh. I didn't think about that."

"Guys," Shiro said, as Lance's blue lion joined the others outside the castle ship. "Bring it in. We're going to do one quick sweep of the wreckage and see what we turn up." Affirmations came through the line from the others, as the five lions crossed to the ancient, silent ship.

"Whoa," Lance said as the dark ship grew large in his front display. The Galra ships they'd already encountered had been massive; some in fact bigger than this. But those had been active ships, glowing with lights and activity and brimming with danger. This was just a mass of darkness and silence, a foreign object that didn't belong, locked in eternal orbit with the planet below. It was eerie, and he was beginning to think that Hunk was right to call it a 'space-tomb.'

"Still no activity," Pidge said. "No life-signs, no systems activity."

"What about short-burst transmissions?" Keith asked.

"Haven't seen any of those since we launched," Pidge said. "We were too far to get a proper fix on them before, and without any new transmissions I can't determine what part of the ship they came from." The green lion landed on the outside of the ship, along a swath of undamaged hull near the huge, gaping wound shot through its side.

"She's going to say 'the only way to find it is to board the ship,'" Hunk said.

There was a pause, and then Pidge said, "since Hunk said it, I guess I don't have to."

"I knew it."

"I don't like this," Keith said. The red lion went under the ship, dodging gracefully through the minefield of debris. "Something feels off about the entire situation."

"I agree," Shiro said. "Hunk, you and Keith stay out here, keep an eye on things. Lance, you and I will accompany Pidge."

Lance swallowed hard as he watched the black lion land not far from the green lion. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather take Keith? After all I have a long-range weapon-"

"So do I," Hunk said cheerfully, oblivious to Lance's discomfort.

"Thank you, Hunk," Lance muttered. There was a soft click on the radio channel, and a private feed was pushed through to Lance's helmet, not the open channel of communication between all the paladins, or even the video chat.

"Go," Keith's voice in his ear, and Lance felt his stomach flutter. He turned pink under his visor, thankful that at least at that moment, no one could see him. "I trust Shiro. You did, too."

Lance had already pushed the blue lion into a descent toward the side of the ship where the other two lions were currently locked, magnetized, to the outer hull. He did trust Shiro, and he knew he did, but it was Keith's voice in his ear that moved him forward ... and that was something he was really going to have to examine.

He had a lot of things to think about, later.

Keith closed the private radio channel and exhaled, sitting back in his seat. He watched the blue lion arc away from where Hunk's yellow lion was floating in space, heading toward the side of the Galra ship where Pidge and Shiro were already waiting for him. He knew Lance just needed the nudge.

On the left side of his screen, Hunk's face popped up, a direct communication line. Keith glanced over at it, and saw that Hunk's expression was concerned. "Is Lance okay?" Hunk asked. Keith stared blankly at him, and Hunk continued, "I mean, is he okay-okay? I know Lance isn't okay, but is he okay-okay?" Hunk wiggled a hand in the air and, at Keith's still somewhat-blank expression, sighed.

"I don't think Lance is okay at all," Keith said, and Hunk stopped and gaped at him.

"You let himgo and you don't think he's okay!?"

"It's not ideal." Keith's hands curled into fists resting on top of the controls of the lion. This wasn't a new feeling; but it was new toward Lance and he didn't like the pall of helplessness it cast over him. He couldn't protect Lance, just like he couldn't protect Shiro - all he could do was keep training himself so that he could stand alongside them. "But that's the way it has to be."

Hunk was quiet for a long moment, the visor of his helmet covering his eyes. Keith couldn't interpret the expression on his face. "If you let him get hurt..." Hunk said in a tone Keith had never heard before.

"I won't," Keith said, and flipped off the video chat, cutting the communication between the red and yellow lions and leaving only the open voice channel. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, and swore he could feel the systems of the red lion surge in time with his heartbeat. Keith closed his eyes and breathed deep. He would find his center again.

Lance popped the canopy on the small speeder and then immediately gripped the edges as he floated out. The atmosphere of the ship was compromised, there was no artifical gravity, and Lance hung on to the canopy for a moment until Pidge came around from her speeder.

"How are you walking?" Lance said, a little too loudly.

"The boots have electromagnets," Pidge said. "Activates from the same area as the rockets on your back."

Oh. That made sense. Lance proceeded to activate the magnets in his boots from his floating position several feet in the air, and then slammed feet-first into the ground with enough force that he felt it through the paladin armor. "Ow," Lance seethed, as Pidge stood there, typing into the input field on her suit.

"You should be more careful," she said without looking up.

Shiro came around the same way Pidge had, using a quick burst from the shoulder-mounted rockets to move quickly and then activating his boots so he didn't overshoot into open space. "Got a lock on anything, Pidge?" he asked.

"Not really." She looked up finally, and then all the way up, where they could see many of the ships levels burned directly through. "But I've got an approximate idea of where to start, at least."

"Tell me you don't want to search this entire ship," Lance said with a groan.

"Given the proper time and resources, I would love to," Pidge said.

"Two things of which we have little to spare," Shiro inclined his head. "Where are we headed?"

"Either the brig, or the armory," Pidge said.

Even without looking at Shiro, Lance could feel the flinch. "Maybe we should start with the armory," he suggested. "Maybe we'll find some awesome Galra weapons we can bring back as souvenirs."

"Don't bring back souvenirs," Hunk's voice said in his ear. "It'll have some wicked Galra general's ghost attached to it, and it will creep around the ship slowly killing us all in horrible, horrible ways."

"Or maybe just Lance," Keith's voice said dryly. "It would serve him right for looting a space-tomb."

"It's not looting," Lance protested, and Shiro sighed but there was clearly a smile tugging at his mouth behind the visor.

"Stop calling it a space-tomb," he ordered. He glanced to Lance. "No looting," he emphasized, and Lance threw his hands in the air in a full-body WTF measure.

Pidge said, abruptly, "guys?"

Lance stepped closer and rested his arm on her helmet. "What is it?" he asked, and Pidge shoved his arm right off.

"I don't know," Pidge said. She stared at the display projecting over her arm, and then typed again before looking at Shiro, who was watching her closely as well. "I think Keith is right," she said. "Something's definitely weird here."

"We'll be extra cautious, then," Shiro said, and gestured for Pidge to start them off. "Lead the way."