Chapter 21 – The Last Goodbye

Keith pressed Hunk to keep moving.

"There's nothing, man. If we keep going, we'll just wear ourselves out. If we stay put, we might find a more effective way to move."

"We can't do that. We have to find the others," Keith responded aggressively.

"Getting stressed out is a bad idea, too."

"I'm not stressed!" Hunk gave him a look. "Okay, yeah, I'm stressed. We have no idea where the rest of the team is, how long we've been here, or how the rest of the universe is doing."

"We'll figure it out."

"And if we don't figure it out quick—" He stopped in his tracks. "What?"

"What? Some kind of monster? I hope it's not a monster. I'm really not in the mood for a monster. Considering you're the only one with a weapon."

"No, look." Through the thickening rain, they could barely make out a tall horizon, like a wall. "What is that?"

Keith ran ahead towards it, while Hunk moved as fast as he could on his still healing leg. The closer they got, they could see shady outlines of trees through the rain. Keith waited outside where the trees started for Hunk. He tilted his head. "We haven't seen vegetation anywhere, except for the rubbery stuff. Huh." He stepped towards it, and the rain stopped. "Wait—what?" He looked back at Keith, who stood behind a wall of rain. "What in the world?"

"What?" Keith's voice was drowned out a bit, and he stepped into the completely dry forest. "Wait—that's not possible."

"I mean, this is space. Infinite possibilities, infinite planets, really, you could find anything in the uni—"

"The others must be in here somewhere." Keith started at a brisk pace deep into the forest.

"Don't you think we should figure out how we got here? We literally just stepped from one ecosystem into another. Another—colder one." He shivered, and hoped that when he dried off, he wouldn't be as cold. "Don't—"

"They must've taken refuge here. We've just got to find them."

"B—"

"C'mon, Hunk!" He stood quite a distance away, waiting. Hunk plodded along after him.

n

A couple vargas later, Keith finally stopped for a rest. Hunk sat on a log, head in hands. His clothes were still pretty soaking wet; the cool weather didn't help him dry off any. He shivered, looking up at Keith, who had only stopped for his good. "I haven't seen—" his teeth clattered together "—any signs of life."

"We've got to keep going." He apparently meant right then, as he kept trekking through the forest.

"Great, just—wait." He saw something not of the forest, just ahead. "Keith!" He ran forward, ankle protesting, and tackled Keith to the ground.

"Hunk!" An arrow whizzed above them, and both boys' eyes grew wide. "Thanks."

"That probably means there's someone nearby," Hunk whispered.

"There'll be more." Keith, crouching, went to retrieve the arrow. He handed it to Hunk, and they both scooted past where the arrow had come from. Hunk observed it. "It's pretty good. Homemade. By stuff in the forest."

"Does that mean anything for us?"

"Nope. Wish we could find where it came from."

"It's probably guarded by something worse. C'mon. Let's keep going. Worst case scenario, whatever made this captures us, and we make a lot of noise."

"Have we stopped to consider that maybe we were the only ones who ended up here?"

"We're not stopping!" He snapped.

"Alright, alright." He kept following. He calmed himself by thinking about one of Pidge's viruses, that steady little beam, going all the way to the right until it was at one hundred percent. So satisfying. He heard a crack behind him and whipped around. "Hello?"

"What?" Keith sounded like he was making an effort to be less snappy.

"I heard something," Hunk whispered back.

"Like what?"

"Like something walking around." Keith drew his sword, but Hunk had different ideas. "Hello? Who's there?"

"Are you insane?"

"What if they're nice?"

"What if they're gonna try to kill us?"

"Guys?" Matt edged from behind foliage, breaking into a sprint. "Hunk! Keith! You're okay! You're here!" He squeezed Hunk and knew better then to try that with Keith. He turned back. "Guys! I found Hunk and Keith! They're okay!" He turned back, his voice accompanied by running footsteps. "Man, that's almost everybody."

Pidge ran up, dropping something on the ground. Shiro paced himself behind her, picking up her stuff. Pidge didn't even stop. "We found you!" She nearly tackled Hunk with a hug, and he hugged her back with matching passion. She hugged Keith, too, and he didn't protest. "Oh thank goodness."

Shiro and Keith hugged, then Hunk. Keith cut straight to the chase. "So you've found everyone else?"

The three of them looked at each other. "Not Lance. But we found Coran and Allura."

"Are they okay?"

Shiro handed Pidge her trash, and looked back at Keith, arms crossed over his chest. "Allura's fine, but they had a run-in with a creature. Coran's badly wounded."

"We're working on how to get off the planet," Matt informed him, "which is what this is for. Turns out there's been a lot of people who've crash landed on this planet. Which is weird. But we're building a ship, so we should be able to get off the planet."

"Sweet."

Pidge squinted. "Why are you guys soaking wet?"

Hunk looked at her, noticing for the first time that her huge green sweater wasn't wet. "You—there's a—the rain?"

She adjusted her glasses. "It's a forest. It hasn't rained in the two months we've been here."

"Two months?" Keith exclaimed. Shiro patted him on the back.

"There's an entirely different ecosystem on the other side of the planet. It's all rainy and rocky and stuff. Nothing like this forest."

She snapped. "It's an Almaveranata!"

"We've been here for two months," Keith said to himself, letting it sink in.

"What's that?"

"It's a planet with two entirely different ecosystems. I read about this! There's only, like, ten of them in the known universe! Rain, a forest…I bet we're on Sempsa!"

"Good work, Pidge."

"If I'm right, which, of course, I am, there's a desert planet nearby with a modernized hospital. We could take Coran there!"

Shiro nodded. "How long until the ship's ready?"

Matt looked at his hands, as if they would have the answer. "Maybe…ten quintents? At least. Actually, with Hunk here, maybe…eight? I don't know, I haven't built a ship before."

"We'll work with eight."

Keith stood. "I'll look for Lance while you guys finish the ship."

Shiro nodded. "Good idea. Come back every night, so we don't lose anybody. I'll stay with the ship in progress. We don't have a lot of weapons around here. Let's head back to camp now. Allura and Coran will be happy to see you both."