There was no doubt in the minds of everyone that Galaxy Garrison Command owed much to the wizardry of Arussian scientists. Under the leadership of King Alfor, Arus donated the technology necessary to build Vehicle Voltron.
But, military analysts often suggested that Arus' most important contribution to the Galactic Alliance was not Vehicle Voltron. Rather, it was the donation of the technology used in the Tactical Simulators at the Space Academy.
The Tactical Simulators were a source of great pride to the Academy officials. The simulators trained hundreds of cadets every year — teaching them how to keep their cool under fire and make prudent, often split-second level decisions.
It was no surprise that an entire generation of the cadets called the TacSim building the "Danger Zone" — the simulators created a virtual world so real that it was overwhelming.
Much to the dismay of the cadets and officers who had to undergo simulator training and the concern of the medical corps, the TacSim Training Techs took great pride in surpassing themselves by crafting difficult scenarios that pushed the participants to their limits.
Orensol Occupation, the currently running scenario, was one of the most famous scenarios. Its difficulty was legendary. It had been developed almost a decade ago, but no one had ever managed to beat it.
The scenario, set in the midst of a major land/air battle over the capital of Ornesol, was designed to enhance teamwork and cooperation between wingmen. Its tri-fold goals were deceptively simple. Defend yourself. Defend your wingmates. Defend your world.
Just a normal day in the lives of the Voltron Force, Keith thought wryly, watching Crik's Sea Team run through the scenario from his command post in the Control Room.
Keith winced sympathetically as he saw Tangor's ship caught in the crossfire between a troop carrier and friendly fire from the city's defense system. Smoke blossomed from the side of the ship as it plunged to the ground.
The monitors in the control room shimmered and faded to black. As the last "surviving" member of the Sea Team, Tangor's "crash" signaled the end of the simulation.
The ranking training tech on duty glanced at Keith, "Sir. It will take a few moments to compile the scenario again with the appropriate degree of randomness."
Keith nodded, "Go on the compile. I'll just conduct my post-training evaluation then." He grabbed his data pad and hurried down the black iron staircase to the cruise-stations where Crik and his team sat.
Crik sighed heavily as he climbed out of his cruise station. He watched his teammates, carefully gauging their physical and mental states and saw his own exhaustion mirrored in their faces as well.
The Sea Team had been overwhelmed by the swarm of fighters in the skies of Ornesol and had lost sight of their focus. A wave of guilt washed over him as he realized that he hadn't been able to rally his team. If this had been a real battle...
A sympathetic hand on his shoulder stopped his bitter self-recriminations. "You did all you could. No sense in wasting energy in beating yourself up over it," Keith said quietly, before starting the post-exercise wrap-up.
Crik nodded and perched on the nose of his cruise station. The rest of the sea team took up similar positions and turned their attention to the dark haired captain standing in the middle of the room.
"Your individual scores were well above average for the first part of the scenario, but they started sliding after we added more targets," Keith said.
He held up the data pad. "The computer analysis is here if any of you is interested, but this is the gist of it. You lost sight of the mission objective — to destroy the enemy field headquarters."
Crik's face contorted in a grimace.
"—and you also forgot the most basic tenant of combat flying. Protect your wingman."
"Well, since you know so much, Captain, why don't YOU show us how it's done?" Shannon snapped peevishly. His frustration at being the first ship down lent a sharp edge to his voice.
Keith stared down at his data pad for a brief instant before looking at the hotheaded flyer. His mouth turned up in a characteristic lopsided grin. "You're on, Lieutenant. Let Allura and me show you EXACTLY how it's done."
Cliff's voice, instantly recognizable because of his distinct accent, rang out through the loudspeakers. "Keith, we're ready to roll up here. How are the two of you doing down there?"
Keith glanced at Allura's cruise station to ascertain his wife's readiness. Seeing that she was already strapped in, he sent her an encouraging grin before she disappeared from view as a TacSim trainer lowered the hatch of her cruise station.
"Ready and waiting," Keith asserted, as a thick opaque bubble descended over his own cruise station.
"Okay, Lions. Good hunting." Cliff replied. "Hope you guys do better than we did... Orensol Occupation starting on my mark. Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Mark!"
The air in the cruise stations thickened and grayed and for a second, Allura fought a wave of nausea as her eyes and mind adjusted to the virtual reality state.
She recognized the cockpit of the Blue Lion instantly and marveled at how "real" it was. She could feel the yaw, pitch and roll motions of her lion and hear the noise of her engines.
She automatically adjusted her position, flying a little behind, below and to the left of the Black Lion making sure that she wasn't in the line of fire of any of Keith's weapons.
A glance at the external view in her main control monitor told her that beside her, Keith was doing the same, forming up on her position and giving her a clean line of fire.
A ferocious battle raged around them.
Allura began to check her scopes and gasped in alarm. Flashing lights. "Incoming missiles, Keith!" she cried out, automatically throwing her ship into evasive maneuvers.
Seeing that Keith couldn't evade in time, she twisted her lion into a sharp turn that brought her within firing range and fired her ice ray. The inert missiles fell harmlessly to the ground.
"Thanks, Princess," Keith said, with a quick glance at her before lowering his eyes to the monitors in front of him. "But be careful. Your tail almost got singed there."
Allura just smiled and shook her head, not at all offended by her husband's stern tone. She playfully batted his lion across the nose with the Blue Lion's tail before throwing herself into the fracas again.
Chuckling quietly under his breath, Keith studied his instruments, orienting himself with the situation. He chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully as he concentrated, improvising a workable battle plan.
More enemy fighters appeared in the skies. Corkscrewing tails of projectiles crisscrossed with the hyphens and pulses of laser fire. Explosions blossomed overhead.
Dancing and dodging enemy and friendly fire, the lions held their position in the Ornesol skies for several minutes while Keith formulated their battle plan...
In the control room, the Vehicle Team watched the proceedings in the Ornesol skies from the huge inverted bowl of the control room canopy and by the tracking displays and tactical readout screens.
To the last man, their eyes were wide and their jaws slackened with disbelief. Their expression was mirrored in the faces of the jaded TacSim Training Techs.
"Holy crap," the ranking TacSim broke the silence, voicing out loud the thoughts of everyone else in the room. "They're actually beating the Ornesol scenario. No one has EVER done that before."
The monitors showed a macabre dance of destruction.
The Lions had reached their objective — the floating command center of the invading army and were chopping away it with alternating bursts of weapon fire. The Black Lion would fire short highly controlled bursts of flame at the heavily armored craft and then dart away to provide cover for the Blue Lion as it fired its ice rays.
From their position in the control room, the Vehicle Team couldn't hear the hiss of the compromised seals or the parting of welds and seams but they could imagine them.
Smoke drifted out of the crippled command center. It shuddered once, then twice and then suddenly ceased to be in a blinding explosion of light and color.
Allura smiled up at her husband as he opened the hatch of her cruise station. "How'd we do?" She asked, getting to her feet and pulling off her flight helmet. Tendrils of honey-colored hair escaped from her bun and fell about her face.
Keith didn't need to glance down at his data pad for confirmation. "All things considered, we did pretty well, although we should probably work on our evasive maneuvers more. We had a couple of close calls."
He swept Allura off her feet and set her down outside the cruise station, keeping his hands on her slender waist. A strange emotion glimmered in his dark eyes as he looked down at his wife.
"What is it?" Allura asked with a small smile. She half-expected a prescription for more training when they returned to Arus and prepared her apology to Lance, Pidge and Hunk.
"Nothing." Keith said, shaking his head with a smile that made Allura's heart skip a beat. He reached into the pocket of his flight suit and pulled out a small velvet bag out of his pocket. His heart pounded with nervousness and hope – would Allura like his gift?
Allura gasped with surprise as Keith opened the bag and displayed his gift, a bracelet with a charm fashioned in the shape of the wings worn by Space Explorers. "Oh, Keith," she breathed. "It's beautiful."
"I got it while you were out shopping," Keith grinned self-consciously as he fastened the bracelet around Allura's wrist, his normally nimble fingers fumbling with the dainty clasp. "I hope you like it."
Touched beyond words by his gift, Allura answering smile was like sunshine after the rain. Anchoring her weight on Keith's forearms, she raised herself up on tiptoes and impulsively pressed a soft kiss onto his husband's cheek.
Aching to take his wife into his arms and kiss her breathless, Keith settled for smiling down into Allura's lustrous eyes and tucking a rebellious lock of hair behind her ear. "You made me proud back there, Ally. You really deserve your own pair of wings."
They stared at each other in silence, forgetting about the curious eyes watching them from the control room. Electricity flowed between them and for a brief moment, the world and all its distractions melted away.
The sudden sound of footsteps climbing down the stairway broke the spell. Keith reacted instinctively, as his training and protective nature dictated, settling himself in a defensive position.
He relaxed his battle-ready stance when he saw Lisa standing at the foot of the black iron stairway even though his eyes sharpened with worry and alarm at the set expression on the space explorer's delicate face.
Lisa stood quietly, but she was unconsciously wringing her hands with worry. "Princess?" She said quietly, looking at Allura with concern in her expressive dark eyes. "There's an urgent call for you... It's Lance."
With a grateful smile at the TacSim Training Tech who stood to allow her to sit, Allura settled herself in front of the oversized monitor in the Control Room.
The technician pressed a few buttons and multicolored lines of static appeared on the screen. Lance's face appeared, broken by interference, only to reappear.
Keith studied his best friend's face intently and heaved a sigh of relief to see that he seemed unhurt. Some of his worry lifted at the sight of Castle Control behind Lance — it seemed normal as well.
"Castle Control? Do you read me?" Keith said with a quick glance at the technician manning the communications console. "Can you boost the signal a little? It's fading in and out."
The lines of interference disappeared and Lance's face filled the entire screen. "Hey Princess. Keith." Lance called out as he saw his best friend standing behind Allura.
"Lance. What's wrong? Is everyone okay? Did Lotor attack" Allura asked, worriedly.
"Arus is fine, Princess," Lance threw Allura a quick smile to reassure her, but his dark eyes were lacked their normal deviltry. "For the most part, Lotor's been behaving himself."
Keith raised a sardonic eyebrow. "But something happened."
"If you mean Lotor, then we took care of him." Lance grinned, but Allura couldn't help but notice how his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
"What happened, Lance?" she asked quietly, although her tone made it clear that her words were a demand rather than a question.
Lance's eyes sought out Allura. The sarcasm and humor that normally colored his speech were missing and his voice was unusually gentle. "It's Coran, Princess. He's had another attack."
Allura's eyes darkened with unshed tears and she leaned back against her husband's solid reassuring frame. Her hand blindly reached out for him.
Keith wrapped his arms around her in silent support. "How bad was it?" he asked, filled with apprehension.
"Doctor Gorma said it wasn't as bad as the last attack he had." Lance shrugged carelessly, but his hands told a different story. I worry, he signed briefly, using the sign language they had been taught by the academy. Come back if you can.
Keith nodded gravely and glanced down at Allura's pale worried face with concern. "Noted, Lance. Tell the others that we'll leave immediately and that we'll be there as soon as we can."