Chapter 55 - Lost In Space

Week 1

Shiro stood in front of his team, arms crossed. "Alright, team. I know we went over this yesterday, but it's crucial that we execute this perfectly. What happens first."

"Allura, Matt, and I jetpack into the planet's main stations, and we work to disable their security systems." Pidge adjusted her glasses. "I'll quickly run their history through my systems and see if I can get any intel on their planet that can help us out, as well as reactivate any defense systems that the Galra may have disabled."

"Thank you, next?"

"You and I head down to the surface and try to draw the fight to the sky. If there's any big cruisers that follow us, we'll need to take out their main cannons so the majority of our fleet can fly in without resistance." Keith looked like he was itching to get in a cockpit again.

"And then?"

Hunk raised his hand. "It's me, I'm next. I'll meet you and Keith down on the surface with the rest of the fleet and fight off anybody else. And then you and Keith are gonna head inside and tell those bad guys to surrender or join. Surrender and join. That's an important conjunction, heh." He smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. "But that's your part. So."

"Thanks, Hunk." Shiro put his hands on his hips. "We've been scouting this planet for a week now. It'll be a win, but don't let it get out of hand. Stick to the plan." He put his hand on a console, the screens lighting up. He motioned to Hunk, who took his place. "Get to your stations. We're moving in."

N

"Pidge! What are you doing?"

"I'm getting the system open."

"That's not how you do it!"

"Yes it is. I've been working with systems like this for three years now. I think I'd know how to use them. You've been dead."

Matt put his hand on his heart. "That's just hurtful. I've been working with them too, you know. You need to-"

"Guys!" Shiro's voice came through the coms. "We're about to move in. Are the defences down?"

Allura touched her ear. "We're almost there, if these two would do their jobs instead of bickering constantly."

"Hurry up. I don't want to get in there and have to deal with that. We don't want anyone to get hurt."

N

"Keith! You're flying outside the border."

"I'm fine." He kept his eyes focused on his target, thumb hovering over the button.

"You're right in the line of their fire!"

"I was the best pilot at the Garrison, and I'm the best pilot out here." He blasted through a cruiser, and it exploded into oblivion. He sharply turned to the left and nosedived back to the planet, ignoring the fire outside his cockpit. "See? I had it. Let's get down and finish this."

N

Shiro stepped into the back, where the team sat. They cleaned weapons, chatted absentmindedly, or stared off into space. "Good work out there today. We had no casualties, and the planet has decided to join the Coalition. Even some of the Galra sympathized with our fight and gave us intel on where we might find other generals, like Sendak. Apparently, he's been seen nearby."

"I was speaking to some of the people. Apparently, they've only been in bondage about a hundred years. This was one of the most recent planets Zarkon conquered before being overthrown by Voltron."

Pidge sipped a juice box. "Speaking of Voltron, this would be a lot easier if they were here."

Shiro nodded. "We can contact them and see if they've defeated Haggar. If so, we might be able to team up and free planets together. Princess, do you still have a map of all the planets that are still occupied?"

She shook her head. "Unfortunately, that information is securely stored in the Castle of Lions. However, I can work with the rebels to recreate an accurate map, so we may more easily plot our course of attack."

"Do that." He looked out into the black space, speeding by at their highest speed. "Get some rest. We'll be working on a new planet next week."

Week 2

Shiro stood at the window, eyes closed. "I didn't sign up for this," he told himself, knowing full well he signed up to be a dad the second he agreed to teach at the Garrison. He opened one eye, glancing at his computer screen. "It's only a couple dobashes after. They probably just slept in. Not that they've all been getting up early for three years and should have been here by now."

The door opened, and Keith nonchalantly walked in, followed by Hunk, who still shoved his foot in a shoe. "I'm sorry I'm late, I slept in and didn't feel like getting up, and then when I was up I was really tired and felt like I couldn't move my muscles. It was pretty bad but I'm here now!" He stood with his hands on his hips, eyes scanning the room. "Where's everybody else?"

"Late." Shiro leaned on the console, crossing his arms. "If we get too late of a start, we'll have to try again tomorrow. This planet's solar movements are faster than Earth's, and we can't afford to attack when it's light."

"So we can do it tomorrow. So what?" Keith helped himself to a bagel that most certainly didn't have his name on it. He took a big bite out of it. "The plan's the same, right? We had it down pat last time."

"Yeah, except for your little stunt with the cruiser."

Keith looked out the window. "I don't see it."

"You had orders to stick to."

"And I made a decision that my gut was a bit more dependable than that," he sassed, immediately scowling at the ground. Stop it. It's Shiro. He's your brother. Quit. "And we won," he said to himself, quietly. "It's justified."

If Shiro heard, he made a decision to drop it. "I'm going to check on everyone else. This is unacceptable. Thank you both for being here on time." Though his tone indicated he wasn't much grateful.

N

The battle ended as the sun reached its full peak. Shiro stayed behind for a bit to help clean up the wreckage. Of course, the residents were more than grateful. Finally free, they felt like holding a festival to commemorate the victory and thank the selfless rebels. Simultaneously, they felt like screaming out in pain, for a beloved city had fallen. Brothers and sisters lost in the rubble, the Galra taking precious lives to the grave as their Empire fell to its knees. They cried as they pulled bodies out of the wreckage, side by side with the disgruntled warriors who seemed like they'd be elsewhere if they had no honor.

Keith pulled off his gloves, tossing them in the laundry pile. Hunk carefully placed his headband on top. "Hey, whoever does laundry, make sure to wash my lucky headband carefully? I've had it for a while, and it's just the one thing that I have from home."

"Why don't you just wash it yourself?" Keith asked.

"If someone's already washing stuff, I figure I can just add onto it."

"That's my laundry pile," Pidge snapped. "Don't add to it. I'm not washing your stupid fingerless gloves, Keith. They're not even plausible. Why do you even have them?"

He scowled and pulled them back on. "Aesthetic."

"Quite a big word, Keith." Allura lifted her head. "I didn't know your brain could process that much information."

"Oh, boy," Hunk whispered under his breath.

Keith turned, hand out. "You're really gonna bring this up? I did my job. I can't help it if there were casualties."

"Perhaps you cannot relate due to the fact that you have not lost anything of importance," she snapped, "but I have lost my entire planet, and I know the pain and scars it inflicts. You cannot expect these people to simply recover as if nothing has happened, especially when it is due to your actions."

"It worked last time!"

"You should've stuck to the plan," Allura retorted. "We have one for a reason."

"If you don't-" Keith rushed forward.

"Hey, hey now!" Hunk lifted Keith off the ground and carried him out the door. "That's enough for now, Matt!" The Holt moved to calm Allura, who looked quite ready to throw down with Keith. "Okay then. That's enough." He put Keith down, who hadn't struggled since being picked up. His cheeks glowed red, but he shook his head and returned back to normal. "Alright. That's enough."

"She's being irrational." He crossed his arms and looked out the window, blowing his puff of hair out of his face. "I didn't know that was going to happen."

"We're all just a bit low on an emotional support system. She doesn't really feel that way. And if she does, she'll just have to get over it. We've been taking casualties since we started. It's war."

"I don't need an emotional support system. I haven't had Lance for a couple years."

Hunk smiled. "I didn't even say Lance, and you're already there."

Keith blushed again. "He was always there for me."

"Yeah, he was. We could probably call him right now, and he'd be totally on board to come out here and give us all hugs. But that's not really on the table right now."

"I don't know how he does it." Keith sat on the windowsill. "Stay sane."

Hunk glanced at him. "We were roommates at the Garrison, and he was like that, only more out there, y'know? I didn't get it. He took meds for depression, so I didn't get how he could be so happy."

Keith lifted his head. "Lance was depressed?"

"Clinical depression, yeah. I think after he was in the pod the first time, back on Eros, it healed his brain, which was good. But, point is, he knows what it's like to not be able to control his own emotions, to not be happy. He knows how to talk people through emotional breakdowns."

"And he figured that all out on his own?"

"He and Ronnie." Keith tilted his head. "Big sister, by two years. She's super cool. Awesome chef, engineer. Anyway, they're both brilliant when it comes to emotions. They taught be a lot about people." He nudged Keith's shoulder. "You're learning, too."

"Guess being a Galra makes sense, why I wasn't ever the social butterfly."

"It's chill." Hunk stood. "I'm gonna go down and help Shiro out with cleanup. You wanna come?"

He shook his head. "I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."

Week 3

Shiro decided a break from planet saving would be a welcome thing after the last bittersweet victory. They stopped at a small base on a windy forest planet, pockets of biting sandstorms in open plains. The base patrolled a nearby planet occupied by the Galra, right on the other side of an asteroid belt they didn't dare cross. Shiro promised them they'd free the planet, they just needed a week to refuel their ships, charge their electronics, refill their supplies. Rebuild their morale and purpose for fighting. Luckily, the rebels on the base were quite kind and open to the former paladins of Voltron.

Pidge held back in the ship, making sure all her instruments (and her game system) were plugged in and ready to go. The power would surge in soon, and the consoles would rise with life once more, not needing to be recharged for another two weeks.

She tapped a screen absentmindedly as they began to receive charge. A light flickered on and off, and she leaned forward. "A transmission?" But as she went to click on it, it disappeared. "That's...broken." She took her hands off it. "I didn't break it." She stepped back. "Shiro should know about this. Not that he'd care, because he doesn't listen to any of us anyway. Not that anyone except me has anything good to say."

She paused by the door. "Why is he like this? I'm his best asset on the team, and he doesn't ever bring it up or give me a bit of the credit. It's all for the cause or his doing, never me or anyone else. Why am I even here? I could be doing so much more for me and the universe if I wasn't here. I should be back on Earth, helping dad out with Earth. But I'm here with a bunch of ungrateful idiots who don't know how to fix a stupid broken transmission."

Her cheeks burned as her eyes followed back to the lit console. "Fix it yourselves," she snapped at no one in particular and stormed off the ship.

N

Keith practiced his swings out in the forest, jumping off fallen trunks and small hills. He practiced various swings and defences. From behind, he could hear Shiro's arm power up, and he dodged it easily. Yet Shiro smiled, and Keith did, too. This was going to be fun.

They fought together for a couple minutes, Shiro memorizing Keith's defensive strategy. They stopped only when they came to a crossroads of weapons from which neither of them could win. They stopped and put down their weapons.

Shiro tossed Keith a water bottle. "You're slowing down."

"At least I'm not as old as you," he teased.

They drank in silence for a couple moments. "You miss Lance."

"Did you hear me and Hunk?"

He shook his head. "But he's too important to the team. If any of us tried to create a team like he did, we wouldn't be able to. We're not that intuitive into the soul."

"But if he tried to teach someone how to use a sword, it'd be a mess."

Shiro nodded. "We've all got strengths, but we can't do without him. We'll see if we can team up with him. Meanwhile, you should talk to Allura."

"She's being irrational."

"She's hurt." Shiro took another drink and stood. "I'll talk to her first, make sure she's not gonna come at you."

Keith struggled to respond. "Th-thanks."

N

"I don't understand why he would do such a thing! We've discussed the plan for liberating planets hundreds of times. It's how we spent the days before moving into the planet's atmosphere, and it worked the first time. If he had slowed down and stuck to the plan, that city might still be standing." Allura clenched her fist, refusing with all her being to attack Shiro out of frustration. "He left the team and came back as a one man standing. He doesn't understand what it means to be a part of a team."

"Allura, Keith isn't like that."

"And now you're just defending him! It's like you can't even see that he made a mistake, and you and everyone else are so unwilling to admit that something might be wrong with his actions."

"Something might be wrong overall, but we can't let that stand in our way."

"Don't-don't. I don't want to listen to some inspirational speech. I don't want to work with him if he isn't going to follow orders."

"Mine or yours?"

She squinted at him for a moment, then turned with a huff out of the room. He crossed his arms and mumbled a disgruntled "kids" under his breath.

N

"So what's up with the asteroid field? Anything we should know about?"

The commander of the base showed Hunk some scans. "There are strange quintessal readings from inside the field. We do not know if they are deadly or simply strange. However, we cannot risk the few resources we have to embark on such a journey. If it destroyed our ship, we would be left with nothing and no way to get back."

"That makes sense. Well, we'll be the guinea pigs." Hunk leaned into the screen. "What's this blob here?"

"That's a quintessal reading. A strange one...different from the asteroid field."

"But that's where we are."

The commander squinted. "Indeed it is. Another mystery to solve."

Week 4

They flew into the asteroid belt surrounding the planet, quite small alongside the huge boulders that floated around space. Pidge and Matt stood at the consoles, so the others awkwardly stood along the walls with crossed arms and waited for orders. Shiro gave none.

Pidge lifted her head. "It's quintessence."

"I told you it was," Hunk sighed.

"Which I did and still do think is crazy. Do you really think I'd go off your word instead of my own eyes?" She didn't look up to see his fallen gaze. "I don't really think it's that great of a thing to do. We've been through some crazy stuff, but we don't have Voltron."

"We don't need Voltron," Allura said, stepping up to a console, in Shiro's line of sight. "We cannot be too dependent on Voltron. If we call them every time we are stuck in a situation, we would do better to just stay with them."

"Maybe that's not a bad idea," Keith argued.

They looked at Shiro. He looked at Pidge. "Contact Voltron. See if they can come out. Even if they can't, it'd be good to get readings from the Castle's systems."

Pidge kept her head high. "We can't."

"Why not?"

"The transmission is broken."

"What-why did you fix it?"

Hunk moved forward. "Why didn't you tell me? That's my gig."

"Because we don't need help." Without blinking an eye, she took control of the aircraft and flew straight into the asteroid field. "We don't need Voltron, we don't need Lance, and I don't need any of you! I'll just do it myself."

"Pidge!" Allura exclaimed. "We do not act like this."

"You're not my mom!"

"And isn't this what you wanted?" Keith interjected. "You wanted us to just stay out of Voltron's business, but the second you're not needed anymore, oh, things are different."

"Shut your mouth, Galra. You are the true enemy here."

They drew their weapons simultaneously and engaged. Keith pushed Allura back with his blade, but she drew her Altean whip and fought back. Shiro and Matt jumped up, trying to step between them with their own weapons, but the two aliens wouldn't stop.

Hunk looked around the room in disbelief. He jumped up and pushed Pidge away from the controls, and the ship spiraled out of control. It smashed into an asteroid, bright white lights emitting from the center. The ship's controls went dark, the red glow of the backup power coming from behind.

Up ahead, they could see the other rebel ships safely navigating through.

"Stop it!" Allura shouted.

"You think you can just be the boss here? Shiro's in charge. You're just a pawn."

She lunged at him again.

Pidge slowly regained herself, squinting to see Hunk frantically piecing together the transmission. "Don't you dare!" She screamed. "I'll never speak to you again."

The transmission lit to life, and a voice came through. They all froze.

"V3 to V2. V3...to V2. Come in."

"It's Caden!" Hunk shouted.

"Oh, this is a message. No matter." He cleared his throat. "We are at a plateau in the sixteenth quadrant researching some strange metal, and we've found something quite interesting. The metal Haggar used to broadcast her signal at the gala is the same metal found in gladiator's...adjustments, when that was still a thing. In Shiro's arm. So, she might have used his arm to get inside. We'll let you know when we have more information on it."

The recording cut, and a second began.

"I have a bit more information. The metal has been surrounded by quintessence and is quite infused with the stuff. If she's spent a significant amount of time with it, or any druid, for that matter, she may be able to control it somewhat, the metal, to some extent. I'll call back when I have more information."

"This is ridiculous," Pidge grumbled. "What an idiot."

"Shh."

A third started. "Listen, you need to do something about Shiro's arm. I think she's learned to control this metal a lot more than we thought. She could move it from any distance, control actions, electrical systems, the quintessence of entire planets, maybe even other people. I'm talking actions, words, even emotions. You need to get rid of that thing."

The message cut out. No more.

They all stared at Shiro. He stared at them with wide eyes. "What are you waiting for? Cut it off!"

Keith gripped his sword and rushed forward, suddenly blasted off by an unknown source. He looked up to see Allura, whip around his ankle. "What are you doing? We have to get rid of it!"

"I didn't do anything!"

Hunk moved forward, stopped by a screaming Matt. Pidge stayed curled up in a ball, shaking on the floor. Shiro looked down at his hand, shaking violently. "You've been controlling us this whole time." He scowled, looking around for a piece of shrapnel. "No more."

He waited until Keith lunged at him, wrenching the sword out of Keith's hand. "You don't own me!" With one swoop, he cut off his metal arm and watched it fall to the floor. He yeeted it into the exit and opened the doors. It spiraled into space.

He fell to the floor as the rest snapped out of a stupor. They looked up to see unfamiliar constellations and a sick looking purple planet. "I've never seen that before," Hunk told them. "Where are we?"

Matt looked around at their battered ship and shuddered. "We're messing with things we don't understand. Only Haggar really has any idea as to how quintessence works. We could be anywhere in the universe, or another reality, for all we know."

"Not another reality." Pidge hid her face.

Shiro stood, making his way back to the overlook of the ship. "Let's land on that planet and rest. Tomorrow, we'll figure out where we are and how to get home." In a moment, they went to work to get on the purple planet. He looked up and sighed. "Here we are again."