Chapter thirteen: Plans Gone Wrong!
Shiro groaned in finding the strength to stand, a hand to his, now aching, midsection; and the other to the wall next to him. A flash of his wrist band and Pidge's face popped up.
"Shiro,.. Shiro, can you hear me?" The screen slightly flickered, then remained clear as.
"Yes.." Shiro breathed. "But we need to hurry,.. Wayde's back, and he's got Kimberly."
"We know.. We saw the whole thing. We've hacked into the system to get a feed, but we can't override the lockdown, yet. You're the only one trapped in there with him. You need to get to your Paladin armor to protect you from those hits,.. it's likely you've already knocked some ribs loose with that blow."
"I agree on that, but there's gotta be a better way to do this,.." Shiro concurred, turning around to take off gingerly; down the corridor straight ahead of him now. "At this point, Wayde's got me running through here, like a mouse in a maze. He's leading me right into,.. whatever trap he's set for me."
"We know.. and Kimberly must be the bait. He's trying to lure you in, which means you should not follow him. There's gotta be a way to hack the system to drop the lockdown." Shiro ducked around a corner and flattened himself against the wall, as two of Wayde's robots stomped by the intersection he'd come from a short distance back.
"Wayde's totally lost himself in all this.." Shiro's lowered voice stated. "If we wanna take him down,.. we have to play it smart."
"I agree, but we also need to keep you safe. Realize, you're supposed to be getting married in a couple weeks. And I imagine you'd wanna be in one piece for that. I'm sending in Keith and the space wolf to get you to your Paladin armor fast." Pidge decided, tapping at her computer keys again. "And then we'll use it to phase you out of there."
"No.. we need to take Wayde down now." Shiro insisted, making it to another corner. "The longer he holds possession of the Garrison,.. the more time he has to do whatever he sees fit to Kimberly, and whatever else he chooses to do. He could gain access to anything he wants within the system. Even things he's not authorized to access. We need to stop him before that happens."
"Roger that.. I'm on it." Pidge then turned back to her father. "Dad, do you have your datapad with you?"
"Of course I do, I always do." Sam replied easily. The Green Paladin then looked back down to the screen.
"Ok, I'm sending Keith and Matt in." She said, beginning to type once more.
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A burst of light and Keith, Matt and Cosmo appeared inside the Garrison halls. Looking to their right in a collectively composed kneel, they rose quietly and jogged down the empty corridor; wishing they could somehow mask the echoing sound of their footsteps, that demanded their presence to whoever might still be around to hear them. Stopping at a corner to wait for a robot to patrol on by, Keith waited a moment to peer around the corner.
"Where is he?" Keith whispered, into the com in his Voltron helmet.
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Pidge's fingers worked across the keys to find the screen.
"There!" She gasped finally. "Across from the lieutenant's commissary."
xxxx
Shiro raced down the hall past the large glass windows, meeting up with Keith and Matt at the intersection that T-boned his position directly.
"Shiro.." Keith addressed his friend.
"There's no time, we need to keep moving.. those drones are hunting for me now. We need to get to the office wing. My armor is kept in a locker in my office."
"Got it." Keith nodded.
"Meanwhile I'll start to figure out if I can jam the system, so Pidge can let down the lockdown." Matt said, putting up a thumbs up to them before sneaking off behind himself alone. Keith set a hand on Cosmo's back, Shiro knelt down to do the same; and they were gone in a flash.
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Entering the room and opening a cabinet, there was revealed to be.. Shiro's Black Paladin armor; fashioned slightly different with his admiral rank embroidered on the black shoulders. A noise drew their eyes up, Shiro standing before the open cabinet and Keith and Cosmo at the door back to his right.
"Shiro,.. we've got incoming.." Keith whispered, holding his sword in his left hand between him and the space wolf. "Two o'clock far and counting." And to that.. Shiro reached for his suit of armor.
XXXX
"Pidge, Shiro's good." Keith reported softly over the com link.
"Roger that,.. still working on a game plan here." The Green Paladin responded. "Hang tight."
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Keith looked up, as soon as another sound answered the silence much closer. Motion drew his eyes over to his left, as Shiro knelt on the other side of the door with him. The sound seemed to die away and they advanced out into the corridor; only to be met with syncing blasters and metallic hostiles blocking both directions of escape. Keith and Shiro, with Cosmo between them paced back toward one another; each staring at the group of bots seeking to end their sneak-around. Touching a hand down without breaking their gaze, Cosmo flashed them away to end up right on the outside of the two or three bot barricade. Dashing away from them, their pursuit clattered in echoing footsteps behind them; coming up with more seemingly in every corner.
"Keith, go." Shiro instructed. "It's me they're after.. you can still escape while there's enough of them to give you an exit."
"Are you crazy?! I am not leaving you here." Touching him and the wolf, they flashed away again. Appearing in the dark hallways just outside the door to the office wing, they remained knelt quietly for a moment longer; to avoid any form of detection.
"We're not abandoning you, when Wayde's clearly out to get you." Keith told him, standing up to pace toward the older man forwardly.
"I'm not gonna risk you or anyone else to be caught in the middle of this." Shiro returned firmly. "This issue is between Wayde, and me. I won't let him cause anyone else to suffer because of.. whatever type of grudge he holds against me." Shiro walked past Keith, so that now they were on opposite sides of where they'd first ended up.
"Except for you've forgotten one thing.." Keith countered, following his gaze around at him. "If someone messes with one part of the team.. they mess with us all. You taught us that. We're a team.. and a team always does things together; even faces a personal problem together.
"This is different." Shiro replied, his eyes firm and serious.
"Not really." Keith shot back, as the two men stood before one another in the center of the hallway fork. "We handled all of our enemies together.. and even though Wayde is no Galra Emperor or crazed Altean witch.. but he's still become our enemy. And I wanna help take him down.. once and for all." A zap of golden light shot between them and they jumped back quickly. Looking to the only path beside them, which was on their right; more blaster fire came their way, and they had to dive opposite ways to avoid it. Each landing out of a mid-air leap into a somersault, Keith immediately looked up.
"Shiro!" His voice rasped.
"Just go!" Shiro called back, as a robot grabbed his wrist from behind, wrenching it back against his back; which he bashed his head back into its face, for it to let him go so he could plunge it into another. "We'll have to meet up somewhere else where it's safe. Get out of here, now!" Standing there, Keith stared; soon finding it to be a mistake, when the breath was knocked out of him and his arm flared in an inferno pain he could almost die from feeling. Grimacing against the cold floor and wall at his back, his remained paralyzed by the blow he'd just received; Shiro's voice called his name, but then faded away, then suddenly silence was bliss with nothing more than a fiery demon attacking his field of vision.
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Pidge kept typing away, then looked up from her computer. "Dad, is Matt in position?"
"Negative.. he's still working on it." Sam replied, turning from his data pad.
"If we can't get that lockdown shield to go down I'm gonna have to get Keith to yank Shiro out of there." Pidge began again. "He's the one Wayde's really after.. not Kimberly."
"And if he does get a hold of Shiro? Then what?" Lance questioned unsurely.
"I don't know.. but that's why we need to get him out of there." Pidge replied certainly. FLASH! Keith gasped for breath, rolling off his side and onto his back unwillingly; free arm laid flat to the ground lying stretched out from his body.
"Keith! What happened?! Where's Shiro? What's going on in there?!" Pidge's questions didn't seem to sink into the Red Paladin, but since she was now close enough to see him, she could tell it had.
"Shiro..'s.. still in there." Keith gasped finally. "I'm goin' back in!"
"Absolutely not." Veronica immediately declined, taking his shoulder to stop his attempt to rise from the ground from a one-legged kneel. "You're more hurt than when you went in.. it's too dangerous. We need to send someone, who's not injured, in after him."
"Veronica's right." Said another voice that drew their eyes up behind her. "I'm going in." Axca finished standing there in a posture of determination and decidedness.
"What?..Bu-"
"No one with an injury like yours should be going in there." Axca cut him off. "Especially you.. I can handle this… you trust me,.. don't you?" Keith's eyebrows furrowed.
"Of course I do.." He breathed understandingly.
"Then I'm going." Axca decided once more.
"Guys?.. What's going on here?" Turning around, they were shocked by the blonde hair and blue eyes that met their confused gazes.
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Panting hard by now, his feet echoed across the floors of the empty hallways; no sign of pursuit behind him by now. Shiro screeched 'round a corner and took off down the new corridor; changing the scenery only slightly. Gotta keep moving! Racing on, he was soon stopped by the opening of doors.
"Welcome." Said a voice, from the chair turned away from him; directly forward from his position. The chair then swung around and there he sat. In a bit of rage Shiro paced forward into the room.
"Where's Kimberly?" Shiro demanded, seeing that there was no sign of her.
"*scoffs* please.. did you really think I'd threaten her for you?" Wayde sniffed. The door slammed closed behind him, and Shiro tilted his range of hearing back toward it; sensing the presences taking up spaces behind him. Then, jolting his sharp vision up again, Wayde was on his feet pacing toward him. "I don't need real bait to draw you out." Wayde commented sinisterly, lunging into a pounding run toward Shiro. Wayde leapt up from the slightly raised platform, seeming to come down on him in slow motion; because Shiro caught his attack with ease against his right arm.
"Shiro! Abort the mission.. Now!" Keith's voice cracked in his ear through the com. Wayde's lip curled up in a smile, then suddenly Shiro was flown through the air to hit the hard surface of a wall; and tumbling down off the control panel just below him. Looking up in time, his eyes flashed and he dove away to avoid the crash that followed.
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"Shiro?!" Keith cried at hearing a muffled crash.
"What is going on here? Who ordered a lockdown? And what is the evact for?" Kimberly wondered innocently.
"No one.." Keith answered hauntedly. "Wayde used you to get Shiro alone, by impersonating commander Iverson and initiating the evacuation and lockdown sequence. He somehow had Shiro knocked out long enough to be the only one left inside the Garrison."
"Kimmie!" Evelyn cried wrapping her daughter in a hug. "Oh thank goodness you're alright!
"Of course I am. Wait.. what are you talking about?" Kimberly wondered, turning back to Keith from her family's embrace. "I thought he was to be evacted with everyone else?"
"He was.." Sam confirmed. "But he must've somehow rigged the system to put everyone off protocol and onto a false one."
"So he's still in there?!" Kimberly gasped.
"I'm afraid so.." Sam confirmed unfortunately.
"No!" She breathed, looking back up at the Garrison distraughtly.
Hey you guys, what up?! So this chapter was incredibly hard to orchestrate, but; TA DA! I did it! Anyway, I hope you can follow all that happens here and I hope you like it. Coming upon the final stretch of the plot though, so here we go! Can't wait to see what you guys think of the ending. Enjoy! Thx!