Author's Note: So...uh, how about that two year hiatus? Sorry, guys, I burned out.
I don't know how long I can continue to post here, so if you'd like to follow my writing, I'm on AO3 at shadow_djinni, and on Tumblr at shadow-djinni. You'll get writing updates and oneshots and such I don't post here on ffnet if you drop in over there, too.
Anyway, fair warning: this chapter is 8,000 words long.
The broad disc of Olkarion loomed large in the Castle's viewscreens, and Pidge sat up a little straighter in her seat to take it in. Two moons hung in orbit around it, on the opposite side of the planet from their approach, both pale yellow and marbled with clouds, but she only gave them a moment's notice before turning her attention to the planet itself.
It was smaller than Earth, she noted, and mostly ocean, and the atmosphere was dense and foggy, the continents barely visible through it. And so green— most of the landmass had to be covered in trees, with a handful of large bare patches across them, all gleaming metallic in the light of Olkarion's sun. An enormous mountain range, thrusting up to the very limits of the atmosphere, bisected the entire planet. Part of her wondered what sort of geologic forces could possibly have created such a thing. It seemed impossible— probably would have been on Earth.
Shiro cleared his throat from the back of the bridge, snatching her attention, and she spun in her seat to face him. The others did so too— out of the corner of her eye she spotted Lance turning around, Keith folding his arms across the back of his seat, and in front of her Hunk had swivelled, making her lean out to see Shiro past the back of his head.
"I think this is as far as we can take the Castle in," Shiro said. He'd crossed his arms over his chest, and as he spoke he glanced back to where Sendak leaned against the doorway. "The Galra will have some kind of warning system, we won't be able to get past it in a ship this large."
"So you want Coran and I to remain here, and to take Voltron in on your own," Allura said. It was the first time she'd spoken in almost an hour, and her voice was tight. She crossed her arms in turn, shooting Shiro an unhappy look.
Shiro sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose in a way that was becoming familiar. "I wish we could bring the Castle in, Princess. I know we can handle hitting a Galra installation with the Castle for tactical support from orbit, unless another robeast or something like it turns up, and I don't want to get rid of our advantage by letting the Empire know we're here. We'll be in contact, I promise, but it's not worth the risk."
"You had better," Allura huffed, then shot a look over Shiro's shoulder. "And I suppose you'll be taking him in with you, while you leave us behind?"
Sendak scoffed. "And which of us has been to Olkarion?"
"Both of us have, actually!" Coran said brightly, and Pidge's attention snapped back to the front of the bridge, where the Altean had begun fishing in an inner pocket of his coat. He pulled something out with a flourish— a small black cube, no larger than the palm of his hand, laterally bisected by a line of brilliantly green light. It levitated over his outstretched palm as if suspended in zero-G. "On one of our last trips there, one of the Olkari gave me this!"
Pidge couldn't resist the impulse and hopped up out of her seat, joining Coran and leaning in to take a closer look. There wasn't a propulsion system that she could see anywhere, just flat, faintly iridescent black metal and bright green light. Maybe that was what kept it up? No, that didn't seem possible— but then again, if it wasn't, the cube was just casually defying the laws of physics…
God. If she didn't get to meet an Olkari in the next ten minutes, she was going to explode.
"What is that?" Lance asked, from somewhere over her shoulder.
"Um, hello? It's a floating cube!" Coran laughed and straightened, and the cube floated up with him— somehow it stayed level, even without his hand under it. "Ah, this guy. And watch! 'My name is Coran, and I'm a gorgeous man'."
Nothing. And then the green line flashed and brightened, and the cube emitted a series of quick beeps, and then—
"My name is Coran, and I'm a gorgeous man," the cube repeated, in a tinny echo of Coran's voice.
Pidge gasped in delight. She resisted the urge to snatch it out of the air and look it over, circling it instead and bouncing up onto the balls of her toes to look at it more closely, hands hovering just shy of touching it. Maybe she could ask Coran to let her play with it? Obviously she'd be careful, but maybe she could run a couple of scans, try and get a look at the inner mechanisms of the thing— were there inner mechanisms? Maybe it was just solid all the way through? No, a cube of that size would have been heavier than it had looked in Coran's hand before he'd activated it, wouldn't it?
"That...looks familiar, actually," Sendak said. Pidge jumped and spun around— sure enough, the Galra had moved closer, his head tilted and ears alert. "But the last one I saw fired lasers."
"I don't think the Olkari would have weaponized them," Coran said dismissively. "Echo cubes were the playthings of the elite— only the most skilled engineers could construct them."
Pidge's hands tightened into excited fists. "So when do we get to meet them?"
"As soon as we've homed in on the source of the distress signal," Allura said. Pidge glanced back over her shoulder at her, watching the Altean's hands dart across her screens, brows furrowing. "It looks like it's coming from just over the mountain range, near the city…"
"Yeah, that makes sense," Shiro said. "We'll take the Lions in for a closer look, see if we can make contact. Allura, will you keep the Castle in close orbit?"
"So long as you promise to stay in contact over the comms," Allura replied. Her brows had pinched, and her lower lip wobbled slightly before she could hold it firm again. "Don't go dark on me. I don't want to risk losing you all."
"We'll be alright, I promise," Shiro said. "One of us will keep in touch." He broke eye contact with Allura, locking gazes with each of the others in turn, and Pidge resisted the urge to straighten when she met his gaze. Come on, team. Sendak, you ride with me."
And then he turned on his heel and headed for the door, reaching up to clap Sendak on the shoulder as he went. Keith scrambled after him, and Lance and Hunk after him, jockeying for position, and Pidge started to follow when a hand landed on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. Coran's hand. She looked back and met his gaze.
"Take this with you, Number Five," he said brightly, holding out the flying cube to her. "Who knows, it might come in handy down there!"
Pidge hesitated, looking between it and his face uncertainly. The cube had gone dark again, the green band around the middle gone out like it had never existed, nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the cube's face. It looked small and heavy in Coran's palm.
"Are you sure?" she asked. "I mean, it's the last thing you have from the last time you were here—"
"Oh, it's alright," Coran replied. "Perhaps once you and the others have freed the Olkari, they'll make me another one."
He offered the cube again, and this time, Pidge held out her hands, letting Coran drop it into them. The cube was heavier than it looked— denser, somehow. And that kinda made sense— if her theory was right there was a lot of complex material packed into that tiny little block, of course it was heavy—
Oh, right. Olkarion.
"Thanks, Coran," she said, and tucked the cube into one of the pockets on her hip armor. "I'll see if I can bring you back a new one."
Then she turned on her heel, bolting for elevators and down to her hangar. Green was already alert when she entered, crouching with her head level to the ground and jaw open, and Pidge could feel the thrum of the Lion's awareness against her own. She felt eager— impatient really. A flicker of thought crossed Pidge's mind as she slung herself into the pilot's chair, the vague, unfurling impression of Green's mind. The other Lions were already out, circled up beside the Castle of Lions. She patted the controls, urging the Lion up and out of the hangar.
"I know, girl, trust me. I'm excited too," she said.
The Lion rumbled around her in acknowledgement.
The other four were waiting for her when they exited the hangar, Red circling the others impatiently. Anticipation snapped across the bond— Yellow's head had lifted, yellow eye-lights staring directly at her and Green. The others turned towards her too, like someone had announced her, but the comms were quiet until Shiro spoke.
"There you are," he said. "Is everyone ready?"
"Yep," Pidge said, overlapped by the other three on the comms.
"Excellent. Sendak, what's the best route for our approach?" Shiro asked.
"We should come around the dark side of Olkarion to keep the mountains between you and the city during the descent," Sendak answered. "They're full of magnetized hematite deposits, and wreaked havoc on our ground-based sensors while I was stationed here, which will be the largest risk of detection as we enter the atmosphere."
"Then that's how we'll do it," Shiro said.
Black arched at his words, thrusters glowing blue, and pushed off, darting down towards the planet. Red surged after them, and Pidge pressed at the controls, urging Green to follow. The comms went quiet as they descended, but the bond crackled with energy, and Pidge bit her lip. The Lion juddered around her as they breached atmo. She kept her eyes on the line of mountains, watching the reflective spires of the city sink on the other side of them before they vanished entirely, then slumped back in her seat.
"Why can't anyone ever send a distress signal from somewhere like that?" she groaned. "First the Balmera, now this place— are we ever gonna get to rescue, like, an actual city? I'm sick of the outdoors."
"I can't say I'm thrilled to return to Olkarion either," Sendak agreed.
"I kinda like it out here," Keith said, as the Lions levelled out just above the canopy. The leaves rippled below, a rolling wave of green for miles and miles in all directions, to where the forest crashed on the slopes of the mountains. "It's nice. Quiet."
Then something shot past the viewscreens, almost too fast to see.
A second one followed a moment later, and then a third— a hail of brownish streaks shooting up out of the forest. Sendak hissed over the comms, and someone else yelped. Green rumbled in the back of her mind, and then Pidge felt it— a pinprick at her sternum, a tug—
"Uh, what was that?" Hunk asked. His anxiety shuddered through the bond and rebounded.
"Are we under attack?" Keith asked.
"It's the Olkari," Sendak replied grimly. "They take down fighters like this. Hope they ask questions first, rather than shooting."
The pull increased, and Green groaned and shuddered around her, unable to resist the tug towards the surface. They sank into an ocean of green, the vast tree trunks arching above and around them, enormous branches quickly blotting out the sky. The world under the canopy was dim and twilit, green-gold shadows pierced through with brilliant lances of light that shattered on reddish bark. Pidge tightened her grip on the controls, trying to pull up one more time. Green rumbled. Tension seared across the back of her neck in response, and Pidge hissed out a breath and released the controls.
Whatever the Olkari were, they were stronger than her and Green.
The forest floor came into view as they sank below the lowermost branches— almost thirty feet off the ground. No underbrush separated them from the ground, so Pidge could see the welcoming party clearly. Five hunched red-and-green figures, like seed pods with legs, squatted in the clearing, surrounded by dozens of tiny, pale shapes, all of them glowing faintly with blue-green light. The tiny shapes resolved into people as they landed, more roughly than they would have under their own power, small, bipedal forms clad in light-colored cloth. All of them were holding what were unmistakably guns.
"Fuck," said Sendak.
"Hey," Shiro said, a note of warning in his tone.
"Uh, this really doesn't look good, guys," Hunk said. "Like, these Olkari guys don't look like they're happy to see us."
"Everyone, stay calm," Shiro said. "Pidge, you've got the spore, right?"
"Yeah?" Pidge said. Her hand dropped between her knees to the spore's canister, checking that it was still there.
"Great. You can go out first, show them we got their signal," Shiro said. "We don't want to alarm anyone, and that should put them at ease."
"Shiro, are you sure that's safe?" Keith asked.
"Yeah, that really doesn't—" Lance started.
"Enough," Sendak snapped. "Pidge can handle it. Imperial footsoldiers' armor holds up to Olkari blaster fire, it won't even scratch your uniforms."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Pidge said dryly.
"You're welcome," Sendak replied. "I think it's for the best that I stay aboard the Lion for the time being. I doubt any of these Olkari will be happy to see a Galra."
The comms clicked— Shiro engaging the loudspeaker on Black, she guessed— and a moment later his voice echoed across the link and Green's sensors, slightly echoey and overlapped. "We are the Paladins of Voltron," he said, calm and clearly. "We come in peace."
One of the Olkari stepped forward, pulling a hood back from their face to peer up at the Lions. Pidge scrambled up onto her seat, feeling around on the roof of the Lion— there was an emergency exit panel up here somewhere. Her fingers caught on the edge of the latch. The hatch hissed and engaged, retracting into the hull, and she reached up over the edge to haul herself out, spore tube tucked under her arms. She sprang to her feet immediately, waving the tube over her head.
"We found your distress signal!" she called.
The Olkari who had pulled their hood back said something— the translator didn't quite engage in time to pick it up— but the cry went up among the assembled aliens, and the crowd dropped its aggressive posture instantly, gesticulating with excitement. The lead Olkari stepped forward, cupping their hands around their mouth to project their voice.
"Voltron!" they called back. "We are most grateful for your arrival— we feared help would never come! Please, come down; we have much to discuss."
Green purred somewhere in the back of Pidge's mind, and the weird tension across the back of her neck eased. The Lion settled, bowing her head towards the forest floor so Pidge could disembark more easily. The other Lions moved around them, paws shifting to resettle themselves, tails twitching. Her boots touched down on cool, soft earth as the others' mouths opened, letting their Paladins disembark.
The lead Olkari stepped forward to greet them, then stopped. Pidge was close enough to see their eyes dart between them, seeming to take stock as they fell in together. Their forehead creased, brow ridges lifting slightly.
"Where is the sixth?" they asked.
Shiro stiffened. "...The...sixth? There are only five Paladins—"
"Yes, but we detected six life-forms on your ships when we led you down," the Olkari said.
Pidge glanced sideways, watching as Shiro went ashen. The others peered at him too, all wearing various looks of concern, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His right hand twitched a moment.
Then he sighed, and her helmet crackled as he activated the comms. "Sen, you're going to have to come out. They know you're here," he said.
Silence. Then, "Fuck," over the comms, and Pidge watched Shiro's face crease like he'd bitten into a lemon. "Do I have a choice about this?"
"Nope, don't think so," Shiro said.
A sigh. "...I'll be out in a tick."
Black's head lowered again, after a moment, and her jaw opened. The gathered Olkari shifted uncertainly, murmuring. The leader was unarmed, Pidge noted, but their gaze was trained intently on the Lion's open mouth. The darkness in the Lion's throat shifted, and Sendak emerged, stopping halfway down the jaw ramp. He'd removed his breastplate and pauldron, leaving only his boots and gauntlet.
"You!" the lead Olkari snapped. The others, almost as one, brought their guns back up, and a bolt of fear shot down Pidge's spine. "What manner of trap is this?"
"It's not!" Shiro protested, taking a half-step forward. The guns swung around, half of them training on him instead of Sendak. Pidge saw Keith's hand drop to his thigh armor, ready to grab for his bayard.
The lead Olkari glowered at Shiro. "If Voltron is aligned with the Galra, then I assure you, this ends here—"
"Enough!" Sendak said, and strode the rest of the way down the ramp, seemingly ignoring the way the guns snapped towards him. "They're not with the Empire."
"And why should we believe you?" the Olkari demanded. "You, I recognize. You took our planet from us."
"You have no reason to believe me," Sendak replied, coming to a stop a few meters away. He raised his hands, sinking slowly to his knees on the forest floor. "...And you have every right to kill me for what I've done. I cannot deny it, and I make no excuses for myself, nor do I expect that any apology I could offer would suffice. All I ask is that you don't take my actions out on the Paladins. They have nothing to do with my wrongdoings and should not suffer for crimes I committed before they were born."
A murmur rolled through the crowd, the assembled Olkari shifting and speaking quietly amongst themselves. The leader stepped forward, brushing past the Paladins towards the Galra. Sendak waited with preternatural stillness, and Pidge tried to pretend she wasn't on the verge of reaching for her own bayard.
"...This...is not how Galra behave," the lead Olkari said. Their tone contained a note of uncertainty. "No Galra would ever defend another being not of their kind."
Sendak exhaled. "...Some of us would. Some of us...made terrible choices out of desperation when we were young, and want to make amends."
The Olkari waved down the crowd, and Pidge watched as they all lowered their weapons. "What I do not understand is why you chose to return," they said. "You surely know we might yet kill you."
Sendak's ears flicked, and he lifted his chin slightly. Even with him kneeling, his head was nearly level with the Olkari's. "I want to make amends," he repeated. "I serve the Paladins of Voltron now, and I would see General Branko and his forces ousted from your planet." He paused. "...That is, if you will accept it."
Pidge glanced sideways at Shiro, waiting for his reaction. He looked like he might snap at any moment— his right hand, clenched in a fist, glowed faintly magenta. The sight tied her stomach in knots.
The lead Olkari sighed quietly, their shoulders lowering. "...We need Voltron," they said. "And at this point, we will accept any help offered to us."
Pidge let herself breathe a little sigh of relief as Shiro's prosthetic powered down, the pink glow fading back into the usual black and silver. The Olkari took several steps back, then turned to face Shiro again.
"My apologies for the confrontation," they said. "I had not realized you had managed to turn a Galra to your side— we may yet have hope that they can be stopped."
"I'm sorry we weren't open about it," Shiro said, and cast a sidelong glance at Sendak, who had risen to his feet. "Sendak said it probably wasn't a good idea to let you know he was here."
"It wasn't, but perhaps he will confer you an advantage," the Olkari said. They paused, then held out a hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you, regardless. I am Ryner, the matriarch of our council of elders. I lead the Olkari of Cupressa in the absence of our true leader, King Lubos."
Shiro inclined his head, then reached out and clasped her forearm. "I'm Shiro, the Black Paladin of Voltron," he said. The Olkari— Ryner— shook, then released him, and Shiro gestured to Pidge, and then to the others. "This is the rest of my team— Keith, the Red Paladin, Pidge, the Green Paladin, Lance, the Blue Paladin, and Hunk, the Yellow Paladin. And...I guess you've already met Sendak. He's our chief strategist."
"We're acquainted," Sendak said. "The last time we met, as I recall, you tried to blow my head off with a blaster made from a tree branch."
"And it was a near thing, too," Ryner said. "Come. We must make for our city— there is much to do, and little time."
The assembled crowd was beginning to clear off— the nearest Olkari backed away, the seed-pod mechs stooping to allow pilots and passengers entry and wheeling off, marvelously soundless, into the shadows beneath the trees. Only a handful remained, and Pidge studied them closely. All were armed, most with blasters, but the nearest remaining Olkari warrior held a steel-tipped wooden spear instead. All of them looked young, or at least not nearly as wizened as Ryner did, and stood with a posture she was beginning to recognize meant they were more than capable of throwing down. They wore the same cream- and rust-colored tunics, and all had skin in varying shades of green— each almost identical to the others, though she could distinguish a few superficial differences.
The nearest Olkari handed their spear back to Ryner, who planted the butt of it like a walking stick as she struck off in the direction the rest of the crowd had gone. Pidge glanced back over her shoulder at Shiro and raised an eyebrow, waiting for his assessment.
"...I guess we follow them," Shiro said. "Nobody wander off, I don't want to have to track one of you down if you head in the wrong direction." He paused, then shot Sendak a look. "And you, stay right next to me. I don't want you getting shot."
"Oh, you're going to protect me?" Sendak asked, grinning, and padded over to Shiro, hip-checking him gently. Shiro stumbled, then pushed back.
"Yeah, maybe I am," Shiro said.
He was smiling. Pidge squinted at him as he brushed past her with Sendak in tow, following Ryner. His steps seemed...lighter, almost.
Lance and Hunk darted past as well, and Keith fell in beside her when she started after them. She cast him a sideways glance, meeting his dark gaze, and he shrugged slightly and slowed his pace further, letting the others pull ahead.
"So," she started.
"You noticed," Keith said.
"Hard not to," Pidge said, and eyed Shiro's back. He was looking up at Sendak, by the angle of his head, while the Galra gesticulated offhandedly. "They're all over each other."
"You think they're…" Keith paused, then made a vague, circular gesture with his right hand. "You know."
"Didn't Shiro say they were on the training deck last night? They definitely hooked up," Pidge said, and grinned when Keith pulled a face.
"Way too fast," Keith muttered. "He doesn't usually do that."
Pidge snorted. "Raw animal magnetism, I guess."
Keith mumbled something under his breath, but— when Pidge shot a sideways look at him as she scrambled over the first root— his ears had gone red.
The deeper they walked into the forest, the more tightly the trees bunched together, as if clustered against an outside threat. Partially exposed roots thrust up from the soil, arching as high as Pidge's waist— and then higher, leaving her to weave around them. The group bunched up more tightly as well; Ryner and her escort kept to the fore, and the others who had remained behind kept to the rear, a pace or two behind Pidge and Keith. Once again she cursed her lack of height. The boys could clamber easily over the roots, or the fallen branches as large as tree trunks from Earth, and she—
Well. If most of her attention wasn't going into keeping her footing, she would have been mad about it. She slid back to the ground on the other side of the root and looked up at the sound of wood crunching, and nearly groaned in frustration.
The roots ahead were taller, more densely packed. The crunch, as far as she could tell, had been Sendak launching himself up on top of one— he'd scored lines in the side of the bark with his claws. He was kneeling, reaching down to help haul Hunk up onto the top of the root as well. Lance and Shiro waited near the bottom as he scrambled up.
A few yards away from them, Ryner and her escort had paused atop another root. The escort had their arms folded over their chest. Ryner leaned gently on her spear, watching the proceedings.
"They're close enough now that we can walk on top!" Hunk called, once he'd caught his breath.
"Yeah, and tall enough that this is gonna be a pain in the—" Lance began.
Shiro cut him off. "Come on, Lance. We don't have all day."
Lance whined something under his breath, but he stepped forward obligingly as Shiro knelt, arms braced against his knee and hands outstretched. A boot planted in the middle of Shiro's palms. Shiro pushed upwards— and fairly launched Lance up the root, high enough for Sendak to grab him by the forearm and swing him up. Lance whooped as his feet hit the top.
"Alright, Keith, you're up next," Shiro said.
Keith shook his head. "No thanks, I've got it," he said.
He took a couple paces back, nearly to the last root they'd just crossed, then darted forward. He hurled himself airborne a bare step before he hit the root— and slammed into it breastplate-first halfway up. Just high enough for Sendak to catch him by the back of his collar and haul him up onto the root. His ears flattened judgmentally.
"Really, you've got it," the Galra said dryly.
"I thought I had it," Keith muttered, and crossed his arms as Sendak set him down.
"Pidge?" Shiro asked.
"Thanks," she said, but her stomach tied itself in a double knot as she looked at the root. It had to be half again Shiro's height, there was no way—
No, she wasn't going to think about it. Getting splinters in her face from the team wall at summer camp when she was twelve was not gonna stop her from doing this. She took a step back, then sprang forward before she could doubt herself. Her right foot landed in the cradle of Shiro's hands, and he surged upward. She squeezed her eyes shut—
And Sendak's hands closed around her chest, swinging her around til her boots touched the top of the root. She cracked open an eye, peering up— and then scowled at the little smirk tugging the corner of the Galra's mouth.
"What's so funny?" she snapped.
"Oh, nothing," he said. "Only that you should keep your voice down when talking behind someone's back."
Her cheeks went hot, and she took a scrambling step back away from Sendak, who chuffed a laugh and turned back to where Shiro waited.
"Well? Can you make it on your own, or should I come back down for you?" he asked.
"I think I've got it, hang on," Shiro said. He was out of sight from this angle, but he sounded frustrated. "There's not much to hang onto down here."
"I can always—" Sendak started.
Then he made a startled sound in the back of his throat and dropped to his knees, grabbing at something over the side of the root. Pidge could barely see the tips of Shiro's fingers, clasped halfway up his forearm. His other hand dropped out of view, seemingly heedless of his balance, and then—
A handful of things happened at once. Shiro gave a strained-sounding grunt, Sendak shifted his grip on something and popped back to his feet in the same motion, towing Shiro up with him. His free hand caught Shiro by the waist to steady him, and Pidge tried to keep her eyebrows from rising. Their faces were far closer than they really should have been, and as she watched Shiro shifted his grip on Sendak's arm, a little chuckle breaking from him.
"Ahem," Pidge said, and the pair jumped. "You two are gonna get left behind."
Shiro pulled away immediately, his face reddening, and Sendak took his hands back to fold them behind his back. "...Right, right," Shiro said, and slipped past her, after the boys.
Who, fortunately, didn't seem to have noticed.
Pidge fell into step beside Sendak as they started off, grinning up at him. The Galra squinted down at her suspiciously.
"...What are you thinking about, brat?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing," Pidge said, her smile widening. "So, you and Shiro, huh?"
"Be quiet," Sendak said, and cuffed her— surprisingly gently— over the head. "Keep your nose in your own business."
And then he took off, bounding over the roots to catch up with Shiro and the others. Pidge yelled in protest and scrambled after them, activating her jetpack for another burst of speed to keep from being left behind.
Before long, the ground began to even out again, roots sloping easily down to soft, fragrant earth, clear of obstructions— no fallen branches, no twigs. Pidge turned her gaze upward, eyes widening— green lights hung on the trunks and branches above, worked into the trees. She hurried up a little, falling in at Keith's side again. He shot her a sideways look, grinning— the hiking clearly agreed with someone.
Ryner's voice carried back from the front of the party, where she was speaking with Shiro and Sendak. "Only a few of us managed to flee the cities when the invasion force settled in," she was saying. "But our people are resilient. As you see, we've adapted our skills to suit our environment."
They crested a ridge, and Pidge gasped. A city spread out before her, buildings hanging from the bark like growths of fungus on wood, all limned with the green lights— windows, she realized. A thousand catwalks connected them, delicate gossamer strands that seemed to hang weightlessly from tree to tree, linking them all in a complex web.
There were more Olkari here too, she realized. Dozens of their tiny rust-and-cream shapes moved about, crossing catwalks or lingering on arboreal balconies, darting to and fro between the behemoth trunks. More of the seed-pod mechs moved about the understory. A tiny wooden dragonfly— no, a fleet of drones in the shape of them— shot over her head, banking back around as if to inspect the group, and Pidge held up her hand. One of the delicate little drones landed on her knuckles, insectile feet gripping her bracer with surprising strength, then took off again.
"Coran was right," she said, before she could think about it. "You guys really are the most incredible engineers in the universe— I mean, moving from precision machinery to a bunch of sticks?"
Ryner allowed herself to fall back through the group; the boys parted ways to let her through. The Olkari matriarch offered Pidge a smile that looked almost sly. "We've found nature's designs are superior to anything we could design," she said.
Pidge snorted. "No offense, but I'll take my computer over a tree any day."
"Hey, you two can talk science later," Shiro called from up front. "We need to know what we're dealing with if we're going to get rid of the Galra occupation."
Ryner came to a halt, shaking her head. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid," she said, as the others circled up around her. "The Galra have our rightful leader, King Lubos. If you attack, who knows what they'll do to him."
A murmur went up from the surrounding Olkari, their escort who hadn't yet detached themselves; the missing king's name repeated over and over in dozens of hushed voices.
"...Sen, you recognize that name?" Shiro asked, turning to look at Sendak.
Sendak folded his arms over his chest, an ear twitching. "It's not familiar to me," he said. "How long ago was he captured?"
"Three decafeebs," Ryner said. "He led a party near the edge of the forest, seeking to free our people from the city. All were massacred, and he was taken captive."
Sendak's other ear twitched. "...I hate to say this, but unless he's been very useful, every cycle he's spent in custody drops the likelihood of his survival further. I'd be surprised if he's managed to stick around for thirty of them."
"C'mon, Sendak," Hunk protested. "Why'd you have to say something like that, man?"
"Because I am Galra," Sendak retorted, ears flicking— Pidge would bet he'd rolled his eye. "And I know exactly how prisoners usually fare. If he's survived thirty cycles in Branko's custody, it's because he's sold you out."
The latter part was directed at Ryner, whose wizened face creased unhappily. "This is not news I wanted from you."
Sendak opened his mouth to respond, but Shiro held up a hand, silencing him before he could. "Do you think we could do some reconnaissance?" he asked. "Is it safe to get close enough to the tree line to check out what we're dealing with?"
Ryner hesitated, then nodded. "Galra patrols have decreased in recent cycles," she said. "If we are careful, we should be able to get a look at the current state of their defenses. Come, follow me."
She turned on her heel, heading deeper into the grove. Pidge yelped and scrambled after her, the others falling in beside her as they caught up. She found herself between Keith— jockeying with Lance for position— and Sendak on the other side, between her and Shiro for security.
Unlike the rest of their escort, which peeled off as they went, Ryner didn't take to the walkways or head up into the treetops. Instead she turned, leading them away from the center of the Olkari city, out from the skyscraper trunks and open understory. The trees grew closer here, smaller around, the branches lower. Shrubs sprang up around the bases, deep green leaves filtering what little light came down from the canopy, each crowned with a cluster of deep reddish flower buds the length of Pidge's forearm.
There were other Olkari here too, moving through the undergrowth, all wearing the same cream-and-rust tunics the other warriors had worn. Some of them seemed merely to be tending to the plants, but as Pidge watched, one of them placed a hand inside a partially-open flower bud— which closed around their forearm, panels of green light springing up along the length as the bud disconnected from the stem.
"What is this place?" Keith asked.
Ryner came to a stop beside one of the trees, resting a hand on the reddish bark. "This is the armory," she said.
A burst of emerald light sprang up from her hand, travelling in lines up the length of the tree trunk, branching and arching like a lichtenberg figure. As Pidge watched, the light reached a branch and split off, running down to a massive growth on the end of the limb. The growth— seed pod?— lit green as well, shaking and rumbling. It detached itself from the branch, slamming down a couple yards away and throwing clods of dirt in every direction. Pidge yelped, shielding her face, then peeked up over her arm as the seed pod unfurled legs, rising on sturdy trunk-like legs. Part of the casing popped open, revealing a seat, and she gasped in delight as she recognized one of the wooden mechs the greeting party had used.
"Cool," Lance breathed, from somewhere behind her.
"Uh, can I get one of those?" Keith asked.
"Of course, you may each have one," Ryner said.
Pidge turned back towards the Olkari in time to watch another flower bud— not one of the red ones, a pale blue one on a different plant— unfurl itself for her. She plucked a cluster of objects from it and turned back to the group, distributing them.
What she placed in Pidge's hands proved to be a circlet of some sort, pale brown like a dried length of vine. A second length, this one glowing the same green as the rest of the Olkari's technology, curled around it, arching up in a rough diamond shape at what Pidge supposed was supposed to be the center.
Notably, she didn't hand one to Sendak, who didn't seem to expect one— he'd shifted to stand behind Shiro instead, away from the others.
"Now," Ryner said, drawing Pidge's attention again, "the key to operating it is understanding that the nanocellulose responds to electrical impulses in the neural pathways connected through this." She handed the last circlet off to Lance as she said it, then stepped back out of the way.
"Do what, now?" Lance asked, audibly befuddled.
On the other side of him, Hunk sniffed at the circlet, then gave it an experimental lick before raising his head with a grin. "Makes my tongue itchy," he said, and Pidge snorted.
"So this is your interface?" she asked, looking back at Ryner as she settled the circlet onto her head.
Ryner nodded. "Of course, all commands need to come as binary-coded messages," she said.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The circlet was warm on Pidge's brow.
She nodded, then turned, making her way over to the nearest tree. Her mind was whirling— Ryner had said binary, but how was she supposed to be sure the Olkari used binary the same way humans did? Hell, given it was a translation, how could she be sure Ryner meant binary at all? Maybe Olkari had a different coding system. Maybe she wouldn't be able to use it. Maybe—
She shook herself and, before she could second-guess again, laid her hand against the trunk.
"So, like this," she said, and shut her eyes to focus.
Composing code on the fly had always been her strong suit. Most hackers had a repertoire of commands, various viruses and programs ready to upload into computers they wanted into, all saved away on thumb drives for transportation. Pidge had a handful of them herself, tucked safely away on the Castle of Lions, but when push came to shove it was always her and the keyboard, making something new.
Release the pod, she suggested.
The tree rumbled, and before she could even open her eyes another titanic seed pod had crashed to the forest floor beside her. The pod hissed and creaked as the legs unfurled, as the body of the mech opened up. She grinned triumphantly up at it.
"Yes! Excellent!" Ryner called. When Pidge looked up, she had clambered halfway into the pod she herself had loosed, hanging out of the cockpit with an ecstatic look on her face.
"I think mine is just a tree," Lance called. Pidge was unable to resist rolling her eyes.
Ryner hummed, glancing at him momentarily, then turned her attention back to Pidge. "You must have a deep connection with nature," she said, seating herself at the edge of the cockpit.
Pidge swung herself up in turn, dropping into the chair— somehow it was sized exactly right for her, in a way Green's seat wasn't— she sent a mental apology in the Lion's general direction at the thought, receiving a distance-muted rumble in reply. "Not really," she said, turning back towards Ryner. "My allergies and pale skin don't exactly mix with outdoor living."
"Pidge is our resident tech expert," Shiro said, and a moment later he'd swung himself up as well, to perch at the edge of the cockpit much the same way Ryner did on her own mech. Sendak slipped up beside him, silent as a shadow; the mech hardly rocked even with his weight.
"Well, that explains it," Ryner said. She didn't sound displeased in the slightest, quite the opposite. "Like the Olkari, you understand that on the most fundamental level, trees, metal, you and I— are all made of the same cosmic dust, all arranged by the laws of mathematics."
Pidge squinted at her. "...Does this mean I should start gardening?" she asked, trying to ignore Shiro's chuckle. She felt as if she'd missed something.
"It means you're going to need to give your friends a ride," Ryner said, with barely concealed mirth. "Come now. We should hurry, if we're going to dodge their patrols."
None of the others had managed to dislodge a mech, not even Hunk— much to Pidge's surprise. Coding wasn't his strong suit, but he usually managed it; though he didn't look put out at having failed, as he helped Lance up into Ryner's mech. Sendak moved, and this time the pod did rock— he pushed himself to his feet and pulled Shiro the rest of the way in, then settled himself behind Pidge's seat. Shiro settled in on her other side, leaning halfway on her armrest. Pidge squeezed the controls gently, running a half-prepared script, and the pod hissed shut.
They weren't left in darkness, though— the opaque front of the mech lit green and gold, displaying the space around them as if it were empty air. Ryner's mech was closing up as well, leaving her with a glimpse of Keith peering out as the shell closed.
"Ryner, we'll follow you," Shiro called, leaning forward.
"Right," Ryner replied. Her voice was hardly distorted, less so even than the Castle's comms were. "This way."
Ryner's mech turned, darting off through the undergrowth. Pidge gave a startled yelp and pushed at the levers on either side of her, as she would have done to urge Green forward. The mech lurched, then steadied, gliding swiftly after Ryner's. She caught up quickly, moving the levers exactly as she would have Green's controls to guide them. She could see the unevenness of the terrain under the feet, but hardly felt the jostle in the cockpit.
"I gotta say, these are nice," Shiro said appreciatively. His elbow nudged up onto Pidge's armrest, and she let him lounge rather than elbowing him off like she would have done Lance. "Makes me wish I'd learned how to code."
"I have to agree," Sendak said from her other side. He leaned up a little, letting her catch the flash of a golden eye, a faint hint of a fanged grin. "You should see exactly how maneuverable this pod is. Give her a proper spin."
"Maybe later," Pidge said.
She immediately yanked the controls, dodging around a downed tree limb and earning an excited whoop from Shiro. He sat up a little straighter, chuckling, and Pidge grinned back and tugged the controls again, bobbing and weaving around another tree. Sendak laughed in obvious delight from her other side. Pidge's grin widened.
Before long, though, the trees began to thin. Walls of rock rose around them— moving through a pass in the mountains, she guessed. They emerged on the other side into even thinner, scrubbier trees, and here Ryner's mech slowed from breakneck to something more reasonable. Then, abruptly, they emerged onto an outcropping above the treeline, and Ryner's mech came to a halt. Pidge pulled up beside her— and gasped.
The outcrop overlooked the city they'd glimpsed from space. Walls and high buildings of shining pale metal rose from a stretch of bare earth, around which no trees grew— though she caught a glimpse of hewed stumps, as if the woods had been cut back for the citadel to breathe. The tallest spires at the center, though, those were different, columns of dark steel with violet light interspersed across their faces, surrounding another pale building Galra construction grew on the face of. Pidge's stomach lurched a little— it was like the Olkari city in the woods, and not in a good way.
Sendak hummed beside her. "...They've cleared more of the forest since I was last here," he said. "And I don't remember the walls being quite so tall."
"You're correct," Ryner said over the comms. "Over the last six decafeebs, they've rendered this place impenetrable from the ground. Their army of drones is extensive, and as far as we can tell, they've mounted defensive turrets on the outer walls to fend off a ground assault. The only way in is through an opening in the roof, up here. It goes all the way down to an open courtyard at the base."
A green box lit on Pidge's viewscreen, highlighting the flat top of the tallest spire.
"Quite a drop," Keith said.
"Yes, but from there you will have total access to the building," Ryner said. "The most difficult part would be getting to the roof undetected."
"That won't be a problem," Shiro said, shooting Pidge a sidelong look. She grinned back at him in reply, pleased— Green's cloak would let them in again.
"...Uh, hey, what's that? Is that part of the building?" Hunk asked. Another green box lit up, highlighting an odd, square-shaped building near the base of the spire.
"By Lubos, it can't be," Ryner said.
Pidge squinted, peering more closely at it. "That…looks like the echo cube Coran gave me," she said, pulling it from her pocket and loosing it to float in the air.
"It's been many decafeebs since we've had the resources to build one of those," Ryner said. "But this...only King Lubos could have designed one of this size."
Sendak scoffed quietly, then yelped as Shiro reached behind the chair to swat at him.
"Behave," Shiro muttered. Pidge couldn't help but snicker.
"Why would he do that?" Keith asked.
"They must have forced him to reveal his designs, and reconstruct them as a large-scale weapon," Ryner said. "From the looks of it, I'd say it's almost finished."
Pidge's chair jolted as Shiro swatted Sendak again, hissing at the Galra— who wore a decidedly triumphant expression— to shut his mouth. Pidge reached out herself, swatting both of them. Shiro grimaced at her, then straightened a little.
"...Alright then, I think we've seen enough," he said. "...Sen? What do you think?"
"I think I dislike the look of that cube," Sendak deadpanned. "If I know Branko, he's attempting something grandiose and ridiculous, and preventing that thing from coming online must be our highest priority." He scowled, leaning forward. "Ryner, do you have an estimate as to how many of your people are held inside that base at this moment?"
"I do not, but it must be several hundred," she answered after a moment. "Perhaps more, perhaps fewer, depending on how many the Galra have killed or overworked to death."
Sendak hummed. "...And Branko left it right out in the open. He seems very confident in his control of his airspace," he said, all but purring. "I would like to break that confidence...the difficulty will be in diverting his forces from the strike teams once inside, so they aren't overwhelmed."
"Wait, hang on," Lance said. "Did you say teams? Like, plural?"
"I did," Sendak said. He glanced up at Pidge, then back at the viewscreen. "...Let's get back out of range, before we discuss this more openly. No matter how secure our channel is, I don't want that lout to overhear what we're planning."