Presenting… The New Guard
A Voltron: Legendary Defender story at the request of gabeherndon308
Featuring... Dax Baxtor an OC from gabeherndon308's creation.
Voltron: The New Guard
Chapter one: The Visitor
"Alright look alive team, we are go, for Galaxy Garrison flight mission xBeta 5-11-14 logging as we speak to begin descent to Kerberos for rescue mission." Lance McClain called, back over his shoulder, tapping a couple buttons and adjusting his grip on the controls. "Pidge, tell 'em their ride is here." The cocky young pilot instructed.
"What?! Are you crazy? We have a hydraulic stabilizer down and our communications hub is fuzzy. We can't go in for extraction until we get a handle on all our current mechanical and.. gastrointestinal issues.." Pidge Gunderson's eyes cocked dryly to the nauseated engineer braced back against his chair with both hands on his dash control panel, desperately resisting the urge to hurl.
"Ohhh.. make it stop.. urgh.. Lance.. c..c..can you maybe, I don't know, keep this thing a little more, what's the word..uh.. steady? Ulgh."
"Hunk relax.. I'm just testing a few things out." Lance sighed dryly, maintaining his rough course. "Besides it's not like I did this!.." And he jerked the stick to the one side. "Or this!.." and he jerked it to the other side. At this Hunk Garrett tensed and grabbed his chair with a firmer grip that could've easily punctured the material of the metal arms line with material for comfort.
"Knock it off! Lance, please!" Hunk complained, squeezing his eyes closed.
"We're coming up to an ice arch and there's a glacier wall right on the other side of it." Pidge called, looking up from her screen. "We'll never make it."
"Relax, Pidge." Lance answered easily, turning to glance back at her. "Back in flight school, know what they called me? They called me the tailor because of how I thread the needle." Pressing the jet forward, he seemed to barrel roll toward it.
"Lance, pull up!" Pidge blurted and suddenly he jerked the stick straight up. Screams rang out as they surged straight into the air and soared over into a nosedive.
"*heave* oh man.. oh-hugh!" Hunk restrained himself again with a hand over his mouth.
"We lost a thruster and the stabilizers are weakening, we're losing altitude!" Pidge cried.
"So get up and fix it!" Lance cried. "Come on baby, come on baby, come on-come on!" He coaxed the spacecraft, which only shook more. Another burst and smoke began to bellow from the front of the craft and steamed across the windshield.
"U-u-urgh.. Hunk?!" Pidge cried.
Cautiously unbuckling his restraint system, he crawled across the floor to look into the main gear box behind Pidge.
"Ok,.. the circuits are failing.. the fuses are falling apart and all our systems are jammed.. Hugh..gh..gahh!" Pidge and Lance cringed at the sound of his hurl and the stench that erupted within their capsule.
"The arch!" Pidge cried.
"The wall!" Lance screamed, yanking the stick up once more. Through the arch again, their line of view turned and the Garrison tech camp lay in front of them.
"We lost both our wings!" Hunk cried in the background.
"Oh man.." Lance groaned to himself and the site grew closer til darkness slammed them into the ground.
"Simulation.. failed." The computer generated voice said, showing these words across the screen.
"Nice work,.. tailor." Pidge quipped from her awkward position in her chair, as Hunk vomited into the gearbox once more.
"Alright, roll out, donkeys!" Commander Iverson announced, when light appeared in the open doorway at the back of the simulated cockpit. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk filed out in embarrassed disgrace, lining up before their commanding officer with the remaining students in their class standing to their right facing the simulator to their left.
"Now can anyone tell me what mistakes these three so-called cadets made in the simulator?" Iverson asked the group.
"The engineer puked in the main gear box." A boy said, raising their hand.
"Yes, because as we know vomit is not an approved lubricant for engine systems." Iverson's eyes shot over to Hunk, who avoided his gaze by keeping his eyes on the floor with the other two members of his team.
"What else?" Iverson barked again.
"The communications officer took off their seat belt.." another said, doing the same.
"The pilot crashed!" A girl blurted out, throwing both hands up.
"Right, and on top of it all, the whole mission they're arguing with each other!" Iverson's disappointed frown. "If you're gonna be this bad individually.. you gotta at least be able to work as a team! This is exactly the kind of insubordination that cost the lives of the men on the Kerberos mission."
"That's not true, sir!" Pidge spoke up boldly, daring herself to look up at him.
"What did you say?" Iverson snapped.
"Oh-um..nothing.. uh.. he must've just- hit his head in the crash-landing.." Lance recovered, gripping Pidge with a hand over her mouth to shut her up. "I'm sure he doesn't really mean whatever he's talking about so.."
"Need I remind you, cadet McClain," Iverson returned severely. "That the only reason you're here is because the best pilot in your class got flunked out because of a major discipline issue! The Galaxy Garrison was designed to turn young cadets like you, into the next generation of elite astro-explorers. These kinds of mistakes cannot be let go, not you.. or anyone can afford these kinds of mess-ups while on a mission. You're only lucky you're here, because of that one small detail that cost the last guy his spot in this class. Don't follow in his footsteps." At this, Lance's expression faded into shame and he found it difficult to maintain his composure, as the commander called for the next group.
xxxx
Eyes to the floor and hands on the backpack straps, the young cadet walked in silence. But turning a corner she was met with a face she hadn't seen for quite some time.
"-ah-.. uh-.. Dax?! What are you doing here, where have you been?" Pidge asked, when abruptly searching his feet up to his face. Blue eyes and thick blonde hair contrasted his uniform to remind anyone who beheld him of where and whom he'd pledged his loyalties to.. but at the same time a lurking bit of knowledge deep in the back of his mind told him something otherworldly. Not so much against his current state of being, but enough of a ding in his mind that he knew it to be there.
"I was just looking for you, is all. I heard that you failed your flight simulation." The young man responded.
At this Pidge's gaze fell a little.
"Yeah, and?" She answered coldly, pushing past him; yet he quickly followed after her.
"Well, normally you'd think I'd make fun of it. But I won't, cause I decided to help you out." Dax Baxtor returned, quickly falling in step with her as they strode down the corridor, Pidge's eyes still on the floor.
"Help me out?" She quoted, looking up to him briefly. "Like how?" She finished , turning eyes front while strolling on to leave him behind as he slowed, then took off after her once again.
"I think I found something you might wanna see." Dax answered softly, as they proceeded round another corner.
"Hey Pidge!"
"Wah!" Pidge jumped, leaning back on her heels when her eyes caught the brick wall of her other fellow cadets "Lance..um.. Hunk. What's..um what's up?"
"Team building." Lance answered with a shrug, as though she should've known. "You know, hitting the town, meeting some girls, cutting loose? Come on, man, get with the program already!"
"Sorry, but I'm busy." Pidge answered, annoyance hinting in her tone as she tried to walk away again.
"Woah, woahwoahwoahwoah." Lance clamored, grabbing her by the arm. "What's he doing here? I thought you dropped off the grid?"
"Well I have a habit of sneaking around without anyone noticing." Dax shrugged.
"Uh huh.. Right?" Lance responded, unconvinced with narrowed eyes.
"Wait really? When'd you get here?" Hunk asked, as if he hadn't noticed Dax until this moment.
"Well I visit with Pidge in secret without anyone noticing." The blonde boy said. "And when you guys flunked the flight simulation, I decided to see Pidge himself and check in on him. We also video chat on a private channel from time to time, and when someone told me about the flight simulation when I made it in today; I knew you'd failed so I decided to pay you all a visit to make you all feel better."
"Wait what?! You knew about this?!" Lance gasped, turning a pointed glare down on her.
"Shhh! Quiet down, Lance!" Pidge hissed, sneaking off with hunched shoulders and a lowered head. And the three young men slowly took on a jog after her.
"You telling me you knew about this guy the whole time and didn't tell us?" Lance seethed quietly. "What about,.. 'teams stick together', huh?"
"What are you talking about, Lance?" Pidge snapped. "We're not a real team. We were only placed together for the simulation trainings."
"So? That still means we need to be working together…" Lance reasoned, maintaining a hard glance on her. "And that includes sharing all our crazy secrets with each other. Hey how'd you get in here anyway?" The young fighter pilot questioned, as Pidge swung open a door that brought them to the Garrison Barracks' roof. "The whole Garrison's been looking for you since you mysteriously disappeared a month or two back.-" He and Hunk stopped short. "Whaat are we doing here?" Pidge sat down and placed her headphones on her head then pulling out an assortment of gadgets from her backpack.
"First of all it's been almost a year." Pidge said, as she began attaching things to the different devices. "And second this doesn't concern you guys." Now sitting there listening in silence, Dax turned from her to the two other boys watching the young tech genius intently.
"To answer your question, Lance, I've been laser hacking the camera feeds to make sure no one above cadet sees me." He told them. "Check it out." He held up his left arm and tapped on something, bringing to life a screen that seemed to phase him out as he walked by it.
"What is it, like magic?" Lance asked dryly.
"Just a pixelated scrambler program that only covers me up when I shoot this laser gauntlet into it." Dax answered, lowering it to Pidge's equipment it barely phased out the view on the screen.
"Hey! Dax!" She cried, batting him away quickly. "Stop scrambling my feed, I'm getting a reading here."
"It looks like nothing even happened." Lance replied, by now thinking with his eyes so that everyone could see he was still unimpressed.
"That's the point." The blonde boy said. "It's supposed to hone in on my signal from here." He shook his gauntlet up. "And pixelates a kind of cloaking mechanism that shields me from Garrison camera feeds. No one even knows I'm here."
"Puh, except for us.." Lance quipped. "How are you so sure no one will give you away?"
"Because I have a couple bands that keep everyone hush-hush." Dax replied rather quickly. "Most of 'em are friends I've made.. others believe in our cause."
"Um...what?" Hunk asked, easily confused.
"And what cause is that?" Lance questioned, arms crossed and his stance weighted on one hip.
"The cause of finding out what really happened during the Kerberos mission." Pidge spoke up, though sounding slightly distracted in doing so, as she stared on at the screen in front of her.
"Oh come on, Pidge, not that whole conspiracy theory again." Lance sighed again, turning away briefly then turning back again. "I'm telling you, you're going nuts about this."
"How can you be so sure!" Pidge snapped, shooting a pointed glare at him.
"I've seen the video feeds, there's no way Shiro crashed the ship on Kerberos." She reasoned strongly. "And there's no reason to believe they'd crashed anywhere else."
"And you agree with this?" Lance questioned, leaning over to cock his glance over to Dax.
"That's why we're here." The boy said, his blue eyes genuine. "And why I've been in and out from time to time since then. Pidge monitors things here, while I'm on the outside trying to root out anything I can."
"I've been broadcasting a low-grade frequency into space.." Pidge said, her tone lighter now. She turned their way with a look of pure seriousness in her eyes. "And picking up alien radio chatter."
"Wait? There are aliens? Like, real aliens?" Hunk asked, easily becoming nervous.
"What? Psh, no way." Lance scoffed.
Pidge turned back away from them. Remaining silent with eyes closed, as she listened to the indistinct chatter coming through her signal's conversational source. Eventually she felt a presence next to her that was too close for comfort and began to feel the urge of the sensation inside her grow.
"What do you want, Lance?" Pidge snapped, finally meeting his gaze with an abrupt glare.
"I wanna know what's going on." Lance asserted. "And why you're hanging around with this guy under the Garrsion's nose and always in private. Plus, if I remember correctly.. You sneak out of the barracks every night to come hide out up here. And to me? That's pretty looney tooney if you ask me. What the heck's you're deal? It's about like every time we mention the Kerberos mission." And again like many times before Pidge's demeanor changes, with the movement of her eyes and the tightening of her jaw and shoulders.
"You see? There you go again!" Lance reasoned catching on rather quickly. "What's your problem with it?" Pidge was silent for a moment.
"*sigh* Let's just say,.. There are some things we don't agree with about the whole mission 'supposedly' failed." She said, finally turning to face him. Lance opened his mouth to speak when suddenly sirens rang out to drown out any words he would've said.
"Attention, all students remain in Garrison Barracks for temporary lockdown." Iverson's voice announced. "This is not a drill. Repeat; all students are to remain in barracks until further notice!"
"What? Awoh, man ya see? I told you guys, we shouldn't be out here!" Hunk cried. "Come on!"
"Ope-nope. Hold it right there, Hunk." Lance interjected, grabbing his friend by the collar to stop his quick attempt at retreat. "This is serious, man. We gotta check this out together, you know,.. as a team.. If he's going,.. we're going."
"What?! But you heard Commander Iverson, all students are supposed to be in lockdown." The young engineer protested waving a hand out past Lance, whose back was to the open land beyond the Garrison. "We're not even supposed to be up here right now." Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion, which drew their eyes up. But as it turned out a distant flicker gave them an indicator that it was not exactly an explosion at all.
"What is that?" Pidge cried, shielding her eyes to see in the dim light of dusk. Hunk lifted a pair of binoculars to his face and viewed the surging ball of fire, noting that it bore an odd shape that almost seemed like that of something he could recognize rather vaguely.
"Is that a.. ship? He wondered aloud, mostly to himself. "Holy crow!" He looked down to the group with wide eyes. "It is a ship.. but.. I don't think it's one of ours."
"Then it must be one of theirs." Pidge guessed, gazing up at it with a hint of a smile.
"Theirs, psh, come on." Lance scoffed, crossing his arms in a slick fashion. "Don't tell me you're one of those weirdo alien species nuts, too."
"Have you been hearing alien radio chatter for the past few months?" Pidge answered dryly.
"No!" Lance answered easily, as if appalled that she'd implied such a thing. The nose diving craft screamed toward earth's surface far out beyond them, and a burst of this light exposed the crash. Engines revved and lights flicked on below them.
"Garrison forces are headed on toward it." Pidge said, as the small armada of Garrison tech vehicles sped off toward the site of the explosion. "Come on." Scooping up her mechanics, she began tossing them into her backpack.
"What? Woah woah woahwaohwoahwoah. Did we not just see the Garrison Superiors handling it." Hunk reasoned, jutting a hand down toward the small dots leaving the Garrison grounds.
"Why are you protecting them like this?" Pidge asked, when standing to stare him in the face; throwing her backpack on to her back. "They've been covering up lies for months since the crew disappeared."
"What are you talking about, they launched the Kerberos Mission.." Lance reasoned, a dubious tone to his voice. "What could they possibly be hiding?"
"Maybe the fact that the crash wasn't due to 'pilot error'?" Pidge answered. "And maybe the part where there wasn't a crash anywhere on Kerberos?"
"How do you know all this?" Lance questioned, with an odd narrowing of his eyes at her. "What are you, some kind of spy?" He added, leaning down on her with this same gaze now eye-level with her.
"Let's just say I happen to know the crew a little better than that." Pidge answered loosely, sighing. "We gotta see that ship. Now are you coming or not?"
Hunk looked to Lance, hopeful that he'd say no, but when he shrugged he knew he was defeated.
"Ok, I guess we're coming." Lance answered, tilting his head with the shrug, making Hunk groan in exasperation.
"Then let's go." Then taking off once again, the rest of the group fell in line with her as they snuck back through Garrison to the exit.
Hey guys, I'm back. As expressed above, at the request of gabeherndon308, I have conjured up this new story. It is meant to be a remake of Rise of Voltron. Not that it was bad,.. but just for the sake of creativity I'll be writing this story. So now, enjoy this new Alternate Universe of Rise of Voltron. Thx!