AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This is part 6 of a 6 part series. I can't link to the other parts but you should definitely read them before tackling this one or not much will make sense.

Part 1: From The Stars (4 Chapters)
Part 2: To The Stars (3 Chapters)
Part 3: Amongst The Stars (6 Chapters)
Part 4: Of The Stars (10 Chapters)
Part 5: For The Stars (18 Chapters)

- KarsKars

MEANWHILE ON EARTH

Kolt watched as the ol' girl vanished into the midday sky with a twinkle. One minute Blue was bursting through her rock fortress and the next she was scarin' the pants of the Garrison senior command. He smiled fondly at the spot where she'd been, the last time his little boy had flown off in a spaceship he didn't know if he'd ever seen him again. It never got any easier.

"Good luck, kiddo." He whispered to the sky before beginning the treacherous descent down the crumbling Cliffside.

It took a good three hours before he made it back to the tiny one bedroom cabin, cursing the entire trek about how stupid it was he didn't think to bring his hover bike along. Once back, Kolt immediately set to work disposing of any evidence pointing to that Shirogane kid having been a temporary houseguest. Clearing away the Garrison ration bar wrappers from the large boy with the headband, burning the prison rags Shirogane had been found in, and giving the whole place a quick once-over.

After all necessary precautions had been taken; Kolt settled in on the sofa, beer in hand, to watch the game. Colleen would be working in her botany labs 'till round 7PM or so and it wasn't like he could just leave her a voicemail. 'Oh, hey there Colleen, don't go freakin' our er nothin' but my alien son went and abducted yer daughter in a giant robotic cat.' Somehow he didn't see that being very well received. Not to mention the absolute shit storm if the Garrison had bugged his phone.

With a dramatic groan he heaved himself off the couch during the first commercial break and proceeded to dismantle the phone, followed by the old CB radio which he doubted the diaper wearing, fresh-faced, baby Offers of the Garrison even knew how to operate. Frustratingly everything turned up clean, which only made him more suspicious that the bugs were just of a much higher quality. He plopped himself back down on the dusty ol' couch when the commercial ended and started putting the various devices back together.

His peace and quiet lasted all of one evening before the pain-in-the-ass Garrison folks came a-knockin'. Grumbling profusely he made his way to the door, taking a quick peak out the window to gauge the situation before hand. Shit. There were damn near 20 of those fuckers out there. Beer still in hand, Kolt opened the door.

"What?" He grumbled to Iverson's grouchy ass face.

"Kolton Kogane?"

"You know damn well who I am, Mitch." The surly man scowled at him as best he could with only one functioning eye and Kolt tried his hardest to supressed a snicker. Keith packed one hell of a punch.

"That troublesome kid of yours home yet?" Iverson grumbled and now it was his turn to scowl. "Guess not. When he gets back you are to bring him in for interrogation."

"He ain't comin' back and you know it. You saw that thing take off just as clearly as I did. How 'bout we make a deal – first one to see him gets to be the one who gives him shit. Sound good?" he crossed his arms defiantly over his chest and Iverson furrowed his brow.

"You've been summoned to the compound for tomorrow at 1400 hours to discuss what you know with Admiral Sanda. Do not be late." The military man commanded and Kolt rolled his eyes.

"Tell the ol' bat I'll be there." He responded, shutting the front door on an incredibly annoyed Iverson and several young Officers struggling not to smirk.

He didn't move for a while, even after he heard their vehicles leave. Kolt leaned against the heavy wooden door and stared into the small one bedroom cabin. With Keith gone it suddenly felt so empty. He'd always lived alone, with the exception of those 5 years Krolia had been on Earth. But ever since Keith had moved in permanently it just didn't feel right anymore. He could handle the cabin being empty; it was the quiet that came with it that tore at his heart. God, Keith had been gone less than a day and he already missed the little shit.

The drawing of their family hanging on the wall between the bedroom and bathroom seemed to call out to him. It was one of the only things that managed to survive the fire that fateful night, having been hanging above his workbench in the shed at the time. Everything else, the carefully crafted documents from Krolia, the box full of family Polaroids he'd kept hidden under a floorboard, and all of Keith's belongings (except his stuffed purple cat) had been destroyed by the Garrison. He'd been left with nothing but that picture to remember the family he'd been forced to say goodbye to. Now he found himself in same damn place: saying goodbye to his son while the Garrison prepared to destroy what was left of his life.

Though he'd slept for nearly 12 hours, Kolt didn't feel rested in the slightest. Slowly rising from the bed he'd been sharing with Keith for the past several months, he made his way to the bathroom to take a much-needed shower. It had been quite the adjustment having to accommodate the boy in such a small space. For weekends it had been fine; he'd just curl up on the couch for two nights until heading back to his dorm at the Garrison. But once Keith got himself expelled, he'd had to move in permanently and the small size of Kolt's cabin became painfully apparent.

Neither of them could sleep on that tattered old couch for months on end, and the bedroom was too damn small to accommodate a second bed, so they'd made do with his existing queen size. Not that it had really mattered; the kid didn't take up much space or even move a muscle once asleep. It was like sleeping next to the dead.

But now the bed was empty and the cabin was still too quiet and he missed his kid dammit. Keith's snippy little quips when Kolt would yell at him to get up. The weird way he'd flex his claws as he yawned even though they'd been filed down to the nail bed. The eerie glow of his eyes when he'd wake up in the night to get a drink of water. Huh, maybe he should think about getting a cat.

The shower helped to clear his head a little and he actually felt slightly more alert. Once that first cup of coffee hit his system he felt even better. Climbing onto his hover bike and rocketing into town, the promise of a good home cooked breakfast at the Holt's was the only thing that drew him out of the house that early.

He'd grown closer to Colleen in the absence of Sam. She was a good woman with a big heart and a sound head on her shoulders. They'd gotten along swimmingly, especially after Keith and Katie became close friends, and even more so when the boy had come clean about his not-so-Human upbringing. The fact that Col didn't immediately try dissecting him showed just how much she cared about Keith.

"Well, you've seen better days." Was the greeting he received as he walked in the front door, though it had been delivered with a smile. He chuckled in return and took his usual spot at the small kitchen table. "Everything alright?" Again he said nothing, choosing instead to let the silence speak for itself until she was seated and ready to hear what he knew she wasn't going to like. He took a deep breath and told her everything.

"So, let me get this straight." She pointed her fork full of hash browns menacingly towards his face, some bits of food flying from the weaponized cutlery and landing on his plate. "You're alien son crash-lands back on Earth to find some weapon created by a group of alien magicians, then my husband and son are abducted by an evil alien empire, and now my little Katie has been abducted by none other than you're alien son." Her calm, analytical, voice made the absurdity of the statement really stand out.

"Yep, that's about the gist of it." He took another swig of coffee, frowning when the mug turned up empty.

"There's more in the pot." She waved dismissively and he nodded, rising to walk his mug to the kitchen for a refill. "I want to talk to my daughter. I want to yell and cry and tell her I love her and then yell at her some more. Do you still have a way to reach them? Or did that special device leave the planet with Keith?"

"Nah, I still got it. But we can't just be blastin' out signals left, right, and centre. The more we send out, the more attention we draw to our little pocket of safety. Keith's a good kid, them Marmora folks did a fine job raising him, if something's the matter he'll let us know." Kolt placed a firm hand on the woman's shoulder, squeezing gently, and her own hand came up to rest on his.

"My entire family is out there. These horrible – what were they called again? Galra? – stole my husband and son. And now my poor Katie is out there too. I don't know how you deal with it Kolt, I really don't."

"Ahh, not all of 'em Galra are bad, just that Empire of theirs. My wife, Krolia – the one you kept trying to invite for dinner – well, she's Galra and my boy is half." Colleen's eyes flew wide at the revelation. "He was raised Galra and sees himself as one, but he's a good kid, little rough around the edges but what do you expect from a boy who's only half Human and was raised in space." Though they both chuckled at that, the tension and permeating sense of loss weighed heavily between them. "He'll take care of Katie. He cares for her as much as she cares for him and he wont let anything bad happen to her, I can promise you that."

"Either Matt or Sam better be with her when she gets back, cause if that girl doesn't come home with at least one of them she is grounded for eternity. If she thinks she can just go gallivanting off to space with some alien boy, she has another thing coming." Kolt burst out into a sudden fit of laughter.

"Ahh shit, yer too much Col. I gotta get goin' but if yer ever in need of some company just gimme a holler." He smiled at her, turned to head out, but paused in the door for one last parting word. "If anyone's gunna be finding Matt and Sammy it'll be those two reckless kids. Keith's a trained special ops space ninja and Katie managed to break into a secure military network. If anything, it's the Galra who should be worried."

The meeting with Sanda had gone about as well as he'd anticipated. Three hours of sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair alone in an interrogation room, staring at a two-way mirror while he waited for her to show up. Followed by another 5 hours of interrogations from various Officers, Commanders, and hell probably even the janitor before Sanda made her dramatic appearance. It was late, nearly 2200 hours by the time that 'full-metal bitch' showed up.

He heard that line in a movie once and thought it suited her, he'd been proved right when she sauntered in wearing the world's deepest scowl and slapped a file down on the table between them. "Former Officer Kogane, its an absolute pleasure to see you again." She spoke with cold authority and subtly masked hostility.

"Oh cut the shit, Ellen. What do you want from me?"

"That is not the way you address your superior officer, Kogane."

"Dishonourable discharge, remember? You ain't my superior anymore." She scowled back at him, narrowing her eyes in a silent challenge. He stared back.

"Three Cadets are missing, Officer Shirogane was taken from isolation, and former Cadet Kogane was confirmed to be present for the security breach. What do you have to say to this?"

"Do you have proof of Keith's involvement?" He crossed his arms defiantly over his chest and leaned back in the chair, letting it balance on two legs.

"We have several eye-witnesses that can place him at the scene."

Kolt scoffed. "Eye-witness testimony is unreliable at best and you know it. A setup like what you had out there is guaranteed to be under constant surveillance. You catch him on camera? Get any actual proof he was there?"

"The intruder managed to avoid the camera's line of sight as they broke into the quarantine tent. We have no way to know for certain that it was former Cadet Kogane, however we do have your distinct hover bike on camera as the escape vehicle. Our Officers chased the hover bike and we have video footage from their dashboard cameras of it fleeing the scene and evading Garrison command. It was either you or that son of yours, and I want to know right now who is responsible."

She leaned angrily across the table, pointing a long bony finger in his direction as she spat her accusations. Kolt let out a huff of annoyance, the chances of Keith coming back were slim, he could easily place blame where it was due and the boy would likely never have to deal with it. But what if he did come back? Then the Garrison would be all over him and Kolt just couldn't do that to the boy, it wasn't worth the risk. Keith's safety was far more important than his.

"I ain't telling you a damn thing."

Prison wasn't so bad. He got three square meals a day access to a gym, hell if you considered fear of getting your ass kicked as motivation then he even had a personal trainer. The food was kinda shit but it was still marginally better than living off canned beans, beer, and coffee. His bed's mattress was thin and the blankets were itchy, but they were cleaned on a regular basis and his cellmate was a nice enough dude. They got along pretty well actually.

His name was Geoff and he was a former construction worker who'd gone on a rampage, murdering his boss and a few of his co-workers before trying to hang himself in the house he was building. The police had already been called and they cut him down before he died but it was one hell of a story. Geoff was a good guy, a little scary sure, but he'd snapped from stress and otherwise seemed like a pretty chill dude. Though Kolt wasn't going to push his luck.

After a few weeks Officer Warren had approached him about providing testimony in exchange for freedom. He'd declined and it became a weekly occurrence. Every Tuesday, like clockwork, Offer Warren would showup at the prison to request information regarding the disappearance of the three missing Cadets, the abduction of Officer Takeshi Shirogane, and the whereabouts of Keith. And every Tuesday, like clockwork, Kolt would stare at him in silence until the Officer gave up and walked away.

He felt bad for the guy, he knew he'd been involved with the Shirogane kid before he left on the Kerberos mission and it was cruel of Sanda to keep sending him. But if he wanted answers then Kolt was going to have to throw his own son under the bus and that wasn't something he was going to do. It broke his heart to watch the dejected man leave each week and return looking slightly worse than he did previously.

"I just want some answers, please Mr. Kogane. I need to know what happened to Takeshi, where he is, if he's all right, if he's even still alive. Please, I'm begging you." It had been a total of 6 months now and the poor guy looked like he hadn't slept a wink in that entire time. Finally, Kolt caved.

"I ain't telling you this for Sanda's benefit, understand?" He asked and the young man nodded eagerly, pushing his glasses up his nose and subconsciously leaning closer. Kolt took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. "If I tell you this, you'll see to it that I am released and cleared of all charges?" Again, the young Officer nodded and slid the paperwork across the table for him to read over. He did, reading every little detail of the arrangement before finally signing his name at the bottom and passing it back to the Officer to sign. One of the guards came over and signed as a witness and Kolt whispered an apology under his breath to his son. God hope the boy never came back.

"My son, Keith, got close to Officer Shirogane during his time at the Garrison and even after he was expelled the two kept in close contact."

"I'm aware."

"Right, well – after the Kerberos mission went missing, he was convinced there was foul play involved and dedicated his time to researching the crash. When Shirogane came back in an alien spaceship, Keith begged me to help him rescue the young man. I brought him back to my cabin, cleaned up his injuries, and waited for the Garrison's sedative to wear off. The three cadets showed up at some point, their curiosity getting the better of them, and the group headed off into the mountains in search of something called Voltron. Next thing I know a giant blue robot cat is leaping out of a mountain and my son is gone." While it may have been heavily modified, Kolt tried his damnedest to stick as close to the truth as possible without giving too much away. He wanted it to seem like crazy circumstance, he didn't want to place blame on Keith for any of it.

Officer Warren stared at him for a moment before deflating. He nodded and rose from his seat. "I'll file this paper work and you should be released in approximately one month for you cooperation. Thank you Mr. Kogane." He reached his hand out and Kolt clasped it tightly, giving a firm shake.

"What's gunna happen if they ever come back?" He couldn't resist, he had to know what the Garrison had planned if Keith ever returned.

"That's for Admiral Sanda to decide." He gave a solute, and swiftly left the premises.

"To freedom!" Colleen cheered, downing her shot of tequila and nearly falling off her chair in the process. Kolt laughed, his own inebriated brain making it difficult to maintain balance. He clinked his shot glass with her empty one and threw it back, the familiar burn in his throat soothing away the guilt that had riddled him for the past five weeks.

"To freedom." He half-heartedly cheered as Colleen proceeded to refill their glasses for yet another round. The table was covered in spilt tequila, salt crystals, and lime rinds. He scanned the familiar setting of the Holt's home, letting his eyes take in the changes from the past year. Two 'in memoriam' plaques hung over the fireplace, and a framed photo of Katie sat on the mantle between them. She tried to hide it but he could tell Colleen was barely holding on.

A particularly hard shove that should not have been possible given the tiny woman's inability to even stand, had him nearly falling out of his seat. She'd somehow managed to not only get out of her chair, but actually walk around the table without stumbling. Her arms snaked around his neck and her cheek came to rest on his head where she planet a soft kiss in his hair.

"You're a good man, Kolton. You really are. Stop beating yourself up." After a minute she released him and stumbled her way over to the couch, ignoring the full shots she'd just poured for them. With a light chuckle he rose from the table, downed both of their shots, and grabbed the half empty bottle before collapsing down beside her. Colleen mumbled something incoherent about missing Sam and worrying about her kids. Kolt wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she lay her head down against his. "Sanks fer not sayin' bout Katie." She slurred, her tentative grip on consciousness slowly fading.

"Not my place. She's a good kid and I'd hate to kill her future just to save my ass."

"Mhm." Was mumbled into the silence between them. "Yer not drive home kay?" He chuckled at her attempt to speak. "Stay in Matthew's room." Was the last thing she said before her entire body became heavy. With a groan, he pushed himself off the couch and placed the tequila bottle on the coffee table, scooped up his friend and carried her up the stairs. It was a struggle to say the least, his balance was severely compromised and the dead weight in his arms was not helping, but he eventually made it to the top landing.

Flicking on the lights, he carried Colleen into the master bedroom and laid her down on her bed, pulling back the covers and drawing them over her after a less than graceful fall to the pillow. He winced but when she didn't stir he flicked off the lights and walked down the hall to Matt's old room.

It was exactly the same as it had been before he'd left for Kerberos and in a moment of curiosity, he lifted the mattress to find exactly what he'd suspected: nudie mags. He felt a laugh bubble up, clearly Colleen hadn't stepped foot in here since the boy left, holding it as a sort of shrine to her son. Suddenly Kolt felt as though he were intruding on the boy's space by being in his room, so he returned the magazine to where he'd found it and made his way back down the stairs to crash on the couch.

This was hell; he'd never had a hangover this bad in his entire life. The familiar smell of sizzling bacon wafted from the kitchen and he all but floated from the living room couch over to the small dining table. With a groan he slumped into one of the hard wooden seats, his entire body objecting to the unforgiving furniture.

"You stubborn bastard, I told you to stay in Matthew's room." She chastised from the stove and his only reply was another groan, his aching head falling against the table with an audible thud. Colleen placed a steaming mug of black coffee on the table, just within reach, and it was soon accompanied by a small glass of orange juice and two Tylenol extra-strength pills. She patted his shoulder and returned with a plate of breakfast for each of them.

"Col, you're a damn fine woman. Sammy is one lucky bastard." Colleen let out a hearty laugh but it masked the hurt he knew was constantly there.

"Ain't that the truth!" She said, mocking his thick Texas accent.

Breakfast went by in relative silence, both nursing hangovers strong enough to kill a weaker mortal. Somehow, Colleen seemed to handle herself just fine despite it, going about her routine as though nothing were wrong and he might have believed it if he hadn't caught her puking in the bathroom an hour or so later.

After years spent drinking away his sorrows, Kolt had grown accustomed to functioning in this state and, though it had been quite a while since he'd had a drink, it was as like no time had passed. He took a shower, got dressed, said goodbye to a puking Colleen, and headed out to his cabin. His Captain hadn't hesitated in the slightest to give him his old job back and he needed to be at the fire hall for noon to sign some paperwork and go over the safety procedures once again. For the first time in a while Kolt was actually looking forward to getting his old life back.

It had been a particularly stressful day and he returned to the fire hall more exhausted than usual. They'd managed to save all of the residents but a few pets were lost in the blaze and some little girl had balled her eyes out into his chest over her now very dead goldfish. The small apartment building caught fire after one of the more senior residents tried to microwave popcorn and hit 20 minutes instead of 2, causing a fire that spread through the old building at an alarming rate. Most of the inhabitants were Garrison families, people who had spouses that worked at the Galaxy Garrison either as a scientist, military official, educator, or any other position. Needless to say he was glad to be out of there and finally able to take off his gear and shower away the soot.

Today was Keith's birthday and his little boy would be turning 19. Kolt had asked for the day off but with the sudden blaze it became an all hands on deck situation. Now home, he collapsed onto his couch with a stack of pancakes in honour of his son's favourite Earth meal. He'd toyed with the idea of messaging the boy over that Blade of Marmora com he had but didn't know if this would count as an emergency. Instead, he sang happy birthday to no one and ate his breakfast food before calling it a night.

The next morning he crawled out of bed and made a simple breakfast before heading to the fire hall. It had been almost a year since Keith left in the Blue Lion and he wondered how the boy was doing. What changes had been taking place out there beyond the stars, if he was taking good care of Katie, if he'd managed to find Sam, if he'd met up with Matt yet, and how in the hell Krolia was doing. God he missed her, he missed the way her claws would tap on the counter as she waited impatiently for the microwave but then could turn around and stay completely still for hours on end when she hunted. He missed the way she would make strange little sounds that Keith would mimic but when Kolt tried he could never quite do them right. He missed the way she would be endlessly fascinated by the tiniest things and impossible to impress by others.

He missed how smooth her rich purple skin was, the softness of her thick two-toned hair, and the rush of knowing she could rip him to pieces if she really wanted to. The way she could switch on a dime from doting, cooing, squishy mom mode into lethal, highly trained, covert ops, space ninja mode. The jump between soft and predatory was alarming – and sexy as hell. Yup, he missed her more than he'd ever thought possible. The worst was that all those pictures he had of her were gone from the damned fire so he had to work with was what his memory could serve up. Which, let's be honest, was pretty damn good.

He shook his head to clear the distracting thoughts from his mind and started cleaning off the truck and their equipment from yesterday's blaze. He'd continue this tangent when he got home, but until then he needed to focus.

A few more months went by. The Christmas holidays and New Years celebrations had been spent with Colleen; both drinking themselves into a stupor as they moaned about missing their families together. Colleen had set a place for Sam, Matt, Katie, and even Keith at the dinner table along side them and nearly burst into tears on New Years Eve, unable to face another year without her husband and children. Not that Kolt was doing much better, he missed his strange little alien family more than anything and the holidays did nothing to help. All the happy families caroling and shopping for presents were nothing more than constant reminders that the two people he loved more than anything weren't there to celebrate with him. It was like those first few years after Krolia left all over again.

But now it was late January and for some strange reason he had been called by Sanda herself to meet at the Garrison bright and early that morning. There had been some weird signals popping up on the radios lately, but he hadn't thought much of it; living in the desert meant spotty connections at best. Colleen had been suspiciously absent for the past two weeks; rarely home, constantly at the Garrison, and working all hours of the day into the night.

When he arrived at the Galaxy Garrison it was like walking into a pressure cooker. Everyone was on high alert and he had to pass through several extra security checkpoints before entering. Officers and Commanders buzzed around the grounds, not a Cadet in sight, and the hairs on the back of his head started to rise in suspicion. What in the holy hell was going on here?

He made his way to the boardroom as Sanda had instructed him and a young Officer stopped him at the door, popping his head in to alert her of Kolt's presence before ushering him inside. The room was just as tense as the rest of the base, and the Garrison personnel seated around the large table turned to watch him in unison, staring as he took the only empty seat. He looked around and recognized many of the faces there.

Seated at the head of the table was Sanda with Iverson at her right, Officer Warren was there, as was Dos Santos, Ryu, and Harris. Two faces he didn't expect were Deborah Harrison and Colleen Holt. He gave the latter a puzzled look and watched as unbridled fear flashed briefly in her eyes before being steeled away.

"Kolton Kogane." Sanda commanded. "I think there are some details you have not been forthcoming with." Her accusation was clearly not up for debate as she scowled heavily and the entirety of the room's gaze fell on him once again. "Tell us the truth about your 'son' immediately before I have you charged with treason."

"Why don't ya'll tell me what in the hell is going on?" He countered and an enraged Sanda slammed her hands on the table as she stood to tower over him. It was Debbie who spoke up, holding his gaze with an intensity he hadn't expected.

"Do you remember the Social & Cultural Studies project I assigned where the students were to create an alien culture and language?" He nodded along, not liking where this was going. "Well, when our communications experts ran out of ways to try and understand the language used in a strange series of signals we picked up, they opened the recordings to other personnel to try and decipher. I recognized a few of the words from the project that Keith had submitted. His alien language matched up perfectly with the signal, allowing us to translate it."

Kolt's face went pale; he knew that damned project would comeback to bite him in the ass. "So, my question for you is simple." Sanda took back control of the floor, directing his attention to her once again as she punctuated her words with clear hostility. "How did your son hand in a project with a REAL alien language? Where is he? What really happened to Officer Shirogane, Cadet McClain, Cadet Gunderson, and Cadet Garret? What are you not telling us Kogane?"

Was laughter the best way to respond? No, probably not, but the Human brain has a weird way of handling stress and Kolt couldn't help the sudden outburst. After regaining some semblance of control, he managed to pull himself together. "Where do ya'll want me to start?" He asked and Sanda leveled her hateful glare at him.

"Try the beginning."

Their defences just weren't strong enough, Sanda had deployed the first wave of MFE fighters but they had been vaporized almost immediately after take off by that damn laser. Earth wasn't prepared for an attack like this. Their weapons weren't powerful enough, their tech wasn't advanced enough, their shields weren't strong enough, and nothing they did seemed to even make a dent in the space ship's defences. They were sitting ducks about to be cooked and there was not a damned thing any of them could do about it.

"SEND THE NEXT WAVE!" Sanda ordered and Kolt nearly lost his mind.

"Are you crazy? You're sending them into certain death! If they go out there they're just going to be incinerated like the others!" He screamed at her in the war room. The Admiral had already threatened him several times already but if Earth was destroyed it wouldn't make a difference or not if he was considered insubordinate or a declared a war criminal.

She stared him down some more before reiterating her order and Kolt bolted from the room, rushing down to the hangars as fast as possible to stop those planes from taking off. He vaguely heard her scream after him about being court-martialed but if she thought he gave a damn she had another thing coming.

The hangar ceiling was riddled with holes from where those alien weapons had shot through the metal. He'd recognized their fighter pods immediately, having spent years helping Krolia repair one of them. Officer Warren was climbing into the last plane still in the hangar when he arrived and Kolt nearly shouted his voice raw trying to get the young man's attention over the roar of the engines. He couldn't just watch wave after wave of talented young pilots be sent like lambs to the slaughter, he had to do something.

The Officer climbed back out of his plane, meeting the out of breath fire fighter at the wing. "Did our orders change?" He asked with confusion.

"No, but Sanda's an idiot and you're going to get yourself killed."

"I have my orders, sir. I have to follow them."

"How about a slight detour first?"

"What did you have in mind?"

He ran through the Garrison's halls back to Sanda's war room and back to the ever-increasing tension that hung in the air. "KOGANE! Where the hell did you go? What do you think you're doing?" She yelled at him when the young Officer used his security clearance to open the door, the two of them rushing inside.

"I had Officer Warren take me to my cabin, there was something I needed to get."

"This better be good." She seethed.

"It is."

"Commander Sendak, sir. We've intercepted an outgoing signal from the Earthling's base."

"What does it say?" He snapped in return, why wouldn't his useless General lead with the content of the message.

"We are unable to decipher it as we believe it to have been sent on the traitorous Blade of Marmora's signals. The message is encrypted, sir. What are your orders?"

"We wait. The Humans clearly know more than they are letting on. I guarantee that message is a distress call to Voltron. Setup a scout on one of the outer planets, and have them monitor the system for incoming ships. We'll have Commander Throk's fleet intercept their saviours then we destroy what's left of their planet while the Paladins watch."

The General gave a solute before he rushed from the bridge to deliver the orders and Sendak sneered at the images on the screen. A single ship had departed the hangar, long after the others, and flown into the desert instead of trying to attack. He'd ignored it thinking it was inconsequential, but now he wasn't so sure.

Sendak turned to the sentry standing behind him. "Bring me the prisoner." He commanded and the machine saluted in response. It was time to end these retched Humans, once and for all.