Chapter fifteen: The Journey
Shiro lightly grimaced as he was set into his chair. Keith took his leg and gently repositioned it to a more comfortable looking position.
"Thank you." Shiro breathed, clearing his throat dryly.
"Happy to help." Keith told him tenderly; a slight smile on his face. Pidge scanned Shiro's leg with her gauntlet and studied the screen that popped up from it.
"I'm not seeing any broken bones, but something is clearly wrong." She said, after a couple minutes of silence. She then scanned up his body to his chest. "But I am seeing some broken ribs." She followed up, as her screen zeroed in on several points in Shiro's chest. "The good news is, that the time he spent inside the pod has started to fuse them back into place. So we should only need to stabilize them, so they can continue to heal that way."
"Great, we can easily take care of that... Then we can assess and..." She turned his forearm up to show the patch of red, seeping through the white material of the healing suit. "Care for all his other injuries."
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The oozing, red wound on his forearm became white, as the wraps masked it from view; concealing its identity. Coran shown a pen light into Shiro's left eye, then the right.
"Well you look good from where I'm standing." The Altean man said, stepping back again. Pidge finished wrapping Shiro's lower leg and placed an ice pack on his left ankle; before standing up herself. Allura retrieved the thermometer and studied it carefully.
"And you don't have a fever." She lowered it to her side to look at him. "..yet."
"Good.. that's good." He attempted to lean forward but the stabbing, needle points forced him to stop immediately.
"Shiro! Wait.." Keith urged coming closer. "You're gonna need time to recover. Just relax." Shiro leaned his head back and blinked slowly. Pidge stepped forward to study Shiro's right arm, no apparent damage seemed to jump out at her; but the scuff marks on it did bug her a bit. She left momentarily, to return with a small rag; which she used to carefully buff the marks off of its metallic surface.
"So like... what happened with the pod thing?" Lance asked, finally bringing to light the odd incident of earlier.
"Could be a malfunction." Allura guessed, in sort of a matter-of-fact way. "The castle is ten thousand years old and we've been fighting pretty harsh battles lately."
"I don't know.." Keith mused, looking at Shiro with crossed arms and a suspicious face. "Something doesn't seem to be adding up." The team fell silent to think for a moment, all brainstorming explanations that all seemed to be dead ends.
"Pidge." Shiro's voice was just as low and tired as it had been this entire time; but there seemed to be a purpose to it. "Did you hold onto that device? The one with the access codes for the base we rescued Matt from?"
"How do you know about that?" Pidge asked in surprise.
"Who do you think sent them for the Blade of Marmora to deliver to you to help you get to him?" Shiro responded matter-of-factly. Pidge's eyes lit up.
"Wait... you sent that?!" Shiro's eyes gave away the answer.
"So you were the one who found Matt; and used the coordinates to help us find him." Keith realized.
"That's why you were at that base." Allura gasped. "You found Matt and knew how to help us get there."
"I downloaded what information I could from the database." Shiro told them weakly. "I found the drive and a Galra drone and used them to send the message. And I made sure to let the Blades know exactly what drive to use, by sending a capsule with the drive in it. I knew it had to be this particular one, for it to be compatible with Pidge's computer. So I sent it to them, to give to you; so you could access the information on it, in the least amount of time. Looks like you did exactly what I thought you'd do."
"Wow, that's incredible." Lance commented.
"But how did you end up there? And how long were you there?" Keith asked, his concern clearly shown as alarm by his wide eyes.
"I'm not sure how long it was. But I've been all over.." Shiro began simply...
Shiro's eyes slowly blinked open, a low groan emanating from him, as he finally came around. Pushing himself up, he could almost feel the object over top of him; and lifted a hand to it as he began to stand. Rolling the capsule aside, he groaned again and held his left arm tenderly; looking up to study the darkness around him. Nothing but shapes and shadows defined the area; and to his astonishment the detail was quite vivid, despite the lack of light. The silence was deafening, almost fooling him into thinking he, himself, had gone deaf. But as he strode forward, he realized he could hear his own footsteps after all. His whole body ached yet he continued just the same. Climbing the ridge, he came across a strangely set display that must have been that of a village. There were small houses nestled under the generic-looking trees. Their thatched roofs and clay-brick walls made for a rather simple build. Small fences, held up by splintery posts in a zig-zag pattern, encircled these homes and likely marked the property lines for each plot. There were no more than a dozen or two, and there seemed to be no pattern of how they were organized throughout the space in which they occupied. The kitchen was presumably outside due to the cauldrons hung over small piles of wood; and their fuel supply lining the side of the huts. The dirt path split off and branched out to each of these plots, leading him along narrow clay roads. Walking on through it the shadows seemed to come alive; like night creatures coming out to play, encouraging him to keep his guard up. As he walked, his steps became slower and more cautious; his body tense and ready despite still feeling a considerable amount of pain from the battle from before. When no one came out from the huts, he simply followed the path away from the little village and on up the ridge. Making his way to the top, he could barely see lights from on top of the rocky hill, which seemed more likely to be a mountain. As he heaved himself up to the top, he managed to reach what looked like an old temple from Greek mythology. The long skinny columns upheld the similarly shaped roof, and the windows were simply open gaps in the age-old walls. The gentle glow of light, and the sound of a party of some kind, floated through the air to his ears; grabbing his interest rather quickly. Shiro half wondered if he should enter to check it out, and another reminded him that he had to get back to the team. That part of him thought maybe whoever was inside that temple could help him; and ultimately curiosity finally overtook him... so he entered.
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Creeping toward the draped entrance, he slowly pushed it aside with the back of his hand, but only enough to peek in. And what he saw shocked him beyond belief.
Small aliens, looking like a cross between the Arusians and the Balmarns, cowered in the center of the room surrounded by Galra sentries and soldiers. Their commander, however, was the one he was most shocked to see...
"Sendak?!" Shiro gasped.
"Take them to the ship's brig; grow them in win the rest of the prisoners." Sendak ordered him lieutenant. "We'll deal with them later. And continue the search for anyone who may have escaped. We need to have plenty of dirt to take back to Emperor Zarkon to use against the Paladins, and finally take back Voltron; getting him on our side once again."
"What?" Shiro stepped forward and knocked something over with his foot. The crash made Sendak and his men look up, Shiro stared like a deer in headlights at being caught.
"You!!" Sendak thundered charging after him. Shiro snapped out of it and tore back the way he'd come. Sendak stopped at the top of the temple's steps searching and finding the white-armored figure racing away down the hill. "After him!!!" He thundered. Shiro glanced back to see figures pursuing him, but adopted a determined look and ran faster. Cutting through a thicket, opposite the direction from which he'd originally come, he ducked under the sharp brambles. Unable to see where he was going, he hit a thin wall of these thorns and tumbled down the slope on the other side. Recovering himself, he stood up to pull the prickly vines off of him. Hearing blasters sync on him, he looked up to see them and ran once more. Turning his left side to them for only a second, a beam of light shot at him nailing him at hip and torso level across his body. Hitting the floor he immediately began to rise; only making it to his knees and hands. He looked down towards the origin of the searing pain in his side, to find the giant, gaping wound burnt onto his body. Hearing scuffling behind him, he forced himself up and ran as fast as he could manage; holding his side with his right hand. The wound felt like his skin was on fire, eating away at him from the outside in. And he could feel his hand getting wet, likely from his own blood; no doubt he was probably bleeding quite heavily. Coming up over the ridge, he found the purplish glow of cruisers parked in the small valley below the village where he started. Surfing his way down the flat, sandy slope; he fell to one knee and took off for the cruisers, diving into the first one. The thundering feet ran past and disappeared; and he headed on into the cruiser. Weaving through the halls of the ship, he made his way to the brig. His Galra hand, quite literally, came in handy for opening the keypads.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here to help you." Shiro assured them calmly. "Hurry, overcome the guards and help me get to the bridge. We need to get these ships airborne, we're gonna commandeer these ships to escape with them." Bashing and crashing their way to the bridge, Shiro led them inside and bolted the door closed. Approaching the main panel, he pressed his Galra hand to it light it up with several more screens. A small drive lay next to him within reach, and he took and plugged it into the inner side of the joint of his right elbow.
"Take this drive and use it on the ship. It's a kill virus for the sentries but it won't harm the ship." He said, unplugging the drive from his arm and handing it to one of the aliens. "Once you've disabled them, take off immediately. And put up your particle barrier up, so no one can get to you."
"Of course." Said the alien with the drive. "Thank you, stranger."
"My name is Shiro. I'm a Paladin of Voltron. And if you ever need us; use this transponder. Its only on I have for now, but as long as you stay together you should be fine. The transponder also has locations to safe zones, where you can get in touch with other members of the Voltron Coalition. Please, if you're ever asked how you escaped; don't tell them who sent you. I need to keep a low profile if I'm going to be able to help anyone else in trouble."
"We will. Thank you, Paladin Shiro." The alien replied. Shiro gave them a nod and took off out the door. Each one was harder than the next, but he managed to infiltrate the ships and free all the prisoners. Getting to the last one, the sentries pounded on the doors to get in. Shiro tapped on the screen as quickly as he could manage with his left hand, and then jammed drive into his arm to give them the virus.
"Take this drive. It'll help you knock out those sentries without damaging the ship's other systems. If you can get me to the temple at the top of the mountain, I can distract the Galra long enough for you to rescue those people. Have a pod ready; cause we're gonna get them off of this planet; and free it's people once again."
"We're ready to help in any way we can." An Olkari prisoner said.
"Good. Then let's get started." Shiro said.
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Sendak tapped a button on the device in his hand.
"What is it commander Sendak!" Haggar's shadowed figure demanded coldly.
"I believe I have some information that'll be of use to you." Sendak told her slyly, a smug grin on his face.
"You better hope for your sake that it is worth it." Haggar snarled. "Things are not exactly in order here, while Lotor remains amiss."
"Oh I believe it'll be well worth it..."
Hey guys!!! What up?! B) This story just keeps getting better and better!! I can't wait to see how this one goes down!!! Still got lots of plans for this one, so hopefully this story will be the first to surpass twenty chapters... but we shall see.
Also you may notice that title of this chapter is a reference to the actual show(episode five of season three), but I hope it doesn't reveal too much. Guess I'll have to wait and see. Til then.. enjoy!! Thx!!!