Chapter twenty-five: Plan In Motion
Warmth everywhere,.. comfort surrounding him,.. ease which he hadn't felt for a long time.. and hardly ever for that matter. A distant growl willed his eyes to open, and for a moment,.. he wondered why he was awake. In the far distance from where he stood a white light, like a white black hole stood before him. From it came a muddled form; was it a person?.. or a creature?? The light grew beyond his ability to see and he had to shield his eyes from it…
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Grey eyes flashed open, his head jerking forward as he realized his alertness, returning him to the waking world.
"Shiro?" His gaze turned to the right, as the Alien Princess of Altea knelt down beside him. "Are you alright?" She asked him tenderly.
"Uh.. yeah..I.." He rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand firmly. "I'm fine,.. how long has it been?"
"One quintant, we should be arriving at the prison/base pretty soon. Just a few more Vargas I think." Coran replied, turning his back to them from his control panel.
"In the meantime,.." Pidge spoke up, as the team turned back to Shiro. "We have something to show you."
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A thin sheet of black material stretched over his hand like a glove; hugging the metallic surface like a second skin. Pidge's hands clasped his prosthetic hand with a silvery casing that encompassed all but his fingers and thumb, the knuckles above his four fingers lighting one by one.
"This device will help us to gain access to stuff inside the Galra base wirelessly." Pidge explained as Shiro inspected his hand with the special, new glove, covering about three-quarters of his forearm. "I have it linked to my suit's gauntlet, so that when we need to gain access to different rooms or hack into mainframes; all we have to do is power up your arm and shoot it's unique Galra signature into the lock's and vwolah! We're in!"
"Realize Shiro, this is essential to us getting in and out with my dad, without the Galra ever knowing a thing." Matt emphasized. "So we'll be counting on you to get us through. Are you sure you're up for it?"
"Yes.. I wanna rescue Sam just as badly as you do." Shiro responded seriously, setting his hands on the arms of his Paladin chair. "I'll be here when you need it, but remember; always keep moving. Patrols are constant and calculated; and the drones and sentries are tip-top on their schedule, so our golden opportunity will be razor.. thin... so stay on your toes.. at all times."
"We know.. we'll be careful." Keith nodded, placing a hand down onto the man's shoulder; who looked up to place a hand on top of it.
"I'll give you eyes to see what's coming and monitor your position from here." Shiro went on his gaze set on Keith the entire time as he spoke.
"Good,.. we'll need it.." Keith nodded. "Is there anything else you can tell us about this base?"
"Wish that I knew.." The Black Paladin replied lowering his gaze thoughtfully. "But I'm struggling to recall anything of it at the moment.. it's like my thoughts are.. a little scrambled."
"I can only imagine." Keith replied, a knowingness to his gaze.
"All I do know is that we should prepare to free the other prisoners within the base as well." Shiro went on. "If we can free them along with Sam and get out without them noticing; we might be able to gain some new allies, for when we begin to fight the Galra head on again."
"But that won't be happening for a while.." Allura spoke up with an utmost certainty in her tone. "You need time to recover.. Once we rescue Sam, we are going to do only minimal work for necessary causes, until you've fully recovered from all you've been through."
"We are the 'Defenders of the Universe'." Shiro quoted firmly. "We can't just.. take a break, while the Galra still have all the power over it. Zarkon may be obsolete, but his empire is not. We need to keep tabs on them until we can come up with a plan to end them for good."
"I agree.." The Princess replied. "And we will keep an eye on it.. but your life is just as important to our cause as any one of us. You're the Black Paladin.. we may have the White Lion on our side now.. but-.. Voltron isn't as good as a team without its leader." At this the team turned to him with silent nods, clearly in collective agreement of Allura's statement.
"It's ok, Shiro.." Keith spoke up finally. "We'll keep on doing what we're doing while you recover.. and.. once we find the Black Lion,.. we'll get you back into the action again."
"Til then we'll be secret in all our operations with The Blade of Marmora and get into contact with our new allies; the Rebels." Allura finished.
"One step at a time." Shiro answered, turning his gaze front. "Recovering Sam should be our focus for right now."
"Agreed. Coran, how close are we?" Allura inquired forwardly, turning the Altean man's way.
"Just a half a varga now, Princess." The Altean man replied.
"Good, then we don't have much time." The Princess decided. "Let's run our course one last time before the mission begins."
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"Ok, everyone, here's the run-down one last time before we begin." Shiro began earning everyone's attention, when pushing himself up from his chair with one hand and immediately finding it hard to maintain his own weight. Losing his balance backwards the Red and Green Paladin's predictably took off from their posts, Keith taking Shiro's left arm and Pidge sliding a handle into his right hand to gain an immediate base of support. Grimacing, his eyes searched down his right side toward the strange feeling braced to his hand, forearm and elbow; finding the answer in the form of a long metal rod shaped at the top to bend backwards where a padded cylinder opened up to cradle his elbow and half his forearm, directly in line with the handle that stuck out from the bend in the rod.
"I.. custom made this to help you stand." Pidge explained upon seeing his puzzled look. "I created it so you can be safer in trying to walk and move around as you've been trying to. It was pretty easy with precise measurements of your height, and arm's length; it should size up perfectly. There's a second to go with if needed." In finishing this, she retrieved the second one from behind his chair and slowly reached the open end of it toward him. Reaching across his body to take it willingly in his left hand, Shiro adjusted his footing gingerly to hold himself up so Keith could step back slightly.
"Here's the plan." He went on, gazing up at the screen once more. An image of the base popped onto the screen amongst other images running Galra and Altean script across them.
"You'll sneak in from here…" Shiro said as the image zoomed into another, showing a hatch the shape of a large, elongated version of an eight-sided across the screen. "It's the central conduit. It'll take you to the heart of the facility. Normally.. we would think that's a terrible idea because the main control room is there. But in this case, it's at the very front. The main control board sticks out of the rocks on the planet's crust and can blend in like anything else. The central conduit allows you to surpass all that and gain access to the very center of the building, which is the most pivotal part of the entire facility."
"Well that sounds easy enough." Lance figures, placing his hands on his hips. "I thought you said this was gonna be an even bigger challenge?"
"Getting through the central conduit to the center, is the only easy part." Shiro reemphasized. "Even getting access to the planet itself is tricky. This planet is surrounded by a nebulanic substance that maintains the atmosphere of the planet itself. The carbon monoxide-based air creates the toxic environment that is extremely dangerous for us to breathe in. Within this nebulanic body are some creatures that are supposed to only allow Galra ships into the planet's atmosphere. You'll have to take the Green Lion for its stealth capabilities, and slide through as quickly as you can. Once you're in.. I'll guide you through the maze to where they keep the prisoners and then it's up to you guys to find Sam so I can guide you back, to get out of there."
"Copy that." Keith confirmed, placing his hand back onto Shiro's shoulder. "We're on it."
"Alright, so.. are we ready? Let's get this party started!" Lance announced, pumping a fist to his side dramatically.
"The best time to strike is between shipment exchanges." Shiro told him. "And I think somewhere I have a log of shipments that are supposed to be here around this time." The Black Paladin finished this, while pulling up a holoscreen and typing away at it to find the screen he desired. "They planned it just far enough ahead that we'll be right in time for one of the final shipments logged here." He concluded, looking up at them.
"So then what is the earliest one to arrive?" Allura wondered, finding herself a little hesitant to say so.
Shiro typed for a moment longer before the screen flashed in the form of a change.
"Looks like the the nearest shipment will be arriving in less than two hours." The Black Paladin announced.
"Then I guess we have some time to kill." Lance smirked, peering over at Keith from the corner of his eye.
"Not gonna happen." The Red Paladin declined at the Blue one's glance.
"Oh come on, you know you loved it. Sheesh." Lance huffed with the roll of his eyes.
"Not happening again, Lance." Keith repeated, keeping his cross-armed posture. "That whole thing was ridiculous."
"What are you talking about?" Pidge asked with an emphasized and purposeful tone.
"Sounds like you killed some time already while the rest of us were… busy." Shiro implied, his gaze wandering away and back where his statement trailed.
"You could say that." Keith groaned, his breath more of a sigh than anything as he shifted his stance to the other hip.
"Something wrong?" Shiro implied by the look of Keith's face.
"Well.." Keith trailed, looking back.
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"Keith, watch your six!" Lance screamed, holding his blaster up across his body.
"Why? You're there." Keith answered simply glancing back with his blade in hand.
"Exactly!" The Blue Paladin emphasized, firing on the floating balls of snarling heads creeping toward them.
"What are those things?!" Keith gasped, swinging blindly to slice a couple of them, which exploded and burst into flowers as more appeared from the sky. Both paladins turned the same direction, as they were met by motion and a puff of a shimmery pink cloud. Sitting up at just the same time, they met each other's confused gaze, and gave a horrified scream at the pink and light blue pigment of each other's spiked and slightly torched hair. Both scrambling up and frantically swinging and shooting about to rid themselves of the odd-looking, bat-like creatures flapping and squawking down at their heads; chasing them wherever they ran screaming…
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"Yeah no, it was terrible." Keith decided quickly, his brows lowering as he shrunk down further into his cross-armed posture.
"Oh come on, if you hadn't been so worried about what those things were; we might've actually beaten that level." Lance complained, crossing his arms and turning away from Keith in a dramatic form of distaste.
"Well if you hadn't led us into that canyon of bubbling goo, after knocking us off that cliff into the river of.. whatever kind of water runs green; maybe we wouldn't have gotten lost in that fjord where we found those giant bouncy mushrooms that attracted those things in the first place." Keith argued, Lance now turning to lean in and give him a challenging look; about to protest.
"Alright, sorry we asked." Shiro spoke up to end their squabbling, his face soon lighting up.
"Shiro?" Matt asked, dropping his smile with his arms out of a cross led fashion; calling attention to the Black Paladin in the moment. "You ok?"
Shiro's eyes closed, his face still with his mouth held open slightly in a thoughtful manner.
"Do you hear that?" He asked, opening them again, and at this the team froze.
"Uh.. hear what?" Lance asked, shifting his stance.
Shiro closed his eyes once more, his jaw slightly more tense. Brow tensed and lips gently peeled away from his teeth in his trademark way, the thought escaped him.
"That distant murmur.." He said, eyes opening once again.
"I don't hear anything, Shiro." Keith said, after a time of listening. Listening with his eyes closed one last time, he gave in with a sigh.
"Alright, maybe it was nothing." He guessed opening them again. A sudden shock to his body and he grimaced. Leaning into his right side, he felt his weight shift as he grabbed the handle of his left crutch with a shaky hand. Barely having a hold of it, he felt his grip well enough to know he was grasping the very end of the handle; and with the tremble he easily lost this half handed grip and hit the floor on his back, being overcome by a darkness.
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Suddenly finding himself to be standing upright without any aid, he found this to be odd, but could not think on it too long before a growl and some paw prints showed up in front of him. Fading in turn as though an invisible creature were printing them upon the midnight ground in from where he stood. The growl echoed after them, when suddenly a familiarly shaped head turned round with a white face and yellow eyes; which flashed then burst into a light that enveloped him into it.
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"Shiro.. you.. ok?.." Keith's voice faded back to him, as he blurred back into focus; with the others standing over him. A groan and he began an attempt to sit up, only getting his right hand up behind him to finish the attempt, failing with the loss of strength.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, easy Shiro.. don't get up yet.." Keith's voice gently soothed, pressure from his fingers encouraging him to give in to the weakness of his absent energy, and lay back once again. "You just lost consciousness for a few seconds." Keith went on. "Give yourself time to come back out of it."
"There was..something there.. I.." Shiro trailed, slowly becoming more and more alert, as he spoke. "I saw something." He managed to say more clearly, as Keith was able to help heave him up again.
"Like what?" Lance wondered, as Keith was able to sit Shiro up into his chair; which had thankfully been just above where he'd fallen.
"I'm not sure, I.." Shiro's gaze caught something that he looked up to quickly. "Look!" He gasped, hyperspeed cutting through the reaches of space far to their right appearing within reach of the green shielded planet that lay directly in front of them.
"The Galra fleet that Shiro mentioned." Coran breathed, approaching his control panel once more.
"That was quick." Hunk commented. "Must be ahead of schedule if they're here already." The Yellow Paladin guessed.
"Then the time to begin is now." Shiro decided. "Team.. get to the Green Lion, we need to launch immediately if we're going to get in without being seen or detected."
"But what about-"
"We'll discuss this later." Shiro interjected the Red Paladin's statement. "Now go. Our window of opportunity is closing.. we need to take it before it's too late and we have to wait for the next one. We may only have one shot at rescuing Sam from this angle;.. let's make it count."
"Understood." Keith gave in after a sigh. "Come on,.. let's move." The Red Paladin continued lifting his gaze. "Everyone get to the Green Lion." Turning a shoulder to Matt in preparation to leave as the rest of the team raced out the door to the bridge, Keith turned to Matt, who stood just behind Shiro's chair to meet his gaze.
"Keep an eye on him?" The Red Paladin implied, making no form of gesture other than the subtle tone of his voice.
"You got it." Matt replied with a thumbs up, then with that Keith tore after the rest of his team; barely making it before the Lion's jaws closed tight.
What is up fanfic fans!! Man, this was such a fun chapter to write!!! The different twists and turns that have already happened have been so much fun. And they haven't even gotten into the prison/base yet. XD Well here's to hoping the next chapter is just as fun! Enjoy!! Thx!!!