Blah, blah, blah. Sorry for the wait. Grad School's almost over. Updates should pickup in the summer.
Butting Heads
He couldn't move. The cloaked figure in front of him reached out a hand towards his head and he couldn't jerk back.
"I don't need you to talk."
He couldn't see their face, but he could hear the smirk in their voice. Their thumb touched his forehead and everything felt scrambled.
…
He squirmed, trying to move, the massive hand around his middle pinned him to the wall. The other hand came up high above him, holding a club the size of a tree branch, studded in steel. He had to move.
…
He fell off the little ledge that happened to be spicing up the arena that day. He knew how to fall, knew how to stop the wind from getting knocked out of his lungs, but he'd just taken a dazing blow to the head and he fell like a sack of bricks. He had to move before they came for him, but he couldn't even breath.
…
All he could do was breath. He'd won the fight, but it wasn't over. He stood over Bondo, a sword in hand. He could hear Sendak's pet coming. It wasn't coming for him. The collar around Bondo's neck was emitting the sound that summoned it. Bondo was still conscious enough to hear the beast that was about to tear him apart for the entertainment of everyone in the stands. Shiro tightened his grip on his sword. He didn't know which way he would move.
…
All he could do was scream as the worst pain of his life tore through his right arm. He struggled agains the bands holding him down.
…
For a moment he didn't realize that he'd woken up. He still struggled to move, to scream, until finally the slightest gasp left his lips and he suddenly found himself tumbling out of bed, his sheets clinging to his wet skin. He gasped in a deep breath and let it shudder out.
He brought his hand up to swipe his sweat soaked hair out of his eyes, only to pause as he felt the cold metal against his brow.
"You have a metal arm," Shiro told himself. He looked up. Dim lights had come on when he'd fallen out of bed.
"You're in the Castle of Lions," he said. "Keith is here with you. You pilot the Black Lion of Voltron."
He turned himself around so he could lean up against the bed.
"You are a paladin. You aren't a prisoner. You aren't a gladiator. You aren't Champion. You are free."
His left hand finally got the hair out of his eyes.
"This is stupid," he said. It was just a stupid trick his dad had taught him when he'd been little and prone to nightmares. "Your family's safe on Earth," he said. "And they'll never have to worry about the Galra." He glanced back at the bed. He wouldn't be getting back to sleep. "Too damn soft."
Shiro stood up, disentangling himself from the sheet. "Lights up," he commanded. He walked purposely into the bathroom and grabbed a towel and quickly got rid of the sweat. He walked over to his closet and pulled out his one set of clothes. Somehow clean once more, just like the morning before.
The castle was quiet. The training room wasn't though.
"Couldn't sleep?" He asked Keith, when his foster brother looked over at him.
"I'm alright," Keith said. "You're the one who's up early."
"Bed's too soft," Shiro said.
"There's always the floor," Keith said.
Shiro laughed like he'd made a joke. "Don't let me interrupt," he said.
Keith nodded and went back to modifying forms he'd learned with a two handed sword to use with his bayard.
Shiro wasn't sure what to do at first. He'd been operating on autopilot just coming to the training deck. He set about doing the warmup sets he'd learned in his first year at the Garrison.
"Computer, set an alarm for one varga before Princess Allura's wakeup time," Shiro said.
"Data file marked private," a voice oddly similar to Coran's said.
"Set an alarm for one varga before Coran's wakeup time," Shiro tried.
"Alarm set."
"Computer, start training simulation level three."
The training robot materialized in front of him. He focused on his arm, and his hand started to glow purple.
"Begin."
Shiro hadn't checked the time when he woke up, and he spent the training session in a haze of action, pausing only to reset the program and up the difficulty. He was frustrated when his alarm eventually went off. He was covered in sweat again and he took a moment to hydrate before retiring to the attached locker room. Keith followed him in. He'd forgotten that Keith had been there. He stripped off his clothes and hung them up in one of the alcoves.
He heard a small gasp from Keith and turned in time to see Keith's eyes roving over some of the scars that littered his body before his head snapped forward towards where he was stashing his own clothes. Shiro saw that Lance had been right about being able to see Keith's ribs.
"Princess Allura said you thought to check for habitable planets in systems neighboring the Rigel system," Shiro said, trying to force himself out of the headspace he'd fallen into, and making sure Keith knew that he didn't need to worry about the scars.
"Oh," Keith said. "Yeah. You never know."
They headed for the showers.
"You're really fitting into place here," Shiro said. "As a Paladin. I'm proud of you."
Keith flushed red a bit.
The spay of the shower was instantly hot, and a little adjustment turned it cooler to make sure he didn't fall prey to the luxury and spend an hour in there. Some of the accommodations on the ship just felt wrong to him. The bed, the bright lights, and the computer ready to do your bidding. Only the food made him feel like things were normal. Those thoughts though were too close to the past, and he wasn't thinking about that.
"There's a number of tasks today, we'll be splitting up for the most part," Shiro said. "Princess Allura suggested you and Lance check out some of the systems around Rigel since we want Pidge and Hunk for some of the technical matters. Are you going to be okay with that."
"Yes," Keith said quickly. "I'll keep him out of trouble."
"Don't let him goad you into anything," Shiro said.
"You don't like him," Keith said a bit petulantly, sounding a bit more like the teenager he'd been trying to pretend he wasn't.
"He has some growing up to do," Shiro said. "You all had some more growing up to do, but…"
"He'll surprise you," Keith said.
"I know you have a crush on him," Shiro said. "But do you like him?"
"I like him a lot."
"But…"
"It doesn't matter," Keith said. But Lance didn't have feelings for Keith. Which was fine, of course. Shiro couldn't fault anyone for not being into someone else, but he didn't exactly appreciate that his foster brother had found himself on the receiving end of a lot of goading from the boy he was crushing on. He couldn't exactly tell Keith that there were plenty of fish in the sea either, since they'd found themselves in a very small pond.
"Focus on being his teammate," Shiro said. "We did pretty well yesterday, but we need to work on teamwork. With everyone."
Keith groaned at that.
Shiro shut off his shower. "I've got some things to get ready before breakfast," he said. "Don't rush."
Keith grunted, and Shiro left him to enjoy the rest of his shower. He dried off and found that the clothes he'd left in his alcove were clean and dry. It felt wrong being so clean. Which was a ridiculous feeling. He knew that full well. He wasn't going to run around covered in sweat and grime just because of a feeling.
He went back to his room and made some notes on things he wanted to go over that morning with the team. It felt like being back at the Garrison, getting ready for a meeting. It felt nice. It felt dangerous.
He checked the time. Coran would have just gotten up, and so too probably Princess Allura.
"Computer, put me on the ship's speaker."
Pidge almost cried when Shiro's voice came in over the PA.
"Rise and shine Paladins. We've got a busy day ahead of us. It is twenty-two forty Earth Standard Time. You have seventy-five minutes to get ready, eat breakfast and meet on the training deck. Uniform of the day is your civilian clothes."
Her headache was back instantly. She didn't want to get out of bed. She was too tired. She hadn't slept much the night before. Insomnia was one of the stupider effects of caffeine withdrawal. She hadn't even been able to really do anything productive.
"You can say you told me so," Pidge said. "But I get to say it too." Matt had always disapproved of his little sister's caffeine habits, even though he'd been her biggest enabler before she'd had a reliable way to get it on her own.
Hearing her voice, Rover came over and chirped at her in greeting. She reached out a hand to pat him on the top of his casing. Changing her grip she said, "Rover, pull me out of bed, buddy."
This was a bit of a mistake. Rover didn't have any concept of how humans operated, or what position they needed to be in to stand and he just moved parallel to the floor, pulling away from the bed. Pidge managed though and stood up to a big dizzy spell and an even larger headache.
Stumbling into her bathroom she looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. A couple of passes of her fingers did about as much as she was willing to do for her hair. A quick sniff left her concluding that the clothes she had slept in were suitable for the day. Eventually, she made her way to the kitchen where she barely had an appetite for her food goo. Lance was giving her a look so she flipped him off.
They all gathered on the training deck and Pidge was relieved to find that they were just going to be getting some briefings.
"Pidge, are you coming down with something?" Shiro asked.
"Caffeine withdrawal," Lance supplied.
Pidge shot him a glare. "I'm fine," she said.
"Alright then, we've got some briefings, and then we'll be splitting up for assigned tasks," Shiro said.
The first couple hours were spent with Shiro and Coran giving various briefings on operating procedures and other things that Pidge couldn't be bothered to care about. Lastly though, Shiro gave a breakdown of how Pidge was supposed to operate within the team, and in battles and on missions. That largely got her attention. It basically boiled down to managing her risk levels and keeping her in support roles for the most part, and staying inside of her lion. She shot a sour look towards Lance when Shiro actually said the words 'buddy system.'
Finally though, they were done, and Shiro started giving out assignments.
"Keith and Lance, you're going to be checking out the Actic system which neighbors the Rigel system. Princess Allura identified a likely habitable planet."
"There could be survivors?" Lance asked.
"The remains of that ship in orbit suggests that they had interstellar capabilities, so there could be," Shiro said. "This is a scouting mission only. Do not engage if you encounter the enemy or other hostiles. Coran's going to give you a communicator to drop off if you make contact with anyone. Assess them for any immediate needs, let them know we'd like to talk to them in the future and then come back. Princess Allura will be busy, so we won't be able to keep the wormhole open for you. You'll need to tell us when you're mission's complete. Mandatory check-in every half hour. Keith's taking point."
"Keith!"
"Any questions?"
"Nope," Keith said. "I'll keep you up to date."
"Don't forget, Lance is on light duty,"
"I make no promises if there are any more swooning princesses that need catching," Lance said.
Shiro didn't respond to that. "Dismissed," he told them. "Get into your armor. Hunk you're with Coran getting systems back online. Pidge, I want you going through the castle's captured communications logs. I want hotspot maps of Galra communications and a time progression map of activity through the galaxy. I'll want a progress report at dinner tonight."
"That's like half an hour of work," Pidge said. "I want to check the Galra ship for intel."
"Good idea, but not without a partner," Shiro said. "When you're done, check with Princess Allura for where you can help next. I'll be finishing up some planning after lunch. We'll go out then to see what we can find in the wreckage."
It was something.
Her tablet had mainframe access, and she tapped into it with her laptop to get at the data. The ship's computer had advanced query response and she was able to quickly identify the data she needed. After that, all she really had to do was figure out how she wanted to organize the data and then she was done. She looked at the time. That had taken her twenty minutes. She spent a bit of time adding more protocols to Rover who chirped at her while she worked.
At the end of her self assigned half an hour she went and found the Princess, who set her up with a training program to familiarize her with some of the systems and the coding languages that ran the ship. Pidge uploaded the castle schematics into Rover and had him take her on a guided tour so she could inspect different things while she learned about them. It should have been super cool and awesome, but she was just too tired and achy to worry about it.
Lunch rolled around and it was food goo yet again. Hunk talked at her about the things Coran had him working on while she ate. Eventually Shiro showed up and Pidge slid her tablet over to him so he could see what she'd worked on.
"Transmissions have some sort of id number at the beginning," Pidge said. "I think it's unique to the ship. I also think there's a classifications system in there, so like, a cruiser's going to have a different prefix from a cargo ship and whatnot. I'll be able to do a lot more if I can get a rubric or something."
"This is great," Shiro said. "Anything stand out in their recent communications?"
Pidge frowned. "The ship in our solar system wasn't encrypting their comms," she said. "Which was weird. But just about everything else out there is. So we don't exactly have a log of everything the empire's been talking about. For the most part, all we've got are ship designations and where each communication was from."
"Well this is a good start," Shiro said. "Good work."
"Can we go check out the wreckage yet?" Pidge asked.
"Let's get into our armor," Shiro said.
Pidge sighed in relief. She was finally getting a chance to resume her search. She grabbed her backpack and followed Shiro out the door.
They helped each other get their armor on. Shiro had to crouch down for her to help him with his chest piece.
She looked over when a purple light lit up the room. Shiro's mechanical hand was glowing.
"Weapons check," he said.
She picked up her Bayard and activated it briefly before storing it in her thigh piece. "Still messing with the laws of physics," she said as it dissolved into the ether.
They both got into the black lion and took off towards the wreckage.
"Which part are we headed for?" Pidge asked.
"That bit over there looks the least damaged," Shiro said.
They landed a small distance away. Finding an entrance wasn't difficult since the hull was plenty damaged.
"Stay behind me if anything shows up," Shiro said.
"I'm not a damsel in distress," Pidge said. She shot Rover a look as if he was going to commiserate with her.
"Age aside," Shiro said. "I'm a martial arts expert with years of experience and you're an imposter science officer slash hacker who skipped all of your combat classes."
"I'm just saying, you don't need to treat me differently from the others," Pidge said.
"You can't find your family if you're dead," Shiro said.
"I can't find my family if you keep me out of the field," Pidge said.
"You're in the field right now," Shiro said.
"Hardly," Pidge said.
"How are you holding up?" Shiro asked.
"I'm fine," Pidge said.
"You sound like Keith when he was your age," Shiro said.
"You remember Keith?" Pidge asked. "Like, everything?"
"I remember enough," Shiro said.
"Have you remembered anything about what happened after you got captured?" Pidge asked.
"Nothing that's going to help you," Shiro said and then he pointed. "There's a control panel over there."
"And you don't remember me?" she asked, unslinging her backpack.
"Sometimes I feel like I do, but it's just a flash of your brother," Shiro said. "Did we get along?"
"You didn't used to baby me."
"I don't think I used to have to protect you from the realities of war."
"I'm already dealing with the realities of war," Pidge grunted. "I need power. Give me your hand."
Silence. She looked over her shoulder. Shiro was giving her a funny look.
"I don't mean like take it off or anything," Pidge said. "But they're both Galra tech so their power requirements might be compatible."
Shiro stepped forward and held his hand out. Pidge hunted around for a port or access panel. There was a latch at the joint. Looking inside she found what she was looking for and after removing the plating under the control panel she had rover point out the power cable leading into it. She yanked out a length and hitched Shiro up to the unit.
"You're good to go," Pidge said.
Shiro held out his arm carefully as it started to glow. The control panel lit up soon after. It took her a bit to realize that they were disconnected from the main drives.
"Rover," Pidge said. "Get outside and get a scan of this section of the ship. She pulled out her laptop and brought up the schematics she'd stolen back when they'd first infiltrated it. Soon enough, Rover was back with the scan and Pidge was able to pinpoint which part of the ship they were in.
"This way," Pidge said.
They wound up a few decks up. Pidge didn't appreciate the workout. She wound up cutting through a bulkhead with her Bayard to get into a proper data room where hopefully there'd be some record of prisoner transfers.
"Damnit!"
A thoroughly destroyed data room.
"Rover, buddy, help me find something," she said. "Anything." She started going through data crystals. "Fried," she mutterred. "Fried, smashed, ugh."
"This is weapons fire," Shiro said.
"I can see that," Pidge said.
"That means someone survived the crash to come in here and make sure the data was destroyed," Shiro said.
"We scanned for life signs," Pidge said.
Shiro frowned.
"We passed a bunch of downed droids on the way here," Pidge said. "Maybe one of them made it through the crash and had a protocol to destroy data in the event of a crash."
"Maybe," Shiro said. "Keep looking. I'm going to watch the door."
Pidge shrugged. Rover was better at looking than Shiro was anyway.
They didn't find anything though.
"Damn it!"
She started throwing things. Because having a tantrum in front of Shiro was better than bawling like a child.
"Oh great leader," Lance said. "Do I have permission to get in my lion?"
Lance had been pulling the schtick ever since they had left the training deck. Keith had taken to ignoring it after he realized Lance was making fun of him. They took off and flew through a wormhole Allura opened for them.
"Okay, I can figure this out," Lance said. "Um, yeah, there's the fifth planet. There's energy signatures in one small part of one of the continents. I think that's fusion?"
"Follow me in," Keith said.
"Yes, sir!" Lance said. "A bold plan."
"I didn't ask to get put in charge," Keith said.
"No, you're just the one who goes off telling Shiro I'm not taking things seriously."
"I never said that to him," Keith said. "But you don't, you don't take things seriously."
"I do too."
"Can we just do this?"
Lance sighed, as if Keith were the one trying his patience.
"Alright," Lance exclaimed, as if they hadn't just argued. "Time to make first contact. Let's hope there aren't any Borg."
Keith didn't know what the Borg were. He'd never kept up with social media back on Earth, but he was sure it was some meme that Lance would ridicule him for not knowing. "They've already had first contact," Keith said. "It didn't go well."
"That's fair," Lance said. "Alright. Um… There're life signs all over the planet."
Keith's breath hitched.
"Give me a second," Lance said. "Pidge is the one who's good at this stuff. Umm… There's a bunch of different species, but… There's a cluster around that energy source. Can I… Okay, yeah, so, if I'm reading this right, there's one species that's clustered around that energy source, and there's about fifty of them."
"Fifty?" Keith asked. "That's all?"
"Yeah," Lance said. "They probably couldn't get that many off their home world. That sucks. I mean, yesterday we thought they were all gone, but still."
There should be more. The colony had always been doomed, but still, there should have been more.
"Do you want me to hail them?" Lance asked.
Keith hesitated. "Go for it," he said. "Just… This is important Lance."
There was a pause on Lances end, and then. "Opening hailing frequencies," he said.
"Inhabitants of Actic Five, inhabitants of Actic Five, this is the Blue Paladin of Voltron," Lance said, now without hesitation. "Requesting an open channel. I repeat, this is the Blue Paladin of Voltron, requesting an open channel, over."
They waited a moment.
"Try again," Keith said, but then…
"Are you Galra?" a familiar voice came in over the comm.
"Negative," Lance said. "We are enemies of the Galra Empire. Are you the former inhabitants of Rigel Seven?"
"We are," the voice said. Keith knew that voice.
"Well we're glad there are survivors," Lance said. "We came across Rigel Seven yesterday, we thought we'd check the surrounding systems."
"We need help. Please. We need help. We cannot survive here."
"We want to talk about that," Lance said. "We'd like permission to land. Please send coordinates and landing protocols."
"How much clear space does your ship require?"
"Units don't translate, but… I have eyes on the facility you're broadcasting from. We've got two ships and we'll need a clear space that's about three times as wide and twice as long for both of us."
"Yes," the voice said. Kametol said. His name was Kametol. "I'm sending you coordinates in relation to this transponder. This planet is measured in one thousand degrees around the equator, and five hundred degrees from equator to pole."
"Gyeong, do you know how to work that out?" Lance asked.
"Give me a minute," Keith said.
"Any landing procedures or defenses we need to worry about?" Lance asked.
"None," Kametol said. "No one has landed on this planet since we left our home world. We await your arrival."
"See you soon, then," Lance said.
Lance cut the channel.
"Was that too easy?" Lance asked.
"What do you mean?" Keith asked.
"Strange aliens call them up and ask to land and they're just like, 'sure, no problem.' Just seems weird. I thought I'd have to convince them we weren't a threat or something."
"They're desperate," Keith said. "There's only fifty of them there. This probably wasn't a stable colony before the Galra attacked."
"Did you work out those coordinates?" Lance asked.
"Follow me in," Keith said.
Lance opened an FTL comm line with the castle and let Coran know that they'd made contact and were landing.
They landed in a barren field. It used to grow crops. Keith could remember it now clearly, the land around them, the mountains and the trees.
"Okay," Lance said. "I've got a list of the elements in the air outside, but I don't know if they're toxic."
"Keep your helmet on this time," Keith said.
"I told you, I needed to activate my headpiece," Lance protested.
"No, you needed to keep your helmet on," Keith said. "Meet me outside."
Lance was scowling at him when he got out, but he was wearing his helmet with the full visor activated.
They didn't have to wait long.
"Okay," Lance said. "That is definitely an alien. Dude, Gyeong, are these blob people?"
Keith didn't recognize whoever was approaching them. They were in their compact form. Rolling was their most efficient method of getting around. They stoped about ten meters away.
"Greetings," Lance said, raising his arm in a sort of wave.
Their greeter narrowed and shot up, legs forming first and then a head and arms. Keith still didn't recognize them.
"Greetings visitors," they said. "Please, find welcome here. I am Daramit, I will guide you to the Council."
"Hey, thanks," Lance said. "My name's Lance, and this is…Keith. Do your people shake?" He was holding out his hand.
"We vibrate certain cell clusters to generate heat when our environment does not provide enough," Daramit said.
"Lance," Keith said. They didn't shake hands, touch was more intimate for them. "It's a greeting among our people that involves holding hands. It's fine if you don't want to."
"How… interesting," Daramit said. "If you'll follow me." He turned around.
"Don't touch anyone," Keith muttered at Lance.
Daramit walked with them back to the small town that made up the entirety of the planet's civilization. Lance was unfazed by the hand shaking mess and asked question after question, wanting to know everything about their guide. He kept it light though. He didn't bring up anything about the Galra or about the dire plea for help that Kametol had made.
Keith had his eyes on Daramit. He could see it in his coloring, and in his gait, and in the tremors that moved through his form, he could see the side effects that came from shadow sickness. Which didn't make sense. If there were only fifty of them left then they should have all been able to cycle through the ships for access to the lights. There wouldn't have had to have been any rationing. There was more than enough space for fifty.
They reached the town center, and Keith could see that not much had changed since he had died there. There were few buildings that had been built after they landed. Most work that needed to be done indoors was done in the ships or the habitat structure that had been built when this planet had just been a research outpost. Everything had been built around their need for the special lights brought from home.
Keith gasped when they entered the habitat structure. Most of the colony must have been in there. All of them showing signs. It wasn't that that gave him pause though. It was the ceiling. Most of the lights were out. Keith looked around. Several people were starting to assume humanoid shapes, some of them he recognized, but many more were keeping themselves flattened out to capture as much light as they could.
Keith knew exactly what had happened to the others. How the colony had been reduced to almost nothing. They'd all been taken by the shadow.
"What exactly is the problem?" Shiro asked.
"Lance PROMISED them that we'd relocate them," Keith said.
"Dude," Lance said. "They'd all fit in Blue. We've got wormholes. We can get them wherever they need to go."
"Where do they need to go, Sanchez? Did you already find a planet for them? One that's empty, or willing to take them, one where they'll get the right light filtered through their atmosphere?"
"I don't know," Lance said. "Heck, I'm sure the castle's lights could be altered to give them what they need."
"We can't just stuff them into the castle," Keith said.
"Why not?" Lance asked, getting up in his face. "We're supposed to save the Galaxy, right? We can't just let an entire species go extinct. Or does saving the Galaxy just mean blowing stuff up for you?"
"This castle's almost been blown up twice in the past two days," Keith said. "Quick way to make sure they do go extinct."
Shiro shot a quick look at the Alteans and held up his hand to get the two paladins to calm down. He turned to Keith. "What exactly is the issue with the light?"
"They're like giant algae people," Lance said.
"I believe Keith was taking point here," Shiro said.
Keith scowled at him. He knew he would have probably preferred to let Lance do the talking, but briefings were something he was going to need to work on.
"Their physiology requires specific bandwidths of light. Actic five has too much ozone in the stratosphere. It blocks most of the ultraviolet they need."
"They didn't say anything about Ozone," Lance challenged.
Keith flushed. "You must not have been paying attention."
"I was too paying attention," Lance said. "I paid attention to everything. I was the one doing all the talking. You just kept on staring at people."
"Lance," Shiro said. "Keep going Keith."
"They had a bunch of UV lights in the ships they'd arrived in, and they've been cycling people through so they could get by. None of their systems were designed to last so long without proper maintenance though. A malfunction a few years ago caused a power surge that destroyed a bunch of their lights. There just wasn't enough left to keep so many alive."
"So they starved to death?" Hunk asked.
"Pretty much," Keith said.
"Did they give you specifications for what a new planet would need?" Pidge asked.
"I'll send it to you," Lance said.
"Well, long term they need to be relocated," Hunk said. "But right now, this is an engineering problem. Do they have enough power."
"They're cycling the fusion reactors from the ships that brought them there," Lance said. "All they're using them for, for the most part, is light, heat, and water purification. They don't have the means to make anything but rudimentary tools, so besides what they brought with them, which wasn't much, they're basically bronze age technologically. So they've got a ton of power and not much to do with it."
"So send them a bunch of lights for now?" Hunk asked.
"We can certainly spare them," Coran said. "Grab what you need. We can fabricate replacements later."
"Keith, go ahead and take Hunk with you this time," Shiro said. "Lance you can be Coran's helper.
"I'm the one who talked to them," Lance said.
"We don't need anymore promises we don't know if we can keep," Shiro said. "Unless you've got experience with electrical engineering I think you'll be a bit superfluous."
Lance didn't look happy at that, but then again, he would have just fought with Keith for the rest of the mission. Shiro couldn't really blame him for what he'd said to the refugees on Actic Five, and the instinct to help was good. He just wasn't trained for diplomacy. None of them were, besides Princess Allura.
"Dismissed," Shiro said. "Pidge, you're with me."
Pidge groaned, and god, what was he doing with a kid out in all of it. He took Pidge back to his office and had him mess around with the data. It felt perfectly and horribly mundane and set an itch to do something, but it was doing something. It was necessary, and he didn't just get out of it so he could scratch the itch.
"Does the castle's cartography list each planet's attributes?" Shiro asked.
Pidge had his head in his hands, staring blearily at the screen. "Yep."
"Alright," Shiro said. "Run the time series over again. Let's see if there's a pattern based off planet attribute."
Pidge groaned as he typed with one hand. Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose.
"So how does this thing work?" Lance asked. He wasn't interested in it the way Hunk would be interested, but it was still cool.
"Pretty simple," Coran said. "The fabricator has a bank of most raw elemental atoms and it can form just about any atomic bond. There are few things we can't fabricate right here as long as we know the molecular makeup. And as long as we have enough energy."
Lance had been helping Coran out for a few hours when they'd stopped to get a part from the fabricator that Lance had been hearing about.
"It's taking forever though," Lance said.
"Well sure," Coran said. "Can't just put a few septillion atoms together all at once."
"So what's this thing going to do?" Lance asked, gesturing to the round device that was taking shape in front of them.
"It's a buffer disk for the ship's energy crystal," Coran said. "It stabilizes things. Ten thousand phoebes sure did wear away at the old one."
Lance pulled out his phone, on its last legs until they worked out how to charge it. Lance had been working out a problem for Pidge, and Hunk had helpfully had a pdf of the Chemist's Cookbook on his own phone.
"So what about this?" Lance asked, holding up his phone and the diagram drawn on it.
"Are the numbers the number of protons in an atom?" Coran asked.
"Yeah," Lance said. "And the lines are shared electrons." He pointed at the bottom of the screen. "Hunk said that that's dosing in number of molecules."
Coran took hold of the phone and started typing at the console for the fabricator.
"Anything else you humans have been missing?" Coran asked.
"Oh, so much," Lance said. "But we'll work it out. This is what we need now though. Hey, is this what made the pajamas in my room? They fit perfectly."
Coran chortled. "Fabricate clothes? What will you humans think next? Some things have dedicated machinery. The fabricator takes a great deal of energy, and plenty of time as well. Everything in here is what we use to keep the castle running. Next door we have everything that handles the less essential things, like a machine that can spin out fabrics in just about any configuration. It already has extensive thread banks, so you don't need to create anything at the atomic level."
The fabricator dinged and Coran pulled the disc out of the chamber.
"Come on then," he said. "We'll get this installed and by the time we're back your item should be done."
They walked out of the room that contained the fabricator and Coran led the way to wherever the energy crystal was.
"So do you think it'll be that hard to find a new home for those people?" Lance asked.
"It could be," Coran said. "But don't worry. We'll help them, whether that means giving them supplies or relocating them."
"Is that an Altean value?" Lance asked.
"Helping people?"
"Helping strangers," Lance said.
"I suppose it is," Coran said. "King Alfor forged a great alliance that aimed to ensure peace and prosperity throughout the galaxy. Altea had come a long way and I suppose we as a people wanted to help others get there too."
"So is that a value you find out there?" Lance asked. "Like, does it pop up over and over again between civilizations?"
"To some extent or another," Coran said. "Certainly not in every civilization, and it's often curbed by societal preferences, of course, but many of them for sure. A lot of them. Civilizations only form when people can work cooperatively. Empathy tends to help with that."
They entered a room with a giant glowing crystal that seemed to pulse with energy.
"Does that thing power the castle?" Lance asked.
"It sure does," Coran said. "Now, I want you to stand by this panel here. When I tell you to, press this button, and then tell me when this bar here gets to this line here," he said, pointing.
"No problem," Lance said. Coran walked over to the crystal and started fiddling with it. It didn't look nearly as cool as a warp core, but it was pretty cool that a giant glowing crystal powered whatever process opened up the wormholes.
"So are there a lot of commonalities like that?" Lance asked. "Like commandments?"
"Commandments?"
"Like, 'though shalt not kill,'" Lance said.
"Well that's a pretty common one," Coran said. "With various caveats. Also pretty helpful for civilizations to form."
"Okay," Lance said. "But do you have anything like that? Only there's ten of them. Ten Commandments?"
"Just a moment," Coran said. He tapped his earpiece. "Going to be switching to emergency power for just a moment." Lance heard it in his own earpiece, same as everyone else on the ship.
Coran looked at Lance. "Go ahead and press that button."
Lance nodded and the crystal stopped glowing. Coran got back to what he'd been doing.
"So what's this about?" Coran asked.
"Um," Lance hadn't been sure about directly asking. "Do Alteans have a religion?"
"Oh," Coran said. "You all seem so comfortable out here, I forget how little your species has interacted with others outside your planet. I suppose a lot of people ask similar questions when they first start to branch out."
"So what's the answer?" Lance asked.
"About Altea, or the question many ask eventually?" Coran asked. "Where are we on that bar, by the way?"
Lance muttered a curse and looked down. "Um, you're a bit past the mark actually," he said.
"Good, good," Coran said. He twisted something into place and stood up, turning to face Lance. "I didn't really study this," he said. "Princess Allura could probably tell you a lot about the history of Altean religions, of which there were many over our very long history, but the most I can tell you, is that ideas about gods, and creation, pop up from planet to planet. They are as alike as they are different. I'm sure you can find many with common ground to your own. But if you're looking for something universal, I don't think I can help you."
Lance sighed. It was supposed to be about faith anyways, so why was he out looking for proof.
Coran touched his earpiece again. "Switching off emergency power in a moment," he said, and then to Lance. "You can go ahead and press that button again."
Princess Allura came in over the comms next. "Is everything calibrated over there? Keith and Hunk are ready to come back."
"You may open a wormhole at your convenience, Princess," Coran said. He tapped his comm off and turned back to the crystal.
"When it was first discovered, by my great great great grand father I might add, the Balmera that grow these crystals, great planet sized beings, older than any civilization we've encountered, the Balmera were worshiped by some on Altea. Some of them were able to commune with them, and it's said that that's where Altean alchemy first came from."
"I guess the answers aren't just out there waiting for me," Lance said.
"No, I don't suppose they are," Coran said. "Give it some time. Trust yourself that you'll work it out."
"Huh," Lance said. Not worrying about it for just then suited him just fine. "So about what happened earlier. Was it really a big deal that I said we'd relocate them?"
"Oh, don't worry about that too much," Coran said, kneeling down to reattach the panel that had covered the buffer disk. "You're going to make mistakes. Everyone does. This was hardly a major one."
Lance saw Rover come in out of the corner of his eye. Time to wrap up. He didn't want to have the conversation in front of Pidge. He didn't really want to talk to Pidge at all until he had his peace offering.
"I guess," Lance said. "Haha, yeah. Not a big deal."
"You know you remind me a bit of myself when I first got off Altea and started as an Ensign in the Alliance."
Lance looked over his shoulder for Pidge, not the sort of thing he wanted overheard, but the little gremlin wasn't there.
Lance looked back over at Rover that had just settled on top of the crystal. He saw it flash red. There was the briefest moment of confusion, and then Lance felt words fail him. Instead, he vaulted over the console, running right for Coran. He leapt up onto the raised platform that held the crystal, grabbed Coran, and lurched the both of them back over the edge. He saw a bright white flash and briefly felt a moment of heat on his back and pressure in his head.
The lights were off when they got back to the castle.
"Keith to Shiro," he said, waiting a moment. "The bay doors won't open."
"The castle's power generator exploded," Shiro said. "Land in front of the Castle and meet up in the med bay."
"Who's hurt?" Keith asked, feeling a sickly tension coiled up inside of him.
"It's Lance," Shiro said. "Grab Hunk, and get over here."
Keith landed in a rush and dashed out of Red. He did not grab Hunk. The halls blurred around him. Arriving outside of the med bay he stopped, afraid of what he'd find. He shook off memories of a hospital hallway and walked in. There was Lance, lying face down on the exam table. Coran and Shiro were standing over him.
"Is he…"
"He's alive," Shiro said. "He's got a nasty concussion and a number of crystal shards in his back. Probably internal bleeding as well."
"What the hell happened," Keith asked.
"We don't know," Coran said. "We'd just replaced the buffer disk, everything was in normal levels, there weren't any energy spikes. I'd say it just blew up, but Lance knew something was wrong, he pulled me off the platform right before it happened."
"He needs a healing pod," the Princess said. "But those won't run until we restore main power."
"So why aren't you fixing it now?" Keith asked.
"We don't have another crystal," Coran said.
"Where do we get one?" Keith asked.
"We need a Balmera," Coran said.
"What's a Balmera?" Hunk asked arriving behind Keith. "Hey, what happened to Lance?!"
"No time to explain," the Princess said. "The rest of the Lions are locked in the bays since we don't have power. Hunk, take Coran in the Yellow Lion. You're going to retrieve a new power crystal for the ship."
Coran was already heading to the exit, clapping Hunk on the shoulder. "The sooner we get it the sooner we can heal him."
"Is he going to be alright?" Hunk asked as he turned to follow Coran.
"How long is that going to take?" Keith asked. "You can't open up wormholes now, can you?"
"With luck there will be a Balmera close enough," the Princess said. "I couldn't say how long it will take."
"What about the Galra ship?" Shiro asked. "Their power source could still be intact."
The Princess frowned. "We never detected it. Though we weren't specifically looking for it. Unless it was well shielded though we would have picked it up when we searched for survivors. It was most likely destroyed on impact."
"So it could be there," Shiro said. "Would you be able to detect it on scanners if it were there?"
"Of course," the Princess said. "We would have to dig around a bit to make sure we aren't missing anything but if it wasn't destroyed we would be able to find it."
"Then Keith, I need you to take Princess Allura to the crash site in the Red Lion," Shiro said.
"I'm not leaving him!" Keith said, baring his teeth in challenge.
"What?" Pidge asked.
"This isn't up for debate," Shiro said. "I can't fly your lion, and mine can't get out of the castle. The best thing you can do for him now is to help look through the Galra ship."
"Um, I'll send you the schematics of the ship," Pidge said. "You can pinpoint where to search. Also, I was thinking I could maybe siphon energy from the Green Lion. Enough to power a healing pod at least."
"Get on that," Shiro said. "Keith…"
Keith looked at Lance, lying prone and defenseless. "You'll stay with him."
"I'll stay with him," Shiro said.
Leaving him felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.
"Come on Princess," Keith said, turning to go.
"He'll be alright," the Princess said.
"Don't say that if you don't know it's true," Keith said harshly.
Shiro watched Keith leave.
"Am I missing something?" Pidge asked.
"How long to jury rig something with your lion?" Shiro asked.
"I still haven't figured out what powers them," Pidge said. "This is more Hunk's area anyway. I'll see what I can do, but I don't even know if it's going to be compatible."
"There might not be a Balmera close by, and there probably isn't anything left in the Galra ship. So, this is probably our best bet," Shiro said. "Doesn't have to be pretty, just get it done."
Pidge nodded and left, leaving Shiro alone with Lance. He went back to pulling shards of crystal out of his back. Lance didn't seem to notice. The explosion had nocked him deeply unconscious and he hadn't come round once since it had happened. Shiro stopped himself from considering the effects of a traumatic brain injury like that if Lance didn't get the advanced healing the Alteans were promising.
He considered Keith's behavior. He'd been alright letting his one-sided crush be before, but now they were if anything, more antagonistic towards one another than they had been at the Garrison, and Keith's judgement was obviously clouded by it. It wasn't healthy. Not for the first time, Shiro wished that Keith hadn't set his sights on a boy who seemed hell bent on picking fights with him. Though looking down at the boy who's back was slowly weeping blood from a couple dozen lacerations, Shiro realized he didn't really know much about him.
Lance was under his command, one way or another, and here he was grievously wounded and Shiro still didn't know why. For all that Shiro'd been the Garrison's star fighter pilot, he'd never thought he'd be a battle commander, and he couldn't help but think that he was doing a horrible job of it. He didn't know how to deal with Keith; Pidge and Hunk had one foot out the door; he didn't have patience for Lance, and at the end of the day he was commanding children in an intergalactic war.
He grabbed some more gauze and padded some of the deeper cuts. He saw enough blood when he closed his eyes at night.
"I guess I can see what he sees in you," Shiro said. "A bit. That was a good save back there. Good instincts." Somehow Lance had known what was going to happen, and he'd gotten Coran out of the way of the blast. "What did you see though?"
Shiro heard a scraping noise coming from down the hallway. He frowned looking out the doorway, going on alert.
"Pidge," Shiro said, activating his comm. "Where are you right now?"
"I'm in the bay with my lion," Pidge said.
Shiro narrowed his eyes at the door, remembering the data room on the Galra ship. "Stay on the line," he said, moving towards the door.
The scraping noise was getting closer. Now he could hear it better. It was a thunk scrape, thunk scrape. He glanced back at Lance, still lying face down on the table. Rushing back, he picked Lance up and placed him on the floor behind the exam table on his side in the recovery position. He listened to the scraping noise, a tension rising up in him. When it got close enough he rushed forward the doorway, charging his hand as he crossed the threshold, kicking off of the opposing wall to rapidly turn down the hall and slice his hand through the head of a sentry droid. There was another one behind it. Letting out a guttural yell, Shiro charged, shifting left in anticipation of the plasma bolt that shot past him a moment later and then another sentry fell to his arm.
"Champion," a horribly familiar voice said. A voice he had heard in his dreams. The coldly amused voice that ordered the release of the drhakar whenever it was time to finish off an opponent who had lost and was no longer fit to entertain him anymore.
"Sendak," said Shiro with gravel in his voice, his pulse pounding his ears. "I'm not your champion."
"You will be," Sendak said. "After I deliver the lions of Voltron to Zarkon and the witch is done with you, you will be the star of my new arena on my new ship."
Shiro lunged forward. Leaping up to make up for the two feet Sendak had on him, he brought his arm down in a glowing arc only to be brought up short by Sendak's own arm, a mechanical monstrosity that seemed to be connected to his shoulder by a thick arc of purple energy, the same color as Shiro's own arm when it was activated. Shiro latched onto the metal forearm and used it as leverage to aim a roundhouse at Sendak's head. He got a grunt in response and then he was flung away, at least twenty feet down the hall. He landed in a sprawl that he sprung back up from only to see Sendak's mechanical arm shooting out from his body. It collided with his chest and sent him back, even as massive metal fingers closed around his torso. Suddenly the arm was reeling him back. Shiro jabbed his glowing hand into the wrist joint and was suddenly dropped.
Shiro lost himself in the fight after that. Sendak was massive, and Shiro was at a disadvantage in the confines of the hallway, but Sendak was also big enough to be slow. Shiro lunged and dodged, narrowly missing a punch that could have stopped a truck before he took a shallow swipe at an exposed flank. Sendak roared as Shiro looped around behind him and used a fixture on the wall as a springboard to leap up onto his back.
"Order your sentries to stand down," Shiro said, his glowing hand millimeters away from Sendak's throat.
"Victory or death," Sendak said.
Shiro was about ready to give it to him when- "Let him go, or this one dies."
Shiro hadn't even seen the other Galra, he'd been so focused on Sendak, but there he was. He was standing in the door to the infirmary and he held Lance up by a fistful of his hair.
There was a moment when no one moved. Shiro could see Lance's face twisted in pain, even when he was clearly unconscious. Shiro powered down his arm and was then violently thrown off of Sendak.
"Shiro," Pidge's voice came in over the open comm. "What's going on?"
"Promise you won't hurt him and I'll surrender," Shiro said.
"Shit!" Pidge cursed.
"He's not even armed," Shiro said. "There's no honor in killing him.
"Right," Pidge said. "I need my armor."
"What's your plan even?" Shiro asked, as a sentry approached him with some manner of restraints. "The bay doors are closed, and you're not getting them open unless you can power the ship."
His arms were wrenched behind his back and something was clamped over his forearms such that his elbows were almost touching behind him causing him to arch his back.
"We brought our own crystal," Sendak said. "And there's no need to open the doors just yet. Once we've collected the other two this ship will fly itself to the heart of the empire."
"Right," Pidge said. "I'm on that too. Fucking hell."
Shiro grit his teeth. There weren't any magical lions here now. It was just Pidge against the sentries and the Galra. Just Pidge to be the gremlin in the works.
"You picked the wrong week to get clean, Gunderson," Pidge told herself as she slapped her cheeks as if having the castle invaded by Galra hadn't woken her up enough.
The first stop was the armory. It was a pain getting into her armor by herself, her body was just generally achy, but she managed. She grabbed her Bayard and stored it in her thigh piece. She eyed the only one left and grabbed it, storing the blue Bayard in her backpack. She looked up at Rover.
"Find me an air vent buddy."
Rover chirped at her, taking off and Pidge followed. The vent was small, even for her. Grumbling, she got in. She had to drag her backpack behind her.
"Pidge to Keith," she said.
"Keith here."
"Get your butt back here," Pidge said. "Galra have taken the castle."
"No!" The princess said.
"What about Lance?" Keith asked.
"He's a hostage," Pidge said. "They've got Shiro too. I'm in an air vent. You need to get back before they get main power back online, they've got a crystal of their own."
"We shouldn't have left," Keith said, cutting the comm.
Moving through the vent was not fun.
"Alright buddy, come here," she told Rover.
Rover got within arms distance and she latched on with both hands.
"You're just going to have to drag me through this chute buddy," Pidge said.
What was closest?
"Take me to castle's main sensors," she said.
It wasn't a great way to travel, but having Rover drag her was better than crawling through the narrow duct. It wasn't long before she heard the steady thrum of power return to the ship. That meant shields were probably back up.
"Pidge to Keith?"
"We're stuck outside," the princess said. She could hear Keith swearing. "We're going to cut communications. If they can't hail us they can't use Lance or Shiro against us. They'll be safer that way. I need you to shut down shields."
"Shields are at the top of the castle," Pidge said. "I'm at the bottom and I'm sure as hell not getting in any elevators while the Galra have control. I'm stoping at main sensors first so they can't just scan for me when they realize I'm still here. I'll get to the shields when I get there."
"Be careful," the princess said. "But make sure they're more worried about what's happening inside the castle than they are about us. The last thing we want is for them to drag Shiro and Lance out front to make an ultimatum."
"Well, I'll see what I can do," Pidge said. And then, because she couldn't help but be pithy, she added, "I know I'm supposed to be using the buddy system, but I'm all out of buddies."
"They're hailing us," Keith said. "Cutting communications. Get me back in there Pidge."
The line went dead, and Pidge felt like she was all alone. Rover kept dragging her.
"I've got my battle buddy right here," she said. Rover chirped at her and vibrated just a little bit.
Sensors first, then propulsion; if worse came to worse there was no point in letting them take the castle with the lions in it. After that she could cut the elevators. No reason the Galra should be able to use them if she couldn't.
"This is how I found out what really happened to Matt and Dad," Pidge told Rover. "No team. Just me and my tech."
Rover chirped supportively to her, turning a corner. Pidge's stomach lurched a bit at the change in direction. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, leaving her feeling, if anything, worse.
"It should be nice having a team, shouldn't it?" Pidge asked. "It was always great working with Matt, I mean he could keep up, you know? But here we are, we're supposed to save the galaxy or something and they're acting like I'm in space war day care."
Rover gave a mechanical hum in sympathy.
"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time Matt got banned from the Garrison's day care? He brought a rocket in his backpack and set it off on the playground. Mom still talks about it whenever Matt brings someone home."
Rover stopped moving, and Pidge regretfully craned her neck up to see a grate blocking their way.
"We here, buddy?"
Rover chirped an affirmative.
Pidge sighed. She pushed the grate out and peeked into the room. It was thankfully empty, but the duct was unfortunately about twenty feet off the ground. Pidge sighed. Using her suit's thrusters had been no fun in zero-g, and she didn't think she'd suddenly be good at it planet side. She closed her eyes and willed the vertigo away and jumped out. She didn't wait at all, just activating her thrusters the moment she cleared the opening. She opened her eyes and saw the opposite wall approaching fast. She gave a very undignified squawk and cut thrusters. Hitting the wall, she just fell, only managing to restart her thrusters a few feet above the ground when she wasn't even remotely upright in relation to the ground. She hit something and latched on, cutting her thrusters before they could drag her off. She fell off of whatever she'd latched onto and hit the ground with a thud.
She spent a moment, stunned and lying on the ground, before she even let out a pained groan. Rover nuzzled against her cheek, giving a worried whirr. It was the clank of a sentry's feet that got Pidge moving again. They'd probably already seen her on the sensors. She got up and hid behind the control panel she'd just collided with. She summoned her Bayard and activated it.
"Let's see if Keith's managed to teach me anything," Pidge muttered. "Hey Rover, you hide over there and when the sentry comes in, you swoop down in front of his face, okay?"
Rover chirped and was no sooner hidden by the door than the sentry entered. Rover acted his part and Pidge jumped up, ignoring the spike in her head. The front of her Bayard shot out on its tether as Pidge swept her arm in an arc. The glowing cord of energy wrapped around the sentry that was already pointing its rifle at Rover. A thought sent a jolt of energy through her Bayard and into the sentry which collapsed into a smoking heap.
There was the sound of more footsteps down the hall. Pidge retracted her Bayard and rushed the door. She closed it and used the tip of her Bayard to fuse the door shut. She then went to the control panel and plugged herself in. A ping of the system told her that there were plenty of redundancies throughout the ship, so instead of destroying it she reconfigured it.
She identified the two Galra on the ship, and the seven sentries, and of course, herself. She took comfort in being able to see Shiro and Lance's bio-signatures on the screen. She input a command that would send the readings specific to the Galra to her suit, then she basically told the system to ignore humans, and to identify the cleaning bots on the ship as organic humanoid lifeforms like herself.
Not everything could be done with a voice commands, but for something low security she was sure it wouldn't be a problem. "Computer," she said. "Activate all cleaning bots. Clean the entire castle, but avoid being seen by anything that's bipedal. Do you understand?"
"Commands understood," the computer's voice said.
There were about fifty dots roaming the castle. The castle's sensors were now at best a major distraction to the Galra and at worst just useless to them. There was a pounding at the door, likely repeated rifle blasts.
Pidge groaned as she looked up at the air duct. "Okay Rover, I'm going to hold on to you and you're going to help guide me."
Rover hovered in front of her and she grabbed on with both hands. Activating her thrusters she approached the grate a lot faster than she'd have liked, with Rover keeping her on course. Letting go at the last moment, she latched onto the ledge of the duct, wiggling about a bit to leverage herself in. She was out of breath and ready to take a break when the door down below caved in. She sighed and latched onto Rover.
"Take me to propulsion," Pidge said. "Did I ever tell you about the time I convinced Matt to add rocket boosters to a shopping cart?"
She didn't meet anyone when she made a quick stop at the elevator control room, or in propulsion or communications. When she finally got to the shield generator Rover chirped at her a warning tone. Pidge peered out the grate and saw a sentry guarding the control panel. That was fine. She carefully dislodged the grate. Luckily they were at ground level. Pidge crept closer, and when the sentry started to turn towards her she sent off the tip of her Bayard to latch on and disable the droid. Rover suddenly gave off a shrill alarm and Pidge ducked just in time for a bolt of plasma to sail over her head. She hadn't even checked the sensors she'd rerouted to her suit.
"I thought I'd find you here," a Galran officer said walking up to her, a blaster in hand. "I did not think you would be so little."
"I've got some bite," Pidge said, retracting the end of her Bayard back to her.
"We'll see about that," the Galran officer said.
"Rover, attack," Pidge said, bringing her arm up to point at the Galran officer.
Rover swooped down at his head. With the same arm motion, Pidge shot off the end of her Bayard, and brought it back so the tether would wrap around the Galran officer. She wasn't expecting him to grab on to the tether faster than she could activate it and use it to throw her aside. She went skidding across the room.
Pidge scrambled back up to her feet in time to see the Galran officer untangling himself from the tether of her Bayard, which had fallen from her grasp. She reached it just as he was pulling himself free. She activated it just as it fell from him.
'Don't wait for them to shoot you,' Keith had told her on the training deck.
She retracted her Bayard and started running at the Galran officer. He was already raising his rifle up to her. She didn't know what to do. She wouldn't get close enough in time. Her legs just kept running, the edge of her Bayard glowed bright as she willed it to its highest setting, she ducked down to sweep her Bayard against the deck in an upwards arc, sending globs of melted metal up at the Galran officer.
He didn't stop though. He aimed at her and Pidge thought of her shield far too late. Everything seemed to slow down, she was still running at him head on, she could feel the shift of her armor as she moved, the auditory absence of a footstep from her boots that she had never noticed before, and she saw the angry sneer on his face and the slight tensing of his hand as he pulled the trigger. Suddenly though, Rover was right in-between them. A bright bolt of plasma erupted from the rifle and Rover exploded in an array of sparks as it struck.
"No!" Pidge screamed and, still running, leapt at the Galran officer, a look of shock on his face. He was so much taller than her, but it didn't matter. Her Bayard went right through the blaster held between them and then through the armor on his chest. A swipe of his arm sent her crashing to the side. She looked up in time to see him crash to his knees, a hand over the gaping smoking wound on his chest.
Pidge could only stare. His destroyed blaster had fallen from his hands and, staring at Pidge, he pulled a knife from his hip. Pidge gasped for breath she didn't know she'd lost. He staggered back up to his feat, a snarl on his lips and murder in his eyes. Pidge watched as the dark red blood streamed out. He took a step towards her and fell down, the knife clattered away. Pidge stayed where she was and watched his eyes film over.
Her breathing hitched. "R-Rover, help me up buddy," she said still staring ahead of her at the dead Galran officer.
"Rover," she said again. "Rover, help me… help."
Rover wasn't coming. Rover was gone. Rover was dead.
A gasping breath was followed by a sob and still she couldn't take her eyes off of the dead eyes in front of her. She didn't know how long she stayed there. It was Allura's mice, of all things, that brought her back. The smallest of them crawling up to her and resting its front paws on her face. She drew in a long shuddering breath.
"I guess you'll do," she said. Another breath and she braced herself and gingerly got up. Stooping down she held out her hand for the mice to climb up. She picked up her Bayard and stowed it before going to grab her backpack from the vent where she'd left it. She set the mice down on the control panel and pulled out her laptop to plug in. She heard a noise behind her and froze. She heard it again.
Turning around she faced the body of the Galran officer, and the small pool of blood that had seeped out from underneath him. The sound came again and Pidge saw the communicator wrapped around his ear. Retrieving it, she put it up to her own ear.
"Haxus, report!" It was Sendak.
Haxus
"Haxus is dead," Pidge said. "You should get off this ship while you still can."
"I'm going to give you one chance to save…"
Pidge ripped the comm from her ear and threw it on the ground, stomping it under her boot. Walking back to her computer she looked over the setup.
"You guys okay waiting here?" Pidge asked the mice.
There were a few squeaks of affirmation.
Pidge wasn't sure she could lock out the bridge, but she could lower the shields and throw the emitters out of calibration. That would give Keith and Allura more than enough time to get back in before the Galra could get them back up.
"Now I just need to get down stairs really fast," Pidge told the mice. "Maybe I'll figure out this jet pack by the time I get to the bottom."
Waiting in Red for something to happen was torture. Allura tried to reassure him, but nothing she could say would change anything.
"You're wanderers," Allura said. "The universe has put you here for a reason."
"The universe has put us in a lot of places," Keith said. "We've died younger."
Suddenly Allura gasped, and she faced forward, closing her eyes like she had earlier when she'd said she was communicating with the mice. Keith would unpack that later.
"Pidge," Allura whispered.
"What's wrong?" Keith demanded.
"It's…" She gave a sigh of relief. "Pidge is alright. The shields should come down soon."
Keith nodded, ready to act.
"Look," Allura said a few moments later, pointing over his shoulder. "There it goes."
Keith didn't wait, he took off. "Get ready to ditch," he told Allura. He could hear her going below for a quick exit. There was a side entrance she'd specified on the castle and no sooner had Red gotten them there she was gone and a few leaps brought Keith to the front of the castle where they'd be expecting him.
He came to a sudden halt right in front of the doors to the castle, a small blast from Red lit up the entryway, just incase anyone was camped out there waiting for him and Keith charged out and through the doors, his Bayard at the ready and his shield up. That was when he heard a scream behind him. He turned around and saw Pidge bounce off of Red before a few poorly timed bursts of her jet pack saw her land somewhat safely on the ground.
He ran back towards Pidge. "What the hell?"
"Quick way down," Pidge said.
Keith didn't have a response to that. "Is that blood yours?" He asked, looking at the splatter on her helmet and chest.
Pidge's face paled and she looked down and started wiping at the blood with her hands frantically.
"Pidge," Keith said. "Hey, Pidge. Stop." He grabbed Pidge's hands and she looked up at him with wide eyes. "Are they okay?"
"Our boots don't make any sound when we run, did you know that?" Pidge asked.
"What?" Keith asked. They stared at each other for a moment.
"This isn't theirs," Pidge said. "Or mine."
"You good?"
A nod.
Keith stared at her for a moment. "Come on," he said. "Shield up."
They walked through the entryway.
"They had Lance and Shiro on the bridge," Pidge said before an abrupt, "woah!"
Keith had just dispatched the sentry that had turned the corner ahead of them.
"Stay alert," Keith growled. "Can they pick us up on our comms?"
Pidge got a look on her face . "I locked them out," she said. "I should have told you after I stopped at communications. Or no, your comms were off."
Keith tuned out her rambling, Allura was supposed to turn her's back on when she'd left the ship.
"Allura," Keith said, activating his communicator. "They're on the bridge."
"Got it," Allura said. "I've picked up a weapon. I'll be there in a few ticks."
Keith stopped Pidge just before they got to the bridge.
"Stick to cover, keep your shield up, your Bayard has a range, so keep that in mind. You're providing support, I don't want to see you rushing anyone. Got it?"
Pidge nodded. "Um, I've got them on scanners," she said. "Here." She pulled up the layout on her wrist computer, it showed one Galra and one sentry on the bridge. Keith grabbed her arm so he could get a better look.
"What's that?" Keith asked, looking at Pidge's backpack.
Pidge looked over her shoulder. Lance's Bayard was sticking out of the top. She reached back and pulled it out. Keith took it out of her hands. Maybe Lance would be awake to use it.
"I'm just outside the bridge," Allura's voice came in on the comms. Keith peered around the corner and saw her just standing there to the side of the door. She was carrying some sort of fancy staff. With his Bayard and Pidge's that was two close quarters weapons and a taser grappling hook. He grabbed Pidge's shoulder and started moving. He didn't wait for any conference with Allura, as soon as he got to the door he was through.
A lot of things hurt. He wasn't sure why, and it was hard to lift up his head, which he was pretty sure was in Shiro's lap. He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there like that, but Shiro would probably tell him if anything was wrong, so everything was probably fine. Shiro was really awesome, and Lance pushed away the thought that it was weird to have his head in his lap like that. Everything was fine. Everything hurt, but Shiro was taking care of him.
Shiro seemed to notice that Lance was looking at him. His mouth moved, but Lance couldn't really hear him over the ringing in his ears. Shiro looked concerned so Lance grinned at him and gave him a shaky thumbs up and passed out…
Or did he? Lance wasn't sure what was going on. Lance saw a couple bright flashes of light and he didn't think any time had passed from before, but it had felt like it for a bit. Suddenly he was jolted and his head was no longer in Shiro's lap. He forced himself to roll over and he saw Shiro running away from him. Shiro had his arms bound behind his back. Then he saw what Shiro was rushing towards. Shiro was charging at Sendak, who was on the ship, who had a giant glowing arm that was gripping Pidge like he was an action figure. Gyeong was there too, taking advantage of Shiro slamming into Sendak to take a swipe at the Galra's giant furry head. Sendak dodged and Gyeong stumbled forward past him. Lance's eyes met Gyeong's, and Gyeong yelled something at Lance and threw something at him.
Lance caught his Bayard and stared at it for a moment. He looked back up at Sendak. Sendak had dropped Pidge at some point, and Lance saw Pidge duck out from behind Shiro whose hands were suddenly free. Suddenly Allura leapt like ten feet through the air at Sendak, some sort of glowy staff thing in her hands. Allura was so awesome. Totally hot badass warrior princess.
Lance looked back at his hands that still held his Bayard. Looking back up, Lance saw Sendak throw Pidge across the room, and the general calm he'd been drifting in suddenly shattered. Pidge was a part of his crew. Lance couldn't let anyone hurt him like that. Sendak grabbed Gyeong's arm in his massive robot hand and wrenched it upwards, and something looked completely wrong about Keith's arm after he fell to the floor and Lance slurred a "Hey!" as his hands came up, his Bayard transformed into a rifle. His position was terrible, his breathing wasn't controlled, but he found the spot in between the armor plating on Sendak's torso and he fired.
The recoil on his rifle was hardly anything, Lance had found earlier, but he still wound up falling backwards limply, his head hitting the floor and his thoughts swam for a bit. He stared up at the ceiling. Eventually, Gyeong's face replaced the ceiling and Lance remembered what was going on.
"Did we win?" Lance asked.
Keith smiled at him and said something Lance couldn't hear. They'd won; and hey, Keith was smiling at him, again. Lance counted it as a personal victory. "You smile good," Lance said.
Keith's eyes went a bit wide, but his smile widened as well. Someone grabbed Lance's hand, Keith grabbed Lance's hand, and helped him to sit up. Wasn't Keith hurt? He was smiling at him though. Lance's head swam a bit, but he smiled back at Keith and looked at his hand in Keith's. Keith looked really good smiling at Lance like that.
"You know, I think we can work together," Lance said. "I really… I think we'll make a good team."
Keith said something else to Lance and Lance stared at his lips trying to figure out what, and then Lance was leaning forward, his eyes moving upwards to look into Keith's eyes, which looked a bit shocked. Lance slumped forward, his face against Keith's chest plate, and he passed out.
Notes:
Hey, so do you think Lance's going to remember what happened? Please let me know what you think. Also, OMG, have you all seen Endgame yet? No spoilers, but so many feels. Alternate chapter for next chapter: Hunk's Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day