Published February 1, 2017
"The Final Countdown"
Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." ~ Matthew 9:37-38
When Keith showed his research to his new fellow fugitives, Pidge knew she should be glad to have all this new information, but instead of thankfulness, she felt somehow … wistful. Both she and Keith had spent months struggling with their own observation, investigation, and analysis. If they had known about each other, about their connections to the Kerberos crew (apparently Keith was Shiro's good friend), they could have worked together. They might have been less lonely, and maybe they might have made further progress than either of them had made on their own.
When they made their proper introductions, Pidge thought Shiro might mistake her for Matt, or suspect that she was some relative of the Holts. But he did not comment on their resemblance. Maybe Matt had looked different when Shiro last saw him. Or maybe he had not seen Matt for a while and could not remember how he looked.
Shiro's sudden return gave her hope, but also made her wary. His connection to her father and brother made her want to be closer to him, but his claim of amnesia made her hesitant to trust him. His reputation was honorable and full of accolades, but anything could have happened in the year he had been missing.
Pidge saw four logical possibilities: Shiro did remember, and was deliberately lying; his experience had been so traumatic that he had unconsciously blocked it from his memory; the aliens had tampered with his memory in order to prevent him from revealing information about them; or the Garrison's sedative had affected his memory. His ostensible amnesia might even have resulted from a combination of these factors, or from an entirely unknown variable.
There was also the question of how Shiro had managed to crash his stolen alien ship in the vicinity of the Garrison, which happened to be in the vicinity of the energy field and lion carvings Keith described. Shiro himself did not know whether he had piloted the alien ship or if someone had programmed it to go to that particular destination. If it was the latter, was it because of the proximity to the Garrison, or to the carvings?
It was altogether too convenient that the three locations were near each other, too convenient to be mere coincidence. Pidge did not like to think of God or destiny, forces whose existence or action could not be supported by science. There had to be some connections between the places, some rational explanation for why they were so close. It seemed unlikely that such a strange geological site could have been undiscovered, especially with the military stationed so close. Was the Garrison built where it was because it was close to the carvings? Pidge made a mental note to find out whether the Garrison personnel knew about the strange place.
For now, the fugitives had to worry about the points Shiro was able to remember: aliens were coming to Earth in search of a superweapon, which was probably in their general area. The Garrison could not be counted on to find it or fend off the aliens, so the five of them would have to try to do so.
Pidge could not believe that Hunk had gone through her belongings, after she told him (three times!) not to touch them. When he showed them the one photograph she had brought with her, the one of her and Matt on the day of the Kerberos launch, she thought her secret was out; but he announced that Pidge was the boy in the photo and the girl was a girlfriend. Did Hunk really believe that, or had he figured out the truth and decided to cover for her? She did not have time to dwell on it, as he moved on to the topic of her research and how he could use it. Once again, she realized she could have gotten much farther much sooner if she had shared her work and collaborated with other people.
"Why are you suddenly helping?" Pidge asked him as he built his Voltron element detector. "I thought you didn't want to be involved in all this."
"For one thing, I'm already involved. For another, that was before I knew aliens were coming here."
Pidge shrugged it off and focused on helping him make the tracking device. She had always understood technology more easily than people. Machinery worked in patterns that could be altered to suit one's needs, whereas people were unpredictable and uncontrollable.
At least, that was her outlook until they discovered the blue lion. It had a mind of its own, behaving in ways that science alone could not explain.
Of course it would be impulsive, touch-sensitive Lance who found the Voltron lion and got it up and running: he was the only one who dared to touch the carvings, and then the forcefield, and he was the first to dare to step into the lion's open mouth, sitting at the pilot's seat.
Through her awe, fear, and excitement, Pidge felt kind of jealous of Lance's intuitive command of the alien technology. She would have loved to have a lion of her own.
Lance may have seen this experimental joyride as an opportunity to get back at Keith for driving his vehicle so recklessly with them as passengers. But considering how impulsive and inconsiderate he was in the simulator, it was most likely his actual flying style.
In light of the metaphorical and literal strides the five of them had made, they probably should not have been entirely surprised to find themselves leaving Earth and entering outer space. Pidge wondered if this was the opportunity she had hoped to someday act upon, to go out and find her father and brother. She had thought it would take years to reach that point. Its early arrival caught her off guard, but after so many months of such slow progress, she could not complain that it had come too soon.
However, fighting an alien battleship was not something any of them had expected or agreed upon. In the part of her brain that was not caught up in the immediate chaos, Pidge wondered if saving Earth from the battleship would be enough to exonerate them.
The moment when the wormhole appeared was the first time Pidge saw Lance defer to another person's leadership. Shiro, in turn, deferred to the group. "We're a team now. We should decide together."
It seemed a strange thing to say. With the exceptions of some pairs of friends—Shiro and Keith, Lance and Hunk—the five of them barely knew each other. But they were all caught in this situation, each of them experiencing varying levels of reluctance, resignation, and willingness.
Pidge thought fleetingly of her mother, who by now had probably been informed of her disappearance from the Garrison. If Pidge left Earth, she might not be able to see her mother for an even longer time than they had anticipated. But Pidge was now farther from Earth and closer to her missing relatives than she had ever been, and it would be counterproductive to turn back now. Her mother would understand that. So Pidge met the others' gazes steadily, and squeezed Lance's shoulder in support of the motion.
"Okay … guess we're all ditching class tomorrow," Lance said sardonically, as though their lives as ordinary students had not already ended. Going through the wormhole just sealed the decisions and changes that led up to that moment. They were no longer investigating, but barreling into the unknown, with only each other and the alien lion-ship to rely on. They all had to take a leap of faith, both figuratively as they trusted each other, and literally as they trusted the blue lion.
Music: "The Final Countdown" by Europe
