Published July 1, 2018
"Hey Brother"
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. ~ Isaiah 55:12, New International Version
Matt asked the rebel communications specialists to let him know if Earth was ever mentioned in the data they collected. As he learned how to use their technology, he began listening and searching on his own. He hoped Earth would never come up in any news relating to Galra activity—no news would truly be good news—but if the Galra ever came close to Earth, he would want to be aware.
"I want to do more to help," Matt said, multiple times, to multiple people.
He needed training first, for combat, stealth, and alien technology. He had been trained as a communications specialist on Earth, so he was able to carry over some of the skills he already possessed. Self-defense, however, had never been among his talents, though some basic courses had been required at the Garrison.
Matt did not feel confident handling swords or projectile weapons, but he found he had an aptitude for the staff. He understood the physics involved in handling it, and learned, through trial and error, how to adjust his own force and speed in combat.
One day, someone finally passed along a bit of information. "We got some intel on Voltron. The new paladins are from Earth, like you."
Matt was surprised, and not sure whether he ought to feel excited or fearful about what this could mean. Had Earth gotten involved in the war? Did the Galaxy Garrison, or the general public, know about aliens? Matt was not sure whether to hope the paladins were people he knew, or complete strangers. He would not wish this fight on any of his old friends or classmates or mentors.
His combat training went on for what he estimated was a few months in Earth time. Finally he was allowed to go on missions, acting as technician, comm officers, or fighter as the need arose. Things went well, until an unfortunate hand-to-hand clash with some Galra sentries and soldiers, during which Matt's mask fell off. The droids and sentries were able to view his face long enough to scan it.
Matt managed to either steer clear of records or destroy them, but enough people saw his face and learned of his identity that he became fairly well known in some intelligence circles.
A few weeks later, word reached Matt and his friends that there was a bounty on his head. At first, the news made Matt feel strangely proud. It was a mark of how significant a threat the Galra considered him. But it complicated his already precarious work and living situations.
"You should go further into hiding," Te-osh advised him. "Avoid direct fighting for a while."
"Got any suggestions?"
"We could place you at a listening outpost."
Matt made a face. "That sounds … safe but potentially tedious."
"You did say you were a communications specialist. And now that you've learned more languages and codes, you might be able to help us decrypt scrambled messages."
"There's something else," another rebel said. "We're setting up a way for high-bounty rebels to stay in touch while throwing the Galra off their trails. We're making a place where the information will be hidden in plain sight but the Galra won't understand it."
Matt agreed to go with them and check out the place. It turned out to be what looked like a stone memorial, like for veterans or martyrs, with a vast field of tombstones falling behind and below it. Many of the metal graves had flashing transponders embedded in them.
When they landed the shuttle in front of the statue, they could read the inscription: In honor of the 127,098 brave warriors who stood against tyranny. The quest for freedom is won through sacrifice.
"Now it can be one hundred twenty-seven thousand ninety-eight," the pilot said with a grin.
"You mean these are all decoys?"
"Some of them are real. Others are waiting to be used."
Matt felt almost queasy. "This is …" He held back the words messed up.
"It's not technically a lie. It does honor rebels. It doesn't say that they died, or that anyone's buried here. It just gives a false impression to anyone who doesn't know better."
That worried Matt. If his father or Shiro came looking for him, and found this place, they might think he was dead, unless they had some prior communication with rebels who told them otherwise. He wondered if he could leave a message of some kind, one that would lead them to him without giving his location away to bounty hunters …
Of course! The cipher he and Sam had developed! He had taught it to Shiro while they were traveling together. Pidge also knew how to use it, and could share it with the Galaxy Garrison or the Voltron paladins.
After installing his transponder into his fake grave, Matt put the cipher for the coordinates of his new outpost in the spot where his date of birth would have gone. Anyone from Earth who came here would presumably be familiar with Matt's career and so be able to recognize that his birthday was wrong. The only people who would how to decode the cipher were Sam, Shiro, and (if the worst happened and Earth got involved in the war) Pidge, but even if they couldn't solve the cipher themselves, they might be able to get in touch with Pidge on Earth, who could give it to them.
Daily life at the outpost was, for the most part, lonely. Matt had just gotten used to living among comrades, coworkers, and even people he felt lucky enough to call friends. Now he had no one to talk to. The only voices he heard were the ones he picked up from Galra radio chatter.
It was not, however, boring. The challenge of deciphering coded messages occupied him for days at a time. It kept his mind active, something he and Sam and Shiro had struggled to do in captivity. He also exercised, keeping in shape and continuing to build up his strength, and practiced with his staff every day, going through drills and fending off imaginary opponents.
The only things that broke up the monotony were scheduled visits or deliveries from the rebels, and a few times when he picked up some information urgent enough to pass along to them.
Then, one quintant, Matt got an alert signal. Someone was entering, though no one was scheduled to come, and no one had called ahead to alert Matt of their approach. Matt put on his mask, grabbed his staff, and hid in the shadows off to the side.
The person who jet-packed down from the ceiling entrance was too small to be Sam or Shiro. If they were part of the rebel alliance, they would have contacted Matt, given some advance notice, or indicated who they were. That meant it could only be an enemy, someone trying to capture him or infiltrate the rebel network. So instead of asking questions, Matt came up behind the intruder, who turned and parried his attack. They fought their way around the spy facility, the smaller one aided by its jetpack and a weapon conjured from one armored arm.
After knocking the intruder down to the floor, Matt raised his staff up to strike again, but instead of defending or attacking, the assailant shouted, "What have you done with my brother?"
The words confused Matt, and the voice startled him because it was familiar. His first thought was, This person lost a brother? Like Pidge lost me? And that voice sounded like one he had not heard in months—or years at this point—one he had almost forgotten the sound of.
He paused long enough to actually look at the person's face, darkened in its helmet. It looked human, he realized, and then, to his shock, he recognized it, as well as the voice that had shouted those words. Empathy made room for suspicion, though it was at odds with incredulity: Could it be …?
Matt started to slide out of his stance, but then the human attacked him again, knocking his helmet off and causing him to stumble back. He could not fight with his mind spinning as it now was. The last thing Pidge had said to him before he left Earth was that she would come to find him if he did not come back. Was it possible that she had actually done what she half-jokingly said she would?
He turned around to look, not even trying to stop her or shield himself as she came at him with her weapon, which stopped mere inches from his neck when she saw his uncovered face.
The two siblings stared at each other, finally recognizing each other fully. Matt could see his sister's face clearly through her helmet's visor. "Pidge?" he managed to say.
She seemed almost as shocked as he, but even more emotional. "Matt?" she choked.
Matt got to his feet slowly, and Pidge lowered her weapon, which disappeared from her hand. They fell into each other's arms, hugging tightly despite her hard armor and his mismatched uniform pieces.
While Matt felt like he could hardly speak, Pidge started to babble, as she did when anxious or emotional. "Oh my gosh! Ever since the Kerberos Mission, they said you were dead, but I knew in my heart that you weren't!"
So that was what the Galaxy Garrison had assumed, as Matt and Sam and Shiro had speculated. Of course, Pidge would not have accepted such a vague, open-ended answer. And yet for her to have come all the way out here, literally in the middle of nowhere in a universe far bigger and more dangerous than they had ever imagined …
He found his voice and said, "I can't believe you found me. It doesn't seem possible." He pulled away and put his hands on each side of her helmet, looking closely at her face. It really was her—his sweet, smart, sassy, supportive sister.
She was smiling now, her eyes shining with happiness as well as tears. "The thought of you and Dad kept me going, inspired me to do the impossible."
"Okay. But seriously, how did you get this far into space?" While Matt, Shiro, and Sam had suspected the Garrison might send people to look for their missing astronauts, they had not thought they would send such young cadets, if that was what Pidge had become.
"It's a long story. Have you by any chance heard of Voltron?"
Matt frowned, surprised, though he probably should not have been by this point, to hear that she was familiar with this rumor. "Of course I've heard of Voltron." Had the paladins helped her find him?
Pidge's smile turned almost sly, like she had a secret or good news to share, or like she was feigning shyness while actually feeling quite proud of herself. "Well … I'm one of the paladins."
For a moment Matt could only stare at her, his mind processing before allowing itself to believe and react. "No. No! Seriously? You're a paladin of Voltron?" It actually made sense—the armor, the technical and political advantages needed to find a rebel in hiding. "That's awesome!" He picked her up and spun her around, even more excited for her than she had been for him when he got into the Galaxy Garrison.
Their euphoria burst like a bubble when another voice, smug and sinister, spoke from across the room. "What a touching reunion."
Seeing each other had distracted the siblings from the entrance of another being, a dark reptilian alien wrapped in a dark cloak. "Who are you?" Pidge demanded.
"Who I am is not important. I'm here to collect the bounty on your brother Matt. But a paladin of Voltron and the Green Lion … what a day."
Getting caught alone would have been bad enough, but to have Pidge in danger as well was far worse. Scared as he was of going back to prison himself, there was no way Matt could let Pidge get captured and turned over to the Galra. As a paladin of Voltron, she was more valuable to the rising rebellion, and the Galra would probably treat her even worse than they had treated Matt had during his own imprisonment. He would not give them that chance.
Matt said, "Stay back, Pidge," at the same moment Pidge said, "Stay back, Matt." They looked at each other in surprise, then grinned, mutual understanding and agreement passing between them. Their fight with each other just a few minutes ago had shown that each of them was now a capable fighter. Neither of them needed the other to protect them while they watched from the side; they could work together, as equals.
Still, that did not stop Matt from feeling a surge of righteous anger when the alien's electric whip struck and shocked Pidge. "Stay away from my sister!" Matt was actually glad that the whips hurt him more than Pidge.
Pidge drew the alien up into the scaffolding and away from Matt, who needed a moment to recover and think of a plan. When she returned to the floor, Matt shouted, "Pidge! The panel!" He did not need to say more, to explain his idea of exposing the electric whip to the asteroid's magnetic field. He knew her well enough to know she would understand what he meant and do what she needed to do.
Winning that fight may have been the most satisfying accomplishment they had ever shared up to that point. Their minds had always been in sync, but now their bodies and spirits seemed to be too. After knocking out the intruder, they slipped right back into complimenting each other's brilliant ideas, bantering and bonding over science. It was wonderful to see that had not changed. And yet, all the changes they had experienced seemed to have been for the better. They were even stronger and smarter and more capable now than they had been on Earth.
"I have the coolest little sister in the whole galaxy," Matt said, feeling prouder than ever. The only thing that could have made the moment any happier would have been for their parents to share it with them. But the fact that Pidge had been able to track him down made him more confident than ever that their family could, and would, be whole once again. "Now all we have to do is find Dad."
As he spoke, Pidge removed her helmet, and Matt saw that her hair was short now, almost as short as his had been on Earth. But he was even more surprised to see her put on a pair of glasses, which he immediately recognized as his own, from before the Garrison fixed his eyes. He remembered giving them to her right before he left. She had even tried them on herself. "You kept the glasses?"
After everything that had changed and caught him off guard, for him to be incredulous about that detail was rather ironic. But Pidge smiled fondly. "Of course I did." They had been his last gift to her. "I liked having something of yours with me. Plus, they completed my disguise while I was working undercover at the Garrison."
By this point Matt simply resigned himself to the inevitability of being surprised and amazed by everything Pidge had to tell and show him. He glanced at the unconscious intruder and jerked a thumb at him. "I need to tell the rebels about him, but after we sort things out, I want to hear all about it."
Music: "Hey Brother" by Avicii
Author's Note: This update was going to cover all of Season 4, but I ended up writing so much that I decided to split it into two chapters. More sibling bonding to come!
