Author's Note: Hey folks! Sorry for the delay, post-NaNo burnout hit me a little harder than I anticipated, and this chapter fought me like anything.

And I have zero regrets for what I do in it.

"Alright, so the schematic says the last one should be at a thirty-three degree angle relative to the ceiling for optimal refraction," Pidge said, leaning out from the doorway.

Hunk had about half an eye on her— well, maybe less, she was mostly a blur of reddish hair and green out of the corner of his eye, while he did his level best not to drop the final scaultrite lens by accident. Even with the pads on his gloves' palms, the lenses were slipperier than he'd expected— which, really, shouldn't have surprised him, since Coran had needed to grease the makeshift lenses during their last escape from Zarkon— still ew, even though Coran wasn't, like, dripping goo anymore. But the big lenses had just looked like bluish glass, like a fish-eye lens for a really big camera, and they had absolutely no right to try to go sliding out of his hands.

Even less so because they only had one spare. When they'd finished clearing the broken lens stones out of the teludav, they'd come up with twelve empty spaces. The Unilu trader Coran had somehow found at the swap moon had traded him a set of thirteen, and the thirteenth one was a little chipped around the edges, so Coran had wanted to keep it as a backup just in case the edge caused another malfunction.

Really, Hunk couldn't blame him. After the whole mess with running from Zarkon's Central Command ship and Shiro's story about having to fight him in some kind of astral plane deathmatch , he figured it was pretty safe to say they were all a little worried about another teludav malfunction. That was the absolute last thing they needed right now.

He took a deep breath and straightened, hefting the lens to chest-height, then peered up at Coran. The Altean was perched at the top of a stepladder in the middle of the beam generator, and was finishing wiping out the socket the lens was supposed to fit into. He leaned back just a bit to inspect it, and the whole stepladder wobbled.

"You ready for me to hand it up to you, Coran?" he asked.

"Yes, just a tick," Coran said, peering down at him for a moment before looking up at the door. "Lance, are you ready? It's the last one, and then the teludav should be finished."

A groan echoed through the door, accompanied by the sound of Lance's jeans shuffling, and Hunk turned his head enough to watch him slouch into the room. Unlike Coran and Pidge— who looked satisfied and almost euphoric at getting to mess around with the teludav, respectively— Lance wore the exact same face he'd worn all through physics class back at the Garrison. The one that said he was bored out of his gourd.

"Yeah, I'm ready," Lance sighed.

"Good!" Coran said brightly. "Give Hunk a hand with passing that lens stone up to me, and then keep the ladder steady while I fit it into place, alright? It's just like the last one."

"Yup, I got it," Lance said.

He sidled around the stepladder to join Hunk, grabbing the other side of the lens stone. Hunk shifted his grip a little to keep it from sliding out, grimacing, and let Lance take half the weight. Lance hissed, grimacing under the weight.

"Man, why are these things so heavy ?" he asked.

"They aren't that heavy!" Coran said.

"Altean super-strength doesn't count, dude," Hunk said. "Ready on three, Lance?"

Lance nodded, gritting his teeth obviously. "Yeah."

This was always the worst part.

"One," Hunk said. Lance joined in with him on "Two, three—"

They hefted the final lens overhead, just high enough for Coran to snag it from his perch at the top of the ladder with a triumphant whoop. The other side of it wobbled— Lance yelped and lunged for it, his feet skidding out from under him. Hunk grabbed hastily for the other leg, forcibly grounding it.

Up top, Coran wobbled, then gave a slightly nervous laugh as he steadied himself.

"Well, that was almost a close one," he said, his voice higher than usual. "You two keep holding those legs, and I'll get it in place. Pidge, you said thirty-three degrees?"

"Yup," Pidge called, leaning out into the doorway again. "If the calculations here are correct, that angle of refraction should finish out the third matrix and get the helix beam pattern in order to power the full jump range."

"Which means we can get moving again, like, really moving," Hunk said, tilting his head back to watch. Coran shifted his hold on the lens, getting a hand under the bowl of it, and began to lift it into place.

Lance snorted. "Bombing down the road again Voltron-style, am I right?"

"Oh, totally," Hunk said, grinning.

" What are you two talking about?" Coran asked, glancing down at them. The lens made a quiet clunk as he said it, and he paused to turn it counter-clockwise, locking it into place.

"Y'know, it might actually be nice to get back out there," Pidge said. Hunk glanced at the door again— she'd located a wheeled chair, shockingly similar to a desk chair back on Earth, somewhere in the Castle, and she'd scootched it out into the middle of the door and spun it around to straddle the back while facing them. "I mean, I feel like a sitting duck sometimes."

"Like we're just waiting for another fleet to show up or something," Lance agreed. Hunk nodded, grimacing.

"Oh, you three," Coran said. The ladder rattled again as he began to descend, and Hunk tightened his grip. "There's no need to be so pessimistic. We've kept a low profile—"

"You mean, aside from getting chased by the mall cop ?" Pidge said, grinning. One of Lance's pointy little elbows jabbed Hunk in the side, and he shot Lance a look and elbowed him back.

"I mean, it's not like it's my fault the cop thought we were all pirates and I'd taken over a shop in the food court by force," he said. Coran stepped off the ladder, and Hunk took his hands back to gesture. "And Keith was the one who stole his scooter, anyway. Not me. Absolutely was not my idea. Besides, who went and stole an entire cow ?"

"Kaltenecker was free !" Lance squawked, indignant.

"Yeah, after you guys went digging through the fountains for loose change," Hunk shot back.

Pidge laughed in the doorway, spinning her chair lazily. "Cranky because you spent half the trip handcuffed to the sink in a restaurant, aren't you?" she teased.

" Alright , you three," Coran said, from directly behind Hunk's shoulder. He yelped, startled— then jumped as one of Coran's hands landed right between his shoulders and began pushing him towards the door. His boots actually slid across the floor. "That's quite enough of that. Why don't you go…check in with Shiro, I'm sure he'll have something for you to do while I check the parameters on the beam generator."

Coran's other hand caught Lance by the hood of his jacket, and Lance made a startled squeak as the Altean pushed them out of the teludav generator. He nudged at Pidge as they passed, and she sighed and got reluctantly to her feet.

"Okay, okay, we're going ," Lance huffed, twisting himself free.

"See you later, Coran," Hunk said, his shoes skidding to a stop on the floor of the control room. He grabbed Pidge's upper arm, tugging her towards the door as Coran took over her place at the panel.

"Call us if you need help recalibrating anything!" Pidge called as Hunk nudged her out the door and into the hallway.

The door hissed behind them, closing with a definitive clunk.

"...Damn," Lance said, staring at the door. "Did we really piss him off that bad?"

"Must have," Hunk said. He paused, glancing back up the hallway towards the elevator, then turned back towards Lance and Pidge. "...Uh, do either of you know where Shiro's supposed to be?"

"Might be on the bridge with Allura?" Lance suggested.

Pidge snorted, pulling her phone out and tapping at the screen. "Unless he's out in the pods flirting with Sendak again," she said dryly.

"C'mon, you don't really think they're flirting, do you?" Lance asked.

Hunk elbowed him lightly, and Lance shot him a look, rubbing his side. Hunk tilted his head towards the elevators, then caught Pidge by the elbow to pull her along with them.

"...Lance, you know he's queer , right?" Pidge deadpanned, looking up from her phone just long enough to roll her eyes over the rim of her glasses. "It was only, like, the biggest news at the Garrison for a solid month after he came out."

Lance's face reddened. "I— I mean, yeah , everyone knows Shiro's queer, but like— Sendak ? Really?"

"You totally haven't been watching them, dude," Hunk said, grinning.

"They're being really dumb about it," Pidge said. "Like, there's gotta be a better way to tell a guy you like him than daring him to come race pods with you."

"...I mean, that sounds pretty reasonable to me?" Lance said, his head tilting.

Hunk snorted, and elbowed Pidge as they stepped into the elevator. "Pilots, am I right?"

"Totally," Pidge said, looking up at him with a grin.

"Hey!" Lance yelped.

"So, did you find him?" Hunk asked, raising his voice a little so Pidge could hear him and leaning over her shoulder to peer at the phone. Judging by the little icons scrolling past, she was browsing the Castle's security cameras again.

She hummed at his question, tapping at another icon and bringing up a feed. "...I think he's on the training deck?" she said, glancing up, then held up the phone for Hunk's inspection.

The graininess of the camera trying to connect to human technology always sucked , and the translucent orange interface of the phone screen definitely didn't help, but there was no mistaking Shiro's figure disappearing through that all-too-familiar door.

"...Timestamp says that's an hour ago," Hunk said, taking the phone out of her hand. "Has he come out yet?"

Pidge snatched it back, her bony shoulder jabbing into his upper arm as she bumped into him— the elevator had lurched into motion. "...No, doesn't look like it," she said, sliding through the footage with a flick of a finger. "...Looks like Allura went in there half an hour ago, though."

Lance, on her other side, perked up immediately. "Oh, man ," he said, and Hunk winced a little at the stupid grin on his face. "I wonder if she needs, like, a training partner for anything?"

"She'd kick your ass, Lance," Pidge said flatly.

"...Yeah, she probably would," Hunk said, exaggerating a wince.

"I'd let her kick my ass any day," Lance said, crossing his arms.

Hunk's heart sank a little, and he shot Pidge a sidelong glance, which she returned. It wasn't like Lance had missed the way she and Shiro had been acting around each other since Olkarion— he'd been crazy jealous of her walking him through parking the ship in the iceberg graveyard— but maybe he was hoping that Shiro's crush on Sendak would open things up for him to try and get in with Allura. At least, that was the only thing Hunk could think of for an explanation.

Still wasn't going to be pretty when she rejected him again, though.

The elevator came to a stop, and the door hissed open on the training deck's level, letting them spill back out into the hallway. It was a quick jaunt down to the training deck's main entrance from there, though— quick, and way too familiar— and the next thing Hunk knew Pidge had slapped the access panel to open the door.

They were met by an incredible din— metal on metal, stamping feet, shouting— but it took a hot second to locate the source of the chaos. Two figures ranged across the far end of the training deck— Shiro's dark form, retreating frantically, as Allura came at him with the staff. His prosthetic flashed magenta as he struggled to fend her off. She was faster, though, bolting after him to slam the staff home against his forearm. Her leg swept out as she did, nearly taking Shiro's feet out from under him.

"...Holy shit," Pidge breathed.

"...Yeah, she would totally kick your ass," Hunk said, eyeing Lance.

Lance rolled his eyes in return. "What ever , dude," he huffed.

"Nice of you to join us," Sendak said, and Hunk about jumped out of his skin— and judging by Lance's yelp, he wasn't the only one.

They'd been distracted enough with the noisy fight to miss the Galra— and Keith, peering out from his other side— on the near end of the training deck. Both of them had practice swords in hand— not like the giant, spiky monster sword Sendak had used on Olkarion, a shorter, straighter-shaped blade, like the kind Keith usually used.

"Whatcha doing?" Pidge asked, peering around Sendak at Keith in turn.

"Training," Keith said.

"...With Sendak?" Lance asked, squinting suspiciously.

"It's either myself or Allura if he wants actual training with sword forms," Sendak said evenly, ears twitching. "And between the two of us, I strongly suspect I'm the more capable teacher ."

Hunk hummed. "...Y'know, that's a good point," he said.

"Lucky," Pidge muttered.

Sendak's left ear twitched. "...As I recall, you dislike me," he deadpanned.

Pidge's face reddened. "I mean, yeah , but it's not like anyone's bothering to teach us to use the bayards, it's just some old gladiator program that I'm like 90% certain is glitched out, or like, degraded after ten thousand years—"

"You think you could teach the rest of us something?" Lance asked.

Despite being half-hidden behind Sendak's shoulder, Keith's scowl was impossible to miss.

"You're better off asking the Alteans for assistance with your blasters," Sendak said dryly, switching the sword to his left hand so he could reach up and tap his right temple, above the gleaming disc of his cybernetic eye. "My depth perception has been dubious since I lost this, to say the least."

"Wait, then how are you even flying ?" Lance asked, a look of bewilderment crossing his face.

"By using the pod's radars to compensate?" Keith cut in, arching a brow at Lance. "That's what they're there for."

"I wasn't asking you ," Lance shot back.

"Keith is correct, that is the purpose of the radar," Sendak said, a note of amusement in his tone. "At any rate, Shiro and I had discussed setting up a few drills to assess your capabilities, both individually and as a team, in order to pinpoint areas that require improvement. As I recall, you've done comparatively few missions that require boots on the ground, and while the Lions compensate for your inexperience in actual combat, the longer this campaign continues, the more actual skill you'll require—"

"What's that about compensating for inexperience?" Shiro hollered across the training deck. Hunk turned towards him— and nearly laughed. Shiro was flat on his back on the floor, with Allura's staff jammed up under his chin and one of her feet planted squarely on his chest.

Sendak snorted. "Feeling targeted, are we?" he called back.

"He should!" Allura exclaimed, pulling her staff back, though she didn't take her foot off Shiro's chest. "I'm going to have to ask you to stop instructing Keith and give me a bout, at this rate."

Beside him, Lance stiffened, brightening up. "Lemme get my armor, Allura!" he called, cupping a hand around his mouth to project his voice. "I would love to spar with you!"

He spun on his heel and bolted back into the hallway— and completely missed the dramatic roll of Allura's eyes. Pidge snickered, and Hunk managed a rueful grin, despite the sinking feeling and secondhand embarrassment in his stomach.

"Give me a dobosh or two," Sendak said. "Keith and I are going to run the forms again, and then…" he paused, ears twitching, and turned towards Keith. "Would you rather demonstrate for me what you've retained, or spend some time working with Shiro and the others?"

Keith took a short, sharp breath— it was obvious he hadn't expected the question, Hunk thought— and lowered his gaze to the floor. "...Shiro and the others, I think," he said carefully.

Sendak nodded. "Very well. We'll begin whenever you're ready."

Keith nodded and took another deep breath, squaring his shoulders, then lifted his practice sword to a ready stance. Sendak hummed, circling him— his hands moved to correct posture, adjusting the angle of Keith's sword arm and off hand, the set of his shoulders. Hunk swallowed, and found himself more than a little relieved his bayard didn't do sword shapes. It seemed like a lot of work— Keith's sword hand trembled, ever so slightly.

When he was satisfied with Keith's stance, Sendak stepped back, taking his own in a perfect mirror to the one he'd just set for Keith; a much more practiced version. Something about it seemed almost lazy, laid-back, really.

Someone nearby cleared their throat. Hunk jumped, spinning towards the sound— Shiro, very abruptly on their side of the training deck. He looked rumpled and a little out of breath, sharp opposition to Allura, who leaned against his shoulder with a grin. Shiro gave Hunk, and then Pidge, a very obvious once-over.

"Go suit up, you two," he said. "We'll take a practice round once Sendak and Keith are finished."

Pidge groaned. "Oh, come on , just because Keith and Lance wanna get stomped on the training deck doesn't mean you need to drag us into it."

"And when was the last time you practiced with your bayard?" Shiro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's been a little bit," Hunk said, and bumped Pidge with his elbow. "Come on. We'll be back down in a bit, right, Pidge?"

"Ugh, fine ," Pidge muttered, elbowing him back, then grabbed his arm and towed him off the training deck.

Hunk let her, waving over his shoulder at Shiro and Allura as they went.

They made it about halfway down the hall before Pidge's grip on his arm tightened, her fingernails digging blunt crescents into his skin. Hunk winced and nearly tugged away, but stopped as her grip tightened further, like one of the vices they'd just used on the teludav generator.

"We aren't seriously gonna get roped into training, are we?" Pidge asked, almost whining.

Hunk hesitated. "...I mean, Sendak does kinda have a point— if we end up having, like, an actual fight instead of just the Lions, we're probably gonna want more practice— like, especially if the rest of the Galra commanders out there fight like him—"

"I mean, yeah, but ideally we're not going to be facing them in person," Pidge retorted. "Like, the whole point of Voltron is not fighting these guys face to face, right?"

"...Well, yeah…" Hunk started.

Pidge nodded, a sharp little jerk of her chin. "Then come on," she said, adjusting her grip on his arm again— her hand slid down to his wrist, though she couldn't close her fingers around it, which made both of them snort— and tapped at the elevator control panel, directing it to the bridge. "I had a bit of code I was working on earlier— between Ulaz, the data we got at the hub, Olkarion, and from the cruiser, I had enough data to start working on an algorithm that, in tandem with the Castle's navigational systems, should be enough to predict the statistical likelihood of Galra activity within a given region of space—"

"Like, a Galra-finder?" Hunk cut in, as the elevator doors closed behind them and it began to slide upwards.

"Well, it doesn't exactly find them, but it should give us the best probabilities of their locations, which we can cross-reference with Sendak's knowledge to know whether or not there's a target there," Pidge said brightly. "I've been working on it on and off since we got away from Zarkon, and it's almost ready— there's just a bit of code that's been, like, an entire pain in the ass to get to cooperate."

Hunk grinned, leaning against the wall. "Want me to rubber duck for you?"

Pidge's eyes lit up, and she bounced up onto the balls of her feet. "Yes!" she said. "Would you? I tried with Coran, but he kept interjecting with his own ideas and making it worse , and I really just need someone to sit there and let me talk through the stupid thing. Someone who's actually familiar with, y'know, human code systems."

"You remember I swapped that one elective for a third course in flight system engineering, right?" Hunk asked, raising an eyebrow at her, but Pidge's excitement was infectious .

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Pidge said, flapping a dismissive hand. The elevator came to a stop, and she grabbed his wrist again, pulling him out into the hall towards the bridge. "But like, you know the basics, which is better than literally anyone else on this team, including the aliens. Altean code is weird , and I honestly don't think Sendak could program anything if his life depended on it."

"...Nah, you're right," Hunk said, chuckling, and reached out to tap the access panel to the bridge. "He's one of the jocks."

Pidge groaned melodramatically. "This whole team is jocks, Hunk."

"Lance isn't a jock."

"He's definitely not a nerd . Pilots are jocks."

"...Yeah, you make a good point, but—" Hunk broke off as they reached Pidge's chair and she slung herself in to pull up the Castle's interface. "...Wait, hang on, we're pilots now! That makes us jocks, right?"

Pidge rolled her eyes without looking at him, reaching up to poke his cheek with her free hand. "We're not jocks . If you can work on an alien spacecraft with limited overhead and blueprint access, you're not a jock."

"Yeah, but we're more jock than we were back home," Hunk said, then sat himself down on the arm of her chair, peering over her shoulder at the screen. "...So how's it looking? Which bit's the problem?"

"I mean, as usual, it's trying to get the Castle's systems to run my program without pitching a fit," Pidge said, settling back in her chair. "I hate the coding language the ship uses, so while it would be easier to just learn the stupid thing—" she pulled a face of exaggerated disgust, and Hunk snickered— "but I hate it, so I rigged up a program a little while back that translates from mine into Altean— or Galra, when we need it, though the language their ships use is a lot friendlier than the Altean one— and vice versa. It works most of the time, but there's something weird going on with the way the program interacts with the Castle's navigational system and star map program and I can't quite get it to work the way it's supposed to."

"You checked your math, right?" Hunk asked.

PIdge sighed. "...I can run it again, but I've done that three times now and I'm pretty sure the math isn't the problem. And it's not the coordinates either, I've already used the nav to convert Galra coordinates on our data to their Altean equivalents, so it shouldn't be that unless I did something horribly wrong."

"...Syntax errors?" Hunk suggested.

"Checked it. Five times," Pidge said. "Here, I'll send you a copy— maybe I just need a fresh set of eyes on it."

She tapped at her screen, then made a flicking motion with her wrist, swiping something offscreen. The lights on Hunk's own chair flashed— accessing Pidge's program, he guessed. He hurried back over to it and sat down, opening the file and skimming it over.

"...So what's it supposed to be doing, and what's it doing instead?" he asked.

"It's supposed to analyse star systems in a given quadrant for likelihood of Galra occupation, outposts, or data relay locations," Pidge said, turning in her seat. "Unfortunately, our data set for known sites is pretty limited, but it should be enough to get us something to go on— except it keeps turning up way more locations than they could feasibly have, or way too few , and I'm not sure if there's something wrong with my algorithm or if the starmap is just way too outdated to effectively analyze things, or what ."

"...So what kind of parameters do you have in place on this thing?" Hunk asked, skimming down to the relevant section. "Gravitational hazards and anomalies, whether or not the Castle has it marked down as an inhabited world…sight lines for information transmission, ooh…"

"I have atmospheric conditions down too," Pidge said, drumming her fingers. "We can control for all of those factors at once, or individually, but…I dunno. It's just not working."

"Maybe we oughta get Sendak in on this," Hunk said, toggling the atmosphere parameter. "He'd know what kind of locations they'd actually pick ."

"Probably," Pidge said, sighing. "...Until we can pick his brain, though…maybe I can get it to run all of the parameters individually , and indicate sites that get flagged under multiple filters…"

She went quiet, but Hunk could hear her tapping away at her screen with an enthusiasm that sounded like it bordered on mania. Her cursor, highlighted green in the program, darted and flashed across the screen, modifying code, adding and taking away and adding again, altering and rewriting.

She'd been at it for nearly ten minutes when one of the bridge's alert systems beeped and began flashing, throwing an indecipherable pop-up onto the viewscreens. Hunk jumped, then glanced sideways at Pidge, who shut down the file and opened up a different one. She paused, then scowled down at the screen.

"...We're receiving a distress signal from somewhere nearby," she said, glancing up at him. "I'm pretty sure this is the alert for a prerecorded message…"

The bridge doors hissed open, letting Coran come skidding onto the deck. He bolted for his own station at the front of the bridge, not even looking at the pair of them. The doors didn't even have time to close before the rest of the team bundled through, all in various stages of dishevelment— Keith and Shiro both rumpled, Lance sporting a scrape across his left cheek, Sendak unharmed but alert. Allura still clutched a staff in her right hand, and her eyes were wide and wild.

"What's going on?" Shiro asked.

"It's a distress beacon," Coran said. "Looks like it's coming from—"

"Somewhere called Taujeer?" Pidge cut in, glancing up from her screen.

Hunk glanced down at his, where Pidge's algorithm was still open, and gave it an experimental prod to run the program. The Castle's star map spun out above, overlaid with her program— varicolored flags and symbols demarcating the different parameters. The map turned, zooming in on a planet— Taujeer, he guessed, though he couldn't read the label.

It was highlighted with two of Pidge's filters.

He looked back over at Pidge, who grinned back at him, and gave her a thumb's up.

"Is there a message with it?" Allura asked. The butt of her staff met the floor with a metallic ringing, and she leaned against it, looking up at the alert on the screen.

"Let's take a look," Coran said, tapping at something on his workstation.

It took a minute for anything to happen, but then an image opened across the front viewscreen— heavily greened-out and banded with static. The image of an alien was visible through it, though, and Hunk's jaw dropped.

It hadn't occurred to him, but up until now , most of the aliens they'd seen had looked close to humans— two legs, two or more arms, a head, mostly-symmetrical body plans— aside from one or two vaguely slug-like aliens he'd glimpsed at a distance in the mall. This one resembled a tardigrade, a soft-looking, segmented grey hide, with multiple sets of short limbs, the head compact and squished into the body, the 'face' occupied with what looked like a round port or a screen, framed by bulbous…he almost wanted to call them cheeks , but that didn't feel right either.

The alien took a heavy breath, rounded 'shoulders' heaving. "To whoever sees this message," they said— in a voice that sounded like it had been run through a vocoder, and Hunk couldn't tell if that was the distortion or not — "we are the people of the planet Taujeer, requesting aid from anyone who can hear us. Our planet is undergoing a routine geological event which requires evacuation from its surface. The Galra struck, and we have lost contact with the last ark remaining planetside. If you can hear us, and can reach us, we ask your aid in saving our people. If they remain much longer, everyone aboard the ark will die."

The video feed guttered, then fuzzed to grey static before cutting off entirely.

"...Fuck," Shiro said quietly.

"Ha! Language!" Lance called from the other side of the bridge.

Sendak hissed at him, ears flattening. "How old is this transmission?"

"...Ah, give me a tick," Coran said, tapping at the controls again. "...Looks like it was sent four vargas ago. It's heavily degraded— I can't tell if there was more to the message that has been cut off."

"That's…" Keith started.

"Strange," Allura cut in. "I don't like it."

"...Sendak?" Pidge asked, turning around to lean over the back of her seat. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about Taujeer, would you?"

Sendak's ears twitched, his brows furrowing. "...Not specifically about the planet or its people, no," he said. "Unfortunately, I am familiar with the commander in charge of this sector, and this does sound like something he would do."

"You mentioned something about him at the mall, correct?" Allura asked, leaning against her staff. "Something about…obsequious bootlicking?"

"Him, right," Sendak said dryly. "Morvok of Clan Drukul. All the bloodlust of one of the warlords, the entitlement of a trade clan's first scion, and less competence and courage than one of your mice . He would leave one of his client states to founder like this."

"Sounds like it's less 'leaving to founder' and more boring holes in the ship," Shiro said. "We're going in immediately. Pidge, Hunk, can you two please go suit up?"

Pidge reddened, her ears flushing as well as her cheeks. Hunk dismissed his screens— the overlay on the starmap vanished as well— and scrambled to his feet.

"Right on it, Shiro," he said, and bolted for the door.

Pidge's feet pounded on the floor after him, way faster. She caught up as he reached the elevator, hitting the button to close the door immediately, and the elevator lurched and began to sink towards the residential floors.

After a moment she heaved a heavy sigh and dropped against the wall with a thud. "...Well, shit," she said quietly.

"No kidding," Hunk said. "...At least we know the finder works?"

" One benefit," Pidge said, but she snorted a little. "We're gonna have to refine it a little, but it flagging Taujeer means we're on the right track."

"Yeah," Hunk said quietly. He let out a slow exhale through his teeth as the elevator came to a stop, letting them out onto their floor. "...I kinda wish we weren't, though. Every time we go somewhere, it's because the Galra fucked somebody over."

The thrusters kicked underfoot, almost as if to punctuate his words.

"...I mean, yeah," Pidge said. "The Galra have screwed over a lot of people."

"Let's just hope we can get there in time for these people," Hunk said.

He'd reached his door by then, and he met Pidge's eyes before tapping the access panel and ducking inside.

The Paladin armor, stashed in his closet, was an easy find— and way easier to put on now, after like two months of practice. He was still grateful for the way it stretched and changed shape to accommodate him; fitting for a flight suit at the Garrison had sucked , and had just been embarrassing all around, and the fit had only been mostly okay anyway. The Paladin armor fit right , not restricting to move in, and— he popped the breastplate on, shifting to make sure it had adjusted properly— it actually looked good on him, unlike the Garrison uniforms, which seemed like they were designed to look bad on everyone.

The Castle shuddered again just as he finished up with the boots, and Hunk scrambled back to his feet and booked it back out into the hall.

Empty. Pidge must have beaten him in the getting dressed department. He hurried for the elevator, basically throwing himself into it and jabbing at the panel to send himself back up to the bridge. There was another thump at about the halfway point, and a third just as the door opened, making him stumble on his way out into the hall to the bridge.

The doors to the bridge hissed open, and Hunk froze between them to gape.

A planet hung suspended in the viewscreens, glowing with sickly yellowish-green light and wreathed in a pale corona, as if the atmosphere were alight. Chunks of rocky debris floated aimlessly around it— some settling into wobbly, half-hearted orbits, others dropping back through the atmosphere to burn up in brilliant streaks— and still others splitting off away from it, floating out into space around the Castle. The wan, greenish disc of a distant moon slipped out of sight around the far side of the planet.

"...What is that ?" Hunk breathed.

"Taujeer," Keith said, his voice hushed.

"The debris field almost certainly is, too," Coran said, turning from his station. "Initial scans show the planet's lost over seventy percent of its crust, and it's losing more every minute."

"We've located the ark down there—" Allura said, and flicked a wrist to pull up something on her own controls, lighting up a box on the main screen— a small, crumbling outcrop of rock, with the even smaller form of a ship on it, grey and orange against yellow-green. "We've also detected signs of habitation on their moon, but whatever's happening on the planet, it's emitting some kind of radiation and preventing us from establishing communications with their outpost, at least from this angle. We'll have to go around and get in closer if we want to try to reach them."

"While Allura, Coran, and Sendak are doing that, the rest of us are going to head for the ark," Shiro said. "If anyone's still alive down there, we'll figure out what's going on and see if we can help them get the ship off the ground and make it to the moon. Is everybody ready?"

Hunk nodded, alongside the rest of the Paladins murmuring their assent. The others hurried for their hangars— but he paused as Sendak caught Shiro's arm on the way out, ducking his head to speak with him, and lingered in the doorway. They were a bit too far for him to actually hear the conversation, but Shiro's brow creased worriedly.

They broke apart after a moment and a sharp nod from Shiro, and he turned— and caught Hunk's gaze. Hunk froze, but Shiro flashed him a smile and raised a hand in a wait-up signal, trotting over.

"...Uh, what's going on?" Hunk asked, turning towards the hangar again and eyeing Shiro as he fell into step beside him.

Shiro hesitated just a second, his left hand closing around his right wrist. "...Zarkon was tracking us through the Black Lion," he said. His hand twisted, rubbing at the seam of his suit. "The three of us— Allura, Sendak, and I— have been talking about it, and…until we can confirm that the link is broken enough to keep him from tracking us, we're going to try and limit how much I fly Black to keep him off our trail."

"...That doesn't sound good," Hunk said, eyeing Shiro.

"Yeah, it could be better," Shiro said, with a smile that looked more like a grimace. "Will you mind if I ride down with you and Yellow this time?"

"...Uh, of course we won't," Hunk said, and tried not to fidget himself as they reached Yellow's hangar. The Lion's head turned towards him, and a warm wave of emotion rolled through him— Hunk lit up immediately, reaching up as Yellow's muzzle came down. "Hey, big guy," he said. "You don't mind if Shiro flies with us for a bit, right?"

The Lion rumbled somewhere in the back of his skull, and Yellow's jaw opened as if in answer, giving them access to the cockpit.

Hunk patted the roof of his mouth as he reached the back and started up. "Thanks, bud," he said, grinning.

"Yeah, thanks," Shiro said, and there was a soft thump from behind Hunk, like Shiro had copied him. Hunk chuckled, settling himself into the pilot's seat and cracking his knuckles before reaching for the controls.

Yellow responded eagerly, surging up through the hangar door and into open space— and Hunk jerked the controls immediately, guiding them around a massive chunk of shattered planet. A wall of grey rock flew past, inches from their belly. Hunk's grip on the control tightened as Yellow's anxiety settled like a rock in his stomach; this close, he could feel the press of Shiro's tension behind him.

They emerged from behind the rock with a relieved gasp, bursting out into more open space and falling into more tight formation with the other Lions, weaving around smaller debris as they descended towards the planet. The bond— brighter now, after Olkarion and whatever Shiro had done with Black— practically hummed, an overall impression of curiosity and worry in equal amounts. Shiro reached over Hunk's shoulder to tap the comms.

Hunk winced at the immediate crackle of static.

"—Where Shiro is?" Keith was saying, his voice heavily distorted by the interference. "He's usually not this late."

"I'm right here," Shiro said, leaning against the back of the chair. "Until we can confirm that I've broken Zarkon's link to Black, she's gonna have to stay grounded as much as possible. Ideally, this won't be a mission that calls for Voltron anyway."

"What if we do need it, though?" Lance asked.

"...We'll figure that out if it comes to it," Shiro said. "Has anyone tried getting in touch with the Castle?"

"I have, yeah," Pidge said. "We have a connection, but the closer we get to the surface, the worse it's going to get."

"...That's not good," Hunk said.

"It's not ideal," Shiro agreed. "Pidge, do you think you can adjust your comms frequency to cut down on the interference?"

"I can give it a shot, but I'll need some more readings on this radiation before I actually manage anything," Pidge said. "If I can do that, I can reset the system baseline and we'll be able to reach the Castle from the planet's surface if need-be."

"Get on that as soon as you can, then," Shiro said.

The surface of Taujeer drew up closer as he spoke, until the Lions descended through a hazy cloud of yellow fumes to land on solid ground near the ark. Not that there was much solid ground to land on— the remaining rock was riddled with cracks, through which yellow-green light shone. The ark itself looked derelict— a six-legged structure, with an engine on one side and a cracked join for one on the other, listing somewhat towards the broken side as it stood.

"I don't see any Galra," Hunk said.

"Must've already left," Lance said.

"Do you guys see any Taujeerians?" Keith asked.

"There!" Pidge called, almost in the same moment— and sure enough, a round, grey figure emerged from beneath the arc, running clumsily on its rearmost legs towards them.

Shiro nodded, pulling out his helmet and settling it on his head. "I'll go out and talk to them," he said, voice slightly muffled by the faceplate. "The rest of you, stay in your Lions until we find out what kind of help they need."

He turned, and a second later the hatch out of the cockpit hissed open, then closed. Yellow's head dipped, the perspective changing as he settled to the ground. Shiro emerged into the viewscreen's range a minute later, a small black-and-white figure in a waste of yellow. The Taujeerian slowed their sprint as they approached, and damn had Hunk underestimated their size from the video. The Taujeerian stood taller than Shiro .

Their voice echoed over the comms a moment later, out of breath and just as roboticized as the message had been. "Thank goodness you're here," they gasped. "I am Baujal, leader of the Taujeerians. The Galra just destroyed our ship's engines and left— they've taken everything, and we have lost contact with our sister colony on our nearest moon and cannot call for aid."

"Your sister colony called on your behalf," Shiro said, sounding much more calm. "We got their message and came as fast as we could. How long do we have—"

The earth rumbled, and Yellow's claws sank deeper into the crust on reflex— Hunk gasped as they both felt it shift threateningly beneath them. Off to their right, another chunk of rock had broken off, the whole floe shuddering as it slid away.

"Uh, not long!" Hunk yelped.

"How did this happen?" Shiro asked, and when Hunk glanced back out the viewscreens he'd turned towards the Taujeerian— Baujal— again.

"We've known for years that our planet would eventually lose its outer layer," Baujal said.

"Like a snake?" Lance asked over the comms.

"I mean, that could be worse?" Hunk asked. "That means there's supposed to be another healthy layer underneath, right?"

Another rumble.

Pidge made a breathy sound over the comms, and her stress was a jab right in the kidneys. "...No, I think the next layer is acid," she said, her voice tight.

"We had established a colony on our nearest moon to wait out the shedding process, but evacuating has been difficult," Baujal said. "We relocated to higher ground, and constructed the arks, and have left as we can over the last year. As the leader, it is my responsibility to wait, and leave with the final ark— but the Galra attacked as we prepared to leave, led by a vile commander named Morvok. He robbed us of vital resources and left us with a single operational engine, and his robots sabotaged our communications system, stranding us and leaving us unable to call for help."

"You're not stranded anymore," Shiro said. "We're here to help."

"I believe you," Baujal said. "Even here, we have heard legends of the valor of Voltron. Though…" They trailed off, round head tracking upwards. "...I count only four ships. Are you not Voltron? Where is the fifth?"

"...With our main ship, getting in touch with your sister colony," Shiro said, and Hunk breathed a sigh of relief. "Don't worry. The Black Lion will be here if we need her."

"...I would be more comfortable with it here," Baujal said.

"...Duly noted," Shiro said, a grimace evident in his tone. "Pidge, any progress with the comms?"

"I'm working on it," Pidge said.

"Great," Shiro said. "Hunk, come take a look at the ark. Let's see what we're dealing with."

Hunk swallowed hard, trying to swallow his nerves. "Piece of cake," he said. "We'll get it flying in no—"

The crust shuddered again, longer and harder than before, knocking both Shiro and Baujal to the ground. The other Paladins yelped over the comms, Lions' tails lashing as they struggled for balance—

And the ark shuddered with it, emitting a mechanical groaning audible even at a distance and through the Lion. The six legs on the side without an engine bucked and collapsed, breaking off from the ship as the whole affair slumped in a lopsided heap on the trembling ground.

"...Shit," Hunk said under his breath. "...We can't settle for upright, can we."

The others, Shiro included, chuckled uncomfortably over the comms.

"...I'll hurry up on those comms," Pidge said.

"Good idea," Shiro said. Hunk watched him pick himself up, offering Baujal a hand so the Taujeerian could rise as well. "We may need to bring in the Castle after all— Hunk, I don't know if you can still do anything—"

"I can try," Hunk said, and took a deep breath, steeling himself. "It's a dual-thruster ship with one on each side, and the problem …uh, before the legs fell off…was that the Galra took the other one, so you don't have enough oomph to lift off and you can't replace it, right?"

"That is correct," Baujal said.

"Right," Hunk said, nodding. "I'm gonna give it a scan, and if the other engine's still functional, I think we might be able to coordinate something? The Lions are pretty tough, and if we get one of them under the other side and lift up at the same time you guys go with the thrusters, we might be able to get it airborne."

"It is better than any of the other options we have," Baujal said. "I will go tell the others, and we will get the ark as ready as we can."

They turned almost as soon as they said it, hustling back to the ark and disappearing into the tangle of limbs.

Hunk winced a little, then activated Yellow's sensor array and moved them both closer to get a better scan. Now that he was looking, the ship was abuzz with life— the biometric scan popped up…what had to be thousands of them packed into the craft, and his stomach did a sickening flip. He shut that scanner off, focusing on the structure of the ship itself to keep from puking or losing his nerve.

His first guess had been correct— dual-thruster, short an engine. The legs were probably a total wash. The hull still held its structural integrity, though— it seemed like it had been designed to potentially have bits break off without breaking down entirely, which given the debris field made a ton of sense. The second engine was still intact, and the infrared display showed that it was actually warming up . Hunk heaved a quiet sigh of relief.

"I think we can salvage it, guys," he said.

"I hope you're right, but that's still gonna take time," Pidge said.

" Which would appear to be the one thing we don't have," Lance chimed in.

"Great, thanks, real hopeful here," Hunk deadpanned back.

"We need some way to slow down the shedding," Shiro said. "If we can delay the breakup of this section of the crust, we can buy enough time to get it fixed."

"How are we supposed to stop a planet that's coming apart at the seams?" Pidge asked.

"...Stitch it back together?" Keith suggested, his tone uncertain.

"What do you mean?" Shiro asked.

Keith made another nervous sound, and Hunk cut in, leaning towards the comms. "With that new Green Lion weapon, right?" he asked. "It makes vegetation grow, and maybe if we aim it at the cracks in the planet, the vines will act like stitches and hold it together!"

Keith hummed affirmatively, and Hunk grinned.

"I'd be worried about them getting dissolved by the acid," Shiro said. Hunk's shoulders lowered, beginning to deflate.

"...Maybe they'll hold longer if they're… frozen ," Pidge said.

Shiro took a deep breath. "...It's a plan," he said. "Hunk, Keith, you're gonna have to get the ark upright while Pidge and Lance buy us some time. I'll go aboard and see if I can help the Taujeerians with anything. And Pidge, if you have a free minute—"

"I know, reestablish comms," Pidge said. Green lifted off the ground, beginning to circle. "I've got my readings. It won't take me too long once I have a second to work on it."

"Great!" Shiro called. Yellow straightened, and Hunk watched as Shiro turned towards the ark. "I'm going in. Keep me posted."

"Got it!" Pidge called.

"Yup," Lance said.

"You got it, Shiro!" Hunk said.

"Roger that," Keith chimed in.

Hunk twisted the controls, setting Yellow back into the air and guiding them towards the fallen ark as Shiro disappeared under its shadow. The legs were a tangled mess— some heaped over the sides, others crumpled and twisted beneath it, and he hovered over it, studying it carefully.

Green and Blue whizzed past on either side, firing bolts of emerald light and sheets of ice respectively, as Red came to a halt opposite him and hung there, tail twitching.

"...Well?" Keith asked. "What do you think?"

"...I think we gotta get the legs off it and away from the bottom first, so we can right it," Hunk said. "Yellow's more stable, so I'll take the ones that fell underneath and try to get her more upright while you handle the ones over top. Sound good?"

"You got it," Keith said, sounding relieved.

Red turned, circling the fallen ark, and Hunk settled to land beside it, guiding Yellow's head down to grasp the first limb in their jaws and pull it away— as carefully as he could. Exactly like a game of Jenga, like a really, really high-stakes game of Jenga. The limb slid free. The ark creaked and settled, but fell no further onto its side.

There was a thump somewhere out of their field of vision, and Yellow's head lifted to catch sight of Red dipping around the other side of the ark again, followed by a swirl of dust from the limb they'd just knocked aside.

Yellow rumbled faintly around Hunk, the controls vibrating under his hands, and he patted the left one affectionately.

"It's alright," he said. "We got this."

The next limb came away with another wobble of the ship, and Hunk hissed and braced Yellow's shoulder against it to steady it. The third downed limb was on the other side of the ship; Hunk guided Yellow around the side of it rather than taking off, ducking as a blast of ice shot off over their head. He winced at the sight of it— Keith had knocked one of the topside limbs off on top of the downed one, pinning it beneath that and the ark. He pulled away the top limb first, then grabbed the bottom limb and tugged.

The ship lurched.

"...Shit," Hunk muttered. "Let's…try that again?"

He shifted Yellow closer, grabbing the limb again and bracing their shoulder against the side of the ship. Another tug, a very gentle one, and the ship rocked again— less severely this time.

"Okay, bracing helps, bracing helps," he said. "Come on, we can do this. We can do this."

Another tug, a little firmer. The ship wobbled.

"...No, we can't," Hunk breathed. "...Hey, Keith?"

A moment's pause, and then Keith answered, "Yeah? What's up?"

"Can you get over on the other side of this thing and brace it for me? This leg is, like, mostly under the ark, and I can't get it out," Hunk said.

"Yeah, gimme a sec," Keith said. Red flashed across the top of his viewscreen, and a moment later the ark shifted again. "...Alright, I'm in position."

"Great," Hunk said. "Brace on three. One, two, three—"

Yellow's jaws closed around the limb again, and Hunk pulled . The ark rocked again, just a little, but not enough to overbalance. The leg slid free with a harsh, grinding scrape. The ark settled against the stone beneath, and Hunk squeezed his eyes shut, praying his eyes were playing tricks and he hadn't just seen it crack.

There was no hiss, no gout of acid. Hunk relaxed his shoulders— when had they gone tight?— and opened his eyes again.

It was fine. The ark was fine.

"Shiro!" he called, after checking to make sure the comms were still active. "The legs are off the ark, and I think we've got it balanced!"

"Great work!" Shiro said, a note of relief in his tone. "Pidge, Lance, how are the stitches coming?"

"Looking good!" Lance said brightly. Blue circled past, landing at the front of the ark. Her tail folded neatly around her paws.

Green dropped down beside her, but didn't stay down, shifting restlessly. "We've got everything iced up, but I'm not sure how long it'll last," Pidge said. "The acid was already starting to eat the ice coating on the first ones we laid down."

"Then we'll have to work fast," Shiro said. "The Taujeerians and I ran a diagnostic on their last engine. It looks like it'll run, and despite losing the legs too, the hull is still intact, they just don't have enough thrust to reach escape velocity. Hunk, I think we'll have to go with your plan and use the Lions to compensate."

"...In that case, it looks like Yellow and I are going under," Hunk said, and eyed the ark again. "...It's a pretty big ship, though. We might need more than one."

Shiro hummed. "...Right. And we need Blue to make sure the stitches hold. Keith, you think Red's got the torque to get her off the ground?"

"We can try," Keith said.

"Great," Shiro said. "We'll give it a shot, but if it doesn't work…Pidge, how's communications coming?"

"Looking into it now," Pidge said. There was a pause, and a faint tapping conveyed over the comms. "...Looks like the ambient radiation's increased. Whatever process is causing it, it's being accelerated by the continued breakup of Taujeer's crust. I'll need more time to compensate for it."

"We'll try to make sure you have it," Shiro said. "Lance, keep an eye on the stitches. Hunk, Keith, get ready— Baujal and I are coming up to the bridge now, we'll let you know when we're ready to try and launch."

"You got it, Shiro," Lance said. Blue bounced back to her feet and took airborne once again, circling off out of sight.

Yellow's short-range sensors pinged a moment later— Red, landing lightly beside them. Hunk nodded, turning Yellow, and edged in closer to the ark, dropping into a half-crouch as if preparing to spring and bracing their shoulder against it. By the blip on the radar, Keith had moved Red to copy them, a little further aft.

"Alright, we're in position," Hunk said. His pulse had quickened, and he readjusted his grip on his controls— his hands felt slick inside the gloves.

"On your mark, Shiro," Keith said.

"We're ready up here," Shiro said. "Launch sequence initiated. Countdown in ten, nine, eight—"

Yellow shifted, bracing their shoulder a little more firmly, and Hunk squeezed the controls again. He was pretty sure the anxiety curled in his gut wasn't all his.

"—Seven, six, five, four—"

Blue circled back into view, firing off a gout of ice at a widening crack in the ground. Green's shifting had stilled, eerily so.

"—Three, two, one— liftoff!"

The engine firing shook the ark, and Yellow engaged the thrusters almost without needing Hunk's hands on the controls. Their legs strained, thrusters strained, shoving against the weight of the ark. Hunk grit his teeth. Keith growled a protest over the comms, a strained come on —

The ark lifted. A foot. Two. Three—

"Fuck—" Keith gasped.

A shriek of metal on metal. The ark slipped from their shoulder, crashing back to earth. Engines whined in desperation. Shiro shouted over the comms, but Hunk couldn't make it out over the ark rattling against their hull.

The ark's engine cut out.

Silence.

"...Damn it," Hunk whispered. Hot tears prickled in the corners of his eyes.

"—Hunk? Are you okay?" That was Keith's voice. Hunk lifted his head, flipping on the video comms setting, and met his worried gaze. "...I'm really sorry," he said. "Red and I slipped. We couldn't hold it."

"I'm alright," Hunk said, and popped off his helmet to wipe at his face. "I just…we almost had it."

"Everyone aboard is alright, and the ark didn't sustain any further damage," Shiro said. "It was a good idea. We'll just need to go get Black, to make sure we have the power to get it up and keep it there. Okay?"

"...Okay," Hunk said quietly. "...Yeah. We're not giving up over one setback."

"That's the spirit," Shiro said. Hunk had a feeling that, if he'd been aboard, Shiro would have clapped him on the shoulder as he said it. "Pidge? Any luck?"

"I think I've got it," Pidge said. "Gimme just a second—"

The comms screamed with earsplitting static, an outburst of feedback that made Hunk clap his hands over his ears to block it out. Another shriek, an agonized squeal, and then—

Voices. Staticky, broken-up, but voices. The Castle's bridge crew.

"—ch interference, I can't get through—" Coran was saying.

"Hey! Can you hear me now?" Pidge shouted.

An excited yelp— Allura's voice. "They did it! Oh, I knew they could— you're brilliant , Pidge!"

"Looks like you win that bet, Princess," Sendak deadpanned. Hunk snorted.

"Loud and clear, Number Five," Coran said. "How are things down there?"

"We've hit a bit of a wall," Shiro said. "The Taujeerians are alive and we have the ark ready to go, but between the breakup of the planet's crust and trying to get in touch with you up there, we don't have enough power to get them off the planet. We need the Black Lion."

Silence on the other end of the comms. Hunk's stomach turned over.

"Uh, did we lose you?" he asked.

"You haven't," Allura said.

Sendak cleared his throat a little. "That's…going to be a problem," he said. "An Imperial cruiser just dropped out of hyperdrive in this star system. On your side of the planet. From our current position, the radiation Taujeer is emitting should jam their sensors enough to keep us undetected, but they'll be on you in a couple doboshes, and given Morvok's proclivities, he'll be here to watch the ark go down. It will be impossible for you to evade their notice."