19 October 2419

Cell 481: Olkari Exhibit, Calivon Zoo

It was during one of those few rare quintants that Pidge found herself even surfacing during the daylight vargas that she was treated to the utterly delightful sight of this hallway's newest spectacle: another earsplitting domestic dispute from the Human Exhibit across the way. Honestly, Pidge could've of done without the incessant bickerings from those two, but they seemed to act like broken records; forever scratching out the same boring arguments (at least it was good for business).

Gone were the quintants full of the couple's honeymooning, instead replaced by the bickering duo that stood there now. If it weren't for the ion barriers between them, she would've of very likely given in the urge to do so and gone over there to smother them with a pillow, it was that bad (and she was sure that Lurenek would've of helped). But alas. Grabbing a bowl of milk-drenched, diabetes-flavoured cereal from the food synthesiser (not everything she ate was alien, thank you) Pidge plopped herself down on the couch an settled in to watch the show, feet propped up on the coffee table and bowl balanced on her chest like she was an upturned turtle.

CLANK…CLANK…CLANK…!

On today's show of Bickering Blunderbusses, the pair were sitting down to eat their own breakfasts (at a vargas that was far too early for any decent person to be awake), whilst the early morning patrons—school field trips and such—meandered the halls. It wouldn't be long now. Pidge could practically see Ed's neck veins bulge & twitch from her cell as he ground his teeth together in irritation and slowly grew red in the face.

"…Hey!" Ed eventually snapped, already irritated as he sank back in to the lumpy cushions of the frontward-facing couch. "Do you wanna not do that, please?"

"…What?" Kelly sighed just as irritably, rolling her eyes with a huff as her spoon clanked back into her bowl for the umpteenth time.

"You know what" Ed snarled around the rim of his bottle (which Pidge would bet did not contain any known morning beverage within it).

"What do I know?"

"We've lived together long enough for you to know that I do not like listening to people eat cereal like their cows chewing cud"

"It's the morning" Kelly replied, smiling sickly sweet. "I'm eating breakfast. You know, that meal you eat when you first wake up? You should try it some time; eating in the morning, that is, instead of drinking"

"I'm having a beer" Ed defended himself as he curled up around his metallic bottle and the pair replayed out a well-run argument.

"Yeah, at nine AM" Kelly sassed back, tone full of vindication as she took a sip of her own—alcoholic-free—beverage. "Which, in case you don't remember, is something that I do not like"

"Excuse me? Need I remind you, I'm doing something that the Germans—!" Ed snarked, gesturing with his bottle as he sank back into the cushion, self-assured in his argument.

"—That the Germans have been doing for centuries, yes! You love that one, don't you?" Kelly sneered, "Well, guess what? You're not German!"

"W-well, you're not…Franken Berry, so shut up!" Ed weakly defended, before quietly complimenting himself which earned another roll of the eyes from his female counterpart. "Nailed it…!"

"You know what? It is all coming back to me now!" Kelly huffed, slapping her spoon back in to her bowl with far more force than was necessary (and taking petty vindictive pleasure in the way that Ed seemed to curl up in disgust at the grating noise it made. Like it was the spine-tingling noise of nails drawn down a chalkboard) as she stood up.

"Oh-ho, Kel? What? What is it? What's all coming back to you, now?" Ed retorted as he rose to meet her, standing square before the viewing window; framing themselves like a made-for-quintant-time-TV soap opera.

"US! Living together! ALL of the things that sucked about it!"

"YES! This is exactly what I was trying to say on the shuttle! Do you remember? And—and you said, no! But me? I said, we were a bad match! Okay? I am just as miserable with you as you are with me!"

"Well, great! Now, we can finally find some common godforsaken ground!"

"Some common ground between the two of us?"

"Some common ground!"

"Some common ground?"

"Some common fucking—!"

"—Graah?" Ock'or huffed around a yawn, as he quietly asked if his neighbours had been going on like that all morning.

"Yeah, pretty much" Pidge grunted around her spoonful of misshapen soggy marshmallows. "But they're running out of material. Think I've heard this one already; they need to spice it up"

"Mrrooow" He scolded her for treating the pair like her live-in entertainment.

"What? I'm bored!" Pidge whined as she slid further down the couch, melting off of the vinyl like a cat made of liquid. "There's nothing to do!"

"Mmrr?" Ock'or suggested challenging Baral to another

"Yeah, I guess…" She sighed with all the lacklustre enthusiasm that said she probably wasn't going to do that.

In fact, Pidge was more or less content to let herself stew in utter nothingness on the floor of her cage, at least that was until a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. This zoo may have of been an upmarket sort of establishment, but even then, it was strange to see a kaylon walking (practically) hand-in-hand with a xelayan officer; both all trussed up in Planetary Union uniforms.

"Wha…?" Pidge blinked dumbly at the sight before her. She silently wondered if she was stuck inside some sort of weird fever dream before she quickly scrambled to her feet, mindless of the half-eaten bowl of cereal which now coated the floor. "Hey! Hey! Xelayan in red!"

"…Huh?" The xelayan—apparently a Lieutenant, by the looks of those lapels—hummed in confusion as she paused in the middle of the hallway to figure out who had called out to her (much to the chagrin of the calivon).

(Pidge wasn't quite sure as to how this girl had made a Lieutenant—outside of the fact that it was common knowledge that xelayans were fast-tracked through the academy and so forth—because despite clearly being only a few phoebs her senior, she was greener than a bud in spring. And not the fun kind of green. It was just the way she held herself; it reminded Pidge of herself during those first few phoebs after accepting her fate as a paladin. It was a notion that didn't exactly fill her with confidence)

"Yeah, you!" Pidge rushed out, as she stumbled over her own feet in her hurry to get to the window. The Lieutenant in question was adorned in the red of security, standing not two feet from Pidge's cage with the unnamed kaylon still standing stalwartly at her side. Pidge couldn't even remember the last time that she had seen either of those two races. One being created by her brother's hand deca-phoebs after she had returned to the stars and the other because they rarely left their home world. "You're Union!"

"Ex-excuse me?" The xelayan stumbled, eyes searching for the source of the callout. It took her a moment (and a nudge from the kaylon) before she was redirected over to Pidge, confusedly pointing to herself. "Are you talking to me?"

"Do you see any other imprisoned Union officers, here?" Pidge sassed as she crossed her arms with a slight huff. But that was before she acquiesced her statement with a nod towards the opposing cage where the other two Union officers stood yelling at each other, like their lives depended on it. (The young paladin didn't recognise either of the two in the hallway, which likely meant that they were from the Orville and not the Calvin). "Besides them, I mean"

"You recognised that we were from the Planetary Union" The kaylon intoned. It wasn't a question.

"Well, yeah, it's kinda hard not too" Pidge shrugged, the 'duh' evident in her voice. "You finally did something about those messages then?"

"You sent them?" Lieutenant questioned, brows furrowed in thought.

Ouch. Pidge pouted at the blatant disregard for her intelligence. I mean, c'me on! You can't be much older than I am!

"Not much else to do in here" Pidge replied.

"You mean to say that you successfully hacked into the calivon's systems?" Kaylon pursued, as if somehow unable to grasp the fact that a human girl was able to get into such an advanced system (with much trial & error, but she wasn't gonna tell him that). "Without alerting the authorities?"

"Machines are easy enough to decode, it's people that're hard"

"Wait, wait, wait—!" Lieutenant interjected, "You said that you were from the Planetary Union too?"

"Yeah, uh Ensign Pidge Holt, from the Calvin" Pidge replied, well aware that she didn't look like much in her Voltron-green t-shirt and well-worn boxer shorts.

"The Calvin?" She puzzled, sparing a questioning glance towards her android companion. "Isn't she grounded?"

"Yes" Kaylon nodded, "Captain Franklin Koga was placed on sabbatical following their latest mission involving New Altea"

"So, I've been told" Pidge hummed, absorbing the extra little bit about her (adoptive) home planet. Shifting in place, she nodded over to the Human Exhibit where things seemed to be getting even more heated, if that was at all possible. "They yours? Um…?"

"Yeah" Lieutenant nodded, before introducing herself. "Oh! I'm Lieutenant Alara!"

Alara… That's so close to…no, no! Forget that! Not the time! Pidge quietly despaired, before shaking off those thoughts as she returned to the conversation at hand. "Good luck trying to break those two up, they've been going like that for most of the morning. Nothing short of an apocalypse could break them up now"

"What makes you say that?" Kaylon asked, head tilted in question and eyes unblinking.

"Because in the short time that I've know them, I've found out more than I would ever like to know about two people" Pidge huffed in reply, "Including the fact that they squabble like toddlers, they stomp about like elephants on roller skates, and to be completely honest, I've wanted to smother the both of them with a pillow more than once"

"Seconded…!" Came the faint agreement from Lurenek, next door.

"Does that answer your question, Kaylon?"

"Isaac"

"I'm sorry…?"

"My name is Isaac, not Kaylon"

"…Huh"

"What is it?" Alara wondered.

"Dunno, I guess I was just expecting something a little more…binary"

"Binary?"

"Ah, the android I knew as a kid was called Chip"

"…Chip?"

"Y'know, like computer chip?"

If Pidge had ever wondered if faceless androids could deadpan, her question was now answered, because yes, they could and it was quite amusing. The deadpan that Issac the kaylon levelled at her reminded the paladin of a certain copper-leaded 'droid that had manned the dysonium fuel outpost, back in the quintant.

"I thought it was funny…" Pidge smiled demurely, unable to keep the teasing grin off of her lips as her eyes darted back over to the glittering android. "You know, you don't see a lot of kaylon going off-planet, these quintants. What brings you all the way out here?"

"I was chosen to represent my planet as an Emissary to the Planetary Union" Isaac replied factually, "In order to research and study your strange human ways"

"Huh, well, the more you know…" Pidge hummed in thought as Alara squared her shoulders in determination and set off for the Human Exhibit, leaving the kaylon to linger by the Olkari window with curiosity swimming in his facade.

"How long have you been in this establishment, Paladin Pidge?" Isaac asked.

Wow, blunt and to the point. That's got Matt's signature ALL over it. Pidge mused, "How…? Oh, olkarion memory banks! Right, I gotta remember that. Uh, well, it's been…what? Three phoebs? yeah, that sounds about right"

"That is quite the extended period of time"

"Uh huh"

"And your skills were inadequate enough to get you out this whole time?"

"First of all, ouch! Second of all, I can get my limbs out, but it hurts like a cagna [bitch]! Hence the messages"

Their conversation sort of dwindled after that and Pidge assumed the android was going to move to join his counterpart in front of the Human Exhibit, but he surprised her by remaining by her side. Instead, her gaze roved over to where the xelayan seemed to be having a hard time trying to insert herself into the rather loud conversation between the Bickering Blunderbusses. If anything, the show seemed to ramping up instead slowing down like they'd hoped. Oh well.

"She's not having much luck" Pidge hummed in thought, eyes tracing the irritated Lieutenant across the way. "Is she?"

"No, it would seem not" Isaac replied in kind, either uncaring of the situation or just happy to sit back and watch.

"Hmm"

ROAR!

Her roar rang crisp and clear throughout the hallway, startling several nearby school children (who had been giggling over some glittering device out of view of their teacher) and a number of those in the surrounding cages. Including the twin objects of her desire (which she did [not] take pleasure in watching them practically shit themselves, thank you very much); the bickering duo in the Human Exhibit, across the way. Pidge had never really thought of herself as the scariest thing in the universe (because she'd seen some pretty scary shit out there), but from the reactions she had gotten—the screaming, the flinching and her cage lighting up in warning—you'd have thought she was.

"Impressive roar, Paladin" Isaac complimented, one of the few who were practically unfazed by the feat.

"Grrah!" Ock'or agreed.

"It would seem that the azleen agrees, also"

"Thanks" Pidge tossed a smile in their direction, before turning back to the startled humans. "Yo! Mr & Mrs Smith! Even though we can't get out, we can all still hear you! I wish that we couldn't, but we can!"

"P-Pidge…?" Ed blinked, wide-eyed at the teen, looking perhaps a shade or two lighter than he had previously been.

"That was you?!" Kelly exclaimed, hand on the wildly beating heart she was trying to calm whilst her instincts told her to run from the predator who had made itself known. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

"There's a reason I have the 'DANGEROUS' sticker on my cage" Pidge smirked, "Oh, by the way, you have a visitor"

"…Alara?" Ed recollected himself as he took note of the familiar security officer before him. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting you out" Alara replied, taking the cue that was given to her.

"God, I'm glad to see you! Sorry about my breath"

It's not like she can SMELL you through the barrier, lankin! Pidge quietly scoffed to herself. It was about the only blessing that these damn barriers had granted them.

"Wait a minute, you…you couldn't have gotten Union clearance to come all the way out here?" It sounded more like she was being scolded, than a question itself.

"No" Alara sheepishly shook her head, a weak grin playing at her lips. "We…took a little field trip"

"Well, I wish that we could tell you how to get out of here" Kelly sighed despondently, "But, honestly, we have no idea"

"It would be reasonable to assume that if this is a zoo" Issac spoke up, "Then there must be a zookeeper"

"What about you, Ensign?" Ed called across the way, taking note of the kaylon next to the Olkari exhibit. "D'you have any idea where they might be?"

"Couldn't tell ya, most of its automated" Pidge replied, crossing her arms again, "But based on assumptions, the boss is always in the penthouse, so you could try there. The real question is, what are you gonna do when you get there?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, aside from the fact that they're calivon and they think that everyone else is inferior? They'll take one look at you and know that the Lieutenant is greener than a bud in spring. Hell, I've known you all of five ticks, and even I can tell that. Honestly, how you ever became a Lieutenant is beyond me"

"I am not green!" Alara huffed as she stomped back over to face the Ensign in the cage.

"Then prove it"

"And what would you suggest, Ensign?" Kelly asked irritably, eyes narrowed at the nonchalant teen.

"The calivon are, above all else, businessmen" Pidge grinned wickedly; lips pulled back and fangs bared in a dangerous glint. "So, make them a deal that they can't refuse"

"What would you know?" Alara grumbled, "You're, like, fourteen—!"

"—Okay, first of all, I'm nineteen—!" Pidge replied in kind.

"—Nineteen?!" Ed spluttered as he choked on his spit. "But that means—! How long were you at Union Point?"

"Uh…a couple of phoebs, I think?" Pidge shrugged.

"You graduated in only a couple of months?!" Kelly blanched.

"What? Like, it's hard?" Pidge couldn't see what the problem was. Sure, okay, the curriculum had changed in the past two hundred-odd deca-phoebs, but it wasn't that different, and she certainly didn't appreciate the (unintended) slights at her intelligence. She'd fought a war for these people! Hell! She'd written most of the new curriculum!

Ed then turned to Kelly with the world's biggest puppy dog eyes that she'd ever seen, "…Can we keep this one?"

"Ed! She's not a dog!" Kelly scolded him before turning back to the self-proclaimed nineteen year old, "And what the hell were those comments for?!"

"Hm?" Pidge hummed in question.

"That was completely uncalled for!"

Pidge then turned her feral grin on the Commander and practically purred, "I thought you said that you trusted your crew, Commander? Were you, perhaps, lying?"

And then the Commander found herself on the back end of the world's saddest look of despair known to mankind as Alara turned to look at her with barely contained sorrow that sent her spluttering and tumbling over herself. "W-what? No! I—I just mean…" Kelly then turned to Pidge, huffing bitterly as she crossed her arms. "You're mean"

"I know, it keeps me awake at night" Pidge hummed unapologetically, before she turned back to the xelayan in front of her. "Now, Lieutenant, here's what you're gonna wanna do…"