Disclaimer: I don't own Voltron, Star Trek, or any other material that is copyrighted by Paramount, World Events Productions, or anyone else. What I do own are the crew of the Berlin, (except for Mordock and Scotty) and the fighter, Thunderwing, as well as the story itself.
Star Tron: EscalationsChapter 9: Solving the Puzzle
"And that, my dear Allura, is how we do that," Adam said as he shut down Thunderwing's engine and opened the canopy. Climbing out onto the wing, he helped Allura unstrap herself and get out of the plane.
"That was fun. Thank you, Adam," Allura said, giving his hand a brief squeeze before letting go.
"My pleasure," Adam said with a smile.
"Princess!" someone shouted across the hangar bay. Adam and Allura turned to see Nanny approaching them. "Princess. Oh, thank heaven you're safe. Come down from there at once."
Adam jumped down and offered Allura a hand, but she declined, jumping down beside the captain as Nanny caught up to them. "Princess, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Nanny," Allura replied in exasperation.
"I was so worried about you, up there in this antique rustbucket with that scoundrel," she shot a harsh glare at Driscoll before turning back to the Princess. "Anything could have happened to you."
"Nanny, I resent that," said Adam. "Call me what you want, but when you dis my bird..."
"You hooligan!" Nanny huffed angrily. "You insolent ruffian! How dare you take the Princess with you in this thing," she slapped the wing. "Endangering her life for the sake of tests. I should have you grounded. How an irresponsible child like you ever got command of a starship is beyond me. Disgraceful."
"Oh, shut up!" Driscoll snapped.
"Excuse me?"
"I told you to shut the hell up," said Driscoll. "And for once in your life, listen to someone else. First off, I would never endanger Allura or anyone else in my plane. I have, time and again, saved Allura's life, but you seem to conveniently forget that.
"Second, this fighter is maintained in top condition by myself, and lately Pidge and Hunk. Far from being a rustbucket, this is the cutting edge in fighters. I'd put Thunderwing up against any Lion, any day.
"And third, I am sick and tired of the constant accusations and attacks from you toward myself and the other members of the Voltron Force. We all know that you think of Allura as a daughter, and you want to protect her. Well so do we. Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge have sworn to do that. And in combat, I'm always watching her back. You might remember that. And you might also remember that if it wasn't for Keith and the boys, you'd still be hiding in some cave.
"And you know what else? You need to lighten up on Ally. She's up there with us every day, fighting for her people. There's damn few royals who do that. So rather than Trying to control her and bitching at her to quit flying, why not back off, let her make her own decisions, and show a little gratitude for the sacrifices she's making? Day in and day out, we all put our lives on the line to defend the people of Arus, including your fat ass.
"So the next time you want to dis us, call us hooligans and ruffians, you should stop and think about that. We may not be nobility, but we still deserve a little respect. And until we get it, you ain't gettin' any from me. Now step away from my plane."
Nanny's face was beet red as she stepped back from the Mustang. Never in all her years had she ever been spoken to so crudely! The nerve! The audacity! The hooligan! "How dare you?" she sputtered in fury.
"I'm fed up with the bullshit, Nanny. We all are. I'm just the first one you've ticked off enough to say something," said Driscoll.
"You insolent ruffian! I'll have you banned from the castle!"
"Truth hurts, huh? Good," Driscoll growled, climbing back onto the wing as Nanny sputtered and fumed behind him.
As he strapped into the cockpit, he looked down at Allura. "I'll see you at practice tonight."
Allura nodded. "Sure." She too was at a loss for words. She had never seen anyone actually dress down Nanny. She was stunned, but couldn't help feeling a little bit grateful, and also a little angry. Nanny was just looking out for her, after all. And Adam had let her have it with both barrels.
"Oh, no you won't," said Nanny. "I forbid her to see you or even speak to you."
"And who are you to give orders to the Princess of Arus?" Adam replied as he cranked the canopy closed. Moments later, the engine came to life and Thunderwing left the launch bay.
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Later that afternoon, Keith was walking down a corridor in the castle, reading over an intelligence report that had just come in. He was so engrossed that he almost didn't see Nanny coming the other way.
"Hello, Nanny," he said, stepping aside to let her pass.
"Ruffian," she mumbled.
Keith looked at her quizzically as she passed. What was that about? he wondered. But he brushed it off, being used to Nanny's many complaints about the team, ranging from their lack of titles to their allowing Allura to fly with them.
The report he was reading was disturbing. A Garrison spy on Doom had reported a new weapon being tested two days ago. An entire slave camp had been leveled, but the weapon left no traces of radiation behind.
Keith was certain that this had something to do with the captured scientists from Tango Seven, and wished now more than ever that Adam had tried harder to get them back. But there was no use in dwelling on it. It was done and over with. The problem now lay in figuring out exactly what this new weapon was, and, more importantly, how to defend against it.
Glancing at his watch, he saw that he still had three hours before practice. More than enough time to brief the team. Allura was in a conference with some local village leaders, and Adam was on the Berlin, but he knew exactly where to find the others. With that in mind, he rounded a corner and headed for the lounge.
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Practice that evening was grueling. Keith had everyone shut down their navigational instruments and practice locating targets and waypoints by visual contact and ded reckoning. By the time practice ended and everyone returned to the castle, the pilots were mentally and physically drained.
Allura walked slowly into her room, barely able to keep her eyes open. She changed into her nightgown and got into bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
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Dr. Saladin looked away from his screen and rubbed his eyes. He'd been working on the problem of modifying the Berlin's shields to negate the effects of the ionized topaz, along with Mordock, Scott, and Jacobs. The four officers had been working on the problem from different angles for the past several days. Unfortunately, without a sample of the ionized topaz to work with, progress had been slow. Very slow.
After several attempts to isolate the elements that did the actual damage and guard against them specifically, the Sheik had taken a new course, looking at the problem holistically. He knew there had to be some way to defend against its effects, otherwise it would be a useless weapon, as it would do as much damage to those using it as it would to the target. Zarkon had to have a way to contain it safely, so his job was to discover what Zarkon's men already knew.
To that end, he'd started the day researching the ways in which the weapon might be delivered. Knowing Doom tactics, he looked at missiles equipped with lazon detonators.
So far, none of the simulations showed a danger. The weapon either wasn't potent enough to penetrate the ship's radiation shielding, or else it was too powerful and couldn't be properly contained.
Finally, the computer beeped and said, "Simulation ready." Saladin was about to test a set of mid-range variables that had seemed logical.
He looked back at the screen. "Run simulation."
He watched the first few seconds with disinterest. The missile launched normally, with no ill effects to the crew of the star cutter.
But as the weapon struck the side of the starship, something completely unexpected happened. Saladin's eyes went wide with shock and horror. He re-ran the simulation, and it happened again.
Allah be merciful, he thought.
Snapping out of his astonishment, he hit his combadge. "Saladin to Jacobs, report to sickbay immediately."
"Jacobs here. What's wrong?"
"I think I have the answer to our problem, and it is not good."
"Acknowledged. On my way."
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Allura looked out of Blue Lion's cockpit, enjoying her view of the rolling, green countryside below. Everything seemed so peaceful, it was hard to believe that a war was raging.
Suddenly, the landscape below her began to glow faintly. The glow slowly intensified as a mist began to enshroud and hide the ground, rolling like a wave across the land. Climbing higher, Allura saw the mist become thicker and thicker, until she couldn't see the ground at all.
What's going on? She wondered as she turned her Lion back toward the Castle of Lions.
She saw something flash far below her, where the castle should have been. Swooping in low, she gasped in horror as she saw the castle. It had become encased in a gigantic crystal!
As she passed over it, the crystal began to pulsate, flashing white to yellow to blue and back. Pulling up sharply, she made for space, beginning to panic. Moving out of Arus' atmosphere, she looked down and saw that the mist had spread across the entire planet!
Terrified, she flew away from Arus as fast as she could. Looking back one last time, she saw the planet had become encased in a round, multifaceted crystal. As she watched, it began to flash and pulsate just like the castle had. Seconds later, the planet exploded in a hail of crystal shards.
Allura jolted awake, breathing fast, her heart racing. "What was that?" she asked herself. What did that dream mean? Arus turning into a crystal, then exploding? It was very strange, and very frightening. It almost seemed too strange to be believable. But she knew better than to dismiss such a dream out of hand.
She got out of bed and shrugged into her robe. She knew she'd never get back to sleep now. As she started to pace her room, her mind was running a mile a minute, thinking about the dream. Exploding crystals? Were there even such things? Unless...
Could it be the topaz? she wondered. But no, the threat from the ionized topaz was as a mutagen. It wasn't an explosive. Or was it? Could they have been wrong?
She walked over to her nightstand and picked up her communicator. She needed to talk to someone. She adjusted the controls until she had found the frequency she wanted.
"Berlin here. Lieutenant Montoya speaking."
"This is Princess Allura. I need to speak to Captain Driscoll."
"One moment, Your Highness."
A few minutes later, a groggy Captain Driscoll said, "Allura? What's wrong?"
"I had another dream, and I think it has something to do with the ionized topaz weapon we've been worried about."
"Well, I'm not surprised you had a dream about that. It's been a pretty serious topic lately." He yawned. "What happened?"
Allura told him about the dream, and just as she was finishing, he said, "Hang on a sec. Someone's at my door."
She waited for several minutes before Adam said, "Allura, wake Keith up. Be ready to beam aboard in fifteen minutes."
"What's wrong?"
"I'll explain when you get here. Driscoll out."
Allura frowned at the communicator. What was going on?
Puzzled, she changed channels, calling Keith and relaying Adam's message. Then she got up and dressed. She had a feeling, and it wasn't good.
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Keith came jogging into the Control Room to find Allura already there. He'd been surprised when she'd called him so early in the morning. That combined with the strange message she'd relayed from Adam had him really perplexed.
A moment later, Allura joined him. As she finished putting her hair in a bun, he asked, "What did he say, again?"
"He just said that we should be ready to beam up, and that he'd tell us more when we got up there."
Keith nodded. "Well, then we're just waiting for him."
As if on cue, the guard on duty said, "I have a message coming in from the Berlin."
Keith reached over the guard's shoulder and pressed a button, opening the channel. "This is Castle Control."
"Keith, it's me," said Driscoll's voice. "You and Allura ready?"
"Yeah, we're ready," Keith said, glancing at Allura.
"Okay, stand by."
Keith closed the channel and stepped back next to Allura. Not for the first time, he noticed that she had a strange ability to look good, even with little preparation time.
A few seconds later, they felt a tingling sensation, and the room began to dissolve around them in an effect that looked like snow on a staticky monitor. Within moments, the Control Room had been replaced by the transporter room of the U.S.S. Berlin.
"Some ride," Keith commented as he and Allura stepped down off of the transporter pad. "So what's going on?"
Driscoll and Scotty came around from behind the control console. "We've figured out the thing with the topaz," Adam said, leading the way out of the transporter room. "The Sheik was working on some new variables he came up with, and it turns out that the problem with the topaz isn't biological."
"Then what is it?" Allura asked as the group walked into sickbay. Commander Gredar, Lt. Cdr. Jacobs, Lieutenant Mordock, and Dr. Saladin were already there.
"See for yourself," Adam said, gesturing to a monitor. Dr. Saladin ran the simulation for them. What they saw stunned them.
"Ionized topaz is not a feasible biological weapon," said Saladin. "It is too difficult to obtain an optimum level of the compound that could pose a threat to a target but not to the crew of the attacking ship."
"That missile carries a lazon warhead, enhanced with ionized topaz," said Jacobs. "Its yield is more than ten times that of a normal missile. Apparently, topaz in an ionized form reacts with the lazon and enhances its destructive properties. As you can see, our defenses are no match. It would blow through our shields and rip us apart."
"What about lazon-based energy weapons?" Keith asked.
"We are still working on that," said Mordock. "But it is likely that topaz would enhance their effects as well."
"So how can we defend against these new missiles?" Allura asked.
"We cannot," said Gredar.
"If one a' those wee beasties hits us, we're through."
"So if you can't defend against it, what can we possibly do?"
"We don't know. That's what we have to figure out," said Driscoll. "I was hoping that Pidge and Hunk could help us out, and maybe we can find a solution. Otherwise..."
"We're in trouble," said Keith.
"Yeah."
Keith nodded and looked at the screen one last time, noting the image of the Berlin, crippled and burning after a single hit. This did not bode well for the future. "All right. We'll tell the others after practice tomorrow."
"Okay," said Adam. "My crew already know, and I've got people working on it now."
"Aye, not the best reason to be woken in the middle of the bloody night," Scotty groused.
Allura smiled. "Well, we appreciate your help, Mr. Scott."
"Well, if that's everything, I think we should be getting back," said Keith, edging toward the door.
"Yeah, that's it for now," said Adam. "Uh, everyone's dismissed, then. We'll see where we're at tomorrow at the senior staff meeting."
The officers filed out of sickbay, and Adam went with Keith and Allura back to the transporter room.
The two Voltron Force pilots climbed onto the pad while Adam keyed in the coordinates and prepared to beam them down. "You guys ready, then?" he asked.
"All set," said Keith. Allura nodded.
Adam had noticed how she'd been sort of avoiding him that night. She hadn't spoken to him directly, and she'd avoided eye contact. Was she still mad about his yelling at Nanny? He didn't know. But as he energized the transporter and watched her fade into the matter stream, he decided that he had to talk to her. That would be his number one priority for tomorrow.