They all dart backwards in a chorus of startled yelps as the Lion lowers its head and opens its mouth, the movement perfectly smooth. Somewhat anticlimactically, a ramp descends. They hang back, waiting for something else to happen, but the cave is quiet, the Lion so still it might never have stirred.
"I guess that's an invitation," Pidge mutters after a moment, staring at it.
"Is anyone else a little worried about literally climbing into the Lion's mouth?" Hunk asks.
"I'm not going to stop here after we finally found it," mutters Keith. She watches him surreptitiously raise a hand to the side of his head. The overwhelming pound of the Knell has resolved to a high, clear tone just at the edge of her perception, its absence a little disorienting.
"Pretty sure it would already have eaten us if it were going to," Lance says. "Besides," he waves his hands expansively, "aren't you curious?"
"Well… yeah. Of course. I mean, look at it, it's incredible! Like, okay, leaving aside the whole forcefield thing, that is a lot of load on those joints and it just moved itself around like it was nothing. Usually I'd think it's gotta be hydraulic, but where's the pressure reservoir? And-"
"And did you see how it lifted its foot and maintained its balance?" Pidge can't help but put in. "Do you think it's purely mechanical, or maybe there's a feedback in there somewhere, or-"
"Oooooh. Do you think-"
"So we're going in?" Lance cuts in.
"Yeah," Hunk sighs sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess we're going in."
The Lion keeps still as they climb the ramp. Inside, they find themselves in a small, dark chamber, dimly illuminated by a set of running lights along the walls. There's a deep hum and a mechanical thump and they turn in time to see the ramp draw up behind them.
"Oh. That's great," Hunk mutters. "I should have listened to myself."
The door slides firmly closed, and Pidge has a moment of fear that the Lion has lured them into a trap for some unknowable purpose of its own. It has barely a second to take hold before there's a hiss and a click, and a line of light carves itself into the wall ahead of them. She stares at it for a second, brain itching, and then her heart skips a beat as she makes the connection. "It's an airlock!" she blurts out.
The door slides the rest of the way open onto a cool, blue-lit space, all its angles strange and smooth, but unmistakably a cockpit. Lance lets out a low whistle. "Soooo… definitely an alien spaceship then."
"Oh, wow, it really is," Hunk says reverently, examining the banks of controls on the instrumentation panel. Pidge cranes around him to see, feels Keith's interest tick onto the controls and the dark, inscrutable readouts. Lance leans forward, half-draping himself over the pilot's seat before clearing his throat smugly and slinging himself into it. This is followed by a startled shriek as the seat abruptly slides forward to put him at the controls. He freezes a second, and blinks, a little dazed-looking.
"I… guys, the Lion's kind of. Talking to me?"
Her heart jumps, and the link runs cold. She listens, paranoid that something else might be sharing psychic space with her, but it stays quiet except for the anxious, spiky feel of Keith's thoughts as he does the same. "What do you mean, 'talking to you'?"
"Yeah, it's… huh. I kind of know what all this stuff is supposed to do?" He reaches out a hand.
"Maybe don't-" Hunk interjects, but it's too late. He presses down, and there's a deep thrum as the deck vibrates under their feet and the instrument panel lights up blue. They're suddenly looking at a projection of the cave's interior and they all have to grab for support as the view tilts - the Lion must be standing, she realizes.
"What did you do?" snaps Keith.
"I just hit the on switch!"
There's a deep kick and hum behind them, and then she lurches backwards with a yelp as the Lion gathers itself and leaps. Its shoulders meet the cave ceiling with a resounding shudder, but it keeps going and they burst into the sunlight in a cloud of red dust.
She gapes, her heartbeat and Keith's a fast double-staccato in her chest as the sky opens up around them. She catches a glimpse of the winding maze of canyons below them, the dark shape of the Garrison helicopter wheeling frantically around to face them before the Lion angles its head into the sky and hurtles upward.
"What's happening?" Hunk says.
"How should I know?"
"I thought you said it was talking to you!"
"It was! I'm not doing anything though!" Lance pulls his hands off the controls and holds them up. The Lion keeps going. "See? It's flying by itself!"
"Well where's it going?" she asks.
"I don't know! Up?" He shakes his head. "Uh, out? Maybe? Away? It's trying to go somewhere."
Hunk gulps audibly, staring into the sky ahead of them. "How well do you think the vacuum seals on the giant lion robot work?"
There is barely any time to ponder that terrifying question. One moment, they're rushing through a thin, colorless haze of atmosphere, and the next the black of the night sky fills the cockpit's display, the fierce slant of unfiltered sunlight crossing their faces. There's a kick in her chest as she catches sight of it, and she feels her jaw drop. Keith goes breathless as well, his thoughts struck still and clear. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there's a part of her that's thinking about how fast they must be going to break atmosphere that quickly, and how smooth that ascent had been, and the comforting lack of hissing noises that probably indicates that the vacuum seals on the giant lion robot work fine. At any other time, she'd be totally absorbed in the how of what just happened, but right now, it's all background noise. They're in space.
The realization strikes her and Keith nearly at the same instant, so close together she can't tell who knew it first. It spikes through the link like a lightning bolt, and for a second she can't breathe, heartsick with possibility. They're in space. Her dad and Matt and Shiro might still be out here somewhere. They could find them.
"Oh man, I can't even see Earth," Hunk says, face pressed up to the closest part of the display. "Can you get it to stop? Turn around and go back?"
"No!" she and Keith blurt out.
"What do you mean, 'no'?" Hunk squawks.
"We saw that video, right? We could…" she trails off. It sounds dumb now that she has to say it out loud.
Keith says it for her, jaw set stubbornly. "They were still alive, right? The Kerberos crew. Maybe we could find something."
"That is a terrible idea," Hunk says flatly. "We were literally just kidnapped by an alien spaceship like, five minutes ago."
"For the record, I'm totally with Hunk on this one, but it doesn't matter anyway," Lance adds. "Lion's going where it wants to go." He gives a quick tug at the sticks to illustrate the point. They remain locked in place. He frowns down at them. "I think… I think it's trying to go home. Wherever that is."
She slumps back a little. "Let's hope it's somewhere with a breathable atmosphere."
Hunk shoots her an unhappy glance. "I really wish you hadn't said that. You think it's trying to leave the solar system?"
"Pretty sure it's not from around here," Keith points out.
They all look at Lance, who shrugs helplessly. "I don't know, it's not giving me anything more than that." He frowns. "I don't think it's trying to hurt us?"
"Well, that's something, at least," Hunk sighs.
Another handful of seconds passes by before Lance sits up in the seat. "What's that?" Something off in the distance glitters, too large to be a star.
"Asteroid? Planet maybe?" Pidge hazards.
"Are we even that far out yet?" Hunk asks.
Whatever it is is growing rapidly in the display, now clearly spherical. By the time it reaches coin-size she's sure of what she's seeing. "That's Pluto!"
"What? No way. We can't be that far away already. It takes the Garrison months to get out there."
"No, no, I think he's right," Hunk says. "Oh, wow. We are, uh. Real far out. And going real fast."
In the space of a handful of breaths, Pluto grows to basketball-sized and it becomes clear that the Lion intends to pass it, banking close. Pidge feels her throat tighten, and wonders if any of the icy glints that shine in the dark around it are Kerberos.
"You see that?" Keith asks after a minute, frowning. He's focused on a point at the edge of Pluto's horizon, something uneasy creeping up his spine. She follows his gaze and picks it out too, a minuscule dark spot against the haze of thin atmosphere.
Hunk leans forward. "Huh. Mini moon maybe? Does Pluto have those?"
They all peer at it intently. Abruptly, it crosses the horizon line and the anemic light of the distant sun slants fully across it. Keith hisses sharply through his teeth. Recognition boils through the link, a lightning-quick mapping of angles and contours. A ship, long and wedge-shaped, violet lights emerging along its underbelly as it draws closer.
"That's-"
"-the ship from the video!" she finishes.
"The one that took the Kerberos crew," he bites out.
"Ohhh crap," Lance says, and pulls again at the controls.
"Are you sure?" says Hunk, barely above a whisper. "Maybe it's a totally different ship. Maybe they're the good alien spacecraft."
"I'm pretty sure we're the good alien spacecraft," she mutters.
For an instant, she thinks they might fly past it to the outer edge of the solar system and never see it again. But there's a flare of cold light at its stern and its blunt, predatory nose swings toward them.
"Yeah, no, I don't think they're friendly," Lance says, voice tight, rising abruptly into a startled screech as the Lion twists on its axis and veers away from the planet. The alien vessel follows, with terrifying speed. She catches sight of a long, dorsally-mounted cannon swiveling to point at them as it heaves itself out of Pluto's gravity well and her blood goes cold. But no shot comes - instead, it dives onto an intercept course that the Lion has to swerve again to avoid. The Lion pours on speed, but the ship stays on them, its massive body blocking the sun at their backs.
"What's going on? Why are they just chasing us?"
"I don't know! Do you want them to shoot us?"
"No!"
"Then shut up and let the Lion concentrate on getting away!"
"Getting away where?"
Something shifts, like her ears popping with altitude, and a perfectly circular region of space ahead of them goes wrong. It blinks open onto something her eyes can't quite focus on, its edges ringed in deliberate, regular markings, and her thoughts flash back to those circular petroglyphs. Keith catches hold of that image, and she feels the hair at the back of his neck hackle. "Getting away there, I guess," she says numbly.
"What is that? Some kind of portal?" says Hunk, knuckles white on the back of the pilot's chair.
"I don't know! The Lion's going for it, whatever it is."
There's no more time to speculate. The Lion points itself like an arrow and they spear through the portal's surface. Between one breath and the next, Pidge feels somehow simultaneously like her bones have turned to lead and like she's floating a couple of feet off the ground. There's a weird, electric bite at her fingertips, and for a split second something vast and singing shudders at the edge of Keith's consciousness, washing through the link like a tidal wave sluicing through a canal.
And then, abruptly, she's back to her usual state of self. The view in front of them is consumed by a blue and green planet, its continents unfamiliar, and when the Lion banks into a gentle descent, she gets a brief glimpse of the portal winking out behind them.
"Oh, wow," breathes Hunk, and gulps sickly. "Let's never do that again."
The Lion's trajectory curves, and she watches the planet's surface fill their view. "Are we landing?"
"Think so," Lance answers, hands clenched in a death-grip on the controls.
They strike the atmosphere at an alarmingly steep angle, but there's barely a bounce. A ghost of frictional heating washes over their view, but it vanishes in moments, leaving them smoothly descending through a clear sky. It leaves a tiny back corner of her mind wondering where the extra energy went, if they've actually slowed down or if there's some kind of shielding layer between them and the atmosphere. Keith's noticed it too, a vague, staticky flurry of ideas about angle of descent and atmospheric braking bubbling through the link. It's a tiny mental breathing space against the huge and terrifying reality that they're about to land on an alien planet.
"Is that a castle?" Hunk says, and she jerks herself out of her thoughts focus on the view again.
It does look kind of like a fairytale castle. Bright white in the sun, a graceful array of smooth towers and buttresses at the end of a straight, pale path. "There are people here," she says, and can't keep the awe out of her voice.
But as they get closer, she can see the fallen arches lining the road, the crumbled edges of a palisade stained brown and green with time. "Or there were people here," she amends.
The Lion touches down with a gentle thump at the path's end. There is a strange, unsettling motion in the cockpit as it crouches, and then it roars, with a sound so like the Knell that she and Keith both startle.
Like they've been awaiting it, the castle gates slide open.
The cockpit is silent for a second, and then Lance lets out a whoosh of breath. "I guess we're expected."
"Yeah, that's not ominous at all," mutters Hunk.
Keith eyes it warily. "You think there's anyone here?"
"Maybe the giant robot lion scared them off?" Lance advances.
"Maybe," she allows dubiously. "It looks pretty old."
"Do we just… go up and ring the doorbell?"
"I mean," Hunk says, "to go back to Pidge's point, how do we know the atmosphere here is even breathable?"
An unhappy silence meets that remark. "Was there a suit or anything back there?" she asks. Hunk and Keith both shake their heads. The latter frowns.
"I guess someone's going to have to try and go out," he says reluctantly.
"Oh yeah, that's a great idea," she snaps. "Right up there with almost getting arrested for six percent on a download."
He scowls at her. "We can't just sit here forever."
"Yeah, but-"
Lance clears his throat. "Hey, not to interrupt your terrible idea exchange, but I'm pretty sure it's okay out there? At least, the Lion thinks so." He points to a circular blue indicator on the panel with a triangular white symbol in its center. "Blue good atmosphere, red bad atmosphere? I think."
"'You think?'"
"I'm pretty sure. Like, ninety percent."
They all wind up standing in the airlock with their eyes squeezed shut, holding their breaths while the hatch opens. It's maybe not the most dignified way to arrive on a new planet, and as atmospheric protection goes it's pretty laughable. But no one feels all that good about that ninety percent confidence rating and it's the best they've got. There's a hum as the door opens and the deck rumbles under Pidge's feet, followed by a solid thump as the ramp hits the ground. A puff of mildly humid warm air hits her face, and she cautiously inhales a shallow breath. It smells faintly earthy, but feels perfectly ordinary otherwise. Carefully, she opens her eyes and they all stand there in a line, blinking in the sun for a couple of seconds.
"See?" Lance says. "It's fine."
Their route to the castle gates is slow. Though at first glance, their surroundings are Earthlike, everything is just slightly off-kilter. The sky is a shade more green than blue. The patchy growth on the path that had looked like moss from the air turns out to be a carpet of squishy, hexagonal green cells divided by reddish walls. On the ocean below, she catches sight of something with a long snout as it breaks the surface before retreating. She can distantly feel Keith's attention snapping from point to point, fascinated and a little wary.
No one comes out to greet them at the gates. At this distance, she can see more signs of wear on the castle. Muddy tracks where water must sluice down its sides when it rains, green things growing in scant handfuls of dirt settled in its crevices. It looks old. Abandoned. "Creepy," she mutters.
"You said it," mumbles Hunk.
"Hello? Anybody there?" Lance calls. There's no response, and with an elaborate show of bravado, he squares his shoulders and steps inside. "Guess nobody's home."
The lights flicker on abruptly once they're all in. Next to her, Keith narrows his eyes with a quiet hiss of discomfort and they all jump as a voice rings down from a speaker somewhere above them.
"What is that?" says Hunk.
"Some kind of automated system?" she guesses.
The voice speaks again, but it's just as incomprehensible as the first time. "We don't know what you're saying!" says Lance, hands cupped around his mouth.
There's a slight pause, and then it sounds again. "Hold for scan."
They're all startled still, and there's another flash of blueish light. Something above them chimes.
"Unreal," she whispers to herself, feeling a chill run up her spine. There's something spooky and maybe even a little intrusive about such a rapid, seamless translation. The uneasy feeling she's picking up from Keith of being watched isn't helping. The ceiling hums and the hall ahead of them lights up.
"I guess that's where we're supposed to go," Hunk says dubiously.
"Creepy again," says Lance, "but okay."
It doesn't stop being creepy, but as they go on and nothing further happens, she starts to pay more attention to her surroundings. From the outside, the towers and buttresses had made her think of a castle, but on the inside, the building feels more like the Garrison. Some of the doors they pass have signage that hums on with the hall lights, and there's none of the clutter or wear she'd expect from a dwelling. It's clearly meant for dozens, maybe hundreds of people, making its emptiness even more unsettling.
"What do you think this place is?" she asks.
"Institution of some kind? Seat of government?" Hunk speculates.
"Spaceport?" Keith adds, and shrugs a little defensively when Hunk blinks at him. "The Lion figured it was supposed to come here."
"I'm less worried about what it is and more about where it's taking us," grumbles Lance.
That question is answered when they arrive at a circular atrium, empty except for a pedestal at its center. The lights that have been guiding them flare on and halt.
"I guess we're here. Are we… supposed to do something?" Hunk asks.
"Don't look at me."
Pidge frowns. The only interesting thing about the room is the podium. She approaches it and peers down at its surface. Up close, it's clearly some kind of console - there are neatly curving patterns of lights and strings of text, clustered around a circular design in the center. Keith drifts over as well, head cocked to get a better look at it. A faint suggestion of the petroglyphs and the markings at the edge of the portal they came through floats through her mind and she blinks.
"Wonder what it does." She extends a hand towards one of the lights on its side.
"Don't just poke it!" Hunk exclaims, but it's too late, she's already made contact.
They all freeze expectantly, but a couple of seconds tick by and nothing happens.
"Well, that's dis-" Lance starts to say, and something directly behind him gives a loud chime. They all scatter backwards as a hatch opens in the floor and a pillar rises out of it. It emits a strangely cheerful tone before its face opens with a hiss of escaping vapor. A person falls out of it, directly into Lance's arms.
At first, incongruously, Pidge thinks the stranger is human, but there's something strange about the way her skin reflects the light, something off about what she can see of the planes of her face behind her hair. She's completely still, and she has the horrible thought that maybe she's dead. But then, her eyes open and she raises a hand to touch her forehead. She catches sight of Lance over her, and frowns. "Who are you? Where am I?"
Everybody is frozen in shock for an instant, but then Lance's expression shifts to something that he probably thinks looks smooth and Pidge has a sudden, despairing recollection of watching him trying to chat up the redhead in their lab section.
"My name is Lance, and you're right in my arms."
Pidge winces, and there's a sour burst of incredulity from Keith.
The stranger's frown deepens. "What's wrong with your ears?"
The unctuous expression slides off Lance's face. "My what?"
For the first time, the stranger seems to take notice of the rest of them. She comes upright in a quick, sharp motion and Lance yelps as she takes hold of the offending ear and pulls his arm behind his back. "Who are you all? How did you get in here?"
"Who are you?" bristles Keith.
"I am Princess Allura of the planet Altea," she says crisply. "Now answer the question. How did you come here?"
Lance squirms. "We just got in the giant blue lion and it dropped us here!"
The princess's eyes widen and her grip on Lance tightens, to the accompaniment of an unhappy squawk. "The Blue Lion? Where is its paladin? What have you done with him?"
"We don't know what you're talking about!" Keith bursts out.
"What's a paladin? What's it got to do with the Lion?" Pidge continues.
"I swear we didn't know where it was going!" Hunk puts in. "Just… can you let go of my friend? Can we just talk it out? Whatever it is?"
There's a short silence while the princess examines them one-by-one. Pidge can feel Keith still hackling, feels her own pulse fast in her ears. Something shifts in the princess's expression, her brows and lips pinching in bewilderment. "What has happened?" she says softly, apparently to herself. Keith goes halfway to a defensive crouch when she abruptly straightens and drops Lance, marching for the console at the center of the room. She places a hand on either side of it and the display shifts, text filling the screen.
"I… no. This cannot be," the princess - Allura - murmurs. "Ten-thousand decaphoebs? Then they are all… oh!" Her hand flies to her mouth and she hastily touches something at the console's upper corner. There is a deep hum and they all turn as another pod rises from the floor. It hisses open, and Allura rushes to catch the man who stumbles out, propping him up by the shoulder as he blinks groggily before startling to alertness.
"Princess?"
"Oh, Coran!" She wraps him in a brief, crushing embrace.
Coran wheezes and pats her shoulder. "There, there. I'm sure it will all be fine."
Allura releases him and steps back. "Coran, it's been ten-thousand decaphoebs. I had thought… I had thought everyone was gone."
Shock flickers over Coran's face, and he sobers. "Ten-thousand decaphoebs, eh?" he says softly and takes a breath. "Your father thought it best to hide you and the castle. I went with you. Neither of us thought so much time could pass."
Something complicated passes across Allura's features, and she swallows and then lifts her chin. "I'm very glad to have you with me."
"Of course, Princess. Now," he straightens his clothes and tugs the end of his mustache, eyes sweeping around the rest of the room, "who are these young people?"
"They woke me up." Allura turns to face them. "I apologize - it seems we got off on the wrong foot. Perhaps we could try the introductions again?"
There's a wary silence, and then Hunk slowly raises his hand. "I'm Hunk, and, uh, I'm gonna be honest. We have no clue what's going on here."
Allura's brow creases thoughtfully. "So you found the Blue Lion on your planet and it brought you here?"
"Yeah," Lance nods. "I could hear it calling, I guess?"
Hunk clears his throat. "Pidge and Keith were trying to find it before then, though."
The princess throws a sharp-eyed glance their way. There's a phosphorescence to her pupils which makes it a little unsettling. Keith shrugs uncomfortably, his eyes sliding away from hers. "Kept hearing something."
"Yeah," Pidge nods. "We could narrow it down to a general area, but after that, it was just-"
"-too big. We couldn't pinpoint it."
"I see," Allura says thoughtfully after a moment. Her eyes stay on them a second longer before Lance continues, drawing her attention back on himself. There's a faint, distracting twinge of something from Keith's end of the link. Pidge looks over to him, but he gives a shake of his head and it's gone between one instant and the next.
"-and we were being chased by this huge purple ship-"
Allura's expression sharpens, and she and Coran exchange a glance. "Now that sounds quite serious," the latter says.
"Trust me, it was," says Hunk with feeling.
Allura seems to hesitate a moment, and then leans forward. "Can you describe it?"
Pidge bites her lip and feels her heart skip a beat. If there's some chance that Allura knows who took the Kerberos crew… She reaches into her bag. "Here. We can show you."
Allura and Coran are fascinated by her computer. The word 'quaint' makes an appearance, which would be more infuriating if it weren't so obviously accurate. She opens the Kerberos video and drags the tracker to the end as fast as she can, trying not to let herself look at any of the frames before. When the ship comes onscreen, Allura draws a swift inhalation and leans in to examine it.
"That is a galra ship," she says, voice brittle.
"Bearing the symbol of the Empire, no less," adds Coran quietly.
"Oh man," says Lance. "It's always bad news when there's someone out there just called 'The Empire'."
Allura's lips tighten. "The galra Empire destroyed Altea and its system. Ten-thousand decaphoebs ago, Emperor Zarkon waged a war of conquest against the last of our allies." Her mouth twists bitterly. "It would seem that he won."
Coran puts a hand on her shoulder. "Ten-thousand decaphoebs," he says wearily. "To think the Empire would still be standing…"
Allura seems to gather herself, and her sharp gaze turns back to Lance. "And you say this ship pursued you?"
"Oh, they definitely pursued us."
"They might have been watching Earth for a while before that," Pidge puts in. The room's attention pivots back to her and she pushes her glasses up on her nose. "We picked up some radio chatter, at least. We just couldn't understand it."
There is the barest of hesitations before Allura inclines her head. "Do you have any recordings?"
She shrugs. "Sure." She opens one of the more recent audio logs and hits play. She starts a little when it comes out in words she recognizes - whatever translation layer the castle is interposing between them and the alteans apparently applies to recorded media. She files that thought away for future consideration and focuses on the words, eager to finally understand what they've been listening in on. Keith leans in as well, his curiosity an itch in the back of her brain.
"-still negative, sir. We've seen no trace of a Lion of Voltron in this system."
"Keep monitoring, Commander. Orders are adamant that signs have been detected. You will report any anomalies immediately, per direct command of Emperor Zarkon."
Allura inhales sharply at that, and Pidge herself sits up and pays close attention. She doubts there are two giant robot lions just lying around near Earth.
"Acknowledged. Vrepit sa."
The recording comes to its end and Allura lets out the breath she's been holding. "How can it be? Zarkon, still alive after all this time?"
"Maybe it's not the same guy," suggests Hunk meekly. "Maybe Zarkon's just a common name. You know. Like Bill or Dave."
Allura's shoulders slump. "Perhaps."
"The Lion," Keith cuts in. "They were looking for it."
"Yes," she says quietly, "they were." Her voice turns steely. "They must not be allowed to obtain it." She eyes each of them in turn, and Pidge feels that twinge again, and a watchful sting of attention from Keith's side of the link. "The Blue Lion is one of five, part of Voltron, which-"
Lance snaps his fingers. "Voltron's the robot, right?"
"I- pardon me?" For the first time, Allura looks unbalanced.
"The robot! The giant robot we all saw when we found the Lion!"
"You all saw a- a vision when you found the Blue Lion? Of Voltron?"
Pidge shrugs. "Sure, I guess. If you want to call it that."
"What is Voltron?" says Hunk. "I mean, we know it's a giant person-shaped robot made of smaller giant lion-shaped robots, but what is it, exactly?"
"Now that," says Coran, "is a very simple question with a complicated answer."
"Indeed," says Allura. "In its simplest sense, you may think of Voltron as a weapon. That is certainly the sense in which Zarkon understood it, and the reason the Empire pursues it now. Before-" her expression tightens momentarily, the iridescent markings under her eyes going dull before she steadies again. "Before I was hidden away, Voltron was the greatest threat to the expansion of the galra Empire."
"But the Lion isn't just a weapon," Keith interjects. His presence in the link is uneasy. She catches an auditory echo of the Knell, and a sense memory of that aching, lonely pull in his chest.
"No, it is not," Allura says, throwing him a sharp gaze. "The Lions - and Voltron - are something much greater. They are… a defense for those who have no other hope. A protection." She frowns. "The galra vessel found you at the edge of your system?"
"Yeah," Lance says, sober. "We went through the, uh, the weird space portal pretty quick after."
The markings on Allura's face flicker dimly, and Pidge stares, fascinated, as a strand of hair over her shoulder coils and uncoils itself. "Coran. Could you…?"
Coran gives a grim nod. "Of course. There should be enough power banked for that at least. Just a few ticks to bring the old systems up."
He moves to the console and Pidge cranes her head to watch as he swipes through the controls, only to start back with the rest of them as the pedestal emits a sudden hum and a spherical projection materializes over it.
"Whoa," she hears Hunk mutter, and there's an interested tick of curiosity from Keith as he examines it. It's easy to guess that the prominently labeled white dot in the center of the projection is their current location, but she has no context for the rest of the markers. Are they stars? Other planets? Galaxies?
"Now then," Coran mutters. "Let's see what we have. We'd certainly know by now if a galra ship had been able to follow you through the wormhole, but it's possible that they were able to track Blue Lion's path. Hm." He inspects the projection, absently raising a hand to twist the end of his mustache before tapping at something on the console again. The view expands, focusing in on the central dot. A faint blue line races away from it before it interrupts, going silver and ghostly. Coran follows it out and they all watch as the projection passes tens of thousands of unknown, anonymous markers before the blue line reemerges.
"Is that where Earth is?" Hunk asks.
"Your home system?" Coran glances over to him. "Yes, I suppose so." Pidge swallows. She knows they're far from home, but it's another thing to see it. There's a flicker of discomfort and concern in the link, and Keith's eyes dart over to her. She shakes her head and he takes the hint and looks away. "Well," Coran sighs, "I'm afraid that luck is not on our side." He taps at a reddish dot, tracking along the Blue Lion's trace, just past where it goes dim and transparent. "That's certainly a galra ship and it does look like they've found your trail." He gives the end of his mustache another absent tug and straightens up. "We've some time to prepare, at the least. They'll not match the Blue Lion's speed. It'll be at least a few quintants before they arrive."
"I was afraid that might be the case," Allura says grimly.
"Wait, wait," Lance says. "So they're still after us? They're going to chase us all the way across all that space just to get the Blue Lion?"
"…Could we just let them take it?" Hunk asks, very quietly.
"No!" she and Keith snap simultaneously. The connection goes queasy with the memory of that long grey hull over the Kerberos crew, and they both jerk away from it.
"I am afraid that is not possible," Allura says, steel in her voice. She eyes them one-by-one, and again Pidge gets Keith's faint, secondhand unease at being watched. "May I try something?" There's a dubious pause while they all look at each other, and she raises a hand. "Nothing harmful, I assure you. It will take only a moment."
Lance is the first to respond. "Yeah, sure, I guess."
There's a communal murmur of assent, and Allura draws herself up straight, carefully inspecting them one at a time.
That prickling disquiet from Keith intensifies as her eyes turn to him. A strange, high-pitched, almost electrical crackle intrudes on the very edge of Pidge's perception, and she glances over to Keith as he shifts uncomfortably. Allura's gaze darts back and forth between them and her brow knits. It passes as quickly as it came, and Pidge is left wondering if it was ever there in the first place, the connection between her and Keith itchy and unquiet.
Allura takes a step back, and as if that's some kind of signal, they unbend a notch from the at-attention stance they've all unconsciously adopted. "It seems I was right. I suspected as much when you said you had seen a vision of Voltron, but there was no way to know for certain without examining your quintessence. I apologize for the intrusion."
"Suspected what?" Keith asks.
Allura's eyes flick over to him again. "As you have seen, Voltron is comprised of the five Lions. The Lions are…" she hesitates a moment,"…aware in a sense, but they require a pilot to partner with. A paladin."
"What, you mean us?" Lance asks.
"Yes," Allura responds soberly. "You piloted the Blue Lion yourself, did you not?"
"Well, yeah. But I didn't think it was, like. A mark of destiny or something."
The princess blinks, and allows that statement to pass without comment. "Hunk, the Yellow Lion has chosen you."
"Me?" It comes out worried and high-pitched, and Allura's expression warms little. "Yes, you." Her gaze focuses on Pidge and then Keith. "The Green and Red Lions have found their paladins as well."
She thinks of the Blue Lion, and the Knell, and that galra ship bearing down on the Kerberos crew, and something bolts through her gut, a knotted, queasy sort of eagerness. She stuffs it into the back of her mind before it can really surface, feels Keith's thoughts flare and lock up tight on themselves like a puzzle box.
He frowns. "You said there were five Lions."
The corner of Allura's lips pulls tight for a second, and she hesitates slightly. "Yes. The Black Lion remains quiescent. Perhaps it still slumbers. Or its paladin has simply not come near enough for it to sense."
"Okay," Hunk says, "but even if we are, uh, paladins, what does it matter? The Blue Lion's the only one here."
Allura pulls herself to her full height. "Indeed. But once the Empire realizes your nature, it will pursue you as well and make use of you to retrieve the other Lions. Believe me," she says grimly, "you do not want that to happen." She lets out a careful breath. "They are already on their way. If the castle were in good repair, we could hope to flee this system and make our escape, but…" she glances over to Coran, who shakes his head.
"I'm afraid not, Princess. Ten-thousand decaphoebs… well, we can get her flying again, but it'll take some time."
Allura nods. "I had thought so." She turns back to the rest of them. "Our only choice is to find the Lions first."
Despite the urgency, there's not much any of them can actually do until the castle's basic functions are back online, and Coran ushers them down to a set of small, out-of-the-way rooms a floor (or a deck - the castle is apparently a spaceship) down from the one they'd entered.
"Now then. A long quintant for all of you, I'm sure. Best get some rest while you can. Wouldn't want to have to retrieve the Lions with your brains overheated, now." He belatedly seems to realize that this may not be a comforting statement, and clears his throat. "I'm sure it'll be quite all right. I'll leave you to it, then. Just call on the intercom if you need anything."
And with that, they're left to their own devices.
"So…" Lance says. "Paladins of Voltron, huh?" It comes out smug, but there's a hint of effort behind it.
"I don't know about this," Hunk says. "I feel like we're in way over our heads, here."
"Not much we can do about it," Pidge points out.
"We're out here now," Keith adds practically. "It's not-"
"-like we can go back to Earth." She swallows against a knot in her throat and sets her jaw and continues, half to herself. "And if it really was the galra Empire that took the Kerberos crew-"
"-it's the only way we're ever going to find them," Keith finishes quietly.
Hunk eyes them both for a long moment, brows drawn down, before letting out an explosive breath. "Fine. You know what? Maybe that's easy for you guys to say. I don't know what it is about Kerberos, but maybe you guys are just fine with… with breaking into the Garrison and getting chased by the government and leaving Earth and signing up to fight an evil space empire for it. Maybe you're both okay with that!" He waves a hand expansively. "But some of us have a healthy approach to risk and I think we should actually think about the consequences before sticking our necks out there."
Pidge flinches and falls back a pace, feels a guilty stab in the link as Keith's shoulders hunch. It's the first time she's ever seen Hunk really upset, and she suddenly feels lower than dirt.
After a moment, Hunk's posture slackens. "Sorry," he mumbles. "That kind of got away from me. This is just… really stressful."
"It's fine," she mutters after a moment. "Sorry." Keith huffs under his breath and looks away.
Lance sags a little on his feet, looking a lot more tired and less confident. "Yeah, I get you, buddy. It's super-scary when I think about it for more than like half a second. But, I mean, they're kind of right about us not having a lot of choice."
"I know," he sighs.
"At least we get cool alien spaceships out of it?"
Hunk makes a valiant attempt to rally. "There is that."
There's an awkward lull, and then Lance sighs and claps Hunk on the back. "Come on, man. Let's crash. I'm beat, and who knows how long a quin-whatever is."
There's a mumbled chorus of agreement, and they drift off towards their quarters.
Pidge wastes no time in flopping down on her room's bunk. The place is small and empty, a little musty-smelling. Somewhere up above, there's the quiet whir of a ventilation system. She's not sure how much time has passed since they left Earth, but she feels worn out, her eyes dry and sore and the threatening almost-pain of a headache brewing at her temples. It feels like hours. In the room adjacent, she can faintly sense Keith, restless and jittery, his thoughts curled tightly inwards on themselves.
With a groan, she grabs an edge of the bunk's covering and rolls herself over in it a few times until she's securely burritoed, curled up and facing the wall. She burrows her head into the bundle until the room's lights are just a dim grey through the blanket.
Some of us have a healthy approach to risk.
"I have a healthy approach to risk," she mumbles, and wriggles herself a little deeper into her cocoon. It's different for Hunk and Lance. They don't have people at stake, not like she and Keith do. But as the minutes pass in the grey dark, she can't get Hunk's words out of her head. It's not like she doesn't understand the risks. She knows there are consequences, she's not stupid. Just like she knew the consequences when she ran away from home and forged an identity and when she and Keith broke into the Garrison's files. They just - didn't really matter. They were worth it, to find out what happened to her dad and Matt.
She can admit that they sounded bigger when Hunk laid them all out like that, though.
Keith's stupid stunt with the download surfaces in her mind, that horrible, stomach-dropping moment when she knew he was going to get caught, and she shoves it back down as far away from the link as it will go. Keith's all tangled up in his own thoughts, but the last thing she wants is for it to leak through to him. She squeezes her eyes shut while her thoughts wheel back on themselves.
They're out in space now. They might actually have a chance to find them. Her dad and Matt and Shiro. If that's not worth some risk, what is?
The thought sits for a moment, but it grows sour and uncomfortable as she looks at it. It's no less true, but… but maybe that risk is something they need to be more honest about. Something she needs to be more honest about.
She sighs and curls up tighter. Hunk is right that this feels over their heads. Whatever a paladin is, she doesn't feel like much of one right now.