"Maintain your position, Pidge. We must not let them become aware that we possess the Green Lion."
"Copy that, Princess."
She holds the Green Lion steady under the belly of an asteroid, watching the galra cruiser's shadow cut across the surface of a moon. The Blue and Yellow Lions are just specks in the distance, tracking a careful course towards the front of the vessel. She shifts in her seat and reaches up absently to push Matt's glasses higher on her nose before remembering she has them stowed in the compartment of her vambrace. The armor still feels bulky and unfamiliar. Underneath it, her palms are already starting to sweat.
Her chair rocks backwards as Keith leans his weight on it, and she glances up at him. He's wearing armor too, and his hand keeps drifting to the hilt of the bayard at his side, like he has to remind himself that it's there. He's starting to slant into that tight, single-minded concentration he gets when he's focused on something. There's a bright point of pressure in the center of his chest when he looks at the ship, and the Red Lion's crackle hums under his thoughts like a utility line in the heat. In the distant reaches of Pidge's mind, the Green Lion's presence flashes an occasional counterpoint.
"Can't believe we're about to break into a spaceship."
"Not the first place we've broken into."
She snorts. "Pretty sure this is a step up from the Garrison."
He hums an agreement under his breath and there's a tentative nudge through the link. "You-?"
She exhales. "Yeah. Just nervous."
"Yeah," he says quietly. "Me too."
He's not lying, but this kind of nervousness for Keith is like he's a spring wound up tight, just waiting for the impetus to launch himself forward. For Pidge, it's more like a weight pressing down on her, making her hyperaware of the slow passage of minutes and the thump of her pulse in her ears. Keith makes one of his back-of-the-throat noises and leans a little harder on her chair. He leans a little on the link too, a flicker of concern bleeding through to her. After a moment, she taps back at the connection. He backs off and she determinedly loosens her death-grip on the sticks. "Anyways, you're the pilot. You're due a Lion."
The Green Lion's attention pivots to the link, and for a moment, it rings with a high, silvery note that mimics the Red Lion's lower, rougher sound. Keith goes still and surprised before letting out a hum. "If you say so." He sounds skeptical, but she can feel his interest flick to the instrument panel.
She snorts. "You're not fooling anybody."
The comm clicks open again. "We're in position," comes in Lance's voice, tense and serious. "Should we go for it?"
A beat passes before Allura replies. "Pidge, Keith, are you ready?"
She exchanges a look with him and he nods. "We're ready."
"Very well. Lance, Hunk, start your approach. Remember, keep them talking as long as you can. You need to buy time for Keith and Pidge to retrieve the Red Lion and for us to ready the castle for launch."
"Right. Right," comes in Hunk's voice, slightly high-pitched. "Keep them talking and not shooting. Right."
"When they do start shooting," Allura says implacably, "you must disable the ion cannon mounted on the top of the vessel. It is the single most dangerous armament it possesses."
"So keep them talking as long as we can, and then shoot the big gun before it shoots us. Okay." Lance lets out a heavy breath. "Okay, we can do this. I'm good at talking. Right. I guess we're going in then."
"Pidge, Keith, you must find the Red Lion as quickly as possible and escape. Lance and Hunk will buy you time, and once the castle is able to launch we will assist. But you must make haste."
"Right," Pidge gets out tightly.
"Copy that," Keith adds.
"Good fortune go with all of you," Allura says, before her voice softens. "And please, be careful."
In the distance, the Yellow and Blue Lions begin a slow advance. The Green Lion poises herself in the back of Pidge's mind, and she nudges them forward, cutting under the field of debris towards the shadowy underside of the cruiser. Keith is quiet, his attention pinpointed on their destination, the Red Lion's muted pulse like a heartbeat under his thoughts. Over the comm, Lance begins a nervous hail, arguing back and forth with the officer on the other end over whether their safe approach is guaranteed, but she can't afford to listen with more than half an ear, focused on making it into range without being noticed. Finally, they slip into the shadow of the cruiser's underbelly and she brings them to a halt next to a person-sized hatch. Its door is marked with a symbol which, while unfamiliar, communicates clearly that opening it will let the atmosphere out. There's no sign that they've been noticed, and she lets out a relieved breath.
"Princess, we made it."
"Well done." Allura hesitates a second. "Once inside, you will have to turn off your comms - there's too great a risk that they will be detected from inside the ship. Remember, you must be quick and cautious."
"Got it," Keith says.
"Retrieve the Red Lion and come back safely."
"We will."
The line makes a final, decisive click and goes silent.
"Well, here goes," Pidge mutters, staring out at the grey hull of the ship ahead of them, and shuts the comm in her helmet off before sealing it. Keith does the same, and they both look at each other for a minute before she holds her fist out. He eyes it blankly before his thoughts hitch and he gently bumps his knuckles against hers. They file into the airlock and out into the dark.
A short burst from the jetpacks gets them close enough for their boots to engage on the cruiser's hull, and they walk sideways down the surface to the hatch. She inspects it carefully - there's a lever arm barring it closed, but she can't see any other means of entry. She tries to shift the bar, but it holds fast. She and Keith exchange a glance, and with a shrug, she pulls the bayard off her belt. She flicks it into a blade and experimentally presses the glowing edge against the metal. Half of her expects it to slide uselessly off, but the bayard is apparently of sterner stuff. It digs in, and she has to wrestle a better handhold on the door to gain the leverage to continue - she can't use her weight to lean on it as she normally would. There's a steady resistance and a burn of exertion in her shoulder, and then, abruptly, she's through. The hatch blasts outward under the pressure of the interior atmosphere and with a stab of panic, she feels her boots leave the hull.
The link spikes cold and she comes to a jerking halt as Keith seizes the collar of her armor before she can be flung off, the pulse in his throat racing. He hauls her back down out of the firing zone, and doesn't let go until she's once more firmly attached to the hull. She swallows, heart pounding in the eerie, numbing silence of space. She gives him a nod after a moment and he briefly rests a hand on her shoulder before motioning to the hatch. She nods again and they dive into the ship.
They stumble through a cloud of icy vapor into the sudden presence of gravity and the frantic, silent white strobe of an alarm. "Shit," she whispers to herself, stomach swooping. The link ratchets tight as she meets Keith's eyes. His gaze flicks to the interior door and she nods and runs for it. A phantom strain burns through her shoulders as behind her, he gives a hard wrench to the remains of the locking arm, jamming the hatch closed. She jabs at the glyph next to the door that looks like it might show atmosphere rushing into the chamber. It gets her a blast of air from the vents along the ceiling and the abrupt shriek of the alarm as they gain pressure, but the door stays stubbornly shut. Keith's attention snags on something and he shoves his hand onto a panel on the other side. The door cracks and they barrel through it.
A klaxon gives five sharp blasts and alarm bolts through Keith. He grabs her arm, pulling her down the lefthand passage. "Come on!"
Her stomach lurches as the light over the door at the hall's end flares solid blue. A thundering mechanical sound reverberates through the hall and a heavy shutter slides down from the ceiling over the door, covering their exit. Keith's thoughts white out in a blur of adrenaline as he hauls her forward. They barely make it, sliding in under the barrier with just enough headroom for Keith to slap his hand onto the door panel. They pound through, but the sound of footsteps ahead brings them to a skidding halt. She yanks him toward one of the anonymous doorways lining the corridor. "In here!"
They crash into a narrow, dark space, thankfully unoccupied. Keith shuts the door behind them, but at the last second clenches his jaw and wedges the toe of his boot into it, keeping it open a crack. They both press up against the wall, holding their breaths as several sets of heavy footsteps pass them by at a run. A few seconds later, an agitated clamor of voices drifts up from the direction of the sealed door.
"-damned sector pressure alarm during an all-hands stand-by! Quit screwing around and get the diagnostics up!"
"Yes, sir."
Gingerly, Pidge cranes her head to peer into the hall, trying to catch her breath. She can just barely make out a group of tall silhouettes clustered around the door. One of them half-crouches at the side to open up a wall panel next to it. Inside, she catches the faint glow of a screen.
"Looks like the fourth sector maintenance hatch failed. Airlock shows a breach, but gauge goes back up after - either the initial depressurization pushed something back in place or the secondary seals engaged. Still losing pressure, but not as fast."
"Cause?"
"No sign of an impact. Fatigue failure or improper previous closure maybe."
A spitting growl. "Get that barrier open and get a technical crew down here on the double. We're going through every fastener of that entry point. I want containment and root cause within the next shift. If we had a sector lockdown during engagement stand-by because some shitbrain didn't follow entry-exit procedures, the Commander is going to be hearing about it personally. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then quit wasting time and get moving!"
There's a sharp chorus of agreement and a bustle of motion. Keith carefully removes his foot from the door, leaving it to slide silently shut. Pidge slumps in place against the wall. "That was close."
Keith grunts an assent. After a second, he gives a quick shake of his head and rolls his shoulders, trying to work some of the tension out of them. "Doesn't matter. We're in."
She makes a face. "I guess." It's just so inelegant. She scowls, trying to remember if she missed anything about that hatch. There's got to be a less conspicuous way of getting into the ship.
Keith snorts and straightens up from his lean against the wall. "We can figure out how to break in elegantly later."
She shoots him a betrayed look, but levers herself up and takes stock of their surroundings. They're in a dark, narrow room, dimly lit by a faintly glowing violet stripe along the ceiling. The walls are crowded with a jumble of equipment hanging from hooks. She spots coils of cable and weird, inscrutable instruments with bizarre connection points, a recognizable drill and set of files, half a size too large. Something that looks distinctly like a mop and bucket is shoved into a corner. "Are we hiding in a janitor's closet?" she says incredulously.
"Looks like it." He eyes the walls curiously before giving himself a faint shake. "Come on, we have to-" Something across the room hooks his attention.
She follows his gaze to a screen half-hidden in a clutter of cleaning supplies and feels her interest snag as well. "Is that a map?"
"Think so."
They both hesitate. That last view of the bright specks of the Yellow and Blue Lions yawns open under her thoughts, and the low point of almost-sound in Keith's chest pulls tight. "It might help us find the Red Lion faster," she advances. "If-"
"-if we can figure it out." Keith frowns, fingers tapping against his thigh in an echo of the Lion's rhythmic thrum as he thinks. After a moment, he gives a sharp nod. "We're going to lose more time if we get lost in here."
"True."
They pick their way over to a long counter, about chest high for Keith. It's about chin high for Pidge, and she has to stand on a box to get a clear view. Keith raises an eyebrow at her and there's a faint glimmer of humor at the back of her mind.
"Shut up," she grumbles.
"Didn't say anything."
"That doesn't count anymore," she tells him, and he gives a quiet, amused exhalation.
Up close, it's definitely a map of the ship. The main view shows a maze of corridors and tightly packed rooms, a smaller inset showing its location relative to an outline of the ship's body. There's a blinking blue dot in a tiny, narrow room barnacled to the hull's interior. She doesn't need to be able to read the text above it to guess that it's the equivalent of "You are here!"
"Huh," she mutters. "I guess even the crew get lost in here."
"It's a big ship."
Cautiously, she leans over the counter to poke at it. The display jumps, and when she drags her finger down, the main view pans to follow. "Any idea which way we go?"
For a moment, there's a weird doubling of the crackling hum at the back of her mind, a low, beating note and an insistent pull as Keith concentrates. The feeling damps down to the background and he leans forward to sketch a vague line across the map towards the ship's bow. "If we're here, then it's somewhere in this direction." He thinks a minute. "They have to be keeping it somewhere big."
"A hangar or a cargo bay, maybe. Someplace with a big enough entrance to get it into the ship in the first place. Probably someplace near the hull, not on the interior." She frowns, inspecting the map critically. "Over here, maybe?" She taps at a series of large spaces forward of their position, each marked with the same venting atmosphere glyph they'd seen on the airlock door.
"Direction feels about right." He eyes the map another second. "What are the lines?"
She blinks and leans in a little closer. "Huh." Each of the probable hangars is marked with a thick outline. Now that she's looking, she can see other regions marked the same way. It's not always just single rooms - there are whole passageways and banks of compartments grouped together - but there's no text or symbols to tell what it means. "Maybe it's just functional areas of the ship? Like, 'this is the engine room' and 'this is the bridge'?"
He frowns. "Could be."
She considers the map skeptically. That explanation doesn't sit right with her either. She eyeballs the area around the 'you are here!' marker, tracing the lines nearest to it. One of them runs right through the wall cutting off their current hiding place from their entry point. The thought finally coalesces.
Keith glances over to her. "You figure it out?"
"I think they're bulkheads. We caused a leak when we came in, so it sealed off that compartment to keep the rest of the ship safe. Like on a submarine."
His fingers work absently. "So we could get trapped in pretty much anywhere on here."
She shrugs. "If something happens that might compromise the ship, yeah."
His brow knits, the connection suddenly tight with a vague, anxious feeling of being boxed in. Pidge glances over to catch his eye and he shakes his head briefly. The feeling subsides, pushed down under the insistent thrum of the Red Lion. He taps at the side of the map display. "Any way we can take that with us?"
She thinks about it half a second and nods. "Yeah, think so."
She convinces their armor computers to grab an image of the map, and even persuades them to superimpose their coordinates on it. She's not sure how well it'll track their positions once they're actually moving, but it's better than nothing. She marks the hangars and lets out a breath. "Okay. That's about the best I can do."
Keith flashes her a quick grin. "Nice work." The deep, beating hum of the Red Lion snaps and crackles like a fire spitting out sparks and there's a kick in his chest, settling into a sure and steady pull. His eyes flick to the door. "Come on. Let's go before they start looking for us."
They slip out the door and waste no time in putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the voices at the sealed bulkhead. She keeps expecting to hear a shout behind them, or run headlong into someone exiting one of the doors that line the hallway. The Red Lion's an uncomfortable pull in her chest now, vague and diffuse in the way the Knell had been, but with a snap and bite to it that the Knell had lacked. It's worse for Keith - she can feel the echo of it in his chest like a second heartbeat, its raspy hum pulling at his thoughts so keenly it almost aches. He takes the lead, pushing them down the dim corridors while she navigates them by the map display projected at her wrist. At a hallway a little ways from their hiding place, they find a ladder leading to a low catwalk and take it without hesitation. She breathes a little easier once they're out of immediate line of sight, and when Keith picks up the pace, she doesn't object. They can't have spent more than a few minutes in the maintenance closet, but it feels far longer. She keeps thinking of that last glimpse of the Blue and Yellow Lions drifting towards the cruiser.
The ship itself gives her the creeps. The whole place is suffused with the nearly subliminal hiss of an air cycler, punctuated by mysterious creaks and groans and curt announcements over an intercom in a dense military jargon that her helmet translator struggles to interpret. The corridors are barren, and something about the way all the doors and utilities are sized for people who seem to average around seven feet tall makes them vaguely disorienting. The only lighting aside from the dim blue and violet signage along the walls is a blacklit stripe down the center of the ceiling. Keith doesn't seem to have any trouble finding his way, but Pidge winds up straining her eyes into the gloom to see, paranoid that she's going to trip over something and alert the whole ship to their presence. The galra they see in passing seem to loom suddenly out of nowhere, materializing without warning behind corners and doorways.
The closer they get to the hangars, the more of them they see, stalking purposefully down the hallways, sometimes with a pack of hovering, pyramidal drones in train. Their sharp, urgent movements make them immediately distinguishable from the sentry robots that pace deliberate paths up and down the halls. She and Keith crouch low whenever the soldiers pass them, holding their breaths until their footsteps fade out of hearing. Whenever they have to descend from the catwalk to cross the bulkhead boundaries, it sends her heart into her throat and puts Keith's attention to the ship's sounds on a hair trigger. The whole ship feels on edge, waiting with the cold patience of a crocodile in a water hole.
They don't - can't - let it slow them down. Hunk and Lance are out there trying to buy them time, and the Red Lion's somewhere ahead, trapped in here with them. Keith lasers down into a fine, sharp focus. Pidge rides along with it, and it doesn't take them long to settle into a pace that's almost routine.
That near-monotony is disrupted at a point about halfway to the hangars. They're keeping still, holed up in a shadowy corner of the catwalk while they wait for a pair of soldiers to pass by them. Instead of continuing down the hall, though, they pause almost directly under them. A sour spike of frustration goes through Keith as one leans casually up against the wall, apparently settling in for a wait. The other pointedly ignores him, attention focused on a console next to a door branching off towards the ship's interior.
"All-hands alert and somehow we're still stuck with prisoner duty."
"Someone has to do it," intones the soldier at the console, with an air of long-suffering patience.
"You think it's really what command is saying it is?"
"Voltron?" A sharp, dismissive click. "Who knows. Just let command do what they're going to do and don't question it."
"Annuk was on comms duty."
"Annuk and his gossip can eat-"
"Says the new paladins look like someone fished them out of that backwater we were stationed at last rotation."
That gets an incredulous-sounding huff of air. "The one where we snapped up those poor bastards finally making it out to the edge of their system? That'd be pretty rich."
She forgets how to breathe. The link lights up like a lightning strike. Ice clenches in her gut and Keith goes horribly still beside her. She looks over to him and and he meets her eyes in the gloom, pupils wide and dark in a pale face. They stay crouched there, frozen in place while the connection buzzes jaggedly between them. Below, the door opens and the soldiers move on.
She grabs his arm as soon as they're gone. "They were talking about-"
"We have to-"
The words trip over each other, too loud against the metal walls, and they both shut up. Keith holds up a hand and swallows hard. She can feel him grasping for that focus, trying to pin his scattered thoughts down to the metronome of the Red Lion's thrum. He tries again, voice a raspy whisper. "That was about-"
"-Kerberos. Has to be."
"Prisoners. They were talking about-"
"What if-" she gulps, feels her voice swing upward, fights it down again. "What if they've just been sitting here in a cell all this time?" Keith stares back at her, something in his chest squeezed painfully tight.
They both flinch at the sudden weight of the Green Lion's attention, keen and electric at the base of her brain. It sharpens warningly, and the Red Lion's hum goes loud alongside it, crackling like a signal clipping at the edge of its range. Their last glimpse of Hunk and Lance shoves its way back into her thoughts, lonely dots of color against the hulking mass of the cruiser. Lance's nervous patter and the quaver under Hunk's voice. Allura's serious, urgent instructions. Be quick and cautious. Retrieve the Red Lion and come back safe.
But.
Her dad might be alive. Matt might be alive. They might be here with them, just a few rooms away. She raises her eyes to meet Keith's again. "We have to follow them. We're not going to get another chance."
He drags in a heavy breath, and she feels his knuckles ache as his fists tighten. "I know. I know!" There's a furious churn in his thoughts like a riptide, just under the layer that makes it through the link. The Red Lion gives another hard, crackling pulse. His jaw clenches. "We just have to be fast."
Something in her chest unknots itself and she realizes she's holding her breath. She lets it out. "Then we do it fast."
Keith uncurls his fingers to tap them restlessly against the ceramic shell of his greave before he clenches his fist again and looks away. "We could spl-"
"No!" It's out of her before she can think about it, a host of half-formed fears tangling in the back of her brain as she glares up at him. The ship is so big, and it would be so easy to get lost or caught. The idea of Keith silently dropping out of the world while she's not looking, like Matt and her dad did, sinks sharp teeth into her gut. "Not after what happened the last time," is what she gets out.
His brows draw down, and for a second she thinks he's going to argue with her. But he just eyes her for a long moment, thoughts working. His end of the link frays and then centers itself. "Okay," he says slowly, and there's something a little soft and squashed under it. "Then we do it together. We get them out and then we go for the Red Lion. Fast as we can."
"Okay." She puts her hand over the compartment in her vambrace holding Matt's glasses and takes a breath. The Green Lion gives a flash in her mind, like a shoal of fish wheeling away from a net, but there's less sharpness to it now, just weight and something close to concern. She clenches her hands into sweaty fists and straightens up. "Okay."
Keith gives her a grave nod and reaches for the catwalk's railing. "Let's go."