They plan, in intangible glimmers of directional thought and a thick undercurrent of spatial and auditory impression. It's a strange kind of implicit communication, not quite like thinking to oneself and not quite like talking and not quite like daydreaming, and if Pidge really stopped to dissect it, it would be confusing. But the meaning coalesces easily enough if she lets it, and Keith seems to have no trouble interpreting what she sends him.
They ponder the map while she extracts her helmet and bayard from the locker. Keith has the copy on his armor up, his dot blinking forward of the prisoners' location. He gives a mental twist, and another, hazier dot flickers into existence to the aft. Her position. She pauses to check it against her own armor's map. Yeah, that's it. It solidifies in their mental arena, and they both examine it.
Only a few seconds pass before it snaps out of existence in a surge of alarm as the ship shudders and the lights flicker again. It lasts only a moment, but it sends a spike of anxiety through both of them that rebounds off the connection's edges and ripples outwards. We're running out of time, she thinks again, throat dry.
Keith echoes back a grim agreement before he refocuses and the map wavers clear again. His attention zeroes in on the path from his dot to the prisoners' cells and to the hangars, weighing it against the route from her cell. Pidge bites her lip. He's somewhere between the brig and the hangars, while she's positioned farther aft of both, but closer to the brig. They don't have the time for either of them to backtrack. I get the prisoners then.
He considers that, his thoughts winding down some interior path that she can't follow. Then he concentrates, his dot tracking through the route from the prisoners to the hangars. Her marker follows at a distance, a shadowy cluster of other, vaguer dots around it.
She nods slowly before drawing her helmet back over her head. It makes sense. The prisoners are a risk. They're going to be easily noticed, hard to move with. If he can scout ahead and clear a path for them, it'll give them a chance. Thinking about it still makes her stomach twist. Be careful.
The reply comes without words, as most of Keith's thoughts seem to, but the translation is clear. You too.
The ship had been creepy before, but now it feels actively hostile. The walls and floor vibrate with the groan of the thrusters, as if the ship were breathing. The intercom barks out harsh, incomprehensible commands at unpredictable intervals, interspersed with a variety of buzzing, discordant alarms. The corridors are by turns ghost-quiet and crowded with squads of soldiers loping between stations at an implacable, ground-eating run. She has a bad scare when she puts a hand to the first door panel she comes to. It blinks yellow and blares a warning, and Pidge dashes into the nearest cover she can find, holding her breath. Nobody responds and fortunately, Rover is still able to get around whatever lockdown is in place, but it pins a claustrophobic dread between her shoulder blades at how easily they could be trapped.
At the back of her mind, she can feel Keith moving rapidly through a dark, narrow series of corridors, triangulating between his map and the Red Lion's beating thrum. The first time he goes still and wary, tightly focused on something ahead of him, she freezes in place. The intensity is disorienting, and for a second it's hard to tell where she is in space or whose hand is holding the bayard. The danger passes, and she comes fully back to herself crouched in the shadows of the catwalk. It puts a chill of creeping unease down her back and she feels Keith grimly eye that experience and pin it to the back of his attention. Whatever they've done to the link is useful, but it's also dangerous. It would be so easy to distract or disorient each other, and they haven't had the time to figure out how to deal with it. There's no changing it though, so by mutual unspoken agreement, they shove it aside and keep going.
By the time she reaches the prisoners' location, he's nearly halfway to the hangars ahead of her. He's quiet, focused on the task, but there's a twitchy sense of unease building at the edge of his consciousness as he progresses through the halls. He ambushes two of the robotic sentries stationed along her route, dragging their mechanical carcasses into whatever hiding places he can reach. Each time he does it, he taps at the link beforehand, giving her time to find a safe place to hunker down and ride out the rush of sensory information. It's the best they can do for now.
At the door to the brig, she gives him the same warning. His attention instantly re-centers itself on her, a lick of tension humming underneath it, and she feels him settle in somewhere dark and close to wait it out. She takes a breath and goes to wipe her sweaty palms down her sides before remembering she's wearing armor. She puts an ear to the door, but she can't hear anything through it. She doesn't believe for a moment that it's unguarded after their escape attempt. She frowns, and after a second, kneels down and wedges the hook of her bayard into the doorframe, pulls its line taut across the doorway at approximately ankle-height. Keith watches attentively, a neon-sharp hum along the back of her thoughts.
"Okay," she whispers to herself, and tries to put the pound of her heart out of her mind. Keith's presence aligns with hers, a feeling like a cat brushing past her shins. "Here we go." She holds Rover up in front of the door panel and they both brace themselves.
The door slides open, and she comes face-to-face with a soldier, hand halfway raised into a fist-to-throat salute. He drops it as soon as he sees her and reaches for his baton instead. "You-!"
He lunges forward and she jerks the bayard's line up into his kneecaps, thumb mashing convulsively into the trigger. There's a horrible choking noise, and he collapses onto the ground. Behind him, his partner snarls and rushes towards her. She yanks at her bayard, but it's trapped under the soldier's dead weight. For a second, she's paralyzed, unable to make herself drop it, sure she's about to die and not able to do anything about it.
Keith's heartbeat thunders through her chest, and he gives her a hard mental shove that jerks her back into herself. She drops the bayard and scrambles upright.
She looks up in time to see a thin limb whip out through a cell door and hook into the back of the approaching soldier's collar. He comes to an abrupt, gasping halt before giving a violent shake of his shoulders that presses the prisoner's arm into the door, wrong-way first. There's a high scream and a snap and the soldier lurches forward again, but Pidge is already moving.
She slams Rover's pointy end into his midsection as hard as she can. He goes down with a sound like a cat choking up a hairball, and she hits him with Rover again, this time in the back of the head. His helmet thunks hollowly and he goes slack. She's left in the middle of the room, breathing hard while the prisoners begin to murmur excitedly to each other. The tense hum drops out of the link, and there's a steadying rush of relief from Keith. She echoes it back, wired and a little shaky, but rattles herself back to her surroundings after a handful of heartbeats. They don't have time to lose.
She goes the the cell on the end first. Zaas is up at the front of the group, patting gently at the arm of the tall, gangly prisonser who'd grabbed the guard. "Hey," she says. "We're getting you out of here. For real this time." Zaas' red eyes turn to her, watching intently as she holds Rover up to the door panel. It gives a satisfying beep and the door slides open.
"Paladin," Zaas says, helping the tall prisoner out. They cradle their broken arm in another set of limbs, lower on their torso, panting gently. Their eyes move between Rover and the door, and they make a low hum. Zaas leans close to them and says something quietly, gesturing towards the door before turning back to her. The other prisoners trickle out and she moves down the line, Zaas keeping pace. "Is your partner…?" They pause delicately and gesture towards the guard on the ground.
"He's clearing a path for us. We have to get out of here fast."
Zaas blinks slowly. "I see."
Keith shifts uneasily in the back of her mind and pushes over a wordless feeling of urgency. She pauses mid-stride and reaches out. He's on-edge and twitchy, nerves prickling. The Red Lion's a crackling heartbeat under his thoughts, but there's something else creeping in around it, a slippery, formless intuition that sets his teeth on edge.
What's going on?
A glimpse of long corridors, suspiciously empty aside from the occasional sentry flashes through the connection. A view of a towering set of bay doors, their entrance unguarded. A sense of wrongness creeping up his spine.
Her stomach turns over slowly. Maybe they're all at… at battle stations, or something.
He sends back a formless rush of skepticism and she catches a vague echo of him shifting in place, leaning over to look down a long corridor.
She bites at her lip. Yeah. I don't like it either. But we don't have a lot of options.
A sharp acknowledgment and another sting of urgency, underlit with worry.
"Okay," she says to herself. Far back in her mind, the Green Lion gives a low, clear hum. She straightens her expression, tries to look like a paladin, and turns toward the small cluster of prisoners at the door. "Okay, everybody. Quick and quiet. We have to move fast."
They move through the hallways at a jerky, rapid pace. Pidge stays at the front, the prisoners limping along in a close knot behind her. Keith is right - the corridors are unsettlingly empty. She finds the evidence of the few sentries he'd ambushed - scuffs on the walls and a door with its panel bashed in - and once or twice they all have go nervously silent at the sound of running footsteps in a crosshall, but they don't meet anyone else. Despite that, the trip is almost deafening with the bombardment of clipped instructions from the intercom and the distant roar of the ship's engines. Twice the lights flicker as some shock rocks through the vessel. She thinks again of Hunk and Lance and pushes them through the next bulkhead as fast as she can.
She feels Keith before she sees him, a weird doubled ring of recognition and a surge of relief.
"Over here." She jumps a little - it's almost startling to hear him out loud - and finds him in a shadowy alcove next to the bay doors that must lead to the hangars.
Somehow, she and the prisoners all squeeze into the small space, out of the view of the main corridor. They're packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder, but she pushes her way over to Keith and lets the crowd bump her shoulder into his arm. His eyes dart carefully over her face. "Okay?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah." He gives her a sharp nod. There's something a little distant about his expression that reminds her of those long days in the desert following the Knell. In the back of her head, the Red Lion rolls out a long rumble like thunder.
"Paladin."
Keith starts a little at the interruption and looks over to Zaas, who watches him intently, red eyes glittering. "Thank you for freeing us," they say deliberately.
"You're… you're welcome?" His thoughts are all blank. She elbows him and he scowls down at her before looking away and crossing his arms, thoughts refocusing. "We're not out yet."
Pidge glances over to the towering overhead doors. At this range, the Red Lion's hum rattles through her bones, but she can't discern a direction. "Did we get it right? Is-"
He gives a decisive nod, something pulling sharply under his collarbone. "Yeah. This is it."
She lets out a relieved breath. "Good."
Keith scans the group of prisoners, skin prickling at the close pack of bodies next to him, and she gets a sense of edges and mass, a gut spatial feel of the close confines of the Green Lion's cockpit. He frowns. "Is the Green Lion-?"
She bites her lip and eyes the unfamiliar shapes of the crowd and again shoves down the queasy feeling of how much they haven't thought this through. It's hard to estimate how much room they all take up. There's no way they'll all squash into a single Lion. She's not even sure they'll fit into two, assuming the Red Lion is about Green's size. But they have to try. "Maybe if we can split them up between us…? We'll fit. Somehow."
He makes a disgruntled acquiescence in the back of his throat. "Let's get it over with." A shiver walks over the back of his neck. "This doesn't feel right." She casts him a sharp glance and he shakes his head.
"Cargo shuttle."
They both blink and turn to face the speaker, a hairy, greyish person with a multitude of fingers. They make a wretched-sounding coughing noise before continuing. "Used to work the docks. They'll have computer-guided shuttles primed. Standard practice for big vessels 'cause no one wants to load in grav. Fast way off a ship when you need it."
"You know how to use one?" Pidge asks dubiously.
The prisoner ripples their fingers. "Someone will have to launch it from the hangar. But, yeah. I know my way around. 'S what I got arrested for." They give a sudden, unsettling grin full of needle-like teeth.
She and Keith exchange a glance. It's a better option than wasting time trying to cram everyone into the Lions. Keith nods sharply. "Fine. Let's go."
Rover opens the smaller, person-sized door next to the massive bay entry, and they shuffle into an enormous echoing space crowded with cargo pallets and machinery. In the ship's dim lighting, it's hard to make out more than outlines and shadows, but there's a red glow ahead of them like an ember. Keith's breath hitches as the Red Lion's crackling thrum kicks like an engine shifting gears. They all hold still for a breathless minute, but there's no alarm, no sign of anybody else in the room. Slowly, they relax. Pidge's heart beats a little faster, a giddy lightness welling up in her chest. They made it. They're going to get out of here with what they came for. They're going to be okay.
"Paladins." Zaas gestures toward a hatch in the floor with a console next to it some distance to their left. The toothy greyish prisoner is already hovering over it.
Pidge catches Keith's eye and waves him toward the red glow. "I can take care of-"
He frowns, eyes darting between the prisoners and the shuttle. "You sure?"
She rolls her eyes. "Yeah. Go get your Lion. I'll meet you after they're out."
He lingers a moment, and then claps a hand to her shoulder. "All right."
He heads off towards the other side of the hangar and Pidge and the prisoners get to work.
Rover gets the hatch open and the console unlocked, and Zaas chivvies the others down into the shuttle one by one. She can distantly feel Keith's heart running a little fast, an ache in his throat as the Lion's thrum fans high like a flame under a bellows. She keeps part of her attention on him as she and the grey prisoner coax the shuttle's console to the launch screen.
Suddenly, she jolts forward as the link spikes white and electric. Something smashes down with a thunderous metallic impact on the other side of the hangar. The prisoners freeze in place. Across the room, Keith slams to a halt, hand clenched on his bayard. She seizes the connection by reflex and pulls herself toward him. Keith!
She reels as the link floods with a dense torrent of sensory information. She can feel him crouched low, shoulders tense, the weight of the unsheathed bayard in his forward hand. Ahead of him, the Red Lion's a bright, beating ember. A tall shadow stands between him and it, speaking in a rough, cold voice.
"The Red Paladin. But you're not really a paladin yet, are you? Just one of society's cast-offs, trying to make something important of yourself."
Ice goes through her chest. She recognizes that voice. Sendak.
For the first time, she clearly hears words in Keith's mental voice as he speaks aloud. "Get out of my way."
"You've shown you're no coward. Don't ruin it by proving yourself a fool."
"What do you want?"
"An offer, boy. Put that courage to a worthy use. Pledge yourself to the service of the Empire. Prove yourself fit for society and you'll win honor. Power. Respect in measure with your status as the Red Lion's paladin." A slight, nearly imperceptible pause. "Regardless of your provenance."
Keith's thoughts, already bristling and saw-edged, go dark and bitter. "Yeah. Right," he spits, and launches himself forward.
Pidge staggers, alarms screaming in her head. What are you doing? He's three times your size, you're going to get yourself killed!
She gets a frustrated surge of desperation in response, a blurred impression of the crowd of prisoners huddled out of sight by the cargo shuttle and mental shove towards them. The frantic, dire tick of a countdown.
Shit. She sucks in a breath. He's not wrong. They need to get the prisoners out while they can. She still hates it. Just… stay alive until I get there.
He presses briefly on the link, serious and determined, before he sinks back down into that flow of motion and focus.
"Paladin?"
She abruptly comes back to herself, disoriented, and jerks away. Zaas' red eyes are only a foot away from her face, the remaining prisoners huddled close. Behind her, something crashes with an apocalyptic roar. She sways as Keith lunges sideways, almost dragged back into his fight, but Zaas' gnarled hand grips her elbow and she hauls herself back to the surface. There's no time to explain.
She pushes Zaas towards the others. "Get them in and close the doors!"
Their many eyes drift to track the sounds of Keith and Sendak's fight. "Is your partner not-"
"He's buying us time. Just go!"
The command spreads through the crowd like wildfire and they all pack into the shuttle with a quiet, frantic efficiency. Pidge can't stop herself from flinching at each impact that rings through the link, feels her shoulders bunch and start to twist each time Keith is forced to catch a blow on his bayard. She has to fight to keep her concentration on the prisoners and the shuttle, and she desperately tries to make her own thoughts low and quiet so as not to distract him. She can tell Sendak is toying with him, can tell Keith is letting him do it, focused on giving her as much time as he can. She gets occasional, confused flashes of Sendak talking in a low, snarling tone, but she can't hear what he's saying. Whatever it is has Keith's temper at a dangerous simmer that boils through the connection in short spikes and hisses.
The hatch shuts behind the last of the prisoners, and she freezes and chokes on her breath as Keith's back hits something with enough force to knock the wind out of him. His shoulder stabs a bolt of pain through them as he rolls back to his feet. She can feel her hands aching and sweaty inside the gauntlets.
She's got to get over there. He's going to get himself killed.
She looks down at the shuttle's launch screen and blinks, feeling like there's something she's forgetting. Abruptly, it clicks, and after a bare millisecond of hesitation, she keys the comm on her helmet open. It's not as if stealth is something they're concerned about anymore. Immediately her ears are flooded with a chaotic rush of static and voices. Keith falters at the sudden intrusion and her heart lurches as he scrambles for cover.
"-just saying, this is really, really bad."
"Hold the line. For just a little longer. The castle is almost-"
"Guys?"
"Pidge? Is that you? Oh man, I am so glad to hear your voice. Are you guys okay?"
"Guys, listen, there's a cargo shuttle going to launch from my position. Can you grab it? Keep anyone from shooting it?"
There's a small silence. "Yeah, I've got your position. I can do that," Hunk says a little breathlessly.
"Are you guys on that shuttle?" Lance asks suspiciously.
"No."
"Then what-"
"There's no time to explain. Just grab it."
"Pidge, what-"
"I'll tell you later." She closes the comm and firmly ignores the beep in her ear. She can't afford the distraction and neither can Keith. She gives the launch screen one last quick check and pushes a warning tap over the link. There's no reply, but she feels Keith brace himself. She points Rover at the ignition. The floor shudders and roars under her as the shuttle launches. From the other side of the room, Sendak lets out a rolling snarl, and she sprints for Keith's position, darting through the pallets to crouch in the shadows near the wall.
She gets there in time to see Sendak bat Keith down to the floor hard enough to knock him breathless. He scrabbles backward and just manages to get to his feet in time to pitch out of the way of Sendak's next swing.
"Was that the other one? Making her escape and leaving you here to die?"
"Shut up."
Sendak exhales a low, raspy sound and she realizes he's laughing. "Don't you get it? You're expendable, boy. Without the Lion, you're nothing. And the only way you'll get it is through me. One last chance. The Empire can give you a citizenship. Honor. Respect. Or you can die here like vermin, nameless and worthless."
Something in Keith's end of the link twists sour and sharp. She pokes at him. I'm here. The connection opens and breathes for a second, relieved, before his attention snaps back to the fight. He centers himself and she feels him resettle his weight on the balls of his feet, shove the way his right shoulder can't hold steady out of his mind. A brief, waiting silence, while she takes the opportunity to creep to a better vantage point, and then Sendak makes a spitting sound. "Worthless after all, then."
She reaches cover just in time to see Sendak take the offensive for the first time. He's too fast for someone of his size, and he moves with a sense of gravity like a wrecking ball. The arm smashes down into a pallet, crumpling it like tinfoil. Keith throws himself out of the line of fire, thoughts racing in wild, wordless vectors. He tries to circle around to the Lion, but Sendak keeps himself between them, relentlessly pressing the attack and trying to push him into a corner.
Pidge swallows and clutches her bayard tight. Sendak doesn't realize she's still here - if she can disable him long enough for Keith to get to the Lion… But both of them are moving fast, Keith grimly charting a ricocheting course through the pallets lining the landing pad's edge, Sendak keeping pace from the other side. They're both out in the open only intermittently, and in the dim light, she can't be sure she won't hit Keith if she throws at the first thing she sees. The comm in her ear beeps again, and Keith staggers under the shock of a blow that clips his bad shoulder almost hard enough to buckle his knees. She takes a breath and waits for the next opening. She's going to have to take the risk.
Her thoughts go sideways at a sudden hitch from Keith, a jump and a lightning flash of desperate insight. A blurry impression of heavy architecture tumbles through the link. It takes her a second to recognize it as the hangar door from his angle. She pauses, tries to work out what he's getting at, and he pushes that idea towards her again, a little harder, a little clearer, focused on the control box mounted by the entrance. Hard on its heels comes a shadowy memory of the galra squad clustered around the bulkhead where they'd first broken in, the officer barking out, "Get that barrier open!"
Keith focuses, and with a painful effort, distinct words surface. Can you get the bulkhead to close?
Another burst of concentrated intent follows as he weaves back a row of pallets, and she realizes he's letting Sendak chase him, drawing him back towards the entrance. She makes the leap a second afterward.
On it, she sends, and carefully edges her way out of cover. Keith's presence hones down to something fierce and focused, and he settles on his feet, luring Sendak into another terrifying swing, drawing him towards the back wall.
Sendak makes a contemptuous spitting noise. "Victory or death, boy. You can face me and die with dignity, or you can do it in the prisons or the pits. No matter to me."
The control panel's only a little ways away, totally exposed on the wall next to the door. Keep him talking.
She gets a wordless acknowledgment and he grits down into a furious stubbornness. "I'm not dying here."
Sendak barks out a laugh as she holds her breath and creeps out to crouch in front of the panel. Her whole back prickles with nerves. She latches onto Keith's solid, steady presence like a beacon and focuses herself on cutting the latch open as quietly as she can, hanging on with her mental fingernails to keep from being sucked under into the somatic roil of the fight.
There's a growl and a crash behind her. Keith's heart leaps into a rapid, pounding pulse, adrenaline making all his thoughts jagged and bright. She feels him snarl and kick something at Sendak, only to have to lunge to the side as something heavy crashes into the space next to him. She barely manages to keep her hands from jerking sideways with him.
Focus, focus… she chants to herself, despairing as she stares at the insides of the control panel. There are a bunch of labels and small, blocky structures and conduit, but she can't identify what any of it is, or what it does. She could just wreck it and hope for the best, but for all she knows, it would leave the bulkhead locked open. There has to be something here!
Her heart freezes as Keith makes another leap, narrowly avoiding a blow from Sendak's arm that shatters the tile under his feet. How do I make it think it needs to seal the bulkhead? She stares at the box of unidentifiable equipment, bludgeoning her thoughts for something. How do I manufacture an emergency? The thought comes to her like a lightning strike, and she feels Keith zero in on it, alert and ready.
"Please let this work," she mutters, and frantically yanks the seals at her neck open far enough to grab at the collar of her undershirt. She pulls as much of it out into the open as she can, and slices through it, giving her a hand-sized scrap of fabric with a long trailing edge of collar. She hastily reseals her suit and wedges it into the panel's casing, directly under the electrical assembly. "Come on, come on…" she whispers again, and lines her bayard carefully up in front of it. With one final, steadying breath, she presses the trigger home.
The bayard lights with a low, electric hum, arcing along its exposed length. Carefully, she brushes it by the fabric's trailing edge. There's a sharp popping noise and an acrid burnt smell as a sullen, smoldering flame lights and begins to eat its way through the material. She waits a second to be sure it won't die immediately, and then jams the panel cover back on to trap as much smoke and heat inside as possible. The burnt smell grows stronger and she counts the seconds, holding her breath as Keith stays barely a step ahead of Sendak.
"Come on, come on, this has to work. Come on-"
A klaxon shrills out and the room strobes white as the alarm lights at the door flare on. A deafening metallic screech rends the air as the bulkhead seals begin to crank closed across the doors. Sendak makes a choking yowl that would be hilarious in other circumstances, startled into an overbalanced lunge. She has a flicker of lightning-fast anticipation as Keith circles sideways and darts in low, slamming into Sendak at an oblique angle, shield-first. He staggers toward the door, the weight of his massive left arm dragging him forward.
It's not going to be enough.
Pidge lashes out with the bayard before he can regain his footing. It hooks into his collar, and she hauls backward with every ounce of her weight. Keith seizes the advantage and drives forward, everything in him focused on shoving Sendak's mass toward the door. She braces herself and gives the bayard another hard yank before she's forced to disengage. Keith's hand slams onto the door panel and Sendak careens out the entrance, shoulders clipping the steadily narrowing doorway. He gives an incoherent, outraged roar as he regains his footing, and his monstrous artificial arm whips through the gap to seize on Keith's shoulder. She staggers at the sudden, crushing pain as Keith is dragged forward. He comes to an abrupt, wrenching halt as he gets the shield up crosswise in time for it to slam across the gap, barely wider than he is now. Something in his shoulder grinds agonizingly over itself and he chokes out a curse, lashes out with his foot through the door at Sendak's extended knee. Sendak's leg buckles and Keith draws his foot back barely in time as the bulkhead seals with a final metallic clunk that reverberates through the whole wall.
There's a horrific pop and a blinding flare of purple light, and Keith drops to the ground along with Sendak's mechanical arm, severed from its plasma chain. He rolls to his knees, thoughts still running hot and electric, shoulder aching. Pidge races over to him and grabs his good hand. He takes it and hauls himself the rest of the way up, both of them breathing hard. For a second they just stand there and try to get their wind back. Neither of them are thinking very coherently - the link's just a garbled rush of relief and heartbeats and oxygen.
They both jerk upright as the klaxon abruptly changes tone, going into a vaguely familiar series of falling notes. The lights over the hangar's exterior doors flash white, and the alarm cuts a sharp blast of sound. With belated horror, it dawns on her that the easiest way to douse a fire on a spaceship is to vent the atmosphere.
"They're going to-"
Keith curses and fumbles at the seals for his helmet. "Yeah, I got it."
Something silvery flashes and turns at the back of her mind, clever and smug and impatient, and she knows the Green Lion is waiting for her outside. Keith hears it too and his gaze catches hers, the Red Lion humming a deep note through his chest, rippling at the edges like heat haze on the horizon.
"Go get your Lion."
He breathes out a short breath before summoning half a sharp grin and punching her shoulder gently. "See you on the other side, Pidge."
She returns the punch. "You too."
They thump the seals on their helmets closed at almost the same time and then they're both sprinting, Pidge for the person-sized exterior hatch she can see next to the bay doors, and Keith for the red glow of the Lion.
She feels secondhand the rush of heat when he puts his hand on the barrier. His heart gives a reflexive jump as the Red Lion's presence towers over his thoughts, old and vast. She looms there for an instant, watching him, but Keith stubbornly stands his ground and inspects her back, even as the pulse in his throat goes fast and the hair at the back of his neck prickles upright. It holds a moment, and then something tilts. Something keen and amused ripples through the Lion's presence and she leans down to him. His brain lights up like a sun as he reaches up to meet her. It's the fierce, bright rush of endless acceleration, the yawn of an open night sky, the burning hunger for a point just past the horizon. Something rocks and settles into place. There's an instant of quiet, where it feels like Keith is standing right next to her, like they're shoulder-to-shoulder. The Red Lion's rusty thrum rolls and crackles through them, the Green Lion chiming a high, clear counterpoint. It feels sure. Right.
And then Pidge is tumbling forward in the rush of atmosphere as the hangar doors open. Behind her, there's a roar as the Red Lion rises from her crouch. The Green Lion's shadow falls over her and she's swallowed up. She scrambles to the cockpit, and when she closes her hands on the controls, she can feel the echo of Keith doing the same. She feels him murmur something reverent and fond. The Red Lion snaps a sputtering, amused crackle at him and rises into her field of view.
The comms burst into life with a pop and hiss of radio static.
"-they okay?"
"Hey! Hey, can you guys hear us? Come on, answer!"
Her throat tightens and something in her chest relaxes. "Yeah, we're here. We made it."
"Well done," Allura's voice comes in, her relief palpable under the careful weight of her words. "Come back to the rendezvous point. We must leave at once."
"Copy that," Keith says. His shoulder aches and his voice rasps in the channel, but she can feel the lingering awe behind it. "We're on our way."
He rolls the Red Lion out from under the cruiser's long shadow, the movement precise and confident. She follows a breath behind and they speed out towards the stars.