In their year and a bit in space, Keith had rapidly learned that almost nothing was universal. Biology, psychology, ethics, all varied from planet to planet and sun to sun. Even physics was up for debate, given the way they'd been treating the Human-derived laws of the universe as unenforceable polite suggestions ever since they found the Blue Lion. That being said, there was exactly one thing that the red paladin had observed consistently, no matter where they went or what species they encountered, one thing that could be considered a universal constant based on the available data.

Any excuse for a party.

Alteans, it turned out, were the biggest gossips in all of space. By the time Hunk had parked Yellow back in the hangar alongside the other Lions, Malrento and Avenol between them had managed to inform most of the ship of the achievement and a celebration had been rapidly organized in their honour. Half a dozen assorted aliens had all but dragged them to a storage room where they were quickly fitted with casual clothes (thankfully not as stuffy or frilly as those in storage on the Castle) before being passed off to another group for cleaning, preening, and styling. None of the aliens involved really took the time to explain what was going on until Keith tried to bite one of them out of sheer frustration. In his defense, both his arms were tangled in too-tight jacket sleeves at the time and that Balmeran would not stop touching his hair.

And now here he was, pressed up against the wall of the cafeteria and trying to avoid the attention of anyone who seemed to be looking for a dance partner while the rest of his team had readily vanished into the chaos.

From his perch on one of the dining tables that had been pushed against the wall out of the way, he caught occasional glimpses of them through the crowd. Allura and Coran, faces flushed and literally glowing, each partnering a wide variety of Aliens. Lance, dancing with various feminine-looking aliens half the time and Hunk or Pidge the other. Hunk and Pidge dancing with each other or with huge or tiny aliens that made for hilariously bad dancing as they tried to accommodate the size differences. Kurogane and Alejandro had gone by several times, never in anyone's arms but each others. Even as he watched they spun past again with practiced grace, smiling at each other in a way that made his chest ache until he deliberately averted his gaze. Shiro he had yet to catch sight of.

At least the music was good, an improvised dais off to one side playing host to an ever-changing variety of alien instrumentalists and singers, Bytor multiple pipes, an insect-like alien playing something that resembled a harp, three H'ress working together to play something that looked like the hybrid offspring of a piano and a drum set, and dozens of others. The singing was nice too, even if he couldn't understand a word of it without his armor's built-in translator. The song changed, the H'ress drummers setting up a pounding beat, and he found himself nodding his head in time.

"Having fun?" A voice in his ear asked, making him jump.

"Shiro!" The black paladin grinned at him apologetically, holding out a cup of some dark liquid. Keith took the offering, sniffing it warily before taking a cautious sip that tasted of licorice and nutmeg. The other leaned back against the edge of the table beside him, taking a drink from his own glass before folding his arms across his chest.

"Have you been here the whole time?" The black paladin asked, looking over at him curiously.

Keith frowned. "You know I don't do parties, Shiro." He set the cup down beside him on the table. "Where have you been? I've seen everyone else a bunch of times."

"It's a surprise." Shiro grinned secretively, chuckling as two aliens with rather a lot of limbs between them got tangled up and tripped, knocking over another group on the way down. Everyone involved seemed to be taking the mishap in good humor as their neighbours helped them to their feet. The red paladin supposed this sort of thing must happen a lot, given that just because people were dancing didn't mean they were good at it, especially when you put together different species with different dancing styles with music that wasn't from either of their planets. Although some of them certainly were, he admitted grudgingly as he caught sight of Lance again, laughing as he expertly dipped a being who might have been Nyma's cousin before pulling her up into a spin.

Shiro must have seen the scowl on his face. "You could ask him to dance, you know." At Keith's blank look, he gestured with his drink in the direction of the Cuban teen. "Lance. You could ask him."

"Don't be stupid." The Korean stated flatly, ruthlessly trying to suppress a blush at the idea and not quite succeeding. "Why the hell would he want to dance with me."

"Why indeed…" The older male muttered, hiding behind his glass and shaking his head. Movement from the direction of the dais caught his attention and his face lit up. "Oh good! It's ready! Come on!" He grabbed Keith's hand and began pulling him in the direction of the musicians, drinks abandoned.

"Wait, what? What's ready?" Just then he caught sight of the newest addition to the selection of instruments and balked, digging in his heels and trying to pull his hand free from his brother's grasp. "Oh hell no. I am not going up there."

"Well I can't play it alone, now can I?" Shiro grinned over his shoulder, tightening his grip to keep the smaller paladin from escaping as he continued to pull him through the crowd.

"Shiro! I haven't played since that class ended!"

"So? I guarantee you, nobody here knows what any Human music is supposed to sound like, so no one will know if you mess up."

Keith continued to struggle in the black paladin's grip, more out of principle than any real hope of actually getting away. "Where the hell did you even find an o-daiko out here anyway?" He demanded, eyes locked on the massive double-headed drum, gleaming and smooth where it rested on tall supports. Seriously, where the fuck had that even come from?

"The H'ress." Shiro explained as they reached the stage, letting go of Keith to pick up one of the sets bachi sticks. "Apparently they can make just about anything as long as they know the design of it, because their manufacturing process is basically 3D printing taken to the atomic level. So when I saw that everyone was welcome to take turns making music…"

"...You asked them to manufacture an o-daiko drum for you?" Keith gaped at the Japanese male, who nodded. He really shouldn't be surprised, when Shiro cut loose he really cut loose. It just happened so rarely that it always took the red paladin by surprise. He sighed, unable to keep protesting when the man looked so happy, a glimpse of the secretly fun-loving man he'd been before Kerberos. "...Fine. One song."

Shiro laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. "Fantastic. Let's go." He shucked his shirt off and Keith followed suit, not wanting to get the fabric all sweaty. He swung up onto the dais and took his position at the far end of the drum, shaking out his arms as they waited for the current set of musicians to finish.

Then the music ended and all eyes were on them, just two aliens of a species most of the beings here couldn't even name and one massive drum.

He took a deep breath as Shiro struck the first beat.

Then they were both moving, Keith following Shiro's lead just like they used to when the older had signed them up for a class on Taiko drumming years earlier back when they were still at the Garrison, ostensibly to help the younger improve his stamina and upper body strength but Keith always suspected there had been other motives that Shiro had never admitted to or discussed. The two had turned out to work naturally together, their sparring rhythms translating easily to the kata of the drums.

They started slow, finding their fingers after so long out of practice, and Keith was relieved to find the motions coming easily. Then they picked up the pace, rolling complex rhythms and heavy beats that the audience seemed to appreciate even if they weren't quite sure how to dance to them. Keith could feel the sweat rolling off his back and his heart pounding with exertion and exhilaration, his muscles burning like they did in a good training session. The two of them move seamlessly, their drum patterns meshing perfectly.

Before he knew it, they were done, fast crescendos and a powerful double-blow to each end of the drum bringing the piece to a close. Keith held his pose, chest heaving and blinking sweat out of his eyes as he became aware of the cheering aliens crowded around the dais.

At Shiro's prompting, he bowed a couple of times before jumping down from the dais-only to find himself unexpectedly nose-to-nose with a wide-eyed Lance.

Keith blinked in surprise, reaching up to swipe his sweaty hair back from his face. The blue paladin blushed profusely, making a faintly strangled noise that had the Korean raising an eyebrow. "You okay?"

Lance opened and closed his mouth a few times before he managed to find his voice. "Yes! Good! Never better!" He choked out, eyes flicking down to the red paladin's bare chest before pulling back up to his face. "You're...you were great." he stammered, face going even darker.

"Uh...thanks?" The sudden praise was as baffling as it was flustering, Keith turning away to grab his shirt in order to cover his own blush. He quickly pulled it on before glancing back at the other awkwardly. "I should…"

"Wait." A thin hand grasped his wrist before he could finish formulating the sentence. His gaze jerked up and met Lance's intensely blue eyes. "I, um...dance with me?" The Cuban gestured behind him to the dance floor, once again crowded with aliens swaying to something that might have passed for a waltz back on Earth.

Keith felt his cheeks flare hotly, remembering the grin on the other paladin's face as he danced and his own longing as he watched from the sideline. "...Yes." he said quickly, as much to forestall his own anxiety as to keep the taller teen from withdrawing his offer.

Lance looked startled. "Wait, really?" he sounded as though he couldn't believe Keith was actually agreeing.

"Yeah. Okay. Let's dance." He said, trying to sound more confident than he felt and not quite managing to look Lance in the eye.

The way Lance's face lit up made Keith's heart race in his chest, unable to tear his gaze away from the tanned male's joyous expression. He hadn't smiled like that at any of his earlier dance partners. He didn't even realize he'd been pulled away from the wall and into the open dancing area until suddenly there was a hand on his waist, the other being cupped gently off to one side. He froze, suddenly panicking.

"Ever danced a waltz before?" One brown eyebrow quirked upwards, but there was no mockery in the tone of the question. He quickly shook his head, reddening with embarrassment. Lance smiled reassuringly, bobbing his head. "Here. Put your other hand on my arm. Like this, okay?" He helped Keith place his arm, then positioned their feet. "When I step forward, you step back on the same side. When I step sideways, so do you. I'll make sure you don't run into anything. Got it?"

"I...think so?" He answered hesitantly.

Lance's grin widened. "Okay. Here we go!" He stepped forward, Keith stepped back, and then they were moving.

Keith wasn't sure if what they were doing could really be called dancing, giving the way he kept stumbling and tripping and his partner had to keep correcting his grip, but he couldn't bring himself to care, hyper-aware of Lance's hand on his and on his waist, of the very few inches between their chests and his own hand on the other's bicep, and of the smile on Lance's face, soft and joyful, that made his cheeks burn and his heart feel like it was trying to fly out of his chest, the pounding almost drowning out the music entirely.

They came to a stop as the song ended, frozen for a moment in the midst of the crowd.

Suddenly it was all too much, the noise, the closeness, Lance's smile. "I need a drink." Without giving Lance a chance to respond, Keith turned and bolted into the crowd, losing sight of the startled Cuban in an instant. He pushed his way between people without a thought for manners, only intent on getting away, finding some space and solitude. He burst out of the cafeteria and made a beeline for the hangar, for the sanctuary of Red's cockpit.

He stayed there, trying to meditate the image of Lance's smile and the feel of his hands out of his head, until the others finally returned to their Lions to make the short jump over to the Castle and their beds. As the other left their Lions once more, he saw the blue armored figure stop and take a long look back over his shoulder at Red, as though waiting for Keith.

Keith didn't leave Red's cockpit that night.

00000000000

Shiro sighed, looking from one end of the hangar, where Keith sat on Red's paw meditating silently, to the far end, where Lance and Hunk sat shoulder to shoulder, deep in discussion, and shook his head despairingly. The awkward tension between the pilots of the Red and Blue Lions was as obvious as the scar on his face, from the stubborn silence at breakfast that had Kurogane and Alejandro smirking knowingly at each other and Pidge and Hunk exchanging exasperated looks to the way they sat turned away from each other even at opposite ends of the hangar. He wasn't sure quite what had happened between losing sight of the two in the crowd on the dance floor last night and Keith actively avoiding Lance now, but he rather suspected it had to do with the fact that as long as he'd known him, the red paladin was about as good at vocalizing his feelings as a brick wall would be. Not that Lance was much better, he thought, snorting softly. The blue paladin's monologuing to the Yupper during the mission to rescue Slav several months ago had been an abrupt awakening for Shiro about taking his teammates at face value, a behaviour he'd been trying to correct ever since.

Hopefully they'd both manage to sort themselves out before this interfered with their ability to work as a team. Allura, either oblivious to the tension or more likely ignoring it, had announced over breakfast that morning that she would be joining Kurogane and Alejandro for their daily strategy session with Shiiar'keh in order to discuss having Voltron assist with future strikes against the Galra Empire, meaning it likely wouldn't be long before the paladins saw combat again. The last thing they needed was yet another factor working against them on top of everything else.

The sound of footsteps tapping across the floor toward him alerted him to Pidge's approach. The tiny green paladin flopped down beside him, crossing her legs and leaning back against one of Black's claws with a soft huff. "Idiots. They're both idiots." She muttered, gazing heavenward for help.

Shiro laughed. "Is that what they're talking about over there?" He gestured to Lance and Hunk and was rewarded with an irritated nod. "What exactly happened, anyway?"

She shrugged. "They were dancing, they both seemed to be having a good time, then Keith bolted. Lance can't figure out what he did wrong to make Keith upset. My money's on 'he didn't'."

The black paladin sighed again. "I'm not taking that bet. Keith gets scared when he has strong attachments to people, which is understandable given the way he grew up. And his two main conflict resolution strategies for things that make him nervous, afraid, or uncomfortable are 'fight it' or 'avoid it and hope it goes away'. Although I gotta say, the fact that he's going with the second one is a good sign, compared to how much they used to bicker. It means he doesn't want to push him away completely, just maintain the status quo."

"In other words, continue having them both pining hopelessly and choke us all with their painful obliviousness."

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Have I ever told you your little brother is an idiot?"

"Frequently, but for what it's worth I agree."

Pidge made a frustrated noise. "And Lance is completely oblivious to the fact that Keith clearly has it just as bad as he does. I mean, granted Keith usually expresses his opinion of things by either punching them or not, but you'd have to be blind to miss the way he looks at the boy."

"I don't think Lance actually expects people to be interested in him, though." Shiro mused, looking over at the blue and yellow paladins across the hangar. "So he doesn't see it even though it's painfully obvious."

"Hopeless." The small teen rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Moving on to things that can hopefully be resolved before the heat death of the universe, have you heard anything about getting your arm looked at?"

The older male nodded, looking down at where the purple-grey Galra metal was hidden by the black fabric of his suit. "Kurogane said the last of the specialists they contacted should be here tomorrow morning. They had to wait for one of them to finish major repairs on a damaged druid enhancement on another ship, but the others are all here."

Pidge raised an eyebrow, looking impressed. "Sounds like these guys know what they're doing, then. Deactivate the override if possible, replace the prosthetic if not?"

"That's the plan as I understand it, yeah. Although I'd prefer the former, I'm a little hesitant to have major surgery at the hands of aliens who have never seen a Human before, let alone know anything about their biology." Shiro shuddered involuntarily at the thought. The Druids hadn't known anything about him either, had poked and prodded at every opportunity as they tried to find out how such a small, fragile creature kept fighting, surviving, winning on the blood-soaked sands of the arena. Injuries were opportunities to them, gaping wounds windows into his flesh to be pulled apart for better viewing of the veins, muscles, organs, and bones beneath. He could still remember the feeling of thin fingers and cold metal tugging at the lacerated ribbons of his right arm, exposed nerves screaming at the touch and blood hot and sticky against his side-

"Shiro?"

He jerked, coming out of the memory with a wild gasp. Pidge was staring at him in concern, one hand hovering over his knee as she hesitated to touch him. Seeing his eyes refocus on her, she called again softly. "You with me, Shiro? Where are you?"

"Y-Yeah." He swallowed, his tongue feeling like sandpaper in his mouth. "I-I'm here. Hangar on the Long Wind." He could feel Black's concerned touch now, gently curling around his mind with a soothing purr.

"Good. That's right." She gave him a small, relieved smile. "Is it okay if I touch you?" At his shaky nod she put an arm around his waist, curling against his side. He let the contact ground him, painless touch that had been nowhere to be found during that agonizing year. He hated this, hated the way memories could just sweep him away sometimes until he didn't know where he was, hated that a fifteen year old who shouldn't have had anything to worry about except school and friends was so used to having to bring him out of them that she didn't even bat an eye.

They stayed like that for a while, listening to the faint rumble of the massive resistance ship in operation around them, until Shiro's heartrate had calmed and he no longer felt like he was about to break down screaming.

"...Thanks. Sorry."

"It's fine, Shiro, you know that." She smiled up at him, amber eyes bright. "Want me to come with you tomorrow when they look at your arm?"

He hesitated. "I don't want to…"

"If you're gonna finish that sentence with 'be a bother', don't, because you wouldn't be." Her eyes gleamed. "I would kill to get a look at the internal tech of your arm, seriously. Let me come."

He burst out into startled laughter. "That curiosity is gonna get you in trouble one day, Katie."

The ginger girl grinned shamelessly up at him. "You think I'm afraid of that? Curiosity and courage, Shiro. I'm well supplied with both."

"That you are." He ruffled her hair affectionately with his left hand, still leery of using his right until it had been looked at. "How you haven't unlocked that aspect yet, I have no idea."

She shrugged. "I'll get it eventually." She started. "Green says Allura and Shiiar'keh are here." She said, scrambling up to peer around Black's massive paw toward the door.

Shiro pulled himself upright as well, following Pidge when Allura's call of "Paladins!" summoned them to her for a meeting. The Altean princess seemed quite excited as the five joined her, and Shiro was relieved to see that Keith and Lance both seemed to be putting aside their own issues for the moment, listening attentively as she began to speak.

"In order to afford more opportunities for attuning yourselves to the aspects, as well as to continue fulfilling your duties as Paladins, we've come to the agreement that the five of you will participate in some of the Long Wind's strikes against the Empire. They are planning to make an assault today on a mining moon that supplies a significant percentage of the Empire's Almathium, a critical element in the construction of ion cannons. The versatility and durability of the Lions will provide the Long Wind's forces with a major advantage."

Shiiar'keh nodded, gesturing for them to follow. "Come with us to the planning hall, it is nearly time for briefing."

The planning hall turned out to be a large room that reminded Shiro of the old lecture theatres at the Garrison, with curved tiers of seating surrounding a central area that housed a holoprojector and a H'ress named Gra'shehn who was apparently in charge of combat strategy. The projector displayed a diagram of the moon they would be assaulting, large enough to be clearly visible to the myriad aliens crammed into the tiers in their navy-and-orange combat suits. The Voltron Paladins squeezed in at one end of the highest tier, drawing quite a few eyes with their bright white armor. Then Gra'shehn made a warbling sound and all eyes turned back to them.

The plan of attack was deceptively simple. Attack from the air by all squadrons, with the defenses destroyed from highest threat level to lowest according to the map. Once the air defenses dropped below a certain danger level the ground teams-and here Gra'shehn rattled off a list of names that meant nothing to Shiro but were obviously familiar to the ship's inhabitants judging by the nods of confirmation from one alien or another-would deploy. The Blue Paladin would assist a squadron designated Chal-fey, who were down their best long range member due to illness, and a Bytor on the far side of the room waved a surprised and pleased Lance over to her. The ground teams were to clear the sentries, drones, and soldiers before moving on to data recovery-Pidge was assigned to that team under a massive red lizard-like alien-and prisoner evacuation while the remaining squadrons provided air support and defense against any unexpected reinforcements. Once the base had been cleared and stripped of anything useful, the Long Wind and Castle of Lions would use their heavier armaments to raze the buildings and collapse the mines rather than leave useable infrastructure should the Galra return to the moon.

The entire briefing had the feel of a well-oiled machine, and it probably was, Shiro realized. He remembered the speed and ease with which the Long Wind had scrambled these same squadrons to their defense less than a week ago. This ship and others like it had been terrorizing the Empire for centuries. Before he knew it the warriors were being dismissed to prep their craft for combat, and he and the other paladins were making their way back to the hangar and their Lions to prep for battle.

"Everyone know where you're going and what you're doing?" He called as he powered up Black. The huge Lion roared eagerly, tail lashing.

"I'll be flying with the Chal-fey squadron." Lance answered promptly. "Their fighters are marked with pink and green feathers, and they'll be doing the ground assault on the secondary mine shaft."

"I'm assigned to the Helmus data retrieval team going after the main building." Pidge called. "Aquamarine diamonds and reserve only for air combat."

"Drawing fire from the main defensive towers for the front line squadrons." Hunk responded. "And passenger evacuation from the barracks."

"Fighting alongside the second line squadrons to take out the perimeter defenses and Empire air support at the hangars." Keith rattled off easily. "And rear-guarding the evac."

"And I'll also be helping the second line and rear guard." Shiro completed, pleased. It felt strange to be fighting alongside a fleet of other ships, even more so when they were split up to different areas, but Gra'shehn had put each of them in a position to use their strengths. Things would probably be a little rocky at first while they got used to working with the Long Wind's Hunters, but he was confident his team would settle in in no time. Ahead of them the hangar doors slid open and the Lions tensed restlessly, waiting on the command of their pilots.

They didn't have long to wait. When the signal came it was a single word broadcast over the coms, a traditional call to the hunt that was echoed from every ship. "H'ress'wr!"

The Voltron Lions launched out of their hangar as one, joining the steadily growing swarm of small craft forming up around the star-flecked hull of the much larger vessel. Blue split off one direction, Green another, Yellow a third, and Shiro sent Black diving after Red to take up position with a group already plunging toward the purple splotches of Galra buildings visible mottled grey-yellow surface of the small, rocky moon below.

Then the Galra fighters rose to meet them and there was no more time for conscious thought.

Black slashed and snarled, lashing out with cannons and claws as the pair tore a path through the enemy ships, the Long Wind's hunters delivering death with equal fervor. Red was an occasional streak in his vision, an afterimage of destruction as she shredded everything in her path. Then they were through, the majority of the base's aircraft falling back down as debris as various rebel squadrons chased down the survivors. Across the base Shiro could see smoke rising from the spires of defense towers, Yellow just visible against the sky as he drew fire from the last few guns.

He frowned. Something felt wrong. He called up Black's scanners, searching for any enemy groups that had missed their attention. While the Long Wind's forces were formidable, and backed by the Voltron Lions in this fight, it shouldn't have been over that quickly. His scanners showed no Empire ships in the immediate vicinity, only the ground teams landing and deploying to penetrate the buildings. But he couldn't shake his sense of unease.

A chirp from his coms was Keith hailing him. "That was too easy." The Red Paladin said firmly, cementing Shiro's own suspicions, and the chatter on the open lines said their allies felt much the same. His eyes scanned the skies.

A moment later his worst fears were confirmed as his screens lit up with the brilliant purple indicators of incoming Galra ships breaking cover from behind the gas giant around which the moon orbited. Lots of them. Shiro tightened his grip on the controls. "Alright, Black, time for round two."

000000000000000

"What in Altea's name are those battlecruisers doing here?!" Allura demanded as alarms sounded across the bridge of the Castle of Lions. Similar alarms could be heard through the open connection to the Long Wind's main deck, where the crew were desperately trying to assess the situation. With frantic fingers she and Coran called up and charged the main weapons that should not have been needed yet.

"I do not know, they should not have been!" Shiiar'keh snarled back. The H'ress sounded shaken, their four eyes scanning the holographic projection of the oncoming fleet. "Our scouts did not report any active fleets in this subsector!" The alien hissed an epithet that didn't translate. "Somehow they were expecting us."

"Could the Icebringers have been infiltrated as well?" This question she directed to Alejandro, piloting one of the Castle's defense drones with a grim expression on his face.

"Doubt it." He stated sharply, never looking away from his screen. "The Icebringers don't work the way the Blade does, with covert operatives. They send out scouts to track fleet movements and study targets. No direct contact with the Empire except when hunting."

The castle-ship shook as heavy fire battered the particle barrier, and it seemed as though for every ship shot out of the air, two more surged forward to fill the gap. Allura felt terror rising in her throat and suppressed it forcefully. "Shiiar'keh, we need Voltron. There's too many for the Long Wind and Castle of Lions to take out alone."

The H'ress nodded, turning away to converse rapidly with Gra'shehn. The latter flicked their tail and began to bark orders over the com lines to the teams on the ground. "Chal-fey, Helmus, get the paladins back to their Lions, all claws to the ice! All air squadrons, cover the Lions while they form Voltron! Ground teams, back in the air in case of retreat!"

"Particle barrier is at 12% and about to fail!" Coran's shout drew the Princess's attention back to her own bridge. Desperately she redirected power from other nonessential systems, trying to hold out just a little longer against the relentless barrage of enemy fire. The concentrated blast of an ion cannon hit them and the viewscreens flared blinding white for a moment, forcing her to close her eyes with a cry of pain. When she opened them again she found herself staring down the barrel of the ion cannon, a purple glow visible inside as it prepared to fire again on the now-unprotected Castle. With a surge of despair she braced herself for the inevitable.

It didn't come. Instead her eyes snapped open at Alejandro's whoop of relief to the sight of Voltron tearing a path of destruction through the Galra fleet, the battlecruiser about to fire on them already sliced open by the glowing sword. She sagged against her control columns for a moment, watching with numb relief as the Long Wind's squadrons followed Voltron into the thick of battle, letting the giant robot handle the most dangerous weapons and tearing apart what was left. With a shake of her head she forced herself to straighten. The battle was not yet over, and the Castle of Lions was still needed. With Coran helping her divert power as needed, they added the castle-ship's heavy cannons to the assault.

The tide turned, soon enough the Empire fleet was in tatters with two surviving cruisers in full retreat boosting for the distant stars as the Long Wind's squadrons regrouped around their home. Gra'shehn's tone was crisp as they snapped out new orders. "Resume ground operations as originally planned, but the Palakoth, Ro-vakth, and Taranot squadrons are to divert to the destroyed cruisers for data retrieval."

Shiiar'keh's dark eyes fixed Allura with a grim stare, the H'ress obviously just as perturbed as she was. "They knew we were coming. For the safety of all the packs, I intend to find out how."