If someone were to put Takashi Shirogane and Ryou Shirogane beside each other, the resemblance was so pronounced that people often assumed they were brothers by blood rather than cousins, even if they had grown up together when Ryou's father and mothers had taken in their recently-orphaned nephew at just nine years old. Despite the difference in their ages, the two looked very much alike, especially right now, with Ryou channelling his adoptive brother at his finals week worst. Colleen was greeted by bloodshot eyes and three days worth of stubble when she returned from her overnight scouting of the entrance to the caves depicted on the conspiracy board on the wall of Kogane's shack.
"Any progress?" She asked, dumping her backpack onto the couch and pulling a chair up to the rickety table, scattered with copies of the information on the board as well as copious notes in Ryou's scratchy handwriting.
"Not much." The younger huffed irritably, fisting a hand in his messy hair. When Colleen had called him three days earlier saying she had something he needed to see that had to do with the local archeological mystery he'd been chasing for years, and he needed to meet her at his brother's old shack by the Garrison, he'd been honestly skeptical, but he'd humored her because he knew Takashi thought highly of her and, the few times they'd met, she seemed like a practical woman with enough sense not to be easily fooled. Then he'd walked into the run-down building, caught sight of the photos on the wall, and nearly broken his leg tripping over a chair in his haste to get a closer look.
"Whatever these symbols are, they bear no resemblance whatsoever to any known language on Earth. I've seen a few of the symbols at other local sites, but nothing like this." He waved his other hand at the images of writing etched into the walls of the cave that he'd spent the last three days studying. "Did you find anything that Keith missed? His documentation looks pretty thorough, but without seeing the site myself…"
Colleen nodded, pouring herself a cup of cold coffee from the carafe on the table. "A hole in the floor of the cave. Easily big enough for someone to climb down. We'll need spelunking gear, I couldn't see how far it went." She sipped thoughtfully, staring at the board. "Other than that, though, no. He's got pictures of every single carving, and mapped out their placements really well."
Ryou thumbed aimlessly through a stack of pictures, copies of the star diagrams. "For an amateur archeologist, he did a good job. I can't find any holes in his interpretations either. The images definitely seem to depict a portal of some sort, producing a blue lion and a warrior. The warrior disappears, and the lion sleeps. Eventually, five figures approach-that's where the star diagrams come in, apparently they approach on that day-and the lion wakes and returns to the stars."
"Helpful." Colleen commented over her mug.
"Tell me about it." He groaned, slumping back in the chair and glaring at the table. "There's nothing to indicate what any of it might mean, either. Nothing that might represent natural disasters, eclipses-unless that's what the portal represents-wars, or political upheaval. Just the lion, the warrior, and the five figures, plus the star charts that indicate a date just over a year ago." From an archeological perspective, the lack of context was as unusual as it was frustrating. "I can't help but wonder if the Garrison is having more luck with these than I am."
Across the table, Colleen stiffened, and Ryou belatedly remembered their conversation months earlier, about missing cadets and military cover ups, that had led to him suggesting this shack in the first place as somewhere she might find his brother's ex-cadet friend. "You believe the Garrison knows about the cave?" she asked sharply.
"Pretty sure, yeah. Remember, this branch was only set up about 10 years ago. They spent years arguing over land rights for that patch of desert, which includes the area with the cave. Once they got it, though, one of the first things they did was go scouting around for archeologists for a private project. I wasn't approached-too new to the field-but word gets around among scientists. Especially about military organizations waving around high-paying contracts full of NDAs. I don't know who they ended up getting, but I have to assume they did find someone."
Colleen pursed her lips and pulled out a notebook, flipping it open and making rapid notations in legal shorthand. "So they would have been anticipating some sort of event that night, if they interpreted the star charts. Possible cause for the Z9?" She speculated aloud, talking more to herself than to Ryou, who simply shrugged and topped up his coffee. "We should take a look at whatever's down that hole. Chances are the Garrison already has, but it may give us more information about what they might have been preparing for that night."
"I'll get the gear ready." He agreed, pushing himself to his feet and heading for the couch.
"This hole is relatively new." Ryou observed, crouching next to the opening and examining the unweathered edges of the stone. "Probably not much more than a year. Given how long Keith seems to have been gone, it probably wasn't here when he was documenting the cave."
Colleen paused in securing their climbing ropes around a smooth rock outcropping. "A year, huh? Funny how that number keeps popping up." She scowled, giving the rope a last tug to tighten the knot before pulling on her helmet over her short blonde hair. Even if she had been a believer in coincidences, they were well past 'enemy action' at this point.
Pushing himself to his feet, Ryou pushed his helmet on as well. "You got me there. Missing cadets, an unexplained military lockdown, ancient cave drawings, a hole where there didn't used to be one, the same time frame cropping up over and over...I feel like I'm in a mystery story. The question is, is it Scooby Doo or Dan Brown? Because, you know, there's a big difference there, when it comes to our chances of survival." Double-checking his harness, he moved back to the edge of the hole. "Ready to go, Velma?" He joked.
"Born ready, Shaggy." Colleen taunted back. "Lead the way." As eager as she was to see what was down there, Ryou was by far the more experienced cave diver no matter how adventurous she'd been in her teenage years, so she monitored the ropes and pulleys while he rappelled down into the darkness. Soon even the glow of his headlamp was lost to view, leaving her with only the mysterious drawings and the faint light of the afternoon sun for company.
Finally she felt three sharp tugs on the rope in her hands, the signal for her to go ahead and follow him down. Slipping over the edge, she made her way down the surprisingly smooth chute, listening to the sound of water far below get louder with each drop. Before she knew it she was rappelling alongside an underground stream that was just a few degrees of slope shy of being a waterfall, the spray soaking her clothes and filling the air with a slight mist. With a final splash she hit bottom in a waist-deep pool and turned to accept Ryou's hand to pull herself out. The younger man looked even more excited than he had the day he arrived at the shack and saw the photos on the conspiracy board.
"This place is incredible!" He exclaimed without preamble, pulling her toward the high-powered lantern sitting on the floor of the cavern a short distance away, casting yellow light over the rocky walls. "I've never seen anything like it! The language is like nothing I've ever seen, it bears no resemblance to any known language on the planet, even though it's clearly far more developed than anything that should have existed at the time-going on the assumption this site predates other blue lion sites, I mean, which I think is most likely, and those sites are all at least 9000 years old…" He continued rambling as they came to a stop by the lantern and he gestured around them at the cave.
Colleen followed his gesture and her jaw dropped. The cavern was huge, one wall a sloped pile of rubble as though part of the ceiling had collapsed. Under their feet, a massive circular engraving that had to be sixty feet across spread out around them, the thick lines cut cleanly into the stone and crawling up massive slabs at three points on the edges of the circle. And beyond that, writing in an elegant, curling script covered a large portion of the wall in straight, clean lines like a manuscript page written in rock, complete with colourful pictographic representations in the margins.
"Holy shit." She breathed, letting out a shaky laugh. "Ryou, I think we're gonna need a lot more coffee."
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The change in brightness had Coran sitting up and stretching even before the lights had fully reached their day shift illumination levels, a habit left over from his days as a soldier that Alfor and Linnata had never managed to cure him of, much to their frequent annoyance in the mornings. An equally habitual quick glance about him confirmed that yes, he was still in the same place he'd fallen asleep in, and showed that he was, for possibly the first time in the last cycle, the first one awake.
With the ease of long practice he disentangled himself from the young Princess's wayward limbs and got to his feet without disturbing either her or Kurogane, whose back had been pressed up against him as he spooned protectively around Alejandro. Further around the circle, he could see Hunk snoring softly as he lay back-to-back with Lance, whose legs were tangled with Keith's in a way that was sure to result in lost circulation for both of them and whose arm was being clung to where it was flung across the red paladin's chest. Coran chuckled,twirling his moustache thoughtfully as he glanced back and forth between the younger pair and their older counterparts. Maybe they'd get there sooner than they realized.
In the last section of the circle he could see the two Holts and Shiro, all deeply asleep. The green paladin was pressed tightly to her brother's chest, the elder holding her tightly, and the black paladin was a protective wall curled around Matt's back. But not touching it, Coran realized with a frown. He'd seen the guilt in the eldest paladin's dark eyes yesterday every time he looked at his friend, despite the absence of any animosity on the part of the younger male. Hopefully they would find time to sit down and have a long talk in private, to clear the air between them. Those two had suffered enough without adding a self-made rift on top of everything else.
Surveying the group one last time, the Altean's eyes lit up. Moving silently, he went to the couch and retrieved a discarded data tablet. Holding it up, he captured several pictures of the sleepers, from several different angles, taking care to get close-ups of both of the red-blue pairs and the cuddled siblings. Moments like this, with everyone temporarily at peace, were to be treasured and the memory of them hoarded against darker times ahead.
Satisfied, he returned the tablet to the couch and left the room, intent on attempting one of Hunk's recipes-the things that boy could do with standard rations and a handful of ingredients was absolutely incredible!-before the others awoke for breakfast.
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The smell of pancakes and the sound of soft whispers and giggles woke Lance from a sound sleep, making him scrunch his face in an annoyed frown without opening his eyes. He'd been having such a good dream, too! Kinda weird, but good, and a nice change from the nightmares. The whole team had been there, and nothing bad had happened at all. A fresh wave of pancake-smell wafted into his nose, and Lance tried to sit up.
Tried being the operative word. He only got about halfway before whatever was pinning his arm pulled him back down, and his legs didn't seem to want to cooperate either. Lance hit the pillows again with a loud protest that turned the giggles into raucous laughter, and his eyes flew open as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Had Zelia duct taped him to the bed again?
Instead of a giggling sister, the blue paladin found himself nose-to-nose with Keith and being treated to an excellent view of the Korean's unfairly pretty dark purple eyes and long black eyelashes, which were just blinking open in sleepy confusion, and the wayward strands of silky hair, mussed from sleep, trailing across the pale skin of the other boy's cheeks.
Lance masterfully fought down the urge to gently brush the soft black hair back out of the way, but failed entirely at suppressing the massive blush that absolutely burned across his entire face or the strangled noise that erupted from his throat that his family back on earth would have rightfully interpreted as 'holy shit I am way too bisexual for this.'
This only served to intensify the laughter, and his head jerked around until he spotted the rest of the team, all of them, the dirty traitors, watching him and Keith and laughing. Beside him, the red paladin made a confused noise and finally relinquished the death grip on Lance's arm that had kept him from sitting up before. Still blushing-god, he could even feel it in his ears-the lanky teen quickly righted himself and extricated his legs from the other paladin's, hissing and massaging them carefully when he felt the tingle of circulation slowly returning.
"Morning, sleepyheads." Shiro greeted them, looking far, far too pleased about Lance's mortification. He waved a plate of lime green pancakes at them, shoving a forkful in his mouth. "Breakfast?"
"You all suck." Lance declared flatly, reaching for a plate and scooping several pancakes onto it. Looking around, he grabbed the bottle of not-syrup Hunk had stockpiled months ago and thoroughly drowned his food in the pale pink stuff. "Jerks, all of you."
Hunk chuckled. "Come on, man, none of us were gonna wake you up out of the first nightmare-free sleep you've had in like a week and a half." At Lance's deadpan glare, he simply grinned mischievously. "Watching you and Keith cuddle in your sleep was just a bonus."
The blue paladin huffed, shoving a large forkful of fluffy pastry in his mouth and pointedly not looking at Keith as the other joined them, yawning and stretching before accepting his own plateful of pancakes from Kurogane. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Hunk was right about this being the first good night's sleep he'd had in ages. Rather than argue the point, he looked around at the others. Hunk had resumed talking to Coran about the Altean's successful efforts with the pancakes, giving him more tips and pointers, and Pidge was grinning at Matt's blissful expression as he savoured the taste of earth-like food. Even Alejandro and Kurogane looked happier than he'd ever seen them, engaged in quiet conversation over their food, and as he watched his future self pressed a soft kiss to the other's cheek, drawing a soft blush. Lance sighed, letting his annoyance go and concentrating on his breakfast. It was hard to stay mad when everyone around him was so happy for once. In the back of his head, Blue purred softly.
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As the Long Wind's star map burst to life in the huge planning room, Pidge's jaw dropped. She had always found the Castle's map impressive, but this...galaxies spread out around them in every direction, tiny sections colour coded and marked with tags in alien script whose meaning she could only guess at. Even as she watched, Shiiar'keh growled rapid commands, apparently importing updated data on Empire troop movements collected by Icebringer scouts from dozens of different ships.
When Allura had requested access to the resistance's data on troop dispositions so they could begin planning a strategy to bring down the Empire, the H'ress had done them one better. All around them were the Long Wind's various tactical and strategic specialists, ranging from Gra'shehn and Shiiar'keh themselves to a massive Galra that reminded her of Antok to an aquatic alien that faintly resembled an otter resting four of their eight elbows on the edge of a water-filled access tank off to one side.
"The scouts report considerable unscheduled troop movements over the last several rotations. Newly-weakened areas are indicated in green, newly-strengthened in red." Shiiar'keh was explaining as the relevant sections of the map glowed a brighter shade for easy locating.
A Bytor across the room crossed her arms, frowning. "Any correlation in the affected areas?"
Gra'shehn nodded, curved claws reaching into the hologram to touch several of the highlighted points. "All the Almathium mines have had their defenses strengthened considerably. At this point we don't know if that is in response to our attack on the 12-P3-Y mine, or if the unexpected strength was part of these movements rather than anticipation of our attack."
"Either way, it will make it significantly more difficult to reduce their supplies of Almathium." Allura said grimly, narrowing her eyes at the indicated locations. "I had hoped to cripple their ability to power the ion cannons as a starting point, but if that's not going to be an option…"
Matt limped forward, staring at the star map intently. "Maybe it is…" Pidge blinked. Was it just her or was there a hint of respect in the way heads instantly turned to listen to her brother? "Shiiar'keh, how is the Almathium transported after it's mined? Where does it go?"
The H'ress blinked two of their eyes slowly, then turned to the charts. A few keystrokes lit up four points in blue. "Druid wormholes to refineries at these points. After that it is distributed to shipyards in several twelves of galaxies for incorporation into the cannons."
Matt was still staring consideringly at the map, and Coran stepped forward to put a hand on his shoulder. "Care to share your thoughts, lad?" The others were regarding him expectantly as well, making her brother blush as he realized it.
"Well, I was thinking…" He began hesitantly, until Shiiar'keh motioned for him to continue. "An army needs two things, really. Leadership, and resources. You could have the best leader in the universe and they won't be able to do a thing without the right resources. And you all the resources in the world won't save an army with an inept leader. Our end goal is to remove the leadership of the Empire, right?"
"That is the objective, yes." Allura agreed, brows furrowing. Beside her, Coran looked impressed by his words.
"But we can't do that yet. They're too well-protected. So we need to reduce the effectiveness of their army, and that means going after their resources."
Hunk frowned. "The Almathium's too well-protected now, isn't it? We can't go after it."
Matt shook his head, grinning. As he talked, he became more animated, gesturing with his hands. It reminded Pidge of how he'd been before Kerberos, always eager to talk about anything he found interesting. She'd seen him unintentionally captivate entire study groups with his lectures on the topic at hand, voice ringing out clearly through the room. "I'm not just talking about Almathium. There's a lot of different types of resources, all of them crucial in their own ways. Manpower. Transportation. Infrastructure. Materials. Food. Cripple one, you cripple the entire system."
Shiro stepped forward, eyes wide as he gazed up at the map. "Of course. And once the Empire's been crippled, it'll be that much easier to go after Haggar, Lotor, and Zarkon."
"Exactly." The elder Holt beamed up at his friend. "Look at that. Over two dozen heavily defended Almathium mines, but they all come together at just four refineries. They'll still be heavily defended, but it's fewer targets to attack. And the stuff's transported by druid wormhole because of its importance, even though most of the Empire's other supplies move by standard hyperdrive. That's another resource choke point we should think about going after."
"Whoa whoa whoa. You want us to attack the druids?" Lance exclaimed, going pale. "Do I need to explain to you why that is a very, very bad idea?"
Matt shook his head. "I know it's dangerous. But the druids constitute one of the most critical resources in the entire Empire, and it's not because they're dangerous in a fight. They're critical as transportation."
"Wormholes." Someone breathed.
"Right." The ginger gestured to the refineries again. "Without wormholes, cargo and troops are both limited to standard hyperdrive. No calling in emergency reinforcements mid-fight. No moving troops quickly to defend certain resources. Disruption of patrol lines as ships can't quickly go to centralized depots for repairs or resupplies and then return to their posts. Loss of tactical options. Initial disruption of supply lines for anything important enough to be shipped by wormhole, like the Almathium. The repercussions are endless."
There was a stunned silence as everyone considered his words. Pidge looked up at her brother in shock. She'd always known he had a quick mind and razor-sharp intelligence-they were siblings, after all-but she hadn't realized exactly how versatile it was. He was a good problem solver, and now that they'd turned him loose on the problem of how to defeat the Galra Empire, well...she glanced over at an equally shocked Alejandro and Kurogane and stiffened in realization. Of course Matt would decide the druids were a critical target. He'd done it before, hadn't he? The other timeline's Matt had made his last act a strike against the druids, an attempt to cripple a valuable resource in order to help the resistance.
Shiiar'keh stepped forward, barking out commands to the map. "Computer, indicate known locations of Empire druids, coded by size of group. Display core statistics of associated ships and planets." The red, green, and blue highlighting of the previous conversation vanished, replaced by a rainbow of dots scattered amongst the stars and labelled with small tags of information.
"Difficult." Another H'ress growled. "Very difficult. But the risk-reward balance is favourable." They looked over at Matt. "There are too many targets to hit simultaneously. How do we prevent them from protecting their druids the way they did the Almathium?"
"That's easy, we just gotta lay some false patterns overtop." Pidge said immediately, reddening as several sets of eyes turned toward her instead. She cleared her throat and continued. "It means we need to disguise what we're doing and make it look like we're doing something else. When we go after the druids, we should also do something else with the same mission, and make that look like our real target. The druids will be afterthoughts, casualties in the fight. We didn't set out to kill them, they just happened to get in our way." She grinned. Sneakiness and covert operation were one of her specialties. "We also need to run missions against targets that don't have druids, to correspond to the pattern of false objectives in the targets that do."
Shiro nodded thoughtfully, considering the rainbow of colour-coded stars. "Prisoner rescues would probably be easiest, since we can't be sure in advance what else is likely to be on each ship otherwise without endangering the Blade by asking for too much privileged information. And it'll make it less obvious that we're changing tactics, since we were doing that already."
"We'll need to coordinate with other packs to make our strikes." Shiiar'keh mused, pulling open the data tags on several of the lights to reveal writing in angular H'ress'wr symbols. "Many of them are stationed on command vessels amidst sector fleets that they are responsible for transporting."
"Randomized strikes will be optimal, to avoid patterns that can be predicted." The otter suggested, pushing themselves up against the edge of the tank to see better, his tail thrashing the water.
Suggestions and strategies flew thick and fast across the room. Flaws were found and ideas modified to patch vulnerabilities. Others were combined, pulled apart, mixed again in different ways. Pidge couldn't help but be surprised at how different the whole set-up was from how Humans would have gone about it. On Earth, only a few people would have been in charge of putting together the strategy that would guide thousands or even millions. Here, everyone was free to contribute and their ideas were taken into consideration, although she did notice that some individuals were given attention more immediately when they spoke. The aquatic alien was deferred to for fighter-ship strategies, the large Galra for ideas on the ground penetration of Empire ships. Shiiar'keh, Gra'shehn, and, oddly, Matt seemed to receive the most pronounced level of respect from the others in the room, and she made a note to ask Alejandro and Kurogane later about how hierarchy worked amongst the Icebringers.
Looking around, she spotted the two over by the wall, mostly silent as they watched the chaotic discussion. To her surprise, they both looked oddly emotional, Alejandro tucked under Kurogane's arm and the taller leaning his head against the other's. Frowning in concern, she cast one more protective glance at Matt, engaged in an animated discussion of drone-to-soldier ratios with Shiro and a metallic humanoid, before slipping through the crowd toward them. "You guys okay?" She asked quietly, settling against the wall beside Alejandro.
They both startled, pulling apart slightly as they looked over at her in surprise. "...yeah." Alejandro said slowly, lifting his head to look at the star map overhead, gaze fixed on some distant point. "It's just...a lot to take in, y'know?"
"I...what? The fact that we're going to kick Empire ass?" Pidge asked uncertainly. Lance's wildly veering trains of thought, and by extension Alejandro's, had always given her difficulties, especially when they involved emotions and social interactions rather than technology or even strategy. "Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to."
Kurogane chuckled, tactfully ignoring the redness in her cheeks. "'S fine, Pidge. Holt never got the hang of figuring out his non-sequiturs either."
"You were close, though." Alejandro gave the green paladin a fond smile that eased her embarrassment somewhat. "I just meant...less than a twelve of rotations ago, there was nothing left. No family, no home, no hope. It was over. And now…" He took a deep breath, eyes suspiciously wet. "We have a home. We have a family again." He directed a smile at an oblivious Lance that was so heavy with gratitude she had to look away. "And now there's a plan, a strategy, that might make all the difference. We could actually win this." The tall man's voice shook with emotion, and she realized exactly how much that victory would mean to him.
For her, and for the other paladins, winning the war meant safety for their families. It meant people helped, evil stopped, and for her and Shiro and Matt, payback for the pain they'd suffered and the death of her father. For Coran and Allura, as well as for the Icebringers, it was vengeance for the deaths of millions and the destruction of a world, a culture, a home. But for Kurogane and Alejandro, it was even more than that. For them it was trillions of lives saved on worlds they knew by name, endless suffering averted that they hadn't been able to prevent, and, most of all, the ghosts of all those they'd lost finally laid to rest. Only once the war was over, with Haggar, Zarkon, Lotor, and all they'd done finally ended, only then would the last two paladins of a doomed future be able to lay down their burdens and truly mourn their dead.
"There's no 'might' or 'could' about it." Pidge declared firmly, reaching up to poke Alejandro's cheek. Startled, the former blue paladin looked down at her, eyes wide. "This strategy will make a difference, and we will win this. It's going to go differently this time around, just you watch. We'll stop Lotor, stop Haggar, finish taking out Zarkon, and take apart the entire Galra Empire without losing anyone." Staring up at him for a moment, she abruptly threw her arms around both of them in a hug, drawing a surprised noise from Kurogane before he slowly put a hand on her shoulder. "Everyone you lost, their sacrifices aren't going to be in vain. All that pain, it led to here, right? To a place where you can make sure everyone makes it through this."
She felt Kurogane's hesitation through the stiffness of his body. "Your dad…"
"Was not your fault. Dad was...he didn't even make it through the first year, Matt says. Shiro was still in captivity, and none of us were paladins yet. There's nothing you could have done." Swallowing hard and blinking back the tears that always pricked at her eyes when she thought of her father, she gave Kurogane a watery smile. "I forgive you." Then, thinking for a moment of her alternate self, who had never seen any of her family again, "we forgive you."
The man let out a strangled noise before Pidge found herself abruptly engulfed in a tight embrace, his face buried in her hair and his body trembling. Awkwardly she patted his back, hearing Alejandro murmuring soft reassurances and a quiet 'I told you' that made her feel a surge of relief for her decision to come and talk to the two. These two had enough weight on their shoulders without her adding to it with her temper.
Pulling back, she grabbed for both their hands. "Come on, you two know more about how Empire fleets fight than almost anyone here. You need to be part of this planning session."