Matt's anxious pacing was brought to an abrupt halt as he collided with Shiro's chest. Before he could pull away, strong arms wrapped around him to hold him close. "Matt, calm down. You're going to wear a hole in the floor, wreck your knee, or both. And Katie will kick both of our butts if I let you hurt yourself."
"Just so long as she can kick our butts." Matt grumbled quietly, but allowed his boyfriend to lead him over to the rumpled pile of blankets and pillows on the floor near her pod. The taller man dropped down to sit cross-legged, but before the ginger could join him he was tugged off his feet with a yelp of surprise and into the other man's lap. He could feel his cheeks burning and crossed his arms in mock indignation at the snickers from Lance and Alejandro as they looked up from their card game even as Shiro's chin rested on top of his head. "Rude, Takashi."
The black paladin simply laughed and placed a kiss in his messy hair. "As your boyfriend, it's my job to keep you from wearing out your leg with your pacing and in doing so, protect you from the wrath of overprotective sisters and packmates." He said cheerfully.
"Takashi, I am twenty-three years old, I do not need to be mother-henned by you. You've been talking to Xel, haven't you?"
"No, I've been talking to Coran, who says you keep waking up to check the pod status pretty much hourly during the night." Matt shot a furious look at the unrepentant Altean. Traitor.
He let out an irritated noise. "I'm fine, honestly. You know I don't need a lot of sleep, so-"
"Matt." Oh vrekt. That was Takashi's 'I care about and I'm just worried for you' voice that was totally unfair because it never, ever failed to make Matt melt and forget why he'd been so worked up in the first place. Muscular arms, one flesh and one metal, tightened around him. "She's going to be okay, Matt. Really. Both you and Coran agree that according to the pod's readings she's nearly healed, and Hunk says her lifesigns are at the same strength as everyone else's now."
Matt deflated with a sigh, slumping back against the firm chest behind him. "I know that." He said quietly, looking up at the cryo-replenisher where Katie still floated serenely. If it hadn't been for the bloody streaks that still patterned her skin and armor and the pink newness of the large scar that showed through the hole in her undersuit, she could simply have been sleeping. "I do. But until she's out and safe in my arms, it's not...it doesn't feel real until I can touch her. You know?"
"I know." Fingers laced with his own, and he took a deep breath. "Just a few more hours to go."
0000000000
The pain seemed to vanish between one breath and the next, along with the numbness in her extremities, the tingling in her right hand, and the firm grip on her left. Instead there was a sense of coolness and floating that lasted just long enough for her to process the change before there was a soft whooshing noise all around her and she was tumbling forward into gentle arms that caught and supported her easily when her legs were late in responding to the task and didn't seem up to the job anyway.
"Easy, Pidge, I've got you. Just take your time."
Shiro. That was Shiro's voice. But Shiro wasn't supposed to be with her, just Keith. Had he come back for them? Her eyes flickered open and she immediately squinted in the bright lights that had replaced the darkness of the maintenance closet she'd been in. A wave of confusion and disorientation swept over her and she tightened her grip on Shiro's arms. "Where…?" She faltered uncertainly.
"On the Castle, Pidge. You just came out of a healing pod." Her leader's voice was steady and soothing. Castle. Healing pod. That made sense. She'd been hurting and scared and everything was fading, and now she wasn't. Her muscles didn't seem to want to cooperate fully just yet, but that was normal after being in a pod, she'd been told. She remembered that much.
As her eyes adjusted, she recognized Shiro's concerned face peering down at her, and Matt hovering anxiously by his shoulder. Her brother's face lit up with relief the moment he saw her gaze focusing on him. "Come on, Katiebug. Let's get you cleaned up." He said gently, reaching to cup her cheek with one careful hand.
Cleaned up? She glanced down at herself and blanched. Her white-and-green armor was painted patchily with dried blood, as was her skin in places where it was exposed by the holes in the undersuit. She quickly averted her gaze and swallowed hard. Her memory was still a little shaky, but there was no questioning the implications of that much blood on her clothes and body. It was a wonder there'd been any left inside her.
Still unsteady on her feet, Pidge allowed the two men to guide her over to a small side room that turned out to be a bathroom, where Allura waited with a bucket of warm water and a neatly-folded set of clean clothes. "It's good to have you back with us, Pidge." She said softly as the green paladin settled onto a bench that seemed to be there for things like this. She managed a shaky nod as Shiro slipped out of the room to give her more privacy. But she couldn't help but be relieved that Matt stayed, his presence soothing the lingering fear from before the pod that she couldn't quite shake off as he set to work on stripping off her armor.
Something clattered to the floor when he pulled off her breastplate and Pidge jumped, looking down. A data tablet, the connecting cable still attached. That was the one she'd been using on the mission, wasn't it? Why was it still here? Shouldn't they have grabbed it before they put her into the healing pod?
Unless...there hadn't been time.
She'd been put into the pod in her armor instead of a medsuit, with blood on her face and in her hair judging by Allura's gentle attentions with the soft wet cloth in her hand. They hadn't even grabbed the tablet from its hiding place. Apparently even the few seconds it would have taken to do that had been deemed too much of a delay. Combine those with her memories from before, and the scar she could now see through the hole in her suit...
The realization hit her hard, and her eyes went wide. "I almost didn't make it, did I?" She whispered hesitantly, one unsteady hand coming up to cover the site of the injury. She could feel the wide ridge of scar tissue even through her gloves, a band of hard, discoloured flesh almost three inches across in places. She remembered the burning agony of it, and the warmth of her own blood under her hand, and felt sick to her stomach, dread crawling back into her chest.
The movements of the other two stilled for a moment at her words. Then, abruptly, she found herself crushed to her brother's chest as he hugged her tightly. "You did make it, though. That's what matters." His voice was rough, muffled by her hair, and she could feel his hands shaking against her. "You made it and you're safe and you're alright." Pidge could tell, though, from the way he clutched at her, how desperately afraid he must have been, and that was that. Her own remembered terror and despair surged back up her throat like a tidal wave and she abruptly burst into tears.
She clung to Matt with all her strength, sobbing into his shirt, and let herself be rocked and held and reassured that she was safe, that she was okay now, that he had her. Her cries were equal parts the fear that was still so fresh in her mind and desperate relief that she had, apparently, been rescued when it seemed impossible. After being in a healing pod her body wasn't going to go into shock, but emotionally was another story entirely when for her the whole event seemed to have taken place only minutes earlier.
Eventually, though, the tears tapered off to sniffles and hiccups, and she freed one hand to swipe at her running nose with the back of her glove. Matt's hold didn't lessen any, however, and Pidge realized that he was crying as well even as he rocked her and murmured apologies into her hair. "I'm sorry, Katie, I'm so sorry. I should have been there to protect you. I'm sorry."
"'S not your fault." She croaked, then cleared her throat and tried again. "Didn't know this would happen."
He pulled back slightly, gazing down at her with red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. "Doesn't matter." He said firmly. "I should have been there, I'm your brother." His tone was raw with guilt.
"So's Keith, and there was nothing he could do." Pidge remembered the desperation and fear in the red paladin's voice, the atmosphere of utter helplessness that seemed to fill the small, dark room. In an attempt to avoid thinking about it and get her emotions back under control she pushed away to sit up properly, accepting a wad of tissue from Allura to blow her nose with. "Thanks."
"He got you out. Him and Hunk." Matt shifted to sit beside her on the bench, keeping an arm around her protectively and blowing his own nose with the other hand.
That made her look up in surprise. "Hunk came for us? How did he know? How did he even find us?"
Allura chuckled, crouching down to start unfastening Pidge's leg armor. "Yes, he was close enough that he heard Keith calling through the com interference, and when he got closer he was able to hear him just fine. Hunk was so determined to get to you in time he unlocked an aspect that let him sense where you were." She dropped the right boot into a basket with the breastplate, cuisse, and greave. "Other leg, please, Pidge."
The green paladin held out her other leg obediently, wiping the drying tears and snot from her face with a cloth. "A new one? Which one was it?"
"His personality trait, patience and understanding." Matt said, taking her free arm and starting to strip the stained armor from it as well. "And you probably don't remember, since Keith said it happened when you were passing out, but you got yours as well."
She froze, wide-eyed. "Courage and curiosity?" She questioned uncertainly. At her brother's nod, she frowned, clutching the cloth tightly in her fist. "But that...it doesn't make any sense. Why then? I was...I wasn't being brave then. All I could do was lie there and cry." It hurt to admit how weak and helpless she'd been, but confusion outweighed shame and she knew neither Matt nor Allura would make fun of her. Matt's arm tightened around her at the admission, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head that was probably intended to reassure himself as much as comfort her.
"We aren't sure." Allura admitted, dropping the last vambrace into the basket and neatly kicking it out of the way. "Perhaps Malrento can shed some light on it later. We might as well inquire while we're waiting for news from the scouts. For now, though, you've had quite an ordeal and our friends are waiting for you." She nodded over her shoulder toward the door with a small smile. "Let's get that bodysuit off."
"What's left of it, anyway." Matt chuckled, helping her unzip. Glancing down, Pidge found herself letting out a small watery giggle of agreement. There was a wide rip in the left side where the blaster had got her, exposing the new scar. And a large rectangle had been cut from the midsection, exposing her belly button. With so many extra holes to make the shaped fabric misbehave, it took both Matt and Allura to help her shimmy out of the suit and leave her standing in her underwear.
The amount of dried blood that had soaked her side under the suit was frankly terrifying to look at and made her feel dizzy all over again. She quickly averted her gaze and locked eyes with her brother, who looked as sick as she felt. "I'm okay, Matt. I'm fine." She told him quietly, and he swallowed hard and nodded, his hand tightening involuntarily where it rested on her shoulder and bracing them both while Allura wiped the blood away with the cloth.
"All done." Allura pronounced proudly, passing her a soft, fluffy towel. Pidge quickly dried herself off, shivering as the fabric brushed over the sensitive new scar tissue, then accepted the stack of folded clothing from Matt. By the time she was dressed, she felt more or less back to her usual self, so long as she didn't think too hard about things. But she could feel the memories lurking, and didn't doubt for a second that she'd be having nightmares for a while. Right now, though, she could distract herself. Allura said the others were waiting to see her.
The moment she stepped out of the bathroom, she found herself swept up into a rib-crackingly tight hug, her feet dangling above the floor. A startled yelp came out as more of a wheeze as the wind was knocked right out of her.
"Aw, man, Pidge, I'm so glad you're okay!" Hunk's voice was loud in her ear, palpable relief in his tone. While Pidge appreciated the enthusiastic welcome-Hunk always gave the best hugs-this was overdoing it just a little.
"Can't breathe!" she gasped out, and the yellow paladin hastily loosened his grip with an apology, allowing her to suck in a lungful of much-needed air. "Let's not put me straight back in a pod, okay?" Judging by the pained look on his face, he didn't appreciate the joke, and she sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck to return the hug. "Sorry. I'm okay, Hunk, really. Matt and Allura said you're the one who got Keith and me out. Thanks for that."
His arms tightened around her again, although not to the same degree as before. "Pidge, you're like a sister to me. You don't ever have to thank me for stuff like that. It's what family does."
She felt her cheeks warm and hid her face in the older teen's broad shoulder. It was nice to know she wasn't the only one who'd started to see their fellow paladins as a surrogate family. "Well, thanks for being an awesome brother, then." She declared into his shirt.
"Aw, Pidge…" The flustered yellow paladin gave her one more squeeze before setting her down.
Her feet had barely touched the ground when she was picked up again, and she had a half-second to think that this was hardly a dignified way to treat a fifteen-year-old, let alone a paladin of Voltron, before she recognized Shiro's warm embrace as he hugged her tightly. "You scared the hell out of us, kiddo." He said quietly.
"...Sorry." Pidge squeezed as tight as she could, trying to wordlessly reassure him that she was fully recovered. He must have realized her intent, because he laughed softly and set her back on her feet with an affectionate ruffle of her hair.
From there she was passed around (thankfully not quite literally, her feet remaining on the ground) to Allura, who squeezed her gently for a long moment and whispered something in Altean that Pidge didn't quite catch before disappearing with the data tablet from Trepan Kev, Coran, who ruffled her hair and rambled about some mischief Alfor and someone named Ilexam had once got into with a suspicious brightness in his eyes that made her fling her arms around him without another moment's thought, and Alejandro and Kurogane, who sandwiched her between them without a word but whose shaking hands and not-quite-even breathing said enough to fill her with a surge of guilt as she hugged them as tightly as she had Shiro.
That left Lance and Keith. She was surprised Lance hadn't been the first to pounce on her, but then she saw him standing beside Keith and understood. The red paladin's arms were wrapped tightly around himself, and there was anxiety and guilt written plainly in his dark eyes as he looked at her. When he saw her attention on him, he flinched and averted his gaze. If it hadn't been for the taller teen's hand on his back, he probably would have bolted.
Pidge was baffled for a moment. Why did he seem as though he thought she was going to be angry with him? He hadn't done anything wrong. Under the circumstances, he'd done everything he possibly could down in that base. It wasn't his fault she'd gotten hurt and almost-
Oh.
She'd been scared and in pain and thought she was going to die. But Keith had been there too, helpless to do anything besides keep pressure on the wound and keep shouting into dead coms while she faded away in front of him. She remembered the feeling of his tears on her face, the misery in his voice. Of course he was beating himself up. Surging forward, she firmly ignored his flinch and flung her arms around him in the tightest hug she could manage. "Keith. Thank you." She said quietly, tucking her head under his chin. "That was...really bad." An understatement if she'd ever said one. "But you were there and that helped a lot. Thanks."
There was a momentary hesitation, then Keith pulled his arms out from between them and wrapped them around her in return. She could feel his whole body trembling as he clung to her. "I'm okay, Keith. I'm safe. You kept me safe and got help. I'm okay." She soothed. From the way her head was turned she could see Lance's relieved and approving expression. She must have guessed correctly about her socially-awkward brother needing that reassurance. "I dunno what I would've done if you hadn't been there."
"See, Keith? Told you you did good." Lance's voice was equally gentle as he wrapped his own long arms around them both. Keith managed a small nod, and Pidge smiled. Looked like she'd missed some bonding between the two while she was healing. How long had she been in that pod anyway? If those two had finally confessed and she'd missed it, she was going to be pissed. "It's good to have you back, Pidgey. I missed my favourite sister."
She blushed and freed an arm to punch him lightly on the shoulder, earning a delighted grin. "I'm only your favourite because I'm the only one here for you to bother." She mock-complained.
"Fair point. Plus I can't bother Allura because she can kick my ass." Lance shrugged. "Which raises the question: which of us is your favourite brother?" He waggled an eyebrow at her, and shot a smirk at Hunk, who rolled his eyes.
Matt crossed his arms and shook his head. "Me obviously. I'm the-"
"Keith is my favourite." Pidge smirked at the various expressions of dismay, mock outrage, resignation, and surprise around her. She tightened her grip around a visibly shocked red paladin. "He doesn't steal my headphones, touch my tech, or lecture me about bedtimes. So there." She stuck out her tongue at the others.
As Matt and Lance descended into a squabble about who her second-favourite should be and why, Pidge was pleased to hear Keith huff out a soft breath of laughter as he finally relaxed into the hug. As long as she had her family around her, they could get through anything.
000000000000
Colleen closed the last file and slammed her pencil down on the table hard enough that the lead snapped off, rolling to rest against the edge of the notebook she'd been writing in. Fury boiled in her veins.
A moment later, Ryou stepped into the room in the middle of her stream of invective detailing colourfully the probable parentage of each and every member of the Garrison's top brass, a steaming mug in each hand. "Are you done or are you just venting again?"
"Both." The older woman growled, slapping the laptop closed and slouching back in her chair with her arms folded.
"Sounds promising." He commented drily, taking a careful sip from his mug and setting hers in front of her well away from both laptop and notebook. "How badly do we want to burn the Garrison to the ground now?"
Colleen buried her face in her hands and let out a loud, muffled screaming noise into her palms.
"That bad?"
"Worse." She took a deep breath, flipping the notebook to the page where she'd been compiling an overview of the contents of the stolen files. The notes painted a grim picture of just how much the Galaxy Garrison had been concealing from the general public, and just how many lies they'd been telling the families of those declared dead on Kerberos and in the so-called 'training accident'. "They've had definitive proof of aliens for sixteen years, Ryou."
The older Shirogane sibling blinked, glanced down at his mug, muttered something about needing something stronger in it, then sat down on the couch across from her and gestured for her to continue.
Colleen glanced down at her notes, although all the information was still fresh in her mind. "Sixteen years ago a group of soldiers on a survival exercise encountered a lone alien in the desert roughly where the Arizona branch is now. They described it as humanoid in structure, covered in purple fur, with cat-like ears and glowing yellow eyes. They attempted to apprehend it, wounding it, but it escaped, and a small craft was seen launching from a concealed canyon shortly after. Blood and fur samples from the site of the fight confirmed non-terrestrial origin."
"Shoot first, ask questions later." Ryou rolled his eyes in disgust. "Typical military."
"Mhm. After that is when Galaxy Garrison started trying to get the rights to that big patch of desert where they encountered their mystery alien. Probably hoping it or its friends would come back after they shot it, fucking morons. They surveyed the land during the negotiations, and that's when they found the blue lion cave."
Glancing over toward the conspiracy board on the wall, her friend frowned. He opened his mouth as though to ask something, then shut it again. Colleen raised an eyebrow. "Question?"
"Just wondering if it's a coincidence that the cave and this other alien were both found in the same area. Geographically speaking, they were right on top of each other." He sighed. "I mean, it makes no sense, those carvings are ten thousand years old, but considering the way those carvings predicted those kids and my brother finding a giant robot lion spaceship, I'm just a little hesitant to rule anything out without actual evidence against it."
"...I don't believe in coincidences, Ryou." She hadn't before, and any remaining faith in statistical outliers had gone right out the window and into the ditch after the last couple of weeks. Two alien presences in the same tiny little patch of American desert? She knew in her gut they must be connected, even if they might never know why or how.
He grimaced. "I used to. Then you called me from Keith's place. Carry on."
She nodded, picking up her pencil again and tapping it against the desk. "Fast forward to two years ago, Kerberos. There's been no encounters of any sort during the intervening time, either on-planet or off, just untranslatable radio chatter from deep space that they had to build special instrumentation to pick up. On the first day of ground operations at Kerberos, though, monitoring satellites pick up a massive object moving into a low orbit over the moon. Imagery shows a spacecraft of non-Human design picking up the crew from their worksite with a tractor beam before breaking orbit again and leaving the system." She stared off into the distance as she spoke, gaze unfocused as she thought of her husband and son, the satellite stills of them fleeing desperately across the ice with Takashi etched into the back of her eyelids. The last pictures that might ever be taken of them that she would see. Taking a deep breath, Colleen forced herself to refocus. "That vessel and others like it are designated after that point as 'K-vessels' and are assumed to be hostile because of what happened at Kerberos."
"Which brings us to last year?" Ryou tactfully moved the subject along and nodded toward the board, the printed image of the actual blue lion standing out amongst photos of cave drawings and lines of red string.
"Yes. A K-vessel was sighted in the Kuiper belt about a week before D-day. Luna and Mars were tracking it and reporting back to Earth. This one seems to have been moving at cruise speed, since it was around the orbit of Jupiter by D-day."
"Is that where Takashi's ship came from? I may be just an archaeologist, but you don't have an astronaut for a brother without picking up some things. That little pod didn't look like it was equipped for interstellar voyages."
Colleen frowned, flipping back through her notes to the section on the missing Kerbero pilot's return to Earth. "Oddly enough, no. They don't seem to know where it came from, but it arrived from a completely different direction." She made a notation in red pen about that oddity. "It was detected by Luna's sensors already on an atmospheric insertion course, projected to land near the Arizona Garrison. We know what happens after that."
Ryou nodded, ticking off points on his fingers around his mug. "Zulu niner lockdown, the pod crashes, Iverson and his people try to quarantine Takashi…" The man's lips tightened with anger at the memory of the way his brother had been treated. "...Takashi gets rescued-slash-stolen by Keith, Katie, Lance, and Hunk, who disappear with him into the desert to Keith's shack. Several hours later they find the Blue Lion ship and launch into space-Has the Garrison put that together?"
"The Garrison doesn't seem to have made that connection, actually." She'd checked the files as thoroughly as she could, but there was no indication that the same connection had been made amongst the military brass as she and Ryou had discovered a few days earlier. "Or if they have, there's no record of it. Someone may have put the pieces together but stayed quiet for fear of sounding crazy."
The other man's eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline. "Really? Huh. What else do we know that they don't?"
Colleen laughed. After all the shocks of last few weeks, Ryou no longer seemed to be able to be genuinely surprised by anything they discovered. More than once she overheard him complaining to himself about how his life seemed to have turned into a Clive Cussler novel and how Dirk Pitt had nothing on Colleen Holt and it was only a matter of time until the black-clad men with guns showed up to try to assassinate them for interfering with their evil plot for world domination. "Well, they don't seem to have seen the lower portion of the cave, which might be part of the reason they haven't put the five of them and the Lion together. With the Lion gone they probably figured it wasn't worth going back."
Groaning, Ryou downed the rest of his coffee. "Well shit. I was hoping they might have made more progress with that alien writing than me." He set his mug aside and rested his elbows on his knees, regarding her grimly. "And while as an archaeologist I'm fascinated by the caves, and disappointed in them for not following up, I gotta say, if I were the Garrison brass I'd be a lot more concerned about hostile aliens showing up in my system twice in one year. That seems like the start of a worrying pattern."
Colleen faltered. Ryou made a frighteningly good point, one she was ashamed to admit she hadn't considered, being more focused on what had been hidden from them than the implications of those events. What if it wasn't just one ship next time the K-vessels came near Sol? The first two could easily be scouts, getting the lay of the system as a precursor for an invasion. The abduction of the Kerberos crew may even have been intended as some kind of intimidation warning.
Picking up her mug, she stared at the dark surface and thought hard. "...The military is too paranoid not to have considered that possibility." She said slowly. "But we haven't seen any signs of Galaxy Garrison trying to increase their combat strength. No recruitment drives, no subtle propaganda schemes, nothing."
"You think they're just leaving it as is and hoping for the best?" Ryou sounded alarmed, dark eyes wide as he stared at her.
"I don't know what they're fucking thinking." Colleen growled, running a hand through hair that was every bit as much of a messy mop as Matthew's normally was. "Could be that, they could just be taking their sweet time, could be something else entirely. But I do know that as we are now, we'd get our asses kicked. Those ships are huge, according to Mars base's scans."
The elder Shirogane took a deep breath. "So we need to somehow get the Garrison to ramp up enough strength to potentially fight off an alien invasion. Lovely. I presume you have some concept in mind for how an archaeologist and a lawyer are going to boss around an entire branch of the military?"
A slow smile spread across Colleen's face. "We aren't going to boss anyone." Reaching over, she opened the laptop back up and switched to the internet browser. Curious, Ryou got to his feet and crossed the room, standing behind her chair as she opened tabs for a dozen different conspiracy forums. "If there's anything being a prosecutor has taught me, Ryou, it's this: there is no fire that burns hotter, or is harder to put out, than that of public opinion."
She heard his breath catch in his throat as he realized what she was planning to do. "You're going to expose them?"
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she began to compose a new post. "Bureaucracy and politics have often been said to be the proverbial immovable object. But the general public, sufficiently unified by self-preservation, should be able to steamroll right over it."
"Assuming we can convince them of the threat."
"Any competent technician should be able to confirm the authenticity of the files we're leaking, and that'll support our claims. It'll take time, but word will spread and the whole thing will gather steam. By the time the Garrison becomes aware of it, it should have spread too far for them to contain it." She copied the stolen files into a zip file and attached it to the post, adding a few choice images into the post itself. Takashi, strapped to a metal table surrounded by soldiers in quarantine suits. The first K-vessel, its tractor beam tearing up the surface of Kerberos behind three fleeing Humans. And the Blue Lion, plunging into the portal. Double-checking her work, she scanned it once more. A rough summary of everything the Garrison had concealed from the public over the last sixteen years, her and Ryou's conclusions on the potential threat, and a call for the public to demand protection from the hostile aliens.
With a self-satisfied nod, she duplicated the post on each of the other sites, then submitted. "And now we wait."
00000000000
"You call that flying?! I've seen better maneuvers from an overfed cow!" Mitch Iverson roared, sending the last group of cadets cowering as they emerged from the simulator. "Think about what you did wrong, and I expect you to complete the simulation correctly tomorrow!"
As the students vanished as quickly as they could make their escapes, Mitch groaned and rubbed his forehead to ward off an impending headache. These kids. Couldn't even fly a simple retrieval mission correctly. God help them if they ever had to actually fight. And what they didn't know was that they might very well have to.
Those in the know refused to discuss it or let any action be taken to inform the pilots or even properly train them for such a situation. And every day they spent with their heads in the sand and their thumbs up their asses was another wasted day that could have been spent preparing. It was going to get everyone on the goddamn planet killed sooner or later.
Because of them, his hands were largely tied and his options limited. He had one last ace up his sleeve, though, one that he'd placed nearly all of his faith and support in and could only wait to see if his gamble paid off.
His phone chimed in his pocket, and the Commander of the Arizona Garrison felt a surge of hope as he fished it out and unlocked it. The notification bar informed him that several tracked search terms had been mentioned together on a number of sites. A press of his thumb opened the first webpage, a major conspiracy forum, and a rough laugh bubbled from his chest as a familiar picture taken by the Pirithous satellite over two years earlier stared back at him.
"Atta girl, Holt." He said softly, relief flooding through him. "You tear those ass-covering cowards to shreds."
Mitch could only pray they had enough time for Colleen Holt's plan to do what they needed it to.