So it turned out Lance was a lot more out of the loop than he had thought, and everyone else knew everything around here and he knew nothing.

"You're a what!?" Lance blurted before he could stop himself.

"I'm a girl," said Pidge again. "A female. I have a v–"

"Please don't!" Lance yelped.

"Baby," scoffed Pidge.

Lance shook his head. "Alright. Okay. I am fine with this. Totally chill. Accept you as a girl or a boy or anything else. Makes more sense than my original theory."

"Lance thought you were an alien," Hunk added helpfully.

Pidge blinked at them.

"How did I not know?" lamented Lance. "I have sisters! I should be able to recognise this! Everyone else did!"

"Lance, you are incredibly unobservant sometimes," said Hunk, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up."

Pidge still looked kind of confused that Lance thought he – she was an alien, but she shook her head.

"Well," she said, "I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now let's get this castle-ship up in the air!"

Lance's brain once again had to do a forced restart. Castle-ship. The Castle was – what the fudge. What the quiznak. He shook his head and finally managed, "The Castle is a ship!?"

"Has been, ever since it was created!" said Coran brightly.

"Are there any other shocking new developments that I've missed?" Lance asked, glancing between the others and wondering how long he'd been out. Pidge was a girl. The Castle was a ship.

The others shook their heads. Hunk tried to hide his laughter and failed. Coran seemed to hesitate, but in the end he also shook his head. Lance didn't really know what Coran would be hiding – but maybe he was. That was fine. He wouldn't hide anything important, right?

And anyway, Lance obviously wouldn't figure it out.

So they were right. The castle was a ship. It could fly. It did fly. Lance thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. Watching Arus disappear beneath them as they shot into space – it was different than flying Blue. The ship was larger, more stable… Lance could somewhat compare it to a cruise. In space. A space cruise.

Later that night, Lance tried to track down Coran again. He had no such luck. He'd wanted to bring the man to talk to Alfor – honestly, Coran couldn't keep avoiding his old friend – but he supposed it would have to happen a different day. He was going to bring Coran soon. Somehow he'd convince him.

Lance, however, wanted to talk to Alfor himself, and so found himself wandering back into the memory room. He knew the way from his room fairly easily by now. The room lit up as he walked in. Alfor greeted him with a smile. The flowers swayed gently in the invisible wind – it was so peaceful. It made Lance sad that he would never see the real Altea. Was the rest of it this beautiful and peaceful and familiar?

"Lance," Alfor said. "What brings you here tonight?"

"Ah, just to chat," said Lance, plopping down in the flowers and leaning back on his palms. "Was gonna try to bring Coran, but looks like he's asleep. It's a shame."

Alfor's eyebrows raised. "It would be good to talk to Coran again."

"I'm going to bring him as soon as I can," said Lance. "What about Allura? Does she stop by often?"

"Fairly," said Alfor. "I think it is somewhat difficult for her."

Lance nodded. He could understand that.

"I would have come back to chat sooner," he said almost apologetically, although he wasn't sure the AI could even perceive time passing. "But we met a bunch of Arusians, and then there was some sort of Robeast sent by Zarkon I guess, and then we had a party, and then I got blown up, and so I'm just out of the freezy-pod thing today."

Alfor blinked at him, apparently processing all of this.

"You got blown up?" he finally said, which of course is what he chose to focus on.

That was fine, it meant Lance could boast about his heroics that he didn't remember doing.

"Yeah, there was a bomb," Lance hopped to his feet. "I saved Coran! Or so I hear. I also hear that I came out of a coma to save Pidge – Pidge is a girl now, by the way."

"You humans can easily change gender?" said Alfor in surprise.

"No," said Lance. "Well – depends – are you defining gender as the societal construct or the biological parts, because that's a whole different can of worms and I don't know that I want to explain gender identity to you."

Alfor looked perplexed. "Very well then… Pidge is a girl. I shall remember this in case I ever meet her."

"You'd like Pidge," said Lance. "She's a tiny evil genius. I don't know how I didn't figure it out, what with all the mind-meld stuff. Anyway, yeah, I got blown up. Don't remember any of it because I had a concussion, I guess."

Alfor nodded. "Believe me, I understand. At least you did not get in trouble for something you could not remember doing."

"No way," said Lance.

"I will admit that I was somewhat reckless in my youth," he said ruefully. "I usually remembered what I did, however. Don't listen to anything Coran tells you. He is exaggerating."

"King Alfor of Altea, Certified Mess," crowed Lance delightedly. "Well, that's alright. Memory troubles aren't exactly foreign to me. I can't remember most of the first four years or my life. Couple of things. Fire alarms. A lullaby. Heh, Coran knew the lullaby my mother sang to me."

Alfor furrowed his brow. "Indeed?"

"Yeah," said Lance. "How did it go? Um… sleep, sleep, child of mine. I'll be here forever more. Something like that."

Recognition flashed in Alfor's eyes. "I know that song as well. It is an old Altean lullaby. My mother sang it to my sister and I when we were young. I used to sing it to Allura, but I think no one loved it more than my nephew."

"Yeah, Coran told me about him," said Lance, lowering his eyes. "I hadn't known he had a son or a wife or anything. I – I wish Zarkon has never destroyed Altea. Allura and Coran – and you, too – none of you deserved that."

Alfor's face had darkened. "I wish the same thing."

"This – this is what Altea looked like?" said Lance, gesturing to the flowers and mountains and beauty around them.

A small smile returned to Alfor's face as he nodded and looked around. "Yes. This field was near the castle. Allura adored it – she always dearly loved the juniberry flowers. Her mother did, too. Those mountains – Coran and I used to explore them, about when we were your age. There was so much hidden within that mountain ranger – I always found it incredibly fascinating. Altea truly was a wonderful and beautiful place, and it had so many wonderful things even we had not yet discovered."

"It sounds amazing," Lance said. "I wish I'd been around to see it."

"There are maps and info-books in the Castle's library," offered Alfor. "I know it is not the same, but if you ask Coran, I'm sure he could explain everything. I expect you do not speak or read Altean."

"I know the word quiznak," Lance offered.

Alfor had clearly not been expecting this and he burst into laughter.

"You do not know what that means, do you?" he asked after he had managed to control his laughter.

"I know it's a curse word," said Lance innocently. "Learned it from Coran."

Alfor covered his mouth with a hand to hide his grin.

"Never let him live it down," he said. "Ah, my dear friend! The first Altean word you teach the newcomers is quiznak."

"What does it mean?" asked Lance curiously.

Alfor's grin widened. "I am not going to tell you."

"Aw, come on, Alfor," Lance whined.

"Ask Coran," said Alfor. He paused. "Ask Coran but bring him here first. I would like to see his reaction."

Lance laughed. "Alright, alright, sounds like a plan, dude."

There was a brief silence. Alfor still looked very amused by Lance's limited knowledge of Altean, which mostly meant Lance should learn more Altean and then show off the next time he came by.

Lance was good at languages. He could manage it.

"I should probably go to bed," he admitted. "Knowing Allura, she'll have us up early again."

Alfor chuckled. "Go on, then. If you humans are anything like Alteans, you teenagers need your sleep. My daughter is simply strange."

Lance snorted. "You said it, Alfor. Well, uh, goodnight."

"Goodnight, Lance," said Alfor.

The room fell back into darkness.

"Okay, so, when we get there, what are we doing? Do we just roll up and start blasting? Or do we land and offer for the Galra to surrender, like, "Attention, Galras, this is Voltron. Turn yourselves in"? No. Blasting, right? They won't turn themselves in. Would they? That'd be better."

So Hunk was mildly freaking out again. Lance couldn't tell how much of his friends nervous energy was excitement and how much was panic. It was kind of like the first time they went on a rollercoaster – Hunk had freaked out then, but he'd also been pretty cheerful about it. Lance chalked it up to this Shay girl Hunk respected.

"Hunk, calm down," said Keith, a fond sort of exasperation colouring his voice. "And, yes, blasting."

"He's excited," chuckled Shiro. "It is our first big rescue mission."

"Yeah, excited to see his girlfriend," said Pidge slyly.

Hunk's face turned scarlet. "She's not my girlfriend! She's just a rock that I met and admire very much!"

"Like Elaine in seventh grade?" asked Lance innocently.

It didn't seem possible, but Hunk's face went even redder. "Oh, shut up."

Suddenly, the castle's alarms shot off. Lance jumped in his seat, startled once again. Oh, he really hated their alarms.

"What is it?" said Shiro. "Are we under attack?"

"No," said Coran. "It's a distress beacon."

"I wonder who," said Pidge, leaning forward in her seat.

"They have to wait, Shay comes first," said Hunk.

"The Paladin Code states we must help all of those in need," said Allura disapprovingly. "The Balmera will have to wait."

Hunk grumbled something under his breath but otherwise didn't argue.

Lance could see the origin of the distress beacon up ahead. Some ship had been crashed on some moon or asteroid or something. Lance wondered how common that was in space. If the Galra had created such a huge empire, shouldn't they have created something like the space police? Or like space Geico or something? Call somebody and they'll come tow your broken-down ship?

Maybe they were the space police.

"This is so cool!" decided Lance. He could roll with being the space police. "We're the space cops on space patrol! Coran, can we turn on a siren?"

Coran glanced back at him with warm amusement. "Afraid not, my boy, but we can certainly record you making a siren noise and broadcast that."

"Yeah, alright!" cheered Lance, before cupping his hands around his mouth and making the best police siren sound he could.

"No," said Shiro quickly. "We're not doing that."

"Coran, broadcast my voice," said Allura, which was so unfair.

"Yes, Princess," said Coran, before winking at Lance and lowering his voice. "We'll record your siren later."

"Yes," Lance cheered quietly.

"Attention, damaged craft," said Allura loudly. "This is Princess Allura of Altea. We are coming to assist you."

Lance was somewhat unsure if they'd even be able to land on this asteroid thing, but Allura and Coran managed it. Lance stood and stretched. It was time to be the super cool space police.

"Coran," said Allura, "stay aboard and try to get as many of our systems clear of the Galran crystal energy as you can."

"You've got it, Princess," he said.

"The rest of you," she said, "come with me."

A/N: Hey, guys, I know I disappeared for a while, but voila! A new chapter! I've got a couple of chapters to upload here, but after that things will be a bit more sparse as I focuse on my internship and stuff. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 3