Chapter 16: What'd I Miss?

Corinth

Mars

March 16th, 2841

The three of them were silent as they moved through the streets of Corinth. With the rebellion holding control of all the city except the blocks immediately surrounding the spaceport, Keith, Shiro, and Tactus leaped from rooftop to rooftop on gravBoots as they made their way to their entrance point. Ghost cloaks hid them from view, invisible to the naked eye and most sensors. Compared to the heavy durability of pulseArmor, Keith felt naked wearing the scarabSkin mesh that now covered his body. He could understand why Shiro was reluctant to let him go by himself if this was the best armor that he could wear and still fit through the vents.

As they moved, he thought back to when he had told Shiro about everything that had happened since his disappearance. It had only been an hour since that conversation, but with how much preparation they'd done for the mission since then, it felt like ages in some ways. Shiro's reaction had only confused Keith further. How had his friend gone from twenty-ninth century Mars back to the mid twenty-first century, when Keith hadn't even travelled to the latter era yet. It was starting to give him a migraine just thinking about it, and Shiro had wisely suggested locking that speculation in a box until they knew more about how they were going to get home.

The spot on his back above his tailbone felt warm from the battery of an active ghostCloak, the film-like texture filtering his vision as he and Shiro made their way closer to their entry point. Each gravity-defying leap through the air brought with it the fear that they would be discovered and shot down, and Keith didn't dare breathe until it was absolutely necessary. Each landing was handled with delicacy and care, to avoid disturbing the backpacks full of explosives the time-travelling Paladins each carried.

After what felt like forever, they finally landed in front of the vent that would lead them inside. GhostCloaks flickered off as they touched down on the rooftop. As Keith double checked his pack to make sure the charges were secure, he noticed Shiro and Tactus whispering quietly to each other before the two men parted ways with a kiss. While he was happy Shiro had found someone, the fact that, again his friend never mentioned his significant other who, from the sound of things, had every intention of coming back to the Castle of Lions with them, was another question. Patience yields focus, Keith reminded himself, forcing thoughts of the past out of his mind once more. It was showtime.

Since Keith was the smaller of the two of them, he went into the ventilation shaft first, followed by Shiro. It was a bit of a tight squeeze for the Black Paladin to climb through the vents, but Shiro was just limber enough to crawl in after Keith without much difficulty. The two crawled through the vents in silence. The jamFields they carried kept any noise they made in the vents from echoing out and revealing their presence. But at the same time, it also meant that they couldn't hear anything happening in the spaceport itself.

The air vents were like a maze as they crawled through the ducts. One of the benefits of being half-Galra, Keith had found, was that his eyes adapted easily to reduced light. Shiro had to don a pair of thermal optics to keep track of him in the darkness of the vents, so Keith was glad he didn't have to wear any. After twenty minutes of crawling and at least three vertical shafts they'd had to carefully slide down, they found a grate they could open. Keith looked through the grate to see if he could find any guards.

"No guards," he whispered over his shoulder. "Can't see any cameras."

"Take the optics," Shiro whispered back after a few seconds, and handed him the bulky set of goggles. "I just switched it to scan for nanocams." Keith gave a thumbs' up in acknowledgement before taking the optics. As he slid them over his face, his normal vision was replaced by a computerized view of the room that saw through the walls to display power lines, water pipes, and internet cables. Very carefully, Keith directed his gaze from every angle he could reach. After nothing in sight of the grate pinged a response from the optics, he unsheathed his knife and gently pried the vent cover open.

Moving slowly, he held the grate delicately in his hands as he inched forward out of the air ducts. Once his face was clear of the vent, he craned his neck to look in all of the places he hadn't been able to see from inside the duct. The optics scanned each for signs of microscopic cameras, but there was no response.

"No cameras," he told Shiro. "Coast is clear." With that, he gently lowered the grate to the ground before bracing his hands on the walls to pull himself out of the vent. Shiro wriggled out shortly afterwards, and the older man reached down to grab the fallen sheet of metal. Keith stripped the optics off his head and handed them back to his friend.

"We'd better make sure no one figures out how we got it," Shiro commented as he replaced the vent cover. The Black Paladin held his right arm out for a moment, about to use the energy weapon in his hand to melt the metal grate back into place. Keith waited for the tell-tale glow of Shiro's arm, but it never came. After a few seconds, Shiro's shoulders sagged.

"Right," the older Paladin sighed. "I forgot I don't have that any more." Keith frowned in confusion. Keith chuckled weakly. He'd forgotten about that too. As horrible as what the Galra Empire had done to Shiro was, his cybernetic arm had become something that everyone on the team had unconsciously associated with him. Keith knew how much Shiro had hated it and was glad that Shiro no longer had the weight of what it represented on his shoulders but losing the utility of what it could do in situations like this was clearly taking them both some getting used to.

"Just leave it for now," Keith said. "It's not like it'll matter. We can send in a welder to fix it once we've secured the objective." Shiro nodded and gently put the cover back on the floor before disappearing in a flicker of vanishing light as his ghostCloak activated. Keith engaged his own a moment later, and together the duo slipped out the door and into the hallway.

With their boots calibrated for lighter gravity, the two paladins moved like ghosts as they sprinted through the halls. Nostalgia welled up in Keith as he remembered the hijinks he and Shiro had gotten up to at the Garrison back before Kerberos, as well as his time running infiltration missions with the Blade of Marmora. The familiarity was reassuring as they raced through the unfamiliar spaceport, relying on directional signs and memorized schematics to guide them toward their target.

They encountered minimal resistance as they flowed through the complex, stopping periodically to switch on the jammers and conserve the battery packs of their ghostCloaks. With the ruling Aureate panicking over the rising tide of revolution, security inside the spaceport itself was lax, the wealthy elite more concerned with evacuating the city as quickly as possible. The few times they did encounter security forces, Shiro quickly dispatched them with his razor. The kills were quick, quiet, and bloodless, and the Black Paladin took care to leave no trace of the guards' death when they moved on from that spot and took the jamField with them.

Keith had almost gagged the first time he'd seen Shiro slit a man's throat in close-quarters combat. He didn't know whether it was the fact that most Galra installations were crewed by Sentries, or the fact that these soldiers were all human, but the sight of such cold, efficient killing from Shiro chilled him to the bone. And the most unnerving part was how calm Shiro could act about it. Shiro had already told Keith how he really felt about it, but still, that level of stoicism was something Keith expected from the Blade of Marmora, not his best friend.

You and Shiro can talk about that later, he chided himself as they reached the security center that held the controls for the spaceport's doors. Shiro counted down silently with his fingers before he kicked the door in and led them into the room to find five green-haired technicians sitting at a horseshoe-shaped bank of computer terminals. Thankfully, Shiro didn't need to do any killing, as two of the Greens tackled the rest of their colleagues and raised their fists above their head in a gesture of support for the rebellion. Shiro thanked them for their support and told them to open the gates so that rebel forces could storm the building. That done, Shiro gave Tactus the order to attack.

With the battle once more underway, Shiro and Keith took up positions by the door, ready to shoot any Golds attempting to re-seal the doors. The building rocked with the force of an explosion as Shiro saw the Sons of Ares on the security monitor leading a mob of lowColors into the building. Eo's song echoed over the speakers, chanted from a thousand throats as the oppressed masses stormed into the spaceport. As they watched the masses flow into the facility, Keith had an idea.

"Can you play this on all the speakers in the building?" he asked the Greens. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro stiffen as the Black Paladin realized what he had in mind.

"They'll know we're here if we do," one of the technicians answered. She glanced back at her partner, who nodded his head in silent agreement. "Of, fuck it," she said as she pressed a few keys on her terminal and flipped a switch. "Let's pour some fuel on the gorydamn fire." Keith smiled in anticipation as he and Shiro heard the song echoing on the other side of the door.

That thrill faded to a grim determination as they saw a trio of Gray legionnaires on the security monitors head towards their position. Time to hold the line, he thought to himself as he turned to Shiro and nodded.

"We'll take care of it," the older man told the Greens before the two Paladins stepped back out into the corridor. Keith and Shiro quickly checked their weapons and activated their ghostCloaks. This must be what Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility feels like, Keith thought to himself with a nostalgic smile as he and Shiro waited for the enemy troops to arrive. A steady stream of com chattered in his ear as the two technicians in the room behind them kept them appraised of the enemy's progress. The legionnaires were close enough now that the two Paladins could hear them around the corner. Keith readied the laser gun – scorcher, he reminded himself of the correct terminology – at his side when he heard gunfire from around the corner. Had Shiro's boyfriend sent them reinforcements?

"What's happening?" Shiro asked as the gunfire was silenced by the sound of throats being slit.

"Ruster lady just showed up with a ghostCloak and started killing the Grays," one of the Greens reported.

"One of ours?" Keith inquired as he glanced at Shiro.

"Negative," the technician replied. Beside Keith, Shiro immediately tensed. As the sounds of enemy soldiers chocking out their last breaths died out, the woman stepped out from behind the door with her hands above her head, a pulseDagger in her left. The left side of her face was beautiful, but the right was a ragged mess of burned skin. Her crimson eyes burned with hatred as she looked at them, though Keith quickly realized that her gaze was directed at the man beside him. He was about to tell her to identify herself when Shiro opened up his pulseFist and fired.

That's right, Howlers. Harmony is back! I'm still working out the details of what I have planned for her, but I wanted to bring her into the story since she hasn't been seen (other than a nameless cameo in Iron Gold) since the beginning of Golden Son, and was only mentioned in Morning Star.