Chapter 18: Doppelganger:
Corinth
Mars
March 16th, 2841
I guess we should have expected her to show up in the middle of all this chaos, Shiro thought to himself as Harmony slammed against the wall behind her and toppled forward, unconscious. His pulseFist had been set to stun, so she'd only be knocked out for a few hours. The renegade Son of Ares (daughter would be more accurate, the time traveler idly thought to himself) had disappeared from the rebellion's base shortly before the Jackal's forces raided the place and killed Fitchner. In all the chaos, it seemed that nobody thought to be on the lookout for a Red woman with burn marks across one half of her face. And now here she was in the middle of one of the largest battles going on that day.
"What the Quiznak!?" Keith spluttered. "Shiro… why did you…"
"That's Harmony," Shiro explained. Keith went silent and nodded in understanding. Shiro had given him the rundown on the major figures in the rebellion and the events leading up to their current situation. He'd already told his fellow paladin who Harmony was and the role she'd played in Fitchner's death. While blasting her into a wall with a pulseFist may have been a tad extreme, Shiro wasn't in a very forgiving mood. He'd already heard enough from Sevro and Darrow to know that the chaotic mess he was in right now was the direct result of her actions. If she hadn't been so arrogant and stubborn we wouldn't have had so many casualties, he thought to himself as he and Keith moved to secure restraints to her wrists and ankles.
After a few minutes of waiting, Tactus finally arrived with reinforcements. While two Sons of Ares took their new prisoner up toward the rebel ships landing in empty docking bays, Keith and Shiro were relieved of their posts by a fresh squad of marines and headed toward the public entrance to rendezvous with Tactus. An uncomfortable silence settled over the pair as they walked through the spaceport. They couldn't openly talk about Voltron until they were somewhere more private, and Keith didn't look like he really wanted to talk about the killing they'd had to do to complete their mission.
With no other conversation to distract himself, Shiro's mind wandered back to what Keith had told him about everything he'd missed since the fight with Zarkon. How Keith had refused to accept the possibility of anyone other than Shiro himself flying the Black Lion for weeks before the team finally convinced him that they had to move on. How a week later, they had found Shiro inside a Galra fighter. How he had apparently been captured and tortured again before who knows how long before escaping and finding his way back to the team. How after coming back the Black Lion had refused to let him pilot it. How he kept critiquing and overruling every decision Keith made.
Hearing about all the things he'd done was making his head hurt. When he first learned from Lorn that he was fated to make it home eventually, he'd hoped he'd return only a short time after the battle with Zarkon. But to find out that the team had been forced to assume he was dead… that still hurt. It made him wish for some way to send a message back in time to let everyone know he was alive.
And then there was the part that confused him. Keith had clearly traveled to the future months after the team had rescued him again. But then, how did that match up? Had they returned to the past, right after the fight with Zarkon, only for Shiro to be captured, leaving two Keiths running around at the same time, the one that had come back from the future biding his time until after the battle of Naxzela to return to the team and make sure everyone knew he was okay? And what about Tactus, who planned on coming with them for a fresh start?
These questions and more swirled around in Shiro's mind like the vortex of a wormhole. But while the scenario he'd outlined for himself seemed plausible, the idea still didn't sit well with him. He was perfectly aware from Keith's reactions and his own self-loathing how much more ruthless he'd become since arriving in this era. But the idea that he was capable of deliberately pushing Keith away from the team just to ensure his friend ended up in the future disgusted him. He couldn't believe he could be that cruel.
He desperately wanted to believe that there was something else going on. He could have had a concussion like the time Ulaz freed him. Or I could have been brainwashed by the empire, a tiny voice in the back of his mind suggested, recalling countless B-movie sci-fi marathons at the Garrison. He didn't know which option scared him more: that he'd been brainwashed and let go as a sleeper agent whose actions only ended up guaranteeing Keith's arrival on Mars by accident, or that he had said and done all of that of his own free will to engineer his own return from the Society.
He forced those worries into a metaphorical box at the back of his mind as he and Keith reached the spaceport lobby to find Tactus waiting with a mixed-Color squad of rebels, their weapons and armor slick with blood. He couldn't help but chuckle at what a grim sight they all made. His boyfriend pulled him in for a quick kiss before briefing him on the status of their attack. Most civilian Golds had fled into orbit with their yachts, hoping to find safety among the loyalist fleet. But the rest had seen the tide rising against them and surrendered, allowing the Rising to take control of the spaceport with minimal loss of life. With the spaceport secure, rebel forces had full control over Corinth, giving them a stepping stone to secure other island settlements across the Thermic Sea.
Shiro was about to ask what their next assignment was when Tactus' datapad started flashing with an incoming message. Shiro felt a vibration on his forearm and looked down to find a light blinking on his own datapad as well. He frowned as he pulled up the message. It was an open frequency broadcast from the loyalist fleet. Why would they… his train of thought was abruptly cut off like an old record needle scratch as he saw what message the enemy was broadcasting. Cassius had escaped. Sevro was dead. Darrow and Mustang had been captured.
Shiro blinked, too stunned to even speak. Beside him, Tactus was on the line with Orion, trying to confirm the validity of the enemy's transmission. Impossible, he tried to tell himself. There's no way they could have been so stupid like that. But he couldn't afford to let doubt and denial cloud his judgement. Jacked into the Sons of Ares' main communications network, he could hear squad leaders across Mars, Phobos and Deimos beginning to panic and demand to know what they were supposed to do. With Darrow and Mustang captured, the rebellion was losing its momentum. There wasn't even time to process the fact that Sevro was gone. Without someone to take charge and coordinate their forces, everything they'd accomplished today would be lost. No. The Black Paladin thought. I won't let that happen. We've come too far to let everything slip away now.
"ENOUGH!" he shouted into the com network. "I know we're all scared now. But we are not going to give up. We've come too far to turn back now. We all know how the Reaper plans things. We trust that he and Mustang know what they're doing. He's counting on us to take control of Mars. If we lose focus now, then every drop of blood we've shed to take this planet will have been for nothing. So, do your jobs and worry about rescuing him once we've solidified our hold on the planet. Let's end this. Break the chains!" His last three words were echoed on every channel as sector commanders rallied their troops to keep pushing towards their objectives. He muted them all in his ear as he opened a private channel among the rebellion's inner circle.
"Victra, what's the status of loyalist forces on Phobos?" he asked. Already, the gears in his mind were whirring as he put together their options for a rescue mission.
"Second wave of assault shuttles is taxiing for landing at Skyresh," the Julii heiress replied.
"Get as many men as you can into the ventilation ducts of those hangars," Shiro ordered. "Once the enemy forces leave their shuttles in the hangar, hijack the shuttles and pack them full of all the Sons of Ares we have left. Pilot them towards the Invictus and use the launch codes to get landing clearance for the ship's hangar bays." He could almost hear the grin on her face as she chuckled in dark amusement at what he had in mind.
"A trojan horse gambit, eh?" she commented enthusiastically. "I like the way you think, darling. I'll get right on it."
"Orion, Roque," he instructed, switching channels as Victra's line went silent. "Box the enemy fleet in and cut off their escape. Monitor stealth ship drive trails if they try to move Darrow and Mustang off the Invictus. Don't let anyone get away."
"Yes sir," the Blue replied, her voice crisp as she signed off. Roque voiced his agreement before closing his channel as well.
"Dancer," he called to the rebel leader. "Get surface-to-air defense turrets reactivated around as many cities as you can. Prioritize Agea, Corinth, Yorkton, Thessalonica, and New Thebes. Whatever happens in orbit, we have to hold the surface until we know more." The elder Son of Ares grumbled, frustrated at having to yield command to someone new to his war, with only Darrow's word that the time traveler could be trusted. Shiro was grateful when the man agreed and signed off. He reconfigured the conference call until it was just himself, his lover, and the Telemanuses.
"How many cities remain in loyalist hands?" he asked.
"The Pixies are down to only a few dozen now," Tactus answered. "We've taken all the major holdings so now the stragglers that haven't evacuated into orbit hoping to get protection from the Jackal's fleet have hunkered down in smaller cities or fled to barricade themselves in their estates."
"Good. Kavax," the Black Paladin turned to address the hologram of the Telemanus patriarch. "Can you use orbital surveillance feeds from our ships to track the stragglers down and root out their hiding places?" The titan of a man nodded grimly and signed off to request the data from Orion and Roque. With the conference call ended, the holograms faded, leaving Shiro, Keith, and Tactus standing alone in the lobby, the weight of what was happening bearing down on him like the time Hunk had to hold up the Taujeerians' ark in the Yellow Lion.
"Don't worry," Keith said, stepping forward to put a comforting hand on the older paladin's shoulder. "We'll get through this. I couldn't have asked for a better leader." Shiro appreciated the sentiment. He also recognized that Keith wasn't primarily referring to their current situation so much as he was referring to his friend's role as the Black Paladin, but Shiro tabled that conversation for later. He looked to Tactus, who nodded firmly, silently conceding leadership to him. Shiro felt a deep surge of pride at his friends' faith in him, and how willing everyone was to trust his judgement.
"We need to get back to Agea," he finally said. "We can coordinate better from the Citadel." Immediately, Tactus started shouting orders to his lieutenants and transferring command of operations on the Thermic to them while he arranged for transport back to the capital. Once again, Shiro was struck by how much everyone was willing to trust him despite him being a total stranger to them. While he knew in his head that, as Allura had described, Black Paladins were the sort of leader who others would follow without hesitation, his faith in his own worthiness to lead had taken a hit ever since that fight with Zarkon. He's started to rebuild his confidence in his leadership skills after strengthening his bond with the Black Lion but getting trapped in the future had diminished that progress.
He pushed those thoughts back as he, Tactus, and Keith took the lift to one of the hangars that still had a ship in it. They were just about to enter the docking bay when another mass-broadcast took over the screens.
"Men and women of the Society," the regal voice of Octavia au Lune emanated from every speaker in the spaceport. "This is your Sovereign."
Just want to give everyone a heads up, there's three more chapters in Section I. There will be plenty more chapter to come (this fic will have 63 chapters plus the prologue by the time I'm done), but my goal is to finish Part I of this fic before Season 6 comes out. After Season 6 is released, I'm going to take a break from writing for the rest of the month to recharge my creative juices and see if Season 6 gives me any new ideas for the rest of the story.