"He wasn't there, but I found this." Keith pulled the bayard from his hip to show Allura. "The base was clearly rigged with explosives. I think it was a trap."
Allura let out a small gasp. "Do you think-do you think he's okay?"
"Unhurt? I'm not sure. But I think he's alive. It looked like there had been an escape route, and I couldn't find any evidence to suggest otherwise." Keith was having a hard time keeping his emotions in check. He tried to keep his voice even.
"Where would we have gone? Where do you think we should check?" Allura looked at him expectantly, as though Keith was suddenly an expert on tracking Lance.
"I don't know-" Keith's legs suddenly felt unstable. Allura noticed and caught him as he collapsed into her. The tears Keith has so long held back started flowing. "Allura! I don't know what to do."
She patted his shoulder, holding him gently. "It's okay Keith. We'll find him."
They were both silent for a moment, thinking.
Allura began first. "Well...we should tell the others. If Lance was in a trap that means that Lotor had to be behind it somehow. We've got to warn them."
She motioned to him to move forward. Keith grabbed her shoulder tightly.
"Allura, wait. Think through this for a second. Lotor never would have been alone long enough to set the trap or to forge a note from Lance."
Allura gasped again. "But...but that means."
Keith nodded. "Lotor couldn't have been acting alone."
"But who-"
"I don't have any proof, which is why I haven't said anything, but Lance suspected Shiro…"
"What? How do you know?" Allura was whispering now, keeping her voice low even though she was shocked.
"Lance contacted me before he disappeared. I could tell something was wrong, but he wouldn't explain what was going on. He asked me if Shiro was acting strangely and said that he'd overheard something." Why hadn't Keith called him back after he hung up? He should have demanded answers.
"What did he overhear?"
"I don't know...but I think he was right."
Allura released a long slow breath. "What are we supposed to do now?"
"I guess try to prove it. There was-there was one other thing that I found at the base." Keith pulled out the fried flashdrive. "Hopefully it will clue us into why Lance was at the base at all."
"It's worth looking into. We've got to track down Pidge."
It felt good, running around the castle with something to do. It helped keep Keith's mind off of Lance.
So instead, Keith's mind thought of Shiro.
Keith had first met Shiro in the Nevada Military Police Captain's office. He was 13.
It wasn't exactly an unusual place for Keith to be found. He knew all of the officers, and they all knew him too. He probably even would have been friends with them, if Keith wasn't always in there in handcuffs.
So it wasn't exactly unusual for Keith to be handcuffed to a table after stealing a military cruiser. What was unusual was Takashi Shirogane.
"Hey, kid." Keith was used to getting yelled at by angry adults who he had wronged in some way or another, but Shiro seemed more amused than anything else. "That was daring of you."
Keith was surprised. He didn't know what to say to the guy. He looked older than Keith by quite a few years, but still a teenager. He elected to stay silent.
"Where did you learn to fly like that?"
Keith just shrugged. The shrug was about as accurate as anything he could have said. He'd been flying for a long time, it had interested him forever. The first time he stole one though, it was out from under the nose of one of his foster parents. The man had been particularly abusive towards Keith and the other kids that day, and Keith did the only thing he knew how to do to teach the man a lesson. It landed him in juvie the first time.
"Talkative...got it. I gotta say though, I was impressed. If you honed that skill, instead of using it for a few joyrides I imagine you could be one of the best pilots in the galaxy."
Keith narrowed his eyes at him. People this nice to him always wanted something.
"The name's Shiro. You stole my cruiser."
Shiro held out his hand to shake, but Keith just looked at it for a second before jangling the cuffs on his wrist.
"Ah, gotcha. Hopefully you'll be out of those in a second."
Keith narrowed his eyes again. As though anything in the police station took that short of time.
Sure enough, though, the Captain showed up a couple seconds later.
"Sorry to keep you waiting Shirogane. What can I do for you?"
Keith nearly choked at the mention of the name. Shirogane was a famous up and coming pilot. The sudden realization made him choke a bit. Keith was in bigger trouble than he thought.
"Oh, that's alright. I was actually hoping to talk to you about this young man here." Shiro motioned to Keith.
"Yeah, don't worry about it, too much. We've taken care of it. He's in big trouble. I think they're gonna ship him out of state even."
With each word Keith's heart sank. He liked Utah, and he liked the foster family he was currently with, it had just been an unlucky set of circumstances that lead him into trouble.
Shiro spoke. "Well actually I was hoping you'd drop the charges."
"What?!" Keith and the captain spoke at the same time. Keith's eyes were wide with the unfamiliar territory.
"Well, I just think it's a huge waste when he's clearly a talented kid. Besides, the cruiser getting stolen was honestly my fault, not his. I'm the one that left it unlocked. I'm the one that should get punished." He smiled sheepishly and scratched his head.
"I really shouldn't drop the charges Shiro. He's got priors. He's spent the last couple years in and out of Juvie."
"Well how about making him do a ridiculous amount of community service hours with me?"
"That's not really regulation-"
"Look, when he took of in my cruiser I saw something in him. With the right training this kid will be better than me someday. He just needs someone to kick his butt in the right direction."
The captain, frowned. "Okay, I'll figure something out. Keith, you're free to go." He uncuffed Keith from the desk. "You better shape up kid, you've got Takashi Shirogane's reputation on the line now."
Keith followed Shiro outside of the office. "Why would you do that?"
Shiro looked sideways at him. "I told you. You've got talent. Now, come on, I meant what I said about training you."
And Shiro had meant it. They spent hours training every day. They'd do a small bit of flight training and a long workout. Keith could barely finish half of the workout Shiro had set up for them. It was harder than any bootcamp Keith had ever been through.
But mostly it seemed like Shiro just wanted to get to know him. They'd talk for a long time, and Shiro would ask him personal questions about his home and school life. He wanted to know how Keith's grades were and if he had decent friends.
Keith told him whatever he wanted to hear. He tried to be honest, but it was difficult at times. Even more difficult than Shiro's crazy workouts.
Working with Shiro completely turned Keith's life around. He'd never had an adult so interested in his success. Keith wanted to make Shiro proud, but after a while he also wanted to succeed for himself too.
Becoming a pilot was perfect for Keith. He got his grades into shape over the next few years. It wasn't too difficult. Mostly he'd failed classes before due to absences or missing homework. With the most stable foster home he'd been to, and an incredible mentor to guide him, Keith could actually do well. He was lucky.
Getting into the Garrison soon switched from being a dream to being a reality.
Shiro was so proud of him. He ruffled his hair and took him out for ice cream. Keith claimed he was too old for ice cream, and Shiro had said there was "no such thing."
Soon after that Shiro was drafted for the Kerberos mission. He was eager to go on a deep space mission, it was his dream. For Keith though, the Kerberos mission meant losing his mentor and friend for a long time. Their farewell was bittersweet.
"Keith, you better be top of your class by the time I return."
And then Keith's world came crashing down around his ears. He heard about Shiro's death on the news. No one had even thought to give the poor orphan boy who was always tagging along a phone call. And why would they?
As much as Shiro had been like a brother to Keith, they weren't actually related.
Keith wasn't related to anyone.
The Shiro that Keith knew would never have let him walk away to go work with the blade. He would never have blindly trusted Lotor. He would never have told Lance to leave Voltron.
Keith hated the idea that Shiro wasn't the one that he'd grown up knowing. But he had to accept reality. He had to get Lance back.
Pidge was busy as usual when Keith and Allura found them.
"Do you think you can extract information from this? It's important." Keith asked before Allura could say anything. He didn't want to risk her explaining what they were up to on the off chance that they were wrong somehow.
"Uhh." Pidge examined the flashdrive, rubbing their thumb over the melted part. "This is in pretty bad condition. I can try, but I'm not sure that I'd get anything."
"Can you please try. I meant it when I said it was important."
Pidge nodded. "Where did you get this? It's not Galra, it's one of ours."
"I-uh…"
"Actually, now that I think about it. It's kind of funny. Lance had asked me about flashdrives before he...you know." Pidge trailed into silence.
"Wait, what?!" Keith and Allura looked at each other.
Pidge looked at them, narrowing their eyes. They could tell something was going on that they didn't know about. "Yeah…" They said carefully, studying Keith's and Allura's faces. "He asked me how to download encrypted information from a Galra computer. He also asked about where to find information on a Galran project."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him to search the main computer."
Keith and Allura glanced at each other again before suddenly racing off.
"Wait! What-" Pidge yelled after them.
"Just focus on figuring out what's on the drive, we've got to go check something!"
They raced down the hallway. There had to be something on the main computer. Lance had to have left them clues, even if they were on accident.
"What do we do?!" Keith said to Allura, running into the room.
"We have to check the computer for the last items people searched." She was already pressing buttons, getting the data set up.
It took a couple minutes to run. There were hundreds of searches.
"It's going to take an eternity to search through all of these. And there's no way to tell which one is Lance's." Allura sounded disheartened.
"Can we search by date? Lance disappeared over a week ago. He's not going to be any of the most recent ones."
"Yes...hold on...yes, got it." Allura pulled up a different list of searches.
They looked at the information, trying to find any clue as to which one would have been his. The information on the screen displayed the search, the number of results, and any that were selected. It was still too much information to sort through.
Keith had a sudden burst of information. "Wait! Allura, what were the coordinates of the base?"
Allura gasped, catching on. "I can search for them, and then we'll know if any of these results match up!"
She inputted some data and pressed a few more keys. The screen changed. There was only one search remaining.
"Project Kuron?" Keith asked, "What does that mean?"
Suddenly an out of breath Pidge came hurtling through the doorway.
"You're…not…" They huffed, clearly out of breath.
"Pidge! What is it?!" Keith said to them.
"You're not..going...believe this...the flashdrive...okay...the melted part...just plastic…"
"What?"
Pidge glared at him. "Look." They commanded, turning around the computer they were holding.
On the screen was a clear image of Shiro. One with his face towards the lense, the other in profile.
There was some Galra text next to the picture, that still hadn't been decoded. But there were two things Keith noticed immediately. The first was the title of the image was labeled, "Project Kuron." The second was the word "clone" in clear english in the translated part of the text.
Allura said what everyone was thinking.
"This is not good."
A/N: Oh my god, can they just focus on tracking down Lance, please?
Kidding, they will, they will, I'm excited for this next bit too, but I'm ready for them to be one big happy family aboard the castle already. Then I can really get down to business with this Klance stuff.
Look for the next chapter tomorrow!
