I keep flip flopping over whether this fic is going to end up being violent enough to change the rating to M, but Child of The Storm by Nimbus Llewelyn had a similar level of violence, and it was only rated T, so I'm changing the rating back to T and if anyone thinks that this deserves an M rating, let me know and I'll change it back.
After the previous, relatively short chapter, I give you an extra-long chapter with lots of dialogue this time. Most of the dialogue from this chapter and the previous one was taken directly from the book (the exception being the conversation between Shiro and Mustang). Shiro's mainly going to be in the background this chapter, watching everyone around him and reacting to what they're all talking about. He'll get more dialogue in the next few chapters.
Chapter 13: Stork:
Stork Cargo Bay
Luna
December 18th, 2840
Shiro and Quinn landed inside the Stork to find Darrow kneeling on the ground. Lysander was sprawled on his knees near Sevro. The Jackal and several other dripping Augustuans stared at the group. The ship rose and the doors hissed closed behind them. Roque pushed through the others to see Quinn, then rushed forward to give her a hug. She reassures him that she was all right as Lysander rose and went to Darrow's side. Poor kid didn't deserve to get wrapped up in all this, Shiro thought to himself, frustrated by the fact that his survival depended on things that no paladin of Voltron should even consider doing. He may not exactly be innocent, given his grandmother's influence, but he's still not even ten years old. While Roque frantically looked Quinn over for injuries, the Jackal walked up to thank Darrow for the rescue.
"Thank your sister and her friend here," Darrow replied, gesturing towards Shiro.
"What exactly did you do to Aja anyway?" Quinn asked as the Howlers begin to strip out of their armor and remove their gravBoots. Shiro took a moment to compose his thoughts and come up with a credible explanation.
"The Yellow who gave me the arm was a bit of an eccentric," the Black Paladin lied. "Her last project was a weapon design my parents had commissioned try and raise their station but they cancelled the order and she had a few to spare. The project was trying to create a sort of bladed version of a pulseFist – one that carried a retractable razor. The early versions ended up melting down the razor and incorporating it into the arm, and it was the only one cheap enough for my brother to afford." Quinn and the Howlers accept this explanation, although Darrow, Sevro, and the Jackal clearly remain unconvinced.
"Goryhell," Roque whispered as it finally hit everyone that they'd just committed treason against the Sovereign. "How did we come to this?"
"Octavia was set on this path all along," Darrow answered quietly. "Before we even came to Luna, she intended to give the Bellona the ArchGovernorship. The gala was a trap."
"When did you discover this?" The Jackal asked. "Before or after the duel?"
"Before," Darrow replied. But Shiro knew that he was lying. Mustang had been present for that part of Octavia's little Oracle test. And she could tell from Darrow's reaction to the revelation that he hadn't known. Adding one more detail to the mystery that was Darrow au Andromedus. But before he can think of something to say further, the Jackal interrupted.
"Well played" Mustang's brother remarked. "Makes us seem the victim. I see Mustang failed in her task."
"Did your father send her to infiltrate Octavia's court?" Darrow asked. Shiro was about to tell him that Mustang had come up with the idea on her own, but her brother beat him to the punch.
"No," the Jackal answered. "I imagine it was her own idea. Draw close to the dragon…" Hit the nail right on the head, there, Jackal, Shiro thought as he removed his own gravBoots.
"The Julii are against us too," Darrow added. Roque and the Jackal nodded thoughtfully.
"That would make sense," Roque commented. "Politicos tried to take Victra from us before Karnus and Aja came."
"You don't seem worried about that," Shiro observed, finally joining in the conversation again.
"Victra is her mother's favorite daughter," the Jackal replied, shaking his head as if remembering something. "But she took three Obsidians on for me. Three. She's with us, body and mind." Roque and Quinn sat together in the corner of the cargo bay, lips locked and arms intertwined. Darrow and Shiro turned to see Sevro standing quietly in his armor, watching Roque and Quinn. Shiro could tell from the look in the lead Howler's remaining organic eye that Sevro loved Quinn but had never worked up the courage to tell her. Victra put a hand on his shoulder, noticing his pain but not understanding why it was there.
"I don't know you," he snarled as he shoved her hand off.
"Sorry," she remarked defensively as she backed away.
"What are you waiting for, Reap?" Sevro demanded. "We're not off this rock yet." He jerked his head towards the main cabin. Darrow led the way, asking Victra to bring the Sovereign's grandson. Shiro brought up the rear as Darrow and Sevro climbed up the ladder and met Tactus in the narrow corridor leading to the passenger hold and the flight cabin.
"Oy, goodman," Tactus called out, addressing Darrow as he favored his injured shoulder, wet hair dangling over his laughing eyes. "Next time you're planning something dramatic, tell us you're coming so we don't go pissing our pants." Shiro couldn't help but stifle a chuckle at the comment.
"Not now, Tactus," Darrow replied as he pushed past his fellow lancer. "We still need to get past the fleet."
"Ever the bore," Tactus remarked before turning his attention to Sevro. "Looky, looky. Goblin. If possible, you've shrunk even further my goodman." Sevro didn't smile, and Shiro recalled how Mustang told him that the Howler hated the nickname given to him. The Black Paladin focused his thoughts as the trio entered the passenger hold, where the Augustans and Howlers buckled themselves into bucket seats in preparation for breaching the atmosphere of Luna. At the sight of everyone buckling in, it finally hit Shiro that after two months living in the Citadel, he was finally leaving Luna for the first time. While his time keeping his guard up for fear of discovery wasn't exactly fun, he did feel a bit nostalgic for the place that had been his landing point in this era. And then Tactus had to go and ruin the moment.
"Hello, psychos," the lancer called out to the Howlers as he followed the trio into the room. "Pleasure to see your diminutive forms yet again. Especially you, Pebble." Shiro stifled a groan. Tactus is really starting to remind me of Lance, only without any inhibitions whatsoever and fewer redeeming qualities, he thought to himself.
"Eat shit," Pebble retorted, looking up from where she was busy helping to buckle one of the ArchGovernor's young nephews into his seat. When they exited the passenger hold, Tactus leaned into Darrow's shoulder.
"Good friends to come and rescue you," he remarked. "Thought they were scattered to the Rim."
"Were," Sevro replied.
"What brought you back?" he asked. "The weather?" Sevro said nothing, although Shiro knew that it was loyalty to Mustang and to Darrow that brought the Howler to Luna. Tactus laughed despite the multiple gaping holes in his armor. How is he still standing? Shiro wondered incredulously.
"Just how you like 'em. Eh, Darrow?" Tactus added, nudging his friend a bit too playfully, leaving faint smeared of his own blood on the other lancer's clothes. "Friends who will risk life and limb to always be in your shadow?" Tactus winced as he bumped a bulkhead with his shoulder. Sevro trailed to the back of the group with Shiro as they came to the closed door of the flight cabin. Before Darrow could ask about Tactus' shoulder, the metal door hissed open. Nero au Augustus filled the doorframe, staring down at the group just as Victra brought Lysander forward from the ship's aft section.
"They're almost done, my liege," Darrow told the ArchGovernor, leading the group to join their employer in the flight cabin. The cockpit was as large as the bedrooms of the Citadel's villas. An array of lights ringed the pilot and co-pilot chairs, Mustang co-piloting from the left chair, with the Blue pilot seated to her right. A blue light glowed under the skin of the Blue's left temple indicating she was jacked into the ship. Mustang was speaking quickly with the Blue as she helped fly the ship, her right hand manipulating a holographic control prism. Shiro felt a pang of homesickness as he saw Earth hovering outside the curved viewport. Augustus, Pliny, and the comically hunched over Kavax au Telemanus discussed the group's options behind Mustang in the quiet of the cockpit.
"Well done, Darrow," Augustus said without even looking back to the group. "Though, you coud have chosen a better ship…"
"What's going on back there?" Mustang interrupted. "Is anyone hurt?"
"A few bruises, but we'll all live," Darrow replied.
"How long till we reach safety?" Shiro asked.
"It'll be a while," she answered. "Even when we hit orbit, we're thirty minutes out from our fleet."
"Fly faster," Darrow urged her. The ship trembled as Mustang and the Blue accelerated the ship as fast as it would go.
"It was a good plan," Kavax chimed in, beaming as he looked down at her. "It was a good plan, Virginia. The time you and Pax hid in the shrubbery to listen to your father's counsel. Except Pax was bigger than the shrub!" The man's booming laugh startled the quiet Blue, and even Shiro couldn't help but chuckle in amusement at the story. Mustang reached back and squeezed the Telemanus patriarch's arm, her hand smaller than his elbow to the point of looking comical. Kavax preened like a hunting dog with a pheasant in its jaws, looking around to see if everyone noticed her compliment. She really has a way with extremely tall men, Shiro thought with a chuckle. I'm half tempted to think that the Telemanuses might be part Galra and descended from Zarkon somehow. They're as big as he is.
The love on Kavax's face made the ArchGovernor's disinterest in his daughter's role in the plan seem monstrous. Shiro noticed Darrow look ill for a moment and remembered with disgust that the Jackal had killed Pax, Kavax's son and Mustang's childhood friend, at the Institute. And since Adrius was stuck in the same boat as they were, he could understand why the lancer found the idea of allying with the man who killed his friend repulsive. Mustang spared a glance at Darrow, her hair bound behind her head and the ghost of a small smile creasing the corners of her lips. Everyone was silent for a long moment as Shiro noticed the lovesick look in Darrow's eyes. Then, Augustus turned to the Reaper.
"I assume Octavia attempted to bring you into her fold as well?" he asked Darrow.
"She attempted," the young man replied.
"Slag herself!" Kavax boomed. "Bet you told her to go slag herself, eh, boy?" He slapped Darrow's shoulder, knocking him into Victra. "Sorry," he says sheepishly, rain water still dripping from his red forked beard. "Sorry."
"Actually, Lord Telemanus," Darrow commented. "I thought her offer tempting. She manages to treat her lancers with respect. Unlike others." Nice one, Darrow, Shiro observeed as he leans against the bulkhead of the cockpit. The ArchGovernor doesn't even waste time bantering over the subtle jab at how quickly the man threw the lancer under the bus less than a week ago.
"We'll amend that. I owe you a debt, Darrow," Nero responded. "Provided we make it to my fleet."
"You owe it to Mustang and the Howlers as much as me," Darrow said. Shiro couldn't help but like how the younger man was always quick to make sure everyone got credit.
"What is a Howler?" the ArchGovernor asked, confused for a moment.
"My friends in the black armor. Sevro's the leader."
"Sevro. That wrecthed little thing outside with my lancer, yes?" Augustus raised an eyebrow. Shiro immediately disliked the Martian governor's tone. "Thought I recognized him. Fitchner's boy. The one that killed that Priam brat in the Passage."
"He's with us, my liege," Darrow replied. "Loyal as my own hands." As if on cue, the door to the cockpit hissed open and Sevro and Tactus walked in. That is freakishly precise timing, Shiro thought to himself as everyone turns to look at the duo.
"What?" Sevro challenged, recoiling slightly. Tactus scooted off to the side and into the cockpit.
"Does your loyalty lie with me or with your father, Sevro?" Augustus asked.
"What father?" Sevro retorted. "I'm a bastard's bastard." He paused as he looked the ArchGovernor up and down skeptically. "And all due respect, my liege, I could give a cat's frozen piss about you too. Your daughter brought me from the Rim. My allegiance is to her. But above all, it's to Reaper. That's it."
"Mind your manners, you little puppy," Kavax growled. But despite the seriousness of the situation, Shiro couldn't help himself as he let out a soft chuckle at Sevro's flippant attitude.
"You must be Pax's father," Sevro said as he turned to address Kavax. "Sorry he went. He's a man I might have died for. But I see he got his good looks from his mother." Shiro quickly suppressed his laughter when Kavax looked like he wasn't sure if he'd been insulted or not. Nero observed this without so much as a change in expression.
"Darrow, I owe you an apology," the Martian governor remarked. "You were right. Loyalty, it seems, can extend beyond the Institute. Now… Lysander." He kneeled to speak with the boy as the ship rose steadily. "I've heard tell that you are an exceptional lad.
"I am, my liege," the Sovereign's grandson said, his voice as firm as it can be given the circumstances. The kid's really brave, Shiro observed with a smile. If he gets a better role model before he grows up he might have the potential to be a paladin someday. "They test me regularly," Lysander continued, and I train in all manners of studies. I rarely lose in chess. And when I do, I learn, as I ought."
"Do you now?" Nero asked rhetorically, the way a parent might when talking to a child. "I had a son like you, once, Lysander. But I'm sure you knew that."
"Adrius au Augustus," Lysander said, listing the Jackal from the Augustan lineage he'd learned.
"No," Augustus replied, shaking his head. "No. My younger son isn't like you at all." Lysander frowned.
"Then the elder," the boy corrected himself. "Claudius au Augustus?" Mustang glanced back at the mention of her older brother's name.
"Yes," the ArchGovernor answered with a nod. "A kind, special boy with a lion's heart. Better than me. Kinder. A ruler." He glanced at Darrow, sending a strange, meaningful glance in the Reaper's direction. "You would have been friends." Shiro couldn't tell if he was saying this to Lysander or Darrow.
"What happened to him," the young boy asked, trying to look dignified.
"They left that part out, eh?" Augustus remarked. "Well, a large young man from the House Bellona by the name of Karnus took liberties with a certain young woman my son was courting. My son took umbrage and challenged Karus to a duel. In the end, when my boy was broken and bleeding, Karnus kneeled, cupped my son's head" – he paused as he put one hand around Lysander's small, not-quite-innocent head – "And smashed it on the cobbled stones till it broke open and all his special-ness dripped out." He patted Octavia's grandson on the cheek as he finished. "Let's hope you never have to see such a thing."
"Is that your plan for me, my liege?" Lysander asked, mortal terror in his eyes despite the brave face he put on for the adults around him. Don't worry kid, Shiro promised silently, tensing up for a potential fight. If he even tries anything I'll cut his hand off.
"I'm only a monster when it's practical," Nero answered with a smile. Despite Mustang's promises and the fact that she was a good judge of character, Shiro wasn't reassured in the slightest. "I don't think I will have to this time," the governor of Mars continued. "You see, we're just trying to get home. So long as your grandmother permits our passage, then you will be safe."
"Grandmother says you're a liar," Lysander replied. Hypocritical, Shiro thought to himself, reminded of what Mustang has told him about her father's ability to keep his word and practice what he preaches. But not entirely wrong. Despite Mustang's reassurances, the Black Paladin resolved, right then and there, to make sure that nothing happens to the kid even if it means breaking away from House Augustus.
"Ironic," the ArchGovernor responded with a dark chuckle. "You will tell her we've treated you well, I hope."
"If I am well treated," Lysander retorted. Shiro felt a surge of pride for the child's courage in standing up for himself.
"Fair enough," Augustus laughed as he touched the boy's shoulder and stood up. "Victra, take him to the passenger hold." The Julii heiress glowered, angry that her employer singled out the only woman in the cockpit beside his daughter for the task. Shiro noticed her reaction and was about to offer to do it himself, but Tactus beat him to it.
"Might I, my liege?" the lancer asked. "I've not seen my own brothers in some time. I wouldn't mind talking with the lad." Nero nodded as if to say he doesn't care who carries the order out as long as it got done. Victra thanked Tactus, surprised by his gesture. He winked at her, punched Darrow's shoulder, and patted Lysander roughly on the head, almost knocking the boy down. I'd hate to meet his brothers, Shiro thought to himself as Tactus lead Lysander au Lune away from the cockpit.
"They tried to kill me as I slept," Augustus murmured as the stork climbed higher and higher. Mustang announced that they're two minutes from the edge of the atmosphere. "She knows I will not forgive this."
"She'll come to Mars," Darrow said.
"Is there no chance for amends to be made?" Pliny asked. Shiro snorted incredulously at the thought of trying to make peace with a woman who just tried to have them all murdered, but Mustang voices the thought before he can.
"Amends?" she snarled. "Make amends with the woman who burned a moon, Pliny? Are you an idiot?"
"Peace will preserve your line, my liege," the Politico pleaded with the ArchGovernor. "More than war. Set yourself against the Sovereign, and what hope can there be?" For all his arrogance, Shiro observed as the man attempted to convince House Augustus not to go to war. Pliny clearly has a way with rhetoric. But the head of the House was clearly having none of his Politico's words tonight.
"When the Sovereign pushed against me," Nero began, raising his voice. "I bent like Gold should: with grace, with dignity. But now she cuts at me, and beneath the grace, beneath the aplomb, her knife will strike iron. We make for Mars, and for war."
"We're reaching the lower atmosphere," Mustang announced. "Hold on."
"What is that light?" Sevro interrupted. "The blinking one over the altimeter."
"The cargo bay door is opening, dominus," the Blue snapped an answer.
"The cargo bay…" Darrow trailed off, frowning. "Can you over override it?"
"No, dominus," the Blue replied. "I'm locked out." But why is the cargo bay door still open? Shiro wondered.
"He volunteered," Mustang gasped. Her voice was panicked. "Tactus volunteered."
"No!" Darrow snarled, startling everyone but Mustang as realization dawns on everyone in the room.
"Sevro, Victra, on me!" Darrow shouted as he wheeled around and sprinted out the cabin doors, head ducked as he moved as fast as he can towards the back of the ship." Though he wasn't included in the orders, Shiro quickly followed behind, sprinting to catch up as he heard Darrow ordering the other Howlers and Housemembers to stay seated while they raced towards the cargo bay. The group slid down railings to the storage level. Up ahead, Darrow shoved open the door to the cargo hold to be greeted by the howling wind.
The hatch hung open, showing darkness wounded by the city lights far below. Clown and an Augustus lancer were bleeding and unconscious as they slowly slid towards the open bay door. Tactus was nothing but a distant dot in the darkness, but everyone knew what he'd taken. I may not have liked holding the kid hostage, Shiro thought. But now we've just lost our only bargaining chip for getting off Luna alive. Darrow and Sevro caught the two unconscious Golds before they could slip down the open ramp. The doors hissed closed as Victra shut them at the control panel.
"He doesn't have any communications gear," she said breathlessly. "Not after the EMP."
"Doesn't need the gorydamn gear," Sevro snapped, pointing to Clown's naked feet. "The bastard has gravBoots. Soon as he hits the ripWing scanners, he'll be picked up." Shiro wasn't as familiar with the technology of the era as the others, but he saw Darrow's face contort as the lancer worked his way through the math.
"We have two minutes till they send boarding parties," the Reapear announced.
I gave Roque some of The Jackal's dialogue since nobody's panicking about Quinn this time. There's less urgency and tension now that Quinn's life isn't hanging on by a thread. Tactus still betrays everyone like in canon, but what happens to him later might change. Still undecided about that right now. Shiro's comment about the Telemanuses and Zarkon is just a fun little joke. There is no relation between the two.
After the next chapter, things will calm down a bit and Mustang will finally get the chance to interrogate Shiro about Voltron and the Galra. In fact, the bulk of chapters 14 through 21 of this fic are going to be slower and more focused on character interaction.