A/N: This chapter deals with themes of slavery and sexual slavery, though not explicitly. It is pretty well implied, however, and this may be triggering or upsetting to some readers. Reader discretion is advised. Otherwise: This chapter is about 1000 words longer than I meant it to be, and we're still... mostly following some parts of canon, but we're completely leaving canon behind in the next chapter (or... mostly). Following Keith this chapter, and it is a bit slow as I'm explaining the six genders that I'm giving to the Galra. I know some people explain the differences in their species as sub-types/sub-species. I am choosing genders instead because I like the idea of a species with several genders.

Keith had never been very good at obeying what was set out for him. Keith had never followed the path that was laid out for him, and he had no real regrets around that, beyond not knowing if they had punished the only person in the universe he loved for it. Keith walked through the ship, double checking the locks on the prison cells to make sure no one could get out -not that they had anywhere to go- and that no one could try to fight the guards -not that any of them would.

Nothing interesting happened on his ship. Ever. But then again, he liked it that way, since it kept the others on board from discovering his secret. Keith wasn't meant to be a soldier. No one born a qylar was ever meant to be one, so they told him. So of course, when one of the war ships full of horny soldiers had docked with the nursery ship that was his one time home, he knocked out the air lock guard, stole his uniform, and slipped on board in his place.

Keith had changed ships several times since then, and no one seemed to notice -or if they did they didn't care enough to report him to any officers- that he was not the soldier his name plate said he was. Keith was the most useless gender one could be, while being a Galra. The qylar were shorter, thinner, and had wider set hips, tails, and were the only one of the six Galra genders that could give birth. This was their absolute duty to the empire, the gol on board his ships had told him, and every other young qylar born the same year he was. To give birth every two and a half years, to provide the empire with soldiers to send off to serve the empire in better ways.

Gol, despite their total infertility, were the only gender in the Galra who could use magic which made them very important and useful to the empire. They were hunched, with stark white, long fur on their heads, more similar to what others might call hair. Their skin was purplish blue and furless ans their eye's were yellow, and red stripes adorned their wrists, ankles, hips, neck, shoulders, and cheeks. They usually all became druids, though the weaker ones were sent to the nursery ships to keep the qylar in line. Not that this took much effort.

Keith was taller than most qylar though, which helped him blend in on the ship. His armour hid his distinctive figure and his tail, his eyes were as yellow as any Galra, other than gal, and his heat cycle he repressed by dieting, which though irritating, was certainly better than being found out and sent back to what fate awaited him on board the nursery ship. He avoided the healing, soothing purr by simply never being happy -not a difficult task actually, if one asked him, and no one did.

The gal were the only of the six genders not to have yellow eyes. Their skin was scalier too, certainly compared to the light fur that covered Keith's body. In fact by contrast, the gal had no hair at all on their bodies. Purple eyes... and they were generally taller and bulkier, and physically stronger than the other genders. They were considered one of the better genders to be born, since that was what their emperor Zarkon was. This apparently offered few advantages though in the army itself, as they were more often than not brute force.

The qvir were the most similar to qylar, and it was a qvir Keith pretended to be. Like qylar, they had fur, larger ears, that pivoted and a darker purple tuft of fur that grew longer on their heads, though most shaved it off. Keith kept his, despite it's especially fluffy nature. He wore a helmet nearly constantly anyways, and saw little point in cutting it. Qvir were normally taller than qylar though, stronger, and Keith was told more intelligent, but he'd begun to doubt that in his four years flitting about the empire as a foot soldier.

The raego were the most intelligent gender though, intuitive, and quick to come up with idea's and plans. They too were covered in fur, but their ears were small, and didn't move on their heads like qvir or qylar ears did. Raego tended to move up the ranks more easily, thanks to their brilliant minds. His mother had warned him that they were especially cruel though, when they visited the nursery ships. They were also especially cruel to prisoners, dissenters, rule breakers, and generally anyone who breathed too loudly in their presence while they also held a rank, Keith had learned. They often had serious under bites, which most other soldiers would mimic to taunt them. Keith never did... he was forced to keep his head down, an almost impossible task for him, considering his temper.

The Ruj were the final gender, and harder for Keith to pinpoint. They were scaly, and unlike most Galra, they had irises and pupils. They had fin-like ears and scales that were dark purple on their heads, always in a line toward their spines, and a few dotted about elsewhere on their bodies. Their crews tended to have higher moral, it was true, but it was harder for them to rise through ranks it seemed to Keith. And apparently they did not generally visit nursery ships either, though the odd one who did, his mother had told him, had always been surprisingly gentle. His mother had told him that his father was a ruj, which at least made him feel a little better about it.

Keith sat down, deciding he could afford to slack off a little bit, at least right now. He had only just leaned against a wall to ignore what he was supposed to be doing when the intercom crackled to life and a familiar voice echoed through the ship.

"All hands, prepare for a worm-hole jump. Repeat: All hands, prepare for a worm-hold jump. Assault strikers ready, all hands, prepare for a worm-hole jump." Keith scowled as he found the right spot on the wall and hit the button for a row of chairs to pop out. He sat down as several others jogged over, strapping in beside him. It was another minute before the familiar vibrations and rocking came to tell him they were in a worm hole. It was always uncomfortable, jumping. He always felt a touch queasy when they came out the other side.

Keith unstrapped once they had jumped and went back to his post for now. Better than having to fight anything. Keith didn't like fighting anything... seeing what the empire did to all these species, all these people... it left a sour taste in his mouth. Part of him wondered if perhaps the way qylar were treated was just as wrong as the way aliens were. It must be. None of them were free after all. All of them were forced to comply or die, though Keith... Keith, full of fire, and told many times that it should be smothered out... Keith had decided he would rather die.

For the longest time nothing seemed to be happening at all until he heard a crash and a bang, and a siren alert went off inside the ship, signalling that the fighters were scrambling and launching. Were they in a battle? Keith frowned, but a noise caused one of his ears to pivot and he turned. Footsteps... coming this way. Soft voices, not Galran. Another sound from another direction and he gritted his teeth. Stay and fight or follow the sound, the humming bell-chime that rang in his head from the strange robot lion in their cargo bay...

Damn it all. He wasn't going to fight some stupid aliens. The droid soldiers could handle that, so he followed the chime, the energy that always pulled him in. Keith spent all of his spare time inside the hangar bay, watching the red barrier, and the lion it contained. He wondered what it was, why he felt connected to it. He never sat out in the open of course, that might raise questions, which might get him dragged before Sendak, who might recognize him, or at least suspect... Before Keith was quite aware of it, he stood in front of the lion again and glared at it this time. No one was around them...

"You gonna tell me what you want or what?" Keith snapped at it now. Stupid thing. It called him here again and again, and now, in the middle of a fight! And all it ever did was stare at him silently, the red shield up and it's silent judgment weighing upon him. He stared at for what felt like an hour, but he knew it wasn't, when a sound caught his ear and he turned to see a group of armed drones running past. Toward the jails? The alert for a jail break went too and he scowled before he tapped the button on his helmet as the drones ran towards the hallway and ran for the control panel. In his time as the guard, the one who patched up prisoners after a fight, kept them alive, fed them... he'd grown attached to them. Grown to feel guilty over what the empire was and did... not that he was able to do much. The empire enslaved it's own as much as it enslaved others.

"You aren't getting those prisoners!" He growled, hitting the airlock button. Another alarm blared and Keith was grateful his helmet flattened his ears so much, it muffled all the noise. Keith grabbed to panel as the airlock opened and the vacuum of space pulled at him. The droids were out, so he reached for the panel again to close it but flying debris hit him. He tried again but... shit...

"Shit!" He lost his grip too and out he went, into space. No, no, no! These suits didn't have jetpacks. They were designed to keep him alive if they lost containment, if the oxygen was gone... but not to get him back in a ship if he was actually sucked out into space. Okay, okay, deep breaths... he looked around, scared before the sound of the lion caught his attention, the sound he'd heard for months each time it called him. When he looked again it was right in front of him... and then he was inside it.

"Good... good kitty," He said, grinning a little as he reached for the controls. He'd never piloted anything, but it felt easy too. Natural. He could see other lions that looked like this one, but... different. An escape pod was going to the planet they were orbiting and Keith moved to guard it down, the other lions apparently following him down.

"Everyone to the castle, where the Black Lion is!" Keith heard over a communication radio in the lion. He followed them, grinning, a little terrified and giddy at once. He'd broken the rules by escaping the nursery ship... he was breaking a lot more by helping these people... but maybe he could make a difference. Maybe he could make things better.

He settled his lion in beside the blue and the green lions, noting that his own lion was only bigger than the green one. A small figure dressed in a black and white space suit ran out of the green lion and stood before the door just then. Keith couldn't see him too well but... he felt familiar. There was no way Keith could know him though right? He was an alien after all and Keith only saw the prisoners. The Black Lion roared, and Keith jumped when all four of the others, his own included, roared with it before the alien in black ran forward and into the new lion. Five lions... why five anyways? Couldn't they build more or something?

"Sendak is entering the Arusian atmosphere! We need Voltron, now!" A new voice called over the radio and Keith swallowed lightly. What... what the hell was a 'Voltron'? The voice that spoke was pretty and light, and yet held fierceness to it too, in a way Keith wasn't used to hearing. It felt like a kind voice. At least he knew who Sendak was and how cruel he could be...

"Yeah!" The others echoed and and moved up and out of the bay after the blank lion. Keith moved too, worried about this. He had no idea what he was doing, and he had no idea what a Voltron was, but apparently they had to form one. Somehow. With five lions. Under heavy fire from the Galra, which he also was, not that any of these guys knew it... They all landed, under a particle barrier that several flyers were shooting at when Keith saw the purple gleam of the ion canon. He really hoped he hadn't just left the empire only to die in this fight against one Galra ship... then again, if they were captured alive he would suffer a fate far worse than death.

"Man, those Galra guys repair things fast!" A new, deeper voice came over the intercom. Keith nearly replied that they had things like that down to an art-form but he refrained, fearing it might give him away. He supposed if they survived this it would happen anyways, but hopefully if he helped them here first they would trust him a bit better? Then again he was even wearing the Galra uniform...

"The barrier gets weaker with every blast. Once that shield goes down, the castle will be defenceless!" Another deeper voice said. It had a thick sounding accent, not light like the first voice had been. Keith bit his lower lip, his eyes narrowing at the ship in concern.

"I can give you cover with the castle defences for a while, but you have to form Voltron now! Or we'll all be destroyed!" The first voice again, Keith recognized. He swallowed again, refraining from asking what a Voltron was still. It might not be good for moral if the others knew that he had no idea what he was doing or what was even really happening. All he really understood was that if he fought the Galra with them, he would be free from them too. Forever.

"Geez. No pressure..." That was the one who talked about fast repairs... right? Probably. Keith tugged off his helmet to hear better just as the second ion canon blast hit the shields. He winced and watched the shield as it flickered, barely surviving this blast and swallowed.

"Listen up team Voltron! The only way to succeed is to give it all you've got! This looks bad, but we can do this! Are you with me?!" Keith's eyes widened at that voice, his right ear popping straight up and swivelling to point at the intercom as Champion spoke. That was definitely Champion's voice! No... Shiro. Shiro. He had hated the name 'Champion' when Keith had called him that. He felt more confident with a fighter like that on his team. There was a unified cry of confirmation and they all started forward out of the barrier.

"Uh... how?" Came another new voice. Even in the heat of battle Keith couldn't help but find he really liked that voice a lot, which was a touch embarrassing. He really should use more than just a voice to form a crush, right? Right. Either way, it was a relief to know the others didn't know how to form a Voltron either.

"I don't see a 'combine into giant robot button anywhere on my dashboard!" It was the repair guy again and Keith blinked in surprise. A giant robot was what they were forming? They already had five giant robots, why combine them into one? Wasn't five lions better than one of the Voltron's? Although forming a giant robot did make the most sense for what a Voltron could be, and Keith admittedly felt a little silly for not thinking of that probability sooner...

"This is insane! Can't they just cease fire for one minute while they figure this out? Is that too much to ask?!" That voice sounded young, like one just entering adolescence. The green lion broke formation now and grabbed one fighter in it's jaw, thrashing it about. Keith was about to respond when the yellow lion slammed into his suddenly, causing him to struggle to recover.

"Hey!" He growled over the comm, his first time actually speaking to them. Well, other than Shiro, but he wasn't sure Shiro would even remember him. A lot of the time Shiro had been beaten up... one time missing an arm.

"Well that didn't work. Hey, so you can talk!" So the repair guy was in the yellow lion, Keith knew that now for sure. The black lion held Shiro. The adolescent was in the green one... so the pretty voice was probably the blue lion right? He supposed the other two must be in the castle then.

"Maybe if we just... fly in formation, we'll combine? Ready? One! Two! Three! Voltron!" They did all take off, but if anything, Shiro just sapped his confidence. If Shiro had no idea what they were doing, they were probably doubly screwed right now, right? Nothing was happening until Keith noticed purple light around them and sighed, his hands letting go of the controls. Not even destroyed, they would be tractored in... and once they inspected him... qylar were too valuable to execute, and anyways, he belonged to someone specific.

"Nothing is happening! Wait... I feel something?!" The blue paladin, who likely hadn't clued in yet.

"I feel it too! Like... we're all being pulled together in the same direction!" The yellow one this time.

"Uhh... guys... I think I know why... look up!" Shiro's voice, concerned, but not dismayed yet. Keith should have known. He should have known better than to try and fight the Galra empire. He registered the voice of the green paladin, but didn't process what was said either. He registered another blast from the ion canon and some shouts from the others, but he said nothing in return. Not until Shiro spoke again. The universes only hope. Can't fail. Work together, win together. Keith grabbed his controls then, and somehow he felt the others doing the same as they broke out of the tractor beam.

He honestly didn't do much where controlling the change was concerned, but quite suddenly his display changed and he moved, punching his lion? The arm? It was both! Into the ion canon just as it prepared another shot. It wouldn't get another one off. So this was a Voltron! Keith grinned, his despair of a moment ago suddenly giddiness.

"I-I can't believe it!" He grinned in amazement, and his ear swivelled to listen to the other paladin's equally delighted comments of confusion and happiness. The yellow paladin also said something about being a leg. It was a team effort, pulling the cannon off, but it was mostly just him firing off an ion cannon of his own inside the ship. There were no prisoners left on the ship... just soldiers, and they were mostly terrible, he already knew. And yet... there was guilt too as fire blossomed out of the ship and it blew up. He ignored that for now, working with them to bring the ship down. When it crashed towards the ground he could feel a pull from his lion as they all disconnected and landed again, before the castle.

The other paladins walked out of their lions, jumping and congratulating each other... another two people left the castle, but Keith... Keith stayed where he was, grabbing his helmet and pulling it back on. He didn't know what to do... he had to reveal himself eventually but what would they do to him? What would they say? Not only was he Galra, he was qylar. The most useless gender or all of them... he wasn't strong, or smart, or fast, or ruthless... the qylar were the nurturers, he had been told. The mothers of their whole species. Important yes... but only when it came to giving birth and caring for newborns.

"Hey man, come on out..." The blue paladin called, looking at he red lion now. He really was pretty, Keith thought, but the others were looking now too. Three of them had pointed ears and markings under their eyes. There was Shiro... and the other two looked like they might be from his species too. He stood up and the red lion bowed, and Keith walked out to meet his fate. His step only faltered when he saw their expressions, shock, fear... and hate.