Lance managed to keep the smile on his face and applaud while Keith presented Daniel as the new commander of the Voltron Force. He even managed to congratulate the cad-his new leader. As soon as he possibly could, though, he slipped away from the gathering and headed for his room, locking the door behind him.

"I canNOT believe this shit!" he stabbed at the shutoff for his voltcom, then tore it from his arm and flung it against the wall. "I've been flying longer than that little bastard's been alive, and I have to take orders from him? Oh no. Hell, no!" He threw himself on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to get his temper under control.

For almost fifteen years he had been the second in command. The five years Keith had searched for Black, it had been Lance who led the team, taking on the stress of masquerading as a loyal soldier under Wade's nose. He'd saved the team more than once, and his thanks . . . his thanks was to see the position that should have been his handed to a cocky, inexperienced teenager. OK, sure, Daniel was destined for Black; they all knew that. But Lance had assumed that was years down the road, and that he would be the one turning the lion over. Not Keith.

And Keith hadn't even talked to the team about it. That was what really hurt, if Lance was honest with himself. In the space of one battle—and how had the kid known what was going on on Doom, and how the hell did he manage those tactics?—Daniel had gone from copiloting Black to leading the Force. Without so much as a "heads up" to Lance or Hunk. Lance closed his eyes. Allura had been expected; they knew from day one that she wouldn't fly Blue forever. Pidge handing over Green had been out of left field, but Lance could deal. But for Keith to just. . . hand over Black, and the team. . .something wasn't right. Even if Keith was ready to step down, no way would he have handed command over to a green 15 year old kid. Especially after the whole "take over Voltron" bit. . . .

Lance's eyes flew open. "Holy hells," he breathed. Suddenly, everything made sense. He got up and retrieved his voltcom, but left it inactive. After a dig in his closet for a particular item, he slipped out of his room, calling on his training and knowledge of the security systems to slip through the corridors undetected. Last thing he wanted or needed was to be intercepted. Quickly he made his way to Red and settled in the cockpit, launching the mecha and taking up a station facing the Castle.

Sensor sweeps were usually Pidge's province, and Green's sensors were the most sensitive, but they all knew how to execute them, and every lion had fairly sophisticated sensors. Lance brought up Red's bioscans, directing them at the Castle and filtering for approximate age and gender. When he had the signatures he wanted, he compared them to the baseline scans in Red's records, and quickly had confirmation of his suspicions.

He found his quarry where he expected to, in the rec room with the rest of the team. The blaster slid into his hand like the old friend it was . . . he sighted carefully . . . pulled the trigger . . . and the Commander of the Voltron Force lay dead. Slowly he lowered the blaster and walked into the room, watching his teammates. They all looked stunned, but Pidge, Allura, and Keith more so than the others. "Wha. . .what happened?" Allura asked softly. "Goddess, my head. . ." she gasped. "DANIEL!"

"Not Daniel," Lance corrected grimly. "HASN'T been Daniel since he did that whole mindmeld thing with Voltron. According to Red's sensor data, Maahox wiped Daniel out then, implanted his own program. One that could influence minds."

"But why. . ." Keith was still a bit dazed, but the Kogane focus quickly asserted itself. "Voltron. He saw a way to control Voltron."

"That's my guess." Lance looked at Pidge and Allura. "You two were his test cases. Allura, you were already leaning towards passing Blue to Larmina, so it was easy for Maahox to nudge you all the way into it. Pidge was a little harder, so Maahox used him to work up to Keith and Black."

"Because I was nowhere CLOSE to giving him up," Keith finished, nodding slowly. "Lance, how did you work all this out?"

Lance grinned. "By getting pissed off at you, as always. I do my best thinking that way." He slipped the blaster into a jacket pocket, then grabbed Daniel's body to carry it out.

And on a nearby asteroid, a Robeast shook with Maahox's howl of outrage. "I was so close! How dare he? He'll pay; they'll all pay!"