Author's Notes:
Happy Hump Day from summer Down Under. Thankyou for reviews and follows.
Having fun with this fanfic. It's far different from anything i've written before. One more chapter before this crazy little fic ends.
Chapter Five.
[ One week later]
Allura stomped along the hallway, her heavy military boots echoing through the castle's titanium walls. Who sets up a meeting this early? Seriously? She huffed a breath before entering the meeting room. Stepping inside the door, she was surprised to see a well-laid breakfast table setting for two. "You called this a meeting?"
"You've been avoiding me this past week," Keith replied. He pulled a chair for Allura; he held his palm out wide, gesturing her to join him.
She hesitated for a few long moments. Then, tilting her chin up, she sauntered across the room, and sat. "I'm not sure what you're saying, Your Highness," she deadpanned, placing the cloth napkin on her lap.
Keith sat opposite her. He reached for the carafe, and fìlled both their cups with coffee. "Don't be coy with me. I haven't seen you for days, and you haven't been showing up for morning briefings."
"I promptly submitted all my reports." She lifted her cup, gently blowing over the dark, hot liquid.
"That's not the point, Allura." Keith exhaled loudly when he saw her lips formed a thin line. "It's Lady Hys, isn't it?"
Allura sat stiffly, unmoving.
"What did she say to you?" He stirred his coffee.
"What made you think this is about Lady Hys?" She picked up her fork and stabbed her breakfast sausage. She told me that you're royalty and I'm a nobody.
"You don't need to say anything. I already spoke to her this morning. Lady Hys needs to remember not to overstep her boundaries, and nobody bullies anyone in this castle, especially the people I care about," he said. Keith reached over, and gently covered her hand with his. "And most especially the person I love."
Allura stared at her breakfast plate, unable to look at the man in front of her.
He gently squeezed her hand. "I cleared my schedule this morning, and I want yours cleared as well. You and I need to—"
Without any warning, the castle's alarm system went off, blaring.
Keith and Allura leaped to their feet and bolted towards the doorway.
"We'll talk later," he said to her while they sprinted along the hallway.
Running, she glanced at him and wordlessly nodded. Yes, we need to talk, I have so much to tell you.
When they reached the castle's control room, Allura stood beside the royal advisor. "What's happening, Coran?"
"It's a distress signal." Coran turned the dials of the console in front of him, trying to fine-tune the source of the message.
Allura pressed on the console controls and switched to the large screen visuals in front of them.
An elder spoke in an urgent and hurried voice. "Coran, we're under attack! It's one ship...looks like a slave ship and they're trying to capture our townspeople. Please hur—." The screen went blank.
Allura ordered Coran, "Send out three squads with three aircrafts, with full load out and everyone in full battle armour.I'm going with them." She pivoted and sprinted towards the armoury.
"Why didn't our early detection satellite pick up the slave ship? What are the Drules doing? There's an ongoing peace treaty!" Keith said angrily, as he ran along Allura.
Reaching the armoury, she suited up and wore her battle armour. "What are you doing?" Allura barked at Keith.
"Gearing up, what do you think I'm doing? I'm going with you." Keith replied without stopping as he continued to wear the full armour.
"No, you're not. You're staying in the Castle. You're the heir to the throne. If anything happens to you—" Allura argued.
"—Those are my people. It is my royal right to protect my people," Keith cut her off, protesting.
Allura glared at Keith, shoving him against a wall. "I would like to knock some sense to you." She palmed her comm. "Coran, His Highness shouldn't be allowed to join me on this mission."
"You two can't deny me this. I'm as good as Allura, if not better."
Allura growled at him. She was breathing heavily beneath her body armour; her control slipping. I don't want to lose you. I won't lose you to them. If anything happens to you, I don't know what I'd do. Punching the wall beside his shoulder, Allura let him go; she stomped across the hangar floor towards the awaiting troop carrier.
Keith ran after her and overtook the angry commander on the gangplank, blocking her way. "I defended my planet and survived. We know how to drive them out."
"Fine. But you follow my orders," she said through gritted teeth. Allura furiously pushed past him.
Grinning, Keith stood beside Allura as they stepped inside the troop carrier. There were at least twenty soldiers impatiently waiting for them. Finding vacant seats, they buckled their harnesses.
Allura activated her headset; she was in sync with two squad leaders on the other two aircrafts deployed ahead of them. With Arus' reigning monarch with them, Allura barked orders on the comm that their ship was now just back-up and mostly to protect the Arusian prince from being killed.
Keith narrowed his eyes at her as their aircraft noisily lifted off.
Fifteen minutes into the sky, Allura received an update from one of the squad leaders. Allura pulled Keith closer and shouted to his ear, "They already landed. They said it was a small slave ship and mostly robot soldiers. They secured the area. Ship destroyed and most of the robot soldiers went on self-destruct when they blew up the Drule ship."
Keith leaned back and let out a sigh of relief. "My people are safe. Any reports on the number of casualties?"
Allura tapped her headpiece. "They said they're still checking. We're landing in fīve minutes."
xoxoxo
Once they landed, the two offīcers updated Allura and Keith straightaway that there were no casualties, only minor injuries.
"Commander, permission to speak freely ma'am," one of the offìcers asked.
"Go ahead," Allura acquiesced.
"Something was not right, Commander, Your Highness. Like…the robot soldiers were looking for something."
Allura nodded and walked towards the burgeoning pile of broken Drule robot soldiers. She instructed the soldiers to fīnd an intact robot.
Once they found one, Allura grabbed her own special ops equipment and pulled a thin, metallic cable that was attached to a small handheld computer. She crouched on the ground and linked the cable to the robot's port. With an electric jolt, her device lit up, showing a series of computer codes written in Drule language.
Keith peered from her shoulder, "You read code or Drule?"
"Both," Allura replied without taking her eyes off the tiny screen. "Part of special ops training. But, thanks to advanced tech for special ops, and this gadget translates stuff faster."
"What does it say?"
"They were ordered to look for...something...a specifìc item, some kind of device?" Allura unplugged the wire and pocketed the device. She then ordered all the soldiers to do a perimeter sweep.
Carefully scanning for several minutes, Allura held her laser rifle as she panned her surroundings with electronic visual sensors. The town was still a disaster zone: buildings were destroyed, wreckage from military equipment and vehicles from both sides littered the streets. "Why this place?"
"This is the last battleground before we fìnally kicked out their arses off our planet." Keith replied. With a gloved hand, he picked up a metal scrap on the ground and threw it on the side of the path. "Clean-up is a slow process. There are mines and booby traps everywhere."
"I wonder what they were supposed to retrieve." Allura mused.
"It could be anything: flight recorder for ship data or downed probes, who knows." Keith shrugged. Then, something caught his eye, under a pile of rubble, something glinting in the sun and soft beeping sound. Peering through, his heart lurched. This could be it! He finally found the blasted device. Keith stepped forward. "Allura, look...there's—"
"Keith, wait! No! Stop!" Allura yelled, forcefully yanked Keith's shoulder from behind, pulling him backwards.
Without any warning, Allura heard a zapping, swooshing sound. She screamed in pain when metal spikes clamped her ankle, which easily pierced through her body armour. Then, a loud crackling sound emerged from the clamp, electrocuting her, knocking her unconscious. Her limp body landed on hard ground with a sickening thud.
"Allura!"
(TO BE CONTINUED)