Things went well for all of ten minutes. Then Shiro and Nyma were thrown forward as the escape pod suddenly jerked to a halt.
"Rolo, what the hell?" Nyma asked, as she picked herself up.
Rolo cursed, "We've been caught in a tractor beam!"
Shiro uttered a curse of his own, "The backup?"
Rolo squinted out of the pod's little window and frowned. "Nah," he said after a moment, "Doesn't look Galra."
Nyma shoved Rolo out of the way, ignoring his "Hey!" of protest, and looked out of the little window too, a frown also evident on her face. After a moment she stepped away, her frown one of confusion.
"It's just a standard cargo ship with no markings on." She said, "There's no telling who or what they are."
Shiro didn't like the sound of that. He had long ago discovered that out in space, the unknown was rarely good.
"I don't like this." Rolo said, pulling a pistol-looking weapon out of his waistband and checking it over.
"Me neither." Shiro said, "But there's nothing we can do to get away in this pod. So we'll just have to be ready for anything."
Rolo and Nyma nodded and Nyma pulled her two guns out and held them loosely at her sides.
"Alright, you two try and stay behind me. If things get ugly I'll raise my shield to provide us some cover, then you guys take as many of them out with your weapons. As soon as it's clear enough I'll join the fight. Rolo, how many more of those bombs can you make?"
Rolo checked his pack, "About five or six."
"Great, we'll probably need them again, but don't use them unless you have to." Shiro said.
Rolo grinned, "This plan has much more detail than your last one."
Shiro smirked at him, "Sometimes I like to actually think a thing through, you know, once in a while."
Nyma rolled her eyes.
A moment later the pod jerked again as it was pulled completely into the other ship's cargo bay and set down.
Shiro took his place in front of the pod's door, waiting for it to be opened from the outside, and Rolo and Nyma took their places behind him, their weapons held ready. All of them tensed and ready for an attack.
What felt like an eternity, but could only have been a few minutes later, the door slid open to reveal a tall, blue-skinned alien standing with his own rifle-like weapon held ready to fire at those inside the pod.
The blue alien and the trio regarded each other wearily for a moment. Then the blue alien said: "You're not Galra."
Shiro's eyebrows drew together. He hadn't been expecting that, but okay. "No." he said, "We're not."
"Prisoners, then?" the blue alien asked. His irises were neon-orange that contrasted surprisingly well with the dark blue of his skin, "Since you're in an escape pod."
Shiro regarded him for another moment before nodding. "Who are you, and what do you want with us."
The alien grinned and lowered his weapon, "We don't want anything with you. We thought you were escaping Galra that we could capture and interrogate for information. But since you're not, there's nothing much you can give us for the moment. I say 'for the moment' because it's up to the Captain. He'll want to meet you first, and then he'll decide what to do with you."
"And what if we don't want to go meet this Captain of yours?' Rolo asked, suspicion clear in his voice.
The blue alien shrugged, "Not up to you. The Captain meets everyone we bring on to the ship in person and then decides what to do with them. It's protocol."
"Protocol?" Shiro asked.
The blue alien nodded, "Now you can come on your own accord, or we can come in there and get you. And don't think that you can shoot your way past us. When you entered the ship you passed through a field that cancels out small weapons such as your hand-held ones out."
"Oh yeah?" Nyma's challenge was followed by a click, and then nothing.
Shiro's frown deepened, he wondered how the field had affected his arm, but he didn't want to give it away yet.
"How do we know you won't just shoot us all as soon as we step outside of the pod?" he asked.
The blue alien cocked his head, "If we had wanted you dead, I would have shot you already. Besides, our quarrel is with the Galra, no one else. Unless you intend to get in our way."
Shiro regarded him for a moment more before moving into a more relaxed stance. He glanced back at Rolo and was answered with a terse, but unhappy, nod. A glance at Nyma was answered with a scowl and a shrug, she was obviously not happy about the fact that her guns had been rendered useless. Shiro was just impressed, and made a mental note to mention these people's weapon nullifying field to Pidge once he rejoined team Voltron.
Once they stepped out of the pod they were met by five more aliens of various shapes and sizes, all armed and, Shiro noticed, wearing similar clothes. As if the crew on this ship adhered to a specific dress code, but with no identifying marks. Shiro felt as if he had stepped on to some sort of some sort of black ops ship.
The blue-skinned alien that had spoken to them motioned for them to follow him. As they walked down a long, dim corridor, Rolo nudged Shiro. When Shiro looked over, Rolo glanced down at his pack and then back up at Shiro again, this time with his eyebrows raised in question. Shiro surmised that he was asking about the Sulphora and Pixurite that he still carried. Shiro shook his head. They were at a disadvantage in this ship. They needed to know more before just blowing things up. Besides, so far these aliens didn't seem hostile. Maybe they would turn out to be allies.
Of course he couldn't say any of that out loud, but Rolo seemed to accept his assessment and dropped the subject with a shrug.
Shiro just hoped that the captain they were being taken to see would turn out to be a reasonable one.
