"You're nervous," Leifsdottir said, and if she noticed, then everyone else definitely would. James groaned slightly and resisted the urge to stick his head into the briefing room again. There were ten of them in there now, most of the candidates wearing the Garrison's uniform but a handful were wearing civilian clothing, including the aliens. Surprisingly, the Galra sat in the center of the cluster of humans and they were all talking animatedly; for some reason he'd assumed that the Galra would skulk ominously in the corner of the room.

"Where's Captain Shirogane?" James asked Leifsdottir, instead of responding to her statement and swallowing his nerves. This wasn't different from what he already did, not really - there were just more of them now, and there was a difference in rank. Leifsdottir didn't say anything, instead handing him her data pad, and James looked down at the information displayed. It was the roster that had been approved, with designations, room assignments and the four marked whose ships weren't completed and loaded.

"Lieutenant Griffin." James snapped to attention at the sound of Shiro's voice, and both he and Leifsdottir saluted as Shiro walked through the doors. He looked tired; but he had looked tired yesterday, too, and there was a lot of work to be done to get the Atlas deep-space worthy in such a short amount of time. "Flight Officer Leifsdottir, good morning." He hesitated a moment when neither of them moved, and then returned their salute. "At ease, soldiers. Have all the candidates arrived?"

"Yes, sir," Leifsdottir held her hands in front of her, the data pad she used as a shield against the world currently in James's hands. "All ten, although the requisitioned uniforms have not all arrived yet."

"I'm less worried about uniforms than I am about headcount," Shiro murmured. He nodded to James. "You ready for this?"

"Yes, sir!"

##

Shiro held the room with an easy grace, all eyes were drawn to him as he spoke. James envied the way he carried himself, it automatically commanded respect and attention, despite the obvious pall of exhaustion that tugged quietly at him. "Good morning, cadets," he said, as the pilots shuffled themselves into seats and gave him their undivided attention. "I'm sure that most of you know who I am, but I don't like starting off on the assumption that you all know me. So, my name is Takashi Shirogane, and I am the captain of the Atlas." He smiled openly and looked them over. "I'd like to welcome you here, and congratulate you on being chosen for the Atlas's primary support squadron. The MFE-Ares Mark 2 are advanced starfighters, a step above the original MFE-Ares and well above the scope of a usual fighter pilot. Each one of you here today passed your simulations tests with flying colors and showcased exactly what we are looking for as we join the Coalition in full and take this fight beyond the Earth's solar system.

"Each and every one of you have witnessed the way that the remnants of the Galra Empire laid waste to the Earth. Some of you have seen beyond that. We are all united in our desire to ensure that no other being has to suffer at the hands of an invading army bent only on conquest and destruction. We can only do that with the support and capabilities of soldiers - and pilots - like you."

Shiro inclined his head and looked at James, standing stiffly on his right. "Lieutenant Griffin will be your commanding officer, and he will report directly to me. Your mission, and unit goal, is to support the Atlas and her crew, and to support Voltron when needed. Expect lots of training and little downtime in your future as we go live when the Atlas launches. Lieutenant?"

James cleared his throat and stepped forward. "As of right now our unit has no designation so we will be using Ares as a squadron name until another option is presented. If you have a suggestion for the squadron name, please submit it to Flight Officer Leifsdottir or myself.

"Some of you were not officially a part of the Garrison when you volunteered for this, congratulations, you are officially enlisted. Grayson, Nxar, Lujay, Peshk - report to Leifsdottir after we dismiss to get your commission and uniform assignments." James looked down at his data pad. "Your call signs and unit designations are as follows: For the sake of clarity I will be both Ares Lead and Ares One. Leifsdottir is my wing as Ares Two. Alvarez, Ares Three, Nxar, Four." The dark-haired man with an easy smile gave a wary look at the Galra, who was still clad in the uniform of the Blade of Marmora.

"Grayson, you're Ares Five. Can you guess who Six is?"

"Peshk," the red-headed Grayson said with a grin, holding up her hand which the canine alien high-fived.

"Very good. Hazama, Seven. Gotou, Eight. Noor, you have Nine and Gaines is your wing at Ten. Carson, Eleven and Lujay, you're Twelve." James looked up from his data pad, most of the pilots were looking at each other and sizing up their new assignments. "I will be leading One Flight, Grayson is in charge of Two Flight, and Noor has Three Flight. Any questions on organization?"

There was a scattered amount of head shaking, although Noor stuck his hand up. "I want to see the Lions." Several of the pilots chuckled, and Gaines leaned forward from where she was seated behind him and punched the back of his shoulder.

"You will see plenty of the Voltron Lions, rest assured," Shiro spoke over the smattering of conversation and it ceased almost immediately. "But right now there is a lot of work to get done and not much time to do it in. You will see Flight Officer Leifsdottir for your room assignments and general information, and when you're dismissed your time today is your own to settle your affairs on Earth. Spend the time with your families, if they're here. Once we launch, there's no telling when - or if - we'll be making it back." Shiro glanced out over them, and the pilots gave him their undivided attention.

"Congratulations, Ares Squadron," James said. "Dismissed, until 0800 tomorrow."

##

"That went well," Shiro said lightly, in the small antechamber outside the briefing room.

"We'll see how many of them show up tomorrow," James said, arms folded and not looking at Shiro, his brow creased. He was thinking hard, and after a moment his eyes widened at his lapse. "Sir ," he tacked on lamely at the end, because god dammit why did he keep forgetting protocol around this man, he was usually more on top of things than this. He looked up in surprise when the captain put his hand on James's shoulder and smiled at him.

"I don't stand on formality, Lieutenant," he said. "I expect orders to be obeyed, but respect and trust have to be earned; and I don't think hiding them behind military protocol is always the best way to accomplish that."

James blinked at him. "I don't understand."

Shiro let out a small laugh and patted his shoulder before dropping his arm. "No, I expect you don't. That's fine, though, I think you'll understand it when you meet my team." He smiled, although the smile passed from fond to slightly sad and back again. "You're a part of that team now too, though, so don't be too surprised."

"I was in the same class as Lance and Keith," James said pointedly, his tone dry, and that made Shiro laugh.

##

"I want to see your roster," Rizavi said without preamble, standing over James's table with a dark expression.

James looked down at his lunch, and then up at Rizavi before blinking once, comically. "The rosters are finalized," he said after he swallowed his bite, and Rizavi threw herself into the seat opposite his, dropping her data pad on the table and scowling at it. "We already broke the news to the cadets."

"Every single one of your squadron has top flight marks," Rizavi said. "Did you leave me anyone who passed the simulator?"

"We didn't take all thirty of the candidates," James said defensively and decided to take another bite of his lunch, because if he let Rizavi drag him into this debate he wouldn't get a chance to finish it. "Besides, we narrowed the list down by score and compatibility with the mission parameters."

"Plus you get the Mark-2's." She folded her arms on the table. "Highly unfair."

"The fleet will get upgraded to the Mark-2's when the Ares Squadron is completely outfitted."

Rizavi leaned forward on her crossed arms. "I. Want. To. Go. To. Space. " She dragged out the last word, eyes glittering dangerously.

"Then talk to Commander Holt about switching with Leif. All she's been doing for the past two days is talking my ear off about every single depressing and terrifying fact about space she knows." He popped another bite into his mouth and chewed for a moment. "I've learned eleven new ways you can die this morning alone."

"You like Leif," Rizavi sighed dramatically.

"Well, yeah. She's my wing. Ideally you and Kinkade both would be joining this mission, I'm kinda pissed that they've split us up. We're a full flight."

"It was always Commander Holt's plan, though." Rizavi sat her chin in her palm and groaned. "That we would all be groomed to lead and teach more pilots behind us since we were the guinea pigs for the first generation of MFEs. It just sucks, I wanna go to space."

"You would have to leave your family behind," James pointed out pragmatically, and Rizavi made a face, puffing out both her cheeks for a moment before exhaling the breath in a groan.

"I know. You act like that's not a bonus." She huffed for a moment. "I can be illogically upset about this, all right? I'm gonna miss Leif, and your stupid face, too."

"Yeah, I know you will." James smirked and Rizavi reached out and punched his arm lightly.

"Don't let that go to your head. You know who else you'll be on board with."

"My entire reoccurring nightmare of classmates from year two? Please don't remind me." James tapped his fork against the empty meal tray thoughtfully. "It's all too easy to get caught up in the wave of ' shit that needs done,' have you taken a moment to think about what's going on? We repelled an alien invasion. We're going out to space. Not just, even out to Pluto but actual uncharted waters for humanity. There's so much to learn, out there."

"Why do you think I'm so jealous, nimrod?" Rizavi tapped her fingers against her data pad, and the screen lit but didn't unlock. "Of course, those same aliens that we didn't know existed five years ago are now trying to kill us and wipe out humanity, so we gotta take the good with the bad on this one."

"Captain Shirogane seemed pretty certain that another Warlord wasn't going to look twice at our solar system for a while yet. We successfully repelled an invasion from, apparently, the most ruthless of the Galra fringe. Word will get around that Earth isn't to be messed with." James grinned. "And besides, that's what your squadrons will be for."

Rizavi sighed dramatically. "We're gonna have an entire fleet by the time you get back," she threatened. "And I'll be Admiral Rizavi by then and you'll have to salute me."

"I look forward to it," James said with a smile.

##

The ready room on the Atlas had a bank of four simulators built in along one wall, and apparently it was the place to be. James had been doing a walking tour of the pilot's deck; aside from the briefing room they had a ready room that fed directly into the launch bay where the MFEs were docked, the pilot's quarters, and a common area. They also had their own canteen, although James suspected that with the ship running on a bare skeleton crew at full launch that most of his squadron would be taking their meals in the main mess hall.

When the doors parted on the ready room, Alvarez and his wing, Nxar, looked up guiltily. The Galra had been outfitted in a Garrison uniform like the rest of them, and the bright orange clashed gaudily against the violet and magenta markings on his fur. He looked less threatening, somehow, out of the Marmora uniform. Alvarez saluted immediately and, after a confused moment Nxar awkwardly saluted as well.

James returned their salute but waved off their at ease stances. "What's going on here?" he asked, glancing at the status display over the simulators, that scrolled rankings and data about practice missions.

"Practice," Nxar said, his regular speaking voice a soft rumble.

James raised an eyebrow, and Alvarez shrugged and grinned, unrepentant. "All our sim runs have been solo, Lieutenant. Some of us don't have anyone to leave behind, so we might as well get ahead of the pack and log some hours flying with our wing."

A muffled, frustrated noise came from one of the simulators, and when the opaque canopy popped to allow the pilot to exit, that frustrated noise was revealed to be a scream of rage. Grayson popped her head out of the simulator, yanked her helmet off and yelled, "I'm going to kill him!" Her head on a swivel, she located Nxar standing in front of the simulators, and her anger dissipated into confusion. "Wait, if you're out here, who's flying against us?"

The second simulator's canopy popped open, and Peshk stuck her head out and groaned, before hauling out of the simulator on wobbly legs. "Okay, I'm done," she said. "I'm out."

"You sure? Drinks are on you, then."

"You go against that lunatic again if you want, but I'm wasted." The dog-like alien popped her helmet off as well, glancing at Grayson still seated in the simulator and stewing. "Oh, no, I'm not doing that again, Kit. Being vaped three times in one day is enough for me, thanks."

Alvarez hiked his thumb at James, who was standing behind them and looking amused. "Maybe the Lieutenant should give it a go," he said. "If no one's beaten Nxar's program yet, maybe he will."

"You wrote a program for them to fly against?" James said, impressed, and the Galra's ears flickered, set in a mane of dark violet fur.

"I did. I compiled flight data from several different sources and created a few different scenarios. This one is a live pilot exercise, one of the baseline flight exercises created by the Blade, only slightly modified to run with MFEs instead." He tilted his head toward the two closed pods. "It allows for live pilots to pit their skills against each other."

"Real live pilots who I'm gonna fight," Grayson announced, climbing out of her simulator, helmet in one hand and looking like she was actually ready to throw down.

Alvarez stepped between her and the other simulators, arm held out without touching her. Grayson stopped in place and glared at him. "Simmer down," he said. "Lieutenant on deck." He tilted his head and she looked past Alvarez to see James standing there.

Her eyebrows drew together and then she huffed, folding her arms as best she could, helmet still held loosely but clearly over everything about the simulator run. She looked James up and down once. "I want to see the Lieutenant fly the sim," she said.

"There will be plenty of time for that later," James said. "Far be it from me to order you all to take a rest, but maybe cool it on the sims for a little while. You should be out and enjoying your last bit of shore leave on Earth."

The four cadets all nodded, and Nxar bowed slightly in Peshk's direction. "I believe drinks were on you?" he said, and Peshk rolled her eyes and let out a small yipping noise, which was apparently a normal noise for the alien.

"First round," she clarified, pushing Grayson ahead of her with one hand. "You got vaped as many times as I did, Nxar, second round is on you."

"I object, I didn't concede this fight."

James watched the gaggle of cadets leave the ready room arguing animatedly among themselves, before knocking on the still-closed simulator. "They're gone, you can come out now."

The simulator popped its opaque canopy, and Keith pulled his helmet off and shook out his hair. "How did you know it was me?"

"I didn't." James eyed him. "Why are you antagonizing my pilots? Or did you not trust the results we both went over like, fifteen times?"

"Would you believe I was bored? This is the only ready room outfitted with simulators." Keith climbed out of the machine, and set the helmet down atop the still-closed canopy of the fourth simulator.

"Doesn't your Lion have a built-in simulator?"

"Yeah, but it only links to the other Lions right now, and I wanted to fly against your pilots." Keith glanced up at the screen above the simulators, that showed the flight score and kill count. "You've got a good group, Alvarez and Grayson both made things interesting for me, and Peshk almost got me once. I don't think Nxar is comfortable with the MFE's controls yet, though, once it clicks for him he'll climb the ranks fast in the skill department."

"We should be doing live flight exercises, but we don't have enough ships for that yet." James let out a short sigh and then shrugged his shoulders, arms folded. "We'll get to that, hopefully before a combat situation."

"When we launch we'll be heading for Coalition space," Keith said. "We're taking some passengers back, I think Shiro might be losing sleep over having Slav with us long-term." There was an amused smile on his face and James hadn't met the alien, but he'd heard the stories.

"I'm just hoping we get the seventh and eighth MFE before launch. Things are so scrambled right now, trying to re-launch the Atlas with all these new modifications that there just isn't the time or resources to devote to smaller craft."

"It is what it is, at this point. You should see all the modifications on the Paladin's deck alone, it's absurd. Coran and Slav have been up to their ears in it with the Olkari engineers. It almost feels like home again." He paused a moment; a distant, fond expression crossing his face, and then he blinked himself back to the present day. "Actually, if you want we can go check it out and grab a drink. That way we can avoid your cadets haunting the canteen."

James raised an eyebrow. "Go grab a drink, huh?"

Keith gave him a puzzled look. "Yes, a drink? I don't know about you but I'm parched. I've been in that simulator for a while now." He rolled his shoulder and rubbed it, still wearing one of the Garrison's flight suits. "If you don't want to, that's fine. Maybe I'll see Lance about."

The last James had seen of the Blue Paladin he had been covered in small children, but he didn't feel the need to mention that to Keith. "No, it's fine," he said. "If you're so lonely that you have to resort to my company..."

"Don't even start, you're beginning to sound like Lance. You coming, or what?"

James shook his head, amused, and followed Keith out of the ready room.