Katherine Callaghan Holt was stuck in what she assumed was the space equivalent of the Great Pacific garbage patch, and god damn was she bored. At first she had stayed in the cockpit. Green had powered down, going into a sleep mode to do some internal repairs after crashing through so many layers of junk, so Katie was indeed completely and utterly alone. It was weird. She thought she'd like finally getting some peace and quiet, but after a couple of hours it just became unnerving. She was used to the quiet noises of the castle, creaking and buzzing of the inner works, bangs of metal contracting and expanding with temperature changes like the old metal radiators at her grandparent's farm in Indiana. She was used to the sound of Hunk working quietly next to her, or rambling a story about how he had taken something or other apart when he was younger. She was used to hearing Lance singing in the other room, or the sounds of Keith and Shiro using the training deck. She was used to casually explaining her ideas and projects to her lion while in the hangar, listening to her questions and advice when things didn't work out quite as intended.

But none of that was there now. There were only clunks and scrapes of the wreckage outside bumping into itself. Her mom would probably comment that she should feel right at home in all the clutter with the way her room always looks. Katie couldn't help but smile at the thought. She looked out into space. Green was now slightly awake, still powered down but also semi-conscious after nearly being hit by a large chunk of scrap metal.

"I'm gonna go out," Katie announced, putting on her helmet and activating the glass so she could go into space. "I can probably scavenge some cool things to use when we get back to the castle." Green sent her a vague sense of safety. "Yeah yeah I'll be careful, don't get hit by anything while I'm gone." Then she was floating in space.

Scaling the mounds of space trash (which seemed more like wreckages from old ships, what kind of battle had happened here?) was a lot like climbing a big floating jungle gym. She was careful not to dislodge anything when pushing off to a new area, looking for pieces she could fit together, maybe things that weren't damaged beyond repair. Something in the corner of her eye shifted, a chunk of debris dislodging and leaving a gap. She looked over her shoulder and screamed. An alien, covered in icy black fur reached out for her, blankly staring with white eyes and a blood covered face. It was dead, frozen in the vacuum of space. She didn't want to explore anymore. She turned to go back the way she came, but with everything floating and changing the way the place looked she wasn't sure where she had come from. She rocketed herself in the direction she thought she had come from, but it didn't look familiar anymore. At some point she had crawled through something. Nothing where she was now looked like she could have done that. She tried to feel her way back to her lion, only to be faced with the hull of a crushed ship with no safe way through. She flew up, dodging pipes and other sharp bits of metal and scraps, trying to go over it all.

She shouldn't have left.

Then she heard an engine above her, and looking through, saw a large Galra ship smaller than something meant for battle, but clearly Galra in design. She cursed. It was just outside the first ring of trash. Someone, or something, dropped out of a side hatch. It was going to land above her. She scrambled down and turned off her jetpack so it wouldn't hear her. It was about nine feet tall, solidly built and barrel chested. She saw a glimpse of it's face, five eyes like dots on a die gleamed above a round nose and long slash of a mouth. It wasn't a galra, and it wore nothing but boots and a black jumpsuit. The same thing prisoners wore. It turned it's head, surveying the planet of trash as it drifted down. She saw long bat-like ears on the sides of its head. Then it looked down, right at her. She scrambled away from the gap she was looking through, and it pulled itself toward where she was, breaking through the layer of debris into the pocket of space she was in. She almost turned her jetpack back on to hightail it out of there, but then it surprised her.

"Matt?" The voice was rough, like her grandfather's, with an odd almost buzzing tone underneath, but the word, or name rather, rang loud and clear. It shocked her still, staring at the alien with wide eyes as it got closer. Then it scowled. "You are not Fearless," it stated, taking on an accusatory tone, "Why do you look like him?"

"Uh…" She didn't know what to say to that.

"You're a human, what are you doing in these parts of the galaxy?" it demanded, "Why do you look like him?"

"You know my family?" she blurted out. Now it was the alien's turn to be shocked. It looked closer at her, looming. Her back drifted into the hull of the ship.

"So you are a human?"

"Y-yeah?" She noticed the alien wasn't breathing, only exhaling to speak. It grabbed her arm, and it one swift moment, pushed off the hull with its powerful legs and launched them back towards the ship it had come from. She yelled and grabbed for her bayard but when he saw that she had a weapon he just threw her ahead of him, sending her spinning in the direction of the ship. The airlock opened and she tumbled inside with the alien behind her after banging her knees on the ledge. The airlock closed, and gravity was turned on. She landed on the metal floor with a sharp thud. The alien landed on it's feet and opened the lock to the rest of the ship. A short rodent-like one stood outside.

"Back so soon?"

"Is Scholar in the cargo bay again?" the large one asked, picking Katie up and tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The jolt knocked the bayard out of her hand, and it clattered to the floor. The rodent-like one nodded, and he moved on. Behind him Katie saw the other pick up her weapon and scutter behind them, not being able to keep up very well with legs that were so much shorter.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?" she demanded, trying to shove herself away from him by bracing her hands against the alien's back. He nearly squeezed the air out of her to keep her from budging. "How do you know my brother's name?" she continued, and they entered a large room filled with boxes.

"Hunter?" a familiar voice asked, stopping her from continuing her questions, shocking her into silence. "I thought you were going to look for parts, did something happen?"

"Found someone," Hunter grunted, rolling Katie off his shoulder and putting her on the floor in front of him, in front of her father, sitting on a crate surrounded by bits of machinery, looking more shocked than she had ever seen him in her life.