A/N: I hope this chapter is good. I am excited for the next one because we go more into Linna's past! I hope everyone is enjoying the story!
Season 3, Episode 6; "Tailing a Comet"
Keith slowly walks towards Shiro's room after their run-in with Galra soldiers. He thinks about Linna for a moment as he remembers what she asked him.
'I want you to think about what would happen if Voltron didn't form? I want you to think about the universe just like Shiro did before you bond with one another,' Linna's voice comes through his head.
"I remember Linna and I won't forget what you wanted me to think about and we will find you," Keith whispers to himself before walking into Shiro's room. "Shiro..."
"Hey Keith," Shiro answers back to Keith with disappointment in his voice.
"Anything come back to you?" Keith wonders to him with a sigh.
"I don't know. The last thing I remember was Zarkon trying to overtake the Black Lion." Shiro shakes his head to Keith. "It told me to use my bayard and I heard Linna scream. Then, just nothing. I woke up, and I was back on a Galra ship."
"You remember Linna screaming?" Keith wonders to his friend.
"Yeah. She called out my name," Shiro tells Keith because he had no recollection of her scream.
"That's weird. Well, you'd just unlocked the Black Lion's ability to teleport. Could it have teleported you? Maybe it was trying to save you."
"By teleporting me into the hands of the Galra?" Shiro lowers his head with his palm upon it like he is exhausted. "I remember Linna being worried about this mission. She had a bad feeling about it."
"Maybe Zarkon forced the Black Lion to do it but Linna would have sensed it and told us about the teleportation. She had no idea where you were." Keith wonders to himself as he lays his back with his arms crossed against the door. "However, he was trying to control the Black Lion up until the very last moment, right?"
"Yeah, maybe." Shiro shakes his head to Keith. "But it was like I had no control over the Black Lion. It was like she was taking orders, not from me or Zarkon."
"That..." Keith stops for a moment and pauses at the thought that maybe Linna did it on her own without realizing she had. Keith shakes his head at the thought and looks at Shiro. "Well, if you're feeling up to it, the rest of the team would be thrilled to see you up and around again. They need you, you know."
"Yeah, I'll try," Shiro whispers back.
"Okay, we'll be on the bridge," Keith tells Shiro as he starts to turn into the hallway.
Shiro stops for a moment before speaking to Keith about something he just recalled. "She was on the ship."
Keith stops in his steps when he hears Shiro speak to him with a concerned voice to him. Keith turns to face Shiro with a worried expression on his face.
"What do you mean by that?" Keith asks Shiro even though he knows the answer.
"She was in one of the cells that I ran passed. She told me that I needed to get out of there," Shiro informs Keith with a disappointing look on his face. "She was right in front of me and I didn't save her."
Keith takes a deep breath trying not to blow his head with anger. "She would not have wanted you too. She would have wanted you to tell us that she was alright," Keith explains to Shiro.
"Yeah," Shiro replies back to him. "I guess you are right."
"Yeah," Keith answers him and walks away from the room.
He walks to the end of the hall before slamming his head into the wall. He punches his fists into the wall with anger. He is so frustrated because he has not been there to save her. He can still see her face before they left. He has watched the video about a hundred times to see if he could have done something to save her. He did not want to see her in the same state him and Lance got her out of just after her conversation with Lotor.
"I am sorry, Linna..." Keith whispers out as he falls to the ground still with his fists to the wall. "I should have been there to help you."
Keith stays there for a moment until his anger and depression get under control. He did not want his team to see him like this. He has to be strong for them. They have to be able to save Linna. Keith walks down the hall into the main hangar where everyone is. They are all doing their own thing when Keith walks in. No one speaks to one another. They are all just focusing on their own work. Keith strolls over to the Black Lion's chair and starts figuring out where their next target is when the doors open to Shiro. He looks great and back to normal when he walks in.
He stands tall to the team when he speaks with his authoritative voice. "Great job out there, everyone. You've really turned the tide in this war. I'm glad you never lost sight of the mission while I was gone."
"You're looking better," Lance points out to Shiro. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. Just trying to get rid of this weird headache," Shiro informs the group with a chuckle in his voice.
"Guys, I think I have something here!" Pidge suddenly yells out to them with her hand up in the air. "So, I downloaded intel from the Galra base we just defeated. I untied the quantum-folded encryption, and I found something on Lotor and Linna."
"Do you know where they are?" Keith wonders to Pidge.
"Well, not exactly, no, but the last three sightings of his command ship have been in the Va'Kar quadrant," Pidge informs the group of the information she found. "Maybe Linna is on the ship with him."
"Nice work, Pidge. Although, those quadrants are massive. How will we pinpoint his location?" Shiro wonders for the group.
"Hey, that comet is made from the same material as Voltron. Maybe I can scan the emission spectrum for Fraunhofer lines, like when I found the Blue Lion!" Hunk announces to the group with excitement in his voice.
"But you know those emissions are subject to free induction decay. Those are exponential drop-offs," Pidge interferes with Hunk's idea.
"Yeah, but if you could find a way to amplify the sensors-No, there'd be way too much interference. What if, instead, we increase the SA magnitude?" Hunk replies back to Pidge with another idea.
"The spires of the Castle!" Pidge answers with excitement in her voice and a smile on her face.
"Genius!" Hunk says with the same amount of excitement as the dart out of the room.
Keith and Lance look at one another with a questioning expression to each other. Lance shrugs his shoulders before speaking.
"I have no idea what either of them just said."
"Let's set a course for the Va'Kar quadrant while they get started on that detector. We need to work fast. Who knows what Lotor has planned for that comet and Linna?" Shiro tells the rest of the team with worry on his face.
Few hours passed:
Hover machines with the Paladins in them zoom across the desert at great speed. They quickly start approaching the Galra base that they believe has Lotor and Linna inside. The Paladins make it to the ship as they search they realize that no one is there.
"Shiro, we just boarded the ship. There's no crew in sight. Moving forward with the search," Keith informs the Coran and Shiro who are in the Castle.
The Paladins start to enter the building with Hunk leading the way of where they need to go. Everyone follows his lead of the direction when they start to hear guns firing off from inside of the building next to them. Suddenly the noise stops for some reason.
"Sounds like the fight next door is over. Let's hurry," Keith tells the other Paladins with panic entering his voice a little.
The Paladins start to head farther into the ship. Everyone is on guard waiting for someone or something to attack them at any moment. A door opens for them to continue through as Hunk's machine starts to beep like crazy.
"The comet should be in here," Hunk informs everyone as the door opens to a ship. "Like, right here."
The Paladins stare at the huge ship before them as Hunk's scanner still continues to beep like it is a party in there. No one can understand what is going on when Lance breaks the silence.
"Where's the comet? Is it in that ship?"
Hunk looks at the machine as it continues to wave faster and faster as he gets closer to the ship. "I think the ship is the comet," Hunk tells the group.
"No, it can't be! He's already made a ship from the comet's ore?" Allura wonders with anger growing his tone.
"Oh, this is bad," Lance whines to the group.
"Mora like horrible," replies Pidge.
"Guys..." Shiro starts to speak on the coms. Pidge pops up Shiro to show everyone. "There's a piece of the teludav inside the Galra base," Shiro informs them of what Coran and he found.
"The one we used to wormhole Zarkon's ship?" Lance wonders to them.
"But they would never be able to operate it without an Altean-" Allura gasps with the realization of why they needed Linna or Zarkon's witch could do it. "Zarkon's witch! She had Altean markings. They also have Linna so they could have them control it."
"Is anyone else kind of freaking out?" wonders Hunk starting to get nervous standing next to a comet ship.
"Yep, mark me down for one freak-out," Lance agrees with Hunk on this one.
"Lotor must be nearby. We need to find him and take him out for good. There is no way that he left Linna alone anywhere so he must have her with him," Keith tells the Paladins with confidence in his voice.
"Team, you cannot let Lotor get that ship. You need to get back to your lions. You need Voltron!" Shiro tells them.
"Why take out one ship when we can stop all of this by taking out Lotor himself? We can't let him keep outsmarting us. We can also save Linna," Keith argues back with Shiro.
"That's exactly why we can't risk letting Lotor have that ship. This is too important," Shiro replies back to Keith.
"Keith, I want to stop Lotor and save Linna just as badly as you, but Shiro has a point..." Allura informs Keith of her opinion.
"Okay, you guys go back to the lions. I'm gonna search the ship for Linna. I have to find her," Keith orders the group.
"Keith, you need to stick together," answers back Shiro.
"Yeah, I'm with Shiro on this one," Lance replies to Keith.
"As am I." "Me, too." "Yeah, man." The Paladins say altogether.
Keith lowers his head as he feels the anger growing within him. "Fine. Let's move."
Everyone darts out of the hangar and starts to head for the exit. They are almost there when the door opens to the rest of Lotor's team.
Zethrid growls at the Paladins before pouncing into the air ready to attack the Paladins. She aims her attack at Allura with all of her strength causing smoke to appear after her punch.
Narti runs through the smoke and starts to attack Pidge with stealth. Then running to Hunk, causing him to roll into the wall. Lance begins to fire upon Narti when Acxa starts firing her gun upon him. Lance turns to block but misses the shot as it hits him. Keith darts after her with rage building in his body. Acxa takes her gun and parries Keith's black sword. Keith stares at her when he realizes that it is the Galra that Hunk and he saved back then.
Suddenly Ezor swings her blades in the middle, separating Keith and Acxa. Ezor takes a quick breath before swinging another blade at Keith. He doesn't have time to block it but Lance has his back and fires at the blade. It bounces away from Keith's face just in time. Keith glances back at Lance with a smirk.
"I got you, buddy!" Lance replies to him with a chuckle. "I always do..." Lance whispers the last part to himself.
Acxa dashes passed Keith towards Lance while Ezor attacks Keith, leg to the sword. She has a great form which is why she is able to slam him into the ground. Keith starts to struggle when he remembers that this is his bayard. He thinks of it to move hands which makes it and gives him back the upper hand to get out of her clutches.
Hunk and Pidge are still trying to take down Narti with all of their strength. Narti is like a ninja though. He has quick movements which are what helps him take them one by one. Allura changes his bayard to an electric whip as she swings it around to attack Zethrid. Zethrid fires her gun upon Allura but is unable to keep it straight because of the whip. Finally, Allura is able to wrap her whip around Zethrid's gun causing her to sweat.
Zethrid sighs with a grand smile on her face. "It's been a long time since I've faced a worthy opponent. I'm going to enjoy crushing you," she tells Allura before firing her gun.
This blast catches Allura off guard which gives Zethrid a chance to grab Allura's whip and swing her towards her fist. Zethrid slams a punch into Allura's stomach and flings her across the room. Allura looks up from the ground to see Lance firing his weapon multiply times trying to hit Acxa but ultimately missing, allowing her to kick him back into Allura and the rest of the Paladins.
"We don't have time for this. We need to get to the lions," Keith announces to the team.
"Good idea," Lance tells him while still on the ground trying not to cry from the pain.
The Paladins dart out of the hangar as Zethrid tries to follow them out. Acxa stops her though with her own commands.
"Come on! This is our chance to destroy them!" Zethrid whines to her.
"We have what we came for. Stick to the plan," Acxa informs her as they dart back to their ship.
After the Comet ships fires and destroys the piece of the Teladuv:
"Fire again!" Lotor screams at Acxa.
She fires towards Voltron again as it hits it's actually target. The Paladins scream in pain when Keith hears her voice. Linna is screaming with them like when Hagar hit them with the black magic.
"Linna..." Keith whispers to himself.
The comet ship goes towards the larger Galra ship and picks up the others. Lotor appears on the screen with anger in his voice as he orders them to come back to their ship. Everyone watches as the ship disappears before them when Lance breaks the silence.
"So, Lotor was attacking the Galra base and trying to steal the teludav? None of this makes any sense."
"We can talk about this later. They're getting away! They could lead us to Linna!" Pidge yells at Lance and the others.
"We need to go after them," Keith states to the group, especially after he heard Linna's voice.
"No. Get back to the Castle. Something strange is going on here, and we need to figure it out," Shiro orders the team.
They all fly into the hanger with their lions as Shiro waits for Keith to appear but he doesn't. Keith sits in the Black Lion for a moment because all he wants is to hear her voice again.
"Please..." Keith pleads with his lion. "Let me hear her."
Keith closes his eyes as he listens to the Black lion shut down in all functions. He just waits for something or someone to break the silence. He knows that he heard her when they were hit just moments ago.
"Linna..." Keith whispers again when he slams his fist into the maintenance board of the lion. "I am so sorry."
Keith slowly gets up from his chair and leaves the Black lion to join Shiro in the main hangar. When he leaves the lions all of their eyes go white as a voice comes through.
"Keith! Help!" Her voice speaks for a second before disappearing again into the darkness with no one knowing about her attempt to contact them.