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The Castle was damaged, limping along through space with half an engine working and only a handful of Marmora fighter ships and three working lions to tug it along.
The nearest hospitable solar system was the one that held Earth.
“Oh, this is going to go down terribly,” was Pidge’s muttered comment, and no one could really disagree.
They didn’t have any other choices, though. No matter the kind of the trouble this could cause for the paladins in the long term, they had no other choice.
o.o.o.o.o
They headed for Keith’s shack in the desert.
“The rest of us lived in fairly dense population centers,” Shiro explained. “Whether it was military bases or cities or suburbs, it would be impossible to keep a low profile with this many large ships. We at least have an hour or two of leeway with the desert.”
Allura looked out the window of the Castle Ship as Earth grew larger in their sights, visible to the naked eye as a small speck of blue. The other paladins were unashamedly gathered at the window, sitting on the floor and watching in utter silence as the planet got closer.
Hunk had Pidge in his lap, was hugging her with one arm as the other pulled Lance in against his side. Keith sat to the side, hugging his knees and gazing out with an unreadable expression, not quite touching the others, but not so far as to be avoiding them.
Shiro’s hand found Allura’s and squeezed. He smiled sadly when she turned to look at him, “It’s been months, and they were never given the kind of training to spend that much time without contact with home.”
“I know,” she managed to say. “I do not begrudge them this, but…”
He squeezed her hand again, and she fell silent. He knew why this bothered her. Why it hurt to see the paladins so excited to see their home.
(She would never lay eyes on Altea again.)
“Someone will need to guide us there,” she managed to say after a bit. She could let the paladins enjoy their stay back on Earth for a few hours before insisting on repairs to the Castle and Lions.
“I’ll take care of that,” Shiro promised. “Done it before, I can do it again, or at least close enough for Keith to guide us to his part of the desert.”
Allura nodded, though her frown remained stubbornly present. She didn’t know much about Earth, however much time she’d spent with her paladins. Some bits and pieces of culture, the fact that they considered Altea akin to the Australia of the universe (whatever an ‘Australia’ was), general estimates of population and technological levels, but…
But she found herself wondering, as they got closer, at just how little she knew.
“The colors… those are ice caps, yes?” She pressed her lips into a thin line, looking for more details. “Largely ocean, and you said there was a desert… what else?”
“Temperate regions, mountain ranges, rain forests, some volcanic areas, swamps, tundra…” Shiro trailed off, shrugging. “There’s definitely some variety?”
“That must leave much of your planet uninhabitable,” Allura noted. “Considering how most species are fairly well-adapted to only a handful of environments.”
Shiro was silent for a moment.
“Shiro?”
“I mean… not really? We’re fairly good at terraforming, Allura. Life isn’t always comfortable in a lot of these environments, but given what you’ve told us about Altea and what your people could live through, is it really that surprising that we could survive in all the places I mentioned?” Shiro gave her a crooked smile. “Give us a little credit, Princess.”
Allura shook her head. “If you say so.”
“At least we know how to handle the desert,” Shiro added after a moment. “All five of us trained there while at the Garrison, and Keith lived there for most of his life. We know what to do, and we don’t have to worry about most natural disasters.”
“Natural disasters?” Allura asked. She could guess what that meant, but wanted clarification.
“You know… earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunami, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, that sort of thing?” He quirked an eyebrow at her expression of shock, and then rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I guess I figured that with all of Coran’s stories about glass showers and giant animals, Altea was probably worse on that front. Is it really that surprising?”
“How are you alive?” Allura asked after a long moment. “Many of those things were present on Altea as well, but we are rather more difficult to kill.”
Shiro shrugged. “We’re resilient, I guess?”
Allura shook her head and turned her attention back to the controls. “If you say so.”
o.o.o.o.o
It was early morning when they landed, the sun just barely having risen over the horizon. Keith took care of the final directions, and they managed to land the Castle just a few dozen meters from the shack.
“You lived here?” Allura asked, aghast.
Keith shrugged, heading for the door. “Yeah.”
“Keith was a desert hermit after he got kicked out of the Garrison,” Lance whispered.
“Nah, I was a desert hermit before then, too.” Keith fiddled with the door to the shack, frowning. “Hold on a sec.”
He twisted the knob, pushing, and then rolled his eyes and slammed his shoulder against it. It cracked open, and then he repeated the motion to get the door to open fully.
“Welcome to my home, sorry for the mess, haven’t been here in months and didn’t have time to clean up before I left,” he said, waving them in. “They probably shut off the utilities after I didn’t pay my bills for a few months, but I should have some unopened water jugs stored away for emergencies and there’s some solar panels on the roof, so you can hook up to that if you need to.”
“No internet?” Pidge asked.
“Like I said: bills. You want internet, or phone access, you’re going to have to hack your way in from a distance somehow.”
Allura took a few careful steps away from the Castle, keeping her eyes on the shack. It was… much smaller than she’d expected, honestly. Certainly more run-down, in a way that even months away couldn’t explain.
“Dude, your food’s all expired!” Hunk called from inside, having headed in as soon as Keith had opened the door. “I think some rats got in, too. Something definitely ate up some of this stuff.”
“Toss it!” Keith called over his shoulder. He turned back to Allura and the members of the Blade of Marmora. “You coming in or not?”
Allura wished, at least a little, that Coran had come down with her. She didn’t know if he could have done or known anything that she did not about this situation, but he would have made her feel better. Unfortunately, in that way at least, he was eager to start on repairs, and had remained aboard.
She headed for the shack, Antok and Kolivan following her.
It went well enough until she heard an odd rattling noise, just a few feet off behind her, and saw Keith’s eyes widen in alarm, one hand dropping to his side.
“Ke—?” She cut herself off and jumped to the side as a knife flew past her and embedded itself in the ground. She spun back to face Keith again, one hand feeling at her other arm to see if the knife had pierced the fabric of her dress at all. It hadn’t. “What the quiznak was that, Keith?”
“Rattler,” Keith said, jogging forward towards where the knife had landed, right next to Antok. Allura watched him go, and blinked as he pulled it up from the ground coated in blood, the body of some long, unknown creature in his other hand. He wiped the knife on his pants before he stashed it away, and waved the sinuous body in the air in demonstration. The head of the creature remained on the ground, leaking fluids. “It’s venomous, and that noise is a warning that it’s about to strike. I don’t know if it would do anything to a Galra, or if it could even get through the fabric at the ankles of the suit, but better safe than sorry.”
Allura blinked. “It’s so small, though, how is it—”
“Rattlesnakes aren’t the most venomous in the world, but even juveniles are pretty deadly,” Shiro said, putting a hand on Allura’s shoulder. “Just… if Keith says something is dangerous here, then take his word for it? He spent most of his life living in the desert. He knows what to do.”
“And right now we want to get inside before the sun starts heating us up again,” Keith said. “Besides, who knows how fast the Garrison is going to get here?”
“Fair enough,” Allura sighed, continuing her walk to the shack. “What are you hoping to—”
“Fuck!”
Keith spun and ran for the shack, heading for Lance’s yelp. “What happened?”
“Cockroaches!”
Allura saw Shiro make a face next to her. “Eurgh.”
“What are cockroaches?”
“Insects that tend to infest human living spaces and cause trouble. Really unsanitary, basically. I hope they didn’t get in the food,” he said. “Keith’s home is… a little bit of a mess, given how we left it.”
“Keith, why would I know how to cook a rattlesnake?” Hunk’s voice emanated from the shack as they came nearer.
“Is that a no?”
“Give me like fifteen minutes to fix your kitchen and maybe set up a fire outside, and we’ll see.”
Allura felt her face curl up into something a little derisive against her will as she stepped into the shack. It was… rundown, to put it lightly.
Pidge was already seated on the floor of one room, fiddling with some very old-fashioned technology, while Lance was playing with the knobs on a stack of other tech pieces in the corner. Hunk and Keith were talking in the other room, the dead rattlesnake still hanging from Keith’s hand.
“Take a seat on the couch,” Keith told them, then went back to talking to Hunk. “The house only has a few rooms, so there’s not exactly a lot to explore.”
“Keith promised to find some Raid to get rid of the roaches,” Pidge said, not looking up from the tech piece in her hands. “I’m trying to get us connected to the internet to see what kind of news they put out about us disappearing without word a few months ago, but they really did cut off Keith’s access, so I might have to try to get in by hopping off the Castle’s hacking abilities; it depends on how they cut him off, really.”
Allura nodded unsurely, and then took a seat on the couch, keeping her hands on her lap and trying to ignore a suspicious stain on the fabric of the seat that she’d just sat on.
“We have radio!” Lance crowed, jumping back from the tech he’d been fiddling with and pumping his hands in the air. “You were right about the solar panels, Keith. They still work.”
“—traffic backed up all down the I-40 as the Galaxy Garrison shuts down multiple exits for—”
“Oh yeah, they know we’re here,” Lance scoffed. “You guys wanna keep listening, or can I jump around the stations for something interesting?”
“I’ll be online in a minute, so feel free,” Pidge said.
“Sweet. Reggaeton, here I come!” Lance started fiddling with the knobs again, little snippets of music fading in and out of static as he turned them.
Allura felt a small smile cross her face as she saw her paladins settling in, however oddly. She let her eyes track over the room, trying to envision how Keith might have lived here, and finding it difficult. She knew little enough about human life to guess at what his might have been like in particular, and the things she was seeing here were only worrying her. The table didn’t even seem to be a real table, just a slab of wood on some unevenly stacked stone-like objects. She had a feeling that this wasn’t normal, even for Earth.
She noticed something moving under Shiro’s chair, and frowned. “What is that?”
Shiro blinked at her, and then moved his legs to bend over and take a look.
“Scorpion!” Pidge yelped, scuttling backwards and away from the minuscule creature.
Shiro paled and yanked his legs up onto the chair. “What kind?”
“Giant hairy scorpion, I think,” Pidge said, unmoving. Without her armor, she didn’t have much protection. “Might be Arizona Bark, I can’t tell because of the shadows, but it looks a little too big for that.”
“Is this creature also deadly?” Allura asked, lifting her own legs onto the couch just in case.
“No, but they have a very painful sting,” Shiro said, shaking his head. “Best option is to just stomp on it while wearing thick boots, but…”
“Kind of awkward with a chair in the way,” Lance finished. “Hey Mullet, you got a bucket or something?”
Keith poked his head out from the kitchen, and then followed their gazes down to the small creature under Shiro’s chair. “Nah, just shake the chair a bit so that it scuttles out and then stomp it.”
“I’d rather go the bucket route and just toss it out,” Lance said.
“My house, my rules. I have enough random shit to deal with. Do you have any idea how many of those things I’ve had to kill over the years?” Keith disappeared for a moment and came back with a broom. “I’m gonna scare it out. Shiro can kill it.”
Allura watched in fascination as they did just that, resulting in a faintly disgusting squelching noise and a dead arachnid.
Shiro frowned at the bottom of his boot. “That’s not going to come off easily.”
“I think I have some disinfecting wipes in the pantry. Shouldn’t be dry yet, but who knows?” Keith disappeared again, but shouted back, “We’ll have to clean up the floor, too!”
Lance cursed a little, and Allura looked over to find him staring out the window. “Lance?”
“Coyotes,” he muttered. “Fuck. I think we should be fine?”
“I don’t have livestock or anything,” Keith said as he came back into the room, a bright yellow plastic tube in his hand. “They’re not going to bother us unless they’re starving, in which case I’ve got some shotguns to scare them off.”
Allura turned around, looking out the same window as Lance. There was a pair of four-legged creatures standing a few hundred meters off, sniffing around the base of the Castle. They were small by Altean standards, but given what other creatures Allura had seen here so far, she wasn’t entirely sure they were safe.
“Sure they aren’t just dogs, Lance?” Pidge asked from the ground.
“Nah, there’s black spots on the tail and they don’t look domesticated. Besides, Keith’s nearest neighbors are like sixty miles away.”
“Fifteen and a half,” Keith corrected, standing up from where he’d finished cleaning up the remains of the spider. “And I have some savings, if we want to go get some things from town. It’s not going to be enough for more than a couple weeks of food, but if we stretch it out as treats for ourselves between the space goo…”
“Think I can buy some chili?” Lance asked. “We can get the spiciest one possible so that Hunk doesn’t have to dump eight pounds of it into every meal. Economies of scale or whatever. I mean, not really, but it’s the closest thing I can think of.”
“That’s not quite what economy of scale means, but yeah, sounds good,” Hunk said from the kitchen, which he was apparently still cleaning. “I’m trying to get a shopping list together in my head. How much do you have, Keith?”
“Uh… a couple hundred dollars? Maybe more? I didn’t have any repairs to do in the last few weeks before we left, so I was saving up extra. It’s all in cash, too.”
“Think we can contact our families?” Lance asked. “I mean, the repairs are going to take too long for us to avoid the Garrison, and we have the superior firepower, so we’ll have some leverage in negotiating…”
Shiro winced visibly. “We’ll see. I’m hoping we can get you three to see your families, or at least get word to them that you’re alive, but…”
“But politics?” Pidge suggested. “By the way, I found what the Garrison told the public.”
“Oh boy, let’s hear it.” Lance straddled a chair and dropped his head onto his crossed arms. One leg started bouncing in agitation. “Dead during a training mission?”
“Actually… it looks like they’ve told the truth, or as much as they could without mentioning Shiro or the Blue Lion.” Pidge scanned the screen, likely reading some article. “We ran off one night after curfew with a former student our age and haven’t been seen since. We’re missing persons, but not officially dead. Apparently they even visited the shack to see if there were any hints.”
“I’m kind of surprised they didn’t take down Keith’s conspiracy board,” Lance said, glancing at the wall, where…
Well, Allura wasn’t sure what to make of it. There was rather a lot of paper, some with words and some with pictures, pinned to something on the wall, with thick string connecting certain papers.
“It’s not a conspiracy board if it’s actually true!”
“It’s still a conspiracy board!” Lance shouted back. “Pidge, Shiro, back me up here.”
“It’s definitely a conspiracy board,” Pidge said.
“Sorry, Keith, but…”
“Oh, fuck all of you,” Keith grumbled, but was quickly cut off by a yelp from Hunk and several clanging noises.
“Rat!”
“Fuck!”
Allura blinked as Shiro got to his feet, a little tense and—
“Open the door!” Keith shouted.
Shiro did, and Allura gasped just a little as Keith came into view chasing a rodent, one that he swept out with a broom using enough force to send it tumbling for several meters.
Keith slammed the door shut and growled. “Fucking hell, how many animals started living here while I was gone?”
“So far, the answer seems to be ‘a lot,’” Lance said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “Do you want some help cleaning?”
“Yeah, I just… uh, there’s a blacklight here in the kitchen. Grab a pair of heavy boots and see if there’s any more scorpions hiding out?”
“Sure.”
“Make sure there aren’t any spiders in the shoes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
Allura frowned as Lance left, thinking over the situation. “We won’t be here for very long, and it’s entirely possible for you all to spend the night in the castle. Is it really necessary to clean the house?”
“My house,” Keith said, a little sharp. “Even if I never come back, the fact that I’m here now means that it’s getting cleaned.”
“But we sti—”
Lance shrieked.
“Oh, what is it this time?” Allura demanded as heavy stamping sounds emanated from the direction Lance had disappeared in.
“Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck,” Lance chanted, breathing heavily.
“What happened?” Shiro called, concerned.
“There was a fucking brown recluse in one of his spare boots!” Lance said. “I mean, I killed it before it could bite me, but forgive a guy for panicking.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Just… waiting for my heart to go back to a resting pace ‘cause that really freaked me out.” Lance stopped talking then, once more shuffling through Keith’s spare shoes.
“Let me guess, another venomous creature?” Kolivan said, asking exactly the question that was on Allura’s mind as well.
“Yeah, that one can be deadly.” Shiro scratched the back of his head. “Spiders are why you always have to check your shoes before you put them on, if you live somewhere that might have them. We were lucky that the Garrison was pretty much pest-free, but Keith? Living all the way out here? Not really in the same boat.”
“I’m kind of wondering if we should just spray the house down with some pesticides, or at least get the perimeter,” Pidge said, not looking up from her screen. “Seriously, this is ridiculous.”
“We’re not staying here for very long,” Allura reminded her. “We do still have to fight the Galra Empire.”
“And that’s nice and all, but if that ends in a few years and Keith comes back a house that’s filled with even more random pests than there already are, he’s going to be pretty damn annoyed,” Pidge said. “I think we can afford to grab a couple cans of Raid or something while we’re in town. Getting the perimeter won’t take too long if we put Lance and Keith on the job, since they can’t do too much to help with repairs anyway.”
“I resent that remark!” Lance yelled.
“You’re a pilot, not an engineer!” Pidge shouted back, then turned to her project again. “Anyway, yeah. Living in the desert can really suck.”
“I don’t suppose other parts of the world are just as bad?” Allura said with a sigh.
“Well,” Pidge said, drawing the word out. “Australia is worse. So’s the Amazon rain forest, I think. Most tropical areas, I imagine.”
Allura frowned. “And humans are just expected to know how to survive these areas? If there’s so many creatures to keep straight, then I can’t imagine the world is all that easy to navigate.”
“Nah, most people don’t really travel enough for it to be an issue, and if they do, then they usually stay in pest-free areas or buildings, where they don’t have to worry about that sort of thing, just leave the job to the locals. We all got an introductory class at the Garrison on how to survive the desert so that we wouldn’t get ourselves killed during night exercises or on our days off, when we got to leave the base, and locals are usually learning this sort of thing from parents or at school. I know for a fact that kids in Alaska sometimes get wilderness survival courses as part of the normal curriculum, just in case, and kids in Kansas probably have tornado drills, and kids in California are taught how to survive an earthquake, and you’re not really going to get the same sort of thing showing up in, like, New York City.”
“Yeah, NYC is more like… what, how to survive getting shot?” Lance suggested.
“Fucking rude,” Pidge said. “But…yeah, probably going to have some drills for a shooting or a bomb threat or something. Which, to be fair, most schools have these days. I guess it’s just more common in more populous areas.”
“Everyone be quiet for a moment,” Keith said as soon as Pidge finished talking. “Can y’all hear that?”
Allura listened carefully, just barely making out a distant, unfamiliar rumble.
“That doesn’t sound like a Garrison vehicle,” Lance said after a moment.
“Neighbors probably saw the castle from the distance and want to know what’s up,” Keith said, glancing out the window. “Fuck, how to play this off…”
“How do your neighbors feel about aliens?” Lance asked, and then held his hands up to forestall commentary. “Not the kind we know here, but the kind we met at the Space Mall. The kind people have been talking about for over a century. Cows and abductions and probes and crop circles and stuff. How are your neighbors on that front?”
“You want Keith to go with the tabloid conspiracy angle,” Pidge surmised. “That… could work, depending on how suspicious they are.”
Keith made a face. “I’ll… see what I can do.”
He left out the front door to meet the person as they got out of the vehicle, out of sight of all the people indoors. Allura couldn’t hear what they were saying at this distance and with walls between them, but there wasn’t any shouting. Everyone indoors kept as perfectly silent as they could, and eventually, Allura heard the human vehicle start again with a loud sputter, growing quieter as it left.
Keith backed into the house, and didn’t turn around immediately. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Keith?” Shiro said slowly. “Why would we be mad?”
“Okay, so, I went with a tabloid-style abduction story. I don’t think he believed me, but he seemed to think I was covering for some more normal teenage bullshit, so I guess it all worked out? Like, he told me that if I ever needed help, he and his husband were willing to pitch in or give me some work around their farm so I didn’t have to do anything unreasonable to survive, and I could learn how to butcher a cow or whatever. The way he asked about the castle was… uh… as far as I can tell, he might think I joined a cult? So… at least he doesn’t think it’s an actual spaceship, just some weird cult-y bullshit. Could be worse?”
“As nice as that is, I’d really like an explanation as to why you haven’t turned around yet,” Shiro said. He glanced at Allura, then back at Keith. “I’m sure everyone else is just as—”
“I couldn’t say no,” Keith blurted out, turning around.
There was something small in his arms, and before Allura could even process what the creature was, Pidge was on her feet and darting forward.
“Kitten!”
“Oh no,” Shiro groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
“Oh my gosh! Hi! Hi, small thing!” Pidge cooed, lifting the little bundle out of Keith’s arms and into her own. She ran a finger over its head and kept cooing. “Do you have a name yet? I bet you don’t! Oh my gosh, you’re so small, you can’t be more than a few months old yet, hi!”
“…why is Pidge talking like that?” Allura asked after a moment.
“Allura, that is a small, furry animal that isn’t very old yet. It’s basically instinct to baby-talk at it.” Shiro let out another tired sigh. “And now that one person’s bonded with it, it’s going to be very hard to convince the rest to give it up… unless anyone has allergies?”
Heads shook all around, and a negative answer was given from Hunk, still fussing about in the kitchen.
“Guess it was too much to hope for,” Shiro muttered. “Keith, we can’t keep a cat.”
“What?” Pidge cried, spinning to face Shiro. “Why not?”
“Allura has pet mice,” Shiro said, like that had ended the discussion.
“You can train a cat to leave other small pets alone, though,” Lance said, walking into the room and bending over at the waist to pet the small creature in Pidge’s arms. “I mean, I really doubt a cat this small has been trained as a mouser already. We can probably train her to get along with the mice so long as there’s enough toys or whatever to provide stimulation and simulate hunting.”
“…what the fuck, Lance,” Pidge said after a moment. “Since when do you know so much about cats?”
“Not nearly as much as my aunt and sister,” Lance said, stepping forward and taking the kitten from Pidge. “My aunt’s a vet and my sister wanted to get a parakeet even though we already had a cat, so there was a training period. Now, let’s see what this little kitty is hiding under the tail and… congratulations, it’s a girl!”
“He told me that, but she doesn’t have a name yet,” Keith said, scratching the back of his head. “And she should probably have one if we’re keeping her.”
“We can’t bring a cat to space with us,” Shiro insisted. He turned to Allura, eyes begging for her to back him up.
“I don’t see why not,” she admitted. “The mice can handle themselves, especially if the creature can be trained to avoid them, and I’m sure that we can handle the dietary requirements.”
“Food goo might not cut it. Cats can be really picky eaters, especially if they aren’t hunting,” Lance said, turning the cat over in his hands and rubbing her stomach. “You like that? You like tummy scritches?”
“I don’t think this one was trained to be a mouser yet,” Keith offered. “So we can probably train her to avoid the mice.”
“Mouser?” Kolivan questioned.
“Cats that are trained to hunt mice and other pests on farms,” Lance explained. “Cats are a pretty cheap and fairly environmentally friendly way to keep the mouse population down.”
“What’s wrong with mice?” Allura asked, a little offended on behalf of her own pets.
“Ever seen a video of a mouse plague? South Australia’s had some bad ones.” Keith asked, face suddenly dark. Allura stared at him, a little concerned.
“Yeah, mice are… not good to have in agricultural areas,” Lance said, shuddering visibly.
“They get into the grain, eating up a lot and leaving the rest too dirty to sell or eat, because like most animals, they do need to shit, and they’re not going to do it in a human-approved place,” Keith explained. “And they breed.”
“Yeah, they’re unsanitary, eat everything, and can reproduce at a rate that can leave the buildings and fields literally carpeted in mice,” Pidge said.
“And then,” Keith continued, visibly growing more irate, “If it’s gone too far, and it’s really a plague, you’re left with a half billion mice that have not only eaten up all your grain, but are now eating everything else because there’s too many of them to survive off of the grain you’d already collected and started preparing to sell, invading your home by the thousands and not only eating your food and anything else they come across, but maybe even you or each other, if they’re hungry enough, and even if they don’t, they’re carrying diseases to the entire farm. And then, after they run out of that, they start dying of starvation or wildly out-of-control diseases, and you end up with half a billion mouse corpses rotting across the country, tens of thousands of which are on your property and making it even less hygienic than when they were alive, as you try to figure out how to survive the next however many months now that your livelihood’s been destroyed for the year.”
Allura leaned back in her seat, eyes wide. Carefully, she asked, “Have you… had experience with mice in this regard?”
Keith blinked, seemingly coming back to himself from whatever stated he’d worked himself into. “No, sorry, just… I used to hear some farmers complaining about it before. Nobody really farms around here, but my dad had some friends that did, and I ended up researching the Australian mouse plagues because I wanted to know why they were all so worried about there being more mice than usual. Those videos are the stuff of nightmares.”
“The cats… help?” Allura said, looking at the tiny creature in Lance’s arms. “By hunting?”
“Yeah, if you live in an area with a small enough mouse population already, then they can help keep it under control. Can’t help with a plague that’s already underway, but they can help in places where the mice haven’t gotten out of control yet.” Keith’s hand drifted down to his knife, fiddling with the handle. “Definitely easier than hunting them all down yourself.”
“That’s…certainly interesting,” Allura said after a moment. It was more disturbing than anything, really. “So, while an individual mouse is largely harmless, the plagues that you mentioned are liable to result in a large amount of trouble and potentially death?”
“Yeah, that’s about the sc—”
“Shouldn’t we be worrying over the Garrison?” Hunk called from the kitchen. “Like, this is interesting and everything, but we have other things to worry about.”
“Yes,” Shiro confirmed, crossing his arms. “We can discuss the cat later. Right now we need to talk about how to handle the military.”
Keith seemed to think that over for a moment, and then seemed to come to a decision. “Allura, could you move your feet for a second? Lance, hand me that flashlight. The normal one, not the blacklight.”
He checked under the couch with a flashlight, nodded to himself, and then reached in to pull out a—
“Why do you have a shotgun?” Lance yelped, taking a few steps back, pulling the kitten tight to his chest.
“I already told you, it’s to scare off the coyotes. And my dad sometimes used it for hunting rabbits. My aim isn’t good enough for that.” Keith checked the probably-weapon over for a few moments, keeping the apparent barrel pointed at the ceiling or wall instead of anyone in the room. “I’m gonna keep up the crazy conspiracy theorist thing when they get here. Maybe they’ll buy the cult angle.”
“Keith.”
“What?”
“No.”
Keith looked directly into Shiro’s eyes, frowning. “So what’s your suggestion?”
Lance piped up, saying, “I could just open the door and go ‘guess who’s not dead!’ That would solve a lot of problems.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Keith argued back. “That would only cause problems.”
“Really? Because the way I see it, it would cover a lot of our bases. It’s not aggressive like your little shotgun act. It doesn’t involve trying to lie our way out of a situation we don’t have enough information on. It presents the Garrison with a face that they know, and it’s a face that they don’t consider a threat, given how bad my grades were. Sure, we could run into some trouble if they shoot first, ask questions later, but it’s like ripping off a band-aid from the situation, in a way that might annoy some of them, but ultimately leaves us in a better position than shoving a stranger or a known antagonistic element like Keith or Pidge into the front space. Shiro’s probably still presumed dangerous from the crash a few months ago, and… well, I guess Hunk could do it, but he’s busy right now.”
There was a long moment of silence, interrupted only by a whispered ‘holy shit’ from Pidge.
“Sometimes…” Allura said slowly, “I forget that Lance isn’t actually all that bad at tactics and strategy, and then he says something like that.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Lance informed her, trying to go for haughty. Allura couldn’t decide if the kitten in his arms, patterned in white and orange, helped with the image or not.
“Well, whatever the plan, we have to decide soon,” Shiro said, taking a look out the window. “I can see dust clouds in the distance, so we’ve only got ten or so minutes before they get here.”
“Hey, Allura?” Pidge said, looking up from her project. “Do you three want to go hang out in the castle until we’re done dealing with the Garrison?”
“You may have your bayards, but I still feel that you may need some power on your side, and I would prefer to meet any of your leaders face to face,” Allura said, feeling her own stiffness. Quiznak, she hadn’t wanted to sound stern with that, but she had to.
“I don’t know if they’re sending anyone who could count as a leader, honestly,” Lance said. “I think Iverson’s the highest-ranked person on-base, and that’s not even getting into the actual military and government. We’re government-funded and military-adjacent, but not technically either, since there haven’t been any known alien threats before, so we couldn’t technically fall under military applications, so…”
“We’ll see what can be done,” Shiro said as Lance trailed off. “Lance isn’t technically wrong, but having you present to speak with the highest-ranked person available at any given time is going to make it easier to talk our way out of the situation.”
“And we can’t just brute-force our way through interactions, because if we want to contact our families at any point without putting them in uncomfortable situations, we really do need to have the Garrison on our side.” Pidge’s fingers went tap-tap-tap against the metal surface of one of her tech pieces, the look on her face inscrutable to Allura’s eyes. “And… I know Shiro and Keith don’t have families to contact anymore, but the rest of us… nobody knows what happened to us. I want my mom to know that I’m alive, and looking for dad and Matt, at least. She deserves to know that we’re not dead. She’s… I can’t…”
Shiro slid off the chair and onto his knees, shuffling forward to wrap an arm around Pidge’s shoulders. “We’ll do everything we can to make that happen, Pidge.”
Allura closed her eyes to avoid looking at the tender scene before her. She could not let emotion move her, not again. She’d let emotion dictate her actions too many times since waking up from cryo. Right now… it wouldn’t do much in regards to the war against the Galra Empire if her paladins fumbled this interaction, not directly, but it would lower their morale and affect them negatively in a psychological sense, which could worsen their piloting abilities. Objectively, it would be better for the war if her paladins were in high spirits, and they would be in high spirits if this interaction went well, which meant it was logical for her to put in the effort to guide the situation to her paladins’ desired outcome.
She breathed out slowly and opened her eyes to the room again. Her desires on an emotional front lined up with the logical necessity. This was good. That made her choices easier.
“We’ll go with Lance’s plan,” she stated. “I will urge you to be careful so that you may avoid agitating these people, though. Not only will it be a problem if you are injured by an itchy trigger finger, but the remainder of the interaction will be less likely to play out in our favor if you irritate them from the beginning.”
Lance’s expression flickered through several emotions, too fast to process, and then softened to something Allura didn’t recognize. “Yeah, I know, Allura. As much as I’d love to rub it all in Iverson’s face, I know it’s going to make it less likely for me to see my family again, and for everyone else to see theirs. I know the risks.”
“Time to see if that’s true,” Kolivan said, drawing all their attention. His gaze was focused outside the window, a frown on his face. “I believe this Garrison has nearly arrived.”
“Minute and a half,” Keith confirmed, looking out the window. “Maybe less, depending on how fast they’re going.”
“Let’s get this ready, then.” Shiro stood and dusted off his pants. “Curtains over the windows, try to stay out of sight if possible, Lance by the door. Hunk, get in here.”
Hunk bustled in from the kitchen, and Allura was surprised to see him covered in dark smudges. “Your kitchen sucks, Keith.”
“I know.”
Lance held the kitten in his arms a little higher. “Who wants the cat? I’ve got a name for her, by the way. If you don’t mind.”
“What is it?” Pidge asked before Allura could tell them to leave it for later.
“Leona? It means lioness, so I figured it fit with the whole… theme,” Lance said, shrugging awkwardly. After a moment, he handed the kitten to Pidge, giving her one last scratch on the head. “You guys mind if we keep that? It’s technically Keith’s cat, so…”
“I’m terrible at names,” Keith said, utterly blunt. “But it sounds fine to me.”
Thankfully, nobody else seemed to have a problem with the name either, and Lance gave everyone a relieved smile and a thumbs up as he went to stand by the door. After a moment, Keith got up and followed him, standing just inside the door, behind the side that would open up, with a knife in one hand. Shiro, just a moment later, got up and stood on the other side of the door, arm at the ready.
Lance pursed his lips. “I can handle myself.”
“Let us worry about you the way we would for anyone else,” Shiro said.
“If it were Pidge or Hunk doing this, you’d already be up on the roof with your bayard trained on whoever answered the door and one of Pidge’s invisibility tech pieces hiding you,” Keith argued.
Lance rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever.”
He took a deep breath and turned to face the door as the rumbling of the human vehicles outside finally came to a stop. There was talking, and footsteps crushing sand to stone and hard-packed dirt underfoot, and finally a loud knocking.
“This is Commander Iverson of the Galaxy Garrison. Open up!”
Lance hesitated a moment, indecision flickering over his face. He spoke without opening the door, pitching his voice to just this side of recognizable, and demanded more than asked, “Promise you won’t shoot?”
“My men will not shoot until given reason to,” Commander Iverson said, and Allura thought he sounded sincere, as much as one could.
“Good enough,” Lance muttered. He squared his shoulders, took another deep breath, and grabbed the door handle.
“Remember to put extra weight behind the pull, or it won’t open,” Keith said, low enough that it carried across the room but not outside.
Lance nodded, then yanked the door open.
Allura couldn’t see out the door, but she could see the grim smile on Lance’s face as he greeted the person on the other side.
“Commander Iverson…guess who’s not dead?”