Chapter Text
“Do you feel that?”
“Feel what ?”
“ That !”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“ That !!!”
“Use your words, Lance.”
They’ve been on this ship for nine goddamn minutes and Keith doesn’t know if he’s going to survive until the tenth.
“Okay, I swear ,” Lance says, dialing his voice volume back from “slightly panicked” to “indoor,” probably because of the Galra sentries that could be well on their way to happening across them any minute. “It feels like we’re moving? Also I can’t sense Blue anymore.”
“We are moving,” Keith says. “We’re in space .”
“No, no, no, like we’re actually going somewhere . Acceleration and all that shit, you know?” Lance peeks around a corner, bayard at the ready, but finds no reason to use it. “Plus what about Blue?”
You’re imagining things , is what Keith is about to tell him, but he’s suddenly very distracted by having to haul Lance around a corner again. He’s focusing too much on whatever’s coming out of his own mouth and not nearly enough on what’s going on around him, as usual. Keith grabs him around the waist and swings him against the wall, where he flattens himself too. He doesn’t breathe until he hears the echoing click-clack of Galra shoes against the cold metal floor disappear. He knows Lance isn’t breathing either because Keith is scared to take his arm away from where it’s trapping Lance across the chest. He imagines that if he did Lance would bounce back like a spring and reveal their presence.
“This mission requires quick-thinking and stealth,” is what Shiro said to him when they’d gathered to discuss it. Keith’s at least confident that he’s got the quick-thinking thing down. Or at least quick-acting. Stealth? Arguable. He’s a little hit-or-miss with that.
But Lance? When it comes to stealth, Lance is all miss.
He’s straightening himself up now, fussing with something on the side of his bayard and grumbling a complaint under his breath. Can’t even stay quiet for fifteen ticks. Keith wants to be mad at Shiro for sending him out here, but he knows that he deserves to be on this mission. It’s Lance that’s the problem.
“Maybe it’s because you think that way that we’re here right now,” Lance snaps, and Keith realizes he said that last part out loud. “Or maybe it’s because—”
“Shut up .” Keith doesn’t have the time for this right now. In and out. No problem. That’s the goal. It’s actually been eleven minutes now and he’s surprised he’s still sane. But it won’t be much longer if he can help it.
Act now, think later.
Keith starts off down the corridor again without another word.
The Galra, for all their superior technology and ten thousand years of ruling the universe, could probably use some tighter security features. Humans definitely have them beat in that respect at least. Keith can’t imagine that they’re the first life form to come up with security cameras. And he’s seen some of the ways this Galra tech works. It’s kind of ridiculous that their floors can’t just pick up on unauthorized shoes or something.
Arrogance , Keith realizes. There’s not too much out here to even sneak onto their ships .
“Are you seriously telling me you can feel Red right now?” Lance asks.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Keith hisses, ignoring the sting of Lance’s words. “I’m being quiet because otherwise we’ll get caught.”
Lance taps at the side of his helmet, and Keith gets a buzz of static in his ear. He swats at Lance before he can get a word out across the comms.
“Are you an idiot? You know how screwed we’d be if they picked up on our radio signals?”
But Lance isn’t really listening, just looking at Keith and worrying at his bottom lip.
“Let’s find a window,” Lance says, and takes off in the opposite direction of where they’re supposed to be going. Not that Keith really actually knows where they’re supposed to be going. But this direction had just been feeling kinda right and now Lance is walking the complete other way.
“Where are you going?” Keith asks.
“I’m finding us a window,” Lance says. “Because someone isn’t taking my word for it when I tell him that we’re moving.”
This isn’t on their list of mission objectives. They don’t need to find a window. They need to attach this tiny transmitter that Pidge made to the ship’s main computer and then get the hell out. Apparently it’s supposed to be able to broadcast long-range, and if Pidge can get it to work right she might be able to not only hack into this ship’s system but the entire Galra network, all from the safety and comfort of the castle’s lounge.
“Why can’t she go stick the damn thing on the computer?” Lance had whined when Shiro told him he’d be sneaking onboard this Galra base that they’d happened across.
“Stop complaining,” Keith replied. “We all have important things to do to deal with the Galra.”
This, of course, had been right before Shiro said, “Keith, you’ll be going with him.”
“What? Why me?”
“‘ Stop complaining,’ ” Lance parroted back at him, in a voice that was way too nasally to be an accurate mockery of his own, so he didn’t even bother being offended.
“Because you can interact with Galra tech. And,” Shiro said, with one eyebrow raised, looking back and forth between the two of them, “it seems like you two could use some time to sort out your differences.”
All this, of course, had led Keith to this very moment. Right here, striding after Lance on a Galra space station, walking away from where they’re supposed to be going. Lance can’t even really know that there’s a window this way. Do Galra ships even have windows? Do Galra look at the stars?
(Keith does. But he’s a little different.)
To be perfectly honest, Keith is all sorts of turned around at this point too and can’t really remember where they came in from. That’s a problem that they’re going to have to deal with later. Not too much later, if they’re lucky. This really is supposed to be a quick mission. Shiro had dropped them off in a cloaked pod and said goodbye like he was dropping them off at soccer practice. He’ll be back soon to get them, when Lance and Keith send him the signal using this fancy pager Hunk made that’s not supposed to be picked up by Galra technology. In the meantime Shiro’s back at the castle, probably having a grand old time with everyone who isn’t Keith and Lance right now. They couldn’t risk bringing their lions and just parking them outside, because one, that was just inviting someone to steal them and two, if the lions were found, then Keith and Lance were found too, and that was game over for the transmitter probably, not to mention Keith and Lance as well.
Another thing that could possibly be game over for Keith and Lance: Lance’s infuriating habit of walking loudly when he doesn’t know what’s around corners. Like right now. Keith knows for a fact that there are sentries here, because they’re crawling all over this place. He can just imagine the burn of lasers on his back now, the shouts of Galra coming after them.
Here’s the thing about this mission. They absolutely can’t be spotted. He and Lance are completely defenseless here, and alone. Sure, they’ve got their bayards, but what are two guys with a sword and a gun going to do against a whole ship of alien soldiers? Hopefully hold them off until Shiro can get his ass over here, if it comes to that, but Keith, despite the burning in his veins, would definitely rather it didn’t come to that.
The castle isn’t too far away. This Galra space station is just a huge hulking ship chilling in the middle of space, so it’s not going anywhere fast. Right? Right.
“Keep it down,” Keith says, reaching out and grabbing Lance’s shoulder to slow him. Lance just twists to stick out his tongue at him, but he does duck down behind a wall support when motion flickers at the edge of his vision.
It’s not a moment too soon, as a pair of Galra sentries stroll across the hall through a perpendicular hallway. Keith doesn’t think about how close they were to becoming Galra-made swiss cheese in that moment. He just thinks about breathing in, breathing out, and then standing back up to continue the mission.
Lance takes off down a random hallway and Keith has no choice but to roll his eyes and follow. He clearly has no idea where he’s leading them. They need to stop dicking around and get to it. This is a war they’re in, billions of lives that could be won or lost based on their every action. But he feels like Lance isn’t going to let this go until he sees for himself that they’re just hanging out and still orbiting the huge gaseous planet that they’ve been near the entire time. It’s huge and purple so there’s no way they’ll be able to miss it when they find a window, if they find a window, and— oh.
The small observation deck is empty except for him and Lance and a huge wall of window. There’s no big purple planet. There’s no smattering of stars. There’s just light streaking by, so impossibly fast that it looks like a wall of alternating bands of white-blue and yellow against an infrequent wall of black.
They’ve gotta be near light speed if it looks like that.
“I told you!” screeches Lance, and Keith tightens his grip on his bayard, waiting for the sirens to start, the sentries to come pouring in. Lance is loud enough to be the alarm himself.
“Okay, okay,” Keith says, quietly trying to contain the panic that comes bubbling up when he tears his eyes away from Lance long enough to look at the window. They’re going somewhere. They’re going there fast.
He grabs Lance by the arm and drags them down into a well-shadowed corner. They’re at a dead end here, and if anyone comes into this room they’re screwed. He can hope that the Castle-ship is following along, but the possibility of an extraction right now seems slim.
Lance is watching the window, and the light and motion is reflected in his wide eyes. His lips thin into a hard frown.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Keith says. “We’re still going to complete the mission. Put the thing in the computer or whatever. Then we find the escape pods and get the hell out of here.”
“I guess we can’t just call Shiro,” Lance replies. “I can’t feel Blue. Wherever the castle is, it’s far far away from wherever the hell we are.”
Keith tentatively feels along his connection to Red and…yeah. She’s really distant. Presumably the Castle-ship is gone with her. Well actually, it’s Keith and Lance who are gone, out here lost in the middle of space, trapped in hostile territory, far away from anything remotely considered safety.
Keith instinctively retracts his bayard, then forms the sword again. The weight of it is comforting in his hand. He knows he’ll get out of here alive somehow or other, but he could use the reminder of its power right now.
Lance, meanwhile, taps the side of his helmet again. This time Keith lets him, but the emptiness that echoes back when Lance calls into it for help is discouraging at best. He turns his own off. They’re useless here now. He’s not going to get separated from Lance, and it’s not like he has anyone else to talk to over the damn thing. What’s he going to do? Chitchat with the Galra technicians who pick up on their signals?
“Well we’re not going to get anything done just sitting here,” Keith says. “Let’s go.”
Lance follows him this time.
Of all the people to get stuck on an enemy spacecraft with, of course it’s him. Of course it’s Lance, who Keith still has to shut up by throwing a hand over his mouth despite the wandering patrols that he’s seen with his own two eyes. Of course it’s Lance, who in return licks Keith’s palm. Of course it’s Lance, who almost trips over Keith and falls out of their hiding spot more than once. Of course it’s Lance, who is quick and loud to tell Keith that he’s going the wrong way whenever Keith takes a turn.
“How do you even know?” Keith asks, rounding on him.
“Pretty sure Pidge said the computer would be close to the bridge,” Lance says. “And the bridge would be towards the front of the ship. You, my man, are headed towards the back.”
Of course it’s Lance, who somehow thinks he knows this.
Keith knows why Shiro sent them, though. This isn’t just a get-over-your-bickering kind of mission. This isn't even a you-two-are-actually-great-when-you-work-together kind of mission, though that doesn’t hurt. This is actually entirely Lance’s fault, because of that thing that happened the other day. Lance’s fault. That thing .
He looks at him now, across the hall. Lance is crouched beside a dark hallway, checking for patrols, his long limbs gathered in to make himself compact, but ready to spring outwards. He’s leaning his bayard back against his shoulder like it’s always belonged there, bouncing on his toes a little bit as he watches. Up-down, up-down . The armor accentuates the grace of his spine.
As Keith’s looking at him, Lance turns and they make eye contact. “Let’s go,” he says with a jerk of his head. He unfolds upwards and hurries, not waiting to see if Keith is behind him. Keith is, of course, behind him.
Which is a problem, because when Lance stops short with a, “ Holy quiznak ,” Keith almost rams straight into his back. Any other time that might’ve been okay, but not now, Keith realizes as he rushes to backpedal. He slams himself back against a wall, into a shadowy alcove, and when Lance doesn't budge from where he stopped short Keith grabs him by the back of his armor and tugs him back with him.
“What the hell is that?” Lance cries, though at least he’s keeping his voice down now. The sight of a few dozen armed Galra sentries lined up in the next room probably was what had that effect on him. He looks down at the bayard in his hand, like it’s a flimsy children’s toy against what the Galra in there are packing. He’s probably thinking there’s no fighting their way out of this one.
Though to Keith, those words are laughable.
“Is that the way to the bridge?” Keith asks Lance.
“Well I don’t think those guards are standing around protecting more empty hallways,” Lance says. And then he gives Keith a cold look. “We definitely can’t get through this way though, so don’t even think about it.”
Keith isn’t thinking about it. At least not seriously. The idea of leaping out of hiding and feeling the edge of his sword cut through some Galra robot is actually pretty appealing right now, but he understands why that can only remain a fantasy. So instead he turns to Lance. Their shoulder pieces knock together.
“So what, then?” he asks.
Lance shrugs. “Go around, I guess.”
“Is there a way to go around?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Lance replies. “I’d rather look for one than get caught!”
Keith rests his head back against the wall, closes his eyes. Takes deep breaths the same way Shiro taught him. He’s not one to often think of consequences but this situation has him on edge in the strangest ways. If they’re caught it’s the end of the mission, sure, but without backup, without an escape plan, it could be the end of other things too. Like their lives. Or our freedom , he thinks darkly, while images of Shiro’s arm and poor mental health flash through his head.
Keith pushes off the wall and follows Lance wordlessly when they backtrack and loop around the way they came. He lets Lance look for a parallel path, a detour, while he watches their back. He does a damn good job of it too, nudging Lance into hallway offshoots just before sentries come strolling by. There are definitely more of them here now, and Keith can’t help but feel like they’re finally on their way to something. It’ll still be in and out. They’ll nip into where the computer is, attach Pidge’s little whatever to the machine, find an escape pod, and be out of there before anyone knows it. No problem.
Except there is a problem.
And that’s that they’ve finally seemed to happen upon the main area of the space station. They can see it from here, where they’re both peeking from around the corner of a dark corridor. There’s what looks like a bridge down that way, and some important-looking doors. And it’s absolutely buzzing with Galra.
“We need a diversion,” Lance says.
“Okay,” Keith says, and grabs Lance’s hand that’s on his bayard. He hefts it up and puts his fingers over Lance’s on the trigger and fires— one, twice, three times —down the hall in the direction from which they came, at what looks like something vaguely important attached to the wall. Lance squawks, but the sound of something breaking is louder. Keith pulls Lance down behind a support.
It’s better than anything Keith could have planned, really. He must’ve hit something electrical because the lights overhead flicker and then go out. The bridge is still crawling with enemy soldiers but their attention is turned down the corridor, and a number of them run straight by where Keith and Lance are ducking, holding their breath, in the direction of the crash.
Something smells like smoke.
“Come on,” Keith hisses, and drags Lance out of their hiding spot, in the direction of the bridge. They probably have thirty ticks. If they’re lucky. Their way is clear now, though, and they just have to find the right thing, do the right thing, and then get out of there. In and out. No problem.
“Dude, don’t you dare touch my bayard ever again.” How Lance has the ability to bitch at him while also trying to hurriedly sneak down a hallway, Keith has no idea. “It’s so personal! That’s supposed to stay between me and Blue!”
Keith ignores him and ducks into an open doorway to get out of plain sight. They’re lucky that Galra ships are naturally poorly-lit, and even more so that the lights are out right now. He takes a look around, spots the next cover, and goes for it.
“Where are we even going right now?” Lance whispers shrilly, hot on his heels.
“I don’t know,” Keith says. “Let’s find out.”
They’re taking shelter behind some big mechanical-looking thing when Keith spots it, right across the corridor from them. A big door opens and out comes six or seven of what Keith can only assume are the Galra’s version of IT guys, jogging down the hallway towards where a crowd has now gathered around the damaged area. They’re not dressed in armor, just uniforms, and what’s in the doorway behind them is something that looks kind of like other really powerful alien computers he’s seen around.
He darts out towards it without a second thought.
“Keith!” says Lance in the most panicky shout-whisper he can muster.
Keith feels the presence before he sees it; he knows that someone’s at his shoulder and lashes out with his bayard. It slices through air and he spins to face his attacker head-on, braced for impact.
Only to find it’s not an attacker at all.
This Galra has no time for him. They probably didn’t even see him. They’re careening down the hallway, in the bridge already, and they’re literally on fire .
Keith almost smirks. Too easy. He ducks into the computer room, and Lance is behind him. The door slides shut after a moment or two, and they’re alone with the hulking machine.
It hums. Keith hadn't realized how loud things had been out in the corridor until he came in here, but suddenly this place feels downright cozy after the chaos going on outside. Plus there’s something peaceful about the huge computer. It takes up a solid half of the room and it’s a solid block of inanimate object. It’s not going to hop up and kill him, or capture him and throw him in some dungeon somewhere in the bowels of the ship. He has to keep an eye on the door, in case someone else comes in, because they will try to do that. But this machine here, it’s staying right in place.
“Let’s hurry and get out of here,” Lance says, standing with his bayard at the ready in front of the door.
“That was my plan,” Keith says, approaching the computer. He fishes the tiny drive that Pidge gave him out of his pocket and looks for a place to hook it up. He honestly doesn’t know much about computers beyond the screen and the keyboard, but he trusts that Pidge’s technology is Lance-proof enough to have a good shot at working.
He manages to find a port that vaguely looks like it could be a fit. What’s more, it’s out of immediate sight. He sticks the thing on and backs up towards Lance.
“Escape pods?” Lance asks.
“Escape pods,” Keith agrees.
It’s a risk, exiting the room when they have no idea what’s going on outside. But they do anyway, somehow are not killed instantly, and immediately realize something.
“Way to go, Keith,” Lance hisses. “Your great diversion cut off our escape route.”
They press their backs against the door behind them when it slides shut, taking advantage of the dim doorway. They can’t go back the way they’ve came. There’s what appears to be a Galra firefighting crew down there, as well as more Galra soldiers than Keith has ever seen in one place in his life, standing around and watching. There’s smoke billowing from that direction, but even that would prove useless with the crowd thronging around down there.
Keith looks in the other direction, towards the bridge. The lights are still on there. And a few Galra are milling about, pausing every so often to crane their necks in the direction of the hallway to see what’s going on. This corridor might be the only way in and out of the bridge. But there’s nowhere to hide here, and whatever’s going on down the hall isn’t going to keep the Galra occupied forever.
“Let’s go,” he says to Lance, and heads towards the bridge.
“Hey—!” Lance starts, but Keith’s already going, pressed against the wall in case anyone decides to take a glance down the corridor.
It’s because they’re both flattened against it that Lance nearly trips over something protruding from the wall at knee height. He curses, leaning down to rub at his shin, and Keith rolls his eyes but pauses to wait for him. He scans the hallway for signs of anyone approaching, but whatever’s going on now down the hall is still holding everyone’s attention.
“Hey, Keith,” Lance says, something like realization dawning in his voice. He reaches down and tugs at whatever the thing is that he just ran into. It gives, and a small door, about the size of a kitchen cabinet, opens outwards. He leans down to look inside, and then flashes his smile up at Keith. “How do you feel about being on your knees?”
“Just go ,” Keith growls. As he watches Lance retract his bayard there’s a part of him that fantasizes about this being a trash chute and Lance falling down into it and getting launched out into space. But there’s an even bigger part of him that’s relieved when he gets down and crawls in after him and sees he’s still there, even if it means his feet are in his face.
“I knew it should’ve been Pidge on this mission,” Lance says. He’s almost conversational now as Keith tries to pull the door shut behind him, hooking it with his foot. It’s dark in here except for a faint glow from somewhere far, far up ahead. He can almost make out Lance’s shape in front of him, but it’s more from the scraping he hears that he knows Lance is shuffling along. He goes on dreamily, “Can’t wait to be back in my bed.”
“Let’s just get out of here first,” Keith says.
“Hey buddy, just trying to keep morale up,” Lance replies.
“Do that later.”
Keith reaches out too far and brushes against Lance’s calf. Lance pauses in his movements, and Keith nearly runs into him again until he senses his mass directly in front of him. He’s barely saved from crawling face-first into Lance’s ass, but he can still hear Lance opening his mouth, Lance sucking in breath. He’s about to say something horribly, painfully dumb, and Keith knows it.
But instead Lance just keeps moving again. And Keith, after a pause, follows.
After a few minutes the passageway begins to grow brighter, and Keith can make out the stripes of grating directly ahead of them. When Lance reaches it, he prepares his bayard and carefully nudges the hatch open, sticking his gun out at the same time as his head.
“Coast is clear,” he says, pushing himself out of the hole with as much grace as a squirrel falling from a tree. Keith waits until he rights himself to start his own emergence. Reactivating his own bayard, he climbs to his feet and stands beside Lance.
They continue on foot now, creeping through the halls as they did earlier. Lance seems to have some concept of where they’re headed, but for Keith all he can think is that they’re going away . The sooner they get out of here the better.
Somehow they almost seem to have this sneaking thing down at this point because they make it a few hallways without anything resembling a close call. The sentries are definitely sparser down here. No one seems to be expecting any trouble in the extremities of a central base, or maybe they’ve all been called in to defend against the mysterious gunman who started the fire near the bridge. Either way, by the time Keith follows Lance into the escape pod bay, he’s feeling a lot more relaxed. Almost relieved. They’ll be back in the Castle-ship before they know it.
Regardless he turns to guard the entrance while letting Lance figure out which doorway will open to a pod that’ll take them home. He doesn’t want anything sneaking up on them when they’re this close, when he can practically taste the recycled air of the Castle-ship and the Lance-free areas it provides.
Without meaning to, he glances over his shoulder at the man in question. Lance’s bayard hangs limply at his side, his mouth curved into a frown as he goes from one docking station to the next. He takes off his helmet and turns to press his face against the glass window set into the door of the dock, and Keith’s eyes settle on a curl of hair just behind his ear.
“What’s going on?” Keith asks.
Lance doesn't respond for a second, and only moves to the next port, tapping against the wall as he goes.
“Do you need me to do it?” Keith asks.
“No,” Lance snaps. “I— quiznak .”
“What is it?”
Lance spins to face him. “None of the pods are here.”
Keith’s expression twists to match Lance’s frown. “What do you mean none of the pods are here?”
“I mean ,” Lance says, throwing his arms wide, “there aren’t any escape pods. All the docks are empty!”
Keith rolls his eyes and walks towards the first hatch on his right. That can’t be the case. What kind of space station doesn’t have any escape pods? Lance must be missing something.
But when he peeks through the window that should give a view into a ready escape pod, all he sees is space.
“They’re all gone,” Lance says.
Keith can’t believe that. He can’t take his word for it. He goes to the next one and looks. Nothing. The next one. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
“This is ridiculous,” Lance rants behind him as he goes. “This has to be against safety protocols or something. Haven’t the Galra ever seen the Titanic ?”
Keith reaches the end of the room, and he finds that he has to face this truth. There are no escape pods. Not here.
“Are there any other escape pod docks on this base?” Keith asks Lance, cutting into his whining.
Lance quiets, blinks. “I don’t know. This is the only one on the map Pidge showed me.”
“This is a huge central base,” Keith muses, walking up to Lance. “There’ve got to be other ships on here somewhere.”
He’s about to go, about to stride out of there and go looking for them himself, but he’s suddenly yanked backwards by a hand on his elbow.
“Keith, hold on,” Lance says. “Maybe we should just lie low and wait for the others to come get us.”
“And just sit around on a Galra space station until that happens?”
“Look,” Lance says. “We couldn’t find an escape pod, and who knows where others might be? Instead of blowing our cover, wouldn’t it be better to just find a hiding spot and hang out until we have a better plan?”
“No,” Keith says, but he has nothing to back that up with other than the idea that no one might be coming for them. Which isn’t really something he particularly wants to dwell on.
They should be prepared for that situation, though. There’s no promise that they’ll be able to get out of here. They need to find their own way off, or potentially become the Druids’ next playthings.
But maybe, maybe they could regroup first.
“Fine. Let’s find a safe spot to reorganize in,” Keith says, and then heads back out into the dark, cavernous hallways of the ship.