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Shiro surveyed the scene before him objectively, watching the burning Robeast to make sure it wouldn’t start to move again while the other paladins landed in the sandy plain around him. The fight wasn’t too long, but would have been faster with Voltron. With Pidge back on the castle with what she described as her “insides committing mutiny,” they’d needed to make do without. Fortunately, the Red Lion’s fire turned out to be more effective than usual against their enemy. He almost congratulated Keith on a job well done when the Red Lion did a celebratory flip in the air. Not Keith. Shiro remembered the mission Keith had taken with the Blade, far away from here. All words of praise dried up in his throat.
“All right, team,” he began, but a video feed from Coran cut him off.
“Congratulations, everyone, but your work isn’t over yet. It looks like the Galra are receiving reinforcements at their base on the other side of the planet. You need to get there immediately, to see what they’re up to.”
“Roger that, Coran,” he heard Lance respond, and the Red Lion lifted into the air. “Four fighting paladins coming right up.”
“Hold on, Lance. Coran, how’s Pidge doing? I’d feel stronger on this with the Green Lion as part of the plan.”
“I’ll go ask her. In the meantime, get going. I’ve already sent the coordinates to your Lions, so you should be able to find the base no problem.”
Shiro nodded, and the feed ended. The lions took off, flying over the endless desert planet in formation.
“Hey, um, Shiro? Is it just me, or did Coran’s coordinates change just now?” Hunk asked, his voice sounding slower and more careful than usual. Confusion, probably. The leader glanced at his own display, but he couldn’t tell the difference.
“Oh, they definitely did,” Lance chimed in. “There used to be a six and now there isn’t.”
“Coran? Do you have any explanation for this?” Allura asked, trying to open a video feed back to the Castle of Lions. Nothing happened.
“He must still be talking to Pidge.” He pursed his lips and studies the coordinates. “Black? Any chance you saved the coordinates from before?”
Black thrummed with amusement. “Perhaps you should follow the coordinates you have.”
Raising an eyebrow at Black, he tried to open a video feed to Coran himself. Still nothing. “The coordinates must have changed for a reason. We follow them.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” The Red Lion began to fly faster, and the others flew faster to keep up. The terrain below them transitioned from desert sands to mountains, and snow began to fall.
“Is this the right place? I don’t see any Galra base,” Hunk pointed out, teeth chattering. “It’s too cold for one anyways. I can barely see ten feet in front of Yellow.”
Allura cleared her throat. Strange, she didn’t do that often. “The coordinates have changed again. It looks like we have farther to go now.”
“Anything to get out of the snow. Wow, I was not born for cold weather, guys, let me tell you that,” Hunk admitted, forcing a laugh.
The group left the snow and headed farther west toward the new coordinates. This side of the mountains was warm and wet, with nothing but green below them as far as the eye could see. A few trees grew taller than the rest of the ranforest’s canopy, and Shiro was surprised at just how similar to Earth the trees seemed to look. When the lions had almost reached the coordinates, they changed again, and then again. When the coordinates finally seemed stable, he opened a video feed to all the other lions.
“All right, team, we need to scope the place out. The Green Lion isn’t here to do recon, so Lance, you’re the fastest. Get in without being seen, and let us know what’s going on over there. Everyone else, let’s land beneath the trees for cover.” He watched Lance shoot him a grin and the rest of the team nod, so he closed the feed and took Black to the ground. Beneath the trees, sunlight shone golden through the leaves and moss covered the thick tree trunks. The view echoed that of Earth rainforests, and Shiro let himself relax a moment and watch a brightly colored bird land on a vine before turning focus back to the mission. “Lance?”
“I’m at the coordinates, but I’ve searched the whole area and only found one Galra ship. You guys should come see this,” Lance replied, voice brimming with excitement. Shiro took that to mean their mission was about to be over, and led Hunk and Allura up from beneath the trees and over to the coordinates. Beside the Red Lion, he saw only one Galra ship, just as Lance had said.
“I thought there was supposed to be a base and reinforcements,” Hunk commented. “Coran must have made a mistake.”
“Lance, what is it we need to see?”
“It’s down here. The ship is empty, but something’s written on it and I can’t read Altean.”
The Blue Lion made it to the ground first, followed by Black and Yellow. Allura left her lion and was at Lance’s side immediately, peering at the purple letters painted onto the side of the ship. Once Shiro and Hunk were beside them, she hmm ed and a small smile spread across her face. “Now, why would a Galra ship have Altean written on it?” she mused.
“Why don’t you tell us what it says, and we’ll figure it out?”
A familiar voice responded from directly behind him. “It says ‘Happy Birthday,’ of course.”
Shiro spun around to see his cousin, dressed in his Earth clothes and grinning widely. “Keith!” He spread his arms, and Keith ran to hug him.
“Happy birthday, Shiro,” he mumbled into Shiro’s armored shoulder. The other paladins laughed and rushed to join the hug, only breaking apart at the sound of laughing. The black paladin spun around to see Pidge approaching from behind the Galra ship with Matt, Coran, and a white-frosted cake, calling out birthday greetings at once.
“I thought you were sick, Pidge,” Shiro teased.
“A miraculous recovery. Doctors are baffled,” she replied with a conspiratorial wink to Matt, and the two began to sing the birthday song, belting at the tops of their lungs and the others jumping in.
“Happy BIRTHday to you, happy BIRTHday TO YOU, happy BIRTHDAY DEAR SHIRO-” His friends around him lifted him off his feet, carrying him toward the cake- “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!”
Shiro laughed and felt himself return to the ground. “It’s my birthday?”
Matt Holt flashed him a smile and a wink. “Sure is. I was in an Earth shop last week, and there was a sign that showed the date. Happy six and a half, leap year baby.”
Shiro groaned good-naturedly. “I’m 26, Matt.”
“Nope! Six and a half. I got you just the thing, too-” The shorter boy said, pulling an alien backpack off his shoulders and drawing out three packages messily wrapped in silver foil.
“Wait, we’ve got to get ours,” Pidge interrupted, handing the cake to Hunk. She, Lance, and Allura ran back behind the Galra ship, returning moments later with gifts of their own. Coran and Keith presented their gifts as well, which Coran had been doing an impressive job hiding behind his back. All were wrapped in the same silver foil, but there was no mistaking who wrapped which gift. Keith’s was very simply done, Pidge’s had clean, efficient lines, Lance’s large and lumpy gift had a thin strip wrapped around like ribbon and tied in a bow, and Allura’s and Coran’s… well, she couldn’t be blamed for not really knowing how to wrap something. He figured celebrating getting older might be more of an Earth thing.
“You guy did all of this for me?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course.” Keith nudged Shiro with his shoulder. “You’re pretty cool, you know. Now open your presents.”
Hunk cleared his throat. “This cake is my present. Just so you know. I didn’t, like, just not get you something or anything like that, I just thought you’d want to have a birthday cake.”
“It looks delicious, Hunk,” Shiro replied, and the yellow paladin beamed.
Coran, brimming with excitement, couldn’t wait any longer and held his gift out to him. “Open mine first, Shiro!”
Beneath the silver foil was a rectangular box, and Shiro opened it to find something green and orange. He reached inside to pick some up, and the dry clumps crumbled under his fingers. “Uh, thanks, Coran. What is it?”
The Altean twisted his moustache proudly. “It’s Golgnac powder. Chock full of protein for a quick burst of energy for those extra-long battle days. Plus, if you mix it into water you can drink it or use it to make your skin nice and shiny. I’ve got some water right here if you’d like to try it!”
“Thanks, Coran, I’ll try it later,” he said carefully. Pidge pushed her gift toward him next, and the foil practically fell off it in his hands. A cross between a computer and a pair of goggles remained, looking as plain and elegant as Pidge liked her inventions to be. Bewildered, he put them on, and instead of his friends he saw a list of Altean characters.
“You can watch whatever you want on them- meetings, casual city traffic on some Coalition planet, or movies if you want to relax. I linked a bunch of videos from the castle databases, and found tons of movies in the Space Mall. I made sure to get Star Wars, since I know you haven’t seen it and it kind of seemed fitting for our situation, you know, since we’re fighting a war in space? But if you’d rather-”
“Pidge. I love them,” he cut her off, removing the goggles putting an arm on her shoulder. “Thank you.” Her grin in response practically glowed.
Allura’s gift was a white waxy substance that he could rub into the skin of his shoulder where flesh met metal, to soothe the skin kind of like lotion back on Earth. Keith had little mementos from landmark missions the team had been on, and little cards from some of the families they had saved. Lance had taken two blankets, dyed them somehow, and sewed them together to make a kind of quilt that managed to be warm, soft, and beautiful all at once. The gifts from Matt were all pink and plastic- a kazoo, a crown, light-up princess toys. He’d even managed to somehow find batteries at the Earth shop he’d found, which would eternally impress Pidge and Lance.
When no one was paying attention, Matt leaned over and took Shiro’s hand. “Your kid presents aren’t all, but I figured I could give you the grown-up stuff later. I just know if any of these caught wind of alcohol in the area we’d have a whole different situation on our hands.” He winked, and Shiro flashed a sneaky smile back.
After presents, Pidge ran back inside the Green Lion, and soon music bled into the cool air. Not just music, but music straight from Earth- the eighties, Shiro’s favorite decade. The four moons and the lights from the lions turned the rainforest into a silvery scene, and the group danced around like fools, belting “Don’t Stop Believin’” like there was no one to hear it. And if Shiro saw his cousin and Lance dancing a little closer than the others? He wouldn’t say a thing. After all, Matt’s hand in his and Queen lyrics on his lips were more than enough to distract him from a little thing like teasing Keith. It was his birthday, after all. He couldn’t imagine being happier.