Chapter Text
It never failed to amaze the commander of the Voltron Force how blue the sky on Arus could be.
Especially when not far away, a large, smoking crater marked the end of yet another one of Zarkon's ugly robeasts.
The smoke and debris from the destroyed behemoth drifted down into the long valley below, filtering over the sprawling settlement that had been the target of destruction. Higher up, however, the skies were clear except for the slowly dissipating contrails from Voltron’s proton missiles that had helped bring down the attacker.
This was the part of the 'fight' that both saddened and strengthened Captain Keith Kogane's resolve to do all he could to protect Arus. He was appalled by the destruction that affected the citizens of the planet again and again, but he was also buoyed by the resolve and the stamina of those who survived.
The population and climate of the planet were slowly rejuvenating after the terrible attacks that had reduced most of the population to little more than cave dwellers, and the landscape to desolation. Now, almost four years after the rebirth of Voltron, there were open settlements – towns and villages that regularly communicated with each other by everything from smoke signals to COMs, and traded food, goods and technology.
The pristine, alpine landscape he now surveyed on his sweep eased his mind as well.
They'd saved this from returning to ruin.
Banking the powerful Black Lion in a slow glide, Keith scanned the slopes of the high passes, watchful for any of the Doom frigates that may have stayed behind to try to finish the job that the robeast failed to complete. He was almost at the end of his post-battle reconnaissance sweep, having scouted for over an hour in ever-widening arcs. Now, at a good fifteen kilometers from the final battle site, he had yet to see any sign of remaining ships. The Lions and the robeast had fought over this region as well: here and there were spots where the rocks had been tossed about or melted into odd shapes from laser and missile fire. The dark green of the trees that covered the lower slopes were split occasionally by rocky outcroppings and smooth, snow-packed stretches that tapered off as the slopes grew less steep.
He blinked as the glare from the afternoon sun reflected off the snowy reaches, and then squinted as a particularly bright flash caught his eye. Frowning, he slowed the Lion and swung around again to take another look. The flash appeared again, blinking at him several times in quick succession, and Keith could see that it appeared to be coming from the top of a deep cut in the nearly sheer rock face, rooted by a ledge.
~Think I'll go take a look, ~ he thought, eyeing the landscape. He wasn't about to take a chance with that settlement so close.
He thumbed a switch on his console. "Hunk? How's the cleanup going?"
"Yeah, Cap, I'm here. Just doing a little fire control – want to make sure that we didn't accidentally burn down the forest! What's up?" Lieutenant Commander Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett's voice crackled over the COM.
Keith lowered his eyebrows and scowled at the transmitter. "Your signal is breaking up; can you hear me all right?"
"I read you, Keith, loud and clear." Hunk stared at the smoking ruins before him. They were lucky – most of the flaming hulk had landed on rocky ground, and was burning itself out.
"I spotted a flash of something on a ledge about fifteen klicks from you…I'm going to check it out."
"Gotcha, Boss. I'll let the others know – Lance and the Princess are down talking to the mayor of Tielan, checking to see if they need any outside assistance, and Pidge is scouting down toward the plains. Let me know if you find anything!" He nodded to himself as Keith acknowledged him and continued surveying the battlefield.
Keith brought the Lion ship to a hover, and scanned his landing area. The granite face was probably 600 meters from top to bottom, with snowpack above and below. He slowly settled the great mechanized beast to the incline directly below the cut, and realized that if he stretched the ship up and out a little, he would be able to step off the Lion's 'nose' and onto the jutting outcropping.
He scrambled out of the control seat after shutting the systems down, making sure that the transponder and standbys were set. Stopping at the supply locker, he withdrew a floodlight and checked the power pack on his laser pistol. He considered putting on the heavy protective survival suit, but decided against it. ~It'll only be for a few minutes,~ he thought to himself. ~Just long enough to find out what was causing that flash. ~
Climbing out the top hatch, he secured it behind him and sprang over to the snow-covered ledge. He stopped suddenly – there were footprints on the slushy ground, slightly smaller than his own but very clearly outlined in the late afternoon sun. He drew his laser pistol, and switching on the floodlight, started to follow the oval impressions to the dark, yawning gap in the sheer rock face.
A slithery sound stopped him in his tracks. Spinning back to the edge of the defile, he frowned at the spill of snow and ice from above that partially blurred the edges of his own footprints. ~This is not good…~ he considered. A low rumble shook the ledge slightly, and, startled, Keith instinctively backed away from the edge. ~Wrong. This is very not good! ~ The rumble grew into a roar as more snow and ice tumbled down from above, splattering on the rim of the ledge and on the top of the Black Lion. ~Time to get out of here! ~
He had almost made it back to the precipice when a heavy load of ice and snow rolled down the rock face, crashing into him with the force of a waterfall. He lost his grip on the floodlight almost immediately as he was driven to his knees, slamming his wrist and hand against the hard rock of the shelf, and then was stunned and blinded by snow as his helmet was stripped off. He scrambled hastily back from the drop-off, trying to make it back into the cut, gripping the slippery surface of the ledge as much as he could, and then curled into ball against the cliff face, protecting his head with his arms. Tons of melting snow, ice, and rock tumbled over and past him, continuing down the side of the mountain.
The roar softened into a growl, faded into the distance, and then all was quiet.
Keith blinked to clear his eyes. Moving his arms and legs to make sure they were still attached, he rolled himself into a sitting position and then levered himself up off the uneven surface. Shaking the wet clumps of snow from his hair, he stared over the now several-feet-deep snow-covered lip of the ledge.
Into empty space.
The Black Lion was gone.
He gaped for a moment, and then realized what had happened.
He'd just survived an avalanche.
Craning his neck, he eyed the almost vertical rock face above him, checking for further fallout as he dug wet snow and slush out from the high neck of his flight suit. Just inside the top of the cut in the cliff face drooped what looked like a collection of icicles and stumps. ~Bet that was the source of the reflection,~ he thought sourly.
Silence.
Breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn’t about to be ambushed or pummeled by more ice and snow, he tapped at his wrist COM as he peered down the steep slope that the Black had been perched on mere moments before. Now it was a smooth, apparently unbroken field of white as far down as he could see. ~Great. I parked on a snow chute. Way to go, genius! ~ Distracted, he tapped at his wrist again.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, he stripped off his flight glove, and caught the shattered metallic and plastic slivers of what had been a computerized communication device built into his flight suit. He sighed again in defeat. He was lucky not to have broken his wrist when the COM was damaged, but now he was cut off from the rest of his team – heck, the rest of the world – and the nearest communicator was in the Black Lion, wherever the Lion had ended up. There was no telling where his flight helmet had been buried. His laser pistol was also missing – the holster and weapon torn from him in his scramble back from the rim.
The captain squinted up at the sun, now less than two hours from setting. He couldn't stay up here on the ledge unprotected – the temperature was cool and mild for now, but he'd freeze at this altitude after the sun went down. He turned and gazed into the black gap that had enticed him in the first place. He would not be able to investigate it without a light source, and the tracks he'd started to follow had been wiped out by the slide. Looking left and right, he noted that the ledge followed the cliff face and angled down slightly to the left. Shaking the sharp fragments of the destroyed COM out of his glove, he carefully slid his hand back into it, brushed his flight suit free of melting snow, and warily followed the sloping shelf downward and away from the defile.
******
Lieutenant (jg) Darrell "Pidge" Stroker leaned back in his command chair, removed his glasses and rubbed wearily at his eyes. ~Another day, another nail in Zarkon’s coffin! ~ he thought wryly. He’d just completed the valley sweep, and had landed the great Green Lion next to the crouching Blue and Red Lions. He replaced the wide frames and peered up the valley. Wrinkling his nose, he called to his teammates.
“Yellow, Black, this is Green Lion. Keith, Hunk, you guys almost finished up there?”
“Hey Pidge, I’m about finished taking out the garbage here – isn’t Keith back with you yet?” Hunk’s voice sounded sharp in the green pilot’s COM. “He was checking out something a couple of ridges away, and hasn’t reported back – I figured he didn’t find anything of interest.”
“No…he’s not here yet – and he’s not answering the hail.” The young man pushed a button on his side console. “Black’s moving along the ground, I think.” He frowned at the reading. “It's hard to tell. Doesn’t seem very…well, now it looks like he’s stopped moving. Hunk, I’ve got a funny feeling about this…”
“Yeah, Squirt, I know what you mean. I’m almost finished here, so why don't you go take a look and I’ll catch up. He might just be having COM issues – that robeast really smacked us all around a bit before we finally put the screws to it,” the big man grumbled.
“Okay – can you let Lance and the Princess know what’s going on? I’m going to see if I can pinpoint his transponder. I’m getting some magnetic interference or something from all these mountains around us. The signal isn't very strong, and there are a lot of echoes.” His fingers flew over the computer console beside him, triangulating the weak signal coming from the Black Lion.
“Will do, little buddy. Be careful! Don’t need two missing Lions!”
******
Keith followed the downward slant of the outcropping around the curve of the cliff, flattening himself against the overhang as the ledge became a narrow shelf sloping toward the bottom of the sheer bluff. The 'trail' wound around out of the bright afternoon sunlight, and the temperature dropped noticeably. The air was thinner at this altitude than he was used to, and he'd had to stop several times just to catch his breath.
The foot-wide protrusion abruptly ended about fifteen meters above the base of the shadowed rock face, which appeared to be buried in snow. Weighing his options – it was much too far to simply jump – Keith spied what looked to be hand-and footholds cut into the smooth granite. ~Only one way to go…~ he shrugged to himself and started the climb down.
Bracing himself on the rim of his erstwhile trail, he carefully lowered his boot to the first foothold. It was going to be a challenge to descend the almost blank face in his uniform boots, as the toes were just the slightest bit too stiff to allow him to get a good grip. There was also the matter of his wrist, which had started to swell and was increasingly stiff in the falling temperatures.
He had to get off the cliff, and quickly.
As he cautiously made his way from foothold to handhold, he began to feel a vibration in the rock beneath his numb fingertips. He halted, and laid his cheek against the cold stone. The vibration stopped. He drew in a steadying breath, and looked upward. The sheer wall seemed to stretch tens of meters overhead into the bright azure sky, and he watched in horror as fingertip-sized clumps of ice and melting snow began cascading down the vertical crag. The vibrations returned, stronger this time, and threatened to shake him loose from his tenuous hold. He flattened himself as best he could against the onslaught of snow and ice as the small clumps became larger, fist-sized missiles. He felt rather than heard a roar of jet engines pass closely overhead as he lost his grip on the cliff. Accompanied by the rush of frozen and melting materials, he tumbled helplessly down the rock face, down the snow chute, and toward the tree line far, far below.
******
Pidge crested the high mountain ridge and, angling down to his left, followed the contour of the long, steep slope as he tracked the fluctuating transponder signal from the Black Lion. The signal peaked as he swooped low over the snow-covered area, and broke up again as he scanned the treetops for the ship. He checked the reading again – but now it was behind him. He slowed the Lion and searched the trees again.
The signal was definitely not coming from the trees. It was coming from the snow.
The young pilot's eyes widened in shocked realization. The Black Lion – and Keith – were apparently buried under the packed white surface.
"Hunk! Come in quick! I need your help, pronto!" He looked around for any sign that the Lion had tried to dig itself out of its cold barrow. The snowfield was broken, but relatively even.
The voice that answered him was not the rough baritone of his brawny teammate, but the melodic, startled soprano of Princess Allura. "Pidge? What's the matter? Have you met up with Keith?"
"Princess, are you and Lance both back in your Lions? I'm going to need everyone's help here. I think Black's buried in the snow!" Pidge took the Green up and clear of the surrounding peaks. "Home in on my signal – I think I'm above the magnetic interference now. Hurry!"
Lieutenant Commander Lance McClain broke in. "We're on the way, kiddo. Be there in a shake!"
"Good. I hope he's all right…" the teen muttered, eyeing the expanse that hid the Black from his sight.
The Yellow, Blue and Red Lions soon converged on the hovering Green.
"Where is he, Pidge?" Lance sounded strained as he narrowed his eyes at the surrounding landscape. "I don't see the Black…"
"Down here. The transponder is coming through, but it's awfully weak." The Green descended toward the sunward side of the tall ridge that rose hundreds of meters into the air.
Pidge set the Lion down close to the tree line, carefully taking note of the distance to the Black's signal. "I'd say, about twenty or thirty meters down, and about fifteen meters in front of me. Watch it, Lance! We've got to dig, but not with you on top of him!"
The Red moved to one side, planted one 'paw', and began digging a trench with the other. The Yellow and Blue landed a short distance away and began excavating as Pidge tried to contact the Black pilot once more without success.
"I've got something here!" the Princess cried out excitedly. She 'sat' the Blue Lion ship back on its haunches and carefully manipulated the front 'paw' to reveal what she had uncovered. "I think it's a back leg…yes! Here's the hip joint! Lance, can we melt this stuff away?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Princess," Pidge's voice broke in. "There's a lot of rock and other debris mixed into the packed snow. If we melt it, it might damage Black, too. Plus all the water…"
"Less talking, more digging!" Lance interrupted. "We've got to get him out of this stuff!"
They quickly uncovered the contorted form of the Black. The head of the Lion was pointed downhill, chin in the air with the nose and top of the head still buried, with the upper part of the ship on its back and the lower half twisted onto its right side.
As Hunk exposed the Royal Crest on the chest of the Black, Allura started to lower the head of Blue down to the mostly-exhumed ship. "Lance, I'm going to check on Keith…"
"Princess, let me, okay? He may be hurt, and you can't carry him out of there." The Red pilot said gently. ~I'm afraid for him too, Allura, ~ he thought.
The Blue hesitated for a long moment, and then slowly backed away from the pit. "Okay, Lance. It's your call…for now." Her voice shook slightly.
~Good girl.~ he thought to himself, lowering his own Lion's head down to a level with the exposed chin of the Black. Securing the Lion, he removed his helmet, donned his survival suit and extracted the med kit and hand light from the supply cabinet. He descended to the access hatch in the 'mouth' of the ship and leaped down onto the uncovered, unresponsive vessel.
Lance pushed the hood of his suit back and looked back up at the three other Lion pilots, now clad in their survival suits as he was, peering over opposite sides of the excavation, their Lions sitting on their haunches high over their heads. He waved up at them and then opened the access hatch on the side of Black's 'head'. Squinting into the dark, he listened for any sounds of movement.
~Quiet as a tomb. ~
Ruthlessly squashing that thought, he climbed into the ship, pointing the small hand light at the 'floor' of the upside-down cockpit, stepping carefully until his eyes adjusted to the dim light coming from the open access hatch.
The command chair was empty, the restraints raised. There was no sign of Keith.
"Lance…?" Allura's voice warbled over his wrist COM.
"It's all right, Princess. He's not in here." Lance reported, momentary relief evident in his voice.
"But…Lance, where is he? If he's not in Black, he's…he's out here in the snow!" her panicked voice filled the dark, enclosed space.
"We don't know that, Allura! All we know is that Black was caught – not Keith." He broke off, staring up at the inverted control panel. "Damn. Well, that's a problem, too…"
"Lance? What is it?" Hunk gruff voice echoed eerily.
"The Black's Key is gone. Keith must have it with him."
"Um, guys? I found something else out here – and Lance, you may want to come see, too." Pidge’s voice was quiet, serious.
Lance scrambled back out to the Red Lion, and, using it as a makeshift ladder, clambered out of the trench and around to where the Green pilot stood, carefully clearing clumps of snow away from an object buried in one of the many mounds the Lions had deposited on the edge of the excavation
He stared in shock as he saw what the young man had uncovered.
Dented and scratched, the blue-tinted duraglass visor shattered, the young man held up the Voltron Commander's snow-filled red helmet.
Hunk and the Princess were breathing heavily in the cold air as they approached at a run from the other side of the open pit, the hoods of their own heavy survival suits flapping behind them.
"Oh, no!"
Allura crashed to her knees beside Pidge and snatched the damaged helmet out of his arms. She clutched at it, her uncovered head bowed, and then looked up at the stricken Red pilot. "He is out here!" she gasped in fear and determination as she rose. "We've got to find him!"
She spun away from the yawning trench and started up the slope, her arms wrapped tightly around the red helmet. "Keith! KEITH!" she shouted, her voice carrying away on the wind.
The three men stared at each other for an instant and, without words, turned and fanned out in different directions, emulating the petite Blue pilot.
Carefully trekking over the deceptively smooth surface, Lance called out for his friend and team leader, stumbling more than once into hidden, snow-filled fissures. ~It must have been one heck of an avalanche – and Keith, you better be all right, or I'm going to kick your butt from here to Planet Pollux! ~ He stopped and scanned the snowy stretch ahead of him. Tilting his head back and shading his eyes, he contemplated the long, steep ridgeline stretching up the mountainside. Tapping his wrist COM, he called out to the heavyset Yellow pilot.
"Hunk, what was Keith going to check out when he contacted you?"
"He said something about a ledge, and that he'd get back to me. Why?"
"If he wasn't in Black when it came down the mountain, maybe he's still up there. We've only got about an hour or so of sunlight left – I'm going to take Red up and see if I can find Keith's ledge. You guys keep searching; I'll contact Coran and brief him on the situation." He turned and made his way back to the still-crouching Red Lion.
"Lance, be careful – and let us know if you find anything, please?" Allura's voice was already strained and raspy from her shouts.
"I will, Princess. The minute I find anything, you'll know," he reassured her as he climbed up into his Lion.
******
Allura watched as the Red Lion followed the slope of the mountain toward its peak. She hugged the battered helmet to her and continued to call out for her Black Lion knight. ~Please find him, Lance! He's here – somewhere – I know he is! ~
******
Lance guided the Lion ship up and over the ridge forming the upslope border of the snowy stretch that the rest of his team traversed. ~Wow – the Black came down a long way, ~ he thought as he topped the ridge, only to find that the slope continued upward again for nearly a kilometer, ending at another steep rock face. The snowfield here was as visually smooth as the one below.
He didn't want to dwell on the idea that Keith could be on the lower stretch, at the bottom of a five hundred meter drop.
He slowed to a near-hover and carefully scanned the expanse, looking for any sign of his missing teammate.
"Lance! What are you doing up there? We've got stuff coming down!" Pidge's voice was slightly higher-pitched than normal.
"Sorry, kiddo, apparently the snowpack is unstable! I'll recon higher up, okay?" he replied as he gained altitude. "Don't take this the wrong way…but I hope you don't find him down there. It's a really long drop."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that when we lost visual contact with Red." Pidge's voice sounded forlorn. "Any sign of him?"
"Not yet – I'm going to check out the upper crag for the ledge. Red, out."
Lance eased his Lion toward the cliff face, watching the snowfield below for any sign of slippage. Two-thirds of the way up from the bottom of the cliff, he spied a dark gap, a gash into the sheer granite, cut off at its base by a perpendicular shelf and barely visible in the fading light. Lance frowned. ~Even fully extended, Red's not long enough to reach from the base of the cliff to the outcropping. How would Keith been able to reach…oh. ~ Horrified, he recalled the depth to which the Black had been buried. ~ God. All that snow came down on top of him. ~
His stomach knotted. ~If Keith had been caught in the slide…!~ He shoved that thought aside. ~Check out the outcropping. Maybe he managed to get out of the way... ~
Lance slipped the Lion as close as he dared to the cliff, and directed his heat and motion sensors into the dark maw of the gap. The sensors gave back odd readings, almost reflections, as if something in the rock was interfering with the signals. Visually, nothing moved.
~Dammit. Keith, where in the hell are you? ~
He carefully drew away and ascended above the surrounding peaks for better reception. Taking a deep breath, he thumbed the control on his panel. "Castle Control, this is Red Lion. Coran, can we go to a secure channel?"
"We are secured, Red Lion. Is there a problem, Lieutenant? You are overdue-"
Lance interrupted the older man. "Coran, Black is down. Repeat, Black is down. We…we've found the Lion, buried under several tons of snow, but Keith and Black's Key are missing. We're going to have to bring Black back in ourselves, and we're still looking for Keith…" His voice cracked.
There was silence on the other end of the transmission. "I understand. I am having some difficulty pinpointing your location – could you read me your bearing? We'll send out retrieval and search teams immediately." The royal advisor's voice was firm and steady, and Lance took another deep breath, and willed his voice not to break again.
"We're at eighty-six point nine by twenty-eight point zero. Altitude is about eighty-eight hundred meters ASL, and is the edge of a very large high plateau. The Black is below the timberline in a somewhat protected spot, but it looks like it's prone to avalanche, so have your teams come in on a southwest to northeast bearing, against the prevailing winds. We don't need the rest of the mountain coming down on us."
"Understood. I have your location – assistance is en route." There was a pregnant pause. "Lance-"
"We're still looking, Coran," he bit out. "We're not going to stop until we find him."
The former diplomat's tone was gentle. "Very well. Please keep the Princess safe – I think the Captain would appreciate that."
"Acknowledged. Red Lion, out." He closed the communication and blinked the unexpected moisture from his eyes. ~We'll all keep her safe, Coran. You know we will. Just until Keith can do it himself. ~
He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat, and glided the Red down the mountain slope toward his teammates as the last rays of the setting sun touched the broken collection of icicles at the top of the gap, scattering the orange-red light in all directions.
******