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It isn’t Keith who flings open the airlock this time, but it’s open nonetheless. Keith shifts his feet, pressing his heels hard into the floor, trying to keep his balance. Air whips around him, catching at his armour and the long stretch of his bayard, trying to pick him up and toss him into the wide expanse of space beyond the ship. At least the sentries seem to be having just as much difficulty. Keith ducks easily beneath one outstretched arm, keeping low to avoid the sucking pull of the wide-open airlock as best he can. Hooks his elbow around metal. Spins the sentry off its feet. The wind immediately snatches it up and whips it out of the hangar, a small silver blob disappearing into the darkness. One down – not counting the two that have already been expelled into space without any effort on Keith’s part – three to go.
They’re a little further into the hangar, which is why they’ve managed to keep their feet at all. Keith shifts his grip on his bayard and launches himself towards them, against the wind trying to drag him back. The first sentry splits apart easily beneath his blade. Metal whips past him as it’s legs buckle, and both halves are caught up. Keith has to fling his arm up to avoid the debris. Then he turns. Two down. Two to go.
One of the sentries brings its own blade up and Keith catches it with his bayard. Ducks low to pull it free. Spins around behind it. There’s the sharp crack of blaster fire and –
The shot hits Keith square in the centre of his helmet. Snaps his head back and throws him into the air. For a breathless second, Keith is weightless, then he crashes down hard into metal floor of the hangar. There’s another sharp crack that reverberates through Keith’s whole body, spider webbing pain from the point of impact at his back, knocking all the breath out of him.
Distantly, Keith can feel himself sliding. Scrabbles desperately at the floor beneath him, his gauntleted fingers claws as they search for purchase. There is none. Keith bounces, crashes back against the floor again, tumbles jerkily towards the gaping maw of the airlock. Then he’s out in the vast expanse of space, cold black closing around him. He can’t control his trajectory – can barely think, his world narrowed to dizzying pain and endless nothing flashing past him, faster than he can follow.
There’s no Red Lion to catch him this time. This was supposed to be a stealth mission – and hopefully the other paladins hadn’t been discovered yet. They had all arrived in Green, cloaked to avoid detection. They had left her in the hangar and then they had split up, each with their own mission to complete. The other lions are still safely on the castle. There won’t be a timely rescue here. Keith is on his own until he can manoeuvre himself back to the ship or Pidge can get to her lion and rescue him.
Still, it could be worse – Keith has his helmet on, and his paladin armour. It’s strange, and not entirely pleasant, to be foisted out into space like this, but it isn’t a death sentence. Keith can recover from this. He tries his jetpack – if he can just steer himself back to the ship, he might even be able to finish his own mission – but there’s no response. Part of Keith is unsurprised – he had landed heavily on his back after all, even now he can feel the throbbing echo of that pain. Another part of Keith sinks down to his toes. This is bad. Not unsalvageable, still, but far from ideal.
Space unravels around him, wide and boundless. He could float forever, he thinks, spinning slowly through the darkness, just another little piece of debris. It’s achingly quiet. Only his own thrumming pulse, the rush of each breath, something hissing, close by his ears, a low, slow sound. There’s no chatter on the comms – they were supposed to keep communications to a minimum.
“Guys?” His voice sounds strange and tinny to his ears. The hissing gets louder, a sudden sharp burst of sound. It sends something prickling over Keith’s skin. There’s something sinister about the noise, but Keith struggles to place it, to figure out where its coming from. “Pidge? I need a pickup, if you can.”
“A pickup?” Lance’s voice crackles through the comms immediately, and even pitched low, Keith can hear the humour in it. “You shot yourself out of an airlock again?”
“I didn’t shoot myself out of it,” Keith grits back. The hissing is louder now, distracting. The universe spins past him and he tries to right himself, tries to focus on something other than whirling darkness. There’s only the ship, already shrinking away from him, diminishing to a small grey dot. And the jagged vertical crack bisecting the visor of his helmet that he can see as soon as his eyes focus. Shit. That’s where the hissing is coming from – the air squeezing out of the fractured screen of his helmet. Keith goes cold all over. Fear cinches his stomach - closes like a vice around his chest. Distantly, he’s aware that he’s breathing quick and shallow, panting into his helmet. Is he hyperventilating? Or is he running low on oxygen already? How long does the supply last when half of it is being whipped away from him quicker than he can breathe?
“How long can you wait?” Pidge’s voice is strained, pitched so low that Keith almost misses it over the rush of air and his own suddenly ragged breaths. “Don’t think I’m going to get to Green any time soon.”
“Not long,” Keith manages, and his own voice is even more strained. He can hear the ragged edge to it, the tiny curl of fear that he can’t entirely eradicate. The others must hear it too.
“What’s going on Keith?” Shiro’s voice is sharp – all Black Paladin now.
A breath. Is it his imagination or does the air feel thin? His lungs cramp, pressing flat in his chest, even though he can’t have run out of oxygen yet.
“Jetpack’s busted.” He tries to take shallow sips of air, sucking it through his teeth. Tries to speak as little as possible. “Crack in my helmet.”
“Shit!”
The word seems to explode out of Pidge, much louder than Keith had been expecting. He sucks in a startled breath and immediately regrets it – how much oxygen was that? How many precious seconds has he deprived himself of? He needs to relax – stop acting on instinct. Patience yields focus. Calm down. There’s the distant thud of blaster fire over the comms, rough, quick breaths. Keith feels his own breathing try to speed in response and has to force his lungs small and shallow.
“A crack in your helmet?” Shiro’s voice is tight. “Is it a serious breach? Pidge, I’m heading over. I’ll try to clear the way to the Green Lion.”
“Still have oxygen,” Keith tells him, clipping each word short. “Don’t know how long.”
“OK, Keith, hold on we’ll –“
He’s cut off by a sharp, high cry and the crash of someone hitting the ground hard. There’s a confused murmur of movement and voices. Somebody shouting. Lance’s voice, a frightened squawk: “Pidge?”
“I’m fine,” she gasps, but there’s pain edged in her voice. “I’ll get there as soon as I can Keith.”
It doesn’t sound like that will be any time soon, but Keith doesn’t say anything, just breathes steadily and shallowly. He’s starting to feel dizzy, the ship spinning nauseatingly away from him. It’s difficult to tell whether that’s because of his sudden exposure to zero-G or whether the oxygen levels are already low enough to be affecting him. There’s no warning from his helmet, but with the crack bisecting it, he isn’t sure how many of its systems are still online. Childishly, Keith presses his hands against the breach, thick gloves covering his visor and blocking the world out. It’s not much darker than the void on the other side of his gloves, but it feels…safer. The low hiss seems muted, although Keith knows that his hands probably aren’t doing much to keep the air in, if anything. Maybe he just can’t hear it so clearly under the now almost constant noise of the comms.
“Pidge, I’m coming your way!”
“How bad is the crack Keith? How fast are you losing air?”
“Keith, buddy, are you OK? Talk to us.”
“How far away are you from the ship?”
Keith’s head is definitely spinning now. The darkness presses in against his skull. His fingers tingle. Blood rushes beneath his skin, the fast throb of his pulse thrumming in his ears. Keith tries to remember his training from the Garrison. What were the symptoms of oxygen deprivation? Nausea? Fatigue? Numbness? Keith’s pretty sure that he’s feeling all three of them now. His stomach rolls. There’s a rush of acid up the back of his throat, sharp and bitter, and Keith bites down hard on his own tongue, tastes, copper, slick against the inside of his mouth. It’s better than puking in the confines of his helmet at least.
He drops his hands and space rushes back in. There’s the strange sensation of being both weightless and enormously heavy, and Keith’s arms are wooden blocks floating at his side. His fingers prickle. Air rushes out of the gap in his helmet, a steady, deadly stream, and Keith should probably care more about that, but he’s so tired. Maybe if he just closes his eyes for a moment…
***
Keith claws his way painfully back into consciousness. Where is he? What happened? Keith’s head throbs and his back aches as if someone has taken a hammer to his spine. The rest of him feels strangely weightless, as if he’s floating in the air, and the world around him is dark and cold. There’s an awful ringing in his head and, beneath that, voices – too distorted for Keith to make out. Somewhere close by, something hisses.
“Keith?” The voices resolve into something he can understand. “Answer me if you can hear me. Keith?” Shiro? That’s Shiro in his ear, rough and urgent and – oh, that’s right, Keith is floating in space with a broken jetpack and a cracked helmet.
“Keith, please respond.” Shiro’s afraid, slick fear in his voice.
Keith tries to reassure him, but he can’t gasp enough of a breath. The air is too thin, pressed flat, and it feels like it’s being whipped straight out of his lungs as soon as he manages to suck any in. His head throbs. His mouth is too dry, tastes like acid, tastes like blood. He manages an odd little groan.
“Keith?”
More than one voice, tangling around each other, tripping each other up.
“Was that him?”
“He’s alive, right? He groaned. Right?”
And louder than all of the others, more commanding: “Talk to me Keith.”
It’s impossible not to respond. He’s never been able to deny Shiro, not when he sounds like that, sharp and desperate and frightened.
“Can’t…breathe,” he gasps. It sounds so cliché, so dramatic - his awful gasping breaths, the terrible rasp of his voice. He hears himself struggling, making ugly, wet, whistling sounds. The others must be able to hear his desperation over the comms.
“OK, Keith calm down. It’s OK, just stay calm. Breathe.” Easy for Shiro to say – or maybe not, because Shiro sounds a million miles away from calm himself. “Pidge, how long?”
It’s hard to concentrate through the pounding in his head and his own gurgling breaths. He can’t quite keep the voices separate. Can’t follow the thread of their conversation. Keith presses his hands back over his visor, trying to stem the low hiss of air escaping into space. The insane urge to rip his helmet off crashes over him like a wave. He can’t breathe and it’s too loud and his skin is hot and tingly, and if he can just get some air everything will be OK, but his helmet is a coffin closed around his head. No…that’s not true. His helmet is the only thing between him and the darkness. If he takes it off it’ll finally close over him and crush him to dust.
Is that right? He can’t think.
“Shhh,” he slurs. Isn’t sure if any sound actually comes out. “Shhh, guys. Y’re too loud. Can’t…can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Hunk asks into the abrupt silence that follows. “Can’t what, Keith? We’ll be quiet. Just talk to us.”
Even through the fog, Keith recognises the desperation in Hunk’s voice.
“Can’t think,” Keith murmurs. “Can’t…” Can’t breathe. There isn’t enough air to finish the sentence. One hand comes up, painfully slow, as if he’s dragging it through jello, to touch his throat, but it doesn’t make contact. There’s something in the way. His armour? His helmet? Keith should take it off. If he can just reach his throat, maybe he can figure out how to suck air through the swollen lump there.
“Hold on Keith, we’re coming.”
No, that isn’t right. Keith needs his helmet. He needs… Keith blinks and black spots whirl over his vision. He blinks again and this time it’s not just spots – his eyes stay closed, the lids too heavy to lift. Keith’s whole body feels heavy, even though he’s floating, his arms numb and tingly and –
***
Someone touches him. A rough hand against his arm. Solid ground beneath his back. His helmet is gone and for a moment Keith panics, tries to hold his breath. With his helmet gone he’s completely exposed. He’s –
“It’s OK, Keith. You’re OK, you’re safe.” He knows that voice. It filters through some of the panic in his head. “You can breathe. Just breathe.”
He gasps, and air filters through his parted lips, slips down his throat, fills his lungs, cool and refreshing. It’s like a long drink after a desert. Like someone has pulled a curtain back from his mind and he can see again, can think again.
“Is he OK. He’s going to be OK, right?”
“His lips are blue. His lips aren’t supposed to be blue.”
“Shut up,” Keith manages, and the words come out stronger than he was expecting, buoyed by a full lungful of air. Keith presses a hand over his face, then pulls it away. Blinks against the bright lights of the Green Lion’s hangar.
Lance and Hunk and Shiro stare back at him.
“Did you guys finish your missions?” Keith asks, before his brain has kicked in properly.
Above him Lance smirks and Shiro huffs softly. The Black Paladin has Keith’s wrist gripped loosely in one bare hand, fingers pressed against his thrumming pulse.
“He’s fine,” Lance says, with a smile.