Chapter Text
The planet that needed to be saved by Voltron now was a small planet, mostly tropical climate and the people were semi-aquatic, to which Lance was very excited at the prospect of.
“Semi-aquatic means beaches! Which means after we save these guys they’ll be so thankful that we could have a beach party! And it could mean beach babes….” He said at the team meeting. He smirked at Allura and wiggled his eyebrows.
Everyone groaned and rolled their eyes at his antics.
“Can you for once pay attention to the mission side of things? All you ever do is think with your dick,” Keith said, narrowing his eyes in annoyance.
Lance immediately reeled back in offense. “Hey, I’ll have you know that I’m just as capable in the field as you, dropout, I just happen to think about other things too. Not all of us can be as frigid as you.”
In the middle of his rant he ended up crossing the few paces between him and Keith, pointing his finger at his chest. His anger pulsed underneath his skin and he was close enough to point out the details of Keith’s face, like the faint speckling of freckles he had over his nose or the more purplish tinge to his eyes rather than the usual steely gray.
Keith opened his mouth to retort back when Shiro stepped in physically between them, hands on each of their shoulders.
“Enough.”
That one word did it for them and they stepped back, not before giving one last glare and turning away with matching huffs.
Allura turned her disapproving eyes over them all and then entered in the new coordinates. “We will let the Blue and Red lion through to the surface and let the other three distract the Galra fleet so that those two can evacuate as many citizens to their designated crisis centers as possible. Then they will get back up to the fight, form Voltron and take the armada down.”
“Why Blue and Red? I’m better at stealth,” Pidge asked, confused as to the dynamics of the plan.
“Blue is the one with the affinity with water elements and Red is the fastest. We don’t actually need to sneak past the fleet, we just need to get them through to the surface. Besides, despite their bickering, they are the best teams in the situation of a ground assault. Lance is also the best at calming Keith down in the presence of regular citizens,” Allura answered with an alarming amount of confidence.
“I am?”
“He is?”
“Do you want to argue with the princess while she’s actually complimenting you or do you want to show everyone you can work well together?” Shiro asked, looking at them both with eyebrows raised, daring them to speak up against the plan.
Lance blinked and shrugged. “Fine by me if you need me to mediate with the hotshot over there.”
Keith let out a disbelieving snort at that. “Yeah right, I’ll keep his mind on the mission at least.”
Hunk was the one to interject this time at the sign of another bickering match. “Alright so everyone’s on board, let’s go suit up.”
Lance patted his best friend on the back and Hunk grinned wide his thousand-watt smile that could melt glaciers.
“Let’s kick some ass, Voltron!”
Keith already knew that this mission was going to go south, just because he knew that any mission that he’s done with Lance as a partner has gone awry in some way. He was on edge as he was waiting in Red for the signal for him and Lance to head down to the surface.
Allura’s face was broadcast on screen in front of him, battle ready. “We are coming into orbit around Riveon’s fourth moon. The Galra should pick up on us now. Shiro, Pidge and Hunk head out.”
Shiro nodded on his end and they all shared a look as a team, as they always did before a battle.
The three of them cut out and it left Keith and Lance in the video. Lance sighed and stretched out his limbs, looking as unperturbed as any other mission.
“You gonna watch my back, samurai?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Keith smirked. “I’m sure you can handle it, sharpshooter.”
Lance actually looked a bit surprised by the response, laughing a bit. “Better than you can, I bet.”
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?”
Keith grinned at the usual banter. It was different than the bridge, which always seemed to confuse Keith more and more. He wasn’t sure where he really stood as a person or a teammate with Lance. One minute they were at each other’s throats and the next they’re laughing along at the same jokes and banter. It sometimes gave Keith whiplash.
“Keith, Lance, head out now there is an opening. Let the Red lion lead, Lance,” Allura said, urgently.
Keith almost expected Lance to find some reason to argue with that, yet he just nodded on the video and said “Copy that. Lead on, samurai.”
Red shot out of the hanger with Blue just behind him and they both weaved expertly around the moons and the chaotic battle happening around the planet. They were just below the commotion and went around the worst of it, getting lost in the numbers of ships currently engaged in the fight.
“We got some stragglers out spotting us here, Keith. Should we take them out or keep going?” Lance popped up on screen, pointing to the left of them, where a few fighters chased after them.
“You take the lead, I’ll take them out from behind you.”
Lance saluted and sped ahead, while Keith did an impressive flip to immediately turn his lion around and blast the fighters in one move. He would be lying if flying and fighting like that wasn’t a thrill to him, so he smiled at his victory. He quickly changed his course again to catch up with Lance, while also scoping out the battle above. It was progressing more and more, which left them little more time to get past onto the ground to facilitate evacuation.
“Let’s get a move on, we don’t have that much time left,” he said opening the channel to Lance.
“Right you are, samurai. Where are we supposed to land again?”
Keith pulled up the maps to Riveon’s current civilizations. Most of the people were in small villages or nomadic, so it was harder to pinpoint an exact metropolitan area, so they guessed where the highest proportion of lifeforms would be the best guess to start. He sent the coordinates to Lance’s screen and sped ahead to take back the lead.
They approached the planet’s atmosphere and the lions gave atmospheric conditions, which told whether they could breathe normally or not. The specs indicated normal temperatures and oxygen levels, which makes their job a lot easier. It was so much harder when trying to speak through the helmets or while dealing with adverse weather patterns. When they broke through the cloud barrier and caught sight of the planet for the first time, Keith heard Lance audibly gasp.
He had to admit it was a wonder to behold.
The ocean was the clearest blue he had ever seen, and the beaches were a bright salmon pink color, contrasting the ocean incredibly. The sky looked a gorgeous lavender color, with two suns on the horizon. They knew it was a binary star system, as they had to take into account the gravitational waves when debriefed on the mission.
Keith had to shake himself out of his awed stupor and continue searching for citizens, who he started to notice dotted the beach landscapes. The land was sparse and mostly islands all over the planet, so some were obviously in the waters.
“I see locals waving around on the beach, let’s head over there,” Lance pointed the out by heading first and Keith followed after.
The closer they got, the more they started to notice their waving arms were strange and looked almost urgent.
“Something’s not right,” Keith said, narrowing his eyes. “Be careful and set the lions down farther away.”
They quickly disembarked down the beach, where some locals were yelling some things and pointing to the sky, Keith looked at Lance, who shrugged and pointed to their helmets.
“Maybe they’re freaked out by the idea of aliens? Let’s take off our helmets to show them we’re fine.”
Keith nodded and took off his helmet, followed by Lance, and that made the locals go even more crazy.
“That didn’t help at all. Let’s just catch up with them and try to explain the situation,” Keith said, coming up next to Lance and sighing.
They had set the lions down further on the beach, away from the little village they found and so they had to jog to actually understand what the locals were saying, before stopping in their tracks.
“Stop! You can’t come near us! Plague! Plague!”
Well, shit.