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Keith rolled into the diner that saw most of the action in his particular hub of the Nasopia cluster about a varga before the lunch rush, giving a nod to Breen behind the counter as he settled into his usual spot. She didn't need to hurry away from another customer on his account. These were what Allura liked to call his 'office hours', when people looking for a hired hand or a hired knife could find him to talk business.
She'd designed him business cards as a joke once: "Keith Kogane - I don't do assassinations. Anything else, we'll talk," with the contact number for his business comm pad. The joke was on her, though. He'd ordered 500. He was really sick as heck of people wasting his time because there was some loser they wanted dead. It had upped the weirdness quotient of calls he got from people who didn't know where else to turn, but he didn't mind fixing the mechanical parts in someone's soap factory, or teaching a kindergarten class about wilderness safety when a bunch of trail guides at a park got a stomach bug.
If a techie request was over his head, he might send the client to Pidge, just like he'd send someone to Hunk if what they wanted was to feed more than five people or they started using science words he had to look up online. He'd gotten his share of bodyguard details or search and rescue jobs through them, so it was only fair. He'd even referred a job to Lance once. It had been a trick-shooting gig at a circus, and Allura's nerf-herder boyfriend loved showing off how he was a crack shot. Apparently, Lance and the Bih-Boh-Bii Big Top had been very happy together, and now had a standing arrangement.
Allura's uncle, Coran, kept asking when the lot of them were going to 'get serious' and form a company -- Keith pretended he couldn't see Coran designing logos and pitches for the 'Voltron Coalition, LLC' -- but Keith was just as happy to stay independent. Nobody to report to about his hours, all of his expenses went to things he understood like rent, food, and power cells, and since Allura was his accountant, she'd tell him if he was getting tax-gouged because he was strictly freelance. This was the way he liked it.
Just him, his ship, and his space wolf in the open skies.
"The usual?" asked Breen, pouring a cup of hot, black coffee before he could answer.
Keith nodded. "Sounds good. Anybody asking for me?"
The green lady gave a bored sigh and shook her head. "Nothing paying. Some lookie-loos visiting from the Irwatcher Belt wanted to know if the guy who took out Quex Embaticus in a bar fight really eats here."
"I hope you told 'em no," Keith groaned.
Quex had been more of a small town bully than a warlord, and had a glass jaw, so it had barely qualified as a fight. All he'd wanted was for the asshole to let him have his dinner in peace after a kinda long, very tiring job. He wouldn't shut up when Keith had asked nicely, and if he'd given his name, Keith hadn't remembered. Reading in the newspaper the next morning that he'd apparently triggered a revolution that had liberated an oppressed mining town had been, well...
News.
"Relax. They all had to run off to catch their transport back home. No fans waiting to ambush you." Two of Breen's six hands waved at another customer who came in and slipped into a booth -- a guy who looked like he never missed a day at the gym, but somehow didn't give off the vibe that he was an asshole.
He also had a streak of white hair falling over his forehead, and walked like he knew martial arts from practical experience, not just classes. It was a good look. Especially in pants as tight as he was wearing.
And the guy may have noticed Keith looking, because he nodded with a smile a moment after Breen had walked away. So, hot, could maybe handle himself, and a killer smile. If today stayed boring, Keith might be willing to introduce himself after lunch.
The luggage Mr. Nice Ass stowed under the table looked like a sturdy rucksack that'd seen a lot of ports and been handled well enough that it'd see a lot more. It was the type of bag hired muscle like Keith preferred because the lining automatically sealed against vacuum, which most tourists didn't shell out for and people in regular military jobs didn't have to. They got specialized government tech. No need to buy commercial. From the way he carried it, Keith guessed the guy fought right-handed, and didn't like to get caught with his guard down. There was some odd customization on the straps Keith couldn't quite tell the purpose for, but then, he hadn't gotten a good look before the bag disappeared under the table.
So, the guy was a colleague, probably. Weird. If there was anything in the area that needed attention, Keith would have expected to know about it, and about the person who came to take care of it. Then again, there were no absolutes in the universe except death and taxes.
Keith remembered to stop staring as Breen went over to the booth to check in and offer Mr. Nice Ass some coffee. "Afternoon, stranger. You just get in?" the hostess asked.
"Trying to head out, actually," the guy said with a laugh. "Just missed my transport back home to the Irwatcher Belt. Hope you don't mind if I stick around while I figure out if there's another ship I can book? I don't think there's another direct transport for another eight quintants, but maybe I can make a connection."
Breen nodded. It wasn't like the place was busy yet. "Take your time. Coffee refills are free. What can I get you to eat?"
Mr. Nice Ass had a laugh that was making it hard for Keith to keep his focus on submitting his gas and diner receipts to Allura. "Anything that isn't fake cherry flavored nutritional slurry sounds amazing right now."
Oof, the fake cherry nutritional slurry. It sounded like someone had been on the Bilia-Straldak merchant caravan guard run. Good way to spend a month or two if you knew you could survive near-constant attacks from raiders with heavy guns and wanted to come out with enough money to make a down payment on a house, bad way to spend a month or two if you cared about your taste buds. Keith had done his time there whenever he was hard-up for cash. Most mercenaries who were worth half a damn had run Bilia-Straldak at least once, and no one else felt the entire profession's absolute disgust with fake cherry nutritional slurry.
Like, they also thought it was gross, but they didn't get it.
"Can I get the meatloaf and mashed spuds deluxe lunch set with a chocolate Space Shake, and some stuffed french toast and eggs over easy? With fruit on the side? Oh, and the fried cluck wings and grits would be great."
Looking over her glasses at the man who didn't look big enough to fit all that food inside him, Breen asked, deadpan, "Anything else?"
"Hmm, you're right," Mr. Nice Ass mused. "Two of everything. And some water, please? Thank you so much."
"You got it."
Keith's usual reuben, fries, and slaw that Lance had declared enough for three people, but which Keith needed to fuel his daily training, sounded positively minimal next to that. The urge to ask Mr. Nice Ass to spar, just to see what he was capable of, was only growing, but clearly the guy was trying to get home as fast as possible, and Keith was supposed to spend his time here focusing on work, not flirting.
Especially since an email request had just come in asking for his help on a job. Even after he finished his lunch, he might not have time to flirt.
The details in the message were fairly normal for an urgent kidnap rescue request, except for how it came in as an email with a request for a live text relay instead of video. Most people who wanted him to handle a hostage wanted video. Something about making sure he understood how serious the situation was, which he did. Of course he understood how serious the situation was. What part of "kidnap" and "hostage" did they think was unclear? It wasn't his fault that he was the person they were paying to keep calm about it, and that he had a resting bitch face. What did they want him to do, panic?
Maybe the father contacting him was having bandwidth issues, or maybe he just wasn't a video person. Either way, Keith initiated the text relay and got all the details about the case so he could head out as soon as possible. He could stay in contact with the client while he did research on the road.
Hostage's name was Romelle, the client's daughter. Kidnapped off the Burrow Colony mining outpost by... Oh. An Aegimus Crystal Asteroid Dragon? Wow. That was a new one. But it'd left a trail into the asteroid cluster Keith had no doubt he could follow even if none of the asteroid miner pilots in the Burrow Colony could navigate past the edges of the field without crashing, and none of the local badasses were stupid enough to try going one on one with a Crystal Dragon. It was far enough outside of his normal zone that he'd want to get a local who was crazy enough to stick with him, though, since he wouldn't want to lose any time taking wrong turns between planet jumps or misunderstanding local customs.
The Burrow Colony sounded familiar, actually. After accepting the job and telling Allura where he was heading, Keith punched it into a map while he shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth.
Just like he'd thought. It was in the Irwatcher Belt.
That was a hell of a coincidence, but Keith didn't believe in asking some questions. If this was a trap, it was a trap where he wanted to see what the person setting it had in mind. That was more what he considered an invitation than a real trap. He'd probably be fine fighting his way out. After all, he was already planning to go up against a dragon. How could whatever endgame somebody was planning for him possibly be more dangerous than that?
Slipping his data pad into his own bag, Keith slid onto the bench on the other side of the table from Mr. Nice Ass, who was doing an impressive job cleaning all the plates Breen had brought out to him. "Hey. Name's Keith. Keith Kogane."
The guy swallowed, then smiled a hint of his gorgeous smile as he lopped another bite off his meatloaf. "Nice to meet you, Keith. I'm Shirogane Takashi, but most people call me Shiro."
"What, because they can't pronounce Takashi?"
Shiro's grin widened. "I see you don't have that problem. Actually, it's because they can't pronounce Shirogane. Only my parents call me Takashi. Well, and my ex. Who, yes, couldn't pronounce it."
"Sounds like you could do better," Keith offered, his mouth deciding to talk smart before his brain could remind it that he was here to talk business, not flirt.
"Sounds like you can do better," the man answered. The fact that Shiro shifted in his seat to get a better look at Keith, very much leaning in with interest, did not make it easier to turn off the flirting.
"I couldn't help hearing," said Keith, forcing himself back on topic. "You're looking for a ship that'll take you to the Irwatcher Belt. I've got a ship, and I just got a priority request that's taking me to the Burrow Colony. There's room for you on board if you want it."
"Burrow Colony? That's just a few doboshes space jump from where I live," Shiro scoffed. "Gorgeous men don't usually appear out of thin air to solve all my problems. What's the catch?"
Keith hoped the heat in his face at being called 'gorgeous' didn't show as a blush when he was trying to be tough and business-like. "My priority request. It's a dangerous job, I don't know the area like I know the space around here, and I could use a local to keep me from making any rookie mistakes. Just not a local who's going to get themself killed. A local who can last out the Bilia-Straldak run and come back without a scratch, on the other hand..."
There was something mesmerizing about how Shiro's eyes sparkled when he said, "How dangerous?"
"Hostage rescue. Crystal Asteroid Dragon."
"What the hell could take a Crystal Dragon hostage? Was it a baby?" There was something off about the way his fellow mercenary asked the question, but this was a weird case all around. It wasn't like there was a normal way to ask things like that.
Shaking his head, Keith explained. "No, the Crystal Dragon abducted a girl from the mining outpost. Classic Princess Rescue scenario. I've got everything the father could tell me, and I'm planning to find out more if I can on the way, but Plan A is fly into the asteroid field, ask the dragon what gives, and get the girl back. Prioritize live extraction."
Asking was technically metaphorical, obviously, but that was a given. This was a dragon.
Shiro let out a low whistle. "Fly into the asteroid field? The Irwatcher Belt is posted as unnavigable. The orbits are too erratic, the magnetic fields mess with navigation equipment, and the rocks are full of explosive picric oxygenate crystal. There's a reason Crystal Dragons live there and humans don't. Natural matrix shielding makes Crystal Dragons basically immune to explosive damage."
Keith waved all that off. "Yeah, picric oxygenate only explodes if you hit it."
Shiro smiled, and yeah, he wasn't getting tired of that smile anytime soon. "I gotta say, the confidence is really doing it for me. I'm in. Let's go rescue a princess."
"My accountant is going to care that all my paperwork is in order and shit, and obviously you'll get paid. You're not just doing this for a free ride. I'll show you the contract on the ship."
"I would do this just to see you pilot that asteroid belt. But thanks," said Shiro. "Tell your accountant I appreciate the money."
Turning Shiro's data pad around, Keith entered the docking information for his ship into a memo along with his contact data. "I'm gonna get the flight plan and clearances in, and check provisions. Meet me here when you're done with lunch. You don't mind big dogs, right? My partner's a space wolf."
"Friend to all creatures, large and small, as long as they don't try to stab, poison, or brainwash me," answered Shiro as he filed Keith's data, and sent Keith a test message so Keith could save his contact, too. "And stabbing and poisoning are negotiable, depending on circumstances."
"I feel like we're gonna get along great," Keith said. "That is extremely uncommon for me."
There was that heartstopping smile again. "Here's to being an exception."
~//~
On board his ship, the Bulg-eon Saja, their course to the Burrow Colony was locked, and for the next five vargas at top speed, Keith was researching everything he could learn about Crystal Dragons while Shiro narrated the highlights about who was who in the Irwatcher Belt and what local customs he might have to be aware of. It didn't sound like he had to avoid any particular terms, colors, or common gestures on pain of execution (that was always a pain in the ass), and the mining outpost's local taboo on multiplayer online video games would be less than no problem.
Finding weaknesses in a Crystal Dragon would be a bigger issue.
"Hey Shiro, did you know Crystal Dragons can shapeshift?" His flight companion fell silent, mouth agape and eyebrow raised. Well, Keith wouldn't have known what to say to that either. He explained, "I was following up this citation on why they're only sometimes immune to explosive damage, and the explanation for the immunity is, 'Crystal Dragons form their matrix shielding while in dragon form'. I had assumed that was dragon form versus hatchling form, like shielding they grow as they age? But this researcher says the matrix shielding 'retracts when Crystal Dragons shift to blend into their surroundings'. I wonder why?"
"Huh." Shiro blinked a few times, processing what he'd just heard. "You know, I think I'd heard that somewhere. Does it say what kind of shapeshifting Crystal Dragons do in there?"
Keith flicked through the references, which were unfortunately pretty thin. Most people made a point of avoiding dragons, especially dragons who lived in explosive asteroid belts. "Nah. Just that they can blend. For all this says, that could be asteroids, but I don't see how dropping your anti-explosive matrix shielding to blend in with explosive rocks would do any good."
"Sounds more like something a dumb teenager would do on a dare," Shiro scoffed. "Not that I'd know!" he clarified with a laugh.
"Right, obviously." Keith sighed. "Anyway, we can't count on that while we're in the asteroid belt. Sneaking Romelle out without the dragon catching us is definitely our best first course of action if we would have to deal impact damage to try to subdue them. I haven't found a single source that talks about a non-lethal, non-damaging way to take a Crystal Dragon down, or anything we can use to distract a Crystal Dragon..."
With a shrug, Shiro said, "If you run into the dragon during the infiltration, you can open by saying you're there to negotiate for the hostage. Has the father sent anything about demands?"
It was Keith's turn to gape and blink. "Negotiate? With the dragon?"
"That's standard protocol in hostage situations where you're from, too, right?" Shiro asked with a laugh. "If it isn't, I can teach you a whole new branch of information gathering tactics."
"Of course I know how to negotiate for hostages," said Keith, flipping through the stupid list of reference manuals on Crystal Dragons one more time. "I mean... Crystal Dragons can speak standard? Crystal Dragons can speak?!"
Shiro's eyes went wide, and he looked at Keith, turning his head slowly and speaking even more slowly. "D-do people not know that?"
"Apparently they don't!" Keith gestured at all the books that were apparently useless, since not one of the experts who were writing about Crystal Dragons had said even one thing about them talking. That was one of the most important things any mercenary had to know about any species before they went on an encounter! Can they talk?! That changed so many things! "The people who write reference books don't anyway, since Crystal Dragons are officially 'rare, secretive, and dangerous to observe'. Clearly people who live in areas with Crystal Dragons know more than experts who publish books without bothering to do ground interviews. And the father has gotten zero demands from this particular dragon. He didn't seem to be expecting any, which didn't seem unusual--"
"Because people don't know Crystal Dragons speak standard," Shiro finished with a wince.
Keith nodded. "Exactly. And this is why I like to work with a local, because fuck-ups like that cause problems nobody has time for. Geez. Now we have a Plan B, and I know that all these books are worthless. You want some coffee or something?" he asked, dropping his data pad on the console and heading for the galley, if you could call the tiny set of cupboards with a sink and a small stove off the main bridge a galley.
"I'd love coffee." The man walked over, leaning on the wall next to Keith and watching with fond eyes that made shivers run up Keith's spine while he boiled a perfectly normal pot of water to pour over perfectly normal coffee grounds in the old-fashioned glass coffeemaker his dad had handed down. He didn't have much left from his dad, but he had memories of making coffee on the stove on the weekends, and that was enough. "So, Plan A: sneak in, rescue the princess, sneak out. Plan B?"
"Knock on the front door," said Keith. "If the dragon doesn't want to talk, Plan C is improvise. You know what they say about plans and contact with the enemy anyway. You're getting me to the front door, so while I'd like to have you there when I go in..." Keith shrugged, drinking in the serious look on his companion's face. "I can drop you planetside first if you decide between now and then that maybe you don't want to risk dying. I'm used to jobs with just me and the wolf."
"Whose name you still won't tell me," Shiro joked.
"Yeah, well, space wolves, unlike Crystal Dragons, don't speak standard. He's telepathic. His name is vocally unpronounceable. He'll tell you himself when he feels like it."
"I look forward to it," said Shiro, leaving an unspoken offer hanging in the air that they didn't have to go back to being strangers once this mission was done. "And I wouldn't miss having your back out there for the world."
Keith scoffed, even though he got it. He liked the guy, too, even if the chance to fly an explosive asteroid belt and infiltrate a dragon's lair hadn't sounded like a job he wouldn't want to miss. Still, he kicked Shiro softly in the foot. "You barely know me."
"So what? How can I let you go in there alone? What if something happens to you? How would the space wolf get out past the explosive asteroids, huh?"
Laughing as the water came to a full boil, Keith assured Shiro that the space wolf would be fine. "Shiro. He can teleport the length of a spacedock with pinpoint precision, and fly through hard vacuum for long enough to get between two regions with atmo, and he can breathe gasses one hundred times thinner than your average humanoid. He was born in a quantum flux zone, inside an asteroid belt actively being created by two stars tearing a planetary system apart with their gravity wells. Do you think I call him a space wolf when he's from a planet?"
"Okay, okay, you caught me." Shiro either knew that he could weaponize his perfect grin, or he was making it hard for Keith to keep his mind on business by accident. "I guess I just like watching your back. It's a nice back. Be a shame if something happened to it."
"Are we flirting now?" Keith asked.
"Do you want to be flirting?" Shiro asked right back.
Keith weighed his options while watching the hot water flow through the coffee grounds. At last, he said, "Maybe we can talk about it after the job. When there's a situation, I like to keep my head 100% in the game. No distractions. You seem like the type to understand."
Shiro nodded. "Focus is good. I can handle that. And a little patience never hurt anybody."
He poured the hot coffee into two mugs as the smell of the roast filled the small cabin. "Drink up, and I'll show you where the guest room is. We might as well get some sleep in the few hours we have left and hit the asteroids fresh."
His companion followed along with a nod, grabbing his bag in one hand, coffee mug in the other, and they opened the spare bunk, small though it was. Just big enough, it turned out, for a sleeping space wolf to cover the entire bed.
"So that's where you got off to. I was wondering."
Whispering softly, like he didn't want to disturb the wolf (who, Keith knew, could sleep through a bomb blast if it wasn't a bomb blast they were worried about), Shiro said, "He looks so comfortable, I kind of hate to wake him."
"Yeah. I can be the bad guy if you need. Or I don't mind sharing if you don't." Keith took a sidelong glance at Shiro's raised eyebrow. "I mean, I sleep with a knife, but I promise not to stab you if you don't try to kill me."
"Sounds like a good offer to me. I've been told I'm a cuddly sleeper. That's not a problem, right?"
"I grew up in a group home, three to a twin bed, getting kicked in the face by a sleeping tween every morning. You're the opposite of a problem." Under less tense circumstances, he'd probably be inviting a man this gorgeous, who he could actually talk to, back to his bed to do a lot more than sleep. Based on Shiro's grin as they closed the guest room door and walked the two feet to Keith's door, he'd probably say yes, too. But that was something for future Keith to maybe look forward to, since in a few hours he needed to be well rested and alert, not fucked out, exhausted, and high on endorphins.
The door wooshed open, and for the two seconds Shiro spent glancing around the small cabin to take the lay of the land, Keith wished he'd done something like put up a picture to make the walls look less bare, but what could he say? He'd gotten used to not having a ton of stuff. What he did have, he kept ready to go on a moment's notice, so it was all on a single table, in or near a bag that wasn't too different from Shiro's. The service patches showing where he'd been were different, and the mending was different, but function showed true.
A bureau just would have taken up space he could use to run his fighting forms in the morning. It was cramped, but without excess furniture, and with a bed that folded into the wall, he could make it work.
"This is nice," said Shiro.
Keith scoffed. "You don't have to lie. It's just a room. But it's got four walls and the bed works," he added as he pulled the bunk down from the wall recess and anchored it in place.
A hand landed on his shoulder, warm and comforting, and Keith felt an electric jolt shiver through his skin as he turned to face Shiro's smile. "Don't sell the amenities short, Keith."
"You're hilarious," Keith assured him. But he couldn't help smiling in return, and it'd been awhile since that'd been easy. "You can toss your stuff in the corner with mine. I'm going to set a proximity alarm for the asteroid belt and anything else worth worrying about. Alarms for shit going wrong with ship systems are automatic, don't worry."
"I'm sure you've got everything covered."
Shiro's voice had come from the other side of the cabin, where the man had dropped his bag and coffee cup on the small table and was in the process of shucking off the outer shirt that'd been keeping him decently clothed so far this trip. The thin, black sleeveless undershirt he had underneath definitely wasn't anything decent. If Shiro walked out in public with shoulders like that, rippling muscle under toned skin, or let the world see how ripped his arms were, there'd probably be a riot. That just wasn't fair. And the pattern of blue-black lines etched into his skin that peeked out from the edges of his undershirt looked so detailed, like a tattoo masterwork image of scales fading out over his shoulders and up his neck.
And maybe the hint of something on his shoulder blades. Maybe wings?
"How long did that tattoo take? It's amazing."
Turning over his shoulder, Shiro looked like he was blushing slightly. "You like this?"
"What's not to like?" Keith asked.
Shiro took off his undershirt, which was... a lot. That was a lot of back. And yeah, those were wings marked on his shoulder blades, trailing down to right above Shiro's belt. Skin wings, like a bat, not angel wings, with a bone-like frame that ended in claws. He rolled his shoulders and... not only did the scales seem to shift, like they were sliding slightly over each other, but the lines of the wings against Shiro's skin appeared to flex. Not just like a static drawing on stretching, moving skin, but like actual wings at rest, reacting to the muscles underneath. "Some people find that a little freaky," Shiro explained.
"What the fuck? Why?" asked Keith again. "That's so cool. Neural feedback ink or something? I've never seen anything like it. Not to be weird but is it okay if I...?"
Grinning, Shiro asked, "Touch it? I'd say what I'm thinking, but I'm not allowed to flirt with you until after the mission's over."
Keith rolled his eyes. "Okay, funny man. In that case, I'm going to sleep, and you can squeeze in when you're done being pleased with yourself." He hung his own jacket on the hook by his bed, reasonably satisfied that Shiro liked what he saw, and lay down, eyes closed.
He absolutely didn't budge or open his eyes as his companion crawled into the bed next to him, quietly enough to be polite. Shiro was big and the bed was tight, but the man did an admirable job of trying to let Keith have his space. Only at the very end, when Shiro was looking for a spot to lay his hand after he'd been listening to Keith breathe deeply and regularly with the faked patterns of sleep for a few moments did he decide it was probably fine to lay his hand on Keith's shoulder and start to relax.
That was when Keith grabbed Shiro's wrist with lightning speed and rolled them both so they were spooning, and Shiro's arm was around his waist. "I don't need you falling off the bed because you're not using the space efficiently," Keith explained. "Bodies hitting the floor is a stabbing trigger for me."
"Then you're right," said Shiro, cuddling closer like he'd threatened to do. "Can't have that." Then both of them finally drifted off to sleep for real.
~//~
About half a varga out from the asteroid field, the ship woke them up, and Keith felt a weird, fluttery feeling in his gut that wasn't exactly unpleasant when rolling over meant that he ended up lying on top of a well-muscled man twice his size, staring into gorgeous dark eyes over a groggy smile that looked honestly happy to see him. The hand on his ass felt unintentional, like Shiro wouldn't have done it if he'd been fully awake, but Keith wasn't complaining. "You want to watch me fly through a death trap?"
"Holy fuck, yes," Shiro practically growled.
"Let's get up so I can double check the shields on the omniscope."
"Omniscope?"
"Something Pidge and Hunk helped me rig up because I hate the processing delay and sensor artifacts on field scanners when you're dealing with high-chaos environments. You can never really get rid of them." Once they got out to the bridge again, he highlighted the omniscope systems on the ship schematic, activating the checks for energy shield integrity. "Visual scopes with full spherical view and dome energy shielding to protect from space dust, since I have to raise them outside the ship's hull on top, bottom, fore, aft, port, and starboard. Enough to get a complete surround picture of the environment, and at least three scans on each artifact for parallax calculation."
Shiro's eyes went wide. "Are you telling me...?"
Keith pushed another button once the checks came back clear, and the visual data from the scopes fed into the bridge. The whole space around them converted to a three dimensional hologram of the starry darkness of space, with the rocky line of the asteroid belt approaching on the horizon. "Way easier to dodge rocks like this, right? Just don't ask me how the math works. That was all Pidge and Hunk."
He folded the back of his pilot seat down and spun the whole thing, converting it into a position that looked like the seat of his hover racer. Pedals that controlled speed extended from the base, and handles came out of the console. As soon as he keyed in the commands, the internal gyros would connect to manual ship control so that when he moved, it moved.
"More customizations?" Shiro asked.
"This is what happens when I tell a genius computer hacker and a genius engineer that I can drive a hover racer anywhere while they're upgrading my flight systems." Keith straddled the racer seat and grabbed the handles, eyeing the approaching asteroid belt. "And it is quiznacking awesome. Strap in. We will not be staying horizontal."
"Are you open to marriage when this job is over?" Shiro asked, taking a seat and buckling in. "Or just flirting? This is not a question with wrong answers."
Keith grinned at him, shaking some hair out of his eyes. "Let's see how the one goes, then we'll talk about the other, okay?"
"I'll take it," Shiro murmured. "I know some planets with killer terrain where I'd like to take you racing sometime."
"Killer like gorgeous, like double black diamond, or like acid pits and lava?"
"Why choose when you can have everything?" scoffed the man Keith had decided was his new best friend. "That looks like the trail you were told to look out for, off to your two o' clock, up axis 30 degrees."
"Switching to manual."
Keith wondered what had been going on that there really was a trail heading into the asteroid field like that, looking like tiny, sparkly fragments of diamond snow dusting the way between the rocks. Had Romelle been struggling and somehow managed to knock crystal dust free from the dragon's matrix shielding? That'd be impressive. Then again, if the dragon had simply been carrying her, she must have been wearing some kind of exo-suit in order to survive the trip in vacuum. Standard exo-suits on mining outposts could pack a punch, since they had to enable the miners to drill into asteroids. The books weren't clear on whether Crystal Dragons shed their scales like some reptiles did, so if this particular dragon was close to a slough...
There were too many ifs.
Either the dragon hadn't intended to leave that trail, but didn't think it was a problem despite having taken a hostage -- pretty bold, but not much could challenge a Crystal Dragon in its lair -- or the trail was intentional, and this was a trap. Or, per Keith's previous assessment, "an invitation".
The thing about traps was, they weren't really traps if the person who set them didn't catch you. Sometimes people thought they were baiting traps, but Keith (given that he was still here) had an established history of accepting invitations for their own purposes when they were worth his time, and then leaving when he was done, so as far as he was concerned, those were pretty shit traps. Not even worth the name.
"Look," said Keith, pausing just outside the asteroid belt. "We both know this isn't a video game, so having a glittering trail to a dragon's front door is sketchy as fuck. I'm going in because this is what I do, Shiro. But if you want to see me fly a different asteroid field when shit is less sketchy, and there is less on the line--"
"Yeah, this is far from the stupidest thing I've done in my life," Shiro assured him. "Don't waste your time dropping me anywhere. Let's go."
Didn't have to tell him twice. Keith sped into the asteroid field, soaring over rocks and dodging under hurtling projectiles as they bounced around, some hitting each other and setting off tiny explosions that created more tiny rocks and more motion. At some point, the space wolf came out and watched with fascination as they swerved in a full 90 degree tilt to avoid a shower of gravel dust coming off of an exploding asteroid. There wasn't any leeway to show off fancy spins or air braking skids in a field like this. Any unnecessary movement of his ship's wings could mean he ended up scratching a picric oxygenate deposit and ending up in an uncontrolled tailspin from the force of the explosion.
Then they'd probably die.
Keeping an eye out of any remaining traces of the crystalline, snowflake-like path as he dodged got harder the further in they flew, since the chaos kept getting worse. Any asteroids passing through it obliterated bits at a time, scattering stray sparkles, until when they got to what looked like a landing pad on an asteroid big enough to have a significant gravitational well, the path was down to a single thread.
If you were going to live in the middle of an explosive asteroid field, Keith couldn't have picked a better location. The gravitational field had attracted enough mid-sized asteroids into stable orbits that they effectively formed a shield around the larger asteroid's surface. That barrier blocked assaults from the chaos outside, and any dust that got in barely hit the larger asteroid with enough momentum to create a spark. It was a natural safe house in a constant storm.
Setting down gently on the landing pad to avoid any collision explosions, Keith noted there was another craft here -- a Burrow Colony speeder for moving miners to and from the mining rigs. In that case, maybe the dragon had grabbed Romelle in her speeder? It would have been nice if her father had included that in the details. Keith could probably get a tow situation worked out if necessary. Anyway, time for actual business.
As promised, the electromagnetic fields around the asteroids made sensors far less effective, but when you were parked on one, you could still figure out a few things.
"I definitely need to go head to head with you on a hover racer," Shiro whispered, unbuckling his seat belt as the display from the omniscope faded away. "That may be the best piloting I've ever seen. Holy shit."
"Survive this, and you can name the race," Keith promised. The specs he pulled up on the asteroid looked like, if he was lucky, Romelle was here and the dragon wasn't home. "Discharge from vents on the asteroid indicates breathable oxygen-based atmosphere inside, ironically thanks to the picric oxygenate. There's also some artificial construction that sonar pings identified on the inside. Layout looks like heating and water reclamation. Possibly full plumbing. We've definitely got a habitable zone here, and bioscans show one warm body. Altean. Probably best to go in quick and get out quick if we're actually here when the dragon isn't home. That luck won't hold."
Keith sent a telepathic image to the space wolf explaining the layout of the asteroid interior according to the schematics, and where the blip was that looked like Romelle. They had to be ready for anything, but this was far from their first rodeo.
Shiro, of course, had never worked with a teleporting space wolf, and naturally looked a little anxious. "Hey Keith... I've got to tell you something awkward, but if I don't say it now--"
He put a hand on Shiro's forearm. "Shiro. Relax. Literally no one in the universe would judge you for not wanting to potentially fight a Crystal Dragon in their lair. I'm hoping to get out of here before they come back, and I was the one hired for this job."
"This is not the way I wanted this to go. Keith, please let me try to explain--" The wince on Shiro's face looked like the guy was kicking himself inside, but Keith had meant every word about not blaming him, and he'd rather have Shiro safe on the ship if he had any doubts. Hesitating in the field was a fast way to get people killed.
"Honestly, having you stay here works out," said Keith. "We're going to need to make a fast getaway, and I'll want warning if the dragon shows up. Keep the engines running and stay on comms." He punched the guy softly in the abs, and sort of lingered. "Have my back, Shiro?"
He saw those dark eyes soften, turning fond instead of anxious as Shiro murmured, "Keith..." and that was all he needed to see.
Running a hand into the space wolf's fur, Keith felt the usual pop of displaced air as they teleported, and suddenly he was standing in a small kitchen and living area, looking at a blonde Altean girl making popcorn on the stove. Wearing fuzzy slippers and a pink bathrobe over striped pajamas.
"Erm, hello," she said. "May I help you?"
"Are... you Romelle?" Keith asked.
She took a deep breath and nodded. "You must be Keith," she said, turning back to her popcorn. "I thought you'd be taller, actually. But you are cute. I'll give him that."
Keith narrowed his eyes. "Who? What? Wait, nevermind. Look, I'm here to rescue you from the dragon, so come with me. Bring the popcorn if you want. You can finish it on my ship."
"You should definitely leave if you don't want the dragon to catch you," she said, still cooking popcorn on the stove like there was no rush at all. She didn't even seem phased by Keith stalking over with a frown. "After all, this is a trap for you. But it's not a trap for me, so I don't see why I should do anything. I'm just the bait."
Trying to explain this very simply, and very slowly, Keith tried again. "But you can come with me. You don't have to be the dragon's prisoner. I can get you out."
She mimicked his slowed down talking right back at him. "This is a trap for you. I am fine here. You can go away." Turning back to her pot of popcorn she muttered, "Honestly, are all heroes today this thick?"
"Do you know how worried your father is about you right now?!" Keith hissed, starting to wonder if he was going to have to just grab her and go. But nine times out of ten, that was a bad idea, and there was a good reason to figure out why someone was behaving oddly before it escalated into a larger misunderstanding.
Romelle stared exasperatedly at the light fixture like he was the one being unreasonable. "Do I seriously need to explain what it means that this is a trap?" She shook the popcorn pot one more time before gesturing around the room. "This. Is where the dragon wanted to get you. You, Keith, specifically. To do that, he arranged all the circumstances that would lead to you coming here."
"I know what a trap is," groaned Keith. "The dragon apparently wanted me here, so he kidnapped you as bait and--"
"No! He hired me as bait, and paid my brother to text you all the details about the job, you lackwit! Our father died a decade ago!"
"I'm... sorry for your loss." Keith frowned. He did actually check his job requests for fraud. "His death wasn't registered with the intersystem citizen record exchange."
Rolling her eyes again, the blonde asked, "You think it's unusual that the main exchanges don't have the death records for an asteroid miner from a backwater colony? That data update packet is probably deprioritized behind civil and medical updates for billions of citizens each on thousands of more metropolitan worlds who have much better connections in the Senate, not to mention the bandwidth priority the media feeds can pay for but we can't. We keep amassing our civil records update, and every time we get a bounce error because the connection timed out on the other end, the packet just gets a little bit bigger. I wouldn't be surprised if the central exchange had actually deactivated our account because we haven't been able to get a successful packet through in so long, but verifying that would mean that someone has to be able to get hold of tech support, and you know how that goes."
Keith blinked his way through the long explanation, where he understood enough to know that he wasn't going to ask for the technical details because the gist boiled down to, "city people don't care about colonists," and that was something he could relate to all too well.
He tried to think of a way he could have identified that this was fake ahead of time, for future reference, but he wasn't coming up with anything yet. He'd have to do some digging. This was pretty well set up, to be honest. Simple enough that not much could go wrong. Shrugging, he took a seat on a nearby chair and nodded for the space wolf to sit nearby in case they had to bolt quickly. To be honest, this place was really nice for a shelter that a dragon had set up for his hired bait to live in for a few days. It had a kitchen, comfy chairs, even a TV that Romelle had paused between episodes of one of the latest hit dramas. There were doors leading to other rooms, presumably at least one bathroom since Keith had detected what looked like plumbing, and probably a bedroom since this area didn't look like Romelle had been sleeping in it.
This was more like a fairly decent sized, classic six-room apartment. And you would save so much on rent or property taxes or whatever the relevant fees were, living in an asteroid field.
"I tell you it's a trap, and you just sit there?!"
With a shrug, Keith said, "I might as well find out what he wants. If I don't stay, he'll probably try something else. This saves time."
"Here, I'll save you some time." Romelle's popcorn sounded like it was popping at a fierce clip now, so she couldn't spare him an eyeroll, but her voice communicated most of it. "He saw what happened when you punched that absolute head-bloated twit Quex Embaticus and thought you were absolutely the shit. Would not shut up about how good your form was, your stance, your wrist, your follow-through, I honestly believe he has to be making half of it up because there's no way he could have seen all that in the time it takes to punch a man, and don't get me started on his odes to how cool you were about eating the rest of your dinner while the chaos of revolution sprung up around you. The heart eyes he makes when he talks about you should be banned for causing instant cavities. Seriously, if we weren't in space, I would say you could see his crush on you from space. You could see it from another galaxy. And he wanted to meet you, but all he could find was your business card. Hence..." she gestured at herself and the lair around her. "... a trap."
Weird. Keith would have thought he would have remembered seeing a dragon anywhere in the bar where he punched Quex Embaticus. Then again, maybe Crystal Dragons were really just that good at shapeshifting. More importantly, Romelle's explanation was painting a very different picture than Keith had been seeing before.
"You keep saying 'trap'," said Keith, eyeing her quizzically. "But that sounds more like a date."
Romelle looked at him slack-jawed. "How?"
Keith shrugged, "My friend Allura said she and her boyfriend Lance went and escaped rooms on a date and it was fun, and they're normal people. How is escaping these rooms any different just because they're inside a few asteroids?"
"An Escape Room is an entirely different thing from sending someone into a life-threatening hostage situation inside one of the most dangerously unnavigable regions of known space!"
"But you're not an actual hostage," Keith pointed out.
Romelle smacked both of her palms over her face before gesturing at Keith. "There was a bit more to the situation than that."
"Okay, but escaping a normal room wouldn't be fun for me. This was much more targeted at my interests." He pondered seriously for a second, since this was a literal dragon who would theoretically come back and want to talk about a potential second date, and Shiro was on his ship right now, waiting to tell him when the dragon was coming in. He was definitely going to have to radio back and explain this one to avoid any misunderstandings, wasn't he? Letting out a long breath, he asked Romelle, "Hey. How hot is this dragon?"
Her eyebrows arched into her hairline, although she didn't say a word.
"I'm trying to figure out how awkward this is about to be," Keith explained. "There's a guy I'm kind of into, and we'd been talking about going out. But if I tell him the dragon has a thing for me, and the dragon is absolutely fucking gorgeous, things could get awkward. I mean, I don't know if girls are the same way about that, so--"
"Sure," said Romelle with her squinched-up, quizzical face staring him down. "Because everything about this is so normal, there is absolutely no reason why I should be surprised that this is your concern. Whether your maybe almost boyfriend at home will be jealous that the dragon who tried to trap you here under false pretenses is too good-looking."
"Again, this clearly isn't a trap. It's--"
"A date. Right." Romelle shook the popcorn into a bowl, and was particularly aggressive covering it with salt.
"And I kind of brought the other guy along on it. He's back on the ship. So yes, I think that could get awkward."
Romelle looked like she was muttering something about boys under her breath as she rolled her eyes and strolled back towards the sitting area with her bowl of fresh popcorn. "Well, if you want to know what he looks like, turn around. He just got back. Hey!" she said with a wave.
Keith felt a stab of panic, since there hadn't even been a crackle of static over his radio, worried that something had happened to Shiro, but it evaporated into realization when he saw it was Shiro himself, standing in the doorway with a pained grin. And what looked like a couple singe marks on his jacket, along with fresh rock climbing dust on his fingers.
"Hey, Romelle," said Shiro. "H-hey... Keith."
"You're the Crystal Dragon?" Keith confirmed.
He stepped in, letting the door close behind him, dragging hand through his hair as he made an embarrassed grimace. "Yeah. I never did figure out a good way to tell you about that part. Look, I understand if you're upset--"
Keith was already on his feet, heading over to grab Shiro's arms. "Why would I be upset? This simplifies everything. Although if I'd known this was a date sooner, I would have been flirting with you the whole time."
Shiro looked like he'd been granted a stay of execution. "Seriously?"
"Seriously," Keith said with a nod. "If you'd come over to me in the diner and said, 'Hi, I'm a Crystal Dragon and I would like to bring you back to my lair. It's in the middle of a field of explosive asteroids playing bumper cars,' I guarantee that once I verified that you weren't full of shit, you would have gotten laid. Obviously, you're still going to get laid. I'm just saying, Shiro. I like you for who you are, not the elaborate setup." He looked around with a grin at the apartment in the middle of an asteroid, complete with Romelle rolling her eyes again. "Although this was fun. I appreciate the effort. Why are your clothes burned anyway?"
The sheepish grin came back as Shiro brushed at the singe marks. "I may have added some temporary flame jets and pit traps and things in the entrance area that I can only turn off from in here. Like an obstacle course I was hoping we could do together. You know, your website doesn't say that you work with a teleporting space wolf?"
"Yeah, it helps to have that as an ace up our sleeve. No mercenary should put all their capabilities online." Keith tapped Shiro's chest, a brilliant idea forming in his mind. "I know! Leave the obstacle course up. We should go outside and spar. You shift into your dragon form, and I'll put on my battle exo-suit. We'll throw each other around for a while, and then we can run the course together when we come back in. And then, I guess, shower, dinner, sex, in whatever order seems appropriate. Sound good?"
"Sounds great," said Shiro, smile glowing. "Didn't I tell you he was great?!" he said over Keith's shoulder to Romelle.
"You two deserve each other," the Altean called back.
Keith turned around to ask, "Are you sure you don't want me to drop you home before we get going, Romelle? We're probably going to be... um... a terrain hazard."
Romelle looked back over the couch. "Do you expect it'll take two or three vargas for you to finish your little fighty mating dance outside and start actively fucking? Because I have two episodes left in the show I've been watching and I just made popcorn. I have my own hydroskimmer. I can get myself out."
"Hydroskimmer?" Keith asked. He'd thought he knew every kind of craft that could do the kind of maneuvering this asteroid field required. And why would it run on water in space? Wait. Did that mean the shimmering trail they'd been following had actually been frozen water crystals from Romelle flying in under her own power, and nothing to do with the Crystal Dragon at all?
Meanwhile, over on the couch, Romelle was looking more scandalized than she had at any point during this entire adventure. "Shiro! You didn't get him a hydroskimmer?! Do you not understand that humans are very, very squishy and die when picric oxygenate explodes?!"
"Again," said Keith, spreading his hands to calm everybody down. "The asteroids only explode when you hit them."
"We operate a mining colony harvesting crystals and ore from those explosive asteroids!" Romelle screamed. "How did it not occur to you that this was a solved problem?! There is a reason our colony invented ships that would maintain a warm atmosphere bubble around the outside of the ship so we could slosh liquid water around it constantly, and that's because the simplest way to stabilize the picric oxygenate crystals is to spray them with water! Your explosive bumper car asteroids turn into a bunch of ordinary, inert marbles you don't want to hit, and it completely removes the issue of the dust sprays."
Shiro looked completely unrepentant. "If you'd shown the least doubt about making it, I was going to tell you about the hydroskimmers. But you seemed like you knew what you were doing."
"I did know what I was doing," Keith promised.
"It was so cool," Shiro told Romelle with a thousand kilowatt grin. "He's the best pilot I've ever seen. He flew that route in a ship better than some dragons fly in their own skins."
Romelle pointed at Shiro and repeated for Keith, "Crush you could see from another galaxy. Both of you go outside and punch each other where I can't die from how saccharine you're being, and let me watch my show. You, wolf. You, I like. You can stay. Do you want me to catch you up on the plot?" she asked the space wolf as Shiro and Keith headed for the door, Shiro's arm finding its way around Keith's shoulders. "Oh! You read my mind," Romelle said to whatever the wolf had answered. "Excellent. Then let's go."
Shiro keyed in a time delay on the obstacle course to give them a chance to walk outside before it turned back on.
"I like your place," Keith murmured as they strolled out toward the landing pad, the vastness of space breaking open beyond a sphere of orbiting asteroids, dotted with jets of fire. "It's got one hell of a view."
The dragon's eyes looked hopeful. "I hope it's not coming on too strong to say I was thinking of it being our place when I built it. But I can wait. I'm not in a rush."
Keith shrugged, and cracked the door on his ship. It would only take him a few ticks to get his battle exo-suit on. "Play your cards right. We'll see where we end up."
He was going to have to ask Allura how to handle the business paperwork for this (with it being very possible she would answer, 'Void everything, none of this was business related'), but one thing was for sure. When he brought back Shiro for the gang's next Monsters and Mana game, they were going to win the "first date story" competition for life. Escape rooms could suck it.