Chapter Text
The serenity of space was a glorious thing to behold; the twisting star systems and twinkling light reflected from thousands of far-off planets created a sort of visual symphony. With unceasing stillness, the cosmic dance of infinite celestial bodies was the only visible change, bringing on a sort of involuntary peace in all those caught within it. Or rather, so it was until about twenty minutes ago.
“Lance, quit goofing off!” Keith’s voice crackled over the comm system, and was met immediately by laughter. The blinding sights of the Galra lasers flashed in his cockpit, and he felt his Lion get buffeted by the shockwaves of collisions and explosions.
“I can’t help it!” Lance said back, his smile audible in his voice. “They’re making it too easy, man, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel!” The Blue Lion spun and swerved between the Galra fighters, its tail occasionally lashing out to smack one of their wings, causing them to spin helplessly into each other.
Despite Lance’s claims, the occupation force on Knolav IV still outnumbered the Voltron Force a good 800 to 1, as Allura saw fit to remind them.
“Do not let their individual weakness lure you into complacency, Lance!” Allura said, her voice clear and strong over the radio. Lance flinched in his cockpit, uncomfortably reminded of his own mother’s scoldings. It didn’t help that Pidge’s snickering came trailing after.
“Lance is getting ye~lled at.” Pidge said, her voice dripping with mockery. Her enjoyment was quickly cut off as an explosion rocked her Lion, and a short yell tore out of her throat.
“Pidge!” Shiro’s voice came through the radio, concerned. The Black Lion immediately broke formation to cover her as she recovered, its fang blade tearing through the nearby Galra fighters. But without the Shiro providing cover, Keith found himself suddenly exposed, forced into evasive maneuvers by a hailstorm of fire from the collected enemy force.
“I’m blaming you for this, Lance!” Keith said, his words clipped as his Lion barely dodged the array of lasers. Muttering darkly in Spanish, Lance brought his lion around, firing a beam of ice through the enemy formation to provide Keith a respite. It soon proved insufficient as two shots landed true on the Red Lion’s back, sending Keith into a tailspin.
“Hunk! Cover Keith while he gets himself back in the air. Lance, stay on the offensive, and don’t mess around this time!” Shiro’s voice was stern and filled with notes of barely-repressed anger that Lance knew was directed at him. Oh, this was going to be fun later. But for now, he had targets in front of him, and he could just imagine that they had the faces of his sources of irritation.
Which was a method that Lance found almost distressingly therapeutic. That fighter that Blue’s claws tore open had Pidge’s obnoxious laugh, that one with a new hole in its cockpit looked like Shiro’s disappointed face, those three over there that Blue’s ice tore through somehow all had Keith’s mullet. What a curious coincidence. But as he flew through the enemy ranks, nearly effortlessly destroying them, all he heard over the radio was chatter of the team ignoring him.
“Pidge, are you alright? Can you still fly?”
“I’m still operational Shiro, but the shot came really close to my fuel tanks.”
“Keith buddy, I’d feel a lot better if you were backing me up!”
“Gonna be a second Hunk, the shot that Lance let through still has my controls screwed up.”
Oh, of course. Focus on his mistakes, but no one had a single word for the fact that he was single handedly taking on an entire Galra fleet while they were licking their wounds. Blue’s movements became more aggressive, more focused as Lance’s anger grew, and to no one’s surprise, criticism followed quickly.
“Lance, be careful! You’re leaving your-”
“Would you give it a rest, Shiro?!” Lance shot back. “I’m doing the best I can out here, giving all of you time to regroup, so maybe you could all just get off my back?”
Silence followed on the radio, allowing Lance to focus on the remaining Galra fighters. Including that one weird one that looked different from the others. It was bulkier and moved a bit slower, so Lance decided to have a little fun with it. His tail shot out to grab a nearby fighter, and Lance pondered briefly if Blue’s tail was actually extending or was just longer than he thought, and he flung it towards the weird craft, missing by what couldn’t have been more than a few feet. It did hit several other fighters, so Lance considered that a success.
The weird fighter just kept getting closer, which Lance found really weird. Even stranger was that the other ships near it had stopped firing, as if for fear that they’d hit it on accident. Whatever was going on, Lance didn’t want to stick around for it. He fired a beam from Blue’s tail, lancing straight through the weird ship, but right as he did the ship’s engines kicked into overdrive and sent it careening straight for Blue.
Eyes wide with sudden fear, Lance wrenched the controls in an attempt to avoid the flaming craft, but it crashed fully into Blue’s flank, though with far less of an impact than Lance expected. The craft splintered on impact, pieces raining down to the planet below, and Lance found himself surrounded by a smokescreen, but unharmed.
Lance’s radio crackled ominously before a voice filtered through. “Lance? Lance, come in, are you alright?!” Shiro’s voice came over the radio, equal parts commanding and afraid. Oh sure, now he was worried. Lance scoffed audibly, flying out of the smoke to see the Galra fleet retreating.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said in response, looking in confusion at the retreating Galra force, “What the heck was that all about?” The other Lions flew up to meet him as various confused voices came through the radio.
“Maybe they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble?” Hunk said, his voice hopeful. Over the radio, Coran made a noise that would have been called a snort in a less dignified man.
“Extremely unlikely. It’s more reasonable that they accomplished whatever goal they came here for.” Coran said as his image popped up in their cockpits. Allura nodded behind him, her eyes narrowing as she viewed the display in front of them.
“Return to the Castle, Paladins. The entire Galran force is retreated from this sector, and I need to figure out why.” Allura said, her voice wavering just the slightest bit. Lance wasn’t sure why; sure it was weird, but it wasn’t that weird, right? They won, so what’s the big deal?
“Will do, Princess. Come on everyone, you heard the Princess.” Shiro said as the Black Lion led the way back. Lance followed suit, but he couldn’t shake the lingering irritation from before. Somehow, he was convinced that if it had been Keith who’d been showing off, everyone would’ve eaten it up.
The irritation followed him as they flew all the way back to the Castle, which had been parked by a nearby moon to avoid detection by Galra. It was a long flight as a result, most of which was spent enduring Hunk and Pidge’s tech talk as they discussed ways to improve the shielding on the Lions. Lance tuned most of it out, looking at the nearby stars as his Lion flew on autopilot. After a few minutes of flying, he realized that they were trying to get his attention.
“Hey, Earth to Lance! Do you copy, or are you dozing off in there?” Pidge’s voice seemed particularly annoying today, and Lance’s patience was particularly thin. But something else had caught his attention.
“You’re not Earth…” He found himself mumbling, still looking at the stars. He caught himself actually searching for anything blue in the blackness, before remembering that they were likely thousands of light-years away.
“What’s that? Gotta speak up buddy, how am I supposed to make fun of you if I can’t hear you?” Lance’s eyebrow quirked in annoyance, and he caught Pidge’s insufferable smirk out of the corner of his eye.
“I said, you’re not Earth! And that’s pretty lousy of you to say, since it’s not like any of us will ever hear from Earth again!” Lance shouted into the radio, his face reddened with sudden passion. His outburst was met by complete silence, made much worse by the fact that over the comm screen, he could see all of their faces.
Pidge’s eyes were wide with shock, but her jaw was set in burgeoning anger. Hunk’s gaze was downcast, as if trying to avoid the fight he knew was coming, while Keith looked like he was still trying to process what just happened. Shiro’s eyes were hard as steel, and fortunately it was him that broke the silence.
“Alright, that’s enough out of everyone,” Shiro said, cutting through the tension and cutting off Pidge’s inevitable retort. “Let’s just take a minute to calm down; we’ll talk at the Castle.” There were a few long minutes traveled in absolute silence, before Lance saw a new comms channel open.
“Hey, Lance?” The voice was unmistakably Hunk’s, coming to Lance over a private channel. Lance flipped it open, turning off the others.
“What?” Lance asked simply, all emotion drained from him. He slumped back in his seat, ready for the well-meaning lecture he was sure to get.
“We all miss Earth, you know,” The solemn emotion in Hunk’s voice was far worse than the yelling he’d been expecting. Lance averted his eyes as Hunk continued. “Just because we don’t all show it doesn’t mean that we’re not sad that we don’t get to see our families, too.”
“Whatever.” Lance replied, realizing that he was sulking and simultaneously realizing that he didn’t care. Hunk seemed to accept that he wasn’t going to get any more out of Lance, because the private channel cut out. Lance scoffed in the empty air of his cockpit, irrationally annoyed by Hunk blowing him off, but not seeing any point in pursuing it.
As the Castle came into view, Lance realized that there was no one waiting for him there. No one who’d actually be glad that he was returning.
That thought stayed with Lance for a while.
“Explain to me again, Witch, what this new device of yours does.”
The sound of Prorok’s boots hitting the stone floor of Haggar’s chamber echoed hollowly, and somehow left the Galra general feeling very small. He was a proud warrior, and feeling small did not come naturally to him; as with all other things that did not come naturally to him, a deep sense of anger welled within him in response.
“That’s curious,” Haggar replied, her voice rasping in the empty air, “I don’t recall the Emperor placing you in a position of authority over me. What need have I to explain myself to you?”
“The Emperor, in his wisdom, has ordered that I work alongside you, in order to capitalize on whatever disorder you seek to sow amongst the Paladins. But in order for me to do that, I need to know what exactly it is that you’re planning,” Prorok only just barely managed to keep his tone even and respectful. The Emperor had a great deal of respect for this woman and her...sorcery, but Prorok considered it little more than superstitious nonsense and poorly-explained science.
“Oh, did he now? How interesting. I suppose it’s good for you to have something to do, though,” Prorok could feel himself bristling at her condescending tone, but forced himself to remain civil.
“Listen to me, Witch. You may have the Emperor’s ear, but your schemes will never be as effective as my military.” Civil by Prorok’s standards, at least. Haggar just laughed though, and it raised Prorok’s bristles even more, if such a thing were possible.
“Your military? The one that had Voltron on a silver platter, and somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory? You’ll forgive me for not being impressed by the comparison.” Her voice dripped with mockery, and Prorok took a few more steps toward, noting the difference in size between them; he could probably snap Haggar’s back like a twig if he could get his hands on her.
He leveled a glare at her, as if his aggression were a physical force to bear down on her. “And your magic did better? I seem to recall your precious Ro-beasts being rather unsuccessful themselves.” He hissed at her, keeping his voice quiet. Her eyes narrowed, and they remained locked in stalemate for another minute before she broke the silence.
“Very well, General. If you wish for details of my new plan, you shall have it. Do you recall Sendak?” Haggar said, turning back to some manner of crystal pillar growing in the center of the room.
“The one captured by Voltron? Yes, I recall him. What of him?”
A smile curled at her lips, clearly relishing description of her plans. “His failure was a surprising boon to us, for the knowledge it gave me; he managed to use the remnants of one of our Balmeran crystals, along with his own willpower to infect the Castle of Lions.”
“How do you know this? Do you have spies within the Altean Castle?” Prorok’s voice was hopeful, but Haggar shook her head.
“When we convert Balmeran crystals for our use with quintessence, they become linked into a hive network. When the Castle was infected, it briefly became part of the network; had I sufficient warning, I could have gotten much more out of the link, but I wasn’t aware of it in time.”
“This science is all fascinating, Witch, but do get to the point.” Prorok crossed his arms, his voice tremoring with annoyance. Haggar’s knife-like smile grew wider.
“Do you know of the new craft we installed in our fleets?” She asked, one hand on the crystal pillar. It hummed with power, and Prorok found himself unable to look directly at it.
“I do. They were prohibitively expensive, due to their volume of...crystal.” He paused, her statements coming together. “They’re designed as suicide bombers. You intend to infect the Lions.” His eyes were wide with possibilities, and a predatory grin grew across his face.
“I don’t just intend to. I have already succeeded. And if Sendak, with his meager will, could take over an entire castle, then imagine what I can do to a single Lion.” She stepped away from the crystal, allowing Prorok to look at the surface.
As he stepped closer, his grin widened as he saw a sharp-featured young human with dark skin wearing a set of blue Paladin armor.