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“-and if we can get the engines working some time in the next two rotations, we probably won’t crash into the planet!” That Coran could still maintain at least an optimistic tone was a minor miracle as he drifted sedately past the console Allura had anchored herself to. “Once we’ve done that, it should be a snap to get the artificial gravity back online, and from there we can troubleshoot the rest of the castle!”
“We can access the power couplings from here,” Allura replied, turning to activate the main console while the mice tittered alarmingly, scrabbling for purchase on the slick material of her exosuit. Pulling herself upright would have helped with the vertigo creeping up on her in the lack of gravity, but the moment she tried, her shoulders ached with the memory of her confinement. “Too many systems are trying to draw power at once. They’re clogging the castle maintenance AI with service requests.”
Five minutes would pass and then each damaged system would send another request; the organizational software couldn’t keep up with the number of damaged systems.
“Time to put a stop to that,” Coran replied. This was one more place where Altean shapeshifting served well – lacking gravity and relative direction, a more invariable race would be left to drift until whatever motion they could generate brought them to their destination. Coran only had to extend his arms to find purchase along the wall and launch himself to the nearest control panel.
“I bet it's corrupted code left over from the Galra crystal. It was only partially purged before we had to get underway.” He was too well mannered to make mention of why that was.
“I can take care of that.” The maintenance AI was almost palpably relieved when Allura switched the maintenance requests to manual, and directed it to stabilize the engines. The problem there seemed to be largely in the power couplings between the crystal and the propulsion systems. Four maintenance bots of the size and delicate disposition to service the couplings remained undamaged; it would have to do.
Once the power couplings were operational, the rest of the systems would be easier to diagnose – that was the hope, anyways. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, counting down the ticks. “We should – we should see about shutting off life support in the deserted areas of the castle. We need to maintain power for as long as possible until the recyclers can be repaired.”
Coran drifted around to face her, obviously this was important, but she couldn’t – she couldn’t look him in the eye just now. It was hard to know which was worse, the gash across his temple or the gentle affection in his eyes. “Princess, the internal sensors are still inoperable. There’s a chance the Paladins might still be-”
“They’re not,” Allura replied. As if hearing their terror over the comms as the wormhole destabilized wasn’t enough, the lions were simply – absent – in a way they hadn’t been since they were previously scattered. Her only consolation was that she was certain she would know if their unique quintessence was extinguished.
“Once we get the primary systems back online, we’ll repair the scanners first thing.” Coran’s voice was kind, as always, careful in a way she didn’t always take the time to appreciate. “We’ll find them.”
“Coran-” Allura felt her voice break, her throat tighten. She willed the moisture from her eyes. “Thank you. For everything.”
**
Taking part in multiple space battles with little support and less crew would stretch any ship a little thin, no matter the quality of its craftsmanship. Doing so after ten thousand years of disuse was perhaps a little more of a challenge, but still not insurmountable. But follow that by being forcefully ejected from a collapsing wormhole, well, really, the number of gremlins lurking in the workings of the ship really seemed to suggest they had gotten off easy.
This time.
Coran had spent most of his life in the shadow of the great ship; Voltron may have been the legacy of King Alfor, but the Castle of Lions was practically part of the family. Really, the only family he had left.
No one had their memories stored in the ship, but as he worked on repairing charred power couplings he could remember handing tools to his grandfather as he supervised the installation of the delicate inner workings. Nearly every panel, every bolt had a memory, a story to go with it, and those stories guided Coran through the repairs.
“-and then Bari nearly sliced his fingers off on this particular circuit. We always joked that his colorful cursing from that mishap had invoked a bit of blood magic, since it never needed to be repaired. Guess its all run out now,” he said, reaching for the microwelder. It wasn’t stuck to his toolbelt – hopefully it hadn't managed to float off – but no, he had passed it to Allura a moment ago.
He pushed himself out from the access hatch in the crystal’s enclosure and hooked his carabineer onto one of the anchors there, glancing over to Allura’s panel. She floated outside the mechanism, her hair haloed around her as it escaped her bun. The welder spun idly a short distance away, and the reason for that became apparent as he caught sight of a jagged red burn arcing across her fingers.
“Princess!” Long practice had him beside her in a moment, already anchored in, the wrapping of a burn pack already torn open in his teeth. Allura didn’t even react as he pressed the gelatinous foam to the wound, barely twitched as he wrapped it with gauze.
“I’m not sure how I could be so clumsy.” The microwelder fizzled in the air besides them, drifting in a low arc toward the center of the bridge. Allura’s eyes followed it distantly, though whether she was really seeing it was another matter entirely.
“It’s been a long movement,” he said, and now it was an actual trial to keep his voice level. “We’ve had a rough go of it. It’s probably time to take a rest.”
Of all things, that brought Allura back into action. “No! No, I’m fine, really, just managed to . . . distract myself. We need to get the engines back online.” She began to pull her hand away, but Coran held steady.
“Princess,” and now this part was hard. She was his leader, the daughter of his king, undeniably royal. She was also dear to him – he had watched her grow, held her as a baby, looked after her while her parents attended official functions. Whatever affection he had for her could not be allowed to interfere with her duties or his, but he had to look out for her, and now more than ever.
“Princess, you are easily the bravest, strongest person I know. Mere ticks after you were a prisoner in Zarkon’s inner sanctum, faced with the monster himself, you were able to lead us to safety-”
“For all the good it did,” she snapped. “Do you feel safe, Coran? Alone, in a decaying orbit in a dying ship, over a dead planet?”
“Please let me finish.” He waited for her acknowledgement, watched her take a deep breath and visibly steel herself. She nodded tightly. “You are the strongest person I know. Please rest. Let that strength recover, instead of pushing yourself so hard it burns out. We need you.”
“The paladins will need me to fetch them as soon as possible,” Allura sighed. “The lions don’t have star drives. . . .”
“The Paladins will need you alive, and whole. Please, rest. They’re clever enough to survive until we can get to them.”
The princess held out for a moment more, but all the fight seemed to leave her in one long, heavy sigh. “You will wake me, if anything changes?”
“Of course, Princess.”
She nodded, and released her carabineer, pushing herself across the bridge to one of the ops stations that had risen in the chaotic power surge following their expulsion from the wormhole. Between the harness and the carabineer straps, she managed to anchor herself well enough to avoid drifting off in her sleep.
Once he was convinced she was at least close to unconsciousness, Coran turned back to his work in the converter’s casing. The universe had already demanded so much of the young woman, and it would only continue to take. But he could try to hold it off for a few hours.
**
Allura came awake to the sound of quiet humming coming from ops control. Coran’s legs were sticking out of the casing, the missing panels anchored to the floor with magnets. She unbuckled her harness and pulled up the ship’s systems report on the console in front of her. Power wasn’t quite restored, but there was little more that could be done from the bridge. They would have to make the journey to engine control before long.
Her mouth felt a bit tacky and stale; there were flecks at the corners of her lips and her eyelashes pulled a bit when she blinked. A quick rub could take care of the superficial problems, but she hadn’t quite had the foresight to pack teeth cleaner into the emergency kits on the bridge. “How long have I been asleep?” she asked, kicking off of her seat and towards ops.
Coran yelped but seemed to avoid braining himself on anything, pushing himself out of the mass of metal and wires. “Are you feeling any better?”
She smiled, trying to keep it reassuring. “I think, yes.” She flexed her fingers, pulling the bandage away. The skin was discolored and a bit tender, but the wound had closed. “I’m sorry for worrying you, and leaving you to the repairs on your own. It looks like you’ve gotten quite a bit done.”
“I’d like to say so, but I took a catnap not long after you and managed to lose a few degrees of this last rotation.” Coran smiled brightly for a moment, then pushed himself back into the chaos below ops. “Just need to confirm a few alignments and we can head down to engine control and see the damage for ourselves!”
“Wonderful.” Allura cringed at the tone, but she could barely muster up anything more energetic. Coran didn’t seem to take any notice. The primary viewscreen was once again displaying the surrounding space, thankfully free of any cracks. Primary portions of the ship, it’s main body, seemed to have escaped with structural integrity intact. The exoplanet they were orbiting loomed before them. “How much further has our orbit decayed?”
“Looks like our original estimates were a bit pessimistic!” Coran’s voice took on a bit of a tinny echo from the inner workings of the ops panel. “We have the rest of this rotation and maybe a bit of the next before atmospheric reentry becomes a real problem for the engines, but hey! We can go check those out now.”
When loss of atmosphere was a problem, life support to the bridge and infirmary were prioritized, and the corridors leading to either functioned as airlocks. There were extra exosuits and helmets stored in the bridge for emergencies, so Coran donned one to match Allura’s. The mice were left behind, nestled into a bed made from an extra helmet and munching on a dry ration.
“Looks like the hull sealant kicked in automatically,” Coran noted, looking at the scanner on his gauntlet. “Oxygen is a bit low but holding steady.”
“When we get the scanners back online, the whole hull needs to be swept for microfractures,” Allura replied. “I’d rather not attempt atmospheric reentry until we do.”
Without jetpacks, the journey to the engine room took a frustratingly long time. Connecting their harnesses kept them from becoming separated, but orchestrating their movements did not come quite as naturally as it perhaps should have and sent them careening into more than one bulkhead. What areas had any power at all only had dim emergency lights, and otherwise the Alteans were forced to depend on the headlamps attached to their helmets.
“I think I understand why Lance was so insistent that the Castle’s haunted,” Coran said, having run into Allura again after jumping at yet another unusual shadow. “Doesn’t seem right to see the old girl like this.”
Allura had her arm deep into the door panel for the primary engine room, fishing around for the manual release. The lever caught at her fingers and she pulled, and the door opened partially with a slight hiss. Almost immediately she knew something was wrong, but they squeezed through the opening and into the engine room.
It was completely dark.
“Well, we’re looking at a cold start,” Coran muttered, launching himself toward the controls. Allura followed a moment later, avoiding being dragged off course by the tether.
“How long will it take?” she asked, watching Coran open the access hatch and poke around at the machinery.
“Well, the whole system had to be replaced between the Galra takeover and Pidge’s sabotage, so its actually in pretty decent shape. Just need to reset the primary converter and we’ll see.” He flicked the primary circuit to ‘on’ and the control board’s screen lit up suddenly, an eerie brightness ghosting through the dark room, the light barely enough to touch the distant walls.
He hummed for a moment over the readout, as the walkway lighting slowly brightened around them. Allura could see the reports over his shoulder, tensing with each passing moment. “Even when we were in cryosleep, the engines never went offline.”
“Not entirely – the castle’s primary systems went into hibernation but power still cycled from the crystal, through the primary turbine, and out into basic controls – security, the infirmary, that sort of thing.”
“So how long would a cold start take?” Allura repeated, hoping the comms would cover the slight tremor in her voice.
“Not sure, it’s never been done.” Coran put his hands on his hips and stared up toward the arched ceiling of the engine chamber. “Even when we replace a crystal, the engines automatically hoard a certain amount of energy to maintain primary systems.”
“But when Sendak destroyed our previous crystal-”
“He probably would have had to do a cold start, but we can’t exactly ask him.”
“No, but it gives us a timeframe. We can get power to the engines again before we lose orbit entirely!” Allura’s hands went to unclasp their harnesses. “I’ll return to the bridge and oversee the power transfer.” She put her hands briefly on Coran’s shoulders. “Please be careful.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, princess. We’ll have the ship up and running again and be on our way in no time flat.” He tapped his helmet against hers for a moment, and watched as she spun away and launched herself for the door, grasping the edge and catapulting herself into the corridor.
They were so close. Soon, they would restore power to the ship. Soon, they would stabilize their orbit. Soon, their sensor array would be repaired and they could fetch their missing friends, scattered like flotsam across the universe in the last attack.
Allura could feel tears prick at the corners of her eyes as she made her way to the bridge, a tightness in her chest replacing the hopelessness that had lodged itself so deeply in her heart. Her mind was finally clear, and she could see the way ahead.
I’m coming, she thought desperately, wishing she could hear an answering roar.