Chapter Text
“Pidge. Hurry. They’ll be onto us soon.” Keith’s tension was palpable as he kept watch on the corridor while the green paladin hacked into the secret base’s system to extract the information Allura had sent them to find.
“I know, Keith! I’ve got the stupid alarm system right here in front of me, along with every security feed on the base. Don’t get your frilly panties in a bunch.” She growled in exasperation, “I’m working as fast as I can. They’ve installed new firewall layers since the last time we broke in. I have to be careful working my way in or they’ll be able to hack me back.” The keyboard clicked at a furious but steady pace despite Keith’s fretting.
“What the hell... is that?” The clicking paused and Keith found it difficult to keep his attention on the hall as he resisted the urge to demand to know what the problem was. If he asked, he’d just get his nose snapped off again. Her voice trailed off in a mutter as the typing resumed at a slower, more cautious rate of speed. Keith released his held breath and scanned the corridor.
It was only him protecting Pidge. Shiro and the others were creating a diversion on the other side of the base. He hated guard duty, hated it. There was too much tension and too little action. He’d rather be in the diversion force but Shiro had taken Hunk and Lance in order to use their ranged weaponry. Quarters were too tight where the computer hub was for them to be effective here so that left Keith, who’s melee skills could keep the enemy forces bottled up for hours if needed. So he settled in, listened to the fight over his comm unit and tried really hard not to fret himself into a heart attack.
“Keith, how are you guys doing over there?” Shiro’s voice was a bit stressed. Keith could hear the intermittent staccato of Lance’s blaster fire and the lower, steady thrum of Hunk’s cannon in the background.
“Pidge ran into a firewall. It’s taking longer than we thought to get in. No sign of guards around here though. I think they’re all with you.”
“Well, isn’t that just so Special!” Lance grunted. “So happy to be able to give you a little vacation. Save me a Mai Thai, wouldja?”
“Lance, pay attention. There’s a group on the left.”
“I got em, boss. Be chill.”
Keith’s heart raced. It sounded like the team was under heavy fire. He clicked off the transmit button and glanced back into the room. “Pidge?”
“Yeah. I heard. I’m almost in.” Keith frowned at the strain in her voice and risked a longer look at what was going on. Pidge had her laptop plugged into the console and was going back and forth between her keyboard and the Galra control panel. She let out a heavy breath and inserted what appeared to be a portable storage drive into the console.
“Not downloading to your laptop?” Keith was surprised. Why lug the thing all the way in here if you were going to use a tiny, little, portable storage device the whole time?
“Traps. There are lots of them in here and I don’t want to risk more infection than I have to. I had no idea this place would be this well protected. You can thank Allura for the fabulous intel.” She started muttering to herself again and Keith turned his attention back to the hallway.
A few moments later, Pidge let out a yelp. The alarms blared and lights began flashing an ominous, lurid violet. Yelling and cursing flooded the comm channel as Keith spun around. Pidge was frantically pressing controls. “Shit shit shit… I got this, I can do this. I can get clear. I’ve got…” A bolt of purple energy writhed across the panel and engulfed her small figure. She shrieked and crumpled to the floor.
“Pidge!” Keith scrambled across the room and pulled her into his arms, checking for a pulse. It fluttered faintly against his fingers. He gasped in relief. Forgetting that his mike was live, he started rambling as he tried to bring her back to consciousness. “Pidge! Pidge, wake up. Come on, don’t do this to me!”
“Keith! What happened? We’ve got alarms going off and suddenly the drones have all vanished. I suspect they’re heading your way. You need to bug out.” Shiro was shouting over the chaos.
“Pidge got knocked out by a lightning bolt, Shiro. She’s out cold but breathing. Gonna clear out of here. We’ll meet you back at the green lion.” Keith eyed the laptop. It had to come too, Pidge would murder him if he left it behind. He set her limp form down and started yanking wires, closing things up and stuffing them in Pidge’s backpack. He hesitated before grabbing the flash drive but snatched it out of the control panel and threw it in the bag before zipping it up and slinging it over his back.
“Copy that. Be careful, you’re going to have company on the way back, we’ll try and keep your path as clear as we can but you’re on your own for a bit.”
Yeah, on his own. Burdened with both a heavy backpack and an unconscious partner. Evaluating the situation, Keith scooped her tiny form up and slung her over his left shoulder. They were getting out of there one way or another. If luck was on their side he might get most of the way back to the lion before anyone caught up to them. Green lion. His blood chilled. Pidge’s lion. They’d all ridden in with Pidge because of the cloaking device. That could be a problem if she wasn’t awake enough to fly them back out.
Keith cursed. Get them back to the lion first. Worry about getting the lion out afterwards.
He was almost there. Two corridors to go and he’d be able to join up with the other paladins. He could hear their gunfire in the distance. “Almost to you guys,” he panted, “but we may have a problem. Allura? Pidge is unconcious. We may need an extraction or something.”
Her voice crackled over the intercom. “Understood, Keith, do your best.” And that was all. Not reassuring. He was hoping for an actual plan or something.
“Shiro,” he muttered as he hitched Pidge’s form a little higher and cursed the backpack which threw off his balance, “I hope you’ve got something.” A cautious peek around the corner almost netted Keith a singed nose as a Galra plazma burst told him that yes, there were soldiers there.
This time he toggled his mic on, and with a little urgency, said “Guys! I need backup. Pinned down here.” Carefully he slid Pidge down off his shoulder and set the backpack next to her. He summoned his shield, took a deep breath and waited for the bad guys to come around the corner. This wasn’t going to be pretty.