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"Ugh, there is nothing OUT here."
Lance's voice crackled over the comm, almost clear enough that Hunk could imagine they were sharing a cockpit instead of being well out of visual range of one another. Not that anything was going to happen. They were just doing a quick once-over of the system, just in case.
Just in case the distress call was a trap.
Just in case something was waiting for them in the lee of one of these planets.
But of course, it wasn't, right? This was just a way to keep he and Lance from hanging around and getting bored on the planet while Allura dealt with the stuffy, political side of being a princess. (Queen? Hunk wasn't entirely clear on the whole rules of royal lineage thing among Alteans, but it seemed to Hunk like she should probably be a queen. But since bringing it up would also bring up the loss of her father, and that wasn't something he felt right about asking just to satisfy his curiosity. So it just rattled around in his mind from time to time and-)
"Hunk? You awake?"
He shook himself out of that weird thought-spiral and replied, "Yuuuup. Just taking a spin around this blue planet. Or crystal... is that an ice planet?" The sphere in question hung against the black of space like a glittering diamond. Hunk leaned toward the screen a little, as though the answer would show up if he got near enough. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but the darker streaks that shot through the center made it feel like the whole thing was nearly flawless, that he could almost see through it. "Is there an ice planet out here?"
"I don't know." Lance's voice told Hunk he also wasn't interested in the answer. Hunk didn't let it bother him - Lance tended to use a lot of enthusiasm for the things that piqued his interest or ire, and had little left for anything that did neither. It could be a little irritating.
On the other hand, it meant that if he bothered to spend free time with you, it was because he wanted to. Lance was absolutely terrible at faking enthusiasm.
"Well, on the bright side it's easy to see nothing's hiding behind it," Hunk said, piloting his lion around behind the translucent sphere anyway, just in case. "I mean, unless they're invisible. Which I guess we've seen. Well, not SEEN, but.... uh..."
Great. He was making himself nervous. He was starting to wonder if they might have been better off staying on planet. But Allura knew what she was doing, and she'd told them to come out, sweep the area. It was almost like she might want to limit the variables when dealing with a sticky diplomatic situation.
"How long do you think we need to keep looking before we head back?" Hunk could actually hear Lance slouching in his seat. "I didn't even get a chance to eat before she ordered us up here to guard all this nothing and-"
"Hey, if it wants to stay nothing, I'm all for that," Hunk interjected, finishing his check of the ice planet and cruising further out into open space. Nothing on any of his sensors, but that sense of anxiety wouldn't shut up.
It wasn't that he hated being in a fight, exactly. He didn't like it either, but sometimes you just couldn't run away - a lesson learned a few times even before any of the Voltron stuff had started. Lance had a tendency to speak his mind, and god love him, speaking his mind (and if he's honest with himself, Hunk not thinking before speaking as well) was sometimes pretty terrible for keeping the peace. That went double in the Galaxy Garrison, with its fierce competitiveness and room after room of brash, cocky and talented people just itching to bounce off each other. They didn't get in actual fights too often - it wasn't usually worth the potential punishment if they got caught. But sometimes...
"Well, I. Am. Bored," Lance announced, as though that were any surprise. Hunk glanced at the tracking screen again, and could see that the Blue Lion had picked up speed. Maybe I should head over his way. It all looks quiet here. The lion started to turn that way in harmony with the though, before he even nudged the steering. You want to head back too, huh?
It wasn't fear of a fight, necessarily, but more the thought of a fight now, when Voltron was more of an empty threat. Bad enough that two of their number were back helping Allura on her mission planetside, but with Shiro gone entirely right now...
Shiro. That empty cockpit.
It just made him feel too much like a sitting duck. A big, mechanical, lion-shaped sitting duck. With a gun.
"Hey Lance, I'm coming to you," he said, relishing the feeling of pressure as his lion pulled into an even sharper turn and accelerated. "Maybe together we can-"
"Woah."
There was a note in Lance's voice, both curious and urgent -- something that made the hairs on the back of Hunk's arms stand up. "Lance?"
"Nothing, nothing. I just thought I saw..."
But it was something. They'd been friends too long for Hunk not to know that tone. "I'm coming to you," he repeated, and he could feel the lion respond with another slight pulse of speed. "Talk to me, what do you see?"
"It looks like..." Silence fell for a few seconds, but just as Hunk was about to say something, Lance came back on. "Bats! Space bats! Are there space bats?"
"I don't know!"
An impact sound, made tinny and strange through the microphone, preceded Lance going, "Yup. Definitely space bats. Man, they're fast." Another impact sound, and another noise - a cry of stress maybe? Pain?
Faster, Hunk urged, and the lion was doing all it could do, but somehow it found more, he felt that new little pulse. Good boy. But still... his lion wasn't really built for speed. He would never want to pilot the twitchy green lion, but he finds himself wishing Pidge were here - she'd already be halfway there.
"Lance? Talk to me," he said, eyes scanning the expanse of darkness in front of him for a flash of light. Don't panic, Hunk, don't panic... oh god, I'm panicking. He should reach Lance's current position in 45 seconds. "How many space bats?"
"I don't know. A whole swarm. Flock?"
"Colony," Hunk responded without thinking.
There was a moment's quiet, then... "Really?"
"What? Yeah, dude, a group of bats is called a colony. Did you seriously not know that?" 30 seconds.
"Why would I know that?"
Lance sounds pretty normal. Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong. It's just bats, we won't lose Lance to bats, that's just absurd. But another screeching, metallic impact sound thudded over the communicator. He swore he could see a little azure twinkle up ahead through the screen, like a lost fleck of glitter on a dark carpet. Heart thudding, he adjusted his angle, arcing toward it. "Just about there. You okay?"
"Uhhhh..."
Right, so that was a no. As Hunk's lion streaked across the sky, the glittery flashes of Lance's weapons became easier to pick out and... jeeze, he wasn't kidding about space bats. They were barely visible from this distance, due to being the same inky shade as the expanse of space, but every blast from the blue lion lit up their edges like neon paint. They were huge for bats, maybe a third the size of the lions, but they wouldn't have been much of a problem... except there really was a flock... er, colony... there were enough that the blue form lion was all but obscured by them. Several forms drifted, motionless, showing that Lance was making headway, but the overall group persisted, swarming him and causing the blue lion to move erratically as it tried to break free.
"Hey Lance. Incoming!"
Flying was not a skill that had come terrible naturally to Hunk before Voltron, for... a myriad of reasons, really. Even now, he knew that compared to the quicker, more deft movements of his teammates, his battle style was closer to "loose cannonball." And right now, he barreled into the thickest part of the swarm, catching several of them in the crook between the lion's head and right shoulder. Behind him, Lance took advantage of the open space, shooting his lion free of the press and immediately laying into them with its tail laser even as it streaked out to get some distance, see the battlefield. Several of the colony -- seriously, SPACE BATS? -- broke free to pursue, but the yellow lion was among them in a moment, heavy paws sending them spinning through the void.
"I think I hate bats," Lance said as Hunk wheeled around to find the attackers trying to press in on him. "I never thought about it before, but I definitely think I HATE bats." This proclamation was punctuated with a sweep of blue light that peeled a few of the creatures off the yellow lion's back.
"Where did they even come from?" Hunk asked. Several of the creatures were limping away now, flapping their enormous wings unsteadily. Hunk found himself wondering, even with all that wing square footage, they were able to get enough propulsion like that in space. "Did you fly into some giant space cave or something?"
"I'm not that stupid," Lance complained. When Hunk didn't answer for several seconds, he clarified, "There was no space cave, OK? I skimmed off the atmosphere if this weird-looking purple and orange planet, and next I knew, they were everywhere. Trying to get us with their weird space-bat claws."
A harsh squealing sound set Hunk's teeth on edge as one of the animals tried to latch onto his lion, its claws dragging along the left flank. Just like that I guess. He made a wide, sweeping arc, shaking the one loose and lowering his lion's head for a charge into another trio.
"Hey, I think we've got 'em on the run!" Lance and his lion soared up, sniping one that Hunk had totally missed seeing, just to his right. Silence fell between the two of them as they watched the stragglers flap off to wherever space bats tended to go. Lance spoke first.
"We're not telling the others about this."
"Awww, what? Come on, you were a hero. Fighting off an entire colony of bats." Hunk couldn't stop a stupid grin from spreading across his face. Relief is a hell of a drug.
"We are not telling the others about this. They were bats."
"Come on, Allura would be so impressed. Those things were huge. I bet only the best paladins can face an entire group down and live."
Another long pause, then on the screen, Hunk saw the blue lion's head turn toward him. "You're making fun of me."
"Hmm. Yeah. Sorry."
"Not cool." But Lance was laughing, and Hunk chuckled as well.
And for the moment, at least, the panic was gone like fog before the sun.