Voltron Legendary Defender - Shining Like the Stars [6] [Klance | Sheith]

[scriveyner]

Title: shining like the stars [6]
Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender
AU: slts
Characters/Pairing: Keith/Lance, Shiro/Keith, Pidge, Hunk, Allura
Rating: T
Length: 2080
Summary:

When Keith walked onto the bridge of the castle-ship, he fully expected an ambush. However, while everyone was dressed and on deck for the most part they were standing around the main display panel and looking up at the now-increasingly-familiar alien runes. "What's going on?" Keith asked as he stopped an arm's length away from Shiro and conscious of every inch of the distance between them.

"Not quite sure yet," Shiro said, his arms folded and eyes on the screen.

"We've detected an emergency beacon," Allura was standing at the center console. She had one hand on the keypad, and her expression was at the same time distant, and concerned. "It's coming from this region, but this star system is mostly abandoned." The forward display was active, showing a mostly empty star field and the curve of a brownish red planet with a slight shimmer of atmosphere.

Lance shrugged his shoulders. "You're the one who said we can't not help people in need, Princess, we should check it out."

"It's not quite that simple, I'm afraid," Coran said, standing at the main controls behind them. "The emergency beacon is very, very old, and it's broadcasting on a distorted frequency. We can't pinpoint its exact location on the surface."

"It also could be a trap," Hunk said. "Another one. Because you know what sort of luck we have with these things." He jabbed his finger at the viewscreen. "You even said that there were traces of Galra in this system, doesn't anyone else find that a little bit suspicious?"

"Traces of Galra," Keith said, eyebrow raised. "What do you mean by that?"

"There's a decimated frigate in orbit above the planet," Pidge said. She was the only one not staring either out the viewscreen or at the display, seated in the navigator's chair and typing quickly. "It's old, too. Doesn't look like any of the ones we've seen so far." Keith walked over to her chair and put one hand on the back, leaning forward as Pidge brought up a slightly-blurry shot taken by the castle-ship's external cameras. The ship did indeed look nothing like the battle cruisers they had seen so far -- it had been destroyed by a powerful shot through the forward hull, and the hulk hung dark and motionless, caught in an eternal silent orbit by the planet's gravity.

Pidge pointed at the dark blur around the hole. "The debris field is huge, but it looks like most of it is still there. I want to check it out, although I don't know if there's anything worth salvaging."

"Every time we get close to Galra wreckage it seems like they turn up," Lance said. "We should leave the wreck alone."

"I agree with Lance," Hunk said, and nodded his head.

"But we should totally go planet-side, see what that emergency beacon is about," he continued. "There might not be anything left, but you never know. We can't just ignore it."

"I no longer agree with Lance," Hunk said.

"Lance is right," Allura said, and Lance preened a little. Keith rolled his eyes. "Coran, do you think you can narrow down the location of broadcast?"

"It will be difficult," Coran said, and gestured to the screen. The forward view was replaced by a rough schematic of the planet below. "The planet itself seems to be what is causing the electromagnetic distortion. It could take weeks to pinpoint its origin."

"We certainly don't have weeks," Shiro said. "We'll have to scan from the surface, then." He glanced around the bridge at everyone, and his gaze lingered on Keith's for what felt like an eternity. "All right, everybody, suit up."

"Keith," Allura said, as everyone filed out. "A word, if I could?"

Keith hesitated a moment, and Lance passed him. "Busted," Lance said in a singsong voice, and Keith managed to jab an elbow into his side before he could get out of range, which provoked a squeak of pain. "Yes, Princess?" Keith said, as the doors to the bridge whispered closed behind Shiro, the last one out.

Allura turned around completely and looked at him. She still wore a concerned expression on her face, and Keith folded his arms and waited. "Are you certain you're okay to fly?" she asked finally. "This isn't necessarily a combat mission, and if you wished to remain on board..."

"I'm fine," Keith said hotly. "There's nothing wrong."

Allura raised an eyebrow at this, and glanced past Keith to Coran, who still stood at the console. He coughed into his hand discretely, and Allura looked back at Keith. "As a paladin we don't discourage getting to know your teammates," Coran said. "Not even intimately, as it can mean a stronger, noble bond between partners-"

"Oh my god," Keith said.

"What Coran is trying to say," Allura said and sent a pointed look at Coran, "Is that we understand that it is a delicate time for you. Shiro explained a little about Earthling's reproductive cycles earlier."

This was officially worse than an ambush, and the only saving grace was that the rest of the team was not here to witness this. "There's nothing delicate going on," Keith said, aware that he was flushed pink. "I don't know what he told you, but I'm perfectly capable of flying the red lion right now!"

Allura nodded her head, hands clasped before her. "I am certain you are, but I just wanted to let you know that we are here for you if you need us."

Having run an entire gamut of emotion in approximately two minutes Keith was just left with resignation. "Is that all, Princess? I need to go."

"Please be careful," Allura said as Keith turned and marched toward the door himself.

"If you need to have your room assignment updated," Coran started to tell him, but the elevator doors thankfully cut him off. Keith stood in the center of the lift as it started its descent toward the ready room, then he ran both of his hands back into his hair and fought the urge to yell his frustration out.

Fuck, he really needed to punch someone. Where was Lance when he needed him?

#

"We've narrowed down the location of the broadcast to the largest continent in the upper hemisphere," Allura's voice said through the communications channel. "I don't think we're going to manage anything smaller than that."

Lance leaned forward in his seat and turned his head as far as he could in one direction. "How do we know which hemisphere is the upper one?"

"The northern hemisphere," Keith's voice was extra snippy.

"We're in space. There's no magnetic north in space."

"Even you can't be that dumb, we're about to enter the atmosphere!" The remainder of whatever it was Keith was saying was overridden by Shiro's voice, firm and loud.

"Keith, Lance! Stow it!"

"I'm beaming the transmission frequency to everyone's lions," Pidge said, and Lance looked down at the display in front of him; although he really couldn't understand any of what crossed the screen as the lions shared information. "If we split up we can canvass the continent pretty quickly. If the scanners pick up the frequency, it'll light up your board."

"Thank you, Pidge," Shiro said. "Everyone got that?"

A chorus of affirmatives echoed through the line. "Keep your communications channel open and clear," Shiro said. "I'm dispatching coordinates for everyone to start their sweeps."

The nice thing about piloting semi-sentient alien tech meant that Lance didn't have to interpret the alien coordinates himself; the blue lion immediately turned in the right direction and began flying toward magnetic north. He exhaled and kept his hands on the controls, watching the scenery fly past at record speed.

The planet itself looked, frankly, inhospitable. The ground below was barely more than desert, rolling dunes of brownish-red sand and mountains in the distance. Occasionally he'd spot groupings of some kind of foliage, it was as dingy as the rest of the landscape. "Not getting any readings on lifeforms," Lance reported aloud.

"This planet was likely abandoned after the Galra attacked," Allura's image shimmered to life on the right side of his screen. Lance nodded his head and tried not to think about what kind of devastation had rained down upon the inhabitants however long ago this occurred.

"Hey guys," Hunk's voice said. "Not to be a pessimist, but I get the feeling we might just be a little too late."

"Even if there are no survivors at the beacon site, we might still be able to learn something from the wreckage," Pidge said.

"You know how in the movies, like, someone always says 'I have a bad feeling about this,' and it turns out to be, I don't know like, a ridiculous understatement?"

"Hunk," there was some interference in Keith's voice. "Don't do it, man. Don't jinx us."

"Can we maybe focus, guys?" Shiro said.

"Is anyone else picking up that interference?" The static was now present in Pidge's voice, too.

Hunk said, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Damn it, Hunk!"

"It's probably just the electromagnetic fields that Coran detected," Shiro said, but now his voice started to sound fuzzy too.

"It's not!" Allura's voice sounded far-off and tinny, like she was talking into a metal bowl. "It's some kind of-" the transmission cut off from the castle-ship, and Lance looked at the viewscreen in alarm, only to see static. He leaned forward in his chair and looked up, but the atmosphere of the abandoned planet reflected the same dingy color as the ground, with a thick cover of dirty grey clouds.

"Guys, I just lost Allura," Lance said. "Maybe we should head back to the ship, she sounded worried."

There was no response from the communicator. Lance yanked on the controls and brought the blue lion to a stop, hovering above the ground. "Guys?" Lance said again, and there was only a minor note of panic to the edge of his voice.

He turned the blue lion around, headed back in the direction he came. "Guys, do you copy? I'm not receiving, anyone there?" Nothing but static came back on his line, and Lance swore and hit buttons. "Shiro, Hunk... anyone?"

After another long moment of silent, there was a small fizz of reception, and a recognizable voice. "-ance? Lance, do you co-"

"Keith, is that you? What happened?" Lance turned his lion just a bit, trying to figure out which direction Keith would be in. He hadn't paid much attention when they fanned out, and he was realizing now that he definitely should have. There was no additional response.

"Okay," Lance said out loud. "Now is not the time to panic."

Who was he kidding. It was the perfect time to panic.

#

The black lion hung out in the upper atmosphere, above the clouds that swirled heavy over the upper half of the planet. Shiro sat forward and stared down through the clouds, as if he could make the lion's sensors penetrate through the abnormal atmosphere through sheer force of will alone. He saw Pidge's green lion come up through the clouds again, quick.

"Still nothing," Pidge reported as her lion floated in low orbit beside Shiro's. "You get too close to the surface and you lose everything, all communications go out, all sensors. I could barely get a scan in before things went down."

"How are we going to find Keith and Lance if we can't get a message off to them?" Hunk asked worriedly.

That was the million dollar question. Shiro sat back in his seat and sighed, before flipping his communicator back on. "Lance and Keith aren't stupid," he said. "Once they realize they're not picking up anyone they'll fly out of the atmosphere and we'll be able to regain contact."

"And what if they don't? What if something's happened to them?" Hunk asked.

"We'll deal with that if it comes up," Shiro said.

"I still can't raise the castle-ship on comm," Pidge said, an edge to her voice. "At all."

"Orbit took it to the other side of the planet," Shiro said. "We'll regroup there, make sure that the Princess is all right, and figure out the next part of our plan."

"What did I say," Hunk said dejectedly. "Emergency beacons are bad news, we never should have left the ship."

"Keith and Lance can take care of themselves," Shiro said. "Whatever's going on, I'm sure they're fine."