Voltron Legendary Defender - Shining Like the Stars [89] [Shklance]

[scriveyner]

Title: shining like the stars [89]
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: slts
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Keith/Lance, Team Voltron
Rating: M
Length: 2432
Summary: “Green Lion, this is Kestrel Lead. Do you copy?”




“Green Lion, this is Kestrel Lead. Do you copy?”

Pidge sat forward in the pilot's seat. She had scavenged some scraps from the Green Lion's hold to construct a makeshift sling for her arm, in order to keep herself from damaging it further – but she had come across a new issue having done that. “I copy, Kestrel Lead,” Pidge said, acknowledging Illianya's hail. She rested her right hand on the flight control. “Negative for flight at the moment, however I might have a work around here shortly.” She could see the expanse of starfield past the opening of the launch bay, and the Green Lion sat primed and ready to go … the problem being that she was down to only one operable limb and the Lion was a dual-control rig.

“Is the Lion damaged?” A starfighter shot by the opening of the launch bay, solo, and in the very far distance Pidge could see a faint spatter of artillery fire that spoke of what the others were currently keeping busy. Illianya's voice didn't sound worried, and Pidge leaned to her left, twisting so that she could reach one of the controls on that side with her right arm.

“Green's fine,” she said. “I'm just having some-” she jammed her wounded shoulder into the back of the seat as she twisted and inhaled sharply in pain. “Technical difficulties,” she finished through gritted teeth. Maybe she could reroute the control rig for the cockpit to be entirely through the right flight control and foot pedals. Maybe.

“The path to the Castle of Lions is clear for the moment,” Illianya said, “but it won't remain that way for long, once the rest of the fleet arrives. It would be in your best interests to move quickly.”

“Yeah,” Pidge said as she brought up the diagnostic menu. It was completely in Altean. She made a face at it, and flipped through to another menu. “I figured.”

#

Keith hit the tile floor hard, landing flat on his back and knocking the wind clear out of him. He wheezed, trying to suck oxygen back into his lungs and still dazzled by the white flash of light that had nearly blinded him. It took a moment for him to process; to realize that his hand wasn't curled into sand, that the dome was no longer above his head – that he was no longer in the Altean gladiator arena at all but in the training room in the Castle of Lions. He rolled himself into a sitting position at the protest of aching muscles and looked to his right, where Lance lay sprawled face-down on the floor, one arm flung out and his head turned away from Keith.

Fuck.

Keith scrambled over and grabbed Lance by the shoulder, rolling him roughly onto his back. The black tee shirt he had been wearing was rucked up over his belly, but his brown skin was unmarred. Keith could still feel the way the blade of his bayard sunk into Lance's flesh and it made him sick to his stomach. “Lance,” he said, desperate, and put one hand on Lance's face, turning it. He wasn't waking up, why wasn't he waking up?

“Get your hands off him!”

Keith looked up, his chest heaving, just as Rian pushed himself off the floor. The Altean was breathing laboriously, and the marks on his cheeks were glowing a faint green. “Don't touch him,” Rian spat and staggered upright. Keith looked away from him, his attention drawn back down to Lance. Lance was breathing, but he wasn't responding at all; not to the touch of Keith's hand on his face or the pressure of Keith's other hand on his shoulder.

“Lance,” Keith said again, the panic curdling in his belly. “Lance, don't do this, I didn't mean-” he didn't even get to finish his thought before Rian hit him.

The blow was off-balance and not hard enough to do any real damage, to do anything other than stun him. Keith's hand flew to his temple and he rocked back on his knees as Rian loomed over him and Lance both. “How can you even think to call yourself a Paladin,” Rian hissed, his hands curled tight into fists. “When you can do that to someone you call an ally?”

The retorts all died on Keith's lips, lodged hard as pebbles in his throat. Rian was right. Keith didn't have any excuse, any reason for it. He had struck Lance, he had hurt Lance; fucking hell he had probably killed him in front of that crowd. Keith was already panting, he could form words because he couldn't think of anything other than the feeling of bayard hitting bone, the smell of blood on the sand, the look in Lance's eyes-

Keith rocked back on his knees and barely made it far enough away before he retched and threw up all over the clean white floor of the training room.

What the fuck was wrong with him…?

When he glanced back over, Rian was now kneeling over Lance, and he turned his face away from Keith. Keith wanted to ask what the hell he thought he was doing, but then they both heard the sound of running feet and looked up. Coran flung himself through the open doorway of the training room. “What happened?” Coran yelled, crossing the room as fast as Keith had ever seen him move.

“He won't-” Keith started to croak out, but Rian's voice overrode his.

“He won't wake up, Coran,” Rian said, and the undercurrent of worry in Rian's voice made Keith prickle despite feeling ill. “He was injured in the memory core.”

“Blast,” Coran said, dropping to his knees beside Rian. He looked over at Keith and there was no judgment in his eyes; not yet but Keith knew it would be there soon enough. “We have to get him to one of the healing pods, that will help bring him around. Keith, I need you to-”

Keith staggered to his feet. He was staring down at Lance and again seeing the blood pooling around him where he had fallen, puddling in the divots left by their feet in the sand. He couldn't hear Coran's voice anymore, but he could sense Rian staring up at him, eyes narrowed and watching for his next move.

Without a word, Keith turned on his heel and fled out the door of the training room.

#

It took three good kicks and an awful lot of swearing, but Allura's boot finally broke through the grate and sent the metal cover clattering to the floor below. It was noisy enough to draw attention but Allura didn't wait to see what sort, dropping the five meters to the ground and landing lightly on her feet. She looked around once, and then glanced up, as Matt's legs emerged from the vent above her. “It's quite a drop,” she called, as he released his grip.

Matt let out a grunt of surprise when Allura caught him in a princess carry. “I said,” she repeated patiently, and slightly amused, “that it's quite a drop.” He twisted in her arms, surprising her but she didn't drop him. That turned out to be a good thing as he brought his blaster to bear and shot the two guards who had come around the stack of crates to investigate the strange noise.

“We've got company,” Matt said unnecessarily, and Allura slung him back to his feet. “Where is your shuttle parked?”

“Not here,” Allura said, and she began to run along the edge of the wall, behind the crates. They provided decent enough cover, which ended when the crates were stacked into an L-shape flush with the wall. No guards had come to see what happened to the first two yet, but it was only a matter of time – they both could hear the echo of blaster fire in the distance. Matt followed behind Allura, covering their rear, until they came up on the dead end.

“What do you mean, 'not here'?” Matt said. “Are we in the wrong hangar or something?” Allura put her shoulder against one of the stacks of crates against the wall and shoved it, using all her strength. That caused the entire stack to sway, but created an opening large enough for both of them to squeeze through. Allura wove around it deftly, and then touched her communicator as Matt followed suit.

“Pidge, have you launched yet?”

“Not yet,” Pidge responded immediately, and Allura exhaled in relief, now able to see the Green Lion crouched near the launch point of the hangar bay. “Where are you guys, have you gotten off the prison ship yet?”

Allura almost didn't duck in time as blaster fire sprayed in their direction from across the hangar bay; Matt shoved her forward enough so that it flew above her head. “Not quite,” she said, giving Matt a glare that he ignored as he returned fire on the Galra troops. “Whatever you do, don't launch just yet.”

“Yeah, okay,” Pidge said from the cockpit of the Green Lion, her good hand on the controls and watching the swarming drone Galra fighters on the HUD cut off the escape route to the castle-ship. “Sure, waiting around. I can do that.”

#

The bridge was completely empty.

Keith was still breathing hard as he stepped out of the turbolift. Two of the mice sitting on the central console started chittering at him but he ignored them, walking with purpose toward the dais where Princess Allura usually stood.

Everything was falling apart around him, and it was like he couldn't catch his breath. Keith put his hand flat on the corner of the console and was relieved to see flesh; he hadn't thought to glance in a mirror, to see if that cursed transformation followed him out of the memory core this time. He'd do so much to push aside his past, to forget it, to start over on Earth, to be among people.

Maybe he really wasn't fit for it.

Half-breed.

Movement on one of the castle-ship's security monitors caught his attention and he touched the screen. It enlarged to show the hallway leading toward the medical bay. Coran had Lance slung up on his back, still completely limp, and Rian followed doggedly behind them. Keith made to touch the display, to touch that tiny representation of Lance, but then he felt his emotions surge again, twist up and choke him and he swiped it closed before setting his palm against his neck and the half-healed bruise.

It had been instinct, adrenaline, bloodlust – he could dismiss it any way he wanted but the fact remained that without hesitation he had hurt Lance. If they hadn't been in the memory core Lance would be dead right now. And it was his fault. Keith took another gulping breath, felt ill again and realized there was nothing really left in his stomach to be ill with. He covered his mouth with one hand and looked back to the display, saw the flashing icon and swiped in on instinct, a distraction.

It was the visual display array. All active windows flew up to hover around him. Visual checks on the cockpits of the Black and Yellow Lions, the Green Lion grayed out with an exclamation point and the Blue and Red Lions listed as offline. There were audio only feeds to the left of the visual checks, and all the long range cameras were active. The heads up display was the one flashing currently, and when Keith selected it, it grew in size to a three dimensional map overlay of the system.

He gestured to zoom in on Eaphus, and saw the indicators for the waystation, the prison ship and the frigate – then as Keith zoomed in further it was a veritable explosion of color. Hundred of tiny red dots appeared, moving in swarm patterns around three fixed points. The Lions.

They were overwhelmed.

There was something additional flashing outside of the zoomed in portion of the HUD, and when Keith touched his finger to it the map zoomed out and showed markers for additional ships. A fleet of Galra ships were headed toward Eaphus, and there were only two Voltron Lions active in the fight.

You'll end up hurting them, too.

His stomach shrank and hardened into a rock that threatened to explode. They didn't know what he was capable of, he didn't know what he was capable of; he thought that he had this under control, but clearly he didn't-

“Keith.”

He turned away from the display, surprised to find that his hand was still over his mouth. Keith dropped his hand to his side and looked to Coran, who looked tired and angry. He knew. Of course he knew, Rian probably told him everything by now. “What are you still doing here?”

Leave. Run away. You're not wanted here either, half-breed.

“I, I-” Keith looked to the display, the small screens that showed Hunk and Shiro's faces, concentrated on their flying, before his attention flew back to Coran, already crossing the bridge. “Coran, I-”

“They need your help,” Coran said, cutting him off.

What? “What about Lance?” Keith said, and he couldn't help the way his voice cracked. “How is he, will he-”

“You're a paladin of Voltron, aren't you?” There was a harshness to his tone that made Keith's skin prickle, and he took a step back as Coran replaced him on the dais, his fingers flying over the holographic displays. “Go. They need you.”

Keith took another step back, and another, but Coran didn't look over at him again, concentrating on what he was doing. He didn't look up at all when Keith left the bridge, and the last thing Keith heard was Coran speaking into the ship's communicator, instructing Rian on how to get the reactors flipped to get the engines manually out of sleep mode.