Voltron Legendary Defender - Shining Like the Stars [91] [Shklance]

[scriveyner]

Title: shining like the stars [91]
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: slts
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Keith/Lance, Team Voltron
Rating: M
Length: 3042
Summary: Shiro's head bumped gently against the ceiling of the cockpit.



Shiro's head bumped gently against the ceiling of the cockpit. He squinted into the darkness, disoriented; his only light was the dim teal glow emanating from his Paladin armor. Shiro touched a hand to his helmet, feeling that it now completely ensconced his head. The automatic life support system of the suit had taken over, despite Shiro's sudden blackout. He exhaled, and then put his hands flat against the ceiling and pushed off, floating back down toward his seat.

It was absolutely silent inside the cockpit without the rumble of the engines or even the barely-perceptible electronic noise of the Lion's computers processing. He could hear his own breath in his ears, his heartbeat in his chest. What had happened?

A blue beam of light blinding him, Black thrashing around him in pain, so much pain – Shiro winced against the memory as he settled himself down in the pilot's seat. With the Black Lion completely offline the magnetic restraints were no longer active, just like the artificial gravity, the internal compensator, the life support system, the communications array….

Fortunately, the Paladin armor had its own internal communications system. The suit's connection with its Lion bolstered its broadcast range, so with Black being offline it was a crapshoot if anyone would be able to hear him but it was worth a shot. Shiro flipped over to it anyway, tuning the system to the frequency most often used by the Castle of Lions and the other Paladins. “Coran?” Shiro said. “Anyone? Do you copy?”

“Shiro!” It was Allura's voice that greeted him, the others must be nearby. A flood of relief washed over him, he probably wasn't captured. “Are you all right?”

“Black's completely offline.” He touched one hand to the flight control stick and didn't get any response. “I can't seem to raise her, how do I manually reboot?”

“You were hit by an ion blast, that usually fries the central processing crystal,” Matt's voice this time, somewhat strained. Shiro put both his hands on the flight controls and frowned, because even when the Lion was off and resting in her bay there was still something there. “I have no idea what the computer systems are like on these things, they almost seem alive.”

“That's because they are alive,” Pidge said. “Matt, bring Green closer, I'll jump over and help Shiro reboot Black, I've done it before. Keith needs backup, you can't hang around here.”

“What?” Matt was incredulous. “Absolutely not, you're hurt! You're not leaving me alone in this thing, Katie.”

Shiro closed his eyes, halfway tuning out the argument that sprang up between the siblings. Black was quiet, still as death … but it wasn't like she was sleeping. There was still something there , something on the barest edges of his perception. It was like catching a flicker of a shadow out of the corner of his eyes; he couldn't focus directly on it or else he'd lose it.

“We're sending Pidge over, Shiro,” Allura's voice this time, it brought him out of the trance-like state he had drifted into. Pidge must have won the argument.

Not that it mattered. “Negative,” Shiro said, his eyes still closed. “Black's completely down, I can't manually open the jaw to let Pidge in. You'll have to talk me through rebooting her over the comm.” There it was again. Shiro winced a little and tried to follow the spark but lost its thread again. Suddenly the entire craft shuddered as Shiro felt the Black Lion take a direct hit.

Without the magnetically locked restraints active, the impact shot Shiro out of his seat. He was awake this time though, and managed to brace himself, half-turning so that the impact led with his shoulder against the wall and not his head. “What was that?” he yelled.

“Company,” Matt said, his voice a little scrambled, the Green Lion must be moving out of range. “Sorry, Shiro, hang tight-”

The rest of what he said was lost in a scramble of static and Shiro muttered something into the open comm channel that he usually wouldn't say in front of cadets. He looked at the small display over his arm and saw that he hadn't lost the comm channel at all; bright red letters overlaid the information. “Jammed,” Shiro said out loud, as if anyone was listening now. “Hunk took out those dishes on the frigate first to avoid that happening, why would it kick in now? ”

Shiro pushed off against the wall with one hand and floated in zero-G for a moment, the realization staggering. The battleships that had entered the system earlier had finally made it from the far reaches of the warp point and were in range. If they didn't get out of here quickly, Voltron would be captured.

This time, with his eyes open, he saw the spark. A dash of purple on one of the dark viewscreens; and when Shiro turned his head to follow its trail he lost it in the reflected teal light of his suit. “I know you're here,” he said out loud. “We have to work together on this, but I don't know how to help you. Can you tell me?”

Nothing, for a long while. Shiro kicked off the wall and floated directly to the pilot's chair, pulling himself back into the seat with his hands tight on the flight controls. He wouldn't let go again, no matter what. Then there was a flash of something , and Shiro closed his eyes, a small smile on his face as he focused. “Ah,” he murmured. “I suspected as much...”

#

The Black Lion floated helpless in space, almost invisible against the infinite black canvas unless you were right up on it. There was a new wound to the Lion's exterior, carbon scoring from the starfighter that had sniped past before Matt whipped Green around so fast that the craft didn't have time to realign its sensors before the plasma bolt from Green's tail blasted it into space dust.

Coran was up on visual. “We've just launched from the moon, Princess,” Coran said. “We can warp once the Lions – and yourself – are back in range of the castle.”

“Thank quiznack, something's finally going right,” Allura said, and looked to the other screens as Coran's shrank away. “Keith, Hunk, did you both get that?”

“Copy that,” Keith's voice was strained. The Red Lion was flying a tight corkscrew around the aft of the frigate, and a wing of drones were swarming him; never mind the bevy of turbolaser fire that the Lion was drawing. “How's Shiro?”

Matt glanced to the viewscreen that showed the Black Lion hanging limply, running lights still extinguished. “We'll get back to you on that,” he said. “Head back this way, I can help knock a few of your groupies off your tail.”

There wasn't a response to that and Pidge looked to the communications display; red circles with slashes through them now occupied all the active slots. “What the hell?” she said. “How are they jamming us now?”

The view outside the Lion spun as Matt juked the Green Lion around, blasts of turbolaser fire lighting up the screen on all sides. Between them and the waystation where the prison ship was still docked was a massive Galra battleship. “Holy shit ,” Matt yelled, and yanked back on the flight controls, looping the Green Lion up and away.

“Shiro!” Allura yelled, but the Black Lion was already completely off their screens. “We can't leave him, turn around this instant!”

“Yeah, so we can get friend just like he did?” Matt said, stomping the rudder pedals and turning the Lion on a dime. “Hang on, Princess!”

Both Pidge and Allura clung to the back of the pilot's seat as Matt spun the Green Lion, avoiding the rain of plasma fire expertly. “Jawblade,” Pidge said, and Matt nodded. The Green Lion ran up alongside the battleship, jawblade out and carving a large swath of destruction along the side of the ship. It wasn't enough, but the explosions that littered their path was enough to cut the battery of turbolaser fire for a few brief moments.

“We have to get back to Shiro,” Allura said. “And tow the Black Lion back to the castle!”

“What about Hunk and Keith?” Pidge said. “Did they both get Coran's transmission too?”

“I have no idea,” Allura said grimly, as the Black Lion appeared in their forward view again. This time, though, the emergency lights on the exterior of the Black Lion were lit, but it was still hanging helplessly in space.

“He's got her running again,” Matt said, relieved.

“Not entirely,” Allura said. “He'll still have to reboot her.” Pidge started to move toward the back of the cockpit, intent on making the jump to the Black Lion to help. “No, Pidge,” Allura said. “Let me out here, I can help him get it rebooted. Your brother is right, you're injured.”

“I can still help,” Pidge said, and Matt glanced back at them for a second.

“Katie,” he said.

“You two, find Hunk and lead him back to the ship, we'll get Keith once we get moving,” Allura touched her helmet and it completely covered her head, making her suit vacuum-resistant.

“I'm not leaving you while the Black Lion's incapacitated,” Matt said, focused on the forward view. “We're staying until it's moving under its own power again.”

“Bring her in closer,” Allura said as they pulled alongside the Black Lion. “Go and find Hunk,” she repeated, as the floor opened up beneath her to allow Allura exit from the Green Lion. “That's an order!”

Pidge stared at the spot on the floor that closed up behind the Princess. “That's an order ,” she repeated in a higher voice, imitating Allura's angrily. “We're not leaving until they're mobile.”

“Damn straight we're not,” Matt said, and they watched as Allura kicked off the Green Lion, one hand outstretched toward the Black Lion. “We can't afford to lose both the Black Paladin and the Breath of the Lions.” He glanced at his screen and at the Galra battleship, which was starting to roll, likely to bring the undamaged weapons on the other side to bear on them. “She doesn't have a lot of time, though.”

“Where's Hunk and Keith?” Pidge asked out loud, and as Matt started to respond that he didn't have any idea, two small screens overlaid the jammed visual comm and he realized she was asking the Lion, and not him. Hunk was too far out of range for the exterior cameras, so it showed the HUD with a small yellow lion's head for Hunk's location – on the other side of the battleship and moving away all the while. “What's he doing?” she said, and slammed her good hand against the back of the pilot's chair in frustration. “Dammit, Hunk!”

“He's looking to see if there's an ejected pod from Illya's starfighter,” Matt said softly. “On the off chance she punched out in time.”

Pidge bit her lip and glanced away, looking at the battleship again. “Yeah,” she said, her gut twisting. “Fat lot of it will do him if they both get captured.”

#

The head's up display had marked the last coordinate transmitted before the small Galra-made starfighter stopped broadcasting its location and was presumably destroyed. Hunk kept one eye on it, the coordinates moved to the main screen of the Yellow Lion's cockpit; the point still distant. She had been close to the prison ship, and there were still drone starfighters about, even if there weren't as many as had been protecting the frigate.

“Come on, come on,” Hunk said, desperately scanning the wreckage of starfighters as he flew Yellow with thrusters wide open. A ping rang off his sensors and Hunk's attention flew to it, fingers flying over the console to bring up its information. The ping was remote-activated; no actual communications were sent with it but Hunk almost laughed in his relief. It was an automated ping from an ejector seat. The Yellow Lion's tail thrashed as Hunk reoriented toward the source of the ping, flying quickly through the debris field. He opened the comm, hoping to raise her but was met with static. He frowned and jabbed at the controls, then glanced up to the visual comm and saw that they were all offline, with blink red sigils covering the open transmission lines.

“That doesn't make any sense,” Hunk said out loud, and the Yellow Lion twisted in its flight path as the new, large threat loomed behind him. “I know I took out the – ohhhh no.” The battleship took up nearly all the viewscreen. “Oh, no. Oh no no no, that's not good.” He flipped the Yellow Lion expertly and pushed the Lion to its full speed, headed toward the ping. “Hang on, Illianya,” he said. “I'm coming for you!”

#

The Black Lion's mouth was slightly open now, which allowed Allura to float in and board. She ignored the ominous dim glow of the plasma cannon that sat behind the boarding ramp and pulled herself into the cockpit. Some of the Lion's internal systems were back online and operational, but apparently the artificial gravity was not one of them. “Shiro, are you all right?”

There was no answer.

Allura swallowed hard and floated into the cockpit proper, pushing off the door with her feet and catching onto the back of the pilot's chair with both hands. Her first fear – that she would find the cockpit, and the pilot's chair completely empty – was allayed by seeing Shiro there, although he was slumped forward and clutching both flight controls tightly. “Shiro,” Allura said, relieved, but he again didn't respond.

She kicked around the chair, hanging onto it with one hand so that she could see him properly. Shiro was leaned over, his helmet tilted down and she couldn't see his face. Allura reached out to touch him tentatively, and Shiro jerked back but did not lift his head. “We don't have time for this,” Allura snapped, and Shiro reacted to her words and finally lifted his head.

His eyes were open wide, staring at nothing and glowing a soft purple.

Allura stared at him for a moment, her mouth open. Shiro's face was entirely blank. “Oh, no,” Allura said, softly at first. She released the pilot's chair and instead put both her hands on Shiro's helmet, turning his face up. “No, don't you dare ,” her voice was angry now. “You let him go. ”

Shiro let out a strangled noise, a choked cry. The purple glow seemed to be spreading, but Allura wasn't having any of it. “I command you,” she hissed, and slammed Shiro bodily back into the seat. He made another pained noise, and the purple glow got brighter for a split second before it went completely out. At the same time, all the monitors and view screens around them lit to their full capacity, and the artificial gravity kicked back in. Allura fell with a hard thud, banging her helmet off Shiro's thigh and sprawling back. She swore several phrases in straight Altean as her helmet helpfully went partial now that life support was back on.

Shiro was panting in the pilot's seat, almost wheezing like he couldn't catch his breath. He tilted forward a little, still hanging tight to the flight controls and staring straight ahead like he was looking through what was in front of him. Allura pushed herself upright. “Shiro,” she said authoritatively, and he jumped in his chair and looked at her instantly, startled, as if he had no idea she was standing before him. She exhaled heavily and asked, “are you all right?”

“What happened?” Shiro said, his voice thick. “What just happened?”

“I will explain later,” Allura said. “I promise.” Shiro stared at her wildly, and she continued, “are you able to fly?” He better be, because she sincerely doubted that the Black Lion would let her pilot if he couldn't. Especially after that.

He nodded his head and wet his lips, swallowing. Shiro took a very deep breath and held it for a moment, then sat back in the chair and squared his shoulders; the fear seeming to melt off him as he assessed where they were at. “Are visual comms still down?” Shiro asked, glancing at the array of blacked-out boxes at the side of his screen.

“The battleship is jamming us,” Allura said. “The Green Lion should be headed for Hunk, to let him know we're to head back to the castle. I don't know why Lance isn't here, we need him to form Voltron and without Voltron there is no winnable scenario here. We must flee.”

Shiro nodded his head and glanced up, seeing the explosions lighting up the frigate on their other side. “Keith?”

“Yes,” Allura said.

“Let's go get him,” Shiro said, and pulled back on the controls. The Black Lion roared, its engines surging to life. It shot forward, heading toward the frigate, and the Red Lion.