Voltron Legendary Defender - Shining Like the Stars [93] [Shklance]

[scriveyner]

Title: shining like the stars [93]
Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender
AU: slts
Characters/Pairing: Shiro/Keith/Lance, Team Voltron
Rating: M
Length: 2590
Summary: There were two healing pods actively in use when Shiro entered the med bay. Matt stood before the pod that Pidge had been placed in, still wearing his black flightsuit and with his arms folded tight as he watched the pod intently. “You convinced her finally?” Shiro asked as he stopped beside Matt.



There were two healing pods actively in use when Shiro entered the med bay. Matt stood before the pod that Pidge had been placed in, still wearing his black flightsuit and with his arms folded tight as he watched the pod intently. “You convinced her finally?” Shiro asked as he stopped beside Matt.

His oldest friend wouldn't look at him and Shiro felt a quiet pang in his chest. “She didn't want to go under,” was all Matt said in a clipped tone.

Shiro nodded his head once and then looked to the other healing pod where Lance's inert form resided. Lance had no visible injuries, and according to the display his vitals were strong … but he had yet to come out of the deep slumber that the healing pods placed their occupants under. “Matt,” Shiro started, but Matt spoke at the same time.

“This is all my fault,” Matt said, and hunched his shoulders forward as if he was folding in on himself. “I wanted to tag the prison ship and I let Katie convince me that we could free the prisoners and grab a manifest. It was stupid and reckless and I got people killed.”

Shiro's jaw tightened. “It was my call to leave the Yellow Lion,” he said. “They're not dead.”

“If they're captured, they may as well be.”

“If they're captured,” Shiro said forcefully. “We'll rescue them.”

Matt looked up at Shiro sharply. “Like you rescued me?”

Shiro inhaled, stung. Matt looked away again, at the pod, his own jaw held tight. Before Shiro could respond to that the doors to the med bay opened. Shiro didn't take his eyes off Matt right away, although Matt wouldn't look at him, clearly done with the conversation. Finally he glanced back to the entrance, to see Keith frozen in place on the threshold. “Am I interrupting something?” Keith asked, more careful with his words than usual, and Shiro looked at Matt and then shook his head.

“No,” he said, looking at Lance's healing pod a moment before looking back to Keith. “What is it?”

“We need to talk.”

“Yeah,” Shiro said, and turned away from the healing pods, and Matt. “We do.”



Allura stood on the central control dais, arms folded, and stared out the viewscreen. Coran was working from his console, scanning for contact from the Yellow Lion as well as keeping an eye on the Castleship's systems. One of the Altean mice sat perched on Allura's shoulder, chattering quietly in an attempt to soothe her roiling emotions. She appreciated the effort, even if it was wasted.

“No bursts from the Eaphus system as of yet,” Coran reported. “Seems that the Galra fleet still have a jammer broadcasting as I'm not even getting stray transmissions from the moon or its waystation.”

“All that effort,” Allura said, “and we weren't even able to take out a battleship.” She had seen this team take down Galra vessels before, even without Voltron's formation; although battleships were an entire class above the usual transport and scout vessels.

“Eh, I dunno,” Rian said, and she glanced over at him. Rian had seated himself comfortably at the Blue Paladin's console, and had the ship's systems up as well, working to bring the particle barriers back up to one hundred percent. “I'd say two crippled battleships and a frigate falling back into Eaphus's orbit isn't exactly a bad outcome.” He shrugged. “There's also a whole host of freed prisoners running loose now. The fleet will be licking their wound for weeks, at the very least.”

Coran inclined his head a moment, and then looked back at them. “That is true, Princess. It wasn't just minimal damage inflicted by the Lions. The battleships may remain in the Eaphus system for weeks undergoing repairs.”

“I fail to see how that is an optimal outcome,” Allura said icily, “when we have left one of our own behind in their midst.” She exhaled and realized that she was digging her fingers uncomfortably into the arm of her suit. Allura forced herself to relax her hand. “Keep scanning, Coran. If anyone can figure out a way to let us know that they're all right, it'll be Hunk.”

The main doors to the bridge opened, and Allura turned to see Matt, in his black flightsuit. “How is Pidge?” she asked, and he looked around the bridge and seemed momentarily lost.

“Healing,” Matt said.

“It's good to know that in a pinch the Green Lion will get along with an additional pilot,” Allura said, and Rian snorted. She ignored him. “I've never considered that the Lions may form bonds with others as well, it wouldn't be a bad idea to think about backup pilots. We were vastly crippled by being unable to form Voltron today.”

“Backup pilots have never been done,” Coran said. “But the Lions do have minds of their own, so maybe it bears consideration!”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Listen though, I was thinking.” He glanced around the bridge again, looking for something that clearly was no there. “There were way too many battleships in-system,” he said finally. “And that frigate. How did they all get there so fast?”

“Do the Galra ships warp?” Rian said. “I didn't think the big ones did. Takes too much energy, crystals don't come that large. I figured they only ran on quantum drives.”

“If they don't warp, that would mean that the battleships all like originated from the same location,” Allura said. “Do you think there's a base that's not on our starmap?” She dropped her hands to her sides. “Coran-”

Coran was already pulling up the starmap, anticipating Allura's line of inquiry almost immediately. “We've identified several Galra bases,” he said, and the known Galra bases were violet clusters in the midst of the teal-colored map. “As well as the heart of the Empire. However, there aren't any known bases near the Eaphus system.”

“You're missing three bases,” Rian said, squinting at his console.

“Five, I think,” Matt said, pointing to a blank spot. “There's definitely one right here, this is where we dumped our freighter and stole the starfighters.”

“If there's a Galra base nearby,” Allura said slowly, “perhaps the battleships won't linger in system, now that we've gone; and we'll be able to go back for Hunk.”

“That's strange,” Coran said. He pointed to a blank spot on the map between two star systems. “Here, there should be a binary system. But if I overlay our original map – he brought up a pinkish starmap, which showed the bright little star system. “There it is. Odd.”

“Your original map is, what, ten thousand years old?” Rian leaned forward. “Maybe the system went supernova in that time.”

“Ten thousand years is a blip of time to a star,” Matt said. “And if it went nova there would be a black hole, which would show darker on the map than just nothing.” He tapped the forearm of his flightsuit where there was hard, shiny armor, and a small holographic map displayed. “It's missing off my map too,” he said. “Just like there was empty space between the systems.”

“That's not suspicious at all,” Rian leaned forward. “We're gonna check it out, right?”

“Later,” Allura said. “Our first priority is retrieving Hunk and the Yellow Lion.” She put her hand on her console. “Coran, resume your scans of the system. Hunk is out there, somewhere, and we'll find him.”

#

There really wasn't any good place on the ship to do this, so Keith stopped in one of the ready rooms. It was one that had entire walls of viewscreens, set to the belly cameras of the Castleship and currently showing nothing but an endless expanse of stars. It was a nice view to look at, if nothing else, because he wasn't sure that he would be able to deliver this directly to Shiro's face. “Keith,” Shiro said, walking through the doors behind him, and Keith shook his head sharply, his back still to Shiro.

“No,” he said. “Don't … just, let me talk, okay?”

Shiro said nothing in acknowledgment, and Keith didn't have the fortitude to face him yet, so he just plowed ahead. “The reason that Lance couldn't help out, the reason that he's in the healing pod is because of me.” Keith swallowed hard. “In the memory core, I...” the sun filtered through a dome, the crunch of sand under his feet, the smell of blood thick in the air “It's my fault.”

Keith nearly jumped when Shiro's hand landed on his shoulder, warm and comforting. “Keith,” Shiro said softly. “I nearly got Lance killed in the memory core too; but the memory core isn't reality.”

“No,” Keith shook his head violently. “Shiro, it's not the same.”

“You can't hold yourself responsible,” Shiro said. “I'm sure Lance wouldn't.”

Keith shrugged himself out from under Shiro's hand and turned, because the words weren't fitting together right. “It's not the same,” he said again, insistently. “You don't understand, Shiro, I killed him.” The words felt vile, and Keith felt sick spitting them out but Shiro had to know what he'd done, he had to understand what monster he'd invited into his bed. “I … I killed him,” he said again. “We were fighting in a ring, and I just...” Keith inhaled raggedly, staring at the floor because he couldn't bring himself to look Shiro in the face. “He was trying to protect Rian, and I just cut him down.”

The silence stretched longer than Keith could bear. “I'm so sorry,” he whispered, and folded his arms against his chest, turning away.

Shiro let out a long, low sound that wasn't quite a sigh and wasn't quite a groan. Then he stepped forward and put his arm over Keith's shoulders, pulling him against Shiro. Keith's eyes flew open in surprise and he tried to jerk away, but Shiro used his prosthetic arm and that easily overpowered Keith, keeping him close. “What happens in the memory core is not reality,” Shiro repeated, although there was a new tightness to his voice. “I know you, Keith. You would never purposefully hurt Lance, you love him.”

Keith buried his face against Shiro's shoulder and somehow, a strangled noise escaped him. “I wish you did know me,” he said softly, as Shiro stroked his back slowly. “Maybe then you wouldn't be so forgiving.”

#

“Okay,” Hunk said, hanging slightly suspended, as red alert warnings flashed all along the left side of the Yellow Lion's cockpit. “Maybe that could have gone just a tiny bit better.” He tapped a control panel on his Paladin armor and the magnetic lock restraints that kept him in the pilot's seat released. Despite bracing himself Hunk still fell hard against the left viewscreens, flailing directly through several holographic consoles.

He sat up and shook his head, somewhat rattled, and then looked down at the displays he was seated on. The view outside was completely black, but from the right side viewscreens he could see night sky, and bare edge of a planet's curve. After a long moment the red flashing lights stopped and the warning klaxon went off, and Hunk felt the Yellow Lion grumble.

“Yeah okay, I'm sorry,” Hunk said. “Crash landings generally involve crashing. I'm not a pilot, I don't know what you want from me. I didn't want to crash either.” There was another rumble, and Hunk only felt a little bit ridiculous talking directly to the Yellow Lion like this. “Hey, at least we got away from the Galra, I'm sure they would have taken you apart to figure out how you ticked. How you tick. You're still ticking. You would only stop if they took you apart, which I'm not gonna let happen. You would stop ticking if they took you apart, right?” He put one hand on the side of his helmet and frowned. “Do I have a concussion?”

Yellow apparently didn't feel like responding to that, so Hunk scrambled to his feet and pressed around on the top interior of the Lion's cockpit, until he found the hatch. Fortunately, the hatch wasn't buried in the dirt and rubble from the aforementioned crash landing and he was able to clamber out of the Yellow Lion and onto the surface of the moon of Eaphus.

There was a long furrow of devastation in the forest behind the Yellow Lion, showing a direct path of descent. “Well, that won't take them long to find us,” Hunk said, his hands on his hips. “Us. Us. Illianya!!”

Dirt and loose debris scattered as Hunk slid slightly down the side of the hill, to where the Yellow Lion's jaws were clamped tightly shut. “Come on girl,” he said, one hand on the jaw of the Yellow Lion. “I promise I'll dig you out and wash all the dirt of, just open up for me right now.”

It took a long moment before the Yellow Lion responded, but it slowly dragged open its jaw, and Hunk saw the ejection seat and the limp form in black still strapped to it. He hadn't had time to even think since the Yellow Lion scooped up the jump seat from the vacuum of space, between escaping the battleships and trying to figure out what to do without any radio contact all he knew was that he had her.

Hunk climbed into the mouth of the Yellow Lion, over to the jump seat, and very carefully reached out to touch Illianya. “Please don't be dead,” he said, half under his breath. “Please don't be dead, please don't be-” her shoulder was warm through the thick material of the flightsuit, and Hunk almost laughed in relief. “You're not dead,” he said excitedly, although Illianya didn't respond Hunk felt a million times better already. Okay, sure, they were crash-landed on the moon of a gas planet SURROUNDED by Galra fleet looking specifically for them, without any backup or extraction and okay, Hunk really needed to stop thinking about this because he was going to give himself a panic attack. He patted Illianya's shoulder, then worked on unstrapping her from her jump seat.

“Thank fuck, you're alive,” he said, then shook his head. “I have got to stop hanging out with Lance, his language is such a bad influence on me.”