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Chapter 3
***
Pidge’s list has fifteen names on it, plus the captain Keith saw on Zhimin. Keith decides to let the captain alone for now and investigate on the other members of the crew, starting from the pure-blood ones. Especially because three out of five are the communications officers on the three cruisers, so it is possible he cut off the communication to avoid the rest of the crew realizing Keith was on board too
Keith finds the first on the list in a bar of the second district of Daibazaal. This is Rhayn, and he was the communications officers on the main cruiser.
It’s afternoon time and the bar isn’t too much crowded. Keith individuates Rhayn at the counter and sit down in the free spot next to him. He orders a drink and tries to spy on Rhayn without being noticed, as he tries to find a way to begin a conversation.
A holo-screen broadcasts the news. The journalist speaks about Keith’s death and about the fact the Duaces authorized the creation of a bio-pic movie about him, collecting testimonies from the people that knew him.
“It’s important for Daibazaal to create as much content as possible about the Red Paladin before it’s too late. Now that there are still people alive that can tell us the truth about him…”
Keith snorts, remembering the bad cartoon it was created on Earth. Nothing about that was true, despite the fact that all the Paladins were still alive at that time. Keith sure hopes to return to the land of living in time to stop that.
“Any problems?”
“What?” Keith turns and blinks at the giant half-galra who looks at him threatening.
“Do you have any problems with the Red Paladin?”
“What? No. I… don’t…”
“You snorted. I saw you.”
“I… That’s not… That’s not it.”
“Then what?” The half-galra leaned too much towards him. Keith surely doesn’t want a fight on his first day of investigation.
“I was just…. Isn’t a little too early for a movie? Maybe we should let the people grieving…”
The half-galra looks at him, not entirely convinced. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Oh. Yes. I came-”
“Well, first lesson. Do not talk about the Red Paladin. You’re not worthy.”
The punch arrives in a flash, but Keith is fast enough to block it. The strength of the blow makes Keith fells from the chair and stumbles into Rhayn before standing again.
“What the fuck?” he protests, realizing the half-galra is supported by all the other customers. He and Rhayn are the only pure-blood inside the bar.
“Enough,” the bartender intervenes. “Not scenes in my local. Leave, the drink is on me.”
Keith blinks as he realizes the bartender is talking only with him. “But I…”
“Out.”
He shakes his head and leaves, with the eyes of the others on him, malicious. Once in the street, he still has a lingering feeling of threat and startles as someone approaches him. It’s Rhayn.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, it’s okay. Just…” Keith throws a look at the bar’s door. “It’s always like that here?”
Rhayn sighs. “Well, the Red Paladin was the hero in Daibazaal, and I understand it. I like the man too. But since his death, well, everyone started to get a little bit over the edge about it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Keith’s hand is inside his pocket, brushing softly Red’s head for the cat to activate his powers. “Or it is?”
“Yeah, it’s not… I was even on the rescue mission… but there’s nothing to save there… only debris and space pirates…”
“Space pirates?”
Rhayn blinks. “Do you say something?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay.” He looks lost for a second. “Well, just for you interest… There is a local in the six district… Name’s the witch’s den. The owner is a pure-blood galra and recently we all go there… you know, all of us.” He smiles and Keith nods. “So, if you want a place to have a drink in peace, go there.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. If we don’t help each other…”
He waves his hand and let Keith alone in the street. Keith waits for him to disappears in the crowd before taking the first dark corner and call for Kosmo. He appears on his shoulder, licking his face, before teleporting him away, towards the second name of the list.
Abana is another communication officers. Keith finds her at the children park in the first district. As Kosmo disappears, Keith slips on the bench next to Abana. He looks at the children: most of them are pure-blood galra, or at least they look like that. He remembers the Duaces and their stats about the galra population.
“Who is yours?”
It takes a second for Keith to realize Abana is speaking with him. “Oh, no one. I’m just waiting for a friend of mine.”
“Oh, I see. Strange place.”
“He lives nearby,” Keith explains. “And yours?”
She points at a child with blue skin that is playing with sand. “My darling.”
“Is… is a half-blood, right?”
Abana frowns. “Is that a problem?” Her voice is cold. Red moves inside his pocket.
“If you’re one of them…”
“No. Not at all! I was just wondering…” Keith licks his lips. “I’m new here and after what happened… Outside Daibazaal there are a lot of voices…”
“Oh Holy Deity. I hate that. I hate them.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here, so you can realize by yourself they’re all voices. Only because a small group is bad, doesn’t mean we all are.” She glares. “Are you?”
“Are you?”
“I’m not one of them!”
“N-no, absolutely no…”
“Then I suggest you to be more careful next time.”
“I can’t believe it. As I don’t have enough problem with half-bloods…”
She stands up and she moves in another bench. Keith sighs and takes off his datapad, to give the impression to wait for someone, while he just scrolls the news bored, as he tries to find the next name on the list.
Once he passes enough time, Keith leaves. Kosmo reaches for him and Keith rubs his muzzle. “If I keep this way, I’ll end up in a fight within the end of the day.”
He doesn’t, but he doesn’t find any useful information either. He met the other three pure-blood galra on the list, and all of them doesn’t look members of a terroristic group. One of them was even at the Blade of Marmora Headquarters to speak about what his sport team can do to celebrate the Red Paladin.
He manages to reach for other two people of the cruisers’ crew, both half-blood galra. In their case, Keith tries to find information about their thoughts about their crewmates, but it seems they don’t have any grudge or suspect about their behavior.
The commander is out of Keith’s league for the moment, and Keith doesn’t want to risk his cover to blow up so soon. There should be some records inside the commander tower of the space port, and Keith has a plan to infiltrate inside to check, but first he decides to give a try and take more information out of Rahyn.
He was, after all, the only one he didn’t piss off in some way.
So, in the evening, he finds himself in front of the door of the Witch’s Den. The six district is on the suburb of Daibazaal city, and the bar looks like a small place, not particularly cured. Still, the inside is comfy. Instead of the usual purple color, the walls are decorated in a shade of yellow, and it gives the place an idea of light and it makes it bigger than it is. It has two rooms, one with the counter and the table for dinner and another with bigger tables for playing holo-games.
Only pure-blood galra are there. Keith finds Rahyn in the second room. He sits down at one of the tables with other people, playing Monsters&Mana. Keith gets near, unsure if he remembers him.
“Oh, hei!” Rahyn greets him. “I’m glad you come.”
“Thank to you. Nice place.”
“Yeah, it is. Would you like to join us? Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Yorak. And no, thank you. I don’t want to interrupt your game. But I don’t mind the company.”
Rahyn nods with his head to take a chair, before introducing him to the rest of the company. “Yorak had a bad encounter with some of the Red Paladin’s stans today,” he explains.
The other Galra look at him sympathetic. “Sorry about that,” says one of them. “They’re being exaggerated recently.”
“Well, I can understand since what happened, but…”
“No, no,” adds another one. “Let’s be serious for a bit. Who give them the right to claim the Red Paladin by themselves? He’s supposed to be the hero of all Galra.”
“Yeah, I agree,” says another. “I was there five years ago. He spoke for all the Galra, not only half-breed.”
“But none of us knows the Red Paladin for real,” comments the first one, after taking a sip of his drink. “And he was a half-breed. Maybe he’s true he hated us.”
This caused a little outburst in the entire group.
“No, no, impossible.”
“Why would you think that?”
“He would have act differently! I told you, I saw him!”
The first one let them vent before sighing. “I’m not saying I like it… but maybe we had to accept reality. After all, out of all the Red Paladin’s colleagues, the only one that got arrested is Kolivan. The only pure-blood.”
“What?”
Until then, Keith listened in silence, hoping to find some leads about the Sincline Force. But the news about Kolivan caught him off guard and he can’t hold himself back. All the eyes of the group turn on him, surprised.
“Sorry, but what happened to Kolivan?” Keith presses.
“He got arrested.” At Keith’s glare, the Galra continues, “for the Red Paladin’s death. After all, Kolivan had free access at the spaceport and he knows enough about the Blades’ procedures and about the Red Paladin’s skill to organize an attack.”
“But he doesn’t have a motive!” Keith replies.
“Yeah,” another Galra nods. “What explanation did they give?”
“No one, for now. Only small talks,” the first one answers.
“Like?”
“Well, someone says that the motive is envy. After all, Kolivan is the one that fought against Zarkon for years, and then the Paladins arrived and took all the glory from him.”
Keith breathes hard. Whoever said that, doesn’t know Kolivan at all. Keith remembers vividly the day he woke up in the hospital and Kolivan was there for him.
“Others said it’s a family matters,” the Galra continues. “He’s together with the Red Paladin’s mother, you know. Maybe he didn’t want to share her or have a bastard son.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Keith crosses his arm and grits his teeth. The only thing that refrain him to go and reveal his identity is that Keith being alive won’t help Kolivan as much as finding the real culprits of the bombing.
“It sounds a little weak,” one of the Galra admits. “Do you know something more?”
Red purrs in Keith’s pocket. Keith’s attention moves on Rahyn, hoping to find something more, and he wasn’t even the one to ask him out.
Rahyn shrugs his shoulder. “What should I say, guys. I don’t know nothing.”
“But you were on the rescue mission, right?”
“I was,” he confirms. “But there’s nothing to find. The ship blew up entirely, black box included. We collected the debris and the scientists are examined them, but I doubt they’ll find something useful.”
“And your captain? He didn’t say anything?”
Rahyn snorts. “They don’t tell me anything. I’m just the engineer. And since I’m a pure-blood, now they’re telling me even less.”
We even destroyed a Space Pirates ship and I still don’t know why we were so aggressive. I am a nobody to them.
“Wait. Aren’t you a communications officer?” Keith asks.
“No.” Rahyn frowns. “Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know. I probably misunderstood something.”
Yeah, like they trust me with communications.
“It sucks,” comments another Galra. “For now, I haven’t had many problems, but I see how my colleagues look at me. For them, all pure-blood are members of the Sincline Force.”
“Maybe we should be.”
Everyone turns on the new arrival. Keith looks at him, at his long purple fur and his pointed face and his bigger fluffy ears. Still, his fangs and his frown makes his face scary. Keith doesn’t move his eyes from him.
“Don’t say that, Voran.” Rahyn laughs nervously.
We have enough problems.
“Why not?” Voran replies. “We used to be the masters of the entire universe, and now we can’t even go in a bar of the first district because of the half-blood. You can’t say the Sincline Force doesn’t have a point.”
***
Shwamus are small, black creatures that look like cockroaches. Keith finds out about them at the motel he elected at his temporary base on Daibazaal: it’s a motel on the seventh district of the city, the cheapest one he managed to find, and his room is only a room that contains barely a kitchenette, a folding table and a bed settee.
Keith opens it and sinks the head in the smelly pillow. He lied down with his booth still on, as Kosmo pops in existence on his chest and Red curls on the pillow in the corner between his shoulder and his head. Keith takes off the datapad and scrolls the news, looking for any information about Kolivan’s whereabouts.
There is no news about his arrest, only some information about Keith’s mother. Keith knows she left Daibazaal three days before Keith’s arrival, and Keith imagined she did so because of her work. He would expect from her to concentrate in something else to distract herself.
Daibazaal isn’t a planet densely populated, and most of the people lived in the capital and work with the military, either the Blades and the official Daibazaal guards, since most of them were part of the Empire army. A lot of people know each other and it’s hard to maintain a secret.
The news about Kolivan’s arrest could be kept a secret until the end of the investigation, and Rahyn and the others know because of word-of-mouth. Still, Keith came out the Witch’d Den with more questions than answers and with the awareness that he still can’t trust anyone.
He opens Pidge’s list about the cruisers’ crew, confirmed he remembers correct and Rahyn, alongside with the other two pure blood Galra, are listed as communication officers. Keith doesn’t understand why Rahyn should lie about it. The curriculum of the soldiers’ are private, so Keith tries to check news or social network about the three pure Galra.
He doesn’t find anything about Rahyn, but there is Abana’s name listed in the database of the Blades: apparently, she came to Daibazaal two years ago, and before she lived on a planet in the Third Sector of the Universe, working in a factory that produced drones for the Empire army. She’s listed as an Engineer in there, and not as a communication officer as in Pidge’s list.
Keith frowns. It could mean nothing. In two years, and in a different place, Abana could develop new skills and take a new role. Still, considering that lack of communications is a big part of Keith’s problem, first with the Zhimir’s call and later with Grogs’ ones, it’s something worth looking.
He rubs Kosmo’s back. “Sorry, but we haven’t done for today yet.”
For safety, he puts Red in his pocket before Kosmo teleports him in the main building of the spaceport. He can’t go in the communication room because he knows it’s surveilled and he can’t risk someone gets suspicious of his investigation. But there is a database room that can do the trick for Keith.
He enters and he jumps to move the camera on the right, to give him enough space to operate without being spotted. Considering the guard duties, he gets five minutes before someone arrives to check on the camera. He kneels down next one of the main hardware and connects his datapad.
First he enters in the flight plan database and goes back to the day of the bombing. As expected, the three cruisers are enlisted in the departure late on that day. Fast, Keith moves forwards the day to see when they returned: around a week before Keith’s. It makes sense. Nothing suspicious about it.
Then, he opens the communication database, where all the calls arrived at the control tower are stored. He started from the day of his ‘death’, and then moves until the day of the cruisers’ return. Keith frowns as he notices the difference of amount of calls between the days. Daibazaal’s spaceport received around one hundred communications by day. After Keith’s death, the communications register a new peak, reaching more than five hundred. Keith takes a brief look: the calls came from all the planets of the Voltron Coalition; he guesses they all were from ambassadors looking for more information about the bombing.
Then, three days later, around the time Keith woke up and met the space pirates, the communications stopped. In the database were registered only the small communications of ships ready to land and the spaceport, and not more interplanetarian communications. A couple of days later, the communications started increasing again, still a smaller number than usual. The communications started to return at their normal numbers only a couple of days after the cruisers’ return.
Keith presses the download button on his datapad to store all the communications of those days. Kosmo, that until that moment remained sit at his next, lifts his head. Keith freezes and heard some steps coming in the direction of the room. Fast, he places the datapad inside two hardware, enough hidden to not be discover to a brief examination, so it can still download the information Keith needs.
Then, he places a hand on Kosmo’s back. He waits until the door starts open, then Kosmo teleporters outside, in the corner outside the room, in time to see one of the guard entering. He keeps his breath as he waits.
“The camera is set in the wrong direction,” the guard communicates, as he uses his torch to look at it. “I’ll fix it.”
“How?” comes a voice from the communication device.
“I don’t know. But everything is under control here.”
“Camera doesn’t move by itself. Do you check the room?”
“Only from the front door, but…”
“Go check better! Someone could be hiding inside.”
“Calm down, Ruxer. It’s the database room. I don’t think anyone would be interested in it.”
There is a second of silence. “Just do it, to be sure.”
“Fine, fine.”
Keith inhales. He looks as the guard turns on the lights of the room and then moves more inside. Once the guard turns around a hardware, Keith pats Kosmo’s head. Kosmo moves fast: he pops right between two hardwares, hidden from the camera: he bit the datapad and rips it off the connection to the database, then teleporters again next to Keith.
“Good job.” Keith awards him with a rub in his head. He places the datapad inside the pocket and tickles Red a little, so he connects Keith to the guard’s thoughts.
The guard returns back: he looks around again and then shakes his head. “Nothing strange here, Ruxer, as I said.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
The guard shakes the head again. He’s really too anxious recently. Nobody messes with our communication devices. I don’t see why he thinks that…
When the guard finishes fixing the camera and leaves the hallway, Keith nods at Kosmo to bring him back in the motel room. He’s a little disappointed he didn’t manage to collect all the communications, but he can’t risk anyone suspect an intrusion in the room. Especially if someone of the staff already suspects it.
He lies down in the bed and out the earpiece and listens to the audio he downloaded. As he guessed, the first ones are all from the Voltron Coalition’s ambassador, asking more information about Keith’s whereabouts after receiving the Sincline Force’s message. At the beginning, Daibazaal’s official answer was a standard message about the fact they’re checking the situation. Then, another standard message that unfortunately they confirmed Keith’s death, and the invitation at his funeral for all the ambassadors of the Voltron Coalition.
Nothing Keith doesn’t know already. He moves forward to the few communications after the day of his capture and listen to the first communication. He came from the Clear Day planet, and Keith isn’t surprise to hear a very aggressive communication, given that they’re not the most patient people of the universe.
“What is that! I tried to contact you for days!”
“We humble apologize, sir. Unfortunately, a solar storm happened near Daibazaal’s area and it blocked all the communications outside a certain rage from the planet.”
“Absurd! Fix the problem immediately!”
“We’re deeply sorry for the inconvenience, but we can’t do anything. Once the solar storm will end, the situation will resolve by itself.”
“Galra!”
“But now you’re speaking with us, sir. How can we help you?”
The rest of the dialogues is about the organization of the funeral and the arrangements for the ambassadors, so Keith listens to it absently-minded.
The solar storm: it was the same excuse Captain Plantux said to Zhimir’s Queens about the lack of communications. It is true that solar storm can interfere with the communication system, but to his knowledge Galra technology is advanced enough to surpass it. Especially the technology of the entire planet.
His finger scrolls the datapad and connects to the Atlas Scientific Observatory. He uses his own password to access, since he doubts anyone will check on it because the ASO is a very specific section of the Atlas research and only scientists use it for their own researches.
The ASO registered a solar storm from Daibazaal’s sun, but the radiation shouldn’t be so strong to block the Galra devices. Looking at the list of arrivals of the spaceport, Keith guesses the rage of the communications was limited inside the system of Daibazaal, and that should be impossible.
Ruxer, whoever it is, is probably right: someone messes with the communication devices and uses the solar storms as excuse, sure that nobody would check the truthfulness of their statement. Keith’s death was already a big situation to deal with, and there was no reason to doubt the Galra government.
Keith keeps listening to the other records all night, but he doesn’t get any more useful information. He has to face more about people mourning him, so despite his fatigue, he stands up. He needs to focus on his job. He makes a quick breakfast for him, Kosmo and Red, then he moves towards the first district.
Even with the excuse of the solar storm, the three cruisers should have been able to received Grogs’ communication. They are outside Daibazaal’s system. Keith knows they refused the communication, or ignored it. It’s time to confirm Rhayn’s story, so he heads towards Captain Plantux’s flat.
He knows Plantux’s address from Pidge’s list. From the street, he observes the windows. They are opened, and in the dim light of the morning, no lights are visible. In his hand, Red meows a little. No thoughts arrive in Keith’s mind. Keith isn’t sure Red’s powers work at that distance, but he takes the risk and let Kosmo teleports him inside the flat.
Keith finds himself in the bathroom. He breathes hard, as he remains still, but no sounds come from outside. So he dares to opens the door and looks at the living room.
It’s wrecked. Objects are spread on the floor, and most of them are destroyed. Keith avoids the glass fragments and kneels down the body lied at the center of the room.
He recognizes Plantux, his empty gaze turned to the ceiling, his mouth half opens. He’s dead and at a brief look it’s clear it’s a single gunshot that passed through his chest. Keith isn’t an expert of criminal investigation, still he has the feeling that Plantux knew the culprit. The shot was too precise, and the door of the flat is still closed, with no signs of breaking.
The killing isn’t casual, Keith is sure of it. He arrives too late, only for a couple of hours. He grits his teeth, angry. He’s glad Kosmo rubs his head against Keith’s leg. He helps calm him down.
Keith looks around the room. The culprit was looking for something, or to be sure nobody would find about Plantux’s secret, that Keith is sure is connected with the Sincline Force in some way. Maybe the Sincline Force paid Plantux to do works for them and then killed him because he is a half-blood.
Next to the table, on the floor, there is Plantux’s database. It is broken in two parts. Nothing else in the living room and in the bedroom looks interesting for Keith. He collects the two pieces of the datapad and leaves the flat.
***
After three days, there isn’t still any news about Plantux’s death. Plantux didn’t have a family and, Keith found out speaking discretely with Rahyn, he was on holiday for their colleagues. He asked days off just after returning by their supposed rescued mission, and Keith doubts it has nothing to do with the bombing. Plantux knew something, or was part of it. And he was killed because of it.
But since the culprits acted so the dead body wouldn’t be discovered soon, Keith feels sure enough to go to the interplanetarian postal office and sent Plantux’s broken datapad to Pidge. He addresses it to “Katie Holt”: outside the small circle of the Garrison Officers, she is known as the Green Paladin or Pidge, so nobody would have any reason to connect ‘Yorak’ to the Paladins, or to inspect the package. Daibazaal has enough commercial relationship with Earth that a package won’t be suspicious. Just to be sure, Keith doesn’t put any message inside.
Pidge is smart enough to understand it comes from Keith.
And, as a matter of fact, Pidge calls him a week later.
“What is this garbage you sent me?”
“Is this line safe?”
“Of course. Who do you think you’re speaking with?”
“Sorry.” Keith settles a little better in his small bed and moves aside Kosmo. “It’s Plantux’s datapad.”
From the screen, Pidge’s image frowns. “Who?”
“The Captain of the cruisers in the Zhimir’s system.”
“Oh, yeah, the one of the list you asked me.”
Keith nods. “He was killed, and his house was destroyed.”
“Oh. This entire story is becoming more and more intricate, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I feel there could be useful information inside the datapad. Can you repair it?”
“Negative,” Pidge answers. “This kind of machine are incredible technologic, but it also means they’re very delicate. But I can try to retrieve the memory inside. I can’t assure you anything though.”
“Better than nothing.” Keith doesn’t hide his disappointment.
“You’re welcome,” Pidge comments. “What should I look in particular?”
“Everything you can find. Audio recorders would be great.”
“Oh. You think he kept a copy in his datapad the request of ransom from the space pirates?” Pidge gets his own idea almost immediately.
“He could have. As a guarantee, maybe?”
Pidge nods. “So your hypothesis is that Plantux is the culprit, or one of the culprits, and he hid the communication about you surviving so he can kill you for real. And then, he got killed by his accomplices.”
“Well, it makes sense, right? After all, I tried to contact them from the space pirates ship too, and they didn’t answer. At least the captain should know about me, and he interrupted the communications to hid my presence.”
“Well, yes. It makes sense,” Pidge confirms. She doesn’t know everything about Keith’s past whereabouts and his investigations, so she doesn’t have the entire scheme. Still, Keith needs to speak about his hypothesis with someone else than his brain and Kosmo. “But I have another hypothesis.”
“Which is?”
“Maybe it was one of the communications officers that did it. And Plantux found out later, and they killed him to stop him to reveal them. After all, from what I remembered from the list, the communications officers are all pure-blood Galra.”
Keith nods. “This is what I thought. But I befriended one of them, and he told me he isn’t the communications officer.”
“What does it mean? On the list-”
“Well, he could be lying, of course. But if he didn’t… someone changed the roles on the list so they can pin the guilt to pure blood if this story comes out.”
Pidge pats her glasses. “It’s… complicated. Your hypothesis means the Sincline Force were able to bring also half-blood on their side. And it means there are members inside Daibazaal guards,” she comments, at last. “Someone able to send a crew with accomplices to look for you to be sure you died, and to be able to mess with the register lists to modify the crew’s role.”
“And to be able to interrupt all the communications of the planet in the meantime,” Keith adds. At her puzzles expression, he explains the conversation he eavesdropped inside the spaceport building, and the story of the solar storm. “Maybe the pirates contacted Plantux or the other culprits on board. Maybe they contacted Daibazaal directly. But someone works inside the spaceport, and he’s able to access to some reserved sector. They blocked the communications in some way as soon as they received the confirmation that I survived the bombing. Then, they killed me again.”
“I am an idiot. I should have looked better about the solar storm. The Atlas had his communications blocked too.” She snorts. “I felt it’s easy that the pirates contacted Plantux or his crew, and then they contacted their accomplice at the spaceport. I refuse to believe all the people on the spaceport are with the Sincline Force.”
“Maybe it was just bad luck on my side, and Grogs contacted the only people that wanted me dead.”
“That would really be fucked up.”
Keith shrugs. “I have enough luck to notice the bomb before it exploded.”
He felt they have the video of him going out the spaceship just in time, and the only reasons they sent the cruisers was to kill him for good. Because if he wouldn’t have check the bomb, the Sincline Force wouldn’t have any proof it was Keith’s ship that exploded. For sure, they expected footage of him in the cockpit as the explosion busted out, and Keith ruined their plan.
“I’ll do my best to recover the data from Plantux’s datapad,” Pidge assures him.
“Thanks. I’m not sure it could help us to find his accomplices, but it’s a start.”
She nods, then she looks at him, a little bit unsure. “Have you heard about Kolivan?”
“How do you know?” Keith replies. “It’s not on the news, and all I found out is small talks.”
“Well, we’re doing an investigation of our own,” Pidge replies. “What?” she adds, at Keith’s surprise expression. “Do you think we would let it go? We all want to find the culprits of your death. We just have to be careful because we have a public role as Paladins.”
“And do you find something?”
“Not yet. And of course, I don’t tell them anything about us.” She threw him a meaningful look, as to confirm she doesn’t like the situation much. “Allura and Hunk are using their role to investigate around the colonies, to see if they can catch suspicious activities, at the moment. Lance and I tries to support them. That’s how we found about Kolivan.”
“So it was arrested for real.” Keith shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”
“They didn’t consider it an arrest,” Pidge explained. “Do you know Kolivan is working with Iverson? Well, Iverson talked to Lance about the fact that someone from Daibazaal came for Kolivan and then apparently he took a break from his work because his presence is required elsewhere.”
“Pretty excuse.”
“Yep. Lance went to check about it and the entire thing is pretty fishy. He made contact with the spaceship that is supposed to bring Kolivan back on Daibazaal a couple of quintants ago and they refused to let him speaking with Kolivan. Despite, you know, Lance being a Paladin of Voltron.”
“What did they say to him?”
“That at the moment Kolivan is under investigation and that he can’t speak with anyone outside the Galra Guards. Lance tries to ask for more information, but they cut him because apparently it is reserved.”
“Do they really believe Kolivan can be an accomplice of the Sincline Force, or it is the Sincline Force that is trying to take him out?”
Pidge shrugs. “No idea. Anyway, to my calculation he will arrives on Daibazaal in a couple of quintants. Maybe you can check it.”
“I will.” Now it’s Keith’s turn to press his lips and wait until he dares to ask, “how’s Shiro?”
“I don’t know. He’s on holydays I don’t know where and I haven’t heard him for a while.”
“On holyday? Shiro? What happen?”
“His boyfriend died.” Another, very meaningful look from Pidge.
Keith ignores it. “Tell me once you’ve done with the datapad. I have to go to work.”
“You’re working?”
“Yeah, as guardian of a warehouse. It helps me keeping contact with pure bloods and try to find information about the Sincline Force.”
“I see. Smart idea.”
She doesn’t add anything, nor she tries to increase his guilt anymore, and Keith is grateful for it. At the end of the communication, he places back his datapad inside the pocket, he takes Red in the other, much with Red’s annoyance since he was sleeping peacefully on the pillow.
Kosmo approaches to follow him, but Keith shakes his head and rubs a little his head. For now, Keith doesn’t have orders for Kosmo, and he can’t risk anyone to see it since it’s too much a giveaway of his secret identity. He leaves the motel still hearing Kosmo’s disappointed whines.
The warehouse is in the same district of the motel and it’s still a bit early, so Keith walks down there. Until now, he doesn’t have any luck to pick up any interesting conversation, neither at work and at the Witch’s Den, that he continues attending. Since Keith’s death, the complain about pure-bloods’ treatments have slowed down, a most of the people Keith have met don’t seem particularly eager to speak about the Sincline Force, and even Voran hasn’t said anything else about them.
Still, Keith can’t believe the Sincline Force just disappears, neither that they aren’t try to bring more people on their side. They can’t expect to restore the Galra Empire against the entire Voltron Coalition if they don’t have at least all the Galra on their side. So he keeps his eyes and ears opened, and hoping in the same time Pidge will give him a lead to continue his investigation.
The night passes quiet, with no particular happening. Keith exchanges brief conversations with his colleagues that brings him no useful information, and then leaves just after his shift ends. Unlike the evening before, he decides to take the public transportation to get as fast as possible at the motel.
He sits down on the seat alone, head places on the glass window, as he admires the city around. The eight district isn’t the best the capital of Daibazaal has to offer, being mostly a suburb, but Keith is happy to see how much they manage to rebuilt after the war. He isn’t going to let the Sincline Force destroy it.
The ring if his datapad distracts him from his thoughts. He takes it to see if it’s Pidge – she’s used to work all night – and he notices with a little frown that all the other passengers of the transport have received a message too.
It comes from an unknown source. When Keith clicks on it, he already knows the sender, and he fears what it could be when the message turns to be another video. It shows Kolivan, sitting down in what looks a lot like a cell; the architecture is from one of the new Galra spaceship. Keith images it’s the one that is transporting Kolivan to Daibazaal. The door of the cell was throwing down and a pure-blood Galra with a mask enters in the field of vision. Then, the camera moves outside the spaceship, showing its explosion.
The scene changes, returning in the same room of Keith’s death’s video, with the same two pure-blood there. Keith squints his eyes to see if he can recognize them, but the uniform they wear and the mask make them looking pretty generic.
“Kolivan is a hero and a leader. He created an entire secret society, protect his people, and for years he fought to bring a better world for the Galra. But he’s a pure blood, and what did he get for it? Nothing. Even worse, he was arrested without any proof, without any regards to him as a person.”
“We, the Sincline Force, can take care of him a lot better. We can take care of the Galra. We can take care of any of you.”
The video ends. Keith realizes he isn’t breathing. He was in that sort of bubble that prevented him to hear around. But when he lifts his head, he can see the look of horror and worried in the face of the other passengers. Unlucky for Keith, they are all half-blood, and they notice him, and their looks changes, as if Keith is the sender of the video.
Keith turns his head and puts better his hood on his head. He gets down at the next stop, in a way that doesn’t look as he is running. He strolls to his motel and regain his breath only when he closes the door of his room. Kosmo jumps on it and rubbing his head relaxes Keith.
They have Kolivan. Damn.
He sits down on the bed and Red emerges from his pocket, stretches and walks towards her bowl. Kosmo curls against Keith’s leg as he takes his datapad and play the video again. And again. And again.
He doesn’t gather too much information. The men in the Sincline Force are pretty good into hiding any trace of their identity, and even when they talk the voice sounds fake. They only thing that reassures Keith is that the Sincline Force doesn’t intend to kill Kolivan, or so it seems from their talking.
Keith knows how much the pure blood Galra are displeased by Kolivan’s treatment, and Keith can’t blame them. Kolivan is for the pure blood what Keith is for the half Galra, in a way. What the Sincline Force did can look a lot like saving Kolivan from the grasps of people that didn’t respect him.
The video doesn’t give the idea that Kolivan is a part of the Sincline Force, neither that he is in some way responsible for Keith’s death. It’s a peculiar thing, because it reinforces the idea that the Sincline Force are in some way on the right side, that they want the best for the Galra. And having Kolivan on their side will definitely be a good way to present themselves.
Kolivan would refuse to join them, though. For Keith, it means he can fear for Kolivan’s live. The Sincline Force already demonstrated they don’t fear murder, and the murder of innocents even less. He needs to find Kolivan before the Sincline Force lose their patient.
Keith lies down with a grunt. Pity he doesn’t have any idea where to find Kolivan or any members of the Sincline Force. Days of investigations and he doesn’t find any lead but dead end. His eyes burn. He sighs and closes them: he needs a couple of hours of sleep so his mind can think clearer. Kolivan taught him to take care of himself so he can take care of others.
His sleep is short and full of nightmares: when he wakes up, he doesn’t feel rested at all. His stomach grumbles, so he takes a couple of biscuits from the cupboard and eats them while checking his datapad. Pidge hasn’t contact him yet.
Kolivan’s situation occupied all the news around. The articles confirm the spaceship that exploded is owned by the Daibazaal Army, and it was transporting Kolivan back to Daibazaal. The incident happened near enough a planet of the Voltron Coalition, who send some of their spaceship to investigate. It looked that no one of the crew managed to escape, unless the Sincline Force kidnapped them too alongside with Kolivan. There isn’t any evidence of it at the moment.
A couple of articles seems to intend that Kolivan was part of the plan and the Sincline Force was saving him by his order, but most of them only speaking about a kidnapping and do not make assumptions about Kolivan’s responsibility for Keith’s death. None of them thought seems interesting in his situation, neither into clear his name.
There is also a video from the Duaces. Farux speaks mostly to the families of the crewmembers that were killed in the explosion, assuring them that the culprits will be soon arrested. The investigation proceeds steadily, Farux asserts, and soon they’ll be able to revenge both Keith’s and the crewmembers’ death.
“Unfortunately,” Nuru says, “in order to avoid any more incidents, we’ll need to reinforce the security measures. I hope you all understand.”
They don’t speak about Kolivan at all, which is downright suspicious. Keith hopes it doesn’t give the Galra the idea the Duaces think Kolivan is guilty.
Scrolling through the articles, Keith finds a last one that has the name of the victims. In total, the crew is composed of four people. Keith blinks: the captain of the crew is Plantux. It isn’t possible, because Plantux was dead and his body is in his own flat.
Maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe Plantux was supposed to be the Captain and it was substituted last minutes because he didn’t answer at the call. Inside himself, Keith thinks it’s not. It can’t be a coincidence Plantux being involved in two Sincline Force’s attack.
He looks at the other names and the connection become painfully clear. All the three other victims were also part of the three cruisers that attacked the pirate ship. Fixi, the engineering of the main cruiser (or the communications officer? Rahyn’s testimony still stands), Xunul, the pilot, and Vormor, the engineering of the second cruiser.
Keith wonders if the Sincline Force is slowly kill all their accomplice if they’re not pure blood Galra. Again, his feelings give him the impression that the truth is a lot more intricate that it seems. He can’t stay put anymore, he needs to move because Kolivan may not have much time.
After putting Red in his pocket, he let Kosmo teleports him inside Plantux’s flat. It appears at the center of the dining room and realizes immediately that things are completely different from the first time he was there. The house is tidy and ordinated again, and no body on the floor. The Sincline Force is covered Plantux’s death.
Keith grits his teeth. He should’ve known. He should’ve surveilled the flat so he would have seen the members of the Sincline Force as they took Plantux’s body outside the building. He was stupid.
He need answers, and he needs it now, to make up for his mistake. In that moment, his datapad rings. It’s a message by Pidge.
“Don’t do anything. Wait for more from me.”
Great. Even Pidge can’t give answers now, only more questions. With a deep sigh, Keith nods at himself and decides to follow Pidge’s advice. If she tells him to wait, she probably has something big from him. He will trust her.
But, he thinks as he shots a look at the front door of the flat, a little investigation around the quartier won’t hurt. A body was transported outside it, someone knew something for sure. Even if they didn’t realize what was happened, they had to see something.
So, instead of letting Kosmo teleport him away, he just goes out from the front door.
***
The door of the cockpit opens and Lance arrives, wearing his paladin armor. Both Shiro and Pidge shot a look at him.
“About time,” Pidge comments, returning at her screen.
“Sorry? I haven’t leave the guard of the ship for days, I think I deserve a five minutes of shower more,” he complains.
“I can understand the smell, then, if you probably piss yourself.”
“We greatly appreciate your sacrifice,” Shiro says and, by Lance’s look, he can tell Lance doesn’t understand if he’s sarcastic or not. He is, but Lance decides to ignore it apparently and gets near. He leans his arm on Pidge’s seat.
“So, what’s the plan?”
Shiro turns his head and look through the window at the old Galra ship that floats in the dark space. It’s probably one of the old ship that were abandoned after the defeat of Zarkon and Lotor, when the fight became Galra against Galra. The Galaxy Garrison, along with the Voltron Coalition, has a program to free the space from the trash, but they haven’t reach this far part pf the universe yet.
The ship is badly paced in the spot it was bombarded in the past and it looks it can’t move anymore. It looks like the perfect place to hide for a secret terroristic group, since at the moment no one else bother to look for ship wrecked.
“I only spot four people aboard,” Pidge says. “If hopefully one of them is Kolivan, we only have three enemies. I’m try to look at the ship defense to disable them, but for a brief look, I think most of them are already turned off.”
“Three members of the Sincline Force,” Shiro comments, and he turns to Lance. “Did it seems right to you?”
“Dunno.” Lance shrugs. “The only thing I can say for certain, it’s that they’re member of the ship crew. I see with my two eyes the pod leaving the ship before the explosion, it wasn’t an outside attack as they believe in Daibazaal. But how many people were on board, I can’t say.” He sighs deeply. “I don’t even know if Kolivan was on board…”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Shiro states.
“I can’t distinguish who is who,” Pidge comments, “but my knowledge of the Galra architecture, I can tell this area may be the prisoners’ quartier.” He points with her finger at the red spot on the screen. “And the person here, unlike the others, hasn’t move from the place yet.”
“That’s where we start.” Shiro affirms. “We need to free Kolivan before he can be used as a leverage. Then, we’ll move to catch the others. This is the first chance we have to get a grip over the Sincline Force’s members.”
Pidge nods. “We can’t bring the ship nearer than this, or my clouding device wouldn’t be useless because they may spot us with the radar. You have to fly inside.”
“Piece of cake.” Lance smirks. “Let’s rock, Shiro.”
Shiro exchanges an amused look to Pidge, but the truth is that Lance’s presence is relaxing. Shiro knows he can trust Lance’s ability on the battlefield and having someone to light up the mood it’s appreciated. Shiro hasn’t wear the Paladin armor since at least five years and he hasn’t been in a battlefield for around the same time, since ATLAS is more on exploration missions, so there is a little bit of tension. And excitement.
They leave the ship and uses the jetpack to reach the Galra ship. They walk on the metallic surface to reach the nearest spot to what they guess is the prison. Shiro uses his altean arm to break through the metal and create a hole big enough for them to sneak inside.
Lance makes his bayard transform in his rifle and walks head Shiro, who looks around in order to avoid cameras. The ship is silent, and unlike the others they attack in the past, no sentinels are patrolling the hallway. The lights are the only indicator that someone is using the ship.
Pidge isn’t mistaken: Shiro recognizes the hallway of the cell once they reach it. All the cells are opened, but one. While Lance remains at the begin of the hallway to check, Shiro get nears the closed door.
“Is someone inside?” Shiro asks. He can’t be sure it’s Kolivan, and he sighs of relieve when he hears the familiar voice answering.
“Shiro?”
There is surprise, which makes Shiro smirk. “Stay put.” He throws down the door with a well-aimed punch of hos altean arm. Kolivan is there, standing against the right wall. “Are you okay?” Shiro asks.
Kolivan nods. He doesn’t add anything, and Shiro doesn’t ask. They still have work to do. He takes off an oxygen mask for Kolivan while he turns on his transmitter. “Pidge. We have Kolivan. Where’s the others?”
“Two still in the main deck. The third is two floor below you.”
Shiro nods. He coughs a little to lure Lance’s attention, who walks backwards in their direction. “Good to see you, Kolivan,” he greets him.
“We reach you thanks to Lance,” Shiro explains. “He followed you since you left the planet with the Daibazaal Army.”
“I see.”
They move as Pidge’s indications to the floors below. Lance is still up front, the rifle in his hand, but the silence lets them a little less wary than the usual, when a robot sentinel turns from the corner. Lance is fast enough to shoot it down, but the sounds of the sentinel falling down lured other sentinels. They rush to hide behind a wall.
“I thought the production of them was forbidden,” Lance yells, as he keeps shooting.
“It is,” Kolivan confirms. “Right now on Daibazaal we permit only robot arms to help with the most dangerous jobs. It was an agreement with the Voltron Coalition to reassure we won’t have a robot army ready to attack again.”
Shiro knows it’s also a way to give new jobs to the Gara that were once only soldiers, and something Keith himself fought to obtain. “But not all the projects for the sentinels were destroyed.”
“It is possible there are still data around the remained shipwreck. And also, there are galra engineering alive that knows how to start the production again.”
Lance shots down the last sentinel. “Well, at least now we can guess the Sincline Force aren’t as many as they want us to believe, if they need to product their own army.”
“Don’t be happy about that. It was the same at Zarkon’s time.”
“That’s reassuring,” Shiro comments and he starts walking forward carefully.
It’s impossible the rumors wouldn’t catch the attention of the Sincline Force member; Shiro hopes at least they don’t have time to warn any of their accomplice, so they still can manage to capture them. A figure jumps outside the door and shots a Shiro, who is fast enough to put on the shield to defend himself. Lance is at his side, ready to aim at the enemy, but Kolivan grabs both of them by the collar and drags them backwards.
“Grenade.”
A small, black ball is on the floor, and they manage to rush inside another empty room while the hallway become a river of flames. When the force of the grenade wears down, the hallway is completely destroyed, making impossible for them to follow the enemy.
“Pidge!” Shiro calls. “Where they go?”
“Looks like they’re heading to the hangar. The other two are on the moving, they must have been warned of your presence,” Pidge replies, her voice frantic. “And we have another problem: looks like they activate the auto destruction system.”
Shiro grits his teeth. “Lance, Kolivan, go out of it and reach back our ship.”
“And where are you going?” Lance asks.
“I’ll reach the hangar and try to capture them.”
“There’s no time!” Pidge exclaims.
“Shiro.” Kolivan grabs his arm. “I understand how you’re feeling. But he wouldn’t want this for you.”
He doesn’t nominate Keith, but he wasn’t necessary. It’s a low blow, and Shiro is about to reply back when he notices Lance’s worried look. He nods.
“Fine,” he spats back.
They don’t return at the initial hole, but they create another aperture from the spot they are, using the time it remains until the bomb explodes. They fly back to the ship, where Pidge is waiting for them. Shiro doesn’t say anything, but he takes his seat as pilot of the ship, his hands steady on the commands.
“Fifteen seconds since the explosion,” Pidge warns him. “We should move.”
“They’re still inside?” Shiro asks.
“There,” Lance points out, with his sharpshooter vision.
The pod flings out the Galra spaceship and takes its route to the space. Shiro turns on the engine and follows them. The pod shots at them, but Shiro is able enough to dodge it. He can’t do anything against the explosion though: the shockwave let him lose the control of the commands for a second. We he regains the balance, the other pod is too far in the dark space.
“Can you pin them?” Shiro asks Pidge.
“No, the controls of this ship aren’t powerful enough for such a small pod.”
“We got Kolivan back,” Lance says. “It’s the important thing.”
Inside him, Shiro knows Lance is right, but he still can’t forgive himself for having let the members of the Sincline Force escaping. If they aren’t Keith’s killers, at least they know something. Shiro hasn’t being so near to have them in their grasps, since his investigation with Acxa and the others didn’t bring them anywhere. He remains silent for the entire journey back to Altea and he walk alone the garden palace until Allura calls for him for lunch.
Her presence and her smile reassures him; it’s probably because Allura, more than anyone, knows what it means losing someone irreplaceable. He smiles back at her and follow her to the dining all. Of the Paladin, only Hunk is missed, because he still was on a diplomatic mission outside the quadrant. Romelle and Coran are there, and Kolivan sits down next to Krolia. Shiro takes place next to her, while Allura sits at the head of the table.
She waits until the first dishes is served. “Kolivan, can you tell us what happened?”
He nods. “Not much, unfortunately. When they took me they have masks, and they didn’t even talk to me. I only understood what they wanted when you showed me the video. But,” he adds, turning his head to Lance, “since Lance said no one attacked the ship, I guess we can say the members of the Sincline Force were the members of the crew.”
“They are half-blood galra,” Shiro comments.
“I’m aware of it. Still… the ship is too small for other people to hide inside, they would have been found. Three people on the crew, three people of the Sincline Force. Sounds about right.”
“It makes sense,” Allura says. She sounds tired.
“But Daibazaal’s official news said four people lose their life in the terroristic attack,” Lance points out. “So at least one of them is an actual victim.”
“I read the names on the news. I never saw Captain Plantux on board. I would have recognized him,” Kolivan stated.
Pidge bits her lips. “By my investigations… I have the feeling Plantux was long dead before this entire accident.”
“How can you say that?” Lance asks.
“Just a hunch.” Pidge doesn’t look at him, still tapping her datapad. “I tried to recollect some movements of the four victims before finding out they aren’t victim at all, but I haven’t find more about Plantux. Looks like someone put him on the ship to cover his dead.”
Krolia places her glass down. “So it’s either Plantux was a part of the Sincline Force and he got in a disagreement with his accomplices, or he discovered something he shouldn’t have.”
“It’s a start,” Shiro says. Despite his disappointment, they still have something to investigate, a lead that can bring them to all the members of the Sincline Force. “Going back to check all the crewmembers’ friend and family to see if they know something, or if they’re part of the Sincline Force themselves.”
“Shiro, the Duaces doesn’t want you to interfere,” Kolivan remembers him. “We should inform them.”
“No.” Allura’s voice was steady, even if he looks a Kolivan with hope. “The Duaces’ heart may be in the right place, but they’re too much focused on protecting Daibazaal’s honor. I’m not even sure they will believe us.”
“And they aren’t, like, the one that decided to arrest you?” Romelle adds. “They don’t look very friendly to me.”
Krolia nods. “And they also excluded you from the Blade of Marmora’s council.”
“It’s better if you and Krolia remain here for now,” Allura continues. “The Sincline Force expected us to go immediately to Daibazaal and the Duaces. Not doing that we’ll put them in the edge. We already destroy one of their plan, and they don’t know our next move. It means they can make an imprudent move.”
“I’m going on Daibazaal,” Shiro offers. “Acxa can guest me, I’m in contact with her.” He omits the fact he spent the last weeks on Daibazaal too, investigating with her and the others, and he can’t tell if the others suspect it or not. “So I can look for Plantux’s situation.”
“Oh, I can do it,” Pidge intervenes, with a suspicious rush. “Focus on the other three. They may be speaking with you since you all lost something because the Sincline Force. Otherwise, they may speak with Acxa.”
“Sounds good,” Allura says. “Hunk and I will continue to investigate to the other planet. The Sincline Force must have some contact around to find armament and everything.”
“Yeah, and I’ll look around looking for their base. They should have another one at least, like the shipwreck we found,” Lance adds.
Kolivan passes his look to all of them, until he stops to Shiro. “I’m sorry I have to let you doing all the work again.”
“We’re still Paladins of Voltron,” Shiro replies. “That’s what we do.”
***
“…is…”
“…call for… speaking…”
“…ht?”
“I… for… adin…”
“Hold…”
Two voices speaking, one of them was Grogs. Then, the other voice changes, and Keith recognizes Plantux.
“…is it?”
“…is… os… Fine…”
“….me… osition…”
The record finishes. Keith plays the other one. Plantux is one of the voice, he doesn’t recognize the other.
“I can’t do …more.”
“….in it.”
“….just… of it.”
“…speak.”
“… Tom…”
With a sigh, Keith stops the records and puts away the datapad. As Pidge anticipated, Plantux’s datapad was too broken and the records she managed to recover aren’t definitive. Still, Keith gets the confirmation that Grogs called the cruisers Plantux commanded and so they knew about Keith’s situation. Alongside with what Shiro and the others found out, it’s clear that the three members of the cruisers that faked their death in the last bombing are the culprits. With Plantux’s neighbors, he also found out that Fixi came to visit him the day before Keith found his body, which just confirms the theory.
Since Pidge confirmed him that they’re investigate on them, Keith’s role remains to check on the pure blood Galra and see if he finds out any other leads to the Sincline Force. In Keith’s opinion, there is no doubt they would make a move on them sooner or later. With Kolivan’s kidnapping, they tried to pander the pure blood, and the Duaces’ rules only exacerbated the situation.
Keith sighs. He’s about to start the records again in the hope to reconstruct the dialogues, when the datapad rings. It’s his boss from the warehouse.
“Hey, Yorak.”
“Hey, boss.”
“There isn’t a nice way to say that, so… I’m sorry, but I have to fire you.” Before Keith has any chance to ask, he continues, “it’s nothing personal. It’s nothing you did. But, you know, the new rules of the Duaces… I can’t have only pure blood Galra employees.”
“I thought the Duaces’ rules only apply to recreational meeting, not workplace,” Keith exhales.
“I thought that so, but I received an inspection this morning and no. They don’t want places with pure blood alone. I can’t fire people that work with me for years, so… I’m sorry.”
“No, no… I… understand.”
“It’s unfortunate. I have to make interviews to hire half-blood Galra and I’m not even sure they would work for a pure blood but… it’s as it is. I have a life here. If this helps to catch those criminals, I want it too. I’m sorry,” he repeats.
“Sure. Good luck.”
Keith sighs deeply. The situation is even worse that he thought. He needs to find the Sincline Force as soon as possible. Kosmo and Red are sleeping on the bed, curled on themselves, so Keith lets them rest. He leaves the motel and heads to the Witch’s den. He hasn’t spoken with Rhayn since the (fake) funeral of his colleagues, but maybe some of their friends are there.
Instead, the pub is closed. Keith frowns, because he remembers its timetable. He hears a rumor and turns to the secondary door. The bartender is there, moving a box from the inside of the pub to a car. He spots Keith and smiles lightly, recognizing him as a guest.
“Sorry, we’re closed.” And then he adds, “forever.”
“What? Why?”
“Because of the new rules about the pure blood meetings.”
“But you’re the owner of a pub, you can’t control your customers…”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. We all know that only pure blood come to me, because I’m a pure blood too. I don’t want to get arrested. And even if I decide to try and reject the pure blood customers, we all know no half-blood will substitute them. Better leave before the crash.”
“I’m sorry.”
He smiles. “Thanks. You’re one of the few that doesn’t answer to me with ‘oh, no, I don’t have another place to go now’. It counts.”
“Well, that’s because it’s not true. There are other pubs around…”
“With half-blood,” the bartender points out.
“Yeah, well, your pub was a happy place for us in those days…”
The bartender nods. He gets near and murmurs in Keith’s near. “Do not tell anyone, but… I have a cellar-slash-warehouse near by… and it’s a pity to let all the remained bottles alone, so, if you want to come…”
It’s not like he wants to, he needs to.
So, the same evening, he goes. The cellar is big as much as one of the room of the Witch’s Den, but there are less people than usual, so the area is comfy. With Keith’s satisfaction, Rhayn is there too. He moves to greet him.
Rahyn makes a gesture to the empty chair next to him. “How are you?”
“I just lost my job,” Keith shrugs. “New rules.”
“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, I heard it happens a lot those days.”
“To you too?”
“No, the Army Force has enough mixes employees for me to be saved. But I was benched, especially after what happened to… you know.”
Keith nods. At that point, Keith is convinced his colleagues tried to frame him while he mourns for them. But Rhayn may still have some information, even without knowing it. And being unaware may still make him a prey for the Sincline Force.
Voran enters in the cellar. He moves next to a group of other people and they start talking intensely. Keith narrows his eyes and tries to catch the words, with no avail. Voran is one of the most interested in the Sincline Force and Keith regrets not having yet understand if he’s just a sympathizer or a member. He’s very careful in his words.
“Yorak?” Rhayn calls.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. You were saying?”
“I may know a job for you, if you’re interested.”
It’s a carrier job. As Keith finds out, it’s a job reserved for the sentinel in the past, so most Galra still find it demeaning, and the request for employees is very high. Most pure blood Galra end up there.
For Keith, it’s great, since it gives him the possibility to go around and speak with people and understand better the situation around. And, as a matter of fact, it’s the reason he finds out another alarming situation.
He doesn’t notice at first. He goes in one of the small town around the capital of Daibazaal to deliver a package. The towns around aren’t many, because the Galra population is still small, and most of them prefer living in the big city. On the countryside live only the people that also work on the countryside.
Keith finds the address indicated on the package, but nobody answers when he rings. He has a couple of packages more to deliver, so he returns later to the same house, and he still gets no answer. He’s about to send a non-delivery message, when a Galra next door calls him.
“They’re not here anymore,” he announces Keith.
“They moved?”
The Galra shrugs. “Probably. They just leave one day.”
So Keith returns back to the headquarters and reports the package as “moved address”. He receives a call the next day from one of his colleagues, a very unfriendly half-Galra.
“I have no indication of a change of address,” he comments, rough.
“His neighbor said so.”
“He was wrong.”
“Or the consignee forgot to signaled it.”
The other is annoyed by Keith’s reply. “I trust more my database than you or that person. Go try to deliver it again and then reports it as not-deliver if they aren’t at the house again.”
“Fine.”
Keith doesn’t see the point into complain again, so he complies. Again, nobody answers at him ringing. This time, though, Keith decides to investigate more. He looks around and, when he’s sure he’s alone, he forces the windows open and enters in the house.
The smell is terrible, but unfortunately Keith saw enough death to recognize it isn’t a decomposing corpse. It’s rotten food, abandoned in the pantry. With a frown, he checks in the bedroom and the bathroom. The clothes are there too, and water and electricity still work.
It doesn’t look as the owner moves. It looks like he just… disappear.
He has no intention to inform his colleagues about his discover; he leaves the non-delivery message and makes a small investigation on his own in his company’s database. He notices the number of “non-delivery” in the hinterland of the planet is higher than the capital, and increases in the last two weeks. No surprise, all the non-delivery in the towns are from pure blood Galra families.
At his next travel to the town, Keith takes his time thanks to Kosmo to look around: all the houses he manages to check are in the same condition of the first one, as the people that lived there just disappeared.
It’s alarming, from Keith’s part, even if he can understand that pure blood Galra do feel unwelcomed in Daibazaal at the moment. Keith fears they left to join the Sincline Force, that may have some connection inside the Space Port. They could leave the planet without any trace in that case.
He asks Rhayn the first occasion he gets. “Have you noticed if there is an increased of moving recently?”
Rhayn raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“People moving outside Daibazaal.”
“Oh. Uhm.” Rahyn reflects. “No, I haven’t notice that. Usual movements at the Space Port. Why?”
“Trouble at works. People keep moving around and forget to warn us, and we run around for nothing.”
“That sucks. But they’re probably moving around Daibazaal? New house has been built recently.”
“Yeah, probably. We can’t check them all though. I hope someone will make a new inventory of the address.”
“Speaking about house, have you found something better than that motel?”
Before Keith can answer with another excuse about not wanting a house, Thiny stops in front of them. He’s young, five or four years younger than Keith, and one of the most affected by the Duaces’ meeting laws: his father lost his job and her mother accepted to work more so she won’t be fired too.
It’s one of the sadder story out there, but not the only one. Their weekly meeting at the bartender’s cellar becomes more and more a Listening Center than a pub for drinking something.
“Have you seen Voran around?” Thiny asks.
“I haven’t seen him yet,” Rahyn answers, “but he didn’t tell me he isn’t coming either.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Wait.” Keith stops him before Thiny leaves towards another group of Galra. “Why are you searching for him?” Red trembles in his pocket.
“Mind your business!” Thiny shrugs. “Just because.”
“It’s about the Sincline Force, isn’t it?”
“No way! How… How…” Thiny bits his lips. “And what if?”
Rhayn moves nervously. “You’re not serious.”
“Why not? Nobody is doing something for us! We need help! We can’t just keep like this!”
“I want to do something for my family!”
Keith breathes. “What Voran told you?”
“He said… Well, he didn’t say much, but I understand, you know? He has some connection to the Sincline Force. Please do not tell him I told you!”
“We won’t,” Rahyn assures him. “But maybe we should tell the Army. The Sincline Force aren’t the good people here. And you,” he adds, with a soft smile, “do not do anything you may regret.”
Thiny doesn’t look convinced, but he nods. Keith follows him as he asks the bartender for a drink and then sits down at the farer corner of the room, without speaking with anyone.
“Do you think Voran is a member of the Sincline Force?” Rahyn whispers.
Keith has suspects too. Voran has been the first one to speak positive thing about the Sincline Force, even if he never surpasses the limit that make people wary of his presence. Keith doesn’t want Rahyn to report Voran yet, not before he finds our more about Voran’s movement. Until now, Voran has been pretty prudent, and even when Keith did visit his flat, he didn’t discover anything useful about Voran.
If he’s there to lure more people for the Sincline Force, Voran will make his move sooner or later, and Keith will be there. He fixates his gaze on Thiny.
“I don’t know. Voran exaggerates sometimes, and Thiny may have get things wrong because he’s desperate.”
“…Guess you’re right.”
Rhayn moves the gaze to the ground, and Keith frowns. “Why do you look sad?”
“I don’t look sad,” Rhayn tries to reply. “It’s just-”
The entrance door is stroke from the outside, cutting his sentence. All the people on the room jump still, attentive. They have a secret code, a special way to knock in order to know they’re friend. The door is stroke again: someone from outside is trying to enter with brute force.
“Let’s go out of here, now!” the bartender yells, as he rushes to open the secondary door, the one that connect directly to his house, so they can escape from the front door or the windows. The hallway to get there is thin and half of the people are there when the door fells.
Keith’s eyes widen as Zethrid appears in the room, smirk on her face, who turns into a very angry grin once she notices the escape route.
“They’re try to run! Stop them from the other side!” she screams, before throwing herself against the group in order to block the door. Most of the Galra avoid her attack, but they find that the front door still remains unavailable for them, because Ezor is there, arm crossed.
Keith can’t afford to be caught, and can’t afford to be caught by them especially. His cover will blow out. He steps backwards from the secondary door, where Zethrid is fighting with three Galra, and eyes at Ezor.
“On your left.”
Red delivers the message and Ezor blinks, turning her head a little on the left. In that moment, Keith strikes. He doesn’t want to fight her, but he knows enough of her weakness to make her stumbling forwards, freeing the door. At that sight, some of the people in the room rush to it.
Ezor grumbles and stands up, ready to block them. She moves her tail to catch Keith’s feet behind her, but Rahyn throws a char at her, so she is forced to use the tail to grab it before being hit. A second later, another Galra is tackling her. Keith nods a second to Rahyn before rushing through the door.
Rahyn follows him. They jump the stair three steps at the time as they hear the fighting in the cellar and Ezor’s yells. They find themselves outside, in the dark and empty street. Keith plans to call for Kosmo, but he can’t do with Rahyn here. He opens his mouth to tell him to separate: the only sound he emits is a surprised whine as he feels someone grabbing him from behind.
He squirms, but the grip seems iron against his neck. There isn’t anyone behind him, just a hand catching him. Steps are getting nearer.
“Run!” Keith orders to Rahyn, who is standing in front of him, gasping. Rahyn passes the gaze between Keith and the figure approaching, until, with regret in his face, he nods, turns and runs away.
The grip on Keith’s neck loosens and the figure reaches him and grabs Keith’s right arm.
“Do not move.” The altean arm flies, following the dark silhouette of Rahyn, still running.
Keith breathes. He needs every ounce of his courage to look up at the man next to him, and still, when he does, he can’t refrain himself.
“Shiro!”
Keith notices Red passing his thought to Shiro before he can stop her. Shiro blinks, as his arm stops midair, and turns to look at Keith, his hazel eyes widen.
Keith misses him so much…
“Hey!”
Before Shiro has any chance to speak, the wolf teleporters Keith away.
***
When Acxa comes for him, Shiro is still in the dark hallway, looking in front of him where the Galra disappears in front of him. No, he doesn’t disappear – he got a cosmic wolf teleporting him away. Shiro doesn’t believe there is another person than Keith that tamed a cosmic wolf. And the voice that resound in his mind…
“There is something wrong?” she asks, as she notices he’s a little bit unfocused.
“No. Nothing.” He can’t tell her his suspicious. “Two of them escaped.”
Acxa shrugs. “It can’t be helped. We’re not here to arrest anyone after all.” She throws him another curious look. “I don’t like this either, but we agreed we need it to keep the Duaces at ease.”
“I know. Let’s go.”
They climb the stair to go in the cellar, as Shiro tries to shrug away his feeling, at least for now. In the cellar, Ezor and Zethrid rounded up the people they managed to stop in a corner. The pure-blood Galra are there, standing still next to the other, and throwing dark glares around. Some of them have bruises on their face.
When they noticed Shiro, they tensed up. Shiro’s face is enough recognizable on Daibazaal, more than the other Paladins. Acxa looks at him and he nods. He isn’t going to speak, nor if he can avoid here. As Zethrid told him, he can just stay there and look treating.
“We’re not the police or the Army,” Acxa starts, “so you’re not under arrest. Of course, by the current law, you should be reported, but we won’t do it either. If,” and Acxa makes sure to underlining the word, “you give us some leaning to the Sincline Force.”
Grumbles rise in the group.
“We don’t know anything,” says one of them.
“Yeah. We’re just here to enjoy ourselves.”
“We’re just all guilty for them…” murmurs someone, as the other nods.
Zethrid cracks her fingers. “I can help your memory.”
“No.” Acxa voice’s is firm. “We understand that the Sincline Force propaganda can be efficacy, but we’re here for the same reason – stop them so Daibazaal can return to normal. Any lead can be useful.”
The answers are only glares around, nobody move or speak. They don’t trust Acxa, and Shiro can’t blame them. He takes a step forward.
“The Sincline Force killed a person very dear to me,” he says. “You wouldn’t like to be there when I find them, believe me.”
Acxa looks at him. “We’re a lot more inclined to forgive you if you have any contact with the Sincline Force if you’re still unrelated to their crimes.”
“And why we should?” replies an angry voice. “It looks they’re acting for us more than you.”
Shiro looks at the owner of the voice, the younger of the group. The others don’t seem so happy of his outburst. “Killing the Red Paladin and kidnapping Kolivan is acting for you?” Shiro asks. “Tell me,” he orders, as the boy grits his teeth.
Ezor launches her tail and grabs the boy’s arm, dragging him forward. “Okay. Stop playing, tell us everything you know.”
“I don’t know anything, and I won’t tell you if I do!” he yells back.
“Please don’t hurt him,” another Galra says. “We don’t know anything for real, okay? We just… discuss.”
“Discuss?” Acxa raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, discuss… About the Sincline Force… who they are, what they can do, what we can do… But we don’t know anything for sure.”
Torture is out of question, so Shiro shakes his head. It’s a time losing action, and they all know it. They try other questions, but in the end they leave, asking all the Galra to come to them for any lead they may have, assuring them they won’t be reported for it. Shiro doubts they would do it.
“We did what we were asked to,” Acxa comments. “We don’t expect much to begin with.”
“Still, I’m annoyed,” Ezor comments. “We should really reconsider your ideas about torture.”
Acxa ignores her. “Tomorrow will continue our investigations.” She said that on Shiro’s behalf, or so he thinks. He nods.
“Sure.”
His mind is still too focused on that mysterious Galra boy that disappears on him with a cosmic wolf. He regrets not having asking about him to the other Galra, but he doesn’t want to tell Acxa and the other yet. He doesn’t dare to hope, and he doesn’t want to give the impression he starts to have hallucinations.
He knows the secret cellar. He knows the owner. He can return back alone and ask about the boy. He needs to find him so he can put himself at peace, Shiro thinks as he enters in his hotel’s room. He notices immediately something is off, a presence. Slowly, he closes the door and stands here, in the dark.
The light is turned on and the Galra boy is there, on the door of the bedroom. There is a sad expression on his face and Shiro can’t help but think there is something of Keith behind the pure-blood Galra façade. The cosmic wolf is at his next and then he trots next to Shiro and climbs on his legs.
Shiro is too occupied to look at the other to caress the wolf as it wants. He watches in awe as the Galra touches the collar of his vest. His entire body is surrounded by a violet light and his figure becomes blurry, until the light wears out.
And now Keith stands there, the same sad expression on his face.
“Shiro, I…”
He doesn’t finish it. Shiro walks steady towards him and grabs him by the shoulder. Keith’s expression turns shocked before Shiro lowers his head to kiss him. In the same time, Shiro touches him. He lets his arm slides down Keith’s back, Keith’s side, as the other rubs on Keith’s dark hair and neck. Keith takes a little to answers back to the kiss, and Shiro can notices the toes lifting and Keith’s arms on his own shoulders.
God, he’s alive. Keith is alive. Keith is there.
When they break the kiss, for a couple of second none of them speak. They don’t look at each other, but they don’t move an inch from each other, arms’ still on the other’s body.
Until Keith murmurs, “Shiro…”
So Shiro takes a step backwards. He takes a chair and nods at Keith to sit down, while he takes place on another chair, arm crosses. “Explain.”
He isn’t angry. He should be, he realizes, but he isn’t. Keith is alive. After days and days of mourning him, the relief that it was just a bad dream is too overwhelming. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to hear Keith’s side of the story. Keith understands his feelings and, for the first time, he smiles softly.
He sits down, Kosmo at his feet, and tells Shiro everything. He starts from the bombing, to the space pirates and the Zhimirians. He talks about Pidge and how she helped him to disguise as a pure blood Galra and his investigations around Daibazaal. He finishes with his last discover about the disappearing of pure blood families from the other towns of the planet.
Shiro frowns. “People don’t disappear like that. What do you think it happened?”
“I have no idea.” Keith shakes his head. “I fear the Sincline Force may have recruited them using the… situation it was created here in Daibazaal.”
Remembering what the young Galra told Shiro the same evening, it isn’t so far-fetched. “But hosting so many people… they must have a big base outside the planet,” Shiro guesses. “We should be able to locate it. Lance, Hunk and Allura are investigating in this direction.”
“I’m glad I can count on you, even…” Keith’s voice trails off, and he smiles. “Tell me about you. What are you doing there tonight?”
Shiro snorts. “The Duaces weren’t inclined to let me participate in their investigations about your… incident, at first. It doesn’t stop me to do it anyway,” Keith smirks at that sentence, and Shiro copies him, “but I still have to be careful about my move to avoid diplomatic incidents. So when Voran-”
“Voran?” Keith interrupts him.
“Yes. He’s the new head of the Blade of Marmora, after the Duaces asked Kolivan to step down until the investigations are over.”
“I’m surprise the Duaces put another pure blood there.”
“Voran isn’t a pure blood,” Shiro replies. Then, he understands, “well, he may look like one if he hides his tail, I suppose…”
A mixture of emotions passes on Keith’s face. “I made a big mistake…”
Shiro smiles. “I can understand the mistake. We’re so used to half-blood that looked different that… You were honest.”
Keith shakes his head. “Voran told you about the cellar?”
“Yes. He thought it may be a good idea sending us instead of the official guard, you know, to hope they would confess if giving a change of not being charged…” Shiro doesn’t let his eyes off Keith and catches every change on his face. “Voran disguised himself as one of that group, didn’t he?”
“Yes. And he was also one of the most vocal about the Sincline Force… in positive. Maybe he hoped to being recruited by them to reveal them?”
“It’s possible,” Shiro answers. “And when he realized it was a dead end, he sent us to make us believe we’re doing something.” Now Shiro is angry: he believed their raid in the cellar was useless already, he doesn’t need to hear that basically Voran sent them to cover his trash.
“I ended up there because of Rahyn, who was on the cruiser. Maybe Voran had the same idea as me.”
“You don’t look convinced,” Shiro states.
“It’s just… It’s like with Voran, you know? We didn’t realize he’s a half-Galra because he doesn’t look like one. We all believe the pure-blood Galra being behind the Sincline Force, and we still believe it even if, until now, we have more evidence that half-Galra are involved too…”
“We didn’t share what we know with the Duaces though,” Shiro points out.
“They didn’t share with you too,” Keith retorts. “And about that, did they tell you about the law they wanted me to approve?”
“No. Which law?”
“A law that forbid the marriage between pure-blood Galra. Apparently, they want to cancel the Galra Empire’s war crimes erasing the pure Galra genes.”
“Oh. I suppose the Sincline Force ruined their plans, sort of.”
Keith snorts. “Or, since I disagreed with them, they went for a more… direct approach.”
“What…”
“I mean, pure-blood families are already disappearing.”
Shiro doesn’t think he can be more surprised that night, not after finding Keith alive. He was wrong. “Keith…” he whispers, realizing what Keith had just hypnotized, “Does the Sincline Force exists for real?”
Keith is silent. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not sure, but… The Duaces are anti pure blood Galra. They don’t want you to participate at the investigations about my death, and how convenient is my death for them: it revolted all the half-blood against the pure-blood. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before…”
“Okay. Listen, let’s not jump to conclusion.” Shiro places a hand on Keith’s knees. “First thing, we need to find out where all the disappeared went. It may give us a confirmation about it.”
Keith nods. “And I’ll go talk with Voran. If the Duaces are behind all this, I’m sure they would put one of them as a new head of the Blade of Marmora.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Shiro smiles barely. He doesn’t want to let go. He doesn’t want to just leave like that.
Keith doesn’t move either. “Listen, Shiro… I’m very sorry. About everything. I miss you so much and… It’s just that…”
“If I believe you’re dead, everyone would,” Shiro concludes. It’s like that.
Keith swallows before nodding. “I’m sorry. If I can do… I don’t want this…”
I don’t want to lose you, it goes unspoken. Shiro understands. Keith isn’t going to lose him. Not anymore.
“Let’s solve this, and then I’ll take you to make up for this.”
Still, when Kosmo teleports Keith away, Shiro feels like his heart breaks another time.
***
Voran’s office at the Blade Headquarters is Kolivan’s old one. Keith finds it easy to teleporter inside at night, when mostly of the employees are off-duty. He would have done it just after his meeting with Shiro, but he decided to wait for the next night.
Since Voran was the one that send Shiro and the others at the canteen, it was entirely possible he would wait for their report in his office. It’s safer to let some time pass. And Keith himself needs some time too.
Meeting Shiro hasn’t be easy, and leaving him was even harder. He’s grateful his decision didn’t have long-term consequence in his relationship with Shiro as he feared, still he can’t hide to himself the fear and the sadness. Better taking a day off from the mission before compromising it.
But now he’s there, in Voran’s office. It doesn’t look as Kolivan’s anymore: all the objects and holo-photos from the time against Zarkon disappeared, alongside with the souvenirs Kolivan collected since the restoration of New Daibazaal. Even the desk was changed in from a wooden one to a modern crystal one.
Keith snickers. So much changes when Voran’s nominee is supposed to be temporary. The Duaces may have more plans for him, or Voran thinks too much of himself. Either way, Keith will see Kolivan’s return to his own office, and they better not have thrown away Kolivan’s objects.
Keith sits down at the desk and turns on the computer. He doesn’t have Voran’s credentials, so he can’t access at his private files, but the Blades’ computers have all the same software installed on and the mail address of the head of the Blades shouldn’t have changed from the time Kolivan uses it.
Keith uses Kolivan’s credentials to access. As he guessed, they don’t change it because they work only in the Blade Headquarters’ computers. There is an automatic system to detect when and where the credentials are used, but Keith is sure no one would check Voran’s computer. And if they do, they wouldn’t find strange the actual leader of the Blades can use the credentials of the former leader.
He checks the mails: most of them are about the normal activities of the Blades, nothing suspicious in there. Then he finds out the mails send to the Duaces about the investigation against the Sincline Force: they are brief and they don’t reveal anything. The mails don't reveal any details about it: Keith suspects most of the reports are done by voices.
It’s still interesting that the Duaces are using the Blades as a private militia instead as the humanitarian organization they’re turning into. The fact that most Blades are trained soldiers make everything easier.
Keith opens the Marmora Software, a Pidge’s creation to monitoring the situation of the Marmora bases around the universe. The screen looks a lot like an old management videogame, although the commands are more various and complicates.
Keith checks first the Headquarters and looks at the list of employees. Each near names it’s possible to find the current location and also open the personal index card of the employee.
Keith presses Voran’s name: he already knows his address because he followed him once, when he first suspected he can have some connection with the Sincline Force. No other personal useful information is there.
Acxa, Zethrid and Ezor are indicated as “off duty”, and settled at the Blades Headquarters. How much this was their decision to help with Shiro’s investigation, Keith can’t be sure. Looking at the number of the new missions they are organizing, it looks like the ordinary humanitarian activity continues, but no new missions have been implemented. It’s not good.
He selects the name of Masira, a half-Galra Blade Keith works with a couple of times. She stations at the Headquarters too at the moment, but unlike Acxa and the others, next to her name as current function there is the word “on duty”. No information about her activities is present on her file. Keith checks also the name of a Blade he knows for sure he’s a pure-Galra: he’s “on duty”, stationed on the Planet Periodan Base.
Keith frowns. That base was abandoned two years ago. Periodan as a planet was heavy exploited from the Galra Empire at the point that looks dead, completely drained of his quintessence. The Blades tried to restore some civilization, but after a couple of failed attempt, the inhabitants accepted to move to another planet. Periodan was left for the weeble to do his duty.
There isn’t even a real Blades base there, they used at first the old Galra Empire command, then it became unnecessary to build a base. It doesn’t make sense to send someone there. Keith moves from the Blade to the screen of Periodan’s quadrant, then selects the planet. A long list of names appears, as they all are on duty on Periodan Base.
A quick look at the pictures of the Galra tells him they are all pure-blood. Keith returns to search in the mails for their names. Voran authorized the transfers of all from the Bases they’re on duty before. The mails implied the transfers should be from outside planets to Daibazaal, but no further information are given. And it’s pretty clear all those people never reach Daibazaal.
So pure-Galra aren’t disappeared only from the town outside the capital, but from the entire universe. With a worried frown, Keith looks for his mother’s name: he’s sure she’s as safe as Kolivan, Pidge assured him about it, still… She results on “holiday” on the database, no location given. If this means Voran doesn’t know she’s on Altea, it’s reassuring.
Kolivan is signed as “off duty”, no location given too. In the mail, the Duaces spoke about his kidnapping as it was more a rescued mission from the Sincline Force, and despite what they declared at that time, no further action was taken against Kolivan.
Keith thinks he got as many information as he can from there. He turns off the computer and sends a message to Shiro to inform him. He also asks him if he can check the situation on Periodan, to make sure all those people disappeared for real.
Next move, speaking to Voran. Revealing what Keith just discovered may force Voran’s hands, but it can also be risky if Voran isn’t actually an enemy, so Keith decides for a more direct approach, but from another point of view.
The day after, once his shift at work ends, Keith reaches from Voran’s apartment and waits for his return. He doesn’t stay next to the door, but a little on the right, so Voran’s doesn’t notice him at first as he gets off from the lift, just right before dinner time.
“Nice tail,” Keith comments, as he reveals his presence and he takes two steps forwards. Red is in his pocket, ready for action.
“They found me!” As reflex, Voran wags it before wrapping around his right legs. “Yorak?” he frowns. “What are you doing here?”
“Surprised? You thought I was arrested when you sent your blades friends to the cellar?”
“So you found out.” Voran turns to the door of his apartment. “Hate me as you want, but you’re the one that were breaking laws.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
The automatic metallic door hisses as it opens and Keith is fast to place an arm on the jamb so Voran can’t enter.
“We were enjoying ourselves, as you well know,” he says. “You lied. You deceived us. You made us believe we can trust you while you are one of them.”
“You filthy pure-”
A flash of rage passes through Voran’s eyes. It lasts a second, and then Voran recollects himself. “What I did, I did for everyone.” He grabs Keith’s wrist and drags him away from the door. “I need to confirm you aren’t part of the Sincline Force. Sooner we find them, sooner everything will be better for you all too.” He enters the apartment and turns to face Keith, an amused smile on his face. “And Yorak, I’m pretty sure you can find better pubs that that cellar.”
Keith put a leg forwards to the door can’t close. “And maybe next time you will find you’re not as good as you pretend to be. The Sincline Force don’t like traitors, I can assure you.”
“Wait, what?” Voran frowns, and for the first time he starts. “Is this a threat?”
“Is it?” Keith replies, before stepping back. “Have a nice evening, as it last.”
He doesn’t wait for Voran’s reply, he turns and takes the lift.
“What the hell was that…”
He almost expects Voran to grab him on the spot, but it doesn’t happen. He leaves the building, just in case Voran is looking at him from the security camera on the hall and from the windows, then he takes the first dark hall, where Kosmo is waiting for him.
They teleport back on the landing, then, once Keith is sure Voran is still on the dining room, they move inside the flat, on the bedroom. As Kosmo remains at his side, muzzle under Keith’s grip, Keith places his back against the bedroom’s wall, just next the door, and put Red on his lap.
Voran turns on the kitchenette so it prepares dinner. He’s unusual calm, and Keith frowns. He expects Voran to call immediately the Duaces, or some of the Blades to put ‘Yorak’ under surveillance and investigation. Even if Keith’s words are fake, checking Yorak would be the obvious course of actions.
Unless, of course, Voran knows already Yorak can’t be a member of the Sincline Force, or in any way in contact with them. And the only way Voran can know if he is a member himself.
As the kitchenette cooks, Voran sits down at the table and takes his datapad. He puts the eardrop on and starts a call. Keith grits his teeth: he would prefer to listen to both side of the conversation. He should manage with only Voran’s words and Voran’s thoughts.
“Yeah, sorry, I’ll be fast. Have you already moved as I told you?”
“Of course you are. You’re a wolf.”
“No, well, if you have it doesn’t matter anymore. We don’t have any more time.”
“Unfortunately.”
“No, no, nothing. I’ll explain to you later. Don’t worry.”
“Holy Zela, don’t freak out.”
“Okay, fine, good evening.”
What a troublemaker. I shouldn’t have called him. Voran closes the call and, for a second, he looks at the datapad. But what if… he shakes his head. No, three quintants are too few. I don’t have the time. It’s too late.
Three quintants. Keith grips a little too much Kosmo’s muzzle, who waggles his tail in protest. Whatever they are planning, Keith has to find out and stop it, because it doesn’t look good.
At the moment Voran leaves the dining room to the bathroom, Keith springs in action. He reaches the table and, without moving it, he presses the datapad. The automatic password doesn’t activate yet, so Keith is able to check the last call: Voran spoke with a person named Ruxer. The name rings a bell in Keith’s brain, but he can’t really focus on it.
He rushes back on the bedroom just before Voran goes out from the bathroom. The dinner is ready, and Voran takes the plate to the table and turns on the holo-television. Nothing interesting happen during the evening, and Voran acts as Yorak’s visit doesn’t mean anything. Keith remains hidden in the bedroom until the movies Voran is watching ends, before deciding he wouldn’t discovered anything else.
The only positive thing of the day ends up being Shiro’s answer.
Sure do. I need to leave Daibazaal to meet with the others so I can check with Lance or Hunk if they can take a look on it. I’ll be back soon. ILY
ILY. I love you. It’s stupid, but it warms Keith’s heart.
***
The advantage of working for a shipping company is having an entire database of names to check, and in a legal way. It’s the first thing Keith does in the morning, before taking his packages to delivery. Lucky for him, there is a Ruxer in the database. He received two packages in the past, and the address is the same in both deliveries. Hopefully, it doesn’t change recently.
Keith takes his hoverbike for the delivery, but instead of reach for the first address on the list, he heads towards Ruxer’s address. Since seeing the hoverbike of the carriers isn’t unusual, Keith parks his own in plain sight, with a small package under his arm, and enters in Ruxer’s building.
It’s morning, and Keith hopes Ruxer would be out of the apartment for work. Red makes clear there is someone inside. With a snort, Keith calls mentally for Kosmo, that appears at his next. He places the package on the ground and let Kosmo teleports them inside the apartment’s bathroom.
Keith peeps inside the apartment: a man sits down at his desk, back at Keith, looking at his computer. Ruxer, Keith imagines. His face reflects on the hologram and, Keith guesses from his size, the form of his face and the color of his fur, he’s a half-Galra half-Balmeran. Keith decides he needs enough time to check on that computer.
He returns on the landing and rings at the door, then goes back to the bathroom. Ruxer stands up, reaches the door and checks through the video intercom. Of course, there isn’t anyone outside and Keith holds his breath as Ruxer remains in front of the door, without moving.
Then, he opens the door and takes a step outside, reaching for the package Keith left few minutes before. With a relieved sigh, Keith teleports next the door and closes it before Ruxer can turns and see him. Then, he opens the plaque with the electric system and deactivate the circuit of the door with a small electroshock. That should give him enough time to check the computer.
Red is on his shoulder, checking at the door to inform him of the movements outside. Keith sits at the desk and looks at the computer screen. Ruxer was looking at the recent news, nothing really suspicious at a first glare. The desktop is a mess with a lot of files Keith doesn’t have time to open.
He reaches for the searched bar. With the name “Sincline Force” a lot of documents appears, but they are mostly saved news from the internet newspapers. They start even before Keith’s death, as Ruxer collects them all with care. A sign of pride?
Then, he puts the data Voran spoke about yesterday: the only file found is the schedule for Ruxer’s shift. It still makes Keith unease, because it shows Ruxer works at the Spaceport.
Third word is Blade of Marmora, then Kolivan. Nothing useful emerges. He tries to search for Voran. Keith expects mostly mails or audio records of their calls, but instead a list of written documents appear. Keith opens one of them: it looks like a report from a scientific mission, dating back at the Galra Empire. It was compiled by Voran and signed by Rainveig.
With a frown, Keith checks some others documents. They are all reports from Voran for Rainveig. It looks Voran used to be the head of an explored team from the Rainveig army. Considering that Rainveig was famous for his scientific researches, other than the fact he was one of the most famous Zarkon’s general, it isn’t strange that he had teams looking for interesting new planets to conquer and utilized.
Keith opens the folder that contains all the document. It’s inside another one, named “reports”. There are four other folders than Voran’s one, all full of reports, and an imagine. Keith clicks on it.
It’s a photo. It shows five people, all wearing the armor of Rainveig’s army. They are, in order: Voran, Nuru, Plantux, Farux and Ruxer. They look younger than the version Keith met. They hug each others and smile at the camera; behind them, a Galra imperial cruise for harvesting quintessence.
With a swallow, Keith put the word ‘Plantux’ on the searched bar. As expected, the research finds all the reports, but nothing else. Red meows on his shoulder and looks at the still closed door. Keith breaths hard: he closes and cancels all the chronology of his researches and returns to hide in the bathroom.
Five tickles later, the door opens and Ruxer strums inside. He’s angry. After him, a technician; he looks at the electric system.
“A small overload, it happens sometimes,” he says.
“He shouldn’t!” Ruxes barks back. “Galra technology is the worst, I can’t wait for the day we all work with balmeran’s crystals.”
Keith holds his breath. He knows Ruxes’ voice. He’s the same of Plantux’s audio record Pidge recollected. The discover lights Keith’s brain and he remembers where and when he heard Ruxes’ name the first time.
Ruxes doesn’t only work at the Spaceport. He works at the communication office of the Spaceport.
***
It’s almost evening when Keith returns back his hoverbike to his company parking. He neglected his work from the past two quintants, to investigate Voran and Ruxes’ whereabouts, but there is a limit of deliveries he can postpone from shift to shift and he wants to avoid problematic questions from his superiors.
Besides, his investigations were useless. Voran and Ruxes don’t do anything suspicious. Of course, Keith can’t follow them everywhere, but they have their routine house-work that doesn’t make them look like some terrorists. So Keith decides he needs to face them directly: tomorrow would be the day about their mysterious “thing to do” so Keith will try to understand what it is before it happens.
He leaves the undelivered packages, compile the reports of the day and heads to his motel to collect back Kosmo and Red: he will need them to face Voran and Ruxes. He takes a completely empty public transportation and gets down two streets before his motel.
The city is strangely silent. He noticed nobody was in the office, and nobody on the bus, which is unusual but not impossible. The silent city is somewhat unnerving. Keith walks with steady and prudent steps.
In the silence, he notices immediately the rumors, even before approaching the dark hall next to the motel. He takes a deep breath and acts, jumping in the hall and pushing the other person against the wall.
“Whoa whoa, calm down, man.”
“Thiny?” Keith releases him and blinks in the dark.
“Yeah, well…” he coughs, rubbing his collar. “You’re a little nervous, aren’t you?”
Keith crosses his arms. “You have a habit to wait for people in dark alleys?”
“No.” Thiny looks down, uncertain. “I did a big mistake… And now Rhayn has been arrested and my parents too and…”
“Wait. Rhayn was arrested? Why? What happened?”
“And my parents too! They let me escape but… It’s… it’s my fault. I…” Thiny sobs.
“Okay. Come with me. You need to calm down and explain me properly.”
Thiny nods and he follows him to the motel. In the hall, there are two Blades that are talking to the owner of the motel. As they enter, all three turn their gaze on them, and the owner nods.
“Are you Yorak?” One of the Blades takes a step towards him, while the other checks his datapad. Thiny hides behind Keith.
“Yes. Why?”
“You have to come with us.”
“Why?”
“Duaces’ orders.” He shifts his gaze to Thiny, who is trying to leave the hall without anyone noticing. “Stop. Who are you?”
Keith grips Thiny’s wrist, but do not diverts his gaze from the Blade. “I’m not going anywhere if I don’t get an explanation.”
“They don’t have any!” Thiny struggles to get free from Keith’s grasp. “They took my parents too!”
“Those are-”
Keith doesn’t let the Blade finishes his speech. He releases Thiny and jumps forwards. The Blades can be well trained, but Keith was trained better. He kicks the other leg to make him fall and then he elbows him in the face to knock him down, while he extracts the knife with the other hands.
The others Blade extracts the gun; Keith is faster. He transforms the knife in the sword as he springs forwards. He spars a shotgun with the blade and then cuts the gun in half. He pushes the Blade against the hall desk and trusts the sword just next the Blade’s face.
He shots a look at the motel’s owner, who is about to turn on the alarm. “Don’t even try,” he orders. The owner gulps and steps backwards, far from the desk.
Keith turns back his attention to the Blade.
“What does it mean? What are you doing, going around arresting people without reasons?”
The Blade pants under Keith’s grip. “Duaces’ orders.”
“I already know that. I want to know why.”
“The last measure against the Sincline Force, that’s all I know.”
“So you’re arresting pure-blood all around the city?”
The Blade nods.
“And where are you bringing them?” Keith lifts his sword under his head. “Where?”
“The Recreational hall. I don’t know anything else, I was just following orders… please…”
Keith put away his blade and then he releases the other man. He doesn’t look at the owner as he turns to Thiny and gestures at him to follow. Thiny looks around, at the still open door of the motel, and the still awake Blade. He takes a step towards the door.
“Come,” Keith orders.
Thiny doesn’t look happy when he reaches him, but he waits for the lift door to close before explain his concerts. “We should have run. They know we are here, they’re calling for reinforcement… Tell me there is a secret exit in this motel. Please tell me.”
Keith doesn’t answer, at first, and lets Thiny rambling. He hears Red in his mind as they reach his room’s floor and orders her and Kosmo to remain hidden for now. Once they close the door of the room behind them, Keith speaks, “we don’t have much time before they’ll come for us. So now you sit there,” he points at the bed, “and explain me everything. From the start.”
Thiny sighs deeply, but realizes he doesn’t have many choices. He sits down, hands in his laps. “Do you remember the night the cellar was attacked?” At Keith’s nod, he continues, “the day after, a person came to me. Said Voran spoke about me… about the fact I want to contribute at the pure-blood cause.”
“You met a man from the Sincline Force?”
Thiny nods.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t show much of himself… I don’t think I can recognize him. He was a big man, very big… Voice low, raspy…”
Keith takes his datapad and select the second audio record of Plantux. “Is this voice?”
“Yes! That’s it!” Thiny’s eyes bulges. “How… How do you know it?”
Ruxer. Damn. “Go on,” Keith says.
“Well, okay… this man… give me… a bomb.”
“A bomb?!”
Thiny looks awful sorry as he nods. “He orders him to put it under the Red Paladin’s statue on the main square, in order to destroy it. It wasn’t for killing someone, just… to send a message.”
Keith takes a deep breath. As much as he hates that statue and would love to see it destroyed, the situation is deeply concerning. “It doesn’t look to me the Sincline Force is restrained itself from killing.”
“I know! I know! I’m sorry, okay?” Thiny shuts his eyes and breathes. “That is why I changed my mind and brought the bomb to Rhayn.”
“To Rhayn,” Keith repeats.
“I… I can’t go to my parents, I was too ashamed. Rhayn gave me some advices before, so I thought he knew what to do.” He sighs. “And he did. He told me to forget about everything, and he would pretend to be the one with the bomb. He would have reported it to the army hoping to give them a lead to the Sincline Force.”
“And instead, they arrested him.”
Thiny nods again. “I… I didn’t know what to do. I felt I can’t talk to anyone else or they’ll be arrested too… and then, tonight, they came from me and my parents and I… I…”
“You came to me, so I suppose you don’t really care about endangering me,” Keith comments bluntly.
“Well, no. Yes. I mean…” Thiny blinks. “No!” He jumps still. “I don’t have anyone else to go, okay? My friends are mostly half-Galra, and they… I can’t trust them anymore. Even if some of them still speak to me, I saw it. I saw their gaze, their doubt…” He laughs bitterly. “And they are right in the end, aren’t they? I took that bomb.”
“But you didn’t use it. That’s the difference.”
Thiny looks at him but he wasn’t convinced. Keith breathes deeply. He doesn’t expect the situation to degenerate so fast and so bad. He knows reconstructing a Galra nation on the ruins of the empire won’t be easy, but he doesn’t image this kind of development. He thought the conflicts would come from outside, from the planet that were under Zarkon’s control, not from the inside.
His mind brings him to his mother, and to his future brother. And then to Thiny, and to his pain, and his mistake. Keith wouldn’t let his brother to born in a world like that, and wouldn’t let him face something like Thiny had.
Someone knocks at the door. “Yorak. Open the door and surrender. You’re surrounded.”
Thiny looks at the door with fear, then he shots a disappointed glare at Keith. “I told you!”
“Time to go,” Keith nods. He grabs Thiny’s shoulder as Kosmo emerges from behind the bed, Red curled on its back. Kosmo teleports them outside, at the end of the street that brings to the motel, so Keith can check if the Blades are surveilling the street too. It doesn’t seem so.
“What… what…” Thiny doesn’t move from Keith’s grip, blinking to realize what happened. “You have a Cosmic Wolf? Like the Red Paladin? This is so cool!”
“Shh,” Keith gestures to him.
Thiny nods, but he seems unable to shut up, even if he speaks with a lower tone. “So, what do we do now? We need to save my parents. And everyone else, too!” Suddenly, he looks too much excited. “The Recreational hall. We need to go there.”
“We aren’t going there.”
“Why not?”
“You know where The Recreational hall is?”
Thiny nods. “It’s just behind the spaceport, right?”
“Yes. And since tonight, the spaceport will be closed from international transportation because of a renovation. Looks too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“What does it mean?”
“Let’s find out.”
Kosmo teleports them directly inside the Spaceport, in the area outside, where the smallest pods of the Blades are parked. It’s an area enough isolated to not be checked too much at night, but is nearest enough for them to check the launching pad and looking at the situation without being spotted.
“What are those?” Thiny asks, pointing at the three enormous dark spaceship ready to launch at the end of the launching pad.
“Imperial Galra cruisers,” Keith answers. They should have been dismantled at the end of the war.
“The Sincline Force?”
Keith doesn’t have a clear answer for it. And since it’s dark, he can’t see clearly who are the people around the cruisers and what they are doing. But Keith fought against the cruisers for long he remembers enough of their architecture, so he asks Kosmo to teleporter them right over one of them, just at the back where they can hide behind the engine’s wing.
From there, Keith can see the employees of the Space Port as they prepare the cruisers for launch, and some Blades sticking around, checking the situation. They are all half-Galra.
Then, a group arrive from right, from the direction of the Recreational hall. Keith counts twelve robot sentinel and three Blades that accompanied a group of twelve pure-blood Galra. The pure-blood have their hand cuffed on the front and they’re dressed with the usual prisoner uniform.
Another Blade welcome the group at the entrance of the Cruiser. They check on the datapad, comparing a list of names with the group of prisoners. “Confirmed. Bring the next group.” The Blade enters in the cruiser, followed by the robot sentinels that drag the prisoners, while the other three Blades take with them another dozens of sentinels that are waiting in front of the cruiser before returning in the same direction they came from.
The prisoners don’t complain. Keith guesses they’re done to, if they were treated as the Blades tried to do with him too. A brief look around gives him the certain that in the other two cruisers similar operation has been held.
“They… They are bringing them away! We need to stop them!”
Thiny is about to jump off the cruiser, but Keith blocks him. “What are you going to do, with all this surveillance?”
“But we need to! My parents…!”
Keith nods. “Those cruisers are imperial. It means they’re still fuel by quintessence and not by the balmeran crystals.” He gestures with his head at the gigantic tube that connect the cruiser to the Spaceport main building.
“And this is a positive thing?”
“Yes, because quintessence is limited, and for making the cruisers working they need a quantity we don’t store usually here in Daibazaal. If we can make it dispersing, they won’t be able to launch. Not for tonight, at least.”
“I’m in. What I have to do?”
Keith reflects: he doesn’t like the idea to put Thiny in danger, but he’s outnumbered and he really needs a hand at the moment. He could ask for Acxa and the others, or even call Shiro, but stopping the launch required immediate moves. He takes his datapad and his knife and gives them to Thiny.
“Listen carefully,” he says. “I’m going in, directly in the storage tank, and I’ll deactivate the quintessence storage. I can manage to direct it to another direction and make it disperse in the ground. But I need a distraction.” Keith points out at the end of the tube, where it disappears inside the building. “Quintessence is very powerful, so the tube is composed by thick and short pieces to resist at the strength. Find the point of contact between the two pieces and tighten it. The quintessence would push to pass in a smaller space and it’ll ring an alarm in the control room. They’ll be too much focused on finding the leak they won’t check the main storage tank where I’ll act.”
“But isn’t better if we block together all the tubes?” Thiny asks.
“No, because it’ll trigger an explosion that may destroy the cruiser too, that’s way I need to act directly at the storage tank, where the quintessence isn’t under pressure,” Keith explains. “You have to tighten the pieces to let still enough quintessence passing, okay? Can you do it?”
“…I can.”
“Good.” Keith places a hand on Kosmo’s back. “If something – anything – bad happen in this operation, just stop, Kosmo will teleporter you out of it, but do not act on your own. Hide and use my datapad to call for Shiro. Show him my knife. He’ll know what to do.”
“What about you?”
“If I won’t be able to stop the launch, I’ll have to follow them at least.”
Kosmo teleports him right inside the storage tank. He knows the structure, he knows where intervene and where to hide to not be spotted. Red, still settles on Kosmo’s fur, looks at him with annoyance on her cat face.
“Buddies. I need you to help Thiny. I’ll manage.”
Kosmo rubs his head against Keith’s chest and it licks his face before disappearing again in the usual small flash of blue light. Keith is alone, without his knife and his datapad. He can handle it, he had it worse.
He focuses his attention to the tank. And he waits: once the alarm goes on, he jumps out of his hideout and reaches the tank. There are small fuses all around the bottom, they are used to liberate the quintessence if something happens. Quintessence is a dangerous source of energy and it can cause explosion if it isn’t controlled.
Keith opens the fuses one after another. It won’t be notice at first because the alarm from outside, and because whoever he’s in the control room, he would reduce the flow of the quintessence to stop the explosion in the tubes. Once they notice, the tank should be already half empty, which means they won’t able to fill all the cruisers.
“Stop right there!”
Keith is at the last fuse when the door opens and a team of guards appears, guns in hands. He snorts: they shouldn’t have able to detect his presence so fast, not until the alarm from outside still rings. He moves nearer the tank.
“Are you going to shoot? In here?” he asks.
They can’t: as much as they tank is built with a resistant metal, any no-controlled hole would risk for the quintessence to go out too fast and explode. Still, Keith knows he can’t stall them for long, but he hopes it will suffice to end the quintessence.
The guards move aside from the door and a group of robot sentinels enters in the room. They don’t have any gun, they don’t need to: Keith doesn’t have the knife with him to fight them. He gets near the tank as much as he can and doesn’t move until the sentinels are enough near to grab him, then jumps on one of them and rushes on the other side of the room. With the corner of his eyes, he notices the guards reaching the tank to close the fuses and he grits his teeth.
But now the door is free. One of the sentinels grabs his vest and Keith kicks it out of the way. He avoids the arm of another sentinel, then he takes it by the leg and throws it against the group of guards. He trips towards the door and his hand is already on it as he feels a shotgun.
He lowers to avoid it, but it isn’t a laser gun, it’s a Taser gun. It’s enough for it to rub Keith’s arm to shot him with a small charge of electricity. Keith grits his teeth and manages to remain still, using his hand to move forwards, but his small stop is enough for the other sentinels to reach him and pin him on the floor.
Keith struggles to break free until one of the guards takes him and cuffs Keith’s hand behind his back. The guards keep his grip on Keith’s hand as he activates his interphone in the bracelet on his arm.
“Sir, we caught the intruder. As you said, the real attack was here in the tank room. We secured it again. I think we don’t have much quintessence losing.”
“Good.” It’s Voran’s voice.
“Should we bring him to the cruiser?”
“No, bring him to me. I need to interrogate him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Well, that settles it. It isn’t the confrontation Keith anticipated, because he would have preferred being in an advantage position, but he still will take the best of it. The guard drags him outside the tank room, upstairs until the control room of the entire Spaceport.
Ruxer sits down at the desk, back towards Keith, and he’s checking the camera screen that shows the cruisers outside. Voran is lowering towards him, as he murmurs something to the interphone about checking the quintessence levels.
“Sir,” the guard calls.
Voran straights his back and turns to the door. “Thank you. Please, return to your duty at the cruisers.”
The guard reserves a last look to Keith as he doesn’t trust to leave him, but in the end he nods and pushes Keith a little bit forwards before leaving. The door closes and Keith hears clearly the lock three times, which means that the sliding door could be open only from the control panel and not just from the button next to the door. Looks like they’re not taking risk.
Voran tilts his head on the side, as he watches Keith carefully, and smiles. He opens his mouth to speak, but Ruxer precedes him. He stands up in a second and rushes forwards to pin Keith against the wall, his claws grip in Keith’s shoulder.
“You’re dead. I’ll kill you.”
“Ruxer, please. This isn’t necessary.”
Ruxer turns his head and bares his teeth. “This wouldn’t have necessary if you had told me about all this. But no, of course! Nothing happened, you said!” he mimics. “I would stop him before but no, let not worry and we almost lose the quintessence.”
Voran crosses his arm and rolls his eyes. “Are you done?”
“You’re not listening,” Ruxer replies. “He knows too much. Someone that just arrived a couple of months ago can’t know where the quintessence tank is and how to sabotage it.”
“He doesn’t know shit.” Voran snorts.
Well, Keith has something to say about it. “Well, I do know you’re not going away with this. You can’t make so much people disappeared and having everyone else being okay with it.”
Voran doesn’t look impressed. “Actually, we can,” he murmurs, “because aren’t people that disappear, but a disease. People will be okay with it, because everyone hates you. Pure-blood Galra! The worst being in the entire universe.” He releases a small laugh. “You’re a curse. Once you all will be gone, we’ll be finally free from the ghost of the empire. The universe won’t see us as cruel conquered anymore. We’re sorry, but for us to survive, you need to disappeared. It’s for the greater good of Daibazaal.”
“And killing Plantux was also for the greater good?” Keith retorts. That is something they don’t expect. They stop.
“He was your friend,” Keith continues. “I saw the photo. You all, you three and the Duaces, under Rainveig’s command. And you killed him.”
“You… That was you. Overload my ass.” Ruxer isn’t an idiot. His grip on Keith’s shoulders tightens. “Now can I kill him?”
“I know who kidnapped Kolivan,” Keith continues. “And I know you are the one that gives Thiny a bomb. Good job in making everyone believe pure-blood are behind everything.”
Voran is pissed. His tail wags from one side to another. He looked so calm and collect and he isn’t happy to realize he doesn’t have everything under control. “Who are you?” he demands, slowly. The tone is low, controlled. “Are you one of Kolivan’s men? He sent you to investigate? Who are you?”
He gets near and his tail slides through Keith’s chest until his face. Keith refrains himself to gag at the touch, as he realizes Pidge’s suit isn’t made for accurate corporal search. He waggles his legs in hope to push him aside, but Ruxer’s grip doesn’t fade. Voran blocks Keith’s leg with his tail and narrows his eyes.
“Something’s wrong.”
As Keith fears, if people touch him for long, they realize he doesn’t have a real fur, or pointed ears. He holds his breath as Voran directs his attention to the small metal plaque Keith has at the center of his chest. Pidge made the switch of the suit in the easier position for Keith to use, camouflaged as a clothes decoration. Wise choice if Keith need to return fast to his own self, but it makes impossible for Keith to avoid Voran finding the switch below the plaque and turn it off.
Keith grits his teeth and waits for the violet light to disappears before acting. The sight of his true self, as expected, paralyze the other two. Voran’s tail return to his side and Ruxer’s grip loosens enough for Keith to butthead him. Keith falls on the ground and he jumps still immediately after. He rushes towards the control panel.
Ruxer snaps out from his surprise in time to grab Keith again and smashes him on the ground. “You aren’t dead yet?” he yells in Keith’s face. “How is it. We killed you twice and you’re still alive? You won’t revive a third time, I’ll make sure of it.”
Voran hasn’t moved yet. Then, he starts laughing, loudly, his chest trembling. “Rhayn.”
“What?” Ruxer blinks, as confused as Keith.
“Rhayn,” Voran repeats, as he directs to Keith. “You thought Rhayn was the culprit of your bombing. You came here in disguise to investigate on him, that’s why you were there at the Witch’s den.” He laughs again. “I’m glad to know we managed to deceive the Red Paladin.”
“Yeah, well, I concede you that,” Keith snorts back. “The farce is over now. We know Plantux have been killed here in Daibazaal, we know that half-Galra kidnapped Kolivan, we know enough about your plan. I know before this night pure-blood are disappearing outside the capital. The Paladins know.”
“And what are you going to do with all this knowledge, once you’ll be dead?” Ruxer growls.
“We’re not going to kill him,” Voran says.
“What? No! Don’t you listen? He knows too much.”
“It’s true,” Voran nods. “However… It may be true the Paladins know. They rescued Kolivan, after all. They may know how Fixi and the others faked their deaths.”
For once, Ruxer hesitates. His voice is broken as he speaks, “so we failed? There’s nothing we can’t do?”
“I’m not saying that.” Voran crosses his arm. “We need to speed up our plan.”
“Again?”
“Yes. There is no choice. We need to act before someone may interfere. I’ll speak with Fixi. In the meantime…” He moves his eyes to Keith, “having a hostage against the Paladins may be good.” He turns on his communication devices and a female voice answers.
“Yes, sir?”
“Come to the communication room, and bring with you a restrain equipment. We have a dangerous prisoner we need to take care of.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tch. I would have preferred to kill you myself,” Ruxer snorts, but he loosens a little his grip.
“Maybe you’ll have your occasion,” Keith answers.
Voran kneels down. “We knew your mother. Before. With Rainveig.” He presses the switch on Keith’s dress to disguise him again as a pure-blood. “She was the only one to treat us as actual human beings instead of inferior creatures. When we discover your existence, we understood the reason.”
“She’s a pure-blood. You hate them,” Keith states,
“We do.” There is a soft smile on Voran’s face. “We don’t want to kill her, but we don’t have any choice. And whose fault it is? Yours. The only thing you had to do, oh mighty Red Paladin, was to help Farux and Nuru with their marriage law. No killing, no deceiving, nothing: the Galra would be erased naturally. But of course you didn’t.”
Keith grits his teeth. “Don’t you dare to blame this on me. You killed your own friend.”
“I didn’t want to, but he gave me no choice. He wanted to quit. He’s a traitor of his own kind, just like you,” Ruxer mutters, as Keith didn’t even talk. “But I prefer it this way, a fast and definitive sweeping of the pure-blood so, thank you, I guess.”
Voran puts the metal plaque back to his place above the switch, and then presses the edges until he twists them enough to stick the plaque in place, so Keith would be able to deactivate the suit even if he has his hand free.
“So be happy, you’ll die together with you beloved pure-blood, and as a one of them.”
“That will see,” Keith replies.
Voran smiles again and stands up. He opens again the sliding door in time for a Blade to arrive. Keith recognizes her. “Mas-” he tries to call, but Ruxer steals away his breath by lifting him as he is a ragdoll.
“I bring the equipment,” Masira says.
“Thank you.” Voran takes it from her arms and returns fast back to Keith. First he put on the metal muzzle, covering the lower part of Keith’s face. As he secures Keith’s arm around his waist with a chain and cuffs his ankles too, Ruxer taps the muzzle.
“This was used with gladiators too. If you keep it too much, it creates a very bad scar right here.” And, with a smirk, he points at the middle part of his nose. “But maybe you like it.”
Keith’s eyes flashes. Ruxer is lucky Keith has other plan in mind than killing him at the moment, otherwise he wouldn’t have hesitated to make him sorry of even try to nominate Shiro and his scars.
“Please, Masira, bring him to the first cruiser,” Voran orders, pushing Keith in her direction. “Put him in an isolated cell and do not free him from his restraint. We suspect he’s one of the higher-ups of the Sincline Force and we don’t want to risk him trying something.”
“Understood,” she replies. “The first cruise should be ready to launch, too.”
“Good. Let me know once this is done so we can give you the coordinates.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Keith follows docile Masira in the hallways of the Spaceport building, he wonders if Voran chose Masina to show him than even his friends, even the half-Galra he believes to aren’t on their side anymore. Keith isn’t going to fail for his trap. There is a reason he benched people like Acxa after all.
He ears Red in his mind. Voran didn’t nominate Thiny at all, so Keith suspects he doesn’t know Thiny helped with the sabotage. Hearing Red is just the confirmation that Kosmo was able to transport them and avoid Thiny to be captured.
“No!” he orders. “Stay there. Protect Thiny. Bring him out of there.”
Thiny has orders. Shiro will know how to proceed with the new information. Keith has other things to do. Since he hasn’t managed to stop the launch, the only thing it remained to do is going with the cruisers. Those people, the pure-blood Galra, won’t face whatever Voran and the others prepared for them without Keith.
***
“Lance arrived. They’re waiting for you in Room #3.”
“Thank you, Veronica.”
She smiles. “Just sent me my little brother after you’re finished with him so I can poking him around.”
Shiro nods. He closes all the tabs of his computer – being on holiday only means more work at his return – and reach Room #3, which is one of the most private meeting room, the one with sofa instead of chairs. The other Paladins are there.
Lance is spread on the sofa, his pilot suit still on. Despite his chatting with Allura, he looks tired. Shiro speaks to him.
“Thank you for finally join us, Lance.”
Lance shots him a glare. “Hey, I was out working for you!” he complains. “Sorry if you sent me to the other side of the universe!”
Shiro sits down next to him and pats his kneel. “Where are Krolia and Kolivan?”
“Since the matter we’re discussing today includes the new head of the Blades, they’re investigating on their past archive if they find some information about them. Knowing your enemy.”
“Okay,” Shiro nods. “What did you find, Lance?”
“You were right. Periodan is still abandoned. Whoever the new head of the Blades send their men, it’s not there. But,” he smirks, “we may know where.”
Shiro blinks. “You’re forgiven for your delay. Where?”
Lance smiles satisfied. “I think the credit is more to Hunk. If you please.”
“Oh, sure.” Hunk takes off his datapad. “Since you discovered that the Sincline Force is recreating the robot sentinels and using the old imperial technology, Allura and I tried to focus on searching a possible route for the needed materials.”
“Coran made me noticed that the robot sentinels are made with specific kind of metals,” Allura adds. “So we used or diplomatic connections to search specifically for those metals.”
“Of course, they have multiple uses, so buying them isn’t so unusual, but buying all of them together may ring a bell,” Hunk continues. “So I made a chart of all the commercial route to Daibazaal, and I made an interesting discover: there aren’t private Galra company that ordered all the metals, only the Daibazaal government. But I spoke with a lot of people and checked a lot of documents, and there is only one Galra captain that happened to collect of all the metals for the government at least once. What a curious coincidence.”
“And the captain is Plantux, I guess.”
“Shiro, dude, I love you, but would you like leave Hunk his moment?” Lance complains.
“Sorry. Who is the captain you’re talking about, Hunk?”
Hunk reserves him a raised eyebrow. “At that point of my investigation, we don’t have the information about a possible involvement of Daibazaal government.”
“You still have to explain us how do you get this information, Shiro,” Allura comments.
“In the same way Pidge found out about Plantux’s mysterious death. We all have secret sources around,” Shiro answers. Allura doesn’t seem convinced, and Pidge shots him a glare.
“However,” Hunk goes on, “It was better that I didn’t have this information at the time, because I assumed Plantux stole some of the metals destined to the planet for himself. And then, I asked myself: what if Plantux has a secret base out there where he hides the stolen metals?”
He projects a small chart from his datapad, with a map of a galaxies. “For example, there are mines of poliartu in those three planets in the same quadrants of Daibazaal, but Plantux collected it only from here.” And indicates one of the three planets. “Maybe because it’s the nearest to Plantux’s secret hideout.
“Hunk asks me to hack inside Daibazaal Spaceship and searched for Plantux’s route, to see how much time he travelled.”
“Combined all the planets of the metals and Plantux’s timetable,” Hunk moves a little his map, “it’s entirely possible his secret hideout is this.”
“What is it?” Allura asks.
“It’s an asteroid in the orbit of Punjus. It’s a gassed planet just like our Jupiter, so it’s inhabited, and so it is the asteroid. And it’s the only planet of his solar system, so it’s like the perfect secret base.”
“This was brilliant, Hunk,” Shiro says, impressed.
“That’s my best friend for you,” Lance comments, smug.
“But it’s just a hypothesis,” Pidge intervenes. “And now that we suppose the government is involved, maybe all Hunk’s calculations are just… a strange coincidence.”
“Ouch, this hurt,” Hunk complains.
“We still have all the missing Galra around, they must be somewhere,” Allura says. “The government involvement does not invalidate the existence of a secret base.”
“After all, I’m not sure they would be able to do the same on Daibazaal, so it makes sense even for them to have another place for their secret activities,” Shiro adds.
“All yours hypothesizes are cute,” Lance murmurs, “but they could have been avoided if you just asked, hey, Lance, don’t you happen to have taken a look on that asteroid, right?”
Hunk chuckles. Allura frowns. “Lance. I hope you didn’t go there all alone. It was pretty dangerous.”
“Danger is my second name,” Lance smirks.
Shiro coughs and Lance widens his hands, in a surrender gesture. “I used Pidge’s magic system to be invisible and I stayed only ten doboshes, more or less.” He ignores Pidge’s complains about the fact her system isn’t magic at all and continues, “first of all, there are some old galra cruisers floating around the asteroid. I don’t think they can fly, they’re too ruined, but since we already saw them utilizing the old spaceship as a sentries’ factory, it’s possible they have the same functions.”
“And on the planet?” Shiro presses.
“There is a Galra base. I recognize the architecture. I didn’t go inside, I just made a fast scansion of the building. There are people inside.”
Allura presses his lips together. “So now we just need to understand if the people there are members or prisoners of the Sincline Force.”
“You said you have the scansion of the building?” Pidge asks. “Can I have it?”
“Sure.” Lance transfer his data on her computer and she starts elaborate them.
“I’m 99% sure it’s a prison.” She projects the hologram of two different structure. “On the right, Lance’s base.” She ignores Lance’s protests about the fact it isn’t ‘his-his’, “and on the left the prison Matt had been once.” She taps her datapad and the two holograms merge together. It’s clear they have the same structures.
“So, we can assume the Daibazaal Government is taking the pure-blood Galra prisoners. Our next course-” Shiro stops talking as his datapad rings. He takes off with the idea of turning it off, when he notices Keith’s number on it. “Sorry, I have to answer this.”
He rushes outside the room without waiting for an explanation; he takes off the glasses connect to the Atlas so she can create on the spot a private room for him, where he locks himself before answering.
On the other side of the datapad, there isn’t Keith. The face of a young Galra appears, and he looks as confused as Shiro.
“Uhm…” he says, uncertain. “You’re the Black Paladin.” He sounds almost disappointed.
“I’m sorry if I’m not the person you’re expecting.”
“Oh, no, no, just, uhm, surprised.” The Galra looks around, shy. “To be honest, I was looking for a person named Shiro. Do you happen to know him?”
“I know him,” Shiro confirms. “I know him as I know myself.”
The Galra frowns a little, until he gets it. “Oh. Okay. So, you, uhm, are Shiro. I don’t expect it.” And he adds something with lower tone Shiro doesn’t understand.
“This is pretty clear.” But Shiro decides it’s time to stop joking. “May I ask who you are and why you have my friend’s datapad?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, sorry.” The Galra stops muttering under his breath and focuses again on Shiro. “I’m Thiny, and, well, they’re kidnapping all the pure-blood here in Daibazaal. I think they’re the Blades or the Duaces, it isn’t clear, but they’re stored all of them to send them off planet. Including my parents!”
He stops, his face in pain for a tickle. “We were trying to stop them, Yorak and I. But we didn’t. I managed to escape, Yorak got captured, but he told me that if something bad happened I should have called this Shiro, who turns out it’s you, because you know what to do.”
In Thiny’s entire discourse Shiro only gets a ‘Yorak was captured’ part he doesn’t like a little bit.
“Yorak told me to show you this. You know, to prove everything’s true.” Thiny lifts a knife and holds it for the camera.
Keith’s blade. Shiro has no doubt it’s Keith blade. Kosmo push his head against Thiny’s waist, and it appears on camera.
“Stay put, this isn’t the moment.” Thiny tries to push Kosmo back, with no avail.
“I see you have Kosmo too,” Shiro says dryly. It isn’t a good news, because wherever Keith is, he’s without his sword, and without his wolf.
“Oh, yes, Yorak let him to me for, you know, let me escape. Wait, he calls him Kosmo too? He has a cosmic wolf and he calls him as the Red Paladin’s one? Is Yorak like a biggest fan or…” Thiny stops, he sticks his yellow eyes on Shiro and then, he realizes, “oh, Holy Zela, Yorak is the R-”
“Shut up,” Shiro orders.
Thiny closes his mouth, but his expression speaks for him.
“You told me Yorak was captured. What does it mean? Explain.”
“We were at the Spaceport, we tried to stop the cruisers with all the prisoners to launch. We separated. When the guards came for me, Kosmo teleported me away, but still in the spaceport. From there, I saw as Yorak was dragged inside one of the cruiser. I guessed he was captured and our rescue mission failed. I waited until there isn’t anyone anymore in the spaceport before calling you.”
“Okay.” Shiro breathes hard. “So you’re telling me there is a Galra cruiser in space, with pure-blood Galra prisoners, and Yorak is one of them?”
“Uhm, yes. But the Galra cruisers are three, not just one.”
Shiro groans. “Great.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I should have done something else. I… was pretty useless.” Thiny looks displeased. Kosmo pushes its head against his chest: he lowers his head and rubs his fur.
“Thiny, listen carefully to me,” Shiro says. “I’ll take care of the situation outside Daibazaal, but you have to do something for me.”
“Okay,” he nods.
“Good. You need to go to a person named Acxa. It’s a Blade. Show her the knife and tell her I send you. Kosmo knows where to go.”
“She’s… a half-blood?” Thiny asks. “She is.”
“She’s Yorak’s friend, she’s on our side. I know that for certain.”
“Okay.” He doesn’t look convinced, but he nods.
“Tell her everything you know, everything you told me, and that the Paladins are taking care of the cruisers. She needs to check the situation in Daibazaal for us.”
“You… you will save them? My parents?” Thiny looks almost surprised.
“We will.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you. I mean, with all the Red Paladin and everything-” he stops, as he fears he said the wrong thing.
“Go,” Shiro suggest. “It’s dangerous for you to remain in the same place for too long.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll go.”
Thiny looks around to check there isn’t anyone else before interrupting the call. Shiro takes a doboshes to calm down, then he goes out from the private room and put the glasses back. He returns on Room #3 and the other immediately stop their conversation.
“Everything okay?” Allura asks. Shiro nods.
“So, what are we going to do with that secret base we just discovered?” Lance asks. “We all different opinions here, what’s yours?”
“We’re going to attack it to free all the prisoners, and we’re going to do it immediately,” Shiro answers. “I’ll ask Veronica to set up the route for the asteroid, but to be faster we’ll take the MFE to get there.”
The others look at him with wide eyes. “We… should reflect about it,” Allura murmurs. “I don’t like the idea of the prisoners as much as you, but as a Queen of Altea and as a Paladins, we should be careful about interfere in other planet’s government…”
“Three Galra cruisers full of pure-blood Galra prisoners just departed from Daibazaal, and Keith is there with them too,” Shiro replies. “I’m not waiting a tickle.”
“Wait, you know?” Pidge asks. “How… but of course you do. Secret source my ass.”
Shiro shots her a glare “You’re the one talking.”
“He told me to not tell you! He pleaded me!” she replies. “And then he went and told you too without even warning me because, of course, you are you.” He crosses her arms, angry. “I hate you two, and Keith a little more.”
“Uhm, guys… what am I missing?” Hunk murmurs. “Because you’re talking as Keith is… well, alive, and we… kinda went to his funeral, so… is it?”
“Keith is alive! Of course he is!” Lance exclaims, throwing his hand in air. “He was, like, playing spy alone on Daibazaal when everyone else think he’s dead?” Shiro and Pidge’s silence is pretty loud. “I can’t believe it. No, wait, I do believe it from Keith’s part, and I’m gonna shit on him for this stunt, but you two. I can’t believe you know and you don’t tell us anything. You let me cry for him!”
Pidge licks her lips. “To be fair honest, I found out only after the funeral, and you already cried then so…”
“That’s not the point!”
“Shiro,” Allura calls, and she is deadly serious. “Are you telling us that Keith is alive, and he’s currently prisoner in one of the cruisers that is probably direct to the secret prison of that asteroid?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Shiro sighs. “Guys, I’m sorry, I know both Keith and I owe you an explanation-”
Allura cuts him. “We need to attack that base immediately.”
***
The experience with Grogs gave Keith an important lesson.
He may not have a lion anymore, but he still has his bayard. And not wearing the paladin armor anymore doesn’t mean he can’t have the same technology that allow him to bring the bayard along in his new clothes. That’s the reason he asked Pidge to put that technology in the suit to disguise him as a pure blood.
And this is the reason why Keith, there in the isolate cell Masira locked him up, manages to free himself by all the restraints with his sword.
To be fair, it hasn’t been an easy job. The blade of his bayard is sharp, so he cuts the metal of the cuff like butter, but moving it with the hand tied up behind the back without cutting off an arm in the process requires some contortionist skills.
But now, Keith is free. He takes off the muzzle with relief, and rubs his face where the metal edge pressed more, as he looks better around. The cell is a quadrate room that would allow maximum four people inside, with no camera to check inside. The door is a metal sliding one, and no windows.
Keith knows the cruiser launched, and it’s okay. From the space, communications may be slower. Keith hopes he can act without Voran or anyone else being informed. And from the cruiser, finding out the route should be easy. With luck, Thiny contacts Shiro so the Paladins are informed about what the Duaces are up on.
The sword cuts the edges of metal door with ease. Keith hide back his bayard in his suit before kicking the door to make it falls and going out from his cell. The hallway outside is just like Keith remembers from the times he got caught by the empire: thin, with low purple light, and cell from both side.
Those cells, though, are empty. Keith frowns, since he saw with his own eyes when the prisoners were boarded. He needs to search for them.
There are cameras in the hallway, so Keith uses his knowledge of the imperial cruiser to avoid them using the air conduct. Not the most comfortable solution, but it does the job. Once he reaches the part it should be the main core of the ship, it realizes the architecture of the cruiser had some changes.
Instead of small, different floor, it’s cut on the center, creating an empty space in the middle that look like a ravine. In this manner, they save the space usually reserved to the thick metal walls, and they constructed there the new cells. They transformed a functional war cruiser into a slavery transport ship.
Only the ground of the cells is made of metal: the four walls and the ceiling are actually camp of energy: less safe, but cheaper. The cells are subdivided in three row and four columns, connected one to another by stairs and railing. From his position, Keith notices every cells contain six people, all pure-blood Galra. They are all adults and male, so Keith guesses they were divided by age and gender between the three cruisers.
There is a general air or resignation in the behavior of the prisoners. Keith can understand them: after years of war, they were told they could be forgiven, they could start again. And instead, their punishment arrives, and they act as they deserve it, for being part of an empire that conquered all the universe in the past.
Keith looks around, but he sees no cameras. It’s strange, but not impossible: the fact that the cells don’t have fixed walls makes difficult to plan cameras around, and the magnetic camp has usually his own security system. Keith feels enough safe to climb the first row of stairs and walks slowly in the railing.
His presence stirs the attention of everyone. The prisoners look at him in awe, they lift up, they whisper. Someone calls for him, someone insult him believing it’s an accomplice. Keith is just horrified by the situation.
“Yorak! Yorak!”
Keith blinks. He turns his head around and, three cells in front of him, he sees Rhayn, calling for him, his hand placed on the magnetic camp. The people in his cell observe the situation, uncertain. Keith moves forwards and reaches for him.
“It’s really you,” Rhayn comments, with a relieved smile. “I… How do you get out of your cell?”
Keith doesn’t answer. “I was told you were arrested because… I spoke with Thiny.”
“Oh.” Rahyn nods. “Well, it seems he’s not the reason I ended up here…” And he gestures at his comrades in his cell.
“Hey, can you get us out of here?” one of them ask.
“Do you know where they are bringing us?” another says.
“And why?”
The whispers around him increase and for Keith becomes difficult understand the words of the people in front of him. Of course his first instinct is to open those damn cells and let everyone out, but first he needs to assure the member of the crew realize how incredibly wrong the entire situation is.
“Stop right where you are!”
Despite the buzz, the order arrives clear at Keith’s ears, because the person that spoke is outside the cells. Keith sees robot sentinels climbing the stairs from both side, cornering him on the railing. Outside, on the ground floor, Masira stands, gun in her hand, other sentinels at her sides.
Keith leans on the railing. “Masira.”
“How do you…” she startles, but she’s fast to regain her composure. “I don’t know how do you manage to get out your cell, but I’ll find out and I’ll make sure it won’t happen again. Now surrender.”
“We need to talk,” he says. He shot a looks around: three sentinels on his right, three on his left. He can take them down if he needs.
“No, we don’t. Voran warned me about you. I guess you can’t become the leader of a terroristic group if you don’t have some persuasive ability. They won’t work on me.”
“Voran lied to you. He lied to everyone.”
There is some complains around, by the people that met Voran as he disguised himself as a pure-blood. Apparently, words about him being actually the head of the blade are spreading.
“And I should trust you more because…?” she smirks.
“You don’t trust me because I’m pure-blood, and you trusted him because he’s half-blood,” Keith retorts. “Don’t you realize how utterly stupid is it?”
“Second warning,” she replies. “Surrender or I won’t guarantee your safety.”
“Masira, I know,” Keith continues. “I know how you were treated back in the empire, how you all half-Galra are considered inferior, how much it pained you, and how much better you felt after the war is over.”
“You don’t know shit about me!”
“And now look at you, Masira. You took all those people prisoners because… they’re pure blood? That’s your reason? Don’t you fell the hypocrisy?”
“They still hate us half-Galra. Nothing chance, except the fact we can fight back now. For the Red Paladin.”
“And this is what the Red Paladin wants? What Keith wants? You know him, Masira, you worked with him! Don’t he-”
She cuts him. “Don’t you dare speak about him. You killed him! You all hated him because he was like us and not like you!”
Complains erupt from all the cells. Keith realized, in the small amount of time he passed undercover, that aren’t only half-Galra that appreciate the Red Paladin. It warms Keith’s heart to know he helped so many people to feel better, and he won’t let them using his name to hurt those people.
“We don’t,” he says. “Voran lies to you. The Duaces killed Keith and then pinned their crime to the pure-bloods. They hoped you and the other half-Galra would start to hate the pure-bloods. Do not fall for their trap.”
Keith’s accusation make all the cells become quiet. The gaze of everyone is on him, eyes wide. Masira releases a small laugh.
“This is utter ridiculous and I have enough. Shot him!”
The railing is small, so the sentinels are one after another. Keith jumps on the right as they start shooting, so the first two shot themselves instead. Keith lands on the second on the right, making it fell on the ground, as he disarmed the third one. He takes its gun, as he lowers down so he let another gunshot hit the third one on the right for him. Then, he shots the last two sentinels on the left.
He throws away the gun and jumps from the railing, sword in his arm. He lands right in front of Masira and cuts her gun before turning his attention to the remaining sentinels: defeating the sentinels now that he has a weapon is easy. Once he thrusts his sword in the chest of the last one, he turns his attention to Masira, that stands here, eyes filled with horror.
He lifts his sword and cuts off from his clothes the plaque with the switch. As the plaque falls to the ground with a ring sound, the suit, without the turning power, fades and reveals Keith’s true appearance. He returns the bayard back in his clothes.
He can heart the collective gasp around him, and the way Masira opens her mouth, unable to make a sound.
“I owe you an apology, Masira,” he says. “I know there was a big conspiracy on Daibazaal the day they tried to kill me, and I was hoping to find out. I’m late, but maybe not by much.”
“You’re… not real…” she murmurs, but she doesn’t believe her word. She saw the bayard, she knows his fighting style.
“The Sincline Force do not exist,” Keith continues. “The Duaces and the group working with them made you believe so, using my death to turn you against pure blood Galra. Then, they made laws and laws to enrage pure-blood too. And this is the result.”
He widens his arm, to show the destroyed robot sentinels and the cells all around him, where all the prisoners are now standing still, trying to pry as much as they can at them from below.
“But even if some of them would have been the culprit… can you look at me and tell me this is right? Erasing an entire race just because? You know who did that before? Zarkon.”
Masira isn’t looking at him. “We aren’t erasing… it’s just a precaution to…” Her excuse is weak. He kicks the arm of a robot sentinel at his feet.
“Building it it’s illegal, by the rules of the peace treaty. Yet they’re doing it again.”
“Just for this. We need a little help just for this…”
“Who’s gonna be next?” Keith asks. “Half-Galra who look not so Galra? Or that look too much Galra? Who are next, Masira?” He looks at her, at her black fur and her white eyes, and her long ears turned around her long neck. She’s tall, even for a Galra. “Please, do the right thing.”
“I thought this was the right thing,” she comments, and she sounds tired.
She lifts her arm and touches the control bracelet at her wrist. For an instant, Keith fears she’s asking for more help, and he’s ready to take off his bayard again. Instead, the magnetic camp of all cells trembles and then fades. The prisoners are free. Masira slumps on the floor. There is an unnatural silence around them.
“I thought this was the right thing,” Masira repeats. “I got orders. The Duaces spoke for us, it was nice for once… to be represented. And then you, well, apparently not, but you died and we… We were so angry we can’t have something for us, for once…”
“I’m sorry,” Keith says.
The not-prisoners-anymore starts to move. Now there is buzz around, people talking with each other with low voices, as they were afraid to being discovered. They climb down the stairs, they look at each other, and slowly they gather around Keith and Masira.
Keith moves a little nearer Masira, shielding her. She looks paralyzed, a little afraid, and she swallows. He passes his gaze on the group, severe, as to dare them to make a move. When one of them eyeing too much at one of the gun at the floor, Keith stares at him, daring him to take that gun.
“I’m here to stop this civil war,” he warns. “Anyone here that disagree?”
The man doesn’t take the gun, but the one next to him speaks, “is it true what you said, Yorak?” It’s the bartender from the Witch’s den. “That the Duaces are all behind this, that there isn’t any Sincline Force group?”
“I don’t have any proof but my own testimony, but yes,” Keith nods. “They’re the culprits, and they have accomplices around the ranks. I myself had been fooling by their trick, and I spent too much time investigating for pure-blood. Once I discovered the truth, it was late. I’m sorry for this. But I won’t let them destroy what you’re building up in Daibazaal as long as I can still fight.”
His words are clear, despite all the whispers. The bartender nods. “What we can do?”
“Where are we heading?” Keith asks to Masira.
She slowly stands up. “A prison, build in a safe asteroid. I don’t know much, I’ve never been there.”
“How many crew there is on board?”
“Three more, all Blades. They’re on the bridge right now, or at least is where I left them.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
They move. Masira first, leading the way, then Keith just a step behind her. The others follow, like a procession. She opens the door of the bridge and one of the Blades turns on her.
“You took long-” but he stops as he sees the Galra behind her, and this lures the attention of the other two. Keith ignores them and reaches for the control panel, moving aside one of the Blades. They blink at him, and stare, mouths open, as they just see a ghost. They did, in a way. He cuts off the communications and looks at the coordinate before stopping the engine.
“Okay,” comments one of the Blades. “What. The. Hell.”
“Masira will fill you up,” Keith comments, briefly. “Listen up: Voran knows I know, and that the Paladins know. He talked about speeding up their plan or something like that. Whoever it is, it won’t be nice. So he doesn’t need to know this.” He gestures at the Galra group. “Do not communicate with the Spaceport, or with anyone, you may be intercepted.” He turns his head to Masira. “You have the small fighter pods on board?”
“A couple, yes, they’re in the upper hangar, a floor above the prison.”
Keith nods. “For now, just stay put. I’ll send someone to pick you up as soon as possible.” Even if he told Thiny to call for Shiro, he can’t be sure he manages to do so, and to avoid the interceptions, he can’t contact the Atlas from here. He moves to return back to the hallway, and the group, although unsure, move on the two side to let him pass.
“Wait! What are you going to do?” Masira asks. Her three colleagues are still looking at her, and the entire situation is so fast and so strange they aren’t able to react.
“There are other two cruisers out there with prisoners. I’m going to free them too.”
He doesn’t even turn his back as he walks away. He’s sure the cruiser he’s in was the first to launch, but the other two can’t be too far away, and they may notice something’s off, so he needs to act fast, and hopes to meet people as Masira on board. He will try to contact the Atlas from the pod, once it’s safe.
“Yorak!” He’s about to jump on the pod, when a voice calls him. Rhayn. “Oh, well, I suppose this isn’t your name anymore, uh…”
“What is it?” Keith says. He may sound rude, but he still feels a little guilt towards Rhayn especially.
Rhayn looks embarrassed. “You may use an engineer on the pod. You may never know.”
He doesn’t need one. He’s used to fly alone, and during a war. And he has enough knowledge to check the engine by himself. But he nods at Rhayn to jump on, and smiles.
“I’m Keith.”
***
After being a prisoner for almost a year, Shiro thinks he was used to see this kind of situation. In the arena’s prisons, the gladiators are kept in small cells, all together, with very few space for themselves. They would die soon enough, and they’d free the space. That’s the reason Shiro has a personal cell for himself: he was the only one to survive.
Still, he was affected by the sight of all the pure blood Galra kept there, and how lost they look.
Judging by Allura’s reaction, he isn’t the only one. He sees her leaving the control room of the prison, where Pidge is trying to extract some data from the database, and he follows her. Allura stops at the entrance of the prison and her gaze wanders on all the Galra in the courtyard in front of the building. They’re enjoying their found freedom, and Krolia and Kolivan are talking with them, to reassure them and to understand their part of the story.
“You okay?” Shiro asks.
She nods slowly. “I hated the Galra for a long time. A part of me still hate them, even if I know I can’t blame all of them,” she murmurs. “But seeing them… like that…” She means, closed in those small cells with almost no air to breath. “It made me so angry. This isn’t fair. At all.”
Shiro nods. “That’s very mature for you, princess.”
Allura glares at him and at his smirk. He doesn’t forget the way she treated Keith once, and neither does she. “I’m a queen, now,” she remembers him, with a smile.
Kolivan notices them on the door and reaches for them. “Did you find something?”
“Pidge’s still checking the database. The guards don’t talk,” Shiro answers. They are part of the Daibazaal Army, not the Blades, so Kolivan can’t say to know them enough to have them trust him.
“There are five people missing,” he says.
“What do you mean, missing?” Allura frowns.
“Five people that were captures with some of the others,” Kolivan explains. “By their comments, they were removed from their cells without a reason. They’re not in the group outside, so we don’t know their location.”
Allura presses her lips together. She doesn’t like it, because Pidge hasn’t detected any more human being in the building, which led to one bad conclusion.
“Let’s see if Pidge found something more,” Shiro proposes. “And we’ll try to ask again at the guards.”
“Lance said he’s an expert about interrogating a prisoner,” Allura says, as she follows back inside the building.
“Being a fan of crime movies doesn’t make one an expert,” Shiro replies, even if he has to admit he wouldn’t mind Lance trying.
Pidge is still in the same position, sitting in the ground with her computer on her knees, the screen full of incomprehensible numbers and names. Allura and Shiro peek on her shoulder, and even if she notices them she doesn’t turn.
“I’m still searching,” she says. “They cancelled some old data I’m retrieving.”
“So, no news for now.” Shiro sounds disappointed.
“Not exactly,” Pidge replies. “I already retrieve the communications… There are a couple from the space port of Daibazaal, that announces the arrival of the next loaded. I guess they meant the three cruisers that Thiny warned us about.”
“That’s probably it,” Allura agrees, and Shiro doesn’t miss the slight frown at calling people ‘loaded’.
“There is another strange message,” Pidge continues. “It comes from a space ship, one that isn’t listed in the official records. It only says something about bringing a cargo sooner because they had to move forwards the operation.”
“Which operation?” Shiro asks.
“They didn’t talk about it. Just that they aren’t ready yet but some circumstances force them to move their schedule.”
“It doesn’t sound good,” Allura comments, and Shiro agrees.
“No,” Pidge admits. “Also… I made a crossed researches, and I found out that the guards here were also part of the crew of the cruisers that attacked the space pirates. You know, in order to kill Keith. Again.”
Allura crosses her arm. “Of course. They’re part of this scheme since the very beginning. It all started from Keith’s… death. Maybe Keith took the wrong decision, remaining dead for so long.”
“Or maybe next time they would have managed to kill him for real,” Pidge replies.
“Well, what I know now,” Shiro interrupts the discussion, “it’s that I really need to have a little chat with them.”
Pidge and Allura nods and go with him in the next room, where they locked up the guards. Five of them are still unconscious because of the fight against the Paladins, while other three sit down on the corner, hands and feet tied up: under Lance’s alerted gaze, they don’t talk, just look at each other from time to time.
“Where’s Hunk?” Shiro asks.
“Examining the planimetry of the building, I found a strange area. Hunk is checking on it,” Pidge explains.
Lance reserved a happy smile at Shiro. “Interrogation time?”
Shiro shot him an amused smile, before putting on a hard expression. He stands in front of the still awake guards, that try to pretend the presence of the Black Paladin, Admiral of the Atlas, don’t bother them.
“We know you killed Keith – the Red Paladin,” he says. “It’s better you start talking now, because there is no way you’ll be forgive by the entire universe.”
They try to hide their surprise under an indifferent mask, but it’s clear the news isn’t expected. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” one of them says. “We would never hurt the Red Paladin. We’re working here. We were ordered to be here.”
“Yeah,” adds another, “and this is gonna cause a diplomatic incident, that’s for sure.”
Allura stiffs a second behind Shiro, still she doesn’t talk. “Fine,” Shiro says, “if it’s just work, then you can answer about it. Five of your prisoners are missing. Where are they?”
The three half-Galra look at each other. “Dunno,” says one of them, at last. “We haven’t been there since the beginning, you know.”
“That’s a lie,” Pidge replies. “There aren’t records of other employees here but you.”
The half-galra doesn’t look impressed. “Then look in the records for finding those mysterious five people.”
“Oh, I will!”
Before Shiro can ask about the cargo that was send earlier than scheduled, Hunk knock at the door. “I may have an idea about the missing people.”
They all leave the room, Lance includes, and closes the door behind them. Hunk looks pale. And angry, even if he’s trying to control himself. It’s unusual for him.
“The room you asked me to check?” Hunk says to Pidge. “It’s a scientific lab, and a morgue. There are five bodies there, in the frozen cell.”
“They are being experimented?” Allura doesn’t sound surprised at all. Shiro was experimented too, this kind of cruelty is almost usual for them.
Hunk nods. “I’m not sure, though, because in the lab there isn’t any records, or any sample left.”
“Destroyed?”
“No, I think they’re transported away. The lab doesn’t look very advanced.”
“Like they have another base, or something, when they sent the sample to be analyzed?” Lance asks.
“Something like that,” Hunk confirms. “I mean, in pharmaceutics researches, you have the guinea pig in the same lab where you study, but the lab here doesn’t look big enough for a scientific research. It’s strange.”
“I mean, it made sense,” Allura comments. “This prison has been building over a wrecked prison from Zarkon’s empire, probably an old working camp or something.”
“Working camp,” Pidge confirms. “There are mines on this asteroid.”
“So this wasn’t a scientific building, and they don’t have the time and the resource to build one,” Allura concludes. “They may be used another abandoned Galra facility for their research.”
“Then why do not move the prison there?” Lance asks. “Wouldn’t be easier having the prisoners there?”
“Yes, but maybe the researches facility doesn’t have enough space, or got some major damages that make impossible to create a prison area inside in a short amount of time. The civil war went hard in this area of the universe.”
“We are in the Rainveig sector,” Pidge exhales. “And he does some scientific researches with quintessence.”
“Even so, if they experimented on human here, there has to been some records. Pidge, you have to find it,” Shiro comments.
“I will,” she assures him, and she rushes back in the control room. Her computer is still working, and she returns to it, tapping the screen furiously. The other stands behind her, waiting patiently.
“My God…” she exhales, at least, when she stops clicking on the screen.
“What? What is it?” Lance asks, worried.
“The records are corrupted, I didn’t manage to retrieve all of them,” she answers. “But… they’re talking about a gas. A poison gas. One that was supposed to kill all the pure blood Galra.”
Hunk pales. “And it’s here? Like, right now? Because there are plenty of pure blood Galra out there.”
“No, it’s not here,” Shiro states, “but it’s coming. This is the cargo they’re talking in the last communication.”
Allura understands. “They’re reunited all the pure blood Galra here to kill them all in a single move. With the three cruisers incoming…”
“We need to bring all them out of here now,” Shiro declares. “And we need to catch those cruisers before they come here.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, but he strolls outside. He ignores the stare of the galra in the courtyard and heads to the main gate of the prison. To be faster, they got to the asteroid with two MFE, while the Atlas would come later on, at its own speed.
One MFE, the one Rizavi’s piloting, is flying in the outer atmosphere to patrol the area, while the other is parked just outside the prison’s wall. Shiro is about to reach it, but Griffin gets out from it and runs in his direction. He has a strange expression on his face, a mixture of awe and relief.
“I got an incoming call,” he announces, in the most informal way, once he’s in front of Shiro. “It’s Keith!”
***
When James told Keith he’s transferred the call to Shiro, he doesn’t expect all the Paladins and his mother being there too. He hopes to have a little more time to prepare himself at their inevitable distress.
Allura puts up her mask as queen, but she can’t hide her slight frown. Hunk is on the verge of tears, and Lance opens and closes his mouth, as he’s trying to find something smart to say. And his mother, his mother! Her expression is a strange mixture: disappointment, sure, as if Keith did it in order to make her pay for her abandonment (he didn’t), but for the same reason there is also understanding and relief.
Keith is glad that at least Shiro knows about it: he couldn’t face all of them, Shiro included, all together. But, as usual, he has more pressing matter.
“Hi, guys. James told me you cleared the prison.”
Shiro nods. “We were warned by Thiny about what was happened in Daibazaal so we had to move fast.”
Oh, Thiny. So he managed to escape and call Shiro as Keith asked him. Keith is relieved.
“About that!” Now Hunk is crying. “We’re told you were captured and in danger!”
“Yeah,” Lance adds. “Do you free yourself all alone? You can’t just let us playing hero, can’t you?” He’s joking, and Keith can’t help but smirk at it.
“Basically, yes,” Keith says. “I have no idea where the cruisers are going to and I couldn’t know you discover it, so I have to go with them.”
“Where are the cruisers now?” Shiro asks.
“We managed to speak with the Blades and let them understand how wrong everything is,” Keith explains. “Now they closed their communications system and stopped their cruised, while we try to understand better the situation.”
“Good.” Shiro nods. “Because the situation is dangerous here. We just discovered the Sincline Force had poison gas and they probably want to release it here.”
Keith freezes. Rhayn, who sits down in the copilot seat, jumps still and reaches the screen, a hand places on Keith’s seat. “Holy Zela!”
The attention of everyone switch on him. “Who are you?” Lance frowns.
“A friend,” Keith cuts the discussion. “Are you sure about it?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Pidge explains to him all the records the find in the database and the morgue Hunk explores, alongside their deductions about it, and the fact that the guards of the prison are coincidentally the same that tried to kill him in the past. At that mention, Rhayn releases a small sigh.
“The Atlas is coming, we’re bringing everyone out of here,” Shiro concludes.
“This is it. The plan Voran was talking about.” Keith grits his teeth. “He said something about Fixi, she’s probably the one taking the gas there. They didn’t plan to use the gas so soon, not before everyone else is set in the prison, but my presence was too dangerous for them.”
“Yeah, and Kolivan too,” Shiro adds. “They kidnapped him for a reason, and then we saved him and they have no idea what our plan was with him, so they had to act faster.”
“This means they’re made mistakes too,” Allura comments. She looks distressed.
“Okay, I’m reaching your location right now. Bring everyone on the Atlas, and then we’ll turn back to the three cruisers.”
“Since when you became the Captain of Atlas too?” Lance muses, while Shiro nods.
“It’s just the most reasonable plan,” Keith defends himself.
“Sure, sure, just do not let anyone catch you again.”
Keith turns down the call with a sigh. As he guessed, speaking with them was tiresome. He can’t hide his guilt about his fake death, not to them, or not for long.
“I hope Fixi is going to the prison and not to the cruisers, or they’ll be sitting ducks.”
Rhayn sits down again in his seat. “In the void it’s too dangerous, from an engineering point of view, especially if you don’t plan it perfectly. I’m sure they’re heading to the prison.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.”
They navigate in silence, both of them looking at their scan in the attempt to intercept Fixi’s ship somehow. The absence of it is at the same time a good and a bad thing. Only when the big gassed planet become visible, their devices signal something to them.
There is the Atlas, of course, entering in the solar system in that moment, but also the radar points something from the inside of the planet. In the same way Keith escaped with Lorne, there is something hiding inside the gas, and heading with speed to the asteroid.
Keith follows the trance and accelerates the pod so they are below the ship once it emerges from the gassed planet. “It’s an imperial fighter,” Rhayn recognizes it, and his tone means it isn’t a positive thing. Keith opens the communication system.
“This is… the Red Paladin,” he hesitates a little. “Please identify yourselves.”
No answers come through the communication system, but the fighter starts shooting in their direction, not moving by their course towards the asteroids. Keith presses the consol and the pod slips through the lasers, slaloming in the space.
“It’s them. We should call the Paladins?” Rhayn asks.
“No time,” Keith replies. “The Atlas still has to land, which means they would be busy putting everyone else on board. Put your helmet on.”
Rhayn obeys, as Keith puts on his mask, since Pidge created the suit with the same ability of the Blades’ ones. “What you have in mind?”
“Stop that ship on the inside.”
Still avoiding the laser, Keith maneuvers the pod nearer the fighter and then makes him smash against the tail, with enough speed to ruin the pod but not enough to destroy it entirely. The presence of the tail stucks the pod in place, so Keith and Rhayn can get out and then grab the tail to remain on the surface of the fighter.
“There is something dangerous below us?” Keith asks.
“Except the entire fighter and the crew on board that want to kill us?” Rhayn replies. “No, the engine is lower, from here we should land on the air conduct. But if we damage the tail it could be a problem.”
Keith nods. He extracts his bayard and turns it into a bazooka, with Rhayn’s surprise. He shots at the metal enough distanced from the tail and opens a hole in it, so they slip inside the fighter and rushes in the hallway to distance themselves that the hole.
Their presence is identified, and Keith himself knows they can’t hide for long, so they are ready when the robot sentinel appears from a corner and start shooting at them. They shield themselves against a wall. Keith has his sword in hand.
“Can you cover me?” he asks to Rhayn, who has one of the sentinel gun they stole from the cruisers.
“Sure,” he nods, and then he moves a little and shots.
Keith jumps forwards and let his swords slicing thought the metal of the robot sentinels, using the first ones as shield against the ones behind as he lowers down and slices their legs. He ears Rhayn screaming, but he can’t turn before defeating all the sentinels, so he turns back his bayard in the bazooka and shots three blows, aiming high in the hope to not hit something dangerous.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he rushes back to Rhayn.
He nods and accepts Keith’s hand to stand up. “I’m fine, they just scratched my helmet.” That is now broken on the lower part. “Let’s go on, the control room should be below, and stairs should be in that direction.”
They open the door to reach them and they are welcomed from another shooting. No sentinels this time, only a person. “Vormor…” Rhayn realizes, in a whisper. She was one of the people that kidnapped Kolivan and faked their dead in the process. Keith is about to jump from the railing to fight her, but Rhayn stops him.
“I want to speak with her.”
“She framed you,” Keith remembers him. “She placed you as a communicator office so my death would fall on you if everything came out.”
“I know. But maybe… I can try.”
Rhayn’s expression isn’t sure, but determinate. Keith nods. He lets Rhayn climbs the stairs slowly, his gun still in his hand, but his hands are lifted in the air.
“We can fix it, Vormor. We’re still in time,” Rhayn says.
“No,” Vormor answers. “We’re out of time.”
Rhayn shakes his head. “All this… Everything… is wrong. We were colleagues. Comrades. We still have time to fix it.”
“There is only a way to fix it. All of you must die.”
She’s about to shot, but Keith is faster and threw his sword at her. The sword pierces her shoulder and she lets the gun falls. Rhayn rushes towards her and kick the gun away.
She looks at him in anger. “Kill me.” When Rhayn makes no sign to move, she throw herself at him and, this time, he shots to defend himself. When Keith reaches them, Rhayn already extracted the sword from the body and gives it back to Keith.
“Let’s go,” Rhayn says, and there is regret in his tone.
There aren’t other sentinels to stop them before they reach the control room. The door is locked, but Keith’s sword slices it in half. Fixi and Xunul are there, so busy with the control panel that barely register their presence.
“Stop,” Rhayn intimates, and Xunul turns. She moves to take her gun, but Keith is faster and kicks her on the side. She hit the wall on the right side of the door and she slumps on the floor, still.
“Too late,” Fixi says. She still is next to the panel. Rhayn shots next to her, destroying a piece of the control panel. She smiles. “You should have aim at me.” And then she presses a button on the control panel.
The fighter accelerates suddenly, and all three of them are caught off guard and they lose their balance. Keith flies in the room and smash his back against the glass of the window, but he’s fast enough to collect himself and places in front of the control panel. Everything is red and everything beep dangerously, as the fighter keeps accelerating, heading towards the asteroid.
“What is happening?”
Rhayn is at his side. “She activated the self-destruction procedure.” There is panic in his voice. “Some fighters have this possibly to force the course in order to turn it into a kind of missile, if the pilot is in some way compromised. So the fighter himself turns into a weapon and can aim to a sensible objective. We’re going to crash to the asteroid.”
“There should be a way to stop it!”
“There are still the manual command.” Rhayn presses some button and another console appears. “But you still can’t control the speed of the engine, or turn it off. At this rate, we’re almost in the atmosphere and there is no way to avoid the crash.”
“Maybe. But I can land ourselves into safety.” Keith places himself at the control and takes them.
Fixi chuckles. She hits hard her back and her head and she emits a small moan of pain as she tries to put herself in a sitting position, against the wall. She looks too much in pain to attack them.
“It’s too late,” she comments.
“This is the Red Paladin!” Rhayn replies, and this time there isn’t pity for his former colleagues. “His piloting skills…”
“I know them. I saw them. They’re beautiful.” At Fixi’s words, Keith thinks there too much flattering from a person that actively tried to kill him. “He can land this fighter safely, but then you’ll die of gas poisoning.”
“What?” Both Keith and Rhayn freeze.
“I activated the gas tank. It’ll start spreading the gas soon enough. So we crash and the tank explodes, or we don’t crash and the tank release the gas. Either way, all the pure blood Galra still on the asteroid will die.”
“Not if I manage to stop the release,” Rhayn says.
“It’s too dangerous. The gas-” Keith starts.
“We don’t have many choices,” Rhayn replies. “I can’t pilot like you, and if we crash stopping the tank will be useless. So you have to pilot us to safety and I’ll stop the tank.”
Keith grits his teeth. “Fine.”
He isn’t happy with the outcome, but Rhayn is right. And they don’t have much time, the fighter is already in the atmosphere, so Keith turns his attention to the command. He sees the Atlas landing in the distance and sends a message to the MFEs to not shoot at the fighter. He doesn’t want to die, and he doesn’t want the gar spreading too.
“You know the fun part?” Fixi says, a sweet smile on his lips. “Rainveig invented the gas first. It was supposed to kill all the not Galra, so we can just… destroy entire planet with it. It turns that it kills also half Galra in the process. He didn’t care. He still gave the order to use it well-knowing some of us would die. And they did. I lost friends those days… we’re grateful the empire fell before Rainveig can use it again, and we hid the formula to the other warlords. It’s only fitting we turn the same gas against the pure blood.”
Keith doesn’t look at her as she speaks, too focus on piloting the fighter.
“We’re trying to defend ourselves, at first,” she continues. “Then Voltron arrived and everything magically turned okay. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t… The Galra have been around for too much, hurt too many people… We started to think how to kill everyone. The gas would be so perfect, killing all the pure blood of Daibazaal in a swift…”
Keith freezes, and for a second he loses the control of the fighter. It’s almost on the ground, and the fighter needs to land gently. He grits his teeth, trying not to imagine what could have happened if they send for real that gas on Daibazaal.
“But Farux said no. He said he can do that peacefully, so we’ll be different from the warlord. That you, the Red Paladin, the leader of Voltron, are one of us. That you’ll be on our side.” Her tone is gentle in the beginning, now it starts to hardener. “But you weren’t… You aren’t…”
“So you killed me,” Keith states. She ignores it, so he adds, “and then you kidnapped Kolivan.”
“Yes.” Now her fangs are showing, white flashing in contrast of her brown skin. “Kolivan should be the start. Pure blood would riot, and we’ll find someone stupid enough to try and use the gas, not knowing it would kill only the pure blood. But then the Paladins,” she spits the word, “ruined everything, and we went to a more… direct approach.”
“Locking up everyone and kill them?”
“Yes.” She’s feral. “My only regret is that only few of them will die.”
“No one will die,” Keith answers, as the fighters slips on the sand ground of the asteroid. It runs for few meters, but it didn’t crash.
“It doesn’t matter! The gas already-!”
He doesn’t listen while she yells at him; he leaves the controls and rushes back, looking for Rhayn. He finds him to the hallway, as he stumbles against the wall.
“I did it,” he whispers. “I stop the tank.”
“Are you okay?” Keith asks, as he helps him remaining upright.
“I’m not sure…” he answers. “I inhaled it. The gas. Not for much. I sealed the door…”
He faints before he can say more. Keith takes a deep breath. He grabs him and tackles him on his shoulder. It isn’t easy walking with that weight, but Keith still gets off the fighter and starts walking towards the prison, that doesn’t seem too far from his landing spot.
The Paladins are too fast, and they reach for him mid-road. “My God, Keith, are you okay?” Hunk asks, as Keith slowly places Rhayn on the ground.
“Allura,” he calls. “He inhaled some poisoned gas. He needs a healing pod now, but there is something you can do in the meantime?”
She’s already kneeled down next to him. “Well, I’m not sure my powers work against poisoning…”
He doesn’t wait for a better answer. “Pidge, Hunk, there is a tank of gas poisoning inside. Rhayn blocks it, but I need you two to deactivate it definitely. And studying it for finding an antidote. There also two members of the Sincline Force inside. Lance, can you please contain them?”
Lance shrugs. “He just resurrects and he’s already giving us orders. So bossy.”
But none of them actually complain about them, on the contrary they activate themselves to fulfill it. Keith turns his attention to Shiro for the first time. He leaves Rhayn in Allura’s care and moves towards him.
“Are everyone else safe on the Atlas?” he asks.
Shiro nods barely. His eyes are fixed on Keith. He doesn’t speak.
He just hugs him tightly.
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