(Genesis) Chapter 16

Pride: Genesis

Chapter 16

Bearing Signs

Gravity interfered with extraplanar breaches. That was well known. Exactly how it interfered with them was less well known—like many aspects of hyperspace, its effects were highly unpredictable. The Alliance had long ago decided it was safer to just implement a policy against opening breaches inside of astrospheres. As a bonus, that sharply decreased the chance of breaching in on top of something: planar scanners could detect the energy signatures of stars or planets, or even ships, before trying to re-enter real space. Not so much asteroids and space debris.

The planar scanners were enough to prevent collisions in low-traffic systems. Those with higher populations preferred a more structured method. In the case of the Sol system, two entry bands had been designated a bit beyond the Kuiper Belt. The inner band still operated on planar scanning, but the outer band was reserved for expected traffic—usually Alliance military or cargo ships—which would be assigned a specific entry point. It simplified things.

Entry Point 194°27'52.7" was silent. Waiting. Finally the darkness shimmered slightly. A spark of faintly bluish light blossomed, unleashing a shockwave of extraplanar energy that briefly pushed aside dust and plasma. A second flash of light, this one more reddish, filled the void almost instantly, coalescing into a solid form. A sleek metal shape with swept wings, four engines burning in the darkness as the light of the breach faded away.

The Firecrown had returned.

They were two days from home.

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Something resembling a truce had been established in the galley; they were too close to home to argue over it. The rest of the crew could do the arguing. Centuries-old shipboard tradition called for stew on the final inbound push, a legacy from when normal cooking in space had first been puzzled out. Most extended missions had just ended up throwing all their leftovers together by the end of the trip.

Neither of the team's self-appointed cooks were actually spacers by training, but tradition was tradition.

Hunk was making a bacon-beef stew, obviously. One did not simply let bacon go to waste. Every so often he glanced at Jace's dish, which he was guessing to be feijoada, based on what the medic had been prepping. Which, truthfully, he would not have expected. "Not bad, Doc." Grin. "Figured the health food nut would be makin' a glorified salad."

Jace turned to him, arching an eyebrow, then shooting a very judgmental look at his three packages of bacon. "You know, there's some daylight between being a health food nut and not wanting to eat twice your daily caloric intake with every meal."

Huh. "Yeah fair point, I guess."

"You guess." Jace rolled his eyes and turned to the broth he had simmering, took a small test sip… and nearly choked as fire erupted in his mouth and down his throat. Whirling away he coughed and gasped for breath. "What—the fuck—happened to—"

A flash of gold caught his eye. Sitting by the pot, right off to the side where he couldn't have seen it before, was a bottle of murder pepper sauce.

"…You fucking bastard."

Hunk smiled sweetly. "At least it wasn't sand, yeah?"

"You fucking dumbass magnificent bastard."

"And it ain't even that many calories!"

That did it; Jace somehow dissolved into laughter while still choking on hot sauce. "I hate you, caralho."

Grin. "I know."

"Here! Have it!" He pushed the murder pepper broth at Hunk, then retreated to the refrigeration unit and gulped down about half a gallon of milk. He was still laughing. And coughing. "I'm gonna go get an antidote. Fuck. I will remember this."

Hunk couldn't suppress the smirk as Jace fled the galley. "Not like I'd want ya to forget." Shrugging, he tested the broth—it wasn't half bad—and dumped it into one of the two pots he had cooking. Not everyone could handle that heat, after all.

There'd been a lot of heat on this trip, and there was probably going to be a lot more on Earth. Very little of it would have anything to do with murder pepper sauce. On the upside, not much of it would be directed at him, either. He didn't like that kind of heat.

Being Big Dumb Hunk was easy. Being anyone else…

Drop the act, Garrett.

How many times had he heard that repeating in his head since it happened? He'd lost count somewhere around 112, and he'd been avoiding the bay as much as possible when he wasn't on shift. Much better to hang around the galley and get called a dumbass every thirty seconds. That he knew how to cope with.

Getting back to Earth would be nice. He could lock himself in a garage with a lot of metal—both types—and recharge without having to worry about anyone pushing him. And after that, well…

Who knew?

It would probably be crazy. No problem. Big Dumb Hunk was good with crazy.

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

They were on their way home.  Lance stared ahead at the viewscreen and felt a restless tug inside. He didn’t want to go home. Sighing, he leaned back in his seat, feeling bored. He wanted to distract himself. There was one handy distraction nearby.

“So, Viking, we ever gonna get you to play on poker night?”

Sven glanced up. “Possibly.”

Lance smirked. “Playing it mysterious huh? I like it, a Viking mystery…” He was impressed to have gotten even that much, really. “It was fun last time, right? Even if I only had the one good hand.”

“It was definitely fun to watch,”  Sven admitted, happy to be talking rather than just staring ahead at the screens.

“Wish we weren’t Earth-bound." Lance sighed. "Could do with more adventure."

Sven matched the sigh. “I agree… I could do without being Earth-bound for a long time yet. Speaking of, we’re only a few hours out.”

That soon? That was disappointing, but he brushed it aside in favor of the more interesting fact. “Yeah? Thought you weren’t too sure about being on Explorer Team? Change your mind?”

Sven quirked his eyebrow, had he really given him that impression? “No. I always loved this assignment, it got me off Earth.” And away from my parents.

Frowning, Lance thought back to their past conversations and shook himself. He had mentioned wanting to get off Earth before, hadn't he? “Maybe I got you confused with Jace.” The way the navigator's face contorted at that suggestion forced him to stop a moment to bite back uproarious laughter. “This is my best assignment yet,” he continued as he regained his composure. “Thought they’d never put me on a Explorer Team.”

“What other assignments have you had?” The last time this topic had come up, Sven had been so busy being excited to find someone else happy to be here that he'd forgotten to ask for more details. He really didn’t know much about their hotshot pilot other than what he advertised, that he liked beer and flying. Oh, and he liked to flirt. Even he’d noticed that, and usually that kind of thing went right over his head.

Shrug. “Usual pilot stuff, near Drule space mostly. A lot of recon work. It was fine and all, but dull, too many rules and regulations. Finally broke them one time too many I guess.”

Sven eyed him. “What was the one time too many?”

He'd walked right into it; Lance smirked. “Oh, that’s a great story.”

“Well, then you should tell me.”

Oh, gladly. “So, we're doing recon, basically the assignment was to get close to some moon base the Drules were building in No Man's Land, get imaging and scans for intel…”  He paused to laugh. “Intel, ha ha, right? They suck.”

Sven nodded.

“So, brilliant intel, as usual, says the patrols will be gone for x amount of time, don’t remember what it was, it was wrong so why would I?  We go in and are instantly caught by a group of fighters on patrol. We end up in a dogfight, but I’ve got my eye on the ball. We’re right by the moon they want the photographs taken of…" His words were coming faster, his eyes shining with the memory of being fully in his element. "I'm right there, I’m about to take out this one dude that’s on me and go take the pictures. Easy peasy.”

“But?” There was definitely a but coming here.

“You’re smart. But my commander is ordering a retreat, it's too hot, we’re taking on too many hits—I wasn’t hit. I had it, right? So I tell him, no I got this. He's screaming at me to not dare disobey his order, I'll get killed. So, I turned the radio off, got the Drule on my ass off of my ass. Swooped down close to the base, took the pictures, got the intel and returned." Snort. "Did I get a party when I got back? NOPE.”

Sven nodded, unsurprised by that at least. “Of course not.”  

“Anyway... they never told me, but I think whatever it was I took photos of was pretty great intel, classified-level-great, because they took me out of the brig without charging me. Commander Adams, when he tossed me into it, he was screaming dishonorable discharge. Telling me I was a disgrace to the Alliance and the Vanguard. But they pulled me out, put me on drop duty, said I’d be reassigned. And hell, it got me here and I’m happy as a fucking clam.”

Were clams really all that happy? Who had ever decided to look into the moods of clams, anyway?

“That is a very you story," Sven laughed.

“It was awesome, Viking, I’m telling you." His eyes flashed. "I’m never gonna retreat if I get the job done, never. Just hell no. …And I take it being a ‘me story’ as a compliment.”

“You should take it as a compliment.”

Winking, Lance rolled with it. “I think they should put it in a textbook. Explorer Team 101, call it the Lance Maneuver.”

It briefly occurred to Sven that there must have been an actual Explorer Team 101 once. That must have been entertaining. “There seem to be an infinite number of ways to get onto an Explorer Team. Though yours is one of the more exciting ones I’ve heard.”

“I’m an exciting guy, Viking.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I always figured I was either gonna get kicked out of the Garrison, or end up here here. I prefer here. Keeps me flying, keeps things crazy. Even if it still has boring bridge duty through hyperspace." A wicked smirk spread over his face. "And then there's you. Don't worry though, Viking, we’ll make an exciting guy out of you yet.”

“Yes, yes I know. I need to be corrupted.” Sven rolled his eyes.

“And you will be, that’s a promised threat."

A promised threat? Oh, boy…

But he probably wasn't wrong.

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

The team that had returned to Earth was not the same team that had left it. Hawkins could tell that immediately. He'd seen it in so many before them—the initial wary edge giving way to an easy, relaxed manner. It was how the Explorer Teams were meant to work.

He missed it sometimes… there wasn't much camaraderie behind a desk.

The battered Firecrown was back in Auxiliary Hangar Four, and that was where he'd come to greet them. It was always his preference to meet his people in their own habitat, so to speak. To get a sense of where they'd been and what they'd done, in a way the dry mission reports couldn't get across. So here he was, standing in a conference room that had once been the crew quarters, a plaque on the wall lamenting a dearly departed hydraulic line.

Definitely an Explorer Team.

"Welcome back, gentlemen." He looked over each of them warmly, but the looks he got in return were a mix of cool and concerned. He could at least begin to guess at the bad news they were bearing. There had been a report from the Rim… "Word of the siege at Echo Fox Waystation has preceded you."

"Oh is that all?" Gregory muttered. Holgersson elbowed him.

Kogane shot the medic a stern look, but he was shaking his head as he turned his attention back to the colonel. "That was only the last of our… adventures, sir."

"And the second pirate band with a carrier we ran into," Kleid added.

"The second?" Hawkins repeated, blinking. The report of one—sieging an Alliance waystation, no less—had caused enough of a stir among the brass. Two? They might have a serious problem on their hands. "Intel is already not going to like this."

"Sucks to be them," McClain said derisively. Running into two pirate carriers could probably do that; though Kogane frowned at him too, Hawkins didn't see much point in chastising him.

"Your team can speak freely, Commander. I didn't come here for the sanitized version, that's what your formal report is for."

"Understood, sir." The commander actually did seem to relax slightly. "We aren't especially fond of intel at the moment."

"Understandable. What else was there?"

Garrett chuckled. "Bird ruins and Galra and cat temples, oh my!"

…What? "You encountered the Galra too?"

"On Kithran." Kogane nodded. "Along with a petrified giant monster with a huge hole in its side. We fully documented everything."

A very unusual feeling was coming over Hawkins: he was actually eager to read a full report. "I have no doubt you did. Anything else you'd like to throw at me for starters?"

McClain and Garrett exchanged looks. "We can't ever go back to Sorthal."

"Like, ever."

"Not that we'd want to."

"Not a bit."

The others were all wincing a little. On one hand, reasonable. On the other… "That's really the least worrisome thing you've said so far." He shook his head. "Did you find anything else of mission importance?"

"Plenty." Kogane looked around at the others. "If it's all the same to you, it might be easiest to do the full debriefing in the cargo bay so we can walk you through what we found. The report doesn't do some of it justice."

He had no doubt of that, either. "Lead on, Commander." Following the team down the main corridor, he considered what he'd just been told and tried to absorb it all. To brace for details he suddenly wondered if he was truly prepared for.

This ought to be one hell of a debriefing.

⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒

"There have been several collapses on the upper levels. We've issued orders for all civilians to stay in place. What engineers we have available are checking the stability of the lower shelters, but we believe them to be secure—they were always the stronger construction."

"Good. Keep me informed. And the surface?"

"The bombardments have stopped, but the enemy has deployed infantry. Falastol is occupied. Our last report was that they're going door to door in search of King Alfor; he wasn't found at the castle. That's the most recent word we have. Our last two runners never returned, and we don't dare send more."

"Very well. We'll do the best we can with what we have here…"

Tanner was listening to the whispered conversation between the guards, trying to make sense of it all. Some he was very clear on. His father was missing, and the invaders were searching for him.

They won't find him. Dad's too smart and too tough for them.

Captain Sherion, the leader of the prince's own bodyguard detachment, seemed to have taken some control of the shelter they were in. He outranked all of the Golden Knights who'd arrived. Tanner could tell the Captain didn't want him to know how bad things were, but he wanted to know—needed to know. So far there was no mention of his sister, no sign of Nanny… nothing but soldiers and shivering civilians.

He'd wanted to try to talk to the civilians and cheer them up, but Sherion had impressed on him the importance of staying quiet. He was too young to have made many public appearances; most people on Arus didn't recognize their own prince. Right now it was to their benefit to keep it like that.

Tanner didn't like it…

Of course he couldn't have told them what he really wanted to, anyway. The secrets the royal family kept. The secrets he'd seen.

It'll be okay. The Lions will save us.

⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒

Romelle, Princess of the House of Lachesis, paused in the hallway outside her father’s study. He’d summoned her abruptly, and she couldn’t help the nerves that came along with it. Especially since the news of the attack on Arus, which had run rampant through the castle just hours before. Pollux had kept a close watch on its misguided neighbor for centuries, awaiting a reckoning that had seemed inevitable. A reckoning that was supposed to come at the hands of history, not alien conquerors.

Nobody had seen the Drule attack coming…

The summons simply couldn't be unrelated. She looked down at her dress, straightened a wrinkle out of it and took a deep breath before knocking on the door.

        “Enter!”

        Romelle swallowed hard at the angry tone of her father’s voice, but opened the door and walked into the room, closing the door behind her.  “You sent for me, Father?” she asked, once she stopped on the other side of his desk from him.

        King Kova looked up at his daughter and stood, walking around to her. “Romelle, you have a duty to perform and you must not fail me.”

        Romelle nodded. “You know I will do anything you ask, Father.”

        “Good. You’re going to Korrinoth, to build an alliance with the Drules through marriage.”

        "…What?" Romelle took a step back, eyes wide with shock. When she'd agreed to do anything he asked, she had expected certain other agreements to still hold sway. “Father, you swore you would never do such a thing to your children!”

        “I don’t have a choice, Romelle.  Either I break that oath to you, or we could end up suffering the same fate as Arus. My duty—our duty—to protect our planet comes first.” Kova's expression was grim. “You will do this for me.”

        Romelle shook her head, torn between betrayal and denial. “I… I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

        “We don’t have a choice. Now, you must go and pack your things.”

        She looked at him, straightening and setting her jaw. It was beneath a princess of Pollux to be used as a pawn. He had taught her that. “I don’t want to.”

        Kova was silent for a moment. She thought she saw the faintest hint of approval, even pride, on his stern face…

         Then he slapped her, knocking her to the ground with a gasp. “I told you to do something and you will do it! This isn't about mere politics, this is the survival of our planet!”

        Romelle cupped her cheek, stunned, tears in her eyes. The physical sting was nothing compared to what it represented. No more arguments were going to come out, not now. She rolled to her knees and fled from his study, sobbing.

        Kova watched her go, clenching his fists in frustration. He’d never wanted this for any of his children, but once he made up his mind it was never a good idea to tell him no, and his daughter had to learn that the hard way. Pollux had to be protected. There were no other options.

⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒

*A quick note on naming: DotU gave Haggar's cat and Pollux's king very similar names and people have been debating the issue ever since. Naturally, the Voltron Force epilogue comic confirmed the cat as Coba while Legendary Defender confirmed Kova. In our continuity, Kova makes more aesthetic sense for Pollux's king given that he named his oldest son Avok, so that's what we're going with.