(On the Hunt) Chapter 6

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 6

Explorers Again

It had been almost two weeks since the initial non-briefing when the summons came in. Intel had done all they could with the results of their last mission, and it was time for Explorer Team 686 to get their new marching orders. Flying orders. Whatever. In any case, they were finally going to learn what this mission was actually about, and most of the team was very ready for it.

Most of them. The veterans, at least. The kids were less impressed.

Daniel had been in the briefing room for all of two minutes, and was already bouncing his leg in boredom, trying to keep his mind off his sore nose. Pidge was sitting in a corner looking surly. Vince was hovering near Hunk, warily eyeing the ninja and the several members of the bridge crew he had yet to formally meet. Only Cam was sitting at attention, eager to show off how seriously he was taking his new assignment.

The room was quiet, and a bit uneasy—not tense, per se, but uneasy—when Colonel Hawkins walked in. "Morning, gentlemen." He looked around. Nobody seemed to have been murdering each other, which was often the bar Explorer Teams were held to. Though along with the new additions, he noticed something missing… arching an eyebrow, he turned to their bomb tech. "What, no donuts?"

"My roomie swiped 'em," Hunk answered matter-of-factly. "Take an IOU?"

Hawkins chuckled. "That's alright."

"I miss the donuts," Lance muttered, drawing a furtive nod of agreement from Sven. Jace glowered.

"In any case, it's time officially to give you all your mission. Unless you were enjoying 'you're going somewhere to look for something'... though," Hawkins turned and started to pace uneasily, "this is only marginally better."

"Marginally?" Lance snorted. "I'll believe that when I hear it."

Keith nodded. "Considering what we had before, sir, something is definitely better."

"Alright." The colonel kept pacing. "The crystal you recovered from Sorthal has been… about as decrypted as intel feels they can decrypt it. It is, apparently, a combination of historical archive and some kind of distress beacon."

"Distress? After what you'd have to go through to get it?" Jace muttered. "Seems legit."

"That's not a lie."

"No kiddin'."

"But having to go through all that to reach it, already being in distress?" Keith frowned. "It doesn't make sense."

Sven looked around at the others. They were good questions, but he couldn't help feeling everyone was missing the obvious. "A distress beacon for what, sir?"

Nodding his appreciation for the question, Hawkins stopped pacing. "The data discusses, and was apparently left there to signal, an ancient superweapon called Voltron. Intel believes this weapon is what the Galra are searching for. Command wants it first."

The team exchanged glances; Keith was the first to break the silence. "Voltron." He arched an eyebrow. "Must be some weapon, given the size of our ship."

Lance had other concerns. "Voltron? Sounds like Megatron's brother."

"That can't be a real name," Flynn agreed. "Can it?"

Vince looked uneasily around the room, debating speaking up in this Voltron's defense. He wasn't actually going to say anything. But he did remember learning about angels in a religious studies class, and a reaction very much like this to—

"If some angelic voice of God dude can just happen to be called Metatron, some ancient alien superweapon can just happen to be called Voltron, yeah?"

Several people turned shocked looks on Hunk, and Vince gave a small sigh of relief.

"The fuck?" Lance blinked. "Metatron is a real thing? I thought that was just for the movie."

"Totally is!" Grin. "There's a great documentary on the remake, it's called Rethinking Dogma…"

Hawkins lightly cleared his throat before anyone else could ask what they were talking about—though truthfully, most of the team knew better than that by now. Keith blushed slightly. "I apologize for my team, sir. Please continue."

"I don't think they're sorry, Commander." Hawkins looked more amused than anything. "But yes, let's move on."

"Okay, so, we go fetch this Voltron thing and bring it back." Jace leaned forward in his chair. "What's the catch?"

"It's a large one." The colonel sighed. "What intel believes to be the actual location data was in a completely undecipherable format—it isn't native to Sorthal, they checked. They didn't think they could trigger the beacon, which probably would have been a terrible idea anyway. That leaves us with the background data, which seems to indicate that this Voltron can be found on the planet Altea. We have no records of any such planet."

"You had to ask," Hunk scolded Jace, who obligingly flipped him off.

"So, go find an unknown planet with a weapon called Voltron." Lance shrugged. "Fuck, why not?"

"Yeah, wonderful." Keith shook his head. "Another wild goose chase."

Flynn crossed his arms and leaned back, looking thoughtful. "If I've learned anything from the movies these people have been making me watch, it's that this is where Holgersson jumps up and tells us he's the one navigator in the Alliance who knows where Altea is." He looked over at Sven. "Any chance of it?"

Lance snickered proudly; Keith gave him his best what have they done to you? look. Their navigator just blinked. "I'm afraid not."

Shrug. "It was worth a try."

Despite that, this was Sven's area of expertise. He felt responsible… which made the blank his mind was drawing all the more frustrating. And something else wasn't sitting quite right, something he couldn't put a finger on. "I'm not even sure where to begin. Do we have any other information? Or at least a starting point?"

"That's all we have, I'm afraid." Hawkins shook his head. "Intel did investigate thoroughly on Sorthal, trying to find any more leads, but they came up empty."

Keith didn't look enthused. At all. "So we just… go to every planet in range and ask where to find Altea?"

"Not exactly. Based on the age of the crystal, there may be folklore to be found regarding the planet. Stories or rumors that wouldn't make it into our stellar databases. Possibly even legends about the weapon—though if it is what the Galra are searching for, the less you can mention it, the better."

Somewhere in the middle of that, Sven found words for what was bothering him. "Sir, if I may, the crystal was quite large. Why do we have so little information?"

If he didn't know better, he'd have said Hawkins looked grateful to be asked the question. He probably didn't like all this vagueness any better than they did. "There was an enormous amount of data on the crystal. Much of it was structural, so to speak. Very little of it was relevant to the location of this Voltron."

Sven nodded his understanding, but Jace snorted derisively. "We're supposed to trust what intel tells us isn't relevant?"

"Fuck," Lance grumbled, "I agree with Jace."

"Hey, you're getting smarter!"

"No, that's you."

Hawkins looked between them and rolled his eyes. "Boys, you're both pretty."

Maybe it was just as well they didn't have donuts; the round of choked snickers that went through the room might have killed someone. Keith looked absolutely mortified. Lance, on the other hand, just raised an eyebrow and nodded respectfully, while Jace gave a casual salute.

Without missing a beat, Hawkins pulled out his datapad and called up a file. "Anyway, it's a fair point. I'll tell you what I can. First, the crystal included a historical record of events on Sorthal. Intel believes the bulk of that data was in a graphical format, hence the crystal's size. Much like the location data, the format was too alien for them to reconstruct the visuals. They did manage to pull much of the accompanying text. I can give you the overview, if you'd like it."

Several nods answered him. Even Pidge leaned forward, his surly expression fading slightly. Lance, having apparently recovered from his burn already, waved for him to continue. "Might be some folklore that could be handy in finding it, maybe?"

"Maybe." The colonel scanned his datapad for a moment. "Alright. Sorthal was originally home to two sapient races, the Sorith and the Thalesse. They evolved on different continents and were peaceful, but incompatible, so each pretty much kept to their own land. Then some kind of… deep space monstrosity descended on the planet. The Thalesse were almost completely wiped out within a week."

Deep space monstrosity? Keith, Sven, and Jace exchanged looks, the monster on Kithran immediately springing back to mind. Vince audibly gulped. Nobody said a word, and the colonel had everyone's complete attention when he spoke again.

"The Sorith were scrambling for a contingency plan when the Voltron weapon arrived… somehow. The record is clear that it was unknown to Sorthal at the time. But it arrived and destroyed the monster." Hawkins' dark eyes narrowed. "The monster, let me emphasize, that had just laid waste to an entire continent."

"Wow…"

"Holy fuck. It killed the monstrosity by itself?"

"Yes." He looked around the room. "We have no proof, of course, that this isn't an exaggerated myth. But we have no reason to assume it is. What we know of Sorthal supports it. The crystal confirms that the Voltron weapon's operators constructed the temple you found as a kind of waypoint, with the assistance of the few remaining Thalesse." Lowering his eyes, he paused a moment before continuing. "They suspected their population was too devastated to recover, but swore to protect the temple as long as they could. The Sorith promised to leave their continent as a memorial."

Flynn clenched his fists and hissed; Lance cleared his throat, blinking heavily. They glanced at each other and exchanged brief nods in the silence. Then Lance raised his head, eyes narrowed. "The fucking Galra can't have this thing." Answering nods ran around the room.

"Yes," Hawkins agreed. "To be clear, if you locate this weapon but find it unrecoverable, your orders are to deny it to the Galra at any cost. But that's very much a last resort."

"Uh, are we sure we've got a big enough cargo bay?" Hunk asked. "Kinda suck to hafta blow this thing cuz we can't fit it aboard, yeah?"

"You've been equipped with intel's best guess, as far as transport goes… not to mention the largest ship with any sort of versatility. If it's not sufficient, as long as the weapon isn't in immediate danger you'll contact us and we'll figure out a plan B."

"Intel's best guess?" Lance muttered. "Expect that plan B message."

"Sir, you haven't told us the nature of the weapon." Several people jumped as Pidge spoke up quietly from the corner. "Or what to do if Altea doesn't want us to retrieve it."

Keith eyed their systems analyst and nodded approvingly. Hawkins nodded also. "We don't know how long the Galra have been searching for this weapon, but we've seen raids from them for a bit over a century. That, combined with the lack of any other records of Altea or Voltron, leads Command to believe they are no longer active." He grimaced. "If that turns out not to be true, well… that's when we start looking for plan C."

Sven arched an eyebrow, exchanging glances with Jace. "We seem to have a lot of named plans without actual plans attached to them…"

Their commander seemed equally unimpressed. "I'm not liking this mission already, sir."

"We're gonna run out of alphabet," Lance agreed.

Flynn, for his part, had been wondering from the beginning why this whole mission wasn't an intel operation. Now it was starting to make sense. "The more backup plans you add to this, the more I see why it's going to an Explorer Team."

"You did all seem quite adept at improvising on your first mission," Hawkins said with a wry smile. "I'm sure it'll rub off on your new teammates."

"Always happy to corrupt people, sir." Lance grinned.

Daniel had been doing something unusual so far—behaving—but he couldn't help a smirk at that. As if he needed corrupting? He was already there. "Sounds like it's gonna be fun!"

Improvising. Keith's thoughts immediately drifted back to their escape from Sorthal. Is that what we're calling it now? For that matter, 'fun' was not the word he would've chosen for this either.

All of that had only answered half of Pidge's question, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by at least two team members. Hunk wasn't going to say anything—it would ruin his Big Dumb Hunk vibe. Cam, on the other hand, had been quiet and attentive through the whole briefing, and jumped at the chance to prove his usefulness. "Pardon me, sir, but you didn't answer the first part of the specialist's question. What is the nature of this weapon?"

Eyeing the comms officer, Hawkins exhaled slowly and tried to decide how to answer that. It was a fair and valid question, in his opinion, especially for the team that would be searching for it. The brass seemed to feel otherwise. "Intel claims they can't discern that—it's like nothing they've ever seen or heard of. They focused most of their efforts with the graphical format on getting an image of the weapon, but the results left… quite a bit to be desired." Calling the product of intel's best efforts wholly useless seemed strong, though he was certain nobody would disagree.

Cam frowned. "Can we see it?"

He'd already been pulling up the new file on his datapad. Maybe, he mused as he studied it again, it wasn't wholly useless. It certainly had one distinctive element… "Here you go." He linked the image into the room's projector system. A smear of five colors shot through with streaks of silver appeared on the screen.

Immediately, Lance's eyes fell on the bright red blur. It was exactly the same shade as that metal, the apparently mystical metal… he had no clue what it could mean, and went for sarcasm to ground himself. "What is that, a five year old's artwork?"

"There's no need to insult five year olds, caralho," Jace objected. "Especially now that we're working with some."

All four of the kids glared at the medic for that, but Lance nodded sagely. "Point, point. What is that, Jace's artwork?"

"…Well played. And fuck you."

Lance just smirked.

Hunk leaned forward, squinting at the screen as if that would somehow make it better, then gave up and shrugged. "So we're lookin' for some deadly abstract art? I'm up for it."

"But look at the colors," Keith said quietly. "Black… red… blue, yellow, and green. It matches the colors in that temple." It made sense, given what the colonel had told them about the temple's history, but at least it was something. Maybe. Hopefully?

It didn't reassure Jace at all. "If we run into another fucking Garden of Murder, we're calling intel out to walk through it. Call it plan F, for 'fuck this'."

"Fuck yes," Lance agreed.

Daniel perked up a little; that actually sounded interesting. "Garden of murder?"

Lance waved him off. "You don't want to know, kid."

"See, that makes me want to know."

"I was stuck with him." Their pilot jabbed his thumb at Jace. "It was horrifying."

Remembering his medical exam, Daniel nodded slowly. "That sounds about right."

Smirk. "Newbie is onto you, Doc."

"Hey, he's not as dumb as he looks." Jace shrugged. "I respect it, I guess."

Hawkins was usually inclined to give his teams plenty of leeway, especially after telling them they were going to be hunting down something they'd never even seen. Keith was less willing to let this go on. "Boys. Enough."

They fell silent, though Daniel made a point of rolling his eyes. Hawkins waited a moment, then took the picture down and shook his head. "I'll be straight with you, gentlemen. This mission is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, and there's no sense pretending otherwise. But hunting down this kind of long shot is precisely what the Explorer Teams were created to do. On the slim chance you find it? It could change everything." A slight grin crept over his face. "If you do, I did get Command to authorize you to attempt to restore and test it out. You'll certainly deserve that much."

"So we find it and take it for a test drive…" Cam laughed softly. "At least they trust us to give it back."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Ha, like you'd break protocol."

"Shut up, brat."

"Make me, fanboy."

The death glare Keith gave them both was something to behold. It was Flynn who shut them up, though, glancing between them and then between Lance and Jace. "Faex, there's more of them."

Lance eyed Jace, considering that, then shook his head slightly. Nah, we do it better. Jace looked back at him, debating flipping him off, but then just shrugged and tossed another salute.

"Sorry, sir." Cam blushed. Daniel remained silent; he wasn't sorry.

Chuckling, Hawkins flipped the projector off. "If you have no other questions, gentlemen… this room is open until six, if you'd like to use it to devise your strategy. Though if you have a conference room with a dead hydraulic line in your new ship, you're welcome to use that instead."

"It wasn't a conference room," Flynn said indignantly. "It was the crew quarters, they sprung a hydraulic leak in their bedroom—" He could've kept going, but Hunk slapped a hand over his mouth.

"What the pit boss means to say is, thanks, Colonel Bossman!"

"I don't think that's what he was gonna say," Lance observed lightly. Can he just say hydraulic again?

Keith winced. He'd nearly forgotten about Bob the hydraulic line. "Does this one have an RIP sign anywhere, Flynn?"

"Yeah," Jace snorted, "he RIP'd the fucking nameplate."

"…Huh?"

"Don't get him started."

"Oh, do get him started," Lance countered. That was accompanied by a playful nudge, drawing a blush that was mercifully mostly hidden by Hunk's hand.

Not that he was going to suffer that indignity for long. Rolling his eyes and making a mental note to give Hunk several extra shifts later, Flynn recovered and pushed the big engineer's hand aside. "I corrected the name. It needed it. Don't you read your messages?"

Keith did, in fact, read his messages. He just hadn't realized the nameplate had actually been changed. Hawkins, on the other hand, arched an eyebrow. "What was wrong with the name?"

"Thor had a hammer," the chief engineer answered flatly. "Vulcan had a hammer. Jupiter did not have a hammer, Jupiter had a thunderbolt. This is my hill and I will die on it, thank you very much."

"Ah, I see." He chuckled. Explorer Teams, never boring. "Well, gentlemen, if intel comes up with anything more I'll let you know. But I wouldn't count on it. Good luck." With that he departed the room, leaving the 686 to do their thing.

*****

Eventually, they'd managed to come to an agreement on the strategy session. First, they may as well use the briefing room Hawkins had so kindly offered. The Bolt did have conference rooms, several, but they'd be seeing plenty of those in the coming months. Second, they needed breakfast first. It was tradition. The briefing room's coffee pot had been set to work.

Food had fallen to Hunk, of course. There was a spirited debate going on about the merits of simulator training when he returned to the room. "Don't say I never did anything for you guys." He chuckled, plunking down a box of donuts and a tray of still-sizzling bacon. "I ordered a dozen delivered to Colonel Bossman too, wish I could see his face."

Cam, who'd been interrupted in the middle of arguing that the commander needed to see them work in a controlled environment, completely lost the thread as he stared at the donuts. "What the hell are those things? They're huge."

"They're beautiful," Daniel declared, grabbing one. Sven took one too, as did Vince after a long moment of contemplation. Donuts and bacon seemed like an odd mix.

Jace rolled his eyes. "They're circular murder. Eat up."

Picking out a donut of his own, Lance took some bacon as well and waved it in the medic's direction. "Sure you don't want some, Jace?"

"Stop waving your meat at me, McClain." That got him a wink.

Keith sighed, taking some bacon and glancing around the team. Somehow, Pidge had snagged a piece of bacon without anyone seeing him move, and Cam had given in and acquired a donut. That seemed to be everyone who was interested… "Well, once everyone settles down we can get started."

"Boss," Lance objected through a mouthful of donut, "us? Settle down?"

"We're settled enough," Flynn agreed.

Fair enough, Keith supposed. "In that case… everyone knows our orders. Our obscenely vague orders."

"Totally." Hunk took a huge bite of his donut. "We've got two names, what more do we need?"

"A fucking map," Jace snorted. "But okay, who's got ideas for where we go to find a planet that doesn't exist?"

"The super secret planet emporium?" Lance suggested with a shrug.

Keith frowned, dialing up his most confident tone. "There are places out there with knowledge and information." Hopefully. "We just need to decide which would be the most… fruitful. Suggestions?"

A few uneasy glances shot around the room; suggestions weren't coming easily. Finally Cam tilted his head. The veterans clearly had a low opinion of intel, so… "Maybe we should start at Sorthal anyway? See if intel missed anything?"

Six voices responded in unison. "NO!"

He flinched back into his chair, wide-eyed. "Why not?"

"We can't go back there."

"Ever."

"Also, fuck that place."

"There was lightning."

"And ice water."

"And murder vines."

"And boxes."

"And an illegal escape from the planet that I told them not to do."

"Okay, okay." Cam still had no idea what was going on, but was convinced he would only regret asking for further elaboration. "Not Sorthal."

"Absolutely fucking not." Lance hesitated. "If we're assuming the metal is related to this Voltron, how about Terina? They must have had a visit." Smirk. "Plus they're hot."

Sven rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "They didn't seem to have much interest in history. Even Ioan only knew something about beasts from the clouds."

"True, but we only talked to two of them. And it's not like we're overflowing with ideas."

"That is true."

"It's better than nothing," Keith agreed, entering it into his datapad. "Anything else?"

The mention of Terina had jogged Hunk's memory. "What about the Bataxi? They're like… door to door saleslizards, aren't they? Maybe this Altea's a planet they've got a port on."

Flynn nearly choked on his coffee at that description, and took a few moments to recover. "Have you ever tried to get information out of a Bataxi about where they set up their 'temples'?"

"…No?"

Keith looked to his second. "Is it hard?"

"It offends them. Back on the Magnusson we tried asking for directions once, we were never allowed at that port again."

"…Okay, so asking them is out. Any other suggestions?"

"That seems a bit over the top," Lance muttered so only Flynn could hear.

"They invoke five different gods to fill a fuel tank, you're expecting subtlety and nuance?" the engineer murmured back, then raised his voice. "What about Gliskor?"

Now that was an abrupt turn, though it made some sense. The Glis were the oldest of the Alliance's founding races—their interstellar empire had risen and fallen while humans were still living in caves. They had provided the star charts of the vast Interior Expanse that were still in use to this day. Keith nodded slowly. "I suppose that's a possibility."

"They might know something," Sven agreed, thinking carefully. "But they pretty much provided the stellar database, why wouldn't it be in there? And if this weapon wasn't around before their empire collapsed, they wouldn't be in any better position to know about it than anyone else. It would have to be what, 20,000 years old?"

Jace shrugged. "They did say it was ancient, that sounds ancient to me."

Lacking any suggestions or opinions on the matter of hunting down possible folklore, Daniel had opted to focus on the best donut he'd ever eaten rather than the meeting. He'd just finished eating and started listening again, only to be greeted with very large numbers and complicated ancient history… he decided to just grab another donut.

Vince, though, had been thinking. The Glis weren't a bad suggestion, but their information was old. But there were certainly other civilizations carrying the torch in modern times… oh. Oh. "Oh!"

When Sven turned to face him, he realized he'd spoken out loud and covered his mouth with both hands. He definitely hadn't meant to do that. Hunk eyed him too, offering an encouraging grin. "Got somethin', little dude?"

Welp. No getting out of this one. He cleared his throat of a stubborn bit of donut and nodded tentatively. "There is Kaliega."

"Kaliega…" Keith was obviously struggling to remember where he'd heard that name before. "That is an interesting suggestion."

"That is a wonderful suggestion," Sven corrected, eyes shining eagerly. Jace glanced over at him with some concern; the last time he'd seen that look on the Viking's face, he'd been talking about severing boar-tah spines.

Lance frowned. "What's a Kaliega?"

"It's the homeworld of the Lygoth. They're the best astronomers and stellar cartographers in the modern Alliance." Sven was trying to figure out how he hadn't thought of this himself; he'd wanted to visit Kaliega since the first moment he'd heard of it. "Their Cathedral of Stars is legendary."

Keith weighed the options for a minute. He remembered Kaliega now; the Lygoth had the opposite problem as the Glis. They were a relatively young race, and this Altea might very well predate them. But then, he didn't think the Sorith were anywhere near as old as the Glis, so… "We'll go to Terina, it's a long shot but a short trip. I think our first stop after that will be Kaliega. If we don't come up with something there, then we can try Gliskor."

"Why do star dudes trump 20,000 years of knowledge?" Lance asked, more curious than challenging.

"The Glis don't have 20,000 years of knowledge," Pidge said abruptly, sounding mildly contemptuous. "They lost 20,000 years of knowledge."

That was not an entirely accurate summary of the situation, but it was close enough. It got him a nervous look from Vince, a raised eyebrow from Flynn… and a broad smile from Sven, who was willing to take support anywhere he could get it. "I like that one."

Keith motioned for silence. "I'm sure we could do with exhausting all our other options before we go harass an ancient race." Under his breath he added, "because that's exactly what we'd end up doing, I'm sure…"

"Kaliega is also closer to Terina than Gliskor is," Sven added. That also was not entirely accurate, the difference was really negligible by interstellar standards. But the route to Gliskor from the Rim was more complex, hence slower… and he really, really wanted to go to Kaliega.

Flynn smirked. "Parikullax is closer than both of them, if we want to go get blacklisted by door to door saleslizards just to start this thing off correctly." Beside him, Lance snickered.

"How about we not." Keith gave them both a reproachful look. "The Bataxi are likely to be in charge of some of the ports we'll need to visit, it would be best if we not anger them."

"Besides," Jace snorted, "we'll get in enough fucking trouble as it is without going and looking for it."

Hunk chuckled. "It's our superpower." He grabbed another donut and looked around the table, shaking his head. "What's the rush, anyway? We're goin' on a sanctioned epic road trip for who knows how long and you're all worried about actually findin' the thing fast? Sheesh."

"Yes, we are," Keith answered with a frown. "We have our plan. Terina, Kaliega, and Gliskor. Hopefully at least one of them will have some information…" He exhaled slowly. "God help us if they don't."

"Yeah," Daniel snorted, "I'm sure we're on the top of God's help list."

"They'll totally point us directly toward…" Lance paused, making a face. "Boltron?"

"Voltron, McClain." Keith rolled his eyes.

"Oh, right. Because that makes much more sense."

"Yeah, the Bolt is the ship. Or something." Jace leaned back in his chair. "I'm kinda with giant donut dumbass, they're shipping us out on this crazy-ass joke of a mission, we may as well take a few rest stops. Who's gonna know?"

"We will," Cam answered, looking slightly scandalized. "And it would have to go in any reports we send back." Next to him, Daniel rolled his eyes theatrically.

The medic wasn't having it either. "I've already got reason to stab you at will, kid. Just saying."

Glare. "I took my meds. Leave me alone."

"Besides," Sven smacked his arm, "if you stab him, you're the one who has to fix him."

"Fix him? I didn't take that level of surgery, but I could arrange something."

For some reason, Sven had not expected that, and just stared at him with his most disapproving look. Most of the kids stared too. Lance snickered, though his mind was elsewhere. He should be with Hunk and Jace on the issue of side trips, but it didn't sit right, somehow. The memory of warmth tingled in his fingers… he wanted to find this thing. He really wanted to find it.

Which did raise another question… "If we actually find this Altea, assuming it is all ancient alien ruins and crap, how are we supposed to find this weapon when all we have to go off of is Jace's finger painting?"

Jace started to respond; Sven took one look at Keith's expression and elbowed him, hard. After a moment's thought Hunk spoke up. "Well, if we think the weird metal is actually part of this Voltron—that is what we're goin' with, yeah?"

"Probably?"

"Seems reasonable."

"I think that would be the best, at least until we find reason to think otherwise." Keith nodded. "What do you have in mind?"

"Well, we know it still reads as metal. Wouldn't be too hard to set up the scanners to look for a big chunk of metal that ain't givin' off any energy readings. And once we find that, we know what we're lookin' for is all technicolor, it oughta stand out. Hopefully."

That was a lot of hoping, in Keith's opinion, but so was everything else about this mission. It was better to have a nebulous plan than no plan at all. "Alright. Flynn, when will we be able to launch?"

"Soon?" Shrug. "The ship is about ready, we just need to do a weapons test and final hull inspection. It's probably safe to request a launch slot for next week."

"Good." After over a month of waiting and wondering, having a concrete task before them felt good—even if calling it a concrete task was a bit of an overstatement. Wet concrete, maybe. But they had their goal, now. "I want everyone to enjoy these last few days on the ground, but get packed sooner rather than later. When we get our slot I expect you all to be ready."

Answering nods went around the room. Pidge shifted. "Are we finished then, sir?"

"Yes. Dismissed."

With a few salutes of varying seriousness, and a few extra donuts to go, the team headed out.

*****

It was hard to tell how much time had passed since her arrival to the shelter, deep within the tunnels. Between a few cave collapses, and more than a few moments when it looked like the Drules had breached the shelter network, it felt like forever to Nanny. But there had finally been some movement, attempts to find the rumored extension tunnels that allowed for movement between shelters. It had taken some time for the few that were aware of such things to get their bearings after the shocking attack. More time yet to find the doorways that accessed the tunnels; they were well hidden for obvious reasons. Then of course, the wait to make sure opening the doors would not alert the Drules above.

Still, there was tangible progress, and it gave Nanny hope. Golden Gods willing, it would be soon that she could regroup with the young prince, and they could make their way back towards the castle.

In the meantime, she had made use of herself tending to the wounded and preparing food for others—what little they had. The shelters had been stocked with some rations, but it was only so much that was still edible. Now that the new tunnels were opening up, it offered some hope to gain access to fresher food from hunting or foraging. Risky, certainly. But necessary. Expedition teams were already being formed.

Nanny had an expedition of her own in mind. As the others had been making plans to improve conditions in the tunnels, she started to plan her departure. First, she made sure there was enough food prepared to last a bit, so her departure would not be too sudden for whoever was taking her place. Then she gathered some food for her own travel. After all, there could be a delay in getting back to the castle shelters. It wouldn't do to succumb to hunger as she traveled, and the young prince might need food as well when she caught up with him.

Finally ready, with focus in her eyes and a lantern in her hand, she started to make her way down the connecting tunnel. She had seen a few knights travel this one, and they had come back unharmed. It must be safe to travel. Humming softly to herself as she traveled, she watched the rough stone walls carefully, hoping to find a sign of where this tunnel would meet up with the next shelter.

Time seemed to blur together as she traveled the tunnels, the featureless walls, the packed dirt floors, the endless walking. It seemed to much farther than she'd hoped would be necessary. Checking her surroundings, she realized that it had been some time since she last saw a person rushing past her. When she'd started, a scout or two would rush by every so often, sometimes carrying food and water. Now, she couldn't even hear any echoes from distant reaches of the tunnel. Was there a turn somewhere she hadn't seen?

"Maybe others are sleeping… yes. Sleeping." Nanny swallowed hard, trying not to let nerves get the best of her. "Best keep moving, I’m bound to reach the end sooner or later.”

Sleep, though, was encroaching on her as well; she kept going for just a bit more before the need to rest found her. Fighting it more wouldn't help her, nor the prince when she found him. Setting down by the side of the tunnel, she dimmed the lantern to a low glow before sleeping.

When she woke, she became even more nervous; the light of the lantern wasn’t nearly as bright as before. Attempting to remember her basic survival techniques, it dawned on her that her sleep patterns might be off from the long weeks underground. Left to her body's own devices, she'd slept more than she should have. Even her lantern's low, steady burn had run its power down. Shivering slightly, she ate a small bit of her rations before continuing. She needed to reach the end of this tunnel before she ran out of water, food, and light.

Keeping her light on a lower setting, she hugged the side of the tunnel to keep her bearings. Pausing at times to listen for movement brought only silence. More endless hours of walking, her legs aching… she should have turned around when she first realized how extensive the tunnels were. No, she couldn't have, Prince Tanner needed her. She just had to keep going…

She was starting to get tired again. Surely she couldn't have been walking for a full day? But her body needed to conserve energy, of it needed sleep, she would sleep. But as she dimmed the lantern to near darkness, the tunnel didn't get quite dark enough. A sliver of light, just barely visible on the far wall. Stumbling towards it, she could hear voices. Low, hushed voices, a murmur on the other side of some rocks.

Her legs were on the verge of giving out, and she leaned heavily on the wall to steady herself. As her hand pressed upon one rock, it gave way. With a startled cry she tumbled into a new chamber, and a small group of equally startled people. Dazed from her fall, she didn’t fight as some of them gathered her up; others looked to see where she'd come from before closing up the hole. After pressing her for who she was and where she had come from, they brought her to an elder.

At once she recognized a former friend, Elder DeFlor. He used to visit the castle long ago, though he hadn’t for some time. Still, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. Maybe there was hope for her mission after all.

“Governess… how is it that you've arrived to these parts?”

“I was separated from my charge when the attack happened," she explained, wincing again at the memory. "The refugees from the city went to different shelters I was hoping to find him, and the rest of the group I was with.”

DeFlor seemed puzzled, calling for a map. Laying it out, he nodded to her. “Now… which city is it you've come from?”

“We were in Falastol." She gave him a pleading look. "Elder… please say I've found the others from there.”

“Governess…" He didn't need to say it. She could see it in his eyes, the mix of sympathy and worry. "We are from Halonia. Quite far beyond Falastol.”

Halonia? Nanny stared, uncomprehending, for a moment. She knew where Halonia was. She knew how far she must have traveled, and for nothing. Sighing, she gave in, burying her face in her hands.

I'll keep looking. I will find him.