(On the Hunt) Chapter 19

Pride: On the Hunt

Chapter 19

A Little Help

Cam shook his head as he crept down the main corridor on the berthing deck. He couldn't believe he'd let Daniel convince him to leave their quarters, while he was on restriction, for toast. For toast. One minute they'd been talking about their shift schedules, and then the next Daniel had him convinced that they couldn't wait until breakfast to eat.

Toast! Cam didn't even really like toast all that much. It was just burnt bread. He wasn't going to mention that at the moment though, no reason to rile Daniel up. He'd already given him more than his share of grumpiness after having been shot.

Even so, they shouldn't be doing this. It was disrespectful. Keith had put him on restriction for a reason; he should have stayed away from Pidge, and he definitely should have kept his mouth shut. If the Commander thought he deserved to be on restriction for his actions then he obviously did. Daniel didn't think so, of course. He'd actually gotten pretty annoyed by it. Apparently he felt if his actions so far hadn't earned him restriction, nothing that Cam had done should have. Thankfully he had convinced the gunner not to say anything to Keith about it… or he hoped he had, anyway. Daniel's mouth did seem to have a mind of its own sometimes.

Cam sighed in relief as they made it to the galley without being spotted, and then rolled his eyes when he saw Daniel smirking. Probably in response to the same thing.

"Danny we should really—" His whisper was cut off by a miffed Daniel.

"Do not call me Danny. It's Da-ni-el." He kept his voice to an angry whisper, but made sure to enunciate his name unnecessarily at the end.

"Why not? What's wrong with Danny?" Cam asked, confused. Danny was a perfectly normal nickname for someone named Daniel.

"Danny makes me sound like I'm three. Or like, a guy who puts goat cheese and tomato on toast."

"I'm not entirely sure what that even means."

"If you did, you wouldn't be calling me Danny." Daniel was still whispering, but Cam could tell he wanted to be yelling. He was grateful for the restraint; if he started yelling they'd definitely get caught. Such was their luck as of late.

"Okay wait… Lance is always literally calling you kid and you don't get all upset about it, but I can't call you Danny because it makes you sound like a little kid?" Cam eyed him. Why doesn't Lance get bitched out like this?

"That's… different." Daniel sighed, that particular situation was a losing battle, and to be honest he didn't really mind when Lance called him that. No way in hell he was telling Cam that, though. Besides, it wasn't Danny.

"Fine, whatever… can you just hurry up and make your burnt bread so we can go back to our room please?!" Cam whisper-yelled. They needed to hurry up if they were going to get away with this.

"Burnt—you know what, fine. Go get the damn toaster, I'm going to grab the peanut butter and bread." Daniel kept muttering under his breath about tasteless roommates as he made his way to the fridge.

If there was anything Cam was less interested in right now than toast, it was peanut butter; he might be bearing just a bit of a grudge against the stuff. So he rummaged around the cabinets quietly before finding and pulling down the toaster. It took him a minute to find, he didn't use it every day like Daniel. It was a pretty impressive toaster though; Hunk must have picked it out. It was able to hold up to six slices of bread and had at least ten different toasting options.

Plugging it in, Cam turned to face what was quickly becoming a real life nightmare. Daniel had grabbed a stack of Jace's sandwiches and was pulling them apart. The bread was piled on a plate off to one side, while all the in-between parts were being shoved back in their bags.

His eyes went wide as the plate the bread was stacked on, if that was really possible. "What the hell are you doing?!" Panic had definitely flowed into his whisper, but Daniel didn't seem to notice. Or just didn't care.

"Jace has been hiding the bread from me, apparently I eat too much toast. Something about carbohydrates, plus I'm not leaving him enough to make us his stupid sandwiches." Daniel shook his head. Completely ridiculous.

"So not only am I breaking restriction, I'm aiding and abetting in the murder of perfectly good sandwiches? This is not good for my karma, man."

"Oh don't even start with that karma crap. Chill."

"Chill?" Cam repeated. "You want me to chill? While you mutilate the Doc's sandwiches?" He will so murder us if he finds out… what am I saying? How can he not find out?

"Yes," Daniel deadpanned.

"How am I supposed to chill when bad karma is going to crap all over—" Daniel groaned in an attempt to get Cam to stop, which only got him a glare. "Will you respect what I believe, please?"

"This isn't about respecting your beliefs. This is about you suddenly lecturing me about how everything I do is going to make the universe pissed at me." He wasn't wholly convinced Cam even believed in karma—he seemed to have discovered it while he was stuck in the sick bay with a hole in his shoulder—but who was he to question the sincerity of fanboy's beliefs? Maybe getting shot had just reminded him of it.

Besides, it was better than him just worshipping Keith.

"This has nothing to do with your karma. I've given up on your karma. Your karma is probably irredeemable at this point." Cam's whispering wasn't really whispering anymore.

"Irredeemable?" Daniel echoed skeptically.

"You are butchering those sandwiches, which Jace kindly—"

"—Kindly? Are you serious?—"

"—Yes, kindly made for us all, and throwing the carnage—" Cam froze as Daniel resealed the the sandwich baggies as best he could, before tossing them back into the drawer he'd pulled them from. "—back into the fridge." He blanched, barely keeping himself from groaning as Daniel put the slightly used bread in the toaster.

"Well, if you think about it Jace is a pretty big asshole to pretty much everyone. Even Sven sometimes." Daniel veered off topic for a moment. "I don't really understand what Sven gets out of that friendship."

"I'm not sure what I'm getting out of this friendship," Cam grumbled; Daniel ignored him. He did that a lot.

"Anyways, so really the universe is just using us to dish Jace some bad karma. And plus what Jace doesn't know—"

Cam cut that off with an annoyed tone, having heard this particular adage from his mouth before. "Won't hurt him?"

"No. Won't hurt us."

"How is he not going to know?!" Cam demanded as Daniel's toast popped and he started to spread the peanut butter on.

"Well, he is, but he won't be able to prove that it was us."

"You are literally the only person on this ship that would do this."

"Well good. Then you won't get in trouble, I'll take the blame," Daniel reasoned as if it were no big deal. Cam shook his head. Maybe Daniel was a troublemaking asshole, but he was constantly trying to take the fall for people. Well… some people. He didn't seem to care one bit about being reprimanded himself, but took other people being reprimanded personally. Maybe too personally. Hell, he'd been ready to start a fight over Cam's restriction, because he didn't think his roommate had done anything wrong.

Cam sighed and shook his head, looking at the toast. Daniel was such an idiot. But an idiot he was pretty well thrown in with, so…

"Letting you take the blame would just add to my already tainted karma. Just hurry and clean up so we can get back to our room before the next shift change, would you?"

Smirking, Daniel saluted with his toast and did as he asked.

*****

Things had been mercifully quiet in the days since the great peanut butter debacle. Well… maybe 'quiet' was a relative term, but there hadn't been any new crises at least. Keith would take that. He'd been off shift for an hour or so when he made his way back to his and Flynn's stateroom, ready to get some sleep before the next emergency hit.

He was halfway out of his pants when he felt a vague… unease… running down his spine. Turning he found Flynn's violet eyes locked on him. "Kleid, what are you doing?"

"Watching you undress," he answered matter-of-factly.

…Points for honesty, I suppose. "And exactly why are you doing that?"

"Because someone put me on restriction, so my options for amusing myself are limited."

"Whose fault is that?"

"You're the one who decided confinement to quarters was a better option than double shifts, actually."

"Yes, I decided an actual punishment was a more appropriate punishment. How silly of me." Keith crossed his arms. "Besides, I thought you said I wasn't your type?"

"You're not." Flynn shrugged. "I can admire nice artwork without wanting to pack it up and take it home with me."

Whatever Keith had been about to say turned into an incoherent sputter. "Are you—"

"—You know, you could've had your clothes on in the time you've been standing there arguing with me." Smirk. "But feel free to carry on arguing. I'm enjoying it."

In response, Keith retrieved the work jacket his second had slung over a chair and dropped it on his head. "Nope. Sorry." Beneath the fabric, Flynn burst into laughter.

A second later, alarm klaxons started to howl.

Both of them were moving immediately, and Keith was halfway through opening the door when Flynn yelled behind him. "Kogane! Pants!" He was yanking his jacket on over his sleep clothes. "There's always time for pants!"

…Probably so. Keith grabbed the ones he'd just discarded and pulled them back on, then ran down the corridor, fumbling with a shirt in the elevator. "What is it this time?" So much for sleep before the next emergency. Though now that he thought about it, they'd been lucky on the Bolt so far… maybe they'd been overdue a deep space issue. Sighing, he got himself more or less respectable-looking, and as the elevator hissed to a stop he headed for the bridge.

*****

Waypoint B/RW, or Break/Rimward, was precisely what it sounded like: the nav waypoint at the rimward 'corner' just before the Atlantis Sector and No Man's Land met at the Break. The Break itself was heavily militarized, usually hosting a full Vanguard unit. They didn't especially like visitors, even authorized ones; any ship appearing in their zone of control was a bit of extra effort spent on identification and inspection.

Needless to say, civilian and merchant vessels didn't really enjoy that either. Which was why Waypoint B/RW and its opposite, Waypoint B/CW—Break/Coreward—were two of the few standardized routing points on Alliance maps. Most ships needing to cross the Break were happiest to bypass it entirely. It had become a thing.

The Bolt had stopped a little longer than was typical at a waypoint, running the routine system checks between breaches as well as checking the military charts. They actually did want to stop in the Break, after all—there was still that issue of getting a report back to Hawkins. It was just a matter of where they were likely to get the warmest reception… they'd narrowed it down to a couple of options before Keith had gone off shift. Sven had been told to set them on the quickest route he could find, he'd just about gotten it set.

That was when the alarms had started going off. Because really, why wouldn't it be?

"Status report?" Keith stepped onto the bridge with as much composure as he'd been able to muster; Cam and Sven were already there.

"We're at our scheduled waypoint. Detecting signals from… a nearby asteroid?" Sven was frowning.

"Multiple contacts, sir." Cam hit a few more switches. "Working on it."

"Talk to me, Starr." It could easily be nothing. The Alliance occasionally patrolled the Break waypoints. Maybe they'd all have a good laugh about this later.

He wasn't going to bet on that.

"Small fighters inbound from the asteroid. No communications yet. Not responding to standard hails."

Definitely something. "Pirates?"

"It is possible." Cam hesitated, remembering the sim runs that seemed like forever ago. "I don't see any sign of a carrier."

"Normal pirates?" Hunk's voice crackled over the comms. "Weird."

"Did someone say pirates?" Lance came racing onto the bridge with Daniel on his heels, vaulting into his seat.

Keith's eyes narrowed slightly. "Do not fire unless fired upon, Brennan. McClain, evasive maneuvers."

"You got it, bossman." Daniel was grinning. This was going to be awesome.

"Will do, but we're not exactly maneuver friendly." Lance pulled into a slow bank, waiting to see what the approaching fighters would do. The Firecrown hadn't been built for combat, but it had at least been small and nimble. The Bolt might require a few more miracles.

Nodding his understanding, Keith turned his attention to the comms. "All hands, battle stations. Gregory, find a place to strap in."

"…Yayyyyy," Jace grumbled. "I'll be in the sick bay, try not to need me."

Flynn sprinted into the engine bay, going straight to the command console. "Vince, set the backup generator to standb…" He trailed off, blinking as his own words set in. The backup generator most certainly had not been on standby when Vince had used the disruptor cannon to fry Bokar. Which… shouldn't be possible…?

Pirates! Moving to the aux console and engaging the generator, Vince looked up and blinked himself. Flynn was giving him a very odd look. "Anything else?"

"…No, that's good." The chief shook it off. Not like they really had time to worry about it right now. "Hunk, point defense. Pidge, monitor shields."

Vince shrugged and stayed where he was. Time to just hope not to get killed by pirates.

The pirates were getting close enough to get a good look at now. Pidge frowned slightly, glancing over at Flynn's console. "Sir, those are Drule vessels. Kal'oqla class fighters."

Flynn had been able to tell they were Drules; the prominent ventral cannon was a bit of a giveaway. He hadn't made it to worrying about the actual model yet, and took a moment to stare at Pidge too. Kal'oqla? He knew the name, at least. They were supposedly unique to the Fourth Kingdom.

Of all the Drule fighters that should not be here right now, Fourth Kingdom fighters should be here the least. But that, like it always seemed to be with pirates, was an issue for later. At the moment they were getting a bit surrounded.

"They're maneuvering to encircle us, sir," Cam reported quietly, eyes narrowed. They were doing a pretty good job of it.

A moment later, the comms crackled. "Vagrant vessel, you have two options. Surrender your ship or dump your cargo."

Lance snorted. "Who are you calling vagrant, asshole?"

"It's the ship class, flyboy…"

"I still take offense."

"I respect it."

Keith rolled his eyes and tuned out the chatter. "Starr, open comms." There was one small problem—well, maybe a large problem—with the pirates' demands. Cam flipped a switch and nodded to him. "Unidentified vessels, we have no cargo to dump."

Back in the bay, even Hunk couldn't quite resist some snark. "Details, details."

The pirate leader was unimpressed. "Then prepare to be boarded. Shut down your engines."

"Don't you tell me what to do with my engines," Flynn muttered indignantly. Hunk snickered, and even Pidge cracked what might have been the ghost of a smile.

Vince would've laughed too, but he was still busy trying to get a handle on the situation. Drules! Pirate Drules! He watched the power readings with wide eyes as the Bolt's engines did exactly the opposite of powering down.

"McClain, time to do some of that…" Keith was briefly drowned out by the roar of the engines as the Bolt shot below the fighter line. "…pilot stuff," he finished unnecessarily.

"Pilot stuff?" Daniel echoed. "You mean piloting?"

"Kid, what I fucking do is not just piloting," Lance objected. The fighters were moving faster than the Bolt, trying to cut them off in a four-pronged pincer maneuver; they shot the gap with so little room to spare that their shields scorched one fighter's wingtip. He gritted his teeth; the Vagrant was so not made for these kind of moves. But he was pulling it off, naturally. With panache.

Even Daniel looked a little impressed, not that he would admit it. "I'm so sorry to insult you, your royal highness of the skies." One of the Kal'oqla fired a shot across their bow; their shields easily absorbed the laser fire, but that was all he'd needed. Dropping the crosshairs over the offending fighter, he got a missile lock and launched. Two Interceptor missiles spiraled from their starboard launch tubes and punched through the fighter's hull.

The explosion was close enough to also hit their shields, which threw their equilibrium off; Lance wrestled the Bolt back into steady flight. "Fucking right I'm the King."

"I thought that was the Elvish guy," Cam muttered. Luckily for him, Lance was too preoccupied to pay it much mind—he might have ended up with a hole in his other arm.

The Kal'oqla were still faster than they were, and the loss of their companion was enough to get the others shooting. Flynn routed what extra power he could to the engines, but it wasn't much; if they'd had surplus power, the disruptor cannon wouldn't have been on backup power in the first place. It was enough to give them a bit of a surge, at least.

In response the pirates circled around on their tail, opening fire on the engines. That gave Lance the opportunity to pull a few moves he hadn't had available with them flanking the ship. "Pfft, stupid pirates. Telegraph your moves less." With a sharp roll they gained some separation, though it wouldn't last. The fighters were already gaining again.

A couple of lasers struck at the same time, causing the shield console to flash an alert. Pidge frowned. "Node 18 cycling. Aft harmonics chamber active. Shields are holding. Damage minimal."

"Of course they're holding, they're…" Flynn paused. "Kogane, we've got capital-class shields on this pail of bolts." Centuries ago, when the Drules had first invaded and deep space outposts had been the first things to go, Vagrants had been pressed into service to fill the massive gaps in the supply lines. The extra shields had been an obvious modification at the time, and they'd kind of just stuck around since.

Lance frowned, pushing them up into another roll as a flurry of lasers cut just beneath them. "We're not quite a tank, are we?"

"No, but we're not outrunning them, might be better off outlasting them."

The first part of that was clear enough; the second had to at least be worth a try. Keith nodded. "Suggestions?"

There was a silence that felt very long, though it was probably only a second or two. "Boss, I think 'shoot back' is what he was goin' for."

"…Thank you, Hunk. Yes, that."

Sighing, Keith shot the comms a brief scowl before turning to Daniel. "Do it."

Like he hadn't been trying to do it this whole time. The Bolt didn't have a whole lot of rear arc weapons coverage, and what 'not a lot' really meant was 'nothing but point defense', which wasn't even his job. He was about to say so, but right then Lance pulled them up into a tight u-turn and started pushing the ship straight at the flock of suddenly upside-down Kal'oqla. Daniel grinned. "Thank you! I take back all I said about you flying like an old man."

Snort. "Just fire when I get you there, kid."

"Yes, sir!" Two locks came active at once; he loosed a missile at one fighter, tearing its main cannon off. The other lock was for the disruptor cannon, which flashed with lightning and instantly silenced another fighter's engines. It went drifting away wherever inertia wanted to take it.

Cam watched the damaged fighter retreat, then eyed their gunner. "What has he said about calling him sir?"

"Don't fuckin' start with me, bird boy." Despite the initial flurry, this whole shoot back thing wasn't going nearly as well as he'd have hoped. The Drule fighters could get out of his firing arcs almost as fast as the Bolt could get them in. "I can't hold any solid locks."

"I'm trying, but she's just not got the combat grace." Lance wanted to add he was already making a mockery of the Vagrant's design parameters, but then he had to grit his teeth and wrestle them out of another pincer attempt instead.

"Nor the acceleration," Flynn added. "And the shields will hold out a long time against these things, but not forever."

"Then we need another option." Keith's eyes narrowed. "Holgersson, can we go to hyperspace?"

"Yes sir. But we may or may not be able to shake them that way either. Drule fighters are capable of breachjacking." Nearly the entire bridge—except Lance, who was busy—gave him a weird look at that, and he sighed. "It's called the Otieno Effect. If a small enough ship is near a large enough ship, it can be caught up when the larger ship breaches and essentially travel in hyperspace as though it were attached to the larger ship. Our fighters aren't generally built for the stresses of hyperspace, but Drule fighters have been known to survive it."

Oh. Well that was just wonderful… wait. A small grin tugged at Keith's lips. "Then let's take them for a ride. Holgersson, which of those bases we were thinking about visiting is likely to be the most bored?"

Sven glanced back through the possible destinations and frowned. "Not quite sure on their level of boredom, but I think Gemini is where we're most likely to get willing backup." Stellar Fortress Gemini was the closest of the Break's military outposts. He didn't really want the Drules breachjacking them for longer than necessary; the long-term effects weren't well researched. Because, well, the Drules tended not to cooperate.

"Alliance backup?" Lance snorted. "Oxymoron."

"Better than nothing." Keith's eyes narrowed. "Get McClain the route, Holgersson. How long will it take us to get there?"

"About half an hour."

That wasn't so bad. "Starr, send a message ahead, let them know we're coming."

"Yes sir!" As he typed in the warning, Lance pulled another tight turn and caused two of the fighters' shots to hit each other. "Message away, ready to go."

"Yeehaw!" Lance yelled, pushing the ship forward in a surge. It shook nearly all of the fighters, and before they had time to recover, the Bolt vanished into a hyperspace breach.

Daniel glanced over at the pilot and shook his head. "And just like that… back to being an old man."

"You have no appreciation of the classics," Lance scolded.

"I appreciate cool things."

"Then you fucking love me."

Hunk chimed in from the bay. "Ain't there a saying about old age and treachery versus youth and… uh… not-treachery?"

"Inexperience," Flynn offered, and the other engineer snickered.

"Don't think that's it, but it works!"

"Whatever you say," Daniel laughed.

Keith rolled his eyes. "If you are all done, can we get a status report?"

"Breach incursion confirmed," Pidge reported immediately. "We have three or four fighters alongside." Standard sensors were not as reliable in hyperspace as they might have liked, but there were definitely some fighters there.

"Hope they're enjoying the ride." Lance smirked. "With way better piloting than they're used to."

Again, Keith rolled his eyes. "Can we just get this done?"

"Helps to reach the location first, boss."

"And I'm the impatient one?"

Rolling his eyes a third time might have given him eye strain, so Keith just sighed and retreated to his command chair. Thirty minutes in hyperspace with Drule fighters on their wingtips ought to be… fun. But what choice did they have? Not that they could do anything to each other anyway—weapons didn't function in hyperspace.

Shields did function in hyperspace, but with certain caveats, which the bay crew was belatedly realizing. Namely, the fact that the absorptive energy barrier had to shed all the spatial flux junk it had picked up while traveling through a plane with totally different laws of physics. "Kogane, one complication. Our shields will reset after we breach out. Thirty seconds at best." It was a drawback of their very large shield system… a very long deployment time.

Kuso. Thirty seconds would be more than enough for the Drule pilots to put some lasers through their hull. Though they would also be appearing in the middle of an Alliance military outpost. "That's a chance we'll have to take. They'll have bigger problems, maybe they'll be busy with those. Unless you have a better idea?"

"We could just drop 'em off and run like hell," Hunk suggested with a shrug.

"We can't…" Keith paused and cocked his head thoughtfully. The suggestion actually made a lot of sense… they knew where and when they were coming out of hyperspace, and their unwanted company didn't. They should have a few seconds of disorientation to get separation and breach again. Only a few seconds, though. "…Can we do that?"

"I can handle it," Lance confirmed immediately.

"Breach drive has the charge for it," Flynn agreed.

"Okay. Do it." He saw their pilot starting to open his mouth and glared slightly. "When we get there!"

"Just making sure."

It was easily the most tense half hour they'd ever spent in hyperspace. Which, given the 686's history, was an impressive achievement. But finally they were coming up on the end of the route, and Lance hunched his shoulders. Time to ditch the posse.

"Twenty seconds," Sven reported in a near whisper. It seemed wrong to break the silence of the bridge too much. Lance just nodded, preparing for the exit breach and what would follow.

The Bolt slipped from hyperspace.

Alarms screamed everywhere. Multiple contacts, multiple aggressive scans, fighters right next to them, weapons locks… Cam started to call them out, then reconsidered. Not much point, given the plan. And there was a good chance nobody would be able to hear him anyway.

"And now…" Lance punched the throttles and went into a steep dive, breaking loose from the Drules who'd accompanied them. "YEEEHAWWWW!" Before the Kal'oqla had even started moving, they disappeared into hyperspace again.

Sven grinned slightly. He would never in a million years actually speak the word yeehaw out loud, but hearing Lance yell it was fun.

"Did it work?"

"No breach incursion. Seems so."

"Awesome." Hunk brought up the heavy metal Ride of the Valkyries on his datapad; this moment seemed to warrant it. Then he hesitated. "Uh, so, when we warned them we were comin', did we tell them we were just gonna dump the Drules on them and run for it?"

No. No they certainly had not, considering they hadn't known it themselves at the time. Flynn looked over at him, then grimaced. "And have we considered we might have started a minor interstellar incident?" If those really had been Fourth Kingdom fighters, some yelling was definitely going to ensue.

Lance snorted dismissively. "Details for the brass to handle."

"That seems to be our thing," Sven agreed.

"We were in our territory, and they attacked us. This is on them." It was certainly not the first time the Fourth had pushed the boundaries, and undoubtedly wouldn't be the last. Shaking his head, Keith went back to Hunk's question. They may not be to blame for whatever the Drule piracy would spark… but they had, technically, just violated regulations about submitting to inspection in the Break. Whichever Vanguard unit was stationed there would not be overly pleased with them. "Holgersson, get us to the coreward waypoint. I don't think we really want to show ourselves in the Break for a bit."

"Yes sir."

Flynn laughed grimly; his thoughts had been tracking along similar lines. We're never going to make this report. Or if they ever did, it might be rather long. "By the time we find this Voltron thing, is the Alliance even going to want us back?"

"Did they want us in the first place?"

"If they didn't, we wouldn't be here."

"Kinda wouldn't be here if they did, either, yeah?"

"Barely wanted me…"

Flynn glanced over at Pidge as he locked down his console; the ninja had been looking at him, but immediately turned away when their eyes met. He considered the implications of that for a moment, then smiled faintly and turned to Vince, who was just looking bemused. Finally he turned back to the comms. "Oh come on, someone say it, you know at least some of you are dying to."

Several voices answered at once. "We're a fucking Explorer Team!"

Even Keith had to bite back a hint of a laugh as he rolled his eyes yet again. That they sure as hell were.

The Bolt moved on.

*****

The message had been delivered by a servant Romelle had never seen before. That was unusual. Nearly everything came to her through Kalindra, when it wasn't Lotor himself summoning her… it had been immediately clear this was something different. And it had been formal, but not the same kind of formality she was becoming accustomed to from the Drules. Flowery, really.

"The Queen Consort Xalinan requests the honor of the Princess Romelle's company at luncheon this day. She hopes for a most enjoyable and enlightening exchange. If the Princess will do her this honor, the Terrace of the Dawn stands ready."

Well, she was certainly not going to refuse the Queen Consort Xalinan anything. It just didn't seem prudent. So at precisely midday, she stepped onto the Terrace of the Dawn, hoping against hope she was ready for this.

The Queen Consort was standing beside an intricately carved tea table. She smiled broadly in greeting, showing downright pearlescent fangs; her eyes glowed a soft silvery-white rather than the typical gold. And there was something off about her features that Romelle couldn't quite put a finger on. She was beautiful, she just looked… different than the other Drules, somehow.

Xalinan noted the scrutiny and chuckled softly. "Please, Princess Romelle, have a seat. I believe I see the question on your mind, and am happy to answer it."

Blushing, she took a seat at the tea table. "I apologize, Your… Majesty?"

"You may call me Xalinan, if you like. But if titles please you more, then yes, Majesty is the styling." She took her own seat. "You are used to the people of the Ninth Kingdom. The kingdoms of the Supremacy have some variance, and I am native to the Fifth."

"Ah! I understand." Romelle had known, intellectually, there were differences between the Drule kingdoms. It had all just seemed very academic until now. She glanced at the glasses arrayed on the table—water, something she didn't recognize, and blood wine—and opted for the water. "So… Your Majesty," she definitely felt more comfortable with titles right now, "how can I be of service to you?"

"I hoped to be of service to you, truthfully. As King Zarkon's Prime Consort, it is my duty to welcome new a'kuri and help them to settle in. Since you are Lotor's first, I thought it appropriate to speak with you." She smiled. "Any questions you have, please feel free to ask me. It can be a difficult adjustment for those of different cultures, I know… and I only crossed kingdoms."

Romelle's eyes widened slightly. "I… do have many questions," she admitted. Many she couldn't ask, but some she certainly could. Starting with perhaps the most obvious. "What are the duties of a royal consort, once the… retinue?… starts to increase?" She couldn't recall ever seeing Xalinan at King Zarkon's side.

The Queen Consort nodded. "A broad question, but understandable. It depends upon the ruler, but also the consort." She took a sip of her wine. "Zarkon prefers his consorts to be both companions and advisors. For example, I always had an interest in economics, thus he often comes to me to discuss matters of trade."

Though Romelle wasn't certain what she'd expected, it hadn't been that. "So in essence you… pursue your own interests, to be used for the good of the King and the kingdom?" That didn't sound so bad at all. Maybe she should start hoping for another a'kuri to come along and take some of Lotor's less wanted attention.

"Yes! Precisely." Xalinan raised her wine glass in a salute.

Almost before she could stop it, another question slipped out. "Is that… is that beverage actually blood?"

That got her a startled look, and then a laugh. "Not exactly. It is derived from the blood of certain livestock, but quite distantly."

"Oh…" Romelle lifted her own glass and hesitated a moment. If she were going to try to fit in properly here, she should probably try it sometime… holding her breath, she took a cautious sip. The blood wine was surprisingly sweet and sharp, balanced by a faint metallic tang. It really wasn't bad, but she couldn't see herself getting too used to it.

A servant came with the food then; salegre, a stuffed fruit Romelle had grown rather fond of. Between bites she learned a great deal of useful information. Everything from the finer points of dining etiquette—one must never set a goblet more than a hand's length from the plate—to the diplomatic context of the kingdoms—the Fifth and the Ninth had barely been on speaking terms until then-Prince Zarkon had asked to court Xalinan as his first. Though there was one thing she wanted more and more desperately to know, and finally she gathered the courage.

"So are you Prince Lotor's mother?" she asked hesitantly, finishing up her last bit of salegre. She felt like the question was rude somehow, but it also seemed like she should know the answer.

Xalinan abruptly snapping her head up didn't reassure her any, though she didn't look offended. It was some mix of surprise and concern in the Queen Consort's eyes. "You mean… oh… I didn't realize…"

Romelle shrank back. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to offend…"

"Oh, no, child. It isn't an offense at all. I'm just a bit surprised you hadn't been told." The Drule woman sipped her wine slowly, deep in thought for a few moments. "Ah, but if you haven't been, then it does fall to me."

Told what? It would certainly be rude to ask that so bluntly. "I've learned a great many things here, but never a word about his mother."

"It is a bit of an open secret in the court. I suppose if the subject never came up, there would be no reason to mention it." Xalinan straightened. "No. Our marriage agreement forbade me from bearing Zarkon any children, firstly; it would have complicated the Fifth Kingdom's line of succession, you understand."

"Oh… yes, I understand." She hadn't thought of that at all, and felt briefly out of her depth again. The Supremacy was an even more complicated beast than the Ninth alone.

"Lotor's mother was a Fourth Kingdom noble named Onir'va. He was the firstborn, and by the Ninth's tradition he was raised as a warrior and commander. His sister, Princess Cythir, was heir to the throne." Xalinan lowered her eyes. "There was… a freak accident, as they say. Cythir and Onir'va were practicing together on one of the target ranges, and Cythir's weapon overloaded. Usually a small inconvenience, but…" She shook her head slightly. "It triggered the security systems. They did not survive."

Romelle gasped softly. "Both of them? Lotor must have been devastated. He's never even mentioned a sister."

"That doesn't surprise me… though not likely out of grief. He and Cythir hated each other quite fiercely. And he only hates her memory more, now that in his mind, she took his mother from him and left him as heir." She sighed. "Lotor is used to getting his way without question, and being able to take whatever he wants when it is not given freely. The way of a conqueror. Politics have not agreed with him. Until you arrived, I think he still truly believed he would escape the throne somehow."

Until I arrived… Romelle hid her wince in her wine glass. Suddenly she didn't think she wanted to hear any more of this story. "I… thank you, Xalinan." She lowered her own eyes for a moment. "I wish the circumstances were better," for both of us, "but I do want to want to better understand my place and my… sincline."

The Queen Consort smiled softly. "From all I've heard and seen, you seem to be doing quite well. I think you may even be a good influence on the prince. In time, it is my great hope that you will come to be as happy as I have been here."

…A good influence? Was she really? Romelle considered that, and the rest of what she'd learned. Perhaps, now that she knew the whole story, she could be more helpful. What she did know was diplomacy and politics. Making a mental note to ask Kalindra for some books on the finer points of Ninth Kingdom protocol, she finished her wine and smiled back. "I hope so too, Your Majesty."

*****

Alfor was sitting in the royal chambers of the shelter, exhausted but far from ready to rest. Translating some of the oldest known Arusian tongues had never been easy to do; he had just finished the last bit from the most recent sources that he’d found. It was slow and sometimes painful work… to see so much of his planet's history hidden away, to know how slim his chances of recovering it were, ached. What hurt the most was how much of what he had was fragmented. Parts of the page being cut off midway, or missing vital words that would clarify the whole sentence.

Stretching, he found his muscles protesting strenuously. How long had he been here, almost motionless? More hours than daylight, his burning eyes told him that. He knew he had to sleep after his work, but his mind couldn't let go of bits of information that danced about. So many things seemed so alien to his homeworld. Deities with unknown names, ancient places long forgotten to time… yet the terrain and landmarks spoken of in the tales still existed on Arus. The sources he had just finished off spoke of a place called Zohar. He knew of Zohar, a valley in the mountains to the north, a tiny settlement barely even qualifying as a village. Yet the ancient writings had spoken of a Zohar that was a city, a vast complex built around a great temple.

His eyes were demanding to be closed; his body was pleading for rest. Yet his mind couldn't wind down. And could he afford for it to pause? Exhaling slowly, he tried to separate flesh and thought. The body fell into welcome sleep, and his thoughts were let loose to roam. To search…

A path appeared before him. And somehow, instinctively, he knew he had to follow.

As he followed the path, words from the various texts sprang to his mind. He didn't fight it. "By his feet… his seat to which he hears…" As he mumbled the words and tried to make sense of them, he ignored the plants sprouting around the path. It was becoming more defined as his meditation grew deeper. "By the clouds, he travels, his eyes for… make the unjust tremble…" He sighed in frustration. "How I wish there was more to work with."

Only when the leaf of a large plant brushed his leg did he stop to focus more on his surroundings. Hmmm… I'm not wandering in the caves, so… at least my body must be asleep. That was interesting in itself; he must have known that already, but as he followed the path he felt the outside world seeming to slip by. This dream was powerful. Noting the rapid growth of the plant life around him, Alfor wondered about the precise nature of the vision.

It was then, as if in response, he saw something else rising from the ground. Bricks. The walls of buildings were slowly reassembling themselves into the shape of what they had once been. Finding a set of stairs he could climb up and looking about, Alfor finally recognized the Valley of Zohar. But life seemed to be growing on land that was known to be almost barren.

"Could it be? This… this is what Zohar used to be?" he murmured as he moved towards the heart of the Valley. And it did feel like that. Buildings that seemed very different than was standard for Arus, but with features and functions he could recognize. As he reached its heart, the risen city seemed bright and alive… alive, yet nobody seemed to be in it.

The center of Zohar, like many major Arusian cities, was a large fountain surrounded by small shops. On one side was a fairly wide pathway flanked by tall trees, leading to the city's temple—the reason for it to be here at all. Two smooth, thick black marble lines surrounded by white marble led from the fountain to the steps of the temple. The closer he got, the thicker the black lines became, until finally he stepped through the open doorway into the temple itself.

There, the floor was completely black. Between the white marble walls and black floor was a band of gold. Everything inside seemed to be decorated in the same manner: black on the ceiling and floor, gold separating the white from the black. Lighting the place were thick black columns topped with pits full of strange, silvery fire.

Whatever this place was, Alfor certainly knew what it wasn't. The Golden Gods would see this temple as sheer sacrilege.

He felt drawn to the deeper parts of the temple. At the temple's heart, the very seat of its dedication, was a massive statue of a seated warrior carved from a mix of black and white marble. Its black marble face was very much that of a lion. Though seated, the form looked as if it was ready to spring forth into battle, or perhaps leaning closer to hear the words of its visitors. Alfor felt it might be both.

Golden letters were embossed into the floor at the feet of the statue. The ancient sigils were usually a struggle to translate, requiring intense concentration and the occasional reference, but here he could read them easily.

Li-ten

Lord of the Storm

Defender of the Weak

Li-ten? He'd seen that name before…

As Alfor read the title of the statue, he could hear a rumble of thunder behind him, as if a storm was rising outside the temple. As his eyes met the eyes of Li-ten, he felt a jolt. A thunderclap rocked his dream, and in an instant he was awake; he sat bolt upright, disoriented. Finding himself once more deep in the caves not far from his sleeping daughter, he took a moment to gather himself. His heart felt like it was racing, but the adrenaline wasn't from how he'd been awakened. It was something else… a distant voice he'd heard in the thunderclap still echoing in his mind.

The statue had spoken. A deep, warm rumble, a single word in the ancient tongue.

It had said… "Ask."