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The beacon pinged again, the first time in well over an hour. Its tone was crisp and clear through the Red Lion’s transponder, and as the Lion’s systems got a lock on the origin of the beacon Keith’s heads-up display lit up with the details; including the safest estimated flight path through the debris field orbiting the ruined planetoid. It was a long, winding course that took him far from the shattered remains of the planet’s satellite and even flying at top speed would more than triple the amount of time it would take to navigate the field, so Keith flipped the option off with a quick tap of the controls.

“Uh,” Hunk said, one hand gripped reflexively tight on the back of Keith’s flight chair. “What are you doing?” He knew what Keith was doing, of course, based on the way his voice had risen slightly in panic, and Keith wasn’t able to contain the smirk that settled on his face. “Red said that that’s the safest way to go, why did you turn off the automated flight-” Keith pulled back on the flight controls and the Red Lion leaped forward, making Hunk flail one arm wildly. “

Keith!

”

“The safe way’s boring,” Keith said, as the Red Lion accelerated smoothly toward the debris field. The HUD started lighting up chunks of rock but Keith mostly ignored those, concentrating instead on the gaps between the close-drifting asteroids. “And would take way longer than I want to stick around here. Besides, Red’s been itching to stretch her legs for a while now, haven’t you, girl?” The Red Lion purred, sounding almost pleased as Keith expertly navigated them through a tight cluster of asteroids and debris, always keeping one eye on the HUD’s navigator to ensure that he didn’t lose the beacon as they wove through chunks of ice.

“Any readings on that beacon, yet?” Keith asked without taking his eyes off his piloting. He heard Hunk make a gulping sound and his head swiveled automatically, making certain that Hunk hadn’t decided to redecorate his cockpit. He hadn’t, yet, but the Yellow Paladin was certainly looking greener than usual. “Don’t you

dare

throw up in here, Hunk!”

“Rock!” Hunk yelled, pointing wildly. Without even looking Keith cut the engines, stomping on a rudder pedal and turning Red almost completely sideways before igniting the thrusters again. The large chunk of planet that they’d almost run straight into continued along its meandering trajectory as Keith ran Red parallel to it in space, coming up and around before descending into a tight corkscrew to bring the beacon’s signal directly into the Red Lion’s crosshairs. “I’m not gonna throw up,” Hunk said weakly. “I just, man, I had a

lot

of goo for breakfast, and I didn’t know you were gonna go all Blue Angels on me-”

“Beacon,” Keith reminded him tersely. He listened to Hunk scramble for a moment and smiled. Giving Hunk tasks to focus on meant less opportunity for motion sickness.

It was the seventh beacon in three months. They had found the first after Cartann, broadcasting on tight-wave channels only used by the Altean ships of Alfor’s fleet … at least, according to Coran. When they found the origin of the transmission it was a small orbital beacon in an empty system with zero habitable planets. It gave no message nor indication of what the nature of the beacon was, only that it existed. One lone, random, orbital beacon beaming on channels only available to a nearly-extinct people? That could be some random fluke, a forgotten remnant of the war that had passed through millennia ago. It was a large universe, after all; and even in ten thousand years Zarkon hadn’t been able to eliminate every trace of Allura’s people from the stars. Hell, there was even a long-lost colony of Alteans living on an outer world that practiced isolationism, so they

all

knew that there were some very large gaps in Zarkon’s fine-toothed comb.

So, one beacon, complete happenstance. Pidge had taken it apart just to make sure there were no hidden message that they’d missed. She’d come up with nothing.

Then, came the second beacon. Keith wasn’t the biggest fan of coincidences, but it didn’t

actually

mean there was anything malevolent at play. As Shiro kept reminding him, it was a big universe.

Seven beacons, though, scattered across empty and devastated star systems leading away from the central core of the Galra Empire?

Even Lance could see there was something

definitely

up with that.

“It’s broadcasting the same pattern,” Hunk said, focused in on the small holo screen generated by the forearm of his paladin armor. “Definitely another one of our orbiters.”

“You have a solid lock on its location?”

“Rough position lock, no visual though.” The worst of the debris field was behind them now, and the ruined planetoid loomed big across the display screen. There was honestly no way to tell on a visual scan how large the planet had once been; all that was left in the original planet’s orbital path was a lopsided, shattered core.

Of course, Keith didn’t

need

a visual scan. The original map of the system showed an ice planet lit in vibrant colors from the many cities constructed under the sheets and polar ice caps; today nothing remained of that civilization but a ghostly memory locked in an ancient ship’s archives. Keith shook his head, dispelling the unsettled feeling those thoughts gave him, and turned Red slightly when the beacon’s call point drifted from between the crosshairs. “Nothing different?”

“It’s even modulated identical,” Hunk said, tapping at the small keyboard that projected above his suit’s forearm. He was linked in to the Red Lion’s sensors, but even so the display text above his arm still showed in teal Altean characters. “We must be getting close, at least.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, and knew exactly when Hunk lifted his head and spotted what Red’s sensors had already reported to Keith. “I’m willing to bet it was picked up by

them

.”

Hidden by the shadow of the planet’s satellite moon was the front half of a large, greyish ship. It may have once been a glistening white, the same color as the Castleship; but decades or longer of exposure and impacts from the debris field had left the hull a mottled mess. It was definitely only half a ship, as Keith looped them around it they could both see that the entire craft had been shorn in two - although the aft end was not in visual range. “Oh,

man

,” Hunk groaned loudly. “Tell me that we’re not going exploring on a ghost ship again. Nothing good ever comes out of ghost ships.”

Keith tilted his head and looked at Hunk, eyebrow raised. “You didn’t even go on the ghost ship the last time,” he said pointedly.

“Yeah, and we found that stupid memory core on the one before that,” Hunk shivered. “That thing’s bad juju, things have gone nothing but downhill since it turned up. We should get rid of it.”

“Pidge’ll kill you,” Keith said idly. “Besides, you got a girlfriend after we found the memory core, so things can’t be

that

bad.” He leaned forward and flipped a few toggles, changing up the patterns that ran across his HUD as he opened a visual commlink to the Castleship, several systems over. “Technically though, the last ghost ship was full of zombie cannibal aliens.”

“I want to go back to the Castleship,” Hunk said, and Keith snorted in amusement.

##

“So, what do you think, Shiro?” Keith’s voice echoed slightly due to the comm lag between systems; his visual comm was open but tagged to the corner of the live feed that the Red Lion was broadcasting of the scuttled, unidentified spaceship. “I don’t have any problems going in there and getting the beacon.”

Hunk’s voice was fainter as the camera wasn’t tuned to him. “I have a

big

problem with it!”

Lance snorted in amusement from where he was sprawled in the Blue Lion’s command chair, but Shiro did his best to keep the smile from creeping across his own face. Shiro looked to his left, where Allura stood at her command dais, a peculiar expression on her face as she studied the ship. “Princess?” Shiro asked, deferring to her knowledge of spacecraft. “What’s wrong?”

It was Lance who answered. “The ship’s Altean, isn’t it?” Lance said, head propped in one hand. Shiro’s attention transferred to Lance, eyebrow raised, and Lance gestured at the screen with his free hand before stifling a yawn. “I mean,

look

at it. It looks like the top half of the Castleship has been run through a meat grinder.”

“I agree with Lance, I think it’s Altean in origin,” Keith said, and Lance perked up, lifting his head from his hand and beaming at Shiro. “I also don’t think it’s been here for ten thousand years.”

That drew a pause from both Lance and Shiro as they looked at each other, and then to Allura; who nodded her head slowly in agreement with Keith. “It doesn’t look Altean to me,” she said finally, slowly. “I can certainly see the design parallels but it isn’t the same at all. If I had to wager a guess I would say it’s probably a construct of the New Altean colony.”

“Matt said that the colonists rarely leave their planet,” Shiro said, troubled. “Why would they be leaving beacons all around the galaxy, if that were the case?”

Allura gestured both her hands over the support pillars and the three dimensional holographic sector map appeared in the center of the bridge. Both Matt and Pidge had been working on annotating it, marking changes in the universe since the map’s creation well over ten thousand years ago. The beacon’s pickup locations pulsed a faint gold color, not exactly in a straight line but definitely leading in one direction away from the galactic core. Shiro pivoted on his foot so that he was facing the map but still had the vidcomm in view. Lance craned his neck, but now Shiro was positioned just wrong, so he let out a loud, exaggerated sigh before slumping entirely back in the Blue Lion’s command chair.

Shiro ignored Lance’s theatrics behind him, arms folded as he looked over the highlighted sector of the map. “Where is the New Altean colony?” he asked, trying to orient himself. Allura shook her head, arms folded as well and unconsciously mirroring Shiro’s stance.

“They’ve never painted it on the map,” she said, and frowned.

Lance pulled himself out of his slumped position and shuffled over to stand beside Shiro, hands on his hips as he peered at the map. “So we’ve got, what, six beacons?” he said, squinting.

“Seven,” Shiro and Keith said in unison, with Hunk’s response echoing a few seconds later. There was a pause, and then Keith leaned forward, his face taking up more of the visual comm suddenly. “Are you wearing my

shirt?

”

Lance rubbed one forearm with the palm of his hand, absolutely unrepentant. “Shiro’s are too big,” he said. Then he pulled at the front of the plain black tee shirt and grinned, yanking the collar up over his nose. “Besides, they smell like you. I miss my boyfriend!”

Keith’s face turned the same shade as his helmet as he settled back down in his seat, and he glanced away from the comm for a moment to compose himself. Shiro shook his head, this time the smile escaped before he could stop it. “He’s only been gone a day, Lance,” Shiro scolded gently, and Lance shrugged, still staring at the map.

Then, Lance cocked his head. “Seven … means something,” he said. “Is it unlucky, in Altean?”

Shiro and Allura exchanged a confused look, and Allura shook her head. “No,” she said. “In fact, seven is a prosperous number for Alteans. You were considered quite blessed to have a family of seven.”

“Hm,” Lance said.

“We’re going to retrieve the beacon,” Keith said. “I’m tired of waiting around, and maybe there’ll be something useful attached to this one. Finally.”

Shiro looked up at the comm screen. “Keep your audio comms open.”

“Yes, sir,” Keith said, and flushed again.

Lance leaned in close to Shiro without touching him, so that he would be clearly seen by Keith’s video feed. “Hey! Why is he a ‘yes, sir’ but I’m a ‘Lance, what are you

wearing?

’”

Keith shook his head and cut the video on the comm feed. He was, however, smiling when he did so. “Stop it,” Shiro said to Lance, gently but firmly, and Lance shrugged his shoulders only, keeping his arms folded. Then he yawned again, and at least this time politely stifled it with one hand.

“Perhaps someone should wake Pidge,” Allura suggested, in a tone of voice that meant ‘this is not a suggestion.’ “I am dearly curious to see if she’s recovered any data from the other beacons we’ve already found.”

“Last I saw she was sleeping on the training deck,” Lance said, mid-yawn. Allura gave him a Look.

“Did you not get enough rest?” she said pointedly.

Lance looked at Shiro and grinned, and Shiro let out a low groan. “It’s not like that,” he said when Allura’s pointed expression got leveled on him instead.

“It’s

exactly

like that,” Lance said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’m out of suppressants so Shiro is helping me keep my heat under control the old fashioned way, this cycle.” He gave Shiro another sly look and Shiro shook his head but that smile he had such a hard time keeping under control had escaped again. Allura shook her head at them both.

“I can’t believe you two,” she scolded. “No wonder the mice are traumatized.”

Shiro looked offended. “Nothing happens outside of the bedroom, Princess, I assure you.”

“Except for that thing where the Cartannian minister walked in on us,” Lance said thoughtfully. Shiro flushed beet red. “And are you leaving out when I put my hand down your pants in the-” Shiro clamped his hand over Lance’s mouth, although they both knew that all Allura had to do was review the Castleship’s internal recordings to find any shenanigans.

“Lance,” Allura said. “Would you be so kind as to fetch Pidge? And then perhaps you should rest, I don’t particularly like the idea of any of my Paladins nodding off during a space battle.”

“Hunk sleeps through briefings,” Lance said in an accusatory tone. There was no lie there, he’d had to be woken on several occasions to catch him up on plans.

Shiro, his arm still over Lance’s shoulder, kissed the side of Lance’s head. “Take the offered nap,” he murmured, and this time it was Lance who turned slightly pink.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance muttered, but he didn’t sound all that put out about it as he slinked off the bridge to go find and rouse their resident computer genius. Shiro watched him go with that fond smile on his face, and when the main door to the bridge closed he looked back to see Allura watching him with a bemused expression.

“What is it?” Shiro asked her, and Allura shook her head, still smiling.

“I’m just so glad that you three found each other,” she said finally. “Despite the difficulties it has and will cost us, I do feel that your union makes the team far stronger than it would be otherwise.”

Shiro shook his head and grinned at the word ‘union.’ “Don’t let them hear you call it that,” he said, and Allura laughed.

“

I

heard that,” Keith’s voice came from the audio-only comm and Shiro groaned, to Allura’s delight.

Without warning, an unfamiliar alarm began to sound on the bridge. Shiro looked to Allura, already in business mode but she was staring down at the display that hovered between the two command pillars on the dais. “I’ve never heard that alarm before,” Shiro said, and Allura touched the prompt, her eyebrows raised.

“That is because it is the alarm for the cryo replenisher,” she said, and looked to Shiro. “It appears that our passenger is finally awake.”

##

Keith looped the Red Lion around the shattered half of the probably-Altean ship a final time, assessing the best place to land. The back half of the ship was the part that was missing, and if the construct of this ship was at all similar to the Castleship that meant that the loading and docking bays were among the levels lost in the ship’s destruction. The Red Lion’s sensors got a few cursory readings of the ship as they did their final flyby; and a rudimentary map of the insides appeared on the viewscreen to his right.

Hunk studied the map and, after a moment, pointed. “Looks like there might be enough room to land there,” he said, indicating a large, conical gap. “That was probably where the engine core was, when the ship was whole.”

Red listened to Hunk and highlighted the area on the map, which translated into a tracking line on the HUD for Keith to follow as he pulled the Red Lion out of an inverted loop and sent her back along the way they’d come. Hunk continued to study the map and, helpfully, the Red Lion transmitted it to both his and Keith’s storage systems in their Paladin armor. “This doesn’t feel like the prep to one of the missions on Lance’s video games at

all

,” Hunk muttered, mostly to himself.

Keith shot Hunk a quizzical look. “That sprite thing he and Pidge play all the time-?”

Hunk shook his head. “No, the game system he had at the Garrison. He got caught with his VR helmet once and got that confiscated.” He made a sour face at the memory. “Lance likes breaking into offices to get his stuff back, but he always gets caught and then we both got stuck on KP duty.”

“You like KP duty,” Keith said, concentrating more on his flying as they entered the dark, silent wreck.

“When it’s

voluntary.”

“Point taken.”

The interior of the ship was pitch black; the only illumination the dim reflected starlight and, once the Red Lion had fully entered the cavity, the reflection of its running lights. It was hard to identify anything oriented the way that they were, and Keith let Red drift along, relying on the momentum created by the engine and only using the thrusters to maneuver. That made it dark, and quiet, and very,

very

unsettling.

“You have to wonder why it was just abandoned,” Hunk said in a whisper. “Why didn’t they scrap it for materials?”

“Maybe they did.” Keith kept his voice low in response, although after a moment he felt silly about whispering and resumed normal speaking tones. “Maybe the inside of the ship is totally stripped, and they just didn’t want to deal with the hull?”

“If that were the case, impact from asteroids and other space debris would have shattered it by now,” Hunk said, his eyes glued to the screen. “An empty shell like that would be super fragile.”

They both fell silent as the Red Lion kept to the gentle curve of the interior wall. There wasn’t much debris shaken loose in the core - although they did pass a warped, twisted metal structure that the Red Lion’s sensors confirmed was once a catwalk. Soon they found where the core had been ripped out, and the chamber narrowed toward the top, where the energy siphoner would have been mounted - if it were still there. The Red Lion wouldn’t fit further into the ship without actively destroying it.

“So I guess I should stay here, keep Red company,” Hunk said as Keith rose from the pilot’s chair. He gave Hunk a Look, and Hunk sighed dramatically, following Keith from the cockpit. “You can’t blame me for trying, man.”

It was different than the Galra wreck. Keith had followed Shiro and Lance’s trail through that, and that wreck, while dark and silent as well, didn’t seem to absorb the ambient light in the same manner that this one did. Nothing was reflective, and the lights on the Paladin armor did little to penetrate the gloom. Hunk kept his attention divided, half between the map that displayed above his forearm and half looking around frantically, checking behind them on the off chance that they were being followed. Keith mostly ignored his shenanigans - Hunk would calm down when there was something for him to focus on - and, really, he wasn’t the only one covered by the pall of unease.

“Any read on where the beacon is?” Keith asked without taking his eyes off the hallway before him.

“Looks like it’s probably on the bridge,” Hunk said, peering at his map.

Keith groaned, mostly to himself. The bridge was the farthest point from their location. “Of course it is.”

##

“Okay, question,” Lance said as he stuck his head through the open door of the training deck. “Do either of you two nerds

ever

sleep? Because it’s like, ass-early.” Lance had hit the pilot’s quarters first and then swung around to the Green Lion’s launch bay, all the way on the other side of the ship when there was no response from either Pidge or Matt’s room. The launch bay had been dark and quiet as well, and Pidge’s bank of computer monitors and patched-together Altean tech was currently in sleep mode. Lance had groaned audibly and schlepped off to the training deck, because if she wasn’t in bed and she wasn’t nested under her computers like some sort of reverse technological dragon creature, it likely meant that she was Fucking With That Stupid Memory Core Yet Again, and if Lance never had to deal with the memory core again it would be 100% too soon.

Sure enough, as he entered the training deck he spotted the memory core, off to the right and near the wall. Matt was standing next to it, arms folded as he watched the script light a faint gold color and fade out again. He tilted his head to acknowledge Lance’s entrance, but didn’t take his eyes off the thing. “You didn’t answer my question,” Lance accused, stopping well shy of the memory core and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“Of course we sleep,” Matt said, sounding distracted.

Lance rolled his eyes and looked over to where Pidge sat with her legs crossed under her, studying a laptop screen with the same intensity as her brother’s scrutiny of the memory core. “The beacon thing not stimulating enough for you?” he said. “Decided to wake the ol’ fucking nightmare of a relic thing again?”

Pidge glared up at Lance. “What do you want, Lance?” she asked, and Lance shrugged without removing his hands from his pockets.

Allura wants an update on the beacons,” he said.

“And she didn’t call down to my lab because….?”

“Well for one thing you weren’t in your lab so that wouldn’t matter,” Lance said, and shrugged. “Guess she figured you were asleep or something.” He yawned huge, before scratching the back of his neck. Pidge stared at him, and then her gaze drifted slightly to Matt. When Lance looked over at him Matt was giving Lance a slightly distressed look. It took a moment before Matt even registered that Lance was looking directly at him and he startled, and then jerked his attention away, focusing on the memory core once again.

Okay,

that

was weird. “What?” Lance said, and Pidge sighed very dramatically.

“What we’ve got on the beacons, okay,” Pidge said, gesturing and preparing to divulge what, exactly she’d found.

Lance put up both hands. “Wait, wait wait,” he said. “Not me, Allura.”

“Well page her then, or have her come down here. I’m not going up there.”

“Why not?”

Pidge pushed her glasses up her nose with a finger as Matt chimed in. “Because modulating the energy from the beacons woke the memory core.”

Lance blinked a few times, staring at Pidge - and then swung his attention to the rune-covered dark pillar that took up valuable training deck space. He wouldn’t get nearer than he was to it, having had quite enough of the core’s nonsense by now, and the fact that it was activated and the carved runes kept glowing and fading gold was … concerning, to say the least. “Your fucking around with the beacons

activated

it?” he said. “And your first reaction isn’t to shove the thing out an airlock?”

“Pushing things out the airlock isn’t a valid way to solve your problems,” Matt said, and Lance folded his arms and jutted out his chin.

“Says

you.

”

“Hey Lance?” Pidge said, still without looking up. “Do me a favor and touch the core, would you? I’m trying to measure the readings I’m getting off this thing.”

His attention swiveled from Matt back to Pidge, incredulous this time. “Um, no?”

“I have a theory that there’s a teleportation matrix built into the core’s outer surface,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I can’t tell what triggers it, though - sometimes it activates, sometimes it doesn’t, but either way now that I’ve identified the strands of the matrix maybe I can trace the teleportation.” She looked up, finally - but not at Lance, her expression was angled toward her brother. “Unless

someone

wants to make a comment about the identification of the teleportation matrix strands. Again.”

“I’m just saying,” Matt’s tone took on one of resignation, “that the latticework of the matrix is far beyond traditional Altean computing standards. Which of course doesn’t mean it’s

not

legit, it’s just highly unusual.” He glanced over to Lance. “Can you please shut my sister up by touching the stupid core? I need to prove a point.”

“Have you both lost your minds? There is no way no

how

I am touching that thing

ever

again.” Lance took an exaggerated step backwards, away from the memory core. “You want to prove her wrong?

You

touch it.”

Without a word, Matt stepped forward and laid his hand on the memory core. The fading illumination of gold lit bright for a split second around his hand, but then it faded out without taking him. Matt let out an exaggerated sigh and stepped back, resuming his stance with folded arms. “There’s something about this one,” he said, thoughtful.

“Yeah, it

really

likes Lance for some reason,” Pidge said with a snort.

“Well,

I

don’t like

it,

” Lance said. He waved one hand in the air. “So go give Allura your report and then you can resume fucking around with that death machine, because it will literally be the death of us and I’m calling it now.”

“It’s just a computer,” Pidge said. “Or an advanced computer program, I’m not entirely sure yet.” She frowned. “Wait, you don’t want to hear about the beacons too?”

“I’m sure Shiro will fill me in later,” Lance said. “I’m going to go take a nap.”

“Ah,” Matt murmured. “You’re still in heat. That explains it.”

If Lance had fluffy Galra ears like Keith’s, he would have flattened them. “Explains

what?

”

For a split second, Matt actually looked embarrassed. He glanced away from Lance and focused on the core. “Nothing,” he said, his face gone pink. “Nothing, sorry.”

Lance turned his glare on Pidge, who was unimpressed. “You’re stinking up the ship,” she said helpfully. “What happened to your suppressants?”

“I ran

out

,” Lance’s tone remained flat. “So sorry, I’ll just hop right over to the space mall and buy more - wait, they don’t

have that there.

” He folded his arms. “Besides, I’m bonded now, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.”

Pidge shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe it’s because you’re bonded to the same alpha as someone else,” she said. “That’s not exactly a normal arrangement.” Lance continued to glare at her, and Pidge leaned forward, draping her arms over the screen of her laptop and meeting his glare. “Look, Hunk brought back that busted food synthesizer, right? I’m working on building a chemical synth program and Matt is helping me map it onto the specs. Once we’ve got that figured out I’m sure that we can recreate the chemical composition of your suppressants and that will save

everyone

,” she gave her brother a pointed glance, “a ton of grief.”

The thought of having suppressants again, specifically manufactured hormonal pills to take the edge off his heats and not leave him an exhausted, horny mess sounded absolutely

fantastic

to Lance - so much so that he missed the pointed look that the siblings exchanged. “You told me there wasn’t a way to recreate my suppressants,” he accused, and Pidge’s attention returned to him.

“Without any of the pills remaining to analyze it would be next to impossible for me to recreate the specific chemical makeup of your personal suppressants,” she said. “But, you know what? We’re on an alien spaceship with technology that far outpaces our own.”

“She forgot that the Lions do biometric scans of their Paladins,” Matt supplied helpfully, and Pidge scoffed. “Don’t listen to her try to pretty it up, she flat-out forgot.”

“Hey, excuse you, I’ve only been dealing with this new alien tech for like,” she counted on her fingers a moment. “How long we been out here? Nine, ten months?”

“I have no idea,” Lance said. “When I tried to sync my phone to the Castleship’s chrono it went ballistic on me.” He shrugged. “Long time, that’s all I got.”

“All I’m saying is, that it’s easy to miss something like that.” She put her chin in her hand and looked at Lance. “But between the chemical synthesizer and your biometrics scan I’m sure I can write a program that will build you a chemically attuned suppressant so that your heats won’t stink up the ship and everyone won’t know right off the bat that you’re walking around stuffed full of Shiro’s spunk.”

Lance’s expression scrolled from something akin to relief at the news of suppressants to absolutely mortified. Which, coincidentally, matched Matt’s expression perfectly. From the other end of the training deck, Rian let out a large groan as Lance slapped both his hands over his face. “Really?” Rian called over. “

Really?

”

“Don’t eavesdrop,” Pidge called back. “Or you might hear something you regret!”

“I regret this entire conversation,” Matt said weakly.

“That’s too bad,” Pidge glanced back at her laptop and groaned. “And not a single fluctuation from the memory core in all this time, too.” She looked back at Lance and raised her eyebrow again. “Sure you won’t touch the pillar for me, just for a second? I could use the assist.”

Lance lifted one hand from his face, counting off. “First time I got shot, second time I got shot, third time I got stabbed. Nope.”

She shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

“Yeah I can,” Lance said, as a faint, unfamiliar alarm sounded outside the training deck. Matt looked at Pidge, because the klaxon didn’t echo through to the training area, and her attention was immediately drawn to her laptop. “The core?” Matt asked, and Pidge shook her head as Lance straightened, dropping both his hands from his face.

“That’s not the proximity alarm,” Lance said, as Rian started to cross the training deck toward them, concerned. “So we’re not under attack … right?”

“Nope.” Pidge picked up her datapad from the floor and swiped something into the air. A holographic prompt appeared before her face and she squinted at it, and then had the gall to look surprised. “Oh, it’s just the crypod,” she said. “I set an alarm on it, remember?” She looked up at Lance, over her glasses. “Looks like our sleeping beauty has finally woken up.”

#

Keith absolutely could not let Hunk know that the wreck of the possibly-Altean ship was beginning to freak him out, too. The hallways were empty; desolate and grey with the exception of the occasional piece of debris floating past in the zero-G environment. It wasn’t that unlike the Castleship, if he was being truthful - and if he was being truthful about the Castleship the antiseptic white of its somewhat featureless walls

also

freaked him out. He didn’t have much experience with Earth hospitals for obvious reasons (aside from a few mandated trips to the physician by the Garrison), but the plain white walls of the hospitals he’d seen in media instead reminded him of dark walls lit in magenta, and this time Keith couldn’t suppress the shudder that wicked down his spine.

“Dude,” Hunk said suddenly and for a split-second Keith was certain he’d been caught. “Um…. Huh.”

He paused, cutting the thrusters on his Paladin armor and thumping to the ground in the center of the corridor as the electromagnets in his boots did their work. Hunk made a few other sounds; mostly non-verbal, his attention focused not on Keith’s reaction but on the readout displaying from the forearm of his Paladin armor. “Hunk,” Keith said finally, impatience cutting through his tone. “What?”

“What?” Hunk said dumbly, his eyes flicking up to Keith before he realized it was an actual question. “Oh, uh. The beacon moved.”

What

. “The beacon

moved?

”

“Yeah. On the first scan Red made of the ship it was showing up where the bridge would be on the Castleship, but now…” he gestured to the map that was angled for him and not Keith. “It’s

definitely

not on the bridge any more. I would say it’s probably around the area of our ready room, if this ship really does mirror ours.”

There was a long moment’s pause as Keith considered this information, and then Hunk’s attention jerked up from his map. “Dude, we’re not alone.”

“Not necessarily,” Keith said, although that was where his thoughts had gone immediately as well. “Red’s map was only cursory, maybe the scan only pinged the tail end of the beacon’s signal and that’s why it triangulated to the bridge.”

Hunk’s gave Keith a Look, although it was hard to see in the dim light. “You

really

think that?”

“It’s more plausible than something living in a completely scuttled spacecraft,” Keith said. “This thing has no power, and no Balmerian crystal to run it. Anyone here would be like us, scavengers.” At that thought, Keith touched a finger to his own forearm plate. The Red Lion nearly always put up its particle barrier when their Paladin left, but he initiated the command to lower it on the off chance that it hadn’t, this time. When he looked back up, Hunk was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Relax, Hunk. It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s never

nothing

.” Hunk pointed down the dark, silent corridor. “It’s probably space ghosts.”

“

Hunk

,” Keith said, unable to delay his exasperation any longer. He kicked over the release for the electromagnets in his armor and floated off the floor, the thrusters on his back igniting again and propelling him at speed down the corridor. “I’m gonna leave you here,” he called over his shoulder, and Hunk made a noise of alarm and immediately followed him.

The ship differed enough from the Castleship that they got turned around at least once, ending up in a galley clearly made for a much larger crew than their own. “Must be a troopship,” Keith said, one hand on the interior of the door where it was cracked half open. There was no damage to the door other than regular wear and tear - or the walls either, for that matter. When the power failed on the ship the doors had become frozen perpetually half-closed. “It’s strange, though. No damage.”

“What do you think happened?” Hunk’s voice had resumed a hushed tone, as if anyone could overhear them at this point.

“No telling, though with the lack of damage here it almost seems like the ship was abandoned instead of destroyed in a firefight.” Keith pushed off the door and turned back down the way they had come. “So if this ship mirrors the Castleship,” he said, “that means that the ready room should be back this way.”

When they came to a fork in corridor Hunk paused and looked at his map again, falling behind. Keith realized Hunk wasn’t right behind him any longer a moment later and caught himself on the wall, dropping his suit’s thrusters enough that he killed his forward momentum. “Don’t tell me it’s moved again,” he said.

“Okay,” Hunk said, and didn’t look up.

Keith waited a moment patiently, and Hunk didn’t speak again. He

really

should have brought Lance along, in the middle of his heat or not. They couldn’t bang in a vacuum anyway. Keith sucked in a breath through his teeth and tried not to let the fact that the thought had settled in his head color his tone. “Hunk, I

swear-

”

“You told me not to tell you if it’s moved again.”

“Are you

kidding me?

”

Hunk looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “No, but I’m trying not to have a freaking panic attack here, dude.” He gestured down the dark corridor. “We are on a dead ship with something else that knows we’re here and keeps moving the beacon.”

Keith floated back to Hunk. “They don’t know we’re here.”

“Red did a scan,” Hunk said. “Maybe it wasn’t a deep one, but it would be enough to ping off any alert system that even a five-year-old could set up. They have to know we’re here - they just don’t know where we

are.

”

Keith looked back down the corridor and exhaled. Hunk was right, of course - whatever it was moving the beacon had to know that someone was out there by virtue of the proximity scan alone. They’d done nothing to preserve stealth in the this circumstance, which was on him for not considering the possibility in the first place. “Okay,” he said. “Our mission is still the beacon. Is it moving right now or is its location fixed again?”

Hunk squinted at his display. “I can’t tell,” he said after a moment. “But if it is moving, it’s crawling.”

“All right,” Keith said, and clapped Hunk’s shoulder as he engaged the thrusters on his jetpack and passed him. “Bayards out, let’s go see what’s going on.”

Hunk groaned quietly but after a moment followed him.

#

The cryo replenisher in the medical bay was beeping a constant, low-level tone when Lance and Pidge arrived. Shiro was already standing before the pod, arms folded and a stoney expression on his face; while Allura and Coran were studying the diagnostic criteria.

Shiro glanced at the door when they entered, and frowned when he saw Lance. “You’re supposed to be resting,” he said pointedly, and Lance shrugged, hands in the pockets of his jacket still.

“This seems a little more important than my beauty sleep,” he said, and then angled his fingers under his chin. “Not that I need it.”

That brought the ghost of a smile across Shiro’s face, although his expression quickly settled back into a somber one. Pidge bypassed Shiro entirely, putting herself between Allura and Coran and peering at the same diagnostic data that they were studying. “Is no one going to do anything about that?” she asked, and Allura looked at her, eyebrow raised.

Without another word Pidge reached between them, typing a few commands into the pod’s interface one-handed; and the alarm ceased blaring.

“Oh,” Allura said. “That.”

“So… are we really doing this?” Lance said. “I mean, letting him out.” He nodded at the figure in the pod, the frosted glass obscuring most everything except the occupant’s mass. “He is Galra, after all.”

“You argued against putting him out the airlock,” Pidge said, her fingers moving dexterously over the controls. “Changed your mind?”

“Not exactly,” Lance said. “But he was weaker then. Now he’s had…” Lance started counting on his fingers. “Seven weeks?”

“Eleven weeks,” Matt murmured.

“Damn, I have

got

to get a better calendar.” Lance folded his arms. “Eleven weeks to heal up and IDK get super-strong and maybe attempt to kill us so he can get back in good with his evil buddies. All I’m saying,” he added, when everyone’s eyes went to him, “is maybe we should take this slow.”

“Lance is right,” Rian said, and Lance looked behind him, eyebrow cocked in surprise. “I can’t believe I just said that,” Rian added when he saw Lance’s expression.

“Okay, first of all, have we entered Bizarro-world?” Pidge didn’t look up. “Rian agreeing with Lance? The first words out of his mouth

not

being about killing the Galra prisoner? Maybe I should scan everyone, make sure no one has any space worms or anything.”

Lance patted his stomach. “Hey, if I have space worms I got them from Keith.”

“

Lance,”

Shiro said, a warning in his tone. Lance shrugged.

“How exactly do you suggest we ‘take this slow?’” Allura asked.

“I dunno,” Pidge said. “I authorize the pod to bring him up from under and … what? It’s not like it slowly defrosts people.”

“Perhaps,” Coran said, “it would be better if we weren’t all crowded around the pod.”

“I agree,” Shiro said. “Everyone, out.” He pointed to the door. There was a moment of silence while absolutely no one moved, and the silence stretched until Pidge broke it with an amused snort.

Shiro looked at her and Pidge shrugged. “Hey, I gotta bring the pod online, I’m not going anywhere.”

“This is my ship,” Allura said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Lance cocked his head when Shiro’s gaze fell to him. “Hey, we risked our lives to rescue Tall Fuzzy and Possibly Terrible.” Shiro let out a long sigh and looked to Coran, then Matt and Rian.

“All right, fine,” he said, irritated. “But no crowding, everyone stand back. Pidge?”

Pidge pressed the largest button on her display, and after a long moment the cryo replenisher hissed, releasing the stasis gas that had filled the pod. The entire interior was iced over, not unlike the way the pods were when they had originally found Allura and Coran; when the pods were in use for longer spans of time than just a few days that seemed to happen. After the hissing stopped the semi-translucent opening shimmered and vanished completely; and the large, purple-furred form of the Galra prisoner shifted and staggered out of the cryopod, unable to keep his senses about him.

No one moved forward to help him but Coran, stepping past Allura, his arm out to potentially support the Galra - or protect his Princess. Shiro did not take a step back, nor unfold his arms as the Galra gripped Coran’s shoulder gratefully, ice-blind; his sightless gaze swept the room silently as he panted through an open mouth. “You’re safe,” Shiro said, and the Galra’s ears swiveled, pointing toward him before his gaze swung in that direction, blinking rapidly. “You’ve been in cryostasis to heal.”

“Safe…” the Galra repeated the word, uncertain. His voice crunched like the gravel on an old road, and he rolled the word around for a moment. “Safe.” He clasped his head in his hands, eyes locked on something only he could see, before they swung to the floor. Shiro started to unfold his arms, prepared to put himself between the potential threat and the others present when the Galra’s knees buckled and he dropped to the floor.

“Coran,” Shiro said, alarmed, because Allura moved to push past her majordomo. Before he could say anything else however, the Galra tilted forward, his fingers tangling in his long mane, and let out a bone-chilling wail.

#

Illianya sat in the Yellow Lion’s command chair on the bridge of the Castleship and watched the holographic display feed that projected at keyboard height. She had a picture of the ship up and was frowning at it, when the bridge doors opened and Matt entered, glancing around. “You missed all the excitement,” he said when he spotted her.

She tilted her head toward him without taking her attention off the feed. “I’m sure you will fill me in,” she said, and touched the the raw 3D model of the wreckage that the Red Lion had scanned and transmitted to the Castleship. She turned it with a finger, still frowning at it.

“Something the matter?” Matt said.

“I don’t know.” She turned the model again, idly. “It looks Altean, but I don’t think it is. There’s something just not

right

about it, and I can’t pin it down.” She tapped her fingers against the holoscreen and the three dimensional model dissolved, returning to the rest of the information. She looked over at Matt, who had come to stand beside the command chair.

“Well, it could always be that it’s just

old

Altean tech,” Matt said. “Looks closer to this ship than the ships being built currently, after all.”

She made a noise of noncommittal and returned to perusing the raw data being sent back by the two Paladins. Matt folded his arms as he leaned against the couch. “Worried about your boyfriend, hm?”

“So what excitement did I miss?” Illianya said, ignoring Matt’s question entirely. He tsked but didn’t straighten.

“Deflecting again. Don’t like me calling Hunk your boyfriend.” He patted the back of her chair and stood up. “You know you’re well out of reach of the Council now, you don’t have to hold yourself back any longer.”

She sighed in exasperation. “It’s not that easy, Holt, and you know it.”

“Eh,” Matt shrugged. “I’m just an outsider, what do I know.” He tugged on his ear and winked. “Old ugly-ears and all.” Illianya scowled at him still, and Matt shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying. The Galra woke up, ah, Verus? I think his name is. He’s not handling being awake very well, but Shiro and Coran have it in hand.”

Illiyana exhaled through her nose. “I don’t think it wise they brought him on board,” she said, as Matt walked away from her seat and stepped to the central control dais that was Allura’s usual station.

“It’s sweet that you worry after Rian,” Matt said absently.

“He is not exactly my primary concern,” Illianya said, and Matt shrugged one shoulder. Then she sighed and sat back in her chair, arms folded. “I would be banished,” she said, softly, toying with her long braid of golden hair. “Disowned.”

“Chances are good that’s happened already,” Matt said. “If they didn’t just claim we were dead outright, shot down in our escape from the planet.” Illianya sighed again, heavy and thoughtful. “Look, Anya.”

“Holt,” Illianya said in a warning tone.

“You don’t rush into things lightly, and I get that. But I think you know what’s the right choice for you, and if you’re getting hung up on an archaic ruleset outlined by a bunch of crones who really needed to get laid, then maybe you’ve made your decision already and just don’t want to face it.” Matt shrugged again and tapped his hand against a control pillar, bringing up the star system map that had the beacon locations lit up.

“Also,” he added, “if you break Hunk’s heart my sister will probably kill us both.”

Illianya sat up. “Your sister, and Hunk...?”

“Oh no, god no. He’s just like, her best friend out here and let me tell you Pidge-Podge is a protective beast.” Matt’s eyes went distant for a moment, clearly remembering some trauma inflicted in the not-too-distant past.

This didn’t entirely soothe Illianya, but she nodded her head once. “I understand,” she said. “I will be delicate with him.”

“Good.” Matt tapped his fingers as he studied the starmap, and Illianya cocked her head.

“I know that look,” she said. “You’re on to something, aren’t you.”

“I don’t know,” Matt said, his attention now entirely consumed by the star map. He expanded it so that it filled the open space of the bridge, and he could step down and walk between the star systems and clusters. He touched the bright point that highlighted the first beacon they’d found, and looked down the somewhat-straight line toward the last one, glowing a faint pink as it hadn’t been recovered yet. “It’s like...” he paused, and gestured. “What if this one isn’t the first beacon?”

“I don’t follow.”

“What if the beacons originated with the ship Hunk and Keith are on,” Matt said, and turned, looking away from where the first beacon was found and toward the galactic core. “And instead go toward the heart of the Galra Empire.”

“To what end, though?” Illianya sat forward, intrigued by this theory.

“I don’t know,” Matt said, frustrated. He brought his hands in together, bringing the expandable map in close again. “There’s something big here, something that we’re missing because we’re focusing on the wrong minutiae. I just hope that we can figure it out before whatever it is bites us in the ass.”

##

Keith jammed the blade of his bayard between the two door panels and twisted, grunting with the exertion. The doors parted just enough for him to get a hand between them, and with Hunk prying at the other door they were able to force open the doors to the other part of the ship.

The bridge had been all but empty; it was not an exact copy of the Castle of Lions but similar enough in its function that they could see the cavity where the Balmeran crystal would have sat. Instead of the lifts that led to the Lion’s launch bays there was a second set of doors to the other part of the ship ... where the beacon was.

“Any movement on the beacon?” Keith asked as they floated through the now-open doors.

Hunk glanced down at his map and reported in the negative, and looked up just in time to see a dark figure lurch out of the shadows at the end of the corridor. “Keith!”

Keith moved insanely fast, even in zero-G. A combination of burn from the thrusters on his Paladin armor and a well-angled kickflip off the wall and he brought his sword down, cleaving through the dark figure in a single stroke.

The flightsuit exploded, depressurized, and shot back against the wall. There was a cracking, shattering noise, and bone fragments began to drift from the torn flightsuit.

Keith kicked on the electromagnets in his boots, dropping to the nearest surface with a solid sound. “Found the crew, I guess,” he said, approaching the floating remains cautiously.

Hunk hung back. “I have this thing about dead bodies,” he said, and Keith ignored him, shining a light across the flightsuit. It wasn’t entirely unlike the Altean flightsuits kept in the Castleship, although it had a different cut and color scheme. He shook his head and glanced down the corridor, and Hunk yelped.

“It just went by!” he said, and shot past Keith. “Did you see that? It was blinking!”

“Hunk!” Keith yelled, and gave chase.

There were more bodies floating in this corridor, and Hunk very clearly did not pay attention to them, his mind now set on the single obtainable goal of the beacon. He turned a corner at speed and saw a small, triangular floating device pushing the recognizable form of an alert beacon in front of it. The device turned and Hunk recognized the form of a patrol drone, puttering about its eternal circuit.

The patrol drone blinked a pale teal, then flipped over in the air and resumed pushing the beacon at a sedate pace.

“I’ll be damned,” Keith said, catching up. “It

was

being moved.”

Hunk floated down the hallway, heading for the drone to intercept. The thing beeped, a noise that echoed in their helmets, and then changed vector, dragging the beacon along with it. “Hey,” Hunk said, chasing it down. “Hey, hey, wait a sec!”

The drone dodged Hunk, zigging instead of zagging, and Keith floated at the end of the hallway, watching Hunk flip around the corridor and try to get his hands on the thing. “Do you want any help?” Keith asked, amused, as Hunk slammed face-first into the corridor wall, and bounced.

“No, I got this,” Hunk said, eyes narrowed. The drone, dragging the beacon behind it, darted through the open door at the end of the corridor and Hunk took off after it. After a moment out of sight, Hunk yelped in a high-pitched manner, and then made a noise of triumph. “Got you, you little- holy crabcakes!”

Keith, who had been floating in place and waiting, immediately kicked his thrusters in and followed Hunk’s trail through the doors at the end of the corridor. “Hunk, you all right?”

There was no response.

##

There wasn’t much by way of a brig in the Castleship - prisoners were kept in cryo-stasis as a means of preventing trouble. Which was a brilliant idea, all things considered, but mean there was a dearth of suitable places to house a traumatized enemy combatant. At least, until Coran very reluctantly told Allura about the holding cell near the engine core.

It was a room that afforded little privacy, the walls made of a clear, hard material that wasn’t glass. The Galra soldier sat on the floor, his back to one of the walls and curled in on himself, tail tucked around his bottom and ears and eyes averted. It was so unlike the body language of any of the Galra that Shiro had known and it unsettled him.

Most of the onlookers had straggled off. Allura stood silently beside Shiro, watching the Galra with an impressively neutral expression, considering how much she was seething. “You’re safe here,” Shiro said, addressing Verus, and the Galra snorted, ears flicking in their direction.

“I have traded one cage for another, nothing more,” he said, without raising his head. “If you mean to extract information from me, you will have no success.”

“That isn’t why we saved you,” Shiro said.

Verus moved slowly, like he was still in pain; although the cryo replenisher should have healed all the ills wrought on him by his captivity. He unfolded, standing to his full height in the cell. Then he stalked to the front of the cage, where Shiro and Allura stood on the other side of the transparent frame, and looked down at them.

“Then why,” the Galra spoke slowly, his voice a rumble, “would you save me, Champion?”

“No one deserves a death like that,” Shiro said, his tone level. “Not even an enemy.”

“I will find my way back to the Empire,” Verus said, his claws curling on the interior of the clear cage. “We will return and lay waste to the system and not leave a single being alive. You will not stop this.”

“You are sorely mistaken if you think we’re going to just drop you off and let you make your way back to the Zarkon,” Allura said sharply.

Verus’s mouth curled, and showed impossibly sharp fangs. “I speak of inevitabilities, Princess. I will escape. Those creatures will die.”

“You know of me,” Shiro said.

The Galra male snorted. “Everyone in the Empire knows of the Witch’s Champion,” he said derisively. “Her perfect little toy soldier.”

The words sent a chill down Shiro’s spine that he didn’t understand, and he pushed it aside. “How do you know the princess, then?”

The Galra had been in captivity for years, easily. Allura hadn’t been awake that long. Shiro watched the struggle on Verus’s face, muted though it was - but his tail lashed, savagely. Then he turned away from them and stalked back to the corner of the cell he had been seated in when they arrived to see him. “I am done speaking with you,” he said, and put his back to the wall, sliding down the wall, arms folded and chin faced away.

##

Lance found Shiro in the common area, sitting on the sunken couch and staring off into space. He had a pensive expression on, he was clearly deep in thought and probably shouldn’t be disturbed, but Lance had just spent two vargas trying to talk Rian down from going down to the ‘surprise we do have a Hannibal Lector cage’ Coran had sprung on them and getting into a yelling match with a full-blooded Galra who was probably 2.5 times Rian’s stature.

Granted, watching a Galra fold Rian into the size of a puzzle-box would be hilarious, but Keith would be pissed he missed it.

“Hey, Shiro,” Lance said, and slid down onto the sunken couch beside him. Shiro looked over at Lance, a little startled to be snapped out of his oh-so-public musings, but the expression on his face went from distant to fond in a second. It always made Lance’s heart skip a beat when Shiro looked at him like that because, hey, he never thought his hero would give him a second look and now they were mates.

“What’s going on, Lance?” Shiro asked him. After a moment he wrinkled his nose and his fond expression changed yet again, to something a little more heated. He slid his arm over Lance’s shoulder and shifted, pulling Lance into his lap. Lance went willingly, pleased that he didn’t even have to say anything now to get the affection he was seeking. “I thought you were going to take a nap.”

“Stuff got in the way,” Lance said, as Shiro nuzzled him, and kissed his jaw. “Stuff always gets in the way.”

This heat had been the worst one yet, since they’d left Earth. Granted, he’d had suppressants for at least a little while, and then he and Keith started fooling around and while that had knocked his cycle all out of whack it hadn’t been bad. Not like this. He was horny all the time this cycle, not to the point where he couldn’t function but if he saw Shiro alone, like this... well. He shivered as Shiro kissed his neck, and shifted so he was straddling Shiro’s lap, not sitting there.

“You have a few minutes?” Lance asked, rocking a little above Shiro’s lap.

“I think I can pencil some time in,” Shiro’s voice had gone low and rumbly, his eyes on Lance’s face as he slid his prosthetic hand down Lance’s back and tucked the fingers into the back of Lance’s jeans, starting to tug them down over the swell of his ass.

The cooler air on his rear made Lance realize that they were still in the common room. “Here?” he said, voice hushed as Shiro shifted a little.

“We’ll be quick,” Shiro kissed him properly this time, his hand having gone from tugging Lance’s jeans down to pressing against him, finding his hole slick and damp. Lance let out a startled noise when Shiro’s finger penetrated him, slow but steady, sinking all the way. There was a wet sound as he withdrew the finger, already pressing a second digit together.

That was when the door behind Shiro opened, and Lance stared in horror at Matt, who was holding a datapad in one hand and a mug in the other. Matt locked eyes with Lance, took in his visibly flustered state, took a deep breath, and then said flatly, “Shiro.”

Unhurried, Shiro slid his fingers out of Lance, who did all he could not to whine because he was still making eye contact with Matt and was that awkward. He fumbled off Shiro’s lap and pulled his pants up as best he could as Shiro hooked an arm over the back of the sunken couch and glanced over it, giving Matt a sour look at having been interrupted.

“This is the common room,” Matt said. “Have some decency, for fuck’s sake.”

“Maybe you’ll understand one day,” Shiro said, a slightly savage tone to his voice that Lance hadn’t heard before. Matt’s eyes narrowed and then his scent hit Lance like a truck and oh, oh shit-

“Shiro,” Lance said, hand on Shiro’s arm. “Let’s go back to the room, please don’t leave me hanging.”

After another long moment of eye contact with Matt, Shiro stood and, without a word, hauled Lance up, putting him over his shoulder. Lance yelped at being manhandled. “Shiro, I can walk,” he almost shouted, but Shiro ignored him completely, and stalked out of the common room via the other exit, leading toward the pilot’s quarters.

##

They were both nearly at their limit by the time they made it into Shiro’s room. Lance let out a little sob as Shiro jogged him on his cock again, his legs pinned together by his jeans, dragged down only to mid-thigh. He was leaking all over the place, front and back both, both hands on the wall just inside the door as Shiro’s weight kept him in place.

He’d slid his knot in early, before it could grow larger, and Lance shuddered as he felt it move inside him. They’d gotten good at this, quick savage fucks to quell the hormones, and each time it left Lance a little bit out of his head.

“Inside?” Shiro asked him, voice panting in Lance’s ear and Lance nodded hard, gulping air as Shiro’s hands closed painfully tight on his hips. The short, violent thrusts went shallow and Lance spasmed, grabbed his cock with one hand and began pumping it hard so he could get himself off before and really appreciate it when Shiro came.

He felt the first pulse and was too far gone when Shiro bit the back of his neck, holding him in place as he came inside. It wasn’t hard enough to break the skin, scarred over from his first claim, but it was enough that Lance forgot about everything else he was doing and just went limp, letting Shiro’s thrusts fuck him completely into the wall.

The damp ran down his thighs as Shiro pulled back - not withdrawing, not entirely, moving the knot so that it tugged on his rim and provided even more stimulation. Lance shuddered, mindless with it, and came hard in his hand, unable to catch it all and messing his pants.

They stood in place - or more accurately, Shiro stood, one hand braced by Lance’s head, and Lance slumped forward, pinned on Shiro’s cock. Shiro squeezed Lance’s hip with his left hand, panting still and voice thick with it. “Feel better?” he said, directly into Lance’s ear, and Lance nodded wordlessly, eyes closed and savoring the small pulses of Shiro’s cock emptying itself in him again.

It was dangerous to fuck like this, on his heat ... he had been hounding Keith to keep him satisfied but Shiro hadn’t gotten him pregnant yet, and he’d all but forgotten the risk.

He sighed happily as Shiro shifted them both, pulling Lance to him and pushing his knot in deeper, so that he could wrap his arms around Lance and walk them slowly to the bed. He wouldn’t remember the rest.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Are you seeing this?” Hunk said, his voice a low whisper, the drone held tightly in one hand. It let out small puttering noises of aggravation having been separated from its apparently self-appointed task of guarding the beacon, but both Paladins were currently ignoring the unit’s distress. Keith floated into what appeared to be a cargo bay behind Hunk, his bayard transformed and in hand, prepared for trouble.

“Yeah,” Keith said as the red bayard returned to its un-transformed state in his hand. “I’m seeing it, all right.”

The running lights on the Paladin armor were plenty bright, but barely pierced the gloom of the cavernous cargo bay. However, where Hunk was frozen and floating in place the light on his armor reflected off of several cryopods, and it looked like they extended off into the gloom. Keith returned the bayard to its digital storage within his Paladin armor, exchanging it for a rod, which he snapped and threw above his head.

The snaplight was bright white, and illuminated much of the cargo bay. There were bodies in here too, a few floating near the ceiling, but what drew both Hunk and Keith’s attention were the literally

hundreds

of cryostasis pods, dark and silent in the vast, empty space that should have been humming full of energy. Keith kicked off toward one, catching on the front of it and shining the light on his suit directly into its dark interior; to see a mummified body encapsulated within.

“There have to be hundreds of pods here,” Hunk said, turning in place, the harsh light of the snaplight casting his shadow long across the floor below them. His voice was still hushed, a little shaken. “What

is

this?”

“Refugee ship?” Keith said, now floating past a few of the pods. A quick sweep showed that they were all occupied, each body within wearing a similar, form-fitting uniform. “They were being transported in cryostasis, whoever they were.” It was unnerving, the enormity contained in this cargo hold. “When the ship was damaged and lost power, the pods went online. I bet they just never woke up.”

He heard Hunk audibly shudder, and Keith couldn’t blame him. He’d seen a lot of death in his life, but this was just eerie beyond measure. He shivered, and then kicked his thrusters on and floated past a few more pods, shining his light inside them as well. Each mummified body was the same, tight dark skin, same hairstyle, same uniform, same figure … and Keith paused, counting down the row. It was hard to tell in death, but the bodies seemed to be almost identical. Military troops?

“Keith, let’s get out of here, man.” Hunk’s voice was still quiet. Keith looked up, his hand braced on the pod in front of him, and watched Hunk turn in a circle again, beacon in one hand and drone tucked securely in the other. “We have the beacon, let’s just go. There’s no one here to help, right? No one could have survived with the pods offline. It feels … wrong, to stay here.”

Keith agreed, shining his light down the row of pods. The beam reflected off the crypods in the distance, out of range of the snaplight, and disappeared off near the end of the bay. “Yeah, no one survived this.” He turned back and pointed his light at Hunk, highlighting the off-white drone tucked under his arm. “Why are you hanging on to that thing?”

“Oh,” Hunk looked down at the annoyed, triangle-shaped scouting drone. “I figured Pidge would want to tinker with it. Besides, if it’s been on this ship for who-knows-how-long, maybe it has some information or something that we can use.”

That was a good point. Keith kicked his thrusters to full, heading back the way that they had come, and leaving the snaplight to illuminate the tomb they were leaving behind. “You think Pidge ever gets tired of us bringing her new tech to tinker with?”

“Nah,” Hunk said, following him.

##

Lance woke, naked and content, nested in the covers of Shiro’s bunk. He sighed happily and stretched his legs under the sheet, feeling the soreness in his muscles melt away with such a simple action. Everything here smelled so thickly of Shiro, and Lance loved it when he woke up here. So much better than his own bed. He buried his face in the pillow and smiled.

It could

probably

be better if he woke up with at least one of his mates, though. Lance finally dragged himself upright, glancing around Shiro’s spartan room. He had barely decorated; there was a small green plant that Pidge had given him sitting on the desk, and a few star charts tacked up behind it, but that was the extent of ‘lived in’. Lance shook his head despairingly. He knew he wouldn’t see Shiro sitting at his desk, and in the back of his mind he had more or less expected to wake up alone. It was the middle of the day when Lance basically presented his ass to Shiro in the most public way possible, and he couldn’t even feel the least bit ashamed about it. Shiro was good to him.

However, that thought brought with it the fresh memory of Matt’s expression when he realized what, exactly, was happening in front of him. Just like that, Lance’s contented mood evaporated, and he sighed dramatically, hoisting himself out of bed. He hadn’t noticed it before, probably because he was luxuriating in the fact that he’d been claimed by the time they’d met, but the scent had been unmistakable. Matt was an alpha.

The thought was leaving him feeling a bit unsettled, and Lance did his best to push that aside. He found a clean pair of his clothes stashed in the pull-out closet; both he and Keith had started keeping spare sets of clothing in Shiro’s room as well to avoid any unnecessary walks of shame. After all, there was no telling

when

they’d be attacked. Lance hovered his hand over Keith’s dark tee shirts, but ultimately went back to his familiar blue.

The waffling had bought him a little bit of time, but his thoughts wandered right back to the fact that Matt was an alpha. Why hadn’t Matt said anything before now? Both he and Keith had had

very

obvious heats with him on board, why was this becoming an issue

now

and not before?

Ugh, why did this all have to be so

complicated.

Lance stretched his arms over his head, yawning a little as he did so, and slapped the door release with his free hand, intending to go and find Shiro and hoping suddenly that he’d walk in on Shiro making certain that Matt understood to keep his paws to himself.

Rian stopped dead in the hallway, right in front of the door to Shiro’s room and looked at Lance like a deer caught in the headlights. Lance blinked and Rian and dropped his arms, and then looked up and down the hall. “What?” Lance said, and Rian abruptly looked away before he started marching back down the hall as if he hadn’t been stopped at all. “Hey, what the heck,” Lance called at him, and realized that Rian was heading in the direction of the lifts. “You better not be going down the brig; Shiro told you to steer clear!”

Yahtzee. Rian drew to a halt and half-turned, glaring at Lance from halfway down the corridor. “Shiro is

not

my commander,” he said icily.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll just go run that by Illianya then, I’m sure she has a difference of opinion with Shiro on you baiting the Galra in the holding cell.” Lance stepped out of Shiro’s room and felt the door close behind him. Rian had already resumed his trek toward the lifts. “Hey, and where do you think

you’re

going?”

“To the brig,” Rian said, simple and to the point.

Lance groaned in aggravation. “Unbelievable.” When Rian didn’t stop again or acknowledge Lance’s carefully curated disbelief, he unfolded his arms and hurried after Rian. “Hey, wait for me!”

##

“Yeah, it was like,

really

super creepy,” Hunk said, his face just a tad too close to the recorder on his forearm plate. Illianya made an amused noise, her attention more on the detailed schematic of the dead ship that was being auto-mapped by Hunk’s Paladin armor. “Why were they transporting so many people in cryopods, though? That doesn’t seem very resource-efficient.”

“If they’re in cryosleep, they don’t have to be housed or fed,” Illianya said. There was a dark part in the schematic still, the other side of the ship beyond the cargo bay full of cryopods. Hunk and Keith were nearly back to the Red Lion, so it seemed a waste to send them back through the Hall of the Dead to see what they were missing when the odds were good that they were missing nothing at all.

“Yeah,” Keith’s voice was faint, but it was obvious that Illianya was on speaker, and not their private comm. “There’s a ton of space to house people on the Castleship, but not like, a couple hundred excess people. It makes sense if you’re ferrying that many people and you have the pods to spare.”

“The strain on the crystal would be insane, though.” Hunk lifted his head to argue with Keith, which allowed Illianya a moment to let her fond smile escape. Once Hunk had stowed the beacon, he’d paged the Castleship on their private comm channel to tell her what was going on; which was, frankly, adorable. She tried to school her expression back into a neutral one by the time Hunk looked back her way but by the way his eyes lit up and then softened, she knew she had failed. “It just doesn’t seem very practical, is all I’m saying.”

Illianya raised her eyebrow pointedly. “It is not up to us to dissect the mysteries of the ancients,” she intoned, and Hunk wrinkled his nose.

“I dunno, it just seems … wrong, or something, to not know why they were here or why they died. Disrespectful, maybe.” He looked up again as Keith’s voice echoed in the background, a little more impatient this time.

“Hunk, come

on!”

“Gotta go,” Hunk said, and Illianya didn’t bother to disguise her fond expression this time. Hunk smiled back at her, a big warm smile and she softened further, before their personal comm disconnected. The red dot on Illianya’s schematic that was the Red Lion began to move, ever so slowly, and she knew they were on their way home.

She sat back in the Yellow Lion’s command chair and frowned thoughtfully at the schematic. It was still bothering her, and she couldn’t pinpoint the reason why, and that bothered her

worse.

She spun the schematic once, slowly, and then swiped it off the screen, to be archived in the Castleship’s database. Hunk and Keith would be back soon, and she was on dinner duty tonight, she had things to get done.

##

Shiro’s skin was still damp from his shower when he stepped through the doors into the common room. He’d spent longer in the shower than he had intended, still stuck on the problem he was working through. While no solution had presented itself, eventually he had emerged, toweling his head dry and realizing where he’d left his datapad behind.

The common room was, for the most part, empty - the scent of tomfoolery faded and nearly gone. Matt, however, was still present; he was seated on one of the sunken couches, across from where Shiro had been seated. He didn’t raise his eyes or acknowledge Shiro’s entrance, completely absorbed in whatever his own datapad was displaying.

Shiro took a deep breath and crossed the room, stepping down onto the couch and into the sunken area exactly like he’d scolded Lance and Keith for a half-dozen times previously. He picked up his datapad with one hand before seating himself, but he didn’t relax back into the cushion. He sat forward, his attention locked on Matt and waiting, silently, for his cue.

He didn’t have long to wait. “What?” Matt asked, clearly irritated at being interrupted by Shiro’s intense gaze. He raised his eyes from the datapad’s screen and locked eyes with him.

There was something about the tone of his voice that made the short hair on the back of Shiro’s neck prickle. “Are we,” he spoke carefully, measuring his words, “going to have a problem, Matt?”

The silence that stretched between them spoke volumes. Shiro remembered all too clearly how easy it had once been to talk to Matt; to joke around and wince when Sam scolded them both for not taking their mission seriously enough - it happened rather frequently, on a months-long journey. How things had changed, so much and so quickly.

Matt shifted in his seat, glancing down at his datapad not dismissively, but so that he could close whatever had held his attention. Then he too sat forward slightly, back straight and mirroring Shiro’s pose, meeting Shiro’s gaze head-on and without backing down. “It depends,” he said. “Are you going to tell me the truth about what’s going on?”

“The truth?” The words escaped, startled. Shiro’s brow furrowed. “I’ve never had cause to lie.”

“That’s good, because my nose hasn’t had cause to lie, either,” Matt said, and touched the side of his nose out of habit. “You’re a beta, Takashi. What are you doing with an omega in heat?”

So. Here it was then, the conversation he had been avoiding for months now. He pushed a hand back through his hair, looking away. “I’m not a beta, Matt.”

“Bull

shit

you’re not. We were trapped in the same tiny shuttle for four months, and a Galra cell for who knows how much longer than that. You’ve never had a heat or a rut in your life, you told me your goddamn

self

.” Matt’s voice raised and he caught himself, although his expression was still tight, controlled. Angry. “What’s really going on here, huh? Why are you lying about this?”

“What’s really going on here,” Shiro said, keeping his voice calm and measured, “is that Lance is

my

mate, and I would appreciate you not looking at him like you did while he’s in heat.” He narrowed his eyes after a moment, realizing. “Keith, too.”

Matt pushed himself to his feet. “That is a steaming load of

horse shit

, and you know it.” He pointed at Shiro and started to cross the sunken area toward him with purpose. “You are a

beta

, you were far too old to present as anything different, and I’d already presented, it was the only reason I was approved for the mission over Elderson and you

know it!

”

Before he took a step closer Shiro rose off the couch and squared off, facing Matt with a stormy expression. Matt’s step faltered only slightly, jaw set. Shiro raised his right arm, putting the Galra technology on full display and making a fist, activating the magenta glow. “The druids didn’t just take my arm!”

There was a moment of silence between them, chest heaving. Matt’s expression twitched. “Are you saying that they

changed

your endotype? That’s not possible.”

Shiro spread his hands wide, the glow dissipating from his Galra-made arm when he did so. “It’s possible, because here I am.”

“No,” Matt folded his arms and shook his head sharply. “That’s getting into genome therapy and shit, they couldn’t’ve…” He squinted at Shiro suddenly, expression changing, and the confrontational attitude in the room fizzled out completely. “Have you had a

rut?

”

Shiro flushed to his eartips. “I don’t-”

“You can’t have a knot.” Matt was speculating.

“That’s not

relevant-”

Shiro held his hand out and covered his face with the other one. “I’m not going to play twenty questions with you about this, just … don’t look at Lance like you did today, okay? He had a bad experience with alphas and I promised him that I’d turn the next one who made him feel uncomfortable inside-out and I’d

really

rather not have to keep my promise when it’s you.”

“Why didn’t Keith freak out?”

Another moment of silence, and then Shiro slowly sank back down onto the couch. “Keith and I never talked about it.”

“

Never?

”

“I was trying to keep him from getting kicked out of the Garrison every other week, and I figured he’d had the sex talk by then. It kinda never came up.” He glared at Matt. “The only reason we ever talked about it was because it was relevant to the mission.”

“That’s fair.” Matt sighed and scrubbed his hands back into his hair. “

Christ

, Shiro. They took your arm and did

that

to you… what else did they do?” Shiro looked away from Matt. “Has anyone done a scan?”

“The Black Lion and the Paladin armor do biometric scans on missions.” Shiro folded his arms and still didn’t raise his eyes back to Matt’s.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. For other abnormalities.” Matt started pacing the small space between the sunken couches, and for the barest instant he and his sister were identical in Shiro’s head.

“No,” Shiro said. “Not like that. No one else knows.” He gave Matt a measured look. “And I want to keep it that way.” He shuddered a little, at the panic he’d had landing on Earth again only to be recaptured, to be the subject of more experiments…

Matt hesitated in his step, and recognized the expression on Shiro’s face. “Shiro.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shiro said. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know if they did anything else to me. I’m here and functioning and that’s all that matters.”

“Why would they fuck with your endotype, though?” Now Matt had something to chew at and turn over in his head, and Shiro recognized that tone of voice. He sighed as Matt began to pace again. “Was it an arena thing, did they think dialing up your testosterone would make you a better gladiator?” He gave Shiro a scrolling side-eye. “I mean, you

are

like twice the size you were when I last saw you.”

“Matt.

”

“I wanna run some tests. There’s something weird about that and I really don’t like it.” He hesitated a moment at Shiro’s expression, and then sighed. “How come you haven’t said anything before now, huh?”

“It really isn’t anyone’s business but mine.”

“Yeah, but I think it’s gonna become everyone’s business if we find out there’s some kind of tracker or doomsday bomb encoded into your DNA or something.” Matt put his hands on his hips. “Just some scans, Shiro. That’s it. I wanna head this off at the pass, it’s probably nothing but you don’t want to be the instrument that puts your whole team in danger, do you?”

Shiro rubbed his face with both hands. “God dammit, Matt.”

Matt picked up his datapad and tapped it, opening a comm. “Hey Pidge? A new project just fell in my lap, you might wanna bother Hunk for help with the beacon thing for a bit.”

“I don’t like this,” he announced, as Matt patted his shoulder reassuringly.

“I know. No needles, I promise. I know how much you love them.” Shiro shuddered and Matt laughed, but not mockingly. “To the medbay with you, Shiro. We’re gonna figure this shit out.”

##

Rian gave Lance another look out of the corner of his eye as they stood in the lift together. He had been giving Lance the same look repeatedly since Lance caught up with him and since he apparently couldn’t talk Rian down this time, at least he could keep on him like glue and make sure he didn’t get into any other trouble. “What?” Lance said, irritated, when Rian gave him that same look again. “

What?”

Rian wrinkled his nose. “You stink.”

Offended, Lance pulled his shirt up over his nose to take a whiff. “I do not, these are clean clothes!”

“Yeah, you do.” Rian folded his arms and looked down. “You smell like the Black Paladin.”

Lance flushed. “Yeah, so? Shiro’s my boyfriend.”

Rian shook his head dismissively and looked away. Lance rolled his eyes and leaned against the side of the lift, feeling the small vibration as the elevator ferried them to the hidden spot deep within the Castleship that neither of them even knew existed just days ago.

“Well, this isn’t like, way creepy and super-villain-ish at all or anything,” Lance said when he saw the walkway to the holding cell. Lance looked over the side of the railing, the drop was dizzying … and the ceiling was inexplicably high, as well. He was

pretty

sure he had a decent grasp on the interior-to-exterior ratio on the Castleship and even he couldn’t figure out where they were; the chamber was very large but didn’t echo, somehow … and Lance had to wonder for a moment how much of the construction was real, and how much was a simulation run by the Castleship’s core. Rian, predictably, ignored Lance completely and stalked toward the large, clear-paneled cell in the center of the room.

Sensing the arrival of visitors, the Galra prisoner rose from his prone position on a cot affixed to the far wall. Lance hesitated a moment behind Rian, watching Verus unfold to his full height and realizing exactly the difference in size between them. Then he swallowed and squared his shoulders and didn’t slouch, looking up at the Galra with a steady expression.

Verus stood before them, on the other side of the cell’s wall, his ears flattened against his skull. “What is this? A half-breed whelp and a human?”

Lance put his hand on his chest and said, in a slightly higher, affronted tone, “Oh

Lance,

it’s you, thank you

so

much for risking your life to save mine, I’m ever so appreciative.”

“Don’t waste your sarcasm, Galra don’t understand gratitude,” Rian growled.

“That explains … a

lot

about Keith, actually,” Lance said speculatively, and then shrugged, folding his arms. He lifted one hand but didn’t shift position otherwise. “Anyway, I’m Lance, Paladin of Voltron, savior of ungrateful Galra.”

Verus wrinkled his nose. “I did not ask for your assistance, Paladin.”

“Yeah, well. We kinda have this thing about not letting people die horrible deaths if we can help it.” He shrugged, arms still folded, and looked over at Rian.

“You left the rest of the aliens on that ship,” Rian said, sotto voce.

“If we can

help it

,” Lance hissed back. “Zombie cannibals generally can’t be helped.”

Verus looked between them, and then squinted, looking over their heads and back the way that they had come. “Your commander and Princess are not with you,” he said, and there was a small bit of confusion to his tone. “Why are you here?”

“Me? Because mini-rage-machine there apparently wanted to come test his mettle or something.” Lance hiked his thumb at Rian, who had unconsciously mirrored Lance’s pose and was staring up at the Galra with a defiant tilt of his jaw.

“What do you know of the

Liburna

?” Rian asked without preamble and Verus’s ears, which had risen in curiosity, immediately flattened into the crest of dark fur that ran along the top of his head.

“The

Liburna?”

Lance repeated, giving Rian a strange look.

“I could smell that you were a half-breed,” Verus said, leaning down and staring at Rian carefully. “But you are one of the experiments, eh?”

“Just answer the question,” Rian said sharply.

There was a long moment of silence in which Lance figured that the Galra would laugh, or say something derisive, but instead he lowered his head and then slowly sat on the floor of the cell in front of them. “No one asks about the

Liburna

, whelpling. It is nothing but a rumor, a threat to scare misbehaving cadets into shape.” His lips peeled back and after a moment Lance realized it was Verus’s version of a smile, thin though it may be. “Fall out of line and be reassigned to the

Liburna.

”

A moment of silence passed and then Rian too sat on the cold floor outside the Galra’s cell, hands braced on his knees. “Tell me about it,” he said.

“Why?”

“Tell me the stories about the

Liburna.

”

“Nothing good can come of it,” Verus said. The Galra and the Altean looked at each other, stares of equal measure, and Lance’s communicator beeped. He fished it out of his pocket, to hear Allura’s voice in his ear. “The Red Lion will be back in less than a varga, Lance. Just thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks,” Lance said, his mouth strangely dry. Verus was speaking again now, his voice a low rumble, and Rian was listening in rapt attention. Without a word, Lance quietly left them to it.

##

The Red Lion returned to the Castleship with very little fanfare. The lift from the Red Lion’s launch bay took both Keith and Hunk directly to the bridge, where they found about half the crew waiting for the report Keith planned to give Allura and Shiro directly. Keith scanned the bridge with a frown as he stepped out of the lift behind Hunk. “Where’s Shiro?”

Lance had sprawled himself in the Blue Lion’s command chair, and he half-shrugged, although Keith hadn’t addressed the question to him directly. “I think he’s with Matt,” he said, poking at the holographic display in front of him.

“I have the beacon,” Hunk announced, a satchel slung over his shoulder. He was carrying the beacon in one hand, and it was blinking a solitary green light. Pidge sat upright in the Green Lion’s command chair, her legs tucked under her and eyed the beacon with a suspicious expression.

“That one’s green,” she said, and Hunk nodded an affirmative, and then paused.

“Wait, weren’t they all?”

“No. Most of them were teal, like, the Altean teal,” she gestured at the color scheme that ran across the bridge and throughout the entire Castleship. “That’s like … green. Actually green.”

“Green Lion green,” Lance said helpfully.

Pidge ignored Lance and turned the beacon over in her hands. “Why does this just keep introducing

more

variables. It’s super frustrating.” She groaned and balanced the beacon on her knee, focusing on her own holographic display. “Don’t tell me,” she said without looking at Hunk, who hadn’t moved yet. “You also found some other weird bit of alien tech on that wreck and want me to look at it too. What am I, the pet hacker on this cruise ship?”

Hunk kept his hand on the satchel, expression innocent. “Do you not want it, then?”

Pidge eyed him, and then his hand on the satchel. She held out her hands. “I didn’t say

that.

Gimme.”

Hunk opened the satchel and, supremely annoyed at its imprisonment, the triangle-shaped drone floated out. Pidge almost leaped out of her seat to catch it with both hands. “A security drone!” she squealed. The thing buzzed in alarm as Pidge promptly folded herself over it. “I have

got

to hook it up to a mainframe and see what intel it has on it,” she said, eyes glittering behind her glasses.

Keith watched Pidge’s glee with some satisfaction as well, until the doors to the bridge opened and drew his attention. Shiro looked just about as harried as Keith had ever seen him when he hit the bridge, although his stressed-out expression softened when he saw Keith. Keith smiled at him and resisted the urge to go to him, instead looking to Allura.

“So I guess the question is, ‘now what’?” Keith said, as Shiro walked past him to his own station. “We retrieved this beacon, but we still don’t know what they’re for.”

“Yeah, we retrieved it all right, from a creepy dead floating mausoleum,” Hunk said, and shuddered. “I hope there aren’t any ghosts attached to that thing.”

Coran threw a linear map up onto the forward viewscreen, charting the beacons in a straight line. “If the pattern holds true,” he said, highlighting a region of space on the farthest edge of the known map, “the next beacon ought to be in one of these three star systems.”

Hunk let out a long sigh. “That’s a

lot

of space to search,” he said.

Allura frowned, studying the map. “I’m not entirely certain that we should continue to expend resources chasing this lead,” she said. “The war … and Zarkon … is in the other direction.”

Shiro nodded his head, but Lance stuck up his hand as if he were in school and waiting to be called upon. “But what if the beacons lead to, I don’t know, a hidden rebel army or something?”

“These beacons are old, and Altean, Lance,” Pidge said. “Odds are good that it was the framework of something left behind by freedom fighters ten thousand years ago. It’s probably a whole lot of nothing, at this point.”

“But you aren’t curious to see what it could be?”

“Of course I’m

curious

,” Pidge said. “I don’t want to spend all this time on them only to just … abandon it.” She frowned, folded over her new drone.

“Maybe it’s a weapons cache,” Keith said. “We could always use more armaments, or fighter pods.” There was a brief silence after Keith spoke, and he looked around at everyone. “...what? It’s true, we’ve got Voltron and everything, but the others are down one starfighter and it’s not like the shuttle pods have weapons systems.”

“I could fix that,” Pidge said.

“

No,

” Coran and Keith said, at the same time.

“Are we too far out from the systems to just do a sensor sweep?” Shiro asked Coran, who fiddled with his console for a moment and then hung his head, sighing dramatically. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I bet,” Pidge said, slowly and thoughtfully, “that I could

probably

boost the sensors to pick up the frequency that the beacons broadcast on. It would be a simple temporary amperage, though.” She looked over at Hunk, head tilted. “You think we could slave the beacons to the sensor array and just blast it that way?”

“The feedback could destroy the beacon,” Hunk said.

“If we can clone the beacon’s telemetry and sensor package, we might not even need a physical beacon to wire in,” she said, and Lance let out a loud groan as their brainstorming turned technical. Pidge shot Lance a withering look but he ignored it, head tilted back into the command chair.

“Give me two days and we can scan the systems from here, without having to travel there,” Pidge said. “Then if there’s something, or nothing, we can decide what to do without putting undue strain on the telenav.”

“Two days?” Hunk scoffed. “Try twenty hours.”

“Well, I

was

including time to sleep and eat, but if you want to make a marathon of it then yeah, we could get it done in eighteen, twenty hours tops.”

“Breaks for sleeping and eating aren’t only encouraged, they’re

required

,” Shiro said firmly, and Pidge and Hunk let out identical groans. “Something could happen and we may need to scramble at any time. So don’t push yourselves for no reason. This isn’t a race.” He folded his arms, and looked over to Allura. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Allura said. “We still need to figure out how we’re going to bring Zarkon down, and really, this little side mission is just a distraction now.”

“Supply lines and trade routes,” Keith said, and looked to Shiro. When he knew he had both Shiro and Allura’s attention, he continued. “We’ve been working up a plan to go after some of the more well-traveled routes to pick off the Galra supply ships. Maybe hit a few refueling stations or supply bases while we’re there, make them really think about how thin their resources are spread.”

Shiro gave Keith an amused look. “‘We’?”

Keith glanced back at Lance, who gave him a thumbs up. “Lance and Rian and I, we’ve been going over the local star-charts and plotting out targets.”

Both of Shiro’s eyebrows raised into his hairline, and he didn’t bother to conceal his interest. “What have you got?”

Pidge waved her hand in the air. “I’m gonna go plug my new toy in and get started on a beacon clone,” she said. “You coming, Hunk?”

Hunk tugged on the chestplate of his Paladin armor. “I’m gonna go shower, I’m probably covered in dead space alien dust.” He hesitated, looking at Allura and Shiro both in turn. “Unless you guys really need me for this…” he trailed off, hoping that someone would dismiss him.

“Go on, Hunk,” Allura said with a smile. “I think Illianya’s in the galley, too, she was waiting for you to get back.” Hunk brightened visibly and hurried off the bridge, nearly on Pidge’s heels. Allura looked back to Keith. “So, Keith,” she said. “Would you like to outline your proposed plan…?”

##

Slowly but surely, a quarter of the training deck was being transformed into Pidge’s lab 2.0. The memory core sat at its center, with sensors and wires trailing from it and running into an array of computers that she had cobbled together from spare ship parts. The beacons were lined atop a table, also wired in, and they blinked in no continuous pattern. The first beacon was a cheerful rosy color, the rest all Altean teal.

Pidge sat the most recent beacon at the end of the line, the green a stark contrast to the softer, brighter teal. She frowned at it for a moment, then grabbed one of the connection wires from her laptop and flipped the drone over, which made an annoyed buzzing noise at being restrained. There was no apparent port on the drone, and Pidge grunted in exasperation, fingers working over the smooth, off-white surface to find a seam.

Suddenly the drone slipped out from under her hand, knocking the beacons over in its escape and floating up quickly, buzzing in sequence and keeping just out of Pidge’s reach. “Oh, come

on

,” Pidge growled angrily, and jumped for it, both hands outstretched. The drone flew in circles above her head and made a blatting noise, but didn’t make for the door. It was

definitely

taunting her.

“Fine,” Pidge said. “Stay up there. See if I care.”

The doors to the training deck opened but it was Hunk, fresh from his shower - it was Matt instead. “New beacon?” he said, coming to check out the new arrival. He looked up at the floating drone and frowned, but Pidge didn’t acknowledge it so he didn’t either.

“Yeah, it’s the green one,” she said, already seated cross-legged on the floor, in front of her laptop.

“Your lucky color.”

“Shut it, Matt.” Pidge started typing. “What new project are

you

suddenly working on?”

He shook his head. “Top secret older brother stuff,” he said. “Shiro’s in on it. I’ll read you in when I get his permission.”

“‘Older brother stuff’ is not a protected scientific class,

Matthaniel.

”

“I’m going to kill him for getting that started again when I thought I’d finally quashed it,

Pidge-Podge.

” They glared at each other a second full of sibling animosity, until Matt leaned over her table to pick up the newest beacon. “Looks like the same build as the others, wonder why it’s green instead of teal.”

“Probably the same reason that the first beacon we found is rose instead of teal,” Pidge said absently.

“And that is?”

“Fuck all if I know.” She sighed loudly. “I’m working on a protocol to clone the frequency of the beacons, to see if we can pick up any other signals in the next few systems without having to do a manual scan in each system. Allura thinks that this is leading nowhere.”

“And what do you think?” Matt asked, picking up one of the teal beacons in his other hand for comparison's sake, weighing them thoughtfully.

“I think that there’s something here,” she said. “I think it’s tied to the memory core. I just don’t know what it is, or have any proof to back up my hypothesis.”

“Hard data is hard to come by, these days. What protocol are you running?”

“A none of your beeswax protocol,” Pidge continued to type without looking up. “I’ve been able to outhack you since I was seven, and I have more experience on these systems than you do. So I don’t need your help on this, Mr. Mysterious Older Brother Project.” She looked over her glasses at him. “Don’t think I won’t figure it out.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Jeez, okay. Where’s Hunk, then? Or Rian?”

“Hunk is probably boffing his girlfriend, and I haven’t seen Rian since he ran out of here gagging at the thought of Lance getting laid.” She tilted her head back and looked up at the drone, still puttering in the air above her. “Hey, if you’re gonna be an asshole, be an asshole. But be a useful asshole, and grab me the rose beacon, huh?”

“Who are you calling an asshole,” Matt said, affronted. The drone made an affirmative noise and swooped past him. “Hey!”

The bottom casing of the drone slid open, and a feeder hand extended with a two-prong claw. It scooped up the rose-colored beacon, and flew it right to Pidge, dropping it into her open hand without any fanfare. “Huh,” Pidge said thoughtfully, looking at the beacon in her hand and then back up at the drone. “Thanks.”

The drone beeped an affirmative tone, and then resumed its patrol, circling above her like a carrion vulture. Matt just shook his head.

##

“You really think we can disrupt the trade routes of the Empire?” Lance said, straddling the bench in the ready room. Keith had already taken off the chest plate of his Paladin armor, and it sat on the bench as he flipped the latches on his pauldrons. “We’re not like,

commandos

or anything.”

“We don’t have to be commandos, we’re Paladins.” Keith said, tossing the pauldrons onto the bench as well. “But right now we’ve only got a handful of victories under our belt, and while Voltron’s name is spreading we really haven’t made a dent in the Galra Empire yet. We’re not a

threat.

”

Lance laid the datapad on the bench in front of him. “These weren’t the targets we were looking at earlier,” he said. “One of the three targets you listed is a military research facility.” Keith rolled his eyes as he sat down on the bench heavily, to pull off his boots and thigh armor. “This isn’t personal, right?”

“Every battle we fight against the Galra is personal, Lance. Look what they did to Shiro.”

Lance raised a finger without raising his eyes. “Point.”

“Besides, if we start with some of the research facilities, maybe we can find out what happened to Commander Holt, for Matt and Pidge.” Keith put his hands on his thighs, looking at the boots he kicked over. “Their dad is still out there somewhere. Still a captive.”

“If he’s even still alive.”

“

Lance.

”

“What? It’s a possibility.” He looked up. “But it’s also a good point.” He leaned forward and squinted at Keith. “You’re

sure

this isn’t personal?”

“Lance, not everything is about me getting revenge.” He rubbed a hand through his dark hair. “I put that behind me a long time ago.”

“Good, because I want to kill some of those research scientists on your behalf and I don’t want you jumping in the way of my nice, clean, killshots.” Lance’s attention returned to the datapad, and Keith looked over at him, eyebrow up.

“You don’t have to do that. The people who tortured me are long dead.”

“Yeah, well. I have a lot of unresolved rage issues I need to take out on some druids or something.” Lance touched his chest with one hand, still without looking up. “Oh listen to me, you’re

such

a bad influence.”

“Jerk,” Keith said, but it came out in a good-natured tone. He shifted, reaching behind him and started to unzip his flightsuit. When he glanced up Lance was watching him attentively, and Keith sighed and tilted forward on the bench, hands in front of him. Without a word, Lance scooted forward, catching the zipper where it was stuck halfway down Keith’s back.

“Ten thousand years of scientific advancement,” Lance said, “and the zippers still get stuck just out of reach.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith muttered as Lance tugged the zipper down his back, revealing the curve of his spine. He felt the zipper hit the end of its length just above his tailbone, and then the warm puff of Lance’s breath on his back, just under where his hair fell. “You know I’m gross, right? I’ve been in my armor for almost a full day.”

“Mm.” Lance kissed the warm, exposed skin of his back. “And been through a bunch of dead bodies too, if you listen to Hunk.” Lance slipped his hands inside the thin, tough material, and Keith let his shoulders slump, allowing Lance to push the flightsuit off him and down his arms.

“So romantic,” Keith said as Lance slid his arms around Keith’s chest and buried his face against Keith’s shoulder. He patted Lance’s arm with one hand. “Shiro not keeping you satisfied, huh?”

“Shut up,” Lance muttered. “I’m worried about you.”

“I would be more inclined to believe that if I couldn’t feel your dick through this flightsuit, Lance.”

“God, shut up,” Lance kissed his shoulder. “Can I help that I have the hottest boyfriends in the known universe?” He squeezed Keith to him. “Who need my help getting undressed?”

“Yeah, I want to talk to whoever designed these flightsuits. The fact that the zipper is in the back is a bad idea.”

“Keith, that’s unsexy talk.”

“It’s poor design.”

“All right,” Lance said, and unceremoniously pushed his hands down the front of Keith’s flightsuit, unsticking it from his skin. “I’m going to ride you so hard you’re going to forget all about zippers.”

“We’ll break the bench. Again.”

“That’s a challenge.”

“

Lance.

” Keith caught Lance’s chin with his hand and held it still, twisting his own head so that he could give Lance a pointed look over his shoulder. Lance pouted at him, thwarted. “You left me to explain to Coran how the bench got broken last time.”

“The floor’s right there.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, his nose brushing Lance’s. “You know what? I have a better idea.”

##

“

Fuck

,” Lance gasped as his shoulders slammed against the tile in the shower. Keith’s fingers curled hard into his hips, and he was certain to have bruises there later with the amount of force Keith was using to hold him in place as he fucked brutally upward again. Lance grabbed the back of Keith’s neck, mouth open to pant as he held on tight while Keith slid his hands slightly lower, spreading Lance’s cheeks.

Lance was so wet, and Keith knew it wasn’t just the heat-produced slick as thick white fluid dribbled down past his cock. “You are just stuffed

full

today, aren’t you?” His voice had gone hoarse in the steam, and Lance just groaned instead of responding, locking his legs tight over Keith’s hips. “Where did Shiro take you this time? In the kitchen? On the training mat?”

“In his room,” Lance said in a stuttering voice, as Keith filled him again in a hard stroke, braced back against the wall. “Against the wall, he knotted me.”

Keith groaned and gripped hard, keeping Lance in place so that he could keep fucking hard and fast. Lance was letting out little keening noises now, one hand tangled in Keith’s hair and the other scrabbling for purchase against the slick shower wall. “God,

fuck-

” Lance gasped as Keith’s cock dragged against his insides, lighting him up like it was Christmas. “Harder, Keith, come

on-

”

And then he was up and over, spine curling and knocking his head back into the steam-slick wall as he came, cock jerking between them. “Did you come untouched when Shiro fucked you?” Keith asked breathlessly, and Lance let out a little hitching sob, dragging Keith’s head up so that they could kiss.

Keith was strong, almost as strong as Shiro; he was holding Lance up with just one hand now, the other in a fist against the wall as he rocked into Lance again and again, each thrust pushing out more of the seed that had been fermenting inside him. Lance gasped and sobbed, his voice breaking as Keith finally hit the finish line, slamming into him hard and holding him there as he pulsed deep inside.

“Fuck,” Lance wheezed as Keith held him still against the wall, not withdrawing. He kissed Keith again, arms curled over his shoulders, and Keith responded slowly. “Goddamn, samurai, you’ve gotten good at this.”

“I’ve always been good at it,” Keith said with a breathless smirk, eyes glued to Lance’s. He watched Lance wrestle with that a moment, chewing on his bruised lower lip before he sighed and gave in.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Rub it in why don’t you.” He pressed his forehead to Keith’s. “Not that I’m complaining if you want to hold me up here all day, but I don’t want to be aloft when your arms suddenly decide they’ve had enough. Especially in the shower.”

Keith let him down slowly, pulling out at the same time. There was a small, fresh trickle of come from Lance’s abused hole, and he hissed out a sigh of relief as he turned under the water, washing the trace away. Keith smiled as Lance pulled him close for another kiss, slower this time, under the hot spray of the shower. “God, I missed you,” Lance said softly when they parted.

“I was only gone a day,” Keith teased him lightly, catching Lance’s lower lip between his thumb and forefinger.

“Yeah, don’t leave me again,” Lance murmured as they swayed together under the water. Keith kissed him again, to quiet.

##

“With Pidge and Hunk working on the beacon project,” Shiro said, standing with his arms folded, “we’re going to be working supply route interference.” He looked at everyone gathered around the circular holographic table. Allura stood at his left, and Keith at his right, with Lance, Illianya and Matt on the other side of the table.

“So we’ve got three targets,” Matt said, tapping the interactive table face and changing the holographic map that hung between them. “We’ve got a supply yard, a research facility, and a waystation.” He eyed the three different lines of text, floating in midair. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not feeling the waystation. Seems like a bad idea after what happened last time.”

“Eaphus was a major port of call,” Illianya said, and Shiro nodded his head in agreement. “With a fully loaded prison ship docked for a gladiator tournament. This one is literally just a resupply point for battle cruisers.”

“Is there any way to tell how many cruisers are at the waystation at any given time?” Keith said. “We can handle maybe two between the three of us, but if we’re going to be down two Lions and can’t form Voltron, then I agree with Matt and we should steer clear for the time being.”

“I can fly Green,” Matt said casually, which made both Lance and Keith look at him with varying levels of surprise.

“Wait,

what?

” Lance said.

“It’s true,” Allura nodded. “The Green Lion accepted Matt as well. He flew her when Pidge was injured and unable to.”

Lance looked at Illianya. “And, what. You can pilot Yellow?”

She shook her head, bemused. “The Yellow Lion is Hunk’s alone to command,” she said. She glanced sidelong at Matt, who looked a bit pleased with himself at his promotion in usefulness.

“Well, it’s a moot point anyway without the Yellow Lion,” Shiro said. “And I agree with Keith, we should save any kind of run-in with multiple cruisers until we’re at full strength.”

“So that leaves the supply yard, or the research facility,” Allura said, gesturing. Two images appeared on the holo table between them, and Shiro noticed Lance stand a bit straighter, his attention focused solely on one image. Matt, too. “Hitting the supply yard would damage trade in the region of the Vaski system,” she said, a small map appearing between the two images. “It would also bring with it the increased attention of the Galra Empire, and Zarkon.”

“Civilians work at the supply yard,” Lance said.

“Lance is right,” Keith inclined his head. “Our best target is the research facility.” His attention, like Lance and Matt’s, was on the second image.

“It’s a minimal target at best,” Illianya said. “This far out on the Rim, they can’t be working on anything important.”

“Or,” Matt said speculatively, “this far out on the Rim, they could be working on the

most

important things.”

“Stashed out of the way,” Keith said. He tapped the table with one finger. “I don’t have very much on the research facility. There’s not a lot of traffic, but it stood out because it is definitely a part of the supply chain.”

When he touched the table again the map between the images changed. This time it showed a small system, with different colored paths threaded throughout. Matt leaned forward, arms folded as he studied the key. “That’s definitely a prison ship,” he said, nodding to the golden trail.

“It is,” Keith said. He looked pointedly at Lance, who nodded.

Matt raised his head and looked directly at Shiro. “We have to hit the research facility,” he said. “Dad could be there.”

“We need to tell Pidge, if that’s the case,” Shiro said, and Matt shook his head sharply.

“No. I don’t want to raise her hopes, Takashi.”

“Man, Pidge will gut you like a

fish

if she finds out we did this without telling her there was a chance your dad could be there,” Lance said. “I am all for hitting the research facility and burning it to the fucking ground, but if she finds out she will literally murder all of us. I can’t stress the murder part of this enough. In our

sleep.

”

“What’s our benefit for taking out the research facility over the supply yard, though?” Illianya said. “We want Zarkon’s attention, right? The supply yard would definitely get his attention.”

Lance counted off on his fingers. “We take away one of Zarkon’s pet projects, we free whatever prisoners might be there, we find Matt and Pidge’s dad, we cause the Empire some serious grief.”

“And,” Keith added, “we can take and repurpose whatever weapons are being designed there for our own use.”

“Dude. Keith. Enough with the weapons already.”

“Whatever he’s got stashed away in development there would be better off in our hands, or destroyed.” Keith looked at Shiro, who inclined his head in tacit agreement. Then he looked over at Allura. “It’s your call on this, Allura.”

Allura had been quiet as they talked, studying the data. “Illianya is right,” she said finally. “The supply yard

looks

like the best target… but, I feel we should start with the research facility as well. Lance brought up some good points.”

Lance preened at Allura’s praise. “All right,” Shiro said. “It’s decided, then. We’re hitting the research facility.” He touched the table with his left hand, bringing up a more detailed version of the star system. “Now, let’s figure out how we’re going to do this.”