Chapter Text
The Castle was quiet in that strange, weightless way only deep space could manage, like the universe had sucked all the sound out through the nearest airlock. The hum of the ship's systems droned in the background, steady and constant, like the heartbeat of something ancient and waiting.
For once, no one was shouting. No alarms were blaring. No explosions were trying to kill them.
Hunk had claimed the kitchen and was in the middle of another valiant, slow-moving battle with the Altean food replicators. Judging by the vaguely green cube he held with tongs and the face he made after sniffing it, the replicators were winning.
At the common room table, Pidge was lost in what looked like three separate projects, half-disassembled drones, a cracked Galra datapad, and something that may have once been a coffee machine. She muttered to herself as she soldered a circuit with laser focus, pausing only to consult a floating stream of code in Altean, binary, and something else that might've been made up.
Shiro sat nearby, one hand cradling a mug of tea, the other scrolling slowly through intel on his arm console. He didn't say much, but his presence was like gravity, calm, composed, and impossible to ignore. Every so often, he'd glance up to check on the others, just in case someone started a fire. Again.
And then there was Lance.
Sprawled across the couch like the living embodiment of cosmic boredom, Lance had positioned himself dramatically, one arm flung over his eyes like he was mourning the death of entertainment itself. His left leg hung over the backrest, his right foot was tapping aimlessly on the armrest, and every few minutes he let out a long, theatrical sigh, like he was trying to summon an intergalactic crisis out of sheer willpower.
"I'm so bored," he groaned, again.
"You've said that three times in the last five minutes," Pidge said without looking up.
"And I'll say it three more. Maybe four, if despair compels me."
"I could throw something at you," she offered, deadpan.
"Tempting," Lance said, lifting his arm just enough to peek out, "but I'd rather not suffer blunt-force trauma before lunch."
Across the room, Keith leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression unreadable. He hadn't said a word since entering, just watching quietly, gaze shifting from Lance to the datapad in his hand and back again.
Lance could feel it. Keith's silent attention. He always could.
That tension between them, whatever it was, had been dialed up lately. Still sharp, still bristling with rivalry, but now threaded through with something else. Something harder to name. Something neither of them had figured out how to talk about, so instead they just danced around it.
"You could always train," Keith said finally. His voice was neutral, but Lance heard the subtle edge in it, that little poke meant to provoke.
"I could," Lance replied, sitting up with all the energy of a cat being mildly inconvenienced. "But that mean's with you, and then I'd have to look at your face longer than medically recommended, and I don't think I'm cleared for that kind of trauma."
Keith rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“And you love it,” Lance shot back automatically, then froze for half a second, too quick for anyone to call out.
There was a flicker, something like a smile tugging at the corner of Keith's mouth, quickly strangled. Lance caught it, but didn't say anything. Didn't need to. The moment stretched, then passed.
Keith didn't get the chance to respond.
The Castle's comms system chirped, and Coran's voice rang through the corridor, full of crisp enthusiasm.
"Paladins! Kindly report to the bridge. We've received a transmission from the Blade of Marmora. Mission briefing in five!"
And just like that, the room snapped to attention.
Pidge shut her tablet with a snap. Hunk tossed the green cube back into the replicator tray like it had personally offended him. Shiro stood, his calm replaced by sharp readiness. Even the background hum of the Castle seemed to change, as if the ship itself sensed the shift.
They filed into the hallway, boots striking the floor in a syncopated rhythm. No one was speaking yet, everyone already halfway in mission mode.
Lance drifted into step beside Pidge. She held her tablet under one arm and walked like someone being chased by a deadline.
"Pidge, my second favourite," Lance said, tone casual, "I'm just saying, taking you're tablet everywhere with you makes it pretty hard not to tease you."
Pidge snorted. "Bold talk from a guy who brings hair gel to alien war zones. It does nothing for you're looks Lane"
"Wow. Rude. You wound me. Right in my beautiful, irreplaceable soul." Lance gasped, hand flyinh straight to his chest.
"You'll be fine. You've got, like, two brain cells. One to guide you, one to keep you humble."
"That's rich coming from someone who named their drone after a Final Fantasy boss."
Pidge glared at Lance"It's not a name, it's a designation."
"It's a name. You literally told it goodnight last week."
"And he said it back."
"...Okay, that's actually kind of impressive."
Up ahead, Keith stalked down the hall like he was already mentally halfway through the mission, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes focused. Behind them, Hunk trudged along, mumbling something about soup and shielding systems, only half awake.
Shiro glanced back just in time to hear the end of the argument.
"Save the energy for the mission," he said, not unkindly.
"She started it," Lance muttered.
"She's going to finish it," Pidge shot back.
They reached the bridge just as the lights dimmed slightly, casting the room in cool blues and silvers. The main viewscreen was already active. In the corner pulsed the sigil of the Blade of Marmora, a slow, steady thrum like a heartbeat waiting to quicken.
The transmission flickered. A moment of static. Then it cleared.
A hooded Blade operative appeared on the screen. The image was grainy, not unusual for deep-space comms, but the tension in the figure's voice cut through clean.
"Paladins of Voltron. We've intercepted intelligence on a Galra science outpost in the Farthenan Sector. It's heavily fortified, but what they're working on is... dangerous. A prototype weapon designed to manipulate temporal energy."
Pidge's head snapped up. "Temporal? As in-?"
"Time," Shiro said grimly.
The operative nodded. "We don't have all the details. The weapon is incomplete, unstable. But if activated, it could fracture spacetime across the entire sector. Your mission: infiltrate, extract all relevant data, and destroy the prototype before it can go live."
Hunk let out a low whistle. "Cool. Cool cool cool. Just a casual, no-stress, prevent-a-reality-meltdown kind of day."
Shiro turned to Allura. "Coordinates?"
"Already uploaded," she replied, tapping the console. "The outpost is deep in Galra territory. A direct approach will set off every sensor in a hundred light-years. We'll need to cloak the Lions and fly in low through the debris belt."
The sector map projected into the air above the holotable, a swirling mass of stars, shipwrecks, and Galra patrol markers.
Keith's arms were crossed tight. "That's a long run into hostile space. We'll have maybe a half-varga window before their perimeter scans loop."
Lance stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he scanned the map. "Hold up. There, right there." He pointed to a dense cluster of rotating debris. "We fly through that and mask our energy signatures. It's tight, but we'll be ghosts until we're right on top of the station."
Keith gave him a sidelong look. "That's barely navigable. One wrong move and we're shredded."
Lance just smirked. "Good thing I'm amazing."
Keith looked like he was ready to argue, again, but Shiro stepped in.
"It's risky, but it's our best shot. Let's run with Lance's route."
Pidge was already typing furiously. "Once I'm inside their system, I can trigger a fake lockdown. Clear the guards. Maybe even buy us an extraction window."
Shiro nodded. "Hunk, Pidge, you're the infiltration team. Lane, Kieth, you'll provide air support from the Lions with me. We move fast, in and out. No heroics."
Coran tapped a countdown into the console. "ETA: two-point-eight vargas. Time to gear up!"
The screen blinked off. Lights returned to normal.
But the tension didn't fade.
The others dispersed to prep, but Lance lingered by the holotable, staring at the sector still glowing faintly. A Galra weapon that could twist time. It shouldn't have gotten under his skin. But it did. The quiet gnaw of something deeper than nerves.
A shadow passed by. Keith.
"Don't freeze up, sharpshooter."
Lance didn't look over. "Please. I live for this."
Keith didn't answer, just kept walking, boots echoing down the hall.
Once he was gone, Lance let out a breath, rubbed his hands over his face, and murmured under his breath, quieter this time.
"...Yeah. Born ready."
✦
The Castle shifted from its easy, drifting stillness to full operational alert in a matter of minutes. Overhead, the hangar lights flared to life in sequence, casting long, dramatic shadows beneath the towering Lions. Their armored forms gleamed under the white-blue glow like ancient sentinels waking from hibernation.
Below them, the team moved with the steady rhythm of experience. It wasn't frantic, not anymore. This many missions in, they all knew what had to be done and how fast they had to do it. Gear was hauled, systems synced, checks run. The background hum of engines and calibration software layered over the sound of boots on metal, voices shouting over comms, and the occasional sharp clang of a dropped tool.
Hunk grunted as he hefted a crate of upgraded shield generators toward Yellow, his exo-suit groaning slightly with the weight.
"Man," he muttered, "every time someone says 'unstable Galra tech,' you just know it's gonna end in chaos. Never just a quiet 'retrieve and go.' It's always, 'Oops! Surprise giant death cannon!'"
Pidge zipped past on her hoverboard, a tablet under one arm and a portable data spike clenched in her hand like a dagger. "If it's that unstable, I want a sample of the core," she called back, eyes locked on a string of equations on her screen.
"Yeah, and I want my eyebrows to remain attached to my face," Hunk shot back.
"Acceptable risk."
Hunk shook his head. "That's what you said last time. The explosion sang, Pidge."
She didn't even turn around. "And it was in perfect pitch!"
"Make sure your comms are fully synced and your suits recalibrated," Shiro called out. "We're flying into a high-interference zone, if we lose signal, there won't be time to fix it."
Keith was already suited up, strapping down the final locks on his blade harness. He moved with quiet efficiency, all tightly-coiled focus, no wasted motion. His gloves clicked into place with sharp finality, and he slung Red's helmet under one arm, scanning the deck like he was mentally walking the mission step by step.
A few meters away, Lance leaned lazily against Blue's paw, rolling his shoulders as he tugged on one glove, then the other, slow and deliberate.
"Y'know," Lance said loud enough for Keith to hear, "you really do suit up like you're the main character in a tragic anime sword fight. All that brooding intensity. Could use a wind machine though. For dramatic effect."
Keith shot him a look, unimpressed. "Some of us take missions seriously."
"I do take missions seriously," Lance replied, mock-offended. "I just also take style seriously. Balance is important."
Keith turned away, clearly choosing not to take the bait, but Lance caught the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth before he did. Not a smile, but close.
It settled something in Lance's chest. He didn't dwell on it.
Allura strode in a moment later, Coran just behind her. She moved with that effortless command that still caught Lance off guard sometimes, half diplomat, half battle-hardened warrior, as calm in diplomacy as she was in open combat.
"Is everyone prepared?" she asked, voice crisp.
"Just about," Pidge replied, now halfway up Green's side panel. "I'm syncing the Lions' cloaking fields with the rotation of the debris belt around the outpost. If I screw this up, we'll ping every Galra sensor in the quadrant."
"Then maybe don't screw it up," Lance offered brightly.
Pidge, without looking down, raised one finger in a silent, eloquent gesture.
Lance snorted and headed toward Blue, calling over his shoulder, "Love you too, Pidge!"
The Lions towered around them in a loose arc, the final checks echoing across the hangar. One by one, the Paladins climbed into their cockpits, disappearing into their bondmates like pieces of a larger whole clicking into place.
Lance paused before entering Blue's cockpit, resting a hand against her metal shoulder. She pulsed softly beneath his fingers, not quite a sound, more a sensation in the chest. Alive. Listening.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I've got a weird feeling about this one too."
He climbed in. The seat enveloped him with a low hum, cool panels locking into place around his arms and legs. The HUD blinked to life in front of him, Blue's systems lighting up with practiced ease. There was comfort in the familiarity of it, the rhythm, the sync, the bond humming steady beneath the noise of his thoughts.
Outside, the hangar lights flashed green.
The comms crackled to life.
"Team, report in," came Shiro's voice, steady, grounded.
Pidge's voice followed a second later, clipped and clear: "Green's online. Cloaking calibration holding."
"Yellow's up. Shield mods tested and good."
"Red's ready."
Lance grinned and leaned forward slightly in his seat, fingers dancing over Blue's controls. "Blue is radiant and locked in. Let's do this."
Allura's voice followed, cool and commanding. "Then we move. Launch sequence initiated."
The hangar doors peeled open like a mouth opening to the void. Beyond them, the stars glittered sharp and cold, and the swirling shadows of the debris field spun slow and silent around the far-off Galra outpost.
One by one, the Lions roared to life, engines flaring blue-white as they lifted from the deck.
Red surged forward in a burst of light, Green following in a shimmer of green energy. Yellow rose steadily, wings folding into combat position. Blue pulsed once, then rocketed out after them, slotting into formation like a puzzle piece finding home.
Space stretched out around them in a vast, eternal silence, a sea of cold stars and endless dark as they flew. Below the Lions, the debris field unfurled like the scattered remains of a long-forgotten battlefield, stretching for klicks in every direction. Hulking wreckage drifted slowly, quietly, ancient cruisers cracked in half, mining rigs torn open like tin cans, and satellite husks that still blinked feebly with dying lights.
It was haunting. Beautiful, in a way. But mostly, it looked like a graveyard.
"Man," Lance breathed over the comms, voice low and reverent, "Space never stops being creepy. It's like the universe got tired of holding all this together and just let go."
His cockpit was dim except for a soft blue glow, casting shadows across his face. Blue hummed quietly around him, gliding with ease through the dark, and Lance's hands moved across her controls with the ease of instinct.
"Focus," Keith's voice cut in, sharp and steady. "That debris field is our only cover."
"Relax, Mullet," Lance replied, smirking despite the tension in his shoulders. "Blue and I? We're born for this. Flying through impossible gaps at reckless speeds is kinda our thing."
"I'm not worried about your flying," Keith said, his tone just dry enough to sting. "I'm worried about you showing of. Again."
Lance clicked his tongue. "Wow. No faith in me at all. I'm hurt."
Before Keith could fire back, Shiro's voice came through like a steady heartbeat. "Eyes up, team. We're entering the field now. Stay close and stay sharp."
The Lions shifted automatically, responding to Shiro's command with silent coordination. One by one, they dipped into the shadow of the debris field, swallowed by its chaotic mass.
The light changed immediately. The bright expanse of open space was replaced by dancing shadows and flashes of starlight filtering through jagged metal. Massive chunks of wreckage spun lazily past, some no bigger than a pod, others as large as the Castle of Lions itself. Entire Galra battleships floated in silence, their hulls cracked open, leaking frozen gases like ghosts.
"Okay," Pidge said, pulling up a projected grid of the field in Green's cockpit. Her fingers danced over her controls, aligning streams of code and telemetry in real time. "I'm mapping a stable corridor. It's tight, but it should give us enough sensor cover to get within a deca-splick of the station. I'm uploading the path now."
A tunnel-like route lit up across their shared HUDs, winding, jagged, dangerously narrow in places.
"We're talking threading-a-needle-through-a-hurricane levels of precision," Pidge muttered, chewing her lip. "One drift, and we hit something with a radiation leak, or worse, a magnetic mine still active."
"Sounds fun," Lance said, maybe a little too cheerfully.
"Your idea of fun needs serious work," Hunk groaned, and even over the comms, they could all hear him clutching his seat harness.
Keith surged forward slightly in the formation, Red cutting through a spinning hunk of what looked like a destroyed cargo hauler. "We follow this path," he said, "and we'll come out right under the station's sensor perimeter. From there, we land on the dark side, hit a service hatch. No alarms."
"Assuming they haven't rerouted their patrols since the Blade got that intel," Pidge added. "Which they probably have."
"I can spoof their monitoring if I get close enough to slice in," she continued. "But I'll need at least ten uninterrupted doboshs of connection time."
"That's ten doboshs too long if they see us coming," Keith said.
"Unless..." Lance adjusted his angle, Blue gliding between two twisted solar arrays. "We split. Keith and I can circle around to the southern ring, stir up a little noise. A distraction. While they're trying to figure out if we're an attack squad or just a malfunction, Pidge and Hunk can slip in through the hatch."
"Risky," Shiro said. He didn't say no, just let the word hang there in the comms.
"Yeah, but it's classic Lance," Pidge added, deadpan. "Bold, dramatic, moderately unhinged."
Lance gave an exaggerated scoff. "Unhinged? Please. I'm perfectly hinged."
Keith's voice came back after a beat, a little reluctant. "...It might work."
Lance grinned. "Wow. Was that a compliment? Are you feeling okay?"
"Don't push it."
Shiro cut in again, voice shifting into command mode. "Alright, here's the breakdown: Lance and Keith, take point and lead the decoy run. Don't engage unless absolutely necessary. Pidge and Hunk, enter through the hatch once I give the signal. Your priority is disabling the prototype before it goes online. Everyone clear?"
"Copy that."
"Got it."
"Green's ready."
Lance saluted reflexively, even though no one could see him. "Blue's prepped for a party."
As they slipped deeper into the field, the target came into view, a hulking Galra station nestled at the heart of the wreckage like a wound in the void. Its surface was matte black, segmented with glowing violet lines and bristling with defensive cannons. Drones circled its perimeter like silent sentries, weaving between chunks of debris with mechanical precision.
Lance felt the hairs on his neck rise. Even from here, the outpost felt wrong, like it was pulsing with something unstable just beneath the surface.
"Visual on the station," he reported. "It's uglier than I expected. And I expected pretty ugly."
"You're about to make it uglier," Keith muttered.
Lance's mouth quirked into a grin. "Aw, you do believe in me."
"Less talking, more flying," Shiro reminded them gently.
In his cockpit, Lance's fingers tightened around Blue's controls. All the joking, the banter, it helped. But his gut still twisted with unease. He couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't going to be a normal mission. Something was waiting in that outpost. Something that didn't want to be found.
Blue's systems hummed softly beneath him, syncing with his heartbeat.
"Alright, girl," Lance whispered, voice low. "Let's go shake the stars."
"All Lions, cloak," Shiro's voice cut in, steady and low.
One by one, their Lions shimmered out of sight, bending light around their armored frames. The glowing HUD elements inside dimmed slightly to match the stealth protocols. In formation, they glided forward, slipping deeper into the graveyard of broken ships and shattered satellites.
Lance leaned into Blue's controls, guiding her through a narrow gap between two warped slabs of metal, the hulls of long-dead vessels fused together from a past battle. Blue moved like she was part of him, her sleek frame adapting fluidly to his intent. The way water finds its path through stone.
"See?" Lance said, the grin audible in his voice. "Like threading a needle."
"Focus," Keith snapped automatically from just ahead, Red weaving through a corridor of wreckage like a blade through silk.
"Oh, I am focused," Lance replied, his eyes flicking across the nav readout. "Focused on not getting us all turned into space paste."
Hunk's nervous laugh came over the comms. "Please keep doing that. The not-dying thing."
They reached the edge of the outpost's sensor net, an invisible web humming with detection signals. The Lions broke formation there, Keith and Lance peeling off toward the southern ring, while Pidge and Hunk angled toward the darker, more shielded side of the station.
"Alright," Pidge said, fingers flying across her interface, "signal spoof is ready. Once Keith and Lance make some noise, I'll hijack their hatch sensors. That gives us a thirty-tick window. After that... we're on our own."
"Stick to the plan," Shiro said, his voice level. "We're in and out. No unnecessary risks. Let's make this clean."
Keith switched to a private comm channel, just between him and Lance. "Try not to get carried away."
Lance raised an eyebrow, even though he knew Keith couldn't see it. "Me? Please. I'm the definition of restraint."
"Right," Keith muttered.
They accelerated toward the southern perimeter. Patrol drones drifted in lazy loops, their sensor cones sweeping wide, just enough gap between them to slip through. Keith's Red Lion darted first, and Lance followed with Blue a half-second behind, riding the wake of turbulence.
The cloaking held. No alarms. No lock-ons.
Until Lance fired.
A single, precisely aimed plasma shot struck one of the station's exterior sensor turrets. It exploded in a brief, bright burst, enough light and heat to trip every proximity alert within range.
And just like that, the quiet shattered.
Alarms screamed to life across the station. Twin hangar bays lit up as two Galra fighters launched into open space, engines flaring with angry purple light.
"Showtime," Lance grinned, dropping cloak.
Red and Blue decloaked in perfect sync, drawing the attention of the fighters immediately. Keith surged forward with sharp, aggressive movementsm his Lion slicing through space like a blade. Lance flanked wide, looping beneath a broken comm tower and locking on.
He fired, one clean shot. The first fighter exploded in a spinning shockwave, debris tumbling through the void.
"Hey Keith," Lance said, lining up his next target. "Try to keep up."
"I am ahead," Keith snapped, slicing through the second fighter's wing with Red's plasma blade. It spiraled out of control and vanished in the wreckage.
"Not for long, Mullet!"
Their banter had a familiar rhythm, practiced, even comforting. It was the kind of thing that made the chaos feel manageable. Like they were still in control.
While Red and Blue danced with the fighters, Pidge and Hunk slipped into the shadowed sector of the station, hidden from direct line-of-sight.
"I'm in," Pidge whispered. The soft click-click of her hacking rig echoed faintly through her mic. "Spoofing the hatch sensors now... wait for it... done. You've got thirty ticks. Go!"
The outer hatch hissed open under her override, releasing a puff of stale air into the void. Hunk went first, his bulk surprisingly graceful in low gravity. Pidge followed close behind.
Back outside, two more Galra ships joined the fray, heavier models, their signatures blipping onto sensors as they powered weapons.
Keith's tone sharpened. "Lance. More incoming. Focus."
"I see them." Lance's voice lost its cocky edge. His hands moved fast, guiding Blue into a spiraling roll. He fired mid-spin, the bolt hitting dead center on one of the new fighters. It erupted in a violent flare. The second fighter tried to follow, but clipped a hunk of debris and pinwheeled out of control.
"Nice," Keith muttered.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield fell silent.
Then Pidge's voice crackled through, tense and low.
"Uh... guys? I'm getting something on internal scans. There's a huge energy signature coming from the station's core. Bigger than a standard reactor. It's unstable, the output keeps spiking like it's... alive."
"Alive?" Lance echoed, already uneasy.
"Not literally, I hope. But yeah. We're talking weapon-weird and reactor-weird."
Shiro's voice came in, sharp with concern. "Move fast. That's probably the prototype. You find it, you don't analyze it, you destroy it."
Outside, the final fighter went down, Red's blade slicing through its engine block. It disintegrated into glowing shards that tumbled into the darkness.
Keith exhaled, scanning the void. "Area's clear, for now. Pidge, Hunk, find what you can and get out."
"Copy," Pidge said, already moving. But there was a tremor in her voice now. "This place feels wrong. Like it's watching us."
Lance floated Blue up beside Red, both Lions in formation again, weapons scanning the station's upper decks. He tried to shake the unease building in his chest, but it clung there, a low hum under his ribs.
"Hey," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "You ever get the feeling the universe is watching you?"
Keith glanced over through the cockpit feed. "What?"
Lance blinked, then smiled faintly. "Nothing."
They turned their attention back to the outpost, watching, waiting, while something deep within the station began to stir.
✦
The air inside the Galra station was cold and sterile, the kind of chill that seeped into your skin no matter how many layers you wore. Pidge's boots made barely a sound as she crept through the dimly lit maintenance corridor, her visor displaying schematics she'd pulled from the hatch terminal. Hunk followed close behind, his usual nervous energy kept in check by the weight of the mission.
"Okay," Pidge whispered, eyes flicking between her datapad and the hallway ahead. "According to the layout, the prototype energy source should be housed in the central core chamber, two corridors over and three levels down."
"Three levels down," Hunk echoed, glancing nervously at the purple-lit walls. "Why is it never just one corridor away?"
Pidge gave him a quick grin. "Because that would be too easy."
They reached a junction. Two Galra sentries patrolled the intersecting hall, bulky, armored, and very much in the way. Pidge crouched, pulling a small sphere from her belt. "EMP pulse. Small range. Cover your ears."
Hunk pressed his hands to his ears. She rolled the device across the floor, and a split second later, a silent flash of blue light rippled through the hall. The sentries jerked once and crumpled, their armor going dark.
"Still got it," Pidge muttered, vaulting over them.
"You terrify me sometimes," Hunk whispered as he followed.
They descended through a narrow service shaft, the hum of the station growing louder the deeper they went. By the time they reached the lower levels, the corridors were different, less structured, more experimental. Wires hung from the ceilings, conduits pulsed erratically, and warning sigils glowed faintly on the walls.
Hunk swallowed. "Pidge, I have a bad feeling about this."
"Yeah," she said, her voice hushed now. "Me too."
They turned a final corner, and froze.
The core chamber stretched out before them, massive and eerily quiet. At its center was a circular platform surrounded by raised catwalks, and on it sat the source of the energy spike: a machine that pulsed like a heartbeat. It wasn't like Galra tech. Its structure was curved, almost organic, intertwined with violet conduits that flared and dimmed at irregular intervals. The air around it hummed .
"Whoa," Hunk breathed. "That's not a weapon. At least, not a normal one."
Pidge's scanner flared with readings she didn't even recognize. "This is way beyond anything I've seen. Whatever it is, it's unstable. If they activate it, I don't even know what'll happen."
She moved forward to interface with the nearest console, but as soon as her fingers brushed the screen, the entire chamber lit up in a flash of violent purple. Sirens wailed. Energy surged through the conduits like a living thing.
"Uh- Pidge?" Hunk yelled.
"It wasn't me!" she snapped, trying to disengage. "The system's on a timed cycle. They were about to turn it on."
Up in orbit, alarms flooded into the Castle's comms.
"Pidge? Hunk? Report!" Allura's voice came through sharply.
"We've got a problem!" Pidge yelled over the rising hum. "The machine's activating early. We're locked in the core chamber, security doors just sealed!"
Lance's voice cut in. "You guys need help?"
Shiro didn't hesitate. "Lance, get in there. Keith, we will cover him."
"Yes, sir!" Lance whooped, already turning Blue toward the hatch. "Don't worry, genius squad, your knight in shining armor is on his way!"
Keith's dry voice followed. "Just don't get distracted."
"Who, me?" Lance said with mock offense, already breaking formation.
Inside, the lights strobed as Pidge frantically typed at the console. Hunk planted his bayard against the door, trying to manually override the locking mechanisms. The machine in the center was accelerating, energy gathering at its core like a storm about to break.
She didn't look up. "I think it's a reactor. A self-generating one. Maybe even a dimensional converter."
He blinked. "A what now?!"
"Whatever it is," Pidge muttered, "if they switch it on, and it keeps destabilizing like this-"
A tremor ran through the floor. Panels popped. Lights shattered.
"-we're looking at a core breach. And if this thing's tied into subspace like I think it is..."
Hunk finished her sentence, eyes wide. "It's gonna blow a hole in reality."
Pidge nodded, working furiously at the terminal, code scrolling down her visor. Her fingers were a blur, but the system was fighting her, encrypted with layers she'd never seen before. Every time she shut down one process, another spun up to replace it.
"This isn't Galra code," she hissed. "It's like their system's fused with something else. I can't isolate the core loop."
"Translation, we're running out of time," Hunk said, pressing his bayard against the massive doors again. His muscles strained as the locking bolts groaned. "Come on... come on-!"
The doors didn't budge.
The lights overhead began to flicker wildly. Conduits overhead spat sparks. The machine gave a low, bone-deep whum that made both of them flinch.
Pidge glanced at her readings again, heart skipping. "Energy output just spiked again. If this thing goes critical, it could take out the entire sector."
"You're joking," Hunk whispered.
"I wish I was," she snapped back. "Lance, status?"
"Almost there!" Lance called back, weaving Blue through the debris field with practiced ease. "You weren't kidding about the narrow path, jeez, Pidge, this is like threading a needle with my eyes closed."
Lance kicked Blue into a sharp bank, avoiding a chunk of metal that spun too close. His heart hammered, but it wasn't fear. It was that familiar, reckless adrenaline that came right before a mission went sideways. He could hear Pidge and Hunk's panicked chatter over the comms. He didn't even think about waiting.
"Shiro, I'm going in now."
Blue decloaked near the outpost's shadowed hatch, locking on with mag-clamps. "You've got this," he murmured to himself, vaulting from his seat and grabbing his bayard. The moment his boots hit the floor of the docking tunnel, he was running.
Back in the chamber, alarms screamed. The machine's central core split open like a blooming flower, revealing a sphere of energy suspended inside, not solid, but shifting, rippling with strange patterns. The air warped around it, heatless but intense, like the fabric of space was bending under its own weight.
Pidge swore under her breath. "That's not a reactor. That's a tear generator. They're trying to force open a spatial rift."
Hunk's face went pale. "Why would anyone- nope, never mind. Galra. Of course."
The console in front of Pidge suddenly locked her out completely, the screen flashing with Galra sigils. A cold voice echoed through the chamber in guttural Galra, announcing something neither of them fully understood, but the countdown that began flashing on the wall was clear enough.
"Thirty ticks," she whispered. "We've got thirty ticks before this thing opens."
Hunk looked at the sealed doors, panic creeping into his voice. "Pidge, Lance better get here now."
As if on cue, the heavy door suddenly shuddered, then exploded inward in a shower of sparks. Lance burst through the smoke, blaster in one hand and a grin plastered on his face.
"Miss me?"
Hunk actually let out a relieved laugh. "You have no idea."
Pidge didn't even look up, she was borderline hitting the control, forcing her way back in. "Lance, either help me crack this system or find a way to shut that thing down manually."
He stared at the swirling rift core in the center of the room, awe flickering briefly across his face. "Uh, define 'manually'-"
"Whatever involves you doing something fast!" she snapped.
Lance's grin returned, sharper this time. "Okay, okay! Knight in shining armor, reporting for duty."
The catwalk shuddered under Lance's boots as he ran, a low metallic groan echoing through the chamber with each beat of the machine below. Up close, the thing didn't look like a weapon, it looked alive. Plates shifted with a slow, unnatural rhythm, seams flexing like breathing skin. Violet light crawled along the conduits, pulsing in uneven waves. Each flare left the taste of ozone and copper on Lance's tongue.
"Lance!" Pidge's voice cracked through the comm, sharp and cutting. "Lower platform, there's a control panel. Failsafe's there. If you can reach it, hit anything that'll break the core's sync!"
"Might?" he shouted back, already moving. The chamber lurched beneath him, a deep vibration knocking him off balance.
"Do you want me to lie and say definitely?!" she snapped, fingers hammering her console. Even through the static, the rhythm of her work was weirdly reassuring.
The gap between the catwalk and the lower platform gaped like a mouth. Lance didn't think, he vaulted the railing. His palms scraped metal. He hit the ground in a rough roll, shoulder clipping a conduit that threw sparks across his visor. The arc singed his jacket and filled his mouth with a flash of metal tang.
The control panel crouched in a nest of humming cables, half-lit in that same violet glow. It was Galra tech, no question, sharp lines, brutal efficiency, but someone had overlaid it with something older. Stranger. Glyphs curved across its surface like ink in water, sliding just out of focus when he looked too long. The interface vibrated faintly through his boots.
"Okay," he muttered, steadying his breath. "This is either gonna be genius or really, really stupid."
He pressed his palm to the console. The symbols flared instantly in response, as if recognizing him. A new sequence appeared, blinking in rapid succession, some kind of code. He didn't know how he knew it was the failsafe, but he did.
"Fifteen ticks, Lance!" Hunk's voice cracked in his ear. "Pressure spike incoming!"
Pidge's screen stuttered as the machine hiccuped. "The encryption's layered, and weird. Bio-adaptive handshake. It's looking for... something alive."
That made his skin crawl.
He reached out anyway.
The panel was warm. Not hot, not metal warm. Skin-warm. A pulse, slow and deep, under his palm. Symbols lit up beneath his fingers, buttons, forming a rhythm. He didn't know the language, but he didn't need to. Patterns answered patterns. Instinct took over.
“Follow the flashing series,” Pidge said. “Short-long, short-long, no, wait, reverse the second pair and-”
Hunk cursed. “Lance, the conduits are getting unstable. There’s a feedback loop forming, don’t touch any of the main lines!”
Too late. Lance's thumbs were already moving. He tracked the lights, the tempo, followed the rhythm instead of trying to fight it.
A bolt of energy lashed across the platform, slamming into the console. Lance flinched back. The symbols scrambled, flickering. Another vibration rippled through the floor, and vapor hissed from a cracked pipe. The stink of scorched wires hit his nose.
"Ten ticks!" Hunk again. "Ten!"
Pidge's voice was thinner now. "Next sequence has to land, or we'll lose the buffer. I can't reroute without crashing the whole damn field."
Lance's ribs ached with every breath. His hands were starting to shake. The machine's rhythm was breaking down, pulses speeding up, then slowing, erratic.
He slammed his eyes shut for a second. Breathed. "Trust the pattern," he muttered. "No improv."
"Six ticks," Hunk said, barely audible now. "We need another way-"
"There is no other way," Pidge said. "Just don't lose the rhythm."
He locked in, focused. The symbols returned, fast now, urgent. He matched them. His fingers moved on muscle memory alone, each press making his nerves scream.
The final command wasn't on the interface.
It was hidden, buried behind a spiral sigil, blocked by a strange lattice of flexing metal. The switch beneath it buzzed faintly against his knuckles. Alive. He wedged the butt of his bayard against it, sweat stinging in the dust on his skin.
"Three ticks!" Hunk's voice was almost lost in the escalating howl of the machine.
"Three," Pidge echoed, breathless. "If you lose the rhythm, back out. Wait for my command,"
"I'm working on it!" Lance shouted, sweat already starting to drip into his collar. He moved through the blinking sequence, tapping the symbols as quickly as he could. When the console locked up, he slammed his bayard into a stuck switch. Sparks burst out, and the panel hissed as something released.
Suddenly, a red warning sigil blared across the screen.
"Wait, Lance- don't-!" Pidge shouted, her voice rising in alarm.
Too late.
Lance's hand was already coming down on the final switch.