Voltron: Legacy

Chapter 1

I climbed the last few stairs, then crept out onto the Galaxy Garrison's roof. Nobody else was up here tonight, thank goodness. It had been several months since I came here. Although I liked what I was learning, it had been way too long since I'd had any time to myself.
I wasn't technically supposed to be up here. But who cared? I flopped backwards, carefully lowering my head onto the cool, rough concrete, and stared up at the stars.
Right now, the night sky looked distant, peaceful. It was almost hard to believe that there was so much going on out there. Starships going back and forth between planets and galaxies, important things happening, people going about their lives in all kinds of different ways.

The communicator in my back pocket buzzed, making me jump. Oh, great. I had forgotten I was supposed to check in with somebody tonight. Well, I couldn't really hang up on the call. I sighed, tapped the screen, and waited until a familiar face popped up. Dark grayish-blue eyes, set in a sharp-featured face topped by a thick mess of black hair. Keith Kogane, my mentor and sort-of friend, smiled wryly at me.
"Hi, Karah. Snuck out, huh?"
I nodded, a bit sheepish. "Just to the roof. I needed some time to think."
"That's understandable. Just don't make a habit of it, okay?"
"I won't." I promised.
I meant it, too. Keith was the person who'd found me and my little sister Mari, barely surviving in a slum on our home planet, and brought us here to train at the Garrison. He'd changed my life. I planned to repay that debt by making him proud.
"So aside from this, how are you and Mari doing?"
"Pretty good. Mari's having a great time in the Earth school you signed her up for. Every weekend she comes over to visit and she's always bouncing around, telling me all about whatever project she's been doing and the new friends she's made. Apparently she wins a lot of competitions on the monkey bars at recess."
Keith laughed. "Yeah, I can see why having four arms would give her an edge there."
"I've been getting pretty good grades, too." I added.
"What about the simulator? How are you doing on that?"
I grinned. "Oh my god, it's the best! It's actually kinda too easy, though. I can't wait for next week. We start flying real fighters then."
"Good for you! The controls on the simulator tend to respond a few seconds slower than the real thing, so you'll have to kind of recalibrate once you start flying for real."
We talked a little more about that kind of thing, and then went off on a tangent about what the best kinds of dive maneuvers for different situations were. By the time we were finished with that, it was nearly midnight.
"Alright." Keith said. "You should be getting back to bed, and I need to go."
I didn't respond, too busy staring at the strange light in the sky. Which was steadily getting closer. What was that?
"Karah?" Keith asked. "What's going on?"
"I think there's a meteor about to hit nearby."
He frowned. "There weren't any meteors on a collision course for Earth last time I checked. None. Get inside and tell somebody what's going on."
I nodded. "On it."
Keith hung up, and I ran for the stairwell.

On my way down the stairs, I bumped into Jason and Leilah. They were supposed to be my training team, but I didn't really know either of them. They were both humans, and had always seemed a little weirded out by my four arms and everything.
"Oh, hi Karah."
"Guys, we need to find Katie Holt."
They blinked at me. "Uh, why?"
"Because there's a weird meteor about to land near here, and she's the only adult I trust to not get us in trouble if we tell her."
Jason shrugged. "Alright. Her lab is this way."
He pointed down a hallway that looked exactly the same as all the others.
"How do you know?" I asked.
He adjusted his square glasses, looking smug. "I memorized all the layout maps. C'mon, hurry up."
We dashed along the hallway, making a few turns, until sure enough we got to the Holts' private lab area. I banged on the door until it slid open, revealing a short young woman with wild ginger hair and a gigantic mug of coffee in one hand. She raised an eyebrow behind her round glasses when she saw us.
"Why are you cadets out of bed this late?"
Leilah and Jason pointed at me, innocent expressions on their faces. I death-glared at them. They had totally been sneaking out too. Then I turned back to Katie. "There's a meteor heading right for us. I was up on the roof and I saw it."
She blinked. "There aren't any meteors scheduled to hit for months. Come in while I check it out."
We obeyed, careful not to touch the jumble of computer parts, blueprints, and half-finished prototypes that overflowed the worktables.
Katie dashed over to one of the many computers lining the walls. "Okay, running a scan . . . WHAT THE QUIZNACK?!!"
"What?" I demanded, rushing over to look at the screen. My jaw dropped. "Are those . . .?"
The scientist nodded. "Unless we're both hallucinating, which is statistically really unlikely, those are the Voltron lions. Well, three of them. Green, Black, and Blue."
Jason gaped. "Why are they here?"
Leilah couldn't even form words, eyes wide as she fidgeted nervously with the hem of her blue headscarf.
Katie shrugged. "Whatever it is, it's something big. Green might be able to tell me. Come on!"
"Wait, us too?"
"Well I don't trust you alone in my lab, so yeah!"