Voltron: Legacy

Chapter 14

A while later, we were all rested, fed, and back on the Atlas. Mari was fascinated by the Nashoni, giving them lots of compliments on their eyes. They were pretty fascinated by her, too.
The youngest Nashoni kid, a little boy named Orrys with dark skin and a deep indigo eye, started asking her questions about her drawings, and she offered to draw a portrait of him, making them pretty much best friends already.
While they were hitting it off, supervised by Orrys's parents, the other adult Nashoni were in a meeting with us, Shiro, Katie, and Emma.
"My people have been living on the planet you call Narilex-E5 for thousands of years." Ashar explained. "We were open about our existence for most of that time, but when the Galra Empire began conquering the Universe, my ancestors decided to go into hiding. Our best scientists constructed the Prism Barrier, effectively isolating us from the rest of the universe for the next ten thousand years."
"It's an incredible feat of engineering." Katie gushed. "Being able to completely hide an entire planet like that, I can't imagine the time it would have taken."
Ashar smiled sadly. "We thought it would keep us safe forever. But then, about a year ago, the Archanai came. They struck without warning and massacred most of us. We've never been a very populous race to start with, so it was a devastating blow. Afterwards, we were enslaved, mining the minerals they use to build their foul ships. We're just the lucky ones who survived long enough to get rescued. Tell me, has Voltron defeated the Galra Empire?"
We all nodded.
"Yeah, but it's kind of a long story. If you all could come into my lab, I'll explain." Katie said.
Ashar brightened up. "You have scientific facilities aboard?"
Emma grinned. "Yep. Pretty nice ones, if I do say so myself."
"I'd love to see them."
"Come on, then." Jason said. "If it's not too much trouble, maybe you guys could help me decode the information I got from the Archanai's computers."
"Certainly."
They all walked off in an excited little huddle, leaving the rest of us sitting at the table.
"What do we do now?" Leilah asked.
"Until the scientists decipher that intel we got, there isn't a whole lot we can do." I said. "They'll be on their guard after what we just did, we probably won't be able to sneak in like that again."
"So, we wait then." Xaroc said.
"Pretty much."

As it turned out, we didn't have to wait long before the first breakthrough came. Jason rushed into the mess hall just as we were finishing dinner, glasses slightly askew, grinning maniacally.
"Guys!! We cracked it!!"
I high-fived him, and Leilah grabbed his shoulders and steered him to sit on the bench next to her. "Awesome. You can tell us all about it, but not until you eat something. You skipped lunch today, so make up for it now."
"Yes, Mother." Jason said, his tone full of fond exasperation.
Linnea shoved a heaping plate of food at him.
"She has a point. Eat up. Have the other scientists eaten anything?"
"Not for a bit, no."
"Well, we'll bring them some dinner too, then."
A few minutes later, we were all heading to the lab, carrying plates of food. Emma let us in, practically bouncing with excitement.
"You have to see this. The Nashoni figured out how to crack the code, and most of what we've got is messages sent back to central command! We still don't know exactly where their central command is, but we might just be able to trace the outgoing signal."
"And the messages themselves are pretty interesting too." Jason added. "Translated to English, a lot of it's useful information about the movements of the hive-ships. Apparently there are three main battle fleets, each under some kind of commander, and the rest are smaller scout or supply ships. We're still sifting through all of it, though, and we're getting new stuff almost by the minute."
"There's something else, too." Katie said.
"What?" I asked.
"The messages keep mentioning somebody called the Empress. We think that might be their leader."
Linnea shuddered. "Please tell me this Empress isn't an even larger hive queen. I've seen more than enough of those for one lifetime, thanks very much."
Katie shook her head.
"We don't have enough information to be sure right now, but we don't think she's an Archanai. All we know for sure is that her name is Sareth."
Xaroc gasped, and we all turned to stare at her.
"Xaroc?" Leilah asked. "What's wrong? Have you heard of this Sareth person?"
She shook her head. "Not this specific person, no. But Sareth is a galra name. A really old one. It means vengeance. Well, it's one of about twelve different galra words for vengeance, actually."
Jason raised an eyebrow. "You guys have a dozen words just for vengeance? That sounds like slightly overkill."
She shrugged, fiddling with her braid. "It's a holdover from the Empire. Lots of words for vengeance, strength, battle, death, stuff like that."
"How pleasant." Leilah muttered.
"Guys, focus." I said. "We just made a major breakthrough here."
"Wait, we did?" Jason asked.
"Yes, you goober. If Sareth is a galra name, this Empress lady is probably galra, maybe one of Zarkon's old generals or somebody like that. I mean, she'd have one hell of a grudge."
Everyone stared at me. Their expressions ranged from skeptical, to thoughtful, to downright freaked out.
"It's . . . definitely a possibility." Katie said after a moment. "We shouldn't just jump to conclusions, though. We need a lot more info before we can start pointing fingers."
"I might know a way we could get some of that info." Xaroc said. "During the war, the Blades kept a database of almost every important galra military figure. We've still got it. If this Sareth really is an old Imperial general, she ought to be in there."
I nodded. "Good idea. I'll contact Keith in the morning, see if he'll let us have a look."
I also just wanted to see him, but that was a bit less important.
"We should do something to celebrate this." Linnea said. "We're a big step closer to defeating the Archanai, and I for one could use a little break."
Jason grinned. "I know! I have this movie I've been wanting to show all of you, it's from way back in the 2000s."
"What's it called?"
"Avatar."
A few minutes later, Mari was tucked into bed and I was sprawled on a pile of cushions next to my friends, munching on popcorn and completely engrossed in the story of the strange blue cat-people called Na'vi. It was pretty interesting, being one of the few old movies Jason had shown us that didn't make the "aliens" the villains. By the time I finally went to bed myself, my head was so full of the movie that I almost forgot everything I had to do tomorrow.

When I called Keith the next morning, he answered pretty quickly.
"Hi Karah, hi Xaroc. What's going on?"
I quickly explained what we'd found out from our mission on Narilex-E5, and my hunch about the mysterious Empress Sareth.
"We thought looking around in the Blades' database might help us find clues to who she is. It's the most complete record we have."
He nodded. "Yeah, you can have a look. I'll send you two the passwords."
I smiled. "Thanks, Keith."
"No problem. And Karah?"
"Yeah?"
"Stay safe out there."
"Aw, are you worried about me?"
Keith rolled his eyes. "Don't sound so surprised."
He sent us the passwords, all five of them, then said goodbye and hung up. Once Xaroc and I logged into the database, the real work began. And by work, I mean pure, mind-numbing, deadening boredom. After several hours of sifting through the mass of names, dates, and places, my legs had gone to sleep from sitting cross-legged for so long and my eyes were starting to blur and sting.
"We should take a break." Xaroc said.
"Yeah. If you're admitting defeat, then we've definitely been at this too long."
It took me a few minutes to rub the pins and needles out of my legs enough that I could stand. We both stretched, joints crackling, then headed off to grab a drink.

When we came back, Mari was messing with the computers.
"Mari, don't touch that!" I scolded. "We're trying to do something important right now."
She pouted. "But I found somebody called Sareth for you, see?"
My heart skipped a beat. "Wait, you did?"
She nodded. "Yep. Come look!"
Xaroc and I rushed to the computers, leaning in around my sister. My heart sank as I read through the entry.
"Mari, honey, she died ages ago."
Mari just shrugged. "Well she's the only one in there."
"How do you know?"
She pointed to a little icon near the top of the screen.
"It has a voice search function."
I facepalmed. Xaroc gave a half-groan, half-laugh.
"Quiznack. Karah, you didn't even notice that?"
"Hey, neither did you." I said, grimacing.
This would have been funny, if it hadn't led to us wasting almost the whole day on a dead-end lead. I gave Mari a quick, one-armed hug.
"Thank you for pointing that out, sweetie. Let's go do something fun, alright?"
We spent the rest of the day playing with Mari and trying to ignore the setback. Hopefully, hopefully we'd get another lead to follow soon.