Taking A Chance

Bridge to Engines

'I'm sending a message to the Coalition to see if anyone can help,' Pidge said.
‘I'll contact father,' Allura said.
Keith used his datapad to send a message to Malay.
‘Why are they coming so slowly,’ wondered Lance, ‘Why don't they just wormhole close to Earth.’
‘I'm picking up a strange energy spike, from on of their engines' said Hunk. ‘I think they may have mechanical issues.’
‘Or they're pretending to,' said Lance. ‘If they draw us away from Earth, they could wormhole in behind us.'
Allura stopped the Castle.
‘Umm...Lance may actually be on to something.' Pidge said.
‘No need to sound so surprised,’ Lance retorted.
In the blink of any eye, the Carandian ship appeared in front of them, and fighters spewed forth.
‘Get to your lions,’ Shiro ordered.
The top brass marvel when the seats the paladins where sitting in, disappeared and came back empty.
‘Rear Admiral, if you and your men are going to be here you can make yourselves useful,’ Allura said, indicating the seats.
Each of them ran forward and slipped into a seats.
‘Princess, I’m picking up another life sign in the Castle,’ Coran said.
‘Where?’ asked Allura.
‘Just outside in the corridor,’ Coran said.
The door slid open and they all turned.
Collins shot to his feet. ‘Cadet, what are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to see what was going on,’ said Greg. ‘Where’s Keith?’
Collins turned as the paladins filled the screen, and sat down again.
Adam looked from Greg to Keith and wondered what was going on between them.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Allura said.
‘Cadet, stand over to the side and say out of the way,’ Collins ordered.
Greg frowned, but did as ordered and looked up at the screen.
Shiro: Keith you and Lance try and disable the hanger bays on the ship, we need to stop them unloading all their fighters.
Keith: On it.
Shiro: Pidge, Hunk, we'll take on the fighters.
Hunk: Copy that.
‘Adam, can you show them how to use the weapons?’ asked Allura.
‘Yes, princess,' Adam said. He moved to each man in turn and showed them how to target and fire the weapons.
When they were ready, Allura piloted the ship into firing distance. There was so much chatter it was hard to tell who was saying what.
Keith: Lance, aim for the forward hanger, get some shots through the doors.
Lance: Okay.
Keith: I'll keep the fighters off you.
They flew in close to the ship and followed it's line until they reached the hanger, and Lance took four shots, all going through the doors and into the hanger.
Keith: Nice work, Sharpshooter.
Lance: Anything for you, baby.
An explosion sent flame out the hanger door, and the ship began to list to one side.
Keith and Lance flew wound the ship and did the same on the other side.
The stream of fighters stopped as they landed a critical blow to the Carandian ship.
Pidge: We've taken out the last of the fighters.
Shiro: Head back to the Castle.
The paladins returned to the Castle and gathered in the control room.
‘Well done,' Collins said. The others look smug at their victory.
‘That was too easy,' Shiro said.
‘Considering they took out the Okarian ships, I would have to agree,' said Pidge. ‘I think they were testing our fire power.'
‘I wish we know what we were dealing with,' Allura said.
‘Yes, we don't even know the configuration of a Carandian ship,' said Coran. ‘Or where it's weakest point is.'
‘I tried hacking their computers but their encryption is like nothing I've seen before,’ Pidge said.
‘Hang on,’ Keith said.
Before anyone had time to say anything, he and Kosmo were gone.
‘I'm going to kill him,' Lance snapped.
‘Get in line,' Shiro said.
‘What's going on?' asked Collins.
‘Keith has teleported to the Carandian ship,’ Shiro said.
'Is he crazy?' asked Captain Stanely Fletcher.
‘That's one way of describing him,’ Hunk said.
They waited an anxious ten minutes before Keith and Kosmo returned to a room full of angry and annoyed people.
Ignoring them, Keith downloaded the photos he took on his datapad and they began to fill the screen. He had taken a photo of everything from the bridge to the engines.
'Don't give me the 'angry dad' look, Shiro,’ said Keith. ‘You wanted to know the configuration of the ship, so now you do.’
'Don't sass me, Keith. And it's two 'angry dad’ looks,’ he said, pointing to Adam, 'and one angry fiance.’
The top brass stood back, finding the whole exchange amusing.
Pidge had gone to her seat and was sorting the photos into some sort of order until she had them lined up to show the entire inside of the ship.
‘The Carandians look...human,’ Hunk said. He stood behind Pidge's seat and watched her work.
‘That would explain why they speak English,' Keith said.
‘But not where they come from,’ Pidge replied. ‘From this picture here, we can see the inside of the ship has ten levels of living quarters. If we line up these photos we can extimate, 500 rooms on this side of the ship, plus the same on the other side, times ten levels. Even if you put one person in each room...’ She turned in her chair to look at them.
‘That's a lot of people,' Collins muttered.
Pidge enlarged a picture of one of the fighters. ‘I'd love to see one of these, and workout how they can detect a ship under cloak.
‘We could retrieve one of the wreckages,’ said Commander William Jackson.
‘Yes, sir, but it would be hard to know what I'm looking for in a wreck,’ she said. ‘if we had an intact one, we could reverse engineer the technology.'
‘That would go a long way in helping with the fight against the Carandians,’ Collins said.
‘How do you propose we get a ship?' asked Jackson.
Pidge looked at Keith. ‘The same way we got these photos.'
The room went silent, and they all turned to Keith.
Keith shrugged. ‘It's a two person ship.’
‘I'll go with him,' Lance said, to no-one's surprise.
'I have to warn you the place stinks,’ Keith said.
‘If you go in now while they're still reeling from the attack, you may catch them off guard,’ Jackson said.
Shiro looked less than pleased about what was about to happen.