Blood and Succession

Chapter 7: Brothers and Bonds

Chapter 7: Brothers and Bonds

The next day Pidge stormed the command station, her face set.

"I think I found him." Excitement bled from her words and it made Allura's heart skip a beat. Pidge's fingers flew over the monitors pulling up starcharts and various signal displays as though she had been born into space-age technology.

"Where?" asked Keith staring at the screens as if he stared at them long enough their encoded secrets would somehow make sense.

"I've been monitoring Galra transmissions for any mention of my family, Shiro or any useful information. When any one of the key words is mentioned the signal is hacked and fed into my terminal and they never knew what hit them," said Pidge smugly leaning back in her chair with a smile that reminded Hunk of a cat that ate a pigeon.

"Ok, we get it. All hail the queen of code. What did you find?" asked Lance curious. Everyone shuffled closer to hear better as Pidge tapped the play button on the recording.

"—won't be quiet, that prisoner. Last few days he just stares at the wall and repeats the same word." another Galra voice broke in.

"Make him be quiet. It not like it your first day on the jo—"

"What? You don't think I haven' tried beating it out of him— it just makes it worse. It's like he doesn't care anymore, like he isn't there." Allura stiffened. Lance's eyes widened.

"Here, listen to him yourself—buzzzz," static filled the recording as the mike was moved.

"—mpion, ...cha..mpion, champion, champion—" The voice was a higher pitch, and shook more than they had ever remember hearing before. Keith shivered. What had they done to Shiro? The recording ended and there was a moment of stunned silence. Pidge spun around in her control chair, a dark look in her brown eyes, arms folded. She reminded Lance in that moment of a Bond villain and he thought that when she grew up, if she ever fell out of the business of saving the universe, she would have a good fall back career as a mad scientist or criminal mastermind. She gave them an evil grin.

"What are you all standing around for? You think this message was all I got? What do I look like some ninth grade hacker." Lance resisted the urge to nod. "I triangulated their location. Let's save Shiro and bust some Galra heads."

Hours later, the castle orbited the one of Galra's many prison planets which was pocked marked with hand dug mines. The planet, which had once been covered in lush vegetation, now clung to life broken and battered like the slaves that had extracted the rich resources from its soil.

The team had landed unnoticed in the black lion and now infiltrated the Galra installation.

"Watch this," boasted Hunk stomping one booted foot onto the metal plated floor causing a rock pillar to tear through, with a sound like a knife on a chalkboard, completely barricading an entrance.

"What part of stealth mission don't you understand?" snapped the green paladin as she threw her arms up in exasperation, in a 'why me' pose. Lance stepped away from the triangular green blade she held tightly in one fist as he spoke.

"Nice one Hunk. When we get outta here you think you could build a slide and I could ice it over and we could sled down it?"

"aaargh," yelled Keith bring his sword down on a sentry. Metal clashed against metal as his bayard chewed through the droid.

Blam, blam, blam, sang Lance's rifle as the small team dashed down the hall and he covered the rear.

Pidge held the map, that projected from her forearm, up in front of her as she ran. "The cell is right up ahead," she yelled pushing her feet harder.