Tales of the Scarlet Kaida

Run for the hills

At the sound, Merryn, who'd been napping at the foot of the table, raised immediately to the captain's side in a defensive stance.

"Hazel! What is it?" Lucy asked through the com, her chair scratching the ground as she stood.

"It's Deandra," the navigator answered almost immediately, "they're under attack! Their cover didn't work as well as planned and security was doubled at the prison yesterday apparently! They have no way out! What are your orders?"

"Gather everyone on the deck! We're going!" Lucy had not even finished her sentence that they were all rushing to their respective rooms and packing up everything necessary. A minute later everyone was on the upper deck and listening to the captain's orders.

"Deandra's unit needs backup," she announced to the crowd standing in front of her. "We need to hurry to the prison where they were sent this morning for an 'infiltration and rescue' mission. It is more than likely that the Galra sentries have surrounded them, as well as the prisoners they managed to free. We'll need to break through their defences, find Deandra's unit and bring them home. We won't leave them behind.

"I'll need Aeris' unit to stay aboard to provide the aerial support we'll need. Hazel and Katsa you stay there too, I'll need you to be ready to wormhole the ship away at any moment. Lo, Elric, Harry, you'll prepare all that's necessary for the wounded when we come back. Makara and Stergann I'll trust you to take care of the youngsters, to keep them safe and reassure them."

Hunk watched in awe as the captain spat instruction after instruction. Building up a plan even faster than Shiro.

"The battle is already going down and we'll come in the middle of the mess it surely is," she mercilessly told her crew. "But we will work through it just like we always did, using the strategies and techniques that have already proved to be efficient."

The paladins stood among the ranks, ready to leave at any moment. Pidge was amazed at the shift of attitude of the captain, just as much as Hunk was. In a second she was all the leader the crew had claimed her to be and more. Her age made no difference, and Pidge felt the same energy and strength fill her veins as when Shiro gave them a before battle pep talk. The hair on her neck raised with the raw emotion emanating from Scarlet Kaida's captain.

"Kolivan and the members of the Blade present on board already left to provide immediate backup and the paladins of Voltron will be joining us," she encouraged her team. "As always, I'm not forcing anyone to join me on the battlefield. I won't deny that this is going to be hard, and we won't come out unscathed. But, to everyone who will join me nonetheless, off to the cruisers! We're leaving!"

A cheer erupted on the deck and everyone rushed towards the cruisers simultaneously.

"Aye, aye captain !" translated Keith's intergalactic translator on his helmet's screen. Not that the cheer that pierced through everyone's souls and ripped at their core needed any translation. They were all together in this-soul and body. They were acting as one.

"Let's go wild, darlings" the lieutenant smirked, adjusting the fingerless gloves on her hands. Her smirk was a strange combination of wicked and dead-serious, the way it sent shivers down your spine. The glint of her sword suddenly became ferocious.

At first, they looked like an unprepared featherbrained crowd but Keith knew better and saw the shift in their positions, their gazes hardening and focusing on the task at hand.

They were clear-sighted.

Ash grasped tightly the gleaming spear in her hand.

They were focused.