The Sixth Paladin

Chapter 25

No picture this chapter cause my computer is stupid

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Peeling my heavy eyes open, I slowly sat up. Rubbing my eyes, I stood up then stretched. I put on my jeans and jacket and brushed my hair back into it's usual ponytail. I walked out of my room, passing Keith's. He's always up before me, I walked down the hallway and saw the others heading to the main room. I joined them as the door slid open and Coran was at the controls. Allura must still be resting.

"We should be entering Taujeer's orbit soon." Coran said.

"Raise the particle barrier. Scan for Galra." Shiro ordered. I went over to my seat as the control panels raised from the floor.

"Where are Keith and Allura?" Shiro asked. I looked at the seat in front of mine to see it empty. Weird, Keith was always and early bird, where is he? I looked over to see Shiro looking my direction, I shrugged.

"It appears one of the pods was launched in the middle of the night." Coran said.

"Wait a minute! Keith and Allura, in the middle of the night? You don't think...?" Lance trailed off as he looked over at me.

"No Lance, Keith isn't like that." I said, but there was still that nagging doubt in the back of my mind.

"Contact the pod."

"Yes, contact that pod!" Lance and I said.

"Princess, Keith where are you?" Coran asked once he connected with the pod.

"Exactly where we should be, far away from the castle." Allura answered.

"What? Why?" Shiro asked.

"We must know if we are the ones Zarkon's tracking." 

"They're isolating the variables. Well two variables." Pidge spoke up.

"English please." Lance said.

"In order to test the hypothesis."

"I said English!"

"Argh! Never mind!"

"Pidge is right. If Zarkon finds you despite me not being there, we will know that we are not the ones he's tracking." Allura explained.

"Splitting up makes us vulnerable, come back to the castle now." Shiro said.

"I'm sorry I can't."

"If Zarkon finds us I will be able to pilot us to safety. There's plenty of room to maneuver, plus Pidge added that booster rocket." Keith finally spoke up, a pang went through my chest at his voice.  I heard Coran mumble to himself. 

"We need both of you back here now!" As Shiro was speaking something hit the castle making it rock and the alarms go off.  

"What's going on?"

"We're in some sort of debris field." Hunk said.

"I believe its coming from Taujeer. Correction: I think it is Taujeer!" Coran said. I looked out to see rocks floating all around us, in front of us was a green planet.

"Coran, what's happening?" Allura asked. Then static.

"Some kind of radiation from the planet is interfering with commutations." Coran shouted.

"Move the castle away and reestablish the link. Everyone else get to your lions." Shiro ordered. I stood up, with one last gaze to Keith's chair, and ran over to the hanger with my lion. We all flew out the castle and towards the planet.  We all maneuvered around the rock and landed on Taujeer.