ALL MIXED UP | I

14 quintessence 14

The team gathered around Pidge's computer curiously as the shortest paladin typed away. Sage stifled a yawn as she crossed one arm over her chest, using the other to stretch out her shoulder. She'd just woken up and someone (she glared at Keith) hadn't left her breakfast.

"Somewhere inside Sendak's memories, we should be able to find the inside information that gives us the key to taking down Zarkon," Allura said, bringing Sage's concentration back.

"I don't think your father would approve of searching through an enemy's memories," Coran commented. Allura sighed.

"I know, but we have to do everything we can to defeat Zarkon."

"Once we learn all his weaknesses," Lance piped up, "we can drive up to his front door and challenge him to a fight. Winner gets the universe."

"Okay, but how much of it?" Sage asked, ready to ruin Lance's quip. "According to theory, the universe is constantly expanding, and if you take into consideration all the black holes, dark matter, and theoretical white holes—"

"Okay, jeez!" Lance conceded. "We already have one Pidge; we don't need a second gremlin nerd." Shiro sighed at the two.

"Anything good yet, Pidge?" he asked.

"We were only able to salvage bits and pieces," the shortest paladin admitted.

"We need something to work with," Keith said. "Right now, we don't even have a decent map of the empire."

"Who needs a map?" Lance scoffed. "After 10,000 years of conquering, I could probably fire my bayard at any random point in space and hit a Galra ship."

"If we could just find troop locations or supply routes, small targets we could hit-and-run, then we could start to free planets one by one," Shiro offered logically.

"Boring," Lance complained. "I want the big kaboom."

"Zarkon's been building his empire for 10,000 years. We're not going to tear it down overnight with five inexperienced pilots and one support ship," Sage reasoned. "Hitting him where he lives would be like bombing the White House or the Kremlin. We'd get hit back much harder."

"Okay," Pidge said after a few more minutes of typing. "I've cross-referenced Sendak's memories with the info I got from the downed ship back on Arus. Most of it was a garbled mess, but one thing kept repeating, something called a Universal Station."

"Universal Station?" Hunk asked. "Like, the kind of station that controls the entire universe?"

"Well, we are translating it from Galra, so it could also be Galactic Hub," Pidge said as Sage studied the screen.

"Or Space Base!" Lance offered with a grin. He was met with silence.

"What?"

"It's formal Galran, and Space Base isn't exactly formal," Sage informed.

"I'm pulling up the location of your Universal Hub Station Base on our screens now," Coran said, manipulating several complex buttons on the large screen.

"So, where is it?" Lance asked.

"I don't know," Coran mused. "Our long-range sensors are unable to find anything at those coordinates."

"Maybe he remembered it wrong," Keith muttered.

"Or maybe we just stumbled across a top-secret base in Sendak's memories," Pidge said, her eyes lighting with excitement.

"Only one way to find out," Allura said. "Let's go take a look."

The base was exactly one power nap away. Sage dozed comfortably in one of the floating chairs, setting an alarm for exactly twenty-six minutes. (According to science, it was the optimal time for a quick nap, and Sage had been using the time ever since she was nine.)