Status Quo
Chapter Fifteen: Turnabout
by Kyence
Disclaimer: All Voltron characters are property of World Events Productions.
‘’ denote character thoughts.
“You seem awfully quiet,” Allura observed. She spoke to her companion, the boisterous Saoche, who had taken on a somber personality since traveling with Allura instead of Lance. It had been a pleasant ride for her, unlike the horror Lance claimed to have been subjected to. Allura was almost certain that the avian’s feelings were hurt from the rejection. “Saoche, don’t be upset.”
Saoche sat beside her silent, staring at the stars shining into the cockpit.
The princess frowned. “Please don’t take what Lance said to heart.”
Saoche shifted her gaze. Her tone was dull and drowsy, bereft of energy. “That’s not why I’ve said little this past week.”
“Well, what is it then?”
The creature folded her hands and placed her chin on them. “I’ve just been waiting, that’s all.” She closed her gray eyes. Her melancholy was as unbearable to her as Saoche’s obnoxiousness was to Lance, Allura realized. “It won’t be long now, though.” Saoche fluffed out her feathers and ruffled them with a series of body shakes. “Ah, that released some tension.”
Allura smiled. “You certainly seem more upbeat!” She stroked her companion’s crest feathers, taking care to keep the quills neat and connected. “I find that it is always good to talk about something that is bothering me, even if my audience is a vase full of flowers,” she suggested.
Saoche blinked quickly. She opened her mouth to say something, but at the last moment chose to retract the statement before it could even be said. She rubbed the back of her plumed neck, which tingled underneath the thousands of soft feathers. ‘Okay, this is it. This is it,’ she thought. She took a couple of long breaths. “I don’t feel like talking about stuff that’s irking me. I’m in the mood to sing a song or tell a story. How ‘bout it, Princess? Would you like to hear a story? One about Earth?”
Allura nodded. “Of course!”
Saoche cracked her knuckles as she began. “You know that all of the humans scattered all over the Universe came from Earth, right?” After hearing no reply, she continued, “Of course you do, no one’s stupid enough to believe that humanoid science fiction crap, ignoring evolution and probability and logic and shit…” Saoche turned her face to Allura, who had a blush on her face and an uneasy smile. “Oh…well, it’s okay…I mean, you’ve been living in a cave 90 percent of your life, you’ve had more pressing stuff to worry about.” Saoche pat Allura on the shoulder.
“Well, anyway, they did. But, something happened on Earth; colonies on planets were stranded, and many fled Earth and found new worlds as well. Two thousand some-odd years later, and none of them have any memory of that passed to them.” Saoche turned to her companion and gestured with a crook of her wiggling finger. Allura complied and inched her head forward. “But, I’ll let you know. Promise not to tell, ‘kay?”
Allura was intrigued. Her curiosity was peaked. She turned off her communicator to further the story. “Okay, only my ears will learn of this.”
“Earth’s been considered a dying planet for millions of years. Basically, the overall amount of biomass has been decreasing steadily. It’s a pretty violent place: earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, monsoons, drought, el nino la nina, waterspouts, and tons of other crap not caused by a witch and her robeasts. Occasionally, the oceans recede, then come out and flood, recede, sometimes shit freezes 80 % of the planet, then it melts and floods, get the picture? Not exactly a friendly place, is it?” Allura gulped. Saoche continued. “But, the stuff that did survive was damn good at it. And, a sort of interdependence really unprecedented anywhere known existed. The base of the ecosystems was bacteria and algae. But even with those tiny bastards, only 1% of all species that ever were on Earth survived. So, it was time for Vajel’s little test…”
“Vajel?” Allura repeated the name. “Who is that?”
Saoche smiled harshly. “The one who decided to kill off the base and see what would still stand.”
Allura’s face paled. Saoche laughed. She grabbed Allura’s face and whispered to it. “Humans, with their inherent creativity and odd sense of morality, tried to save the planet from collapse, and they almost succeeded by saving algae…but by then the annihilation of prokaryotes was complete and a Pryme was selected.” She released Allura’s face, and hopped over her head.
“Wha?” Allura was very confused. An apprehensive feeling was rising in her gut.
Saoche had extended her wings by then, and sailed lightly to the metal floor. “Too bad the Pryme was biased with human emotions, so Vajel sent a Passer to deal with it, and steal its Code for modification.” At this point, Saoche began to groan. She clutched her abdomen. Allura heard the sound and twisted her body in her chair. She sprang out to help.
“Well, humans still had a trump card, the pinnacle of their technology, a nanoborg, a silicon based organism that used computer science in ways that would make a technogeek of today cream in his pants.” Saoche’s face contorted with pain, and Allura found herself wincing more from the explicit choice of words than from Saoche’s sudden demeanor change.
“The Passer took it on and nearly destroyed it…but then the Pryme’s code went berserk and merged the two.” The feathers about her began to melt down to the floor like puddles of quicksilver. It was shiny and glimmered in the light. Allura screamed, but no one could hear her with the speakers off.
Saoche’s voice became mournful. “But Vajel said the Passer had broken cardinal law: no Passer shall use technology…but it was part of the Passer; without it, the Passer would die. This dependence angered Vajel, but the fact that the Passer expressed desire to live with the affliction rather than perish sealed the Passer’s fate. It and its descendants were cursed with eternal exile, and would carry the tainted nano legacy with them forever, replicating asexually, once a generation, until the end of time.” Saoche’s feathers were now nonexistent; her eyes glared at Allura. Her frame began to extend upward, and the ooze followed it, become integrated into the shape. Her extremities grew very long and sleek, and her mouth and jaws fused with her skull into one ovoid shape.
Allura tried to rush for the console to press the speakers on, but an invisible force threw her back. “Uggh,” she groaned as she rubbed the back of her head. She saw that her helmet had been knocked off her head as well. ‘Telekinesis…and telepathy, toots,’ a voice boomed in her head. She faced the long, extremely thin form of Saoche. “Why are you doing this?!”
‘What, don’t you think I look cool?’ Saoche’s elongated forearms still possessed digits, which had also expanded during the transformation. They tapped against her shiny chest which fell inward like flesh at the slight pressure. ‘You know, I can only do this at certain times in my life cycle, so you should really be honored…to tell ya the truth, I never thought that fish-skunk ever listened to my ancestors’ ramblings, but this just goes to show ya, since this whole scheme was HIS idea. I guess spending a couple of months in a space pod gives one time to think.’
“Fish-skunk? You aren’t making sense?! What…what about Xiron?! And why can’t Voltron signal anyone?”
‘Xiron’s another story. But the no signal thing? That’s been me the whole friggin’ time, Allura. I’ve been scrambling the frequencies with my own brain waves. That’s the cool thing about being quasi-nano: I don’t have to follow only the Laws of Life or only the Laws of Machines. I can pick and choose, like a buffet. A smorgasbord of loopholes to hop in and out of as I please. And who is this fish-skunk, you ask? Well, gee, who oh who could have concocted such a convoluted scheme of vengeance, I wonder?’ Saoche pat the top of Allura’s head, stroking the blond hair the way the princess had done to her crest minutes ago. She knocked on it like a door. ‘I do believe I hear an echo. Since you’re so dense, I’ll give you another chance to guess who’s behind this, since I’ve been dying to see your reaction since Day One.’ Saoche thrust her fingers out in a branching arc. ‘Okay, okay, BIG hint here…he murked your pops, and has an obsessed smurf for a son…’ Saoched twirled her fingers in the air as though pulling the answer out from Allura’s lips.
Her look was of absolute terror. Her mouth was open wide, but her scream was trapped in her lungs. “They…they…?”
‘Ha ha ha,’ Saoche’s voice echoed in her psyche. Allura pushed herself away, scuttling on the floor. Although the wall greeted her back, her body still repeated the movement.
‘I really wish I could physically laugh right now..ahh, well, I’ll replay this scene for everyone on Dhm later. It’ll be loads of laughs.’
Allura shook her head violently as tears flowed down her cheeks. She began to sob.
Saoche took a single step, but her stride length had increased so dramatically that she was now casting a shadow over the traumatized woman. ‘I really like ya, kid, trust me, I do. I’m a nasty lil’ bitch at times, but I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Your choice. But no matter what choice you make, we are leaving for Dhm now. Get up…’
Allura’s body lifted off the floor and floated towards the pilot seat.
‘Sit down…’
Her body sat easily into the seat, though she was fighting it all the while.
‘And away we go!’
The Blue Lion blasted away from the others.
“Allura!” Keith shouted.
“It’s that damn bird, I know it!” Lance cursed. He lunged towards them, the Red Lion roaring with determination.
‘Since when the hell can a roar happen in space?’ Saoche’s thought entered Allura’s head absentmindedly. Allura rolled her eyes. ‘I saw that…well, these peeps are fairly close to Arus, so I dunno if this is gonna work now…I tell ya, I can never predict this transforming crap right. So, Zarkon gets his cape in a bunch if they make it; let’s see him pull an EMP out of his ass…’
“An Electromagnetic Pulse?!” Allura screamed. “You’ll fry every circuit!! They’ll die!!”
‘Well, shit, Allura, that changes everything,’ Saoche mocked nonchalantly. She pulled her limbs close to her body. Her black orbs sank into the dark head. Allura sensed a tremendous force that passed through her body, but it quickly passed. The Blue Lion did not seem affected, but she saw the other Lions shut down. The lights in the cockpits were out, indicating the attack was successful.
‘A delayed EMP…I am so good,’ Saoche congratulated herself by shaking her own forearm as her eyes rose out from their hiding place. She smirked playfully. ‘But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? ‘ Saoche pondered as her featureless face turned. ‘I feel like singing a song…’
‘Father…Keith…please help me…’ Allura pleaded in her mind.
Saoche could not detect any sort of reaction or emotion from the frightened princess. ‘Well, if YOU won’t grow a spine, I will happily give you one.’ The matter that constituted her coagulated into tiny streams of gray fluid that cascaded onto Allura’s body. It filled every orifice on the woman’s face, and seeped into her soft skin’s pores. Saoche willed herself to consume Allura’s body, forming a gray shell around it. Saoche’s possession was complete when she opened the girl’s blue eyes and was able to see through them.
She glanced at the human hands, which were now gray from the symbiosis. She cleared her host’s throat and sang, “La la la laaa…” The gentle voice of Allura sprang out and bounced off the walls of the cockpit. “Hee hee, I sound like such a priss,” Saoche giggled. “Well, no more dawdling for me. Time for me to pilot this beauty to Dhm. And the princess and Blue Lion, too,” she added as an aside. Using Allura’s arms and hands, she grabbed hold of the controls and skillfully powered the megathrusters to change course and head to Planet Dhm. She sighed. “I’m gonna be so tired when I change back. This whole ordeal has been one helluva ride. Whew!“ She continued to speak aloud as the Lion careened in the direction of the dark planet, its criteria for a pilot appearing to have a loophole that had been perfectly exploited to serve Arus’s greatest enemies.
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