Status Quo
Chapter Seventeen: Four Lions and a Lady?
by Kyence
Disclaimer: All Voltron characters are property of World Events Productions.
‘’ denote character thoughts.
“I see you are finally waking up.”
Hunk woke up with a groan as his eyelids fluttered. His ears tuned to the concerned voice that sounded close to his face. His eyes registered a blurred visage, but, as they adjusted to the bright fluorescent light in the room, the image cleared to reveal Ana’s face.
“Ana…I’m back on Arus?” he asked weakly. He felt disoriented, not sure of exactly how he was back on the planet. ‘The last thing I remember is…is…’ he reconstructed his jumbled thoughts until a chronological replay of the fateful events fused into a cohesive movie in his mind. ‘Allura, Saoche…Saoche took Allura and the Blue Lion off course…and then…’ He rubbed his head, sighing at his inability to recall anything else. “Did the others…are the others..?” he fearfully whispered to Ana.
“They are fine. They have been waiting anxiously for your recovery. The Yellow Lion took the brunt of that electromagnetic attack. Had Prince Bandor’s ship not received Keith’s SOS, all of your Lions’ backup life-support systems would have been depleted,” Ana explained in great detail. “Unfortunately,” she added with a curt frown and a clenched fist, “the Princess and the Blue Lion have been successfully abducted by the spy.”
“The Princess? NO!” he shouted as he leaped from bed. ‘Poor Keith! He must be beating himself up non-stop!’ “Why are they waiting for me?! They should be chasing that little turncoat across the Universe!” He then realized that he did not know whom Saoche was a spy for. Sheepishly, he asked Ana, “Umm, who was Saoche working for?” Hunk rubbed the back of his head as he smiled uneasily. He hoped he was not giving a poor impression of himself.
“Zarkon and Lotor, who else?” Ana stated matter-of-factly. “Except, they are sporting new allies of some sort. New ships, new technology, new soldiers, which have been doing their best to reduce Arus to shreds. Keith, Lance,, and Pidge have been flying the Lions during each new wave of attacks, unable to send the army in full retreat. Luckily,” she began as an aside as she gestured to herself, “I have been helping out, thanks to the Prince loaning me one of his fighter ships.”
“Come again? You’re a pilot?!”
“Yes,” she answered succinctly. “I learned to fly when I was a young girl with my mother. That was before Zarkon’s campaign had plundered this world and murdered the royal family,” she answered bitterly. “And without Voltron, we are at a serious disadvantage. That was why nobody objected too loudly when I volunteered…well, Nanny grumbled a little, but she’s gonna be cranky until the Princess is back safe and sound.” Ana playfully punched Hunk in the arm. “So, how ‘bout it? It’s been a couple of hours since the enemy wave ceased its attacks in order to regroup, which gives us a chance to whoop some alien scum! With you back in action, we won’t stop until we’re at Castle Dhm itself!”
Hunk could not help but smile at Ana’s relentless optimism. Her apparent fearlessness was a new trait he had never had a chance to see before, and it made him like her even more. He made a mental note to actually ask her out once this crisis was dealt with.
“C’mon, hurry up, get dressed!” she practically ordered him as she rushed to the room’s closet and tossed him his white uniform. She clapped her hands. “Chop chop!” Hunk stumbled over his pant legs as he pulled them up, hopping like a rabbit. He then turned away from Ana and blushed.
“Errm, uh…could you, um, wait outside?” he asked as he felt blistering heat rush to his cheeks. He was so enthusiastic, he had forgotten that he was moments away from giving the innocent girl a peep show. He had since used his helmet to shield his pectorals.
Ana giggled, amused by the large pilot’s modesty. “You are the sweetest man,” she admitted as he gave him a slap on his buttocks. Surprised at the deft and force, he flinched forward. ‘Now I know my face is beet red, to match my bottom.’ Rather than turn around and let Ana confirm the suspicion, he waited for the few seconds it required her to walk to the doorway. The doors slid apart, with Ana announcing, “If you aren’t out in five minutes, I’m barging in; I don’t care what condition you are in,” her voice warned with a sultry edge. Then, he heard her step out, and the sound of the doors sliding closed let him know he was alone.
It took him approximately three and a half more minutes to get the white suit on and run to the Control Room. Keith, Lance, and Pidge all cheered triumphantly, “Hunk!”
“How ya doin’, Big Guy?” Lance asked earnestly. His brow lifted to show his genuine interest about his well-being. Hunk flexed his biceps. “Well enough.”
“Glad to hear it, Hunk,” Keith replied, his voice and demeanor weary from lack of sleep and abundance of worry. Hunk felt the gloom surrounding his friend; it looked anchored by the dark bags underneath the Captain’s rueful eyes. He walked slowly up to Keith, and after a moment of pause, embraced him with fraternal concern. “It’s okay, we’ll get her back. I promise,” Hunk whispered so that only the two of them could hear it. Keith looked up quickly in surprise, wondering how Hunk had discerned how he really felt about the princess. Then, an accepting comprehension brought the first light in his dark eyes after many lugubrious days and nights of self-blame and disgust. “Well, then, team, what are we waiting for?!” Keith cheered with renewed vigor. “Let’s show these newcomers what it means to take on the Voltron Force!”
“And me!” Ana added as she thrust her hand to meet the four men’s in the air.
In a matter of minutes, four robot lions and a fighter jet launched into the blue sky of Arus. The beautiful atmosphere seemed perverse considering the planet’s circumstance. Countless citizens observed the quintet and made silent prayers for the safe return of Princess Allura. An encroaching dark shadow sent them all running back into their homes’ cellars and basements.
“It looks like they are back earlier than expected,” Keith announced over the communicator.
“Ah, but look at the decreased number of fighter ships. They must have anticipated this to be an easy defeat,” Lance snickered. “Too bad for them.”
“No,” Hunk disagreed. “They probably do not want to waste resources on us; there must be something else going on now.”
“All that rest did you good,” Pidge concurred. “They must have decided a smaller force would be as effective.”
“It would have been,” Ana began sagely, but concluded with a smile,” but that was before Hunk was fighting with us. Four Lions instead of three, coupled with the small amount of enemy units…this is the only opportunity we’ll have to get to Dhm before they expect it.”
“Maybe they do? Maybe that’s why they’re doing this?” Lance thought.
The Sapientydan ships drew closer. Assuming a formation resembling the points of a cube, each parallel pair began to accelerate forward, rotating as they did so. The complete effect was artistically lovely, as though this display was for entertainment rather than war making.
Ana groaned. “A signature move. This is why they didn’t bother,” she whispered to herself. “Look at what they are doing!” she yelled aloud.
Keith nodded. “They are keeping their relative distances from each other.”
“They aren’t blasting us because they have something else planned. This jet does not have the capability to pick up their energy readings…” Ana yelled.
“Say no more, Ana,” Pidge chirped. His dexterous fingers and agile mind worked as synchronous as their opponents’ crafts.
The Green Lion’s advanced ability to interpret electromagnetic waves was utilized to its utmost capacity. The Lion’s screen flickered and displayed various charts and manipulations of the data Pidge requested. Apparently satisfied with the answer he found, he disclosed it to the others. “Each pair of ships is generating a linear gravity beam. The beam has a large range.”
“So, in effect, there’s a spinning gravity cube heading right for us?!” Lance bellowed.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Everyone, split up!” Keith ordered. They quickly dispersed, putting as much distance between them as they could. The enemy responded by expanding the size of the cube, encompassing them all. The spacecrafts began to fire blasts in earnest, their arsenal equipped with technology that locked onto its target indefinitely.
“They are trying to push us closer together,” Hunk grit through his teeth as the Yellow Lion took a hit on its right side.
“Once they do it to the point the beams’ range covers us, we will collapse under the gravitational force,” Ana predicted somberly.
“Well, I am not going to get pushed into some invisible corner without a fight!” Lance charged forward, deftly avoiding the projectiles trailing him as he fired his own in a boisterous, cacophonous wave of attacks that were accented by the roaring fire emanating from the Red Lion’s metal jaws.
“This seems hopeless,” Pidge moaned. “There has to be some way I can figure out how to use those gravity beams against them.”
Hunk heard those words of his small friend through the communicator, and inspiration struck him. “Maybe if we pit them against each other?”
“What do you mean? Their ships are practically indestructible!” Ana cried out. “Gravity has no effect on them!”
“But smashing two of those ships together at an intense speed intensified by this gravity may do it.” Hunk used a frequency reserved for only the most extreme situations to explain his plan.
“Damn, Hunk,” Lance sounded impressed.
“I think this may actually work,” Ana agreed. “Nobody falter, okay?”
“Then we are ready to execute this. NOW!” Keith authorized with fervor.
“Away we go!” Pidge shouted as he lunged ahead, Ana close behind him. Soon, they were all in a single linear line, the dangerous enemy in quick pursuit, yet still maintaining its ominous structure. They increased their speed, flying through Arusian longitudes at a blinding pace. Ana’s ship could not handle the demand, as was expected by them all. Reversing the propulsion drives rendered her ship crashing forward at the center of the gravity plane generated. Simultaneously, she jettisoned forward. The Green Lion’s head had already detached and captured her in milliseconds. Ana recovered in the decompression chamber while the head reattached to the body. During this transaction, Pidge detected a weak point in the gravity cube’s structure: the introduction of explosive matter at such a demanding velocity had overcome the ships’ thresholds. Two pairs wavered in their positions as the pilots attempted to compensate for the oscillating gradient of force stressing the compartments on their ships that created the gravity beams. One pair could not handle the strain and remain impervious to the neighboring pairs’ sectors: they crashed into the center of another pair’s gravity field.
This prompted a reformation on the Sapientydan’s part.
“Eh eh eh, not so fast,” Hunk admonished as he used the Yellow Lion’s proton harpoon to pierce the gravity mechanism in one ship while Keith pierced its adjacent craft’s gravity beam. This permitted Black Lion and Yellow Lion to be shielded from the effects of the gravity beam by the Sapientydan ships themselves. Before the two ships had completed the shutdown of the gravity beam, they had been dragged through the remaining ships. Keith and Hunk disintegrated the harpoons and fled as the unstable gravity fields left over consumed the pair of Sapientydan ships. Eventually, all the gravity waves cancelled each other out and imploded the debris into metallic meteorites that harmlessly plummeted to the Arusian surface.
Ana staggered into Green Lion’s cockpit. “It worked! Incredible!” She used Pidge’s pilot seat to support herself as she allowed her body time to readjust.
“That was a huge chance you took, Ana,” Pidge revealed to her. “If my calculations had been a thousandth-of-a-second off, I would not have been there in time to get you before your body splattered apart at the speed it would be going at.”
“Pidge!” Hunk yelled at him harshly. “Try to be a little sensitive, huh?!”
Ana chuckled. “It’s quite all right. In fact, I’m better than all right, because we have a prime opportunity to attack them at Dhm now!”
“True,” Lance nodded,” and we’ve got tons of bombs to allow us passage into Dhm’s airspace,” he added further, alluding to the asteroid rings surrounding the dark planet. The last time they had entered Dhm, it was with the help of the Pulse Cannon, which had since suffered mechanical breakdown. All of the ships had a considerable stockpile of them; Ana’s ship had more storage capacity than the Lions, which had accounted for its considerable effect in the victorious strategy.
“Here we go! On to Planet Dhm!” Keith shouted.
Ana smiled as she pat Pidge’s shoulder and beheld a blushing Hunk on the communicator screen. “Yes, to Dhm we go,” she whispered. “You are mine, Shai.”
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