Love is Weak

Chapter 51 - Genesis

Keith

After the three hours were up, we were all allowed to head to the meeting room where we began our briefing. A holographic map hovered over the table, and Coran stood at the front of the room. We took seats to his right, with other members of the Atlas crew around the table as well. The MFE pilots stood across from us as we talked about our options.

"We have confirmation that Honerva's beasts have touched down on planets Sanook, VeXilum, Siiz, and we continue to receive more transmissions," Coran began.

"This is consistent with the reports I'm receiving as well," Veronica confirmed.

"The wormhole signatures we discovered on Olkarion, they were a map to where the Robeasts

were headed. They must have been waiting this entire time." Pidge looked up at the map, analysing it

"They're targeting multiple fronts simultaneously," I said.

"What do we do?" Hunk asked, fear in his voice.

"We keep our calm," Shiro said firmly. "Coran, continue to mark the planets where the beasts have landed. Veronica, give us any real-time updates as they come in."

"Copy that," she said. "I just got another report from Sanook. The Robeasts are covered in some type of shield like a particle barrier." She changed the map to an image of the Robeasts, protected by a purple sphere.

This just keeps getting worse and worse.

I don't think we're going to be home for a while.

I met Lillian's eyes.

It will be okay.

We will be okay.

"They're not attacking the planet?" Allura asked, bringing us back to reality.

"Not yet."

It hadn't even been a minute before Veronica was reporting activity on the planets.

"The robeasts are syphoning quintessence!" she reported with a sense of shock.

"We need to engage them all," Iverson said. "Save as many people as we can. We're talking about triage here."

"We could split up the Lions," I suggested.

That's never a good idea.

"One Lion can't handle a robeast on its own," Hunk objected.

"No, but it could slow them down, buy us some time," I added.

There's gotta be a better way.

Shiro spoke up. "I say we attack them with the totality of our forces and wormhole from target to target."

Allura stood. "No. We must attack Oriande directly. I think I know what Honerva's doing." She turned towards the 3D map hovering over the table. "We know Honerva has the ability to create wormholes and that these wormholes are emanating from Oriande. She used a Robeast to steal the Olkari cubes, which can mimic and intensify energy at a distance. And those Robeasts are essentially armed with Komars, able to drain and transmit massive amounts of Quintessence. Honerva is going to concentrate energy from across the universe to Oriande. She is making a Komar magnitudes larger than anything we've ever seen, something that could drain the Quintessence from an entire galaxy."

"No," Sam said in disbelief.

This is bad.

Very.