What they don't know

Part 11

His brain was prodding at his forehead insistently as he tried to bury it under the beckoning desire to sleep. The cool press of the floor was desperately trying to chase that urge away though, bringing an unwelcomed amount of consciousness to him. 

"-would much prefer it if you were awake, Lance." The borderline panicked voice was accompanied with an urgent shaking of his shoulder, causing Lance to stir and further curl away from it into the ball he had formed on the floor. 

Something wet poking at his cheek was the final straw though, startling him into sitting up abruptly and banging his forehead against Lotor's chin. Kova had already managed to dart away, brushing herself up against Lotor's thighs instead. 

"You're awake!" Lotor beamed at him and Lance couldn't help but notice how unnerving he found the clear trust and friendliness in his expression.  

"Uh, yeah..." Lance rubbed his head, the dull ache of a headache much more apparent after all the movement, "Are you alright? She tossed you, didn't she?"

"I've had worse." Lotor dismissed cheerfully, "She only left me with a smattering of bruises and for that I am grateful."

Lance nodded, breathing in heavily, "Right." He stood shakily, climbing back onto the pedestal.

"What are you doing now?" 

"I need to check our location." The pillars rose and Lance stretching his hands out to them, feeling out with his quintessence. Lotor watched with eyes of awe that Lance avoided catching onto. 

They were just where Lance had wanted them to be. The exact coordinates. Lance hummed, feeling a twinge of relief warming his chest. 

"That's good. Just need to run a diagnostic now."

"Is that hole not a risk then?"

Lance glanced to the hole Lotor was eyeing so wearily, "...The particle barrier should keep it effectively sealed."

"What if we lose power?"

They were essentially in a war zone right now, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to be attacked. He didn't know what this ship's capabilities were, he didn't know how well it would hold out in a fight.

"Then we'd be screwed."

The ship was structurally fine, there didn't seem to be any damage and the operating power was almost full and already replenishing itself. 

Lance began running a scan of the ship to check for any other lifeforms. As he left it running, he sent out a quick encrypted message to the ship Matt was on with their coordinates attached. The scan finished, coming back with their lifeforms on the bridge and two large ones on the lower levels.

"Do you know what these could be?"

Lotor moved closer just as a notification distracted Lance. Lance gestured to the scan and opened the message separately. It was written in the same style Matt wrote with no capitalised letters and a space after every piece of punctuation. 

"Is that your friends?"

Lance nodded, smiling as he skimmed over the message, "Yeah, they'll be here in a few hours." He closed the notification after sending a quick reply, "Any ideas on that?"

Lotor squinted at them, pointing at one closer to the stairs, "That's around the area of that... ship that we saw." 

"But we don't know what the other thing is?" Could the other Lotor still be alive in there? It was too big to be him though, wasn't it?

"Would you advise checking it out?"

Lance didn't answer for a second, looking for some sort of camera system, "We should do a bit of recon. Just to know what we're dealing with." He checked the scan again to make sure he was in the right area, "Here we go."