Deserving

Chapter nine

The team was gathered around Pidge's station, listening to her clack away at her keyboard. Some of Sendak's memories had already been uploaded to the Castle for their examination which was what Pidge was going through now. 

With their break day over, the Castle woke to Coran's morning message calling them to the training deck. Lance had been up for a few vargas already. He'd bounded down to the room with snacks in hand for his significantly more tired teammates (i.e, Hunk). From there, the training had been a smooth success.

Coran had made them breakfast in the meantime which they all gobbled down happily - even if it wasn't as good as Hunk's cooking. 

They had a few vargas to themselves after that before they regrouped at the Bridge to comb through Sendak's memories for anything of importance. 

"Somewhere inside Sendaks's memories we should be able to find the inside information that gives us the key to take down Zarkon." Allura was staring at Pidge's display with such eager expectation Lance almost expected her to start jumping up and down. 

She, Shiro, Coran and Keith were all crowded together behind Pidge, bent at the middle to peer in at her work curiously. Perched on one of the arms of Pidge's seat, Lance couldn't help but sympathise for their backs.

"I don't think your father would approve of searching through an enemy's memories." Coran rolled his shoulders back slightly, visibly aching from the odd posture. 

Lance had to bite down the 'He's not exactly here to stop us' in favour of the pleasant atmosphere they had managed to maintain in the room. 

"I know, but we have to do everything we can to defeat Zarkon." Allura straightened up to talk to him, Shiro and Coran following her example in relief. Keith remained hunched over stubbornly.

"Hopefully Sendak will have something we could use. Like fleet locations or supply routes." Lance swung one of his legs unconsciously, bumping Pidge's ankles as a result. She kicked back without looking at him.

Shiro nodded in agreement, "Anything good yet, Pidge?"

"He hasn't let much slip yet." She answered shortly. Lance could see the letters on the screen clearly reflected in her glasses. 

Keith sighed, finally straightening up, "We need something to work with." He uncrossed his arms, holding them out a bit wider, looking across at Lance before his eyes jumped to Shiro, "Right now, we don't even have a decent map of the empire."

Lance shifted, "Couldn't we construct one from distress signals? Sure, it'd be a bit inaccurate but it's a start." He looked at Allura.

She considered it a moment, "That would be less of a map of the empire than a map of the remaining universe. Additionally, it would also lack the labelling that a proper map would need."

"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 said it more to himself that to anyone else. He looked up at them carefully, "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. Hitting him where he lives would be a huge mistake."

"Inexperienced?" Lance raised his eyebrows but Shiro ignored him as Pidge spoke up.

"Okay, 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.""

Keith leant in again, hunching over and crossing his arms. Lance had to fight the urge to physically straighten him out.

Meanwhile, Hunk pushed his way in front of Pidge's display again, scanning over the words curiously although Lance knew he could read neither altean or galran, "Universal Station? Like, the kind of station that controls the entire universe?"