Breathe Deep

Earth

Keith had decided their first course of action was to take their spoils to the Blade of Marmora to analyze what information they managed to retrieve. It didn't look like much in his initial skim, but if anyone could glean anything notable, it was the Blade. Lance was keen to follow along just in case it was something that the other Paladins needed to be informed about. They each set the coordinates in their vessels before discreetly making their exit from the planet's atmosphere, still highly wary of the command ship's surveillance.

"Lance, you ok?"

McClain adjusted the levels of Red's screens as they jumped before answering. "Yeah... That guy came out of nowhere, man. Just poof!" He reached a hand around his throat lightly as he recalled. It was still a little sore, but there was something slightly off about that chokehold he couldn't put a finger on.

"No kidding." He heard Keith sigh over the comm, "I never even heard them come up behind me the first time. If you weren't there this last time -"

"Hey man, don't sweat it." Lance interjected. He really didn't want Keith venturing down that road. He didn't want to venture down that road himself. That image of Keith floating in black nothingness when he first found him desolate, alone, and clearly out of hope flashed in his mind. "I've got your back." And, if he had any say in what the future brought, he always would.

"...Thank you, Lance." He could hear the sincerity in Keith's voice and it made him smile. He could feel the same kind of contentment within his lion. We did good, Red. We did real good.

ѻ-ѻ-ѻ

Keith wanted to squirm a little bit under Kolivan's stare. The silence between them pricked at his sense of duty to follow orders, but he held his ground; fists clenched, and brows furrowed in an effort to bolster his resolve.

"Gend." A member of the Blade of Marmora looked up from his panel and quickly moved to Kolivan's side with a curt 'yessir.' Kolivan's eyes hardly twitched his direction. "Take this to Brakk and the others." Finally, Keith gained some respite from his leader's glower as he turned to hand over the drive. "See if we can't find anything useful from these files. Make sure to keep a sharp eye out for anything that might be of interest to Zarkon."

"Of course, Sir." With a nod, Gend headed out to make his delivery.

"Thank you, Kolivan." Keith sighed, Lance picked up on the relief in his body language. He couldn't recall ever seeing Keith so tense before.

"I will call for you when the analysis is complete. That will be all." Kolivan's tone hid any sense of disappointment or anger over the matter he may have harbored. For now, Keith was alright with it. Once they found what the Empire was waiting or looking for, Kolivan would forget about Keith's slightly recalcitrant behavior. Then, they could rightly focus on a real way to hit Zarkon where it would hurt.

Keith and Lance left the control room and headed for Communications. In a few short moments, Keith was greeted with a screen full of familiar faces he had missed quite a bit. Shiro, naturally, stood in the focus of the screen. Pidge and Hunk, upon seeing Keith's visage on their end of the communication, waved delightedly in the background.

"Lance?" Shiro's curious expression was filled expected, "I didn't expect you to go so far to 'rehearse'..."

"Ah haha..." Lance rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "Yeah, well..."

"Keith, how are things with you and the Blade of Marmora?" Shiro's eyes fell on Lance's call companion and Keith warmed to the familiar gentle smile on Shiro's face. "Better, now, thanks to Lance." He placed a hand on the Blue Paladin's shoulder. Lance's shoulders eased with a soft glance in Keith's direction. "I sort of ran into some trouble and Lance saved my skin. I wouldn't be standing here now if he didn't come and help me out."