Voltron: Legendary Defender // Keith Kogane

Chapter 042.

"Keith, Cira, Allura, are you there?" Coran's voice sounds from the radio. He must have got the connection back up.

"We're here, Coran, what is it?" Cira sits up in her seat. She hoped they were okay seeing as the last thing she heard from them were screams.

"Zarkon is definitely not tracking us through any of you."

Keith speaks in a relieved whisper, "He's not?"

"How do you know?" Cira asks.

"Because you're out there and a Galra fleet just showed up here!" Coran exclaims, "We need you now!"

Cira and Keith share a look of panic. Keith slams his hand into the booster, turning the pod around to head back to the castle. Allura leans in between Cira and Keith, "We'll be there in two doboshes."

Keith eyes the booster rocket that Pidge had added, lifting his hand to it, "Even faster than that." He highlights the booster.

"What's that?" Cira frowns.

"It's the booster fuel Pidge added to this pod." He clicks it and to his horrible error, the back engine explodes behind them. With only a tick to react and realize his mistake, the ejected seats were activated and they were shot out into space just as the pod exploded. The force of it catapulted them in three different directions. Keith stops himself with his jet and he whips his head in all directions in search for Cira and Allura. When his eyes finally land on them, he shoots out towards them. Since Allura was the closest, he reached his hand out to her first, "Allura! Grab my hand!" Panting, Allura reaches her hand out and catches Keith's. He pulls her close and then shoots forward towards Cira, "Cira!" Cira looks at him and reaches her hand out, but it keeps missing his. "Come on. Come on." He mutters and then sighs in relief when he finally catches her hand in his and pulls her to safety. The three spin to a stop, gasping for air. Keith turns to Cira worriedly, "Cira, are you okay?"

"Yeah." She nods assuringly, "What about you, Allura?"

"I believe so." Allura sighs and turns to Keith, "Is your radio still working?"

"Let's find out." Keith glances at the pieces of the pod floating in space as he calls out, "Coran, can you hear me?"

Static sounds as a response. Keith clicks his teeth, "I can still track the castle." He curses himself for being impatient like he always was. With no other option since they couldn't seem to get into contact with anyone, they shot their way back to the castle using his jetpack. It was slow, much slower with the weight of two Alteans hanging on to him. "I—" Keith groans in frustration, "—this is my fault."

"Keith, no, you didn't know this would happen." Allura tells him, "We just have to focus on getting back as fast as we can now."

"We'll never get there at this rate." Keith informs, his arms securely around both girls.

"This was a terrible mistake." Guilt floods Allura's expression, "Shiro was right. We never should have left them."

"They'll be fine." Cira calms her.

Keith glances at her, "And what about us?"

Cira locks eyes with him, "We'll be fine."

Silence soon engulfed them. Cira felt she would pass put from exhaustion. She took a glance at Keith to see him with his eyes closed. She knew he was not sleeping. What was he doing?