shining like the stars

15

The cavernous hallways of the Galra ship were dark, and filled with small bits of loose debris. Given the enclosed nature of the halls, they maneuvered with the rockets on their back and only walked when needed, as it was slower progress on foot.

Pidge went first, her tracker displaying in cool green above the left forearm of her paladin armor. She was concentrated on that far more than on where she was going, which meant Lance had to grab her by the shoulder at least twice to avoid running directly into walls and closed doors.

He had his bayard in hand, prepared for trouble ... although he wasn't entire certain what good it would do, if the nature of the trouble fell beyond 'marauding aliens and/or tech gone bad.' All the same it felt more comfortable to have a weapon in his hand than not, especially traveling directly behind Pidge, who was paying less attention to that and more attention to the slow schematic being draw by their movements.

"You know," he said as Pidge stopped before a large set of doors. "I've seen horror movies that start like this."

"Yeah?" Shiro said from behind him, bringing up the rear. "So have I. What's your point?"

Lance scowled. "My point is, there's a possibility of face-sucking aliens behind every door."

"Highly unlikely," Pidge said. "Besides, even if that were the case, I doubt they would be able to survive in a vacuum." She typed a few more keystrokes and gestured to Shiro, who moved forward to put his hand against the scanner plate. As he did so, his hand and arm glowed purple with the Galra's energy, enough to power the systems and allow the door to slide open.

Lance and Pidge barely had any time to react as two large, dark figures lunged out of the open door. Shiro yanked his hand off the plate, but Lance was faster, bayard in hand, and the transformed bayard-gun lit the entire corridor as he blasted one of the figures directly through the chest. That caught it and spun it, and the form thumped helplessly against the wall on Lance's other side. The one he hadn't shot hit the wall hard and bounced, and then continued to float lifelessly.

"I heard shots," Keith said through the open communication. "You guys okay?"

"We're fine," Shiro said, as Lance pointed his weapon at the other form, but the body hung suspended in the zero gravity. "Just found some of the ship's former crew."

"Space zombies!?" Hunk gasped.

"No, just bodies," Shiro said. Pidge was still rooted in spot, and Lance still had his weapon in both hands. They both were breathing hard – Shiro clapped Pidge on the shoulder, and she looked up at him, then back down to her schematic. "This is the armory."

The room was not as large as Lance expected, although it was filled with rows of unfamiliar weaponry lining both walls. Pidge let out a disappointed noise as she surveyed the area. Most of the weapons were bolted down and secured, so there wasn't a lot of free-floating materials. "Doesn't look like anything's here," she said, boots to the floor.

"Just a few dead Galrans," Lance agreed, and shuddered. He relaxed the death-grip he had on the plasma gun and pointed its muzzle down at the floor as well. "Now what? To the brig?"

He could hear Shiro take a deep breath before voicing his assent. "To the brig. Right, Pidge?"

Pidge had floated to the center of the room, where a lot of dark items hung suspended. She passed a beam of light over them, checking for things of interest. "Hm," she said, and then, "what? Oh, yeah – the brig. We'll head there in a minute."

"What did you find?" Shiro asked, as she put a few things in her pouch.

"Hey, no looting!" Lance said.

"It's not looting if it's for scientific research," Pidge said. "Right, Shiro?"

"Well I want one of the guns. For research."

"Guys," Shiro said. Pidge shrugged her shoulders and kicked off the floor, floating back through the door and, still grumbling, Lance followed.

#

"Hey, that looks like a training room." Lance said, stopping and catching on the edge of one open blast door. Pidge stopped and looked back at him, peering into the cavernous darkness. They had looped back around, headed toward the brig, and the training room was situated in a position that left it partially decimated by the blast that had destroyed the ship. From the far edge of the room glowed starlight, and beyond that it was lit by the system's sun, reflecting off the atmosphere of the planet below.

And in the center of the room, a strange pillar with runes scrawled over it. The top was not level, but carved into what looked like the tip of a paintbrush, curled and styled. "Whoa," Lance said, still floating as he held onto the edge of the blast door with one hand. "What is that, that doesn't look like anything I've seen before."

Pidge heard Shiro's intake of breath as he caught up with them and looked into the training room as well. "Doesn't really matter,"she said. "Unless that pillar is the source of light, or the origin of the transmissions-"

Lance ignored her, kicking off into the training room. "Lance!" Shiro said, and attempted to grab him by the back of his armor. He moved too slow, and Lance floated into the room, plasma rifle still held in both hands as he approached the pillar, mesmerized. "Shit," Shiro said suddenly, and kicked into the room after him. Pidge blinked in surprise and entered the compromised training room last.

The pillar was larger than first thought, it dwarfed Lance considerably as he stood in front of it, rifle shifted to one hand. It was at least twice his height. Shiro activated the magnets in his boots and stopped just behind Lance. "Lance," he said again, intending to sound severe but instead there was an edge of panic to his voice.

"It lit up," Lance said, voice full of wonder. Pidge looked to the pillar in alarm, and sure enough a faint yellow light shot up and around, starting at the base of the pillar and ending at the paintbrush-like-tip ... which, when lit, resembled a flame. "This is it, this has to be it, I bet you can see it from the ship!" He touched his helmet with one hand. "Did anyone else see the light?" he asked.

Pidge said, "that's not possible. There are no active systems on board the ship, and that thing's not alive. It's not picking up on any of my scanners, how is it doing that?"

"Druid magic," Shiro said, in a pained voice. "It's druid magic, we don't want to mess with that. Lance, get away from it-"

Lance ignored Shiro again and stepped forward, one hand out to touch the pillar. "Lance," Shiro barked, and grabbed him by the shoulder, even as Lance's palm touched the pillar. It sparked a brighter color, amber-gold, originating from where Lance's hand touched the pillar and causing the light to burn ever brighter for one moment.

Then the light went from swirling around the pillar to enveloping Lance and Shiro, a yellow so bright Pidge had to squint and look away. "Lance, Shiro!" Pidge yelled, throwing up one hand to block the light; when it faded and she dropped her arm, the other two paladins were gone as if they had never existed.

"What," Pidge said, remarkably calm, "the actual fuck."