shining like the stars

65

The longest hallway was one of the lower decks that led to the launch bay. It curved along the bottom half of the Galra ship, the closest by far to the exterior of the ship. It featured a long line of crystalline viewports that allowed the pedestrians to view whatever portion of the galaxy the ship was currently visiting. The hallway wasn't in frequent use unless prisoners were being ferried between the launch bay and the prison decks, and Keith had many memories of standing against the viewports and just watching the distant, silent stars.

His shoulder bounced off of one of those many clear viewports as Shiro shoved him, hard. The force of the shove had driven them apart in the hallway, just in time to avoid the purple spray of plasma beams from one of the many drone soldiers the Galra used. Keith rolled with the blow, his back going flat against the port, his bayard in hand as Shiro did the same against the wall.

"Five of them, this time," Shiro said, his left arm going up out of habit, the small energy shield supplied by their paladin armor activating with his fist closing.

Keith winced as a plasma bolt pinged off the viewport near his head, leaving a long scorched mark scarred onto the crystal. "We're not going to make it to the launch bay," Keith said, and Shiro shrugged his right shoulder. "It's like shooting snakes in barrel."

"We're trapped in here," Shiro said. "We go back the way we came and we run into more of your friends." There was no underscore to the words that Keith could hear, but the words still stung. Your friends.

He had no friends, here.

"Only thing we can do is keep moving forward," Shiro said. He'd previously made a fist with his right hand, now he relaxed it and held it rigid. Keith didn't look over at Shiro, although he saw the Galra-made tech start to glow from the corner of his eye. "Cover me."

"Cover you?" Keith repeated, thinking of the plasma rifle cast aside when its energy had been depleted. "With what, exactly?"

"You'll think of something," Shiro said, pushing up off the wall and tucking as much of his body as he could manage behind the energy shield. He charged forward, toward the robots, and Keith hesitated only a moment before following. Plasma bolts pinged off of Shiro's shield and one clipped Keith's ear, he hissed at the sear of pain and the sudden horrid stench of burnt fur, but then Shiro was in the middle of the drones and Keith only a few steps behind.

Most of the drones that populated the prison ship were guards and soldiers, equipped for gunfights. While some of them were programmed for close-quarters fighting, those were usually kept to the decks where the prisoners were held — and wouldn't be found roaming the halls, nevermind near the launch bay. These machines weren't ready for close combat in the form of sword or superheated prosthetic arm.

Shiro scattered them like tenpins and Keith dispatched those not destroyed by the wide sweeps of Shiro's arm. They made it through the drones mostly unscathed, and as they finally came to the arc in the corridor that took them out of direct line of sight Keith slowed and touched his wounded ear tenderly. Plasma bolts were hot enough to cauterize on impact, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like bloody hell.

Shiro stood a little further up the corridor, breathing hard. The shield on his left arm had dissipated, although his right hand still glowed hot, purple lines of power from the Galra crystal snaked up his arm, visible even under the paladin armor. He was watching Keith, and Keith tried not to focus on his expression too much because he didn't want to think about what he saw there. It was hard enough to breathe now as it was.

"You're hurt," Shiro said, and Keith dropped his hand from the top of his head like he was scalded.

"I'm fine." It was little effort to brush it off. "Don't worry about it." It wasn't real, anyway ... Lance had been shot in the other memory core, and came out whole and hearty. Keith started forward again, toward the blast doors that separated this corridor from the one that lead into the launch bay proper. "We're almost out of here, anyway." He put his hand on the touchpad and it glowed purple under his touch. Keith tried not to think about how much larger the example hand print was, and how small his hand looked in comparison. Runt.

"Keith!" Shiro barked suddenly, his name sharp and clear, an order. Keith whipped his head around to look at Shiro, but Shiro was already moving forward, one hand on Keith's shoulder, gripped tight, yanking him back.

Later, when he was turning it over in his head, Keith was able to reconstruct the exact order of things that occurred. Shiro had him by the shoulder, yanking him back. The blast doors slid open, a half-dozen drones waiting expectantly on the other side, rifles already up and glowing. The plasma bolts filled the corridor with the stench of ozone and burnt flesh; and the air was knocked completely out of Keith's lungs when his back hit the hard tile.

Shiro over top of him, arranged in such a way that Keith knew he had swung himself around, put himself between Keith and the blast door, Keith and the drone soldiers, Keith and danger — and Shiro looking down at him, blood running from his mouth as his eyes searched Keith's. "Not hurt?"

Keith didn't have time to respond before Shiro collapsed atop him.

#

Pidge didn't move as the pilot — as Matt, as Matt stood up slowly from his seated position on the floor of the temple. She kept the bayard up and ready, but her hands were shaking, just enough that Allura could see. "Matt?" Pidge said in a strangled voice. "What are you doing here? I thought, I thought-" there were a million thoughts, mostly truncated to dead, dead.

"What am I doing here?" Matt was on his feet now ... taller, Pidge thought a little dizzily; hard to tell without someone to measure by. His glasses weren't the same, smaller lenses, fit better to his face, hair longer and tied back into a scruffy, spiky tail at the base of his neck. There was a faint scar that ran through his left eyebrow, when he brushed his bangs back from his forehead in a starkly familiar move — frustration, anger, confusion — she could see how it truncated below the frame of his glasses. "What are you — how is this even possible, what are you doing here!?" Some unknown emotion dashed over his features.

Allura said, behind her, "Pidge, is that your brother?" and Matt said, almost overlapping her, "who the hell is Pidge?" There was another heartbeat, another moment, and Matt's brow creased, and he said, "Wait. Pidge-podge? Katie, are you going by-"

He didn't get to complete that thought, but that was because Pidge hit him about the center of his chest, headfirst, arms around him with enough force to send them both over backwards. "Matt!" Her voice went up as she pressed her forehead into his chest, and just cried. "You're alive."