shining like the stars

70

"You gotta be kidding me," Lance said, hands on his hips and head jutted forward to study the large, three dimensional map that sprawled across the entire length of the bridge. "All that fancy flying, and the Galra ship was on the other side of the planet?"

"I don't want any reminders of your 'fancy flying'," Pidge said, seated in her claimed spot at navigation. Allura stood in the center of the bridge, still in the gauzy native gown of the moon of Eaphus, her hair plaited back. She was maneuvering the map to get a better view of the entire star system.

"Eaphus's moon isn't the only habitable planet in this system," Allura said. "Perhaps the natives of Mochuerus are the Galra's true target." She was frowning, though. "The entire system is Galra-held, though, so I'm not certain what the point is of staging a campaign this far from its target."

"Maybe it's true target is us," Hunk said. "And it was just luck that when we were going off-planet that the frigate had the entire planet of Eaphus between it and us."

"There's no such thing as luck," Rian snorted from where he stood. The two Alteans were off to the side, watching the princess manipulate the map. Coran was standing entirely too close to Rian, who had been creeping slowly away to no avail. "Maybe they're confident that their spy will tell them when to strike."

Keith visibly flinched, and Lance stepped forward, putting himself between Keith and Rian's acidic glare. "Hey, you little shit," Lance said. "What proof do we have you're not a bunch of Galra spies? You fly Galra starfighters!"

"Because if we were," Illianya said calmly, "we would have already taken the castle by now." She looked down at Rian, who stood a half-head shorter than the golden-haired Altean. "And you should watch your mouth," she added sharply, eyes narrowed.

"I think we would draw more attention if we left now," Shiro said, addressing Allura and ignoring the spat growing behind him.

"We're sitting ducks if we stay here," Hunk said.

"And we make ourselves a target if we leave now," Allura agreed with Shiro. "We'll stay. A long range sensor scan will trip the alerts, and that should give us enough time to scramble the lions and defend the castle." She brought her hands together, and most of the map condensed into just Eaphus. The moon that they had spent the past few days on was barely the size of a fist, next to the large image.

A bright spot lit up beside the moon. "This is the waystation," Allura said. "Where the prison ship is currently." She looked up at the Alteans, and Matt who stood awkwardly between them and Shiro. "You wish to ... tag it?"

Matt nodded his head. "Where I escaped from ... it was a much larger prison ship. It stays in whatever system it's in, and these smaller prison ships shuttle combatants and make prisoner transfers throughout the Galra empire." He looked over at Shiro a moment, but Shiro's eyes were glued to the map. "By tagging them we can create a traffic pattern of the ships, and use that to try to construct a map to the location of the main prisoner colony, and rescue everyone."

Pidge sat up in her chair. "What do you have so far? We can run it through the main computer and see if it spits out any new information!"

"Later," Shiro said firmly, and both Matt and Pidge looked at him. "It's been a long day for everyone and we're not out of danger yet. Maybe we should get some rest while there's a little bit of time to breathe?"

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Allura said. "Eat. Rest. And be prepared to scramble if the alerts go off." She looked over to Coran, and the other Alteans. "If you two would like to join Coran and I," she said. "I feel like we've much to discuss."