The Purple Paladin

Chapter Thirteen : Is This The End?

We sprint into the control room and scatter to our separate stations. "Pidge, can the download on that ship. Find out where Zarkon's central command it. Everyone else, focus on using whatever data we already have to find any weaknesses in their ships that we can exploit during this upcoming fight," Shiro orders.

"I'm on it," Pidge says and starts typing furiously.

I pull up my own screen and set to work as well and I notice Alec doing the same out of the corner of my eye.

Coran runs in, "What happened? Where's Allura?"

Shiro turns to him, "They have her. She sacrificed herself to save me and the information we had gotten. I didn't have a choice."

"How is that possible!?" Coran demands.

"Coran, I'm sorry but things didn't go according to plan. But we don't have time to focus on what went wrong. We've got to figure out how to make it right," Shiro says, "Pidge anything?"

Pidge nods, "Yeah, look at this," she puts images of the ship on the screen.

"Look at the size of it!" Lance gasps.

"I think we should go right away. Every minute we waste gives Zarkon time to prepare for us," Pidge says. I nod in agreement.

"Yeah, we should form Voltron, fly in, get Allura, fly off, dust off our hands, and walk away," Lance agrees.

"Uh, do you guys remember the Balmera? We could barely take on one fleet. But this... A base this size will have thousands of fleets!" Hunk says.

Keith looks away, "Or maybe we shouldn't go at all. We'd be delivering the universe's only hope right into the enemy's hands."

I glare at him, "That's cold, even for you, what if it was one of us? What if it was me? Would you sacrifice one of us?"

Keith locks eyes with me, "I'm not saying I like the idea. I'm just thinking like a paladin."

"No! You're just thinking of yourself because you're too scared to do the right thing!" Lance shouts.

"Lance!" Shiro scolds him.

"No he's right," I growl and turn away from Keith in anger.

"Okay, we're all upset because we lost Allura but—" Pidge starts but is cut off by Coran.

"No, Shiro lost Allura!"

"This isn't helping!" Hunk yells making us all look at him in shock since he never yells unless he's afraid, "We can't just sit here and bicker like this!"

Alec nods and puts a hand on my shoulder, "He's right, we need to focus. How are we going to get Allura?" I sigh and turn back towards the group.

"By finding a way in," Shiro says, "Pidge send everything you've got on their headquarters to all of our work stations, we have to find an opening."

Pidge nods and I storm back over to my station, refusing to look at anyone in case I lose control on my anger again. I sit down and begin to type furiously, scanning the data again and again trying to find some kind of weakness. After several failed attempts I feel a presence beside me. I glance up and turn away immediately because it's Keith.

"Hey..." he says.

"What is it?" I grumble, still typing.

"About earlier, when you asked about if it was you that were taken..." he trails off.

I stop typing and look up at him, "What about it?"

"If it were you, I would already be gone... You're a different person to me than Allura," he admits.