We are the Warriors ~ Voltron Next Gen (Book 1)

When We Screw Up. Really Bad...........

Once we were on our way, Max fired up the UPS, and we made a beeline for the Dexclothian system, where the Atlas had been when we were attacked.

Turns out these lions were a lot harder to pilot than we thought. Everyone was going at different speeds, bumping into each other, drifting away and having to be towed back......... It was a mess. I didn't exactly expect that because part of our training back on the Atlas was to fly simulators with controls like the ones we had. We were familiar with them, but it was still really hard. To me, it felt like the lion wouldn't listen sometimes. I hated that.

Shay had just bumped into someone and apologized for the millionth time when I saw it. Two small fleets of those Shift guys so far away I almost missed it.

I grabbed everyone's attention and pointed it out. There was an asteroid belt up ahead to our left that would make a nice hiding spot for huge war machines, so we guided our lions towards it.

We sat and waited, watching the fleets with two cruisers and dozens of smaller ships. It was, as my mom would've called it, a stakeout. We stayed there for about an hour. Alyssa, Karter and Shay started playing a game of I Spy, but quickly got bored and abandoned the game because there wasn't really anything to 'Spy'. Or at least Karter and Shay did, Alyssa kept trying to play.

"I spy........." she hummed, "Hmmmmm............Another star!"

"Alyssa," moaned Kendall, "How are you still alive out here in open space, honestly?"

I wasn't paying attention, my eyes were glued to the fleets. Then, just as I was about to die of anxiety, the fleet began to move. "Guys," I interrupted, "The fleets are moving!"

Everyone went silent and watched intently. The two cruisers were repositioning themselves.

"What are they doing?" Karter wondered out loud.

Max said, "It looks like they're arranging themselves to make room for-"

Another cruiser zoomed in out of a wormhole, this one twice as big as the four Shift cruisers we had seen so far. Easily double the size of the Atlas.

"Another cruiser," the redhead finished.

"Do we attack?" Alyssa asked, her lion already getting up and moving toward the now three fleets.

"No," I told her, "We'd be very outnumbered. Let's wait and see what they do."

Yet another cruiser came in, not as big as the third cruiser, but but still bigger than the other two. It looked pretty beat up, probably just coming back from a battle.

"Hey," Kendall said, "That looks like........."

"The cruiser that attacked the Atlas," I finished, "What's it doing here?"

"If that cruiser's here, what happened to the Atlas?" Shay asked nervously.

As the beat up cruiser moved closer to the biggest cruiser, something came into view behind it that made my stomach do back flips. 

The Atlas.

"Our parents," Alyssa whispered.

"What are we waiting for?" Max shouted, "Let's go get 'em!"

Before he could move I stopped him. "Max, I don't know if you've noticed, but there are four battle cruisers, one of which is two times bigger than the Atlas; all tricked out with the whole kit and kaboodle of weapons; each accompanied by dozens of support ships, and filled with at least a trillion fighters. We don't stand a chance against that with only six flying lions and four dead MFEs."

"Hey, look," Kendall pointed out, "A ship just launched from the medium sized one."

One of the Black Lions monitors focused in on the image. "It's a prisoner transport," I told my friends, "Do you think-"

"Our parents are on there," Kendall growled, "Let's get 'em. The transport is vunerable right now. We can duck in, grab the transport and the Atlas, then get out."

I agreed, "Ok, guys. Here's the plan, Alyssa and Karter's lions are the fastest, so they'll grab that transport and the Atlas, then get them away from here. Shay, your lion is strong and has lots of armor, so try to take out their weapons. Focus on the Ion Canons and electric Pulse Launchers, they're the toughest. Max, help him out. Kendall, you and I will keep the fighters busy while we draw the cruisers fire. Got it?"

"Yeah!" Everyone shouted, and their lions shot toward the four fleets.

My lion opened her mouth, and a blue beam came out. It hit one of the smaller cruisers, there was a small explosion, and fighters came streaming out. 

My friends and I roared, charging in, guns blazing. 

It was pure chaos.

Lions were firing beams out of their mouths and the ends of tails, grabbing fighters and weapons in their powerful jaws, lasers everywhere................chaos.

The Yellow Lion slammed into the cruisers weapons, crushing and bending them. The Green Lion blasted away laser blast turrets. The Blue Lion flew in front of the prisoner transport, cutting it off. The Red Lion used it's claws to tear up the medium cruiser's tractor beam, freeing the Atlas. The Aqua Lion and my lion blasted fighters left and right.

I'd just blasted a whole wave of fighters down and took out their reinforcements when my lion was thrown violently to the side. Everything hurt, and my lion was spinning through the air. 

Oh, great. I got hit by one of the Ion canons. I looked around, and saw all my friends had either been hit or were being cornered by fighters. 

Ok, so we might have bitten off a tinsey-wincey bit more than we could chew. This was bad, really bad.

I sighed, we were gonna risk getting caught if we stayed. "Fall Back!" I ordered my friends.

They all protested. 

"What?!?!" Cried Alyssa, "Are you crazy?!?!"

"We can't leave our parents!" Shouted Max, "We need to rescue them!"

"Well, we can't rescue them if we're caught," I argued, "Come on!"

"We can't quit!" Shay yelled.

"We're not quitting!" I exasperated, "We're strategically falling back!"

"Yeah," Alyssa shot at me, "Also pronounced running away like sissies!"

"We're not running away!" My voice almost at a scream. "WE ARE FALLING BACK AND REGROUPING SO WE CAN MAKE A BETTER PLAN! WE WILL COME BACK AND TRY AGAIN ONCE WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING!"

At first, I thought they wouldn't listen. Luckily, Kendall was there to back me up. "She's right guys. Now come on, let's go inside that gas planet so we can lose some of these fighters!"

Our lions darted for the light blue, white, and gray planet with gray, stone like spikes sticking out, just aways off. As soon as we entered the gas, Black's screens started to flicker. Uh, Oh. They turned red, showing nothing but cancel or no connection symbols. Not good.

"Guys," I called out, "Are your screens turning red and going off line?"

"Yeah," Max answered, "This planet has some crazy magnetic pulls. That and whatever's in this gas is knocking my sensors out of wack." 

"Same here," Shay and the twins sighed. Their voices crackled over the comm's static.

"At least we know the fighters can't follow us," Alyssa said.

I saw a horizontal spike that looked at least a little safe. Might be a good place to set down our lions. "Max, would it be safe to go out there?"

"It should be as long as we keep out suits and helmets on," he answered.

"Let's park our lions over there," I told my friends.