Survival of the Innocent (A Voltron fanfic) (Book 1 of Fates Entwined)

Eventually Part 2

The Paladins drop their Lions at the bottom of mine shafts and navigate the tunnels with their speeders. Keith and Lance scope out the Galra hangar.

"The entire hangar's only being guarded by a few Sentries," Keith readies his Bayard and prepares to attack, "Let's go!"

Lance grabs Keith and pulls him back, "Whoa, w-w-whoa, whoa! Cool your jets, Keith! Don't you remember all that stuff about this Balmera thing being a sensitive animal?"

"Oh. Right," Keith replies, having forgotten from his genetic need to fight taking control for a moment.

"Yeah, so we can't just blow things up like a psycho," Lance chides slightly, his hand squeezing Keith's arm slightly before letting go.

"Oh, You got a better idea?" Keith asks.

"I do. We sneak into the control room to shut down the bay doors. That'll trap the ships in," Lance suggests.

"That—! ... Actually... is a better idea," Keith admits, before he and Lance start sneaking towards the hangar's control room.

The Castleship is tracking everyone's movements.

Hunk is in his speeder traversing the mine tunnels, "Allura, Coran, w-what's my location? All these tunnels look the same. I can't remember where the prison is."

"You're on the right path. Turn right at the next tunnel. Once you get there, you'll have to disable the energy doors. Be careful. It looks like it's heavily guarded," Coran advises.

Meanwhile, Keith and Lance are breaking in to the control room of the hangar from above. A Sentry stands at the controls.

"No, no. It's over here," Lance beckons Keith over.

"I know what I'm doing," Keith replies and uses his Bayard to slice a hole in the ceiling above the Sentry.

Lance kicks the hole open, crushing the Sentry underneath its weight. Both Paladins enter the control room.

"Keep an eye out for those guards. I'll see if I can find a way to shut the hangar doors," Lance starts to look around, so Keith nods and stands watch as Lance inspects the computer console, "Uh... Hmm. Nope. Maybe. Uh... Uh... Mm..." Lance presses buttons to no avail, "Ah, I don't know what I'm doing here. It's all Galra gibberish."

"Let me see," Keith inspects the console and then puts his hand on the hand print, activating the bay doors and closing them.

"Whoa! How'd you do that?" Lance asks.

"I just put my hand on the hand print," Keith deadpans, not wanting to admit his heritage until he felt the others would understand.

Hunk approaches the prison in his speeder. Galra Sentries are fleeing, but some fire at him. Hunk exits his speeder and blasts the Sentries with his Bayard cannon.

"That was way too easy. I definitely don't have a good feeling about this, " Hunk uses a broken Sentry hand to unlock the prison doors and enter, finding Shay's family, but not Shay.

"Hunk, you have returned!" Shay's father declares, causing Shay's family to greet Hunk, except Rax, who sits aside.

"I promised I'd be back. We're here to help. Where's Shay?"

"Our life may not have been perfect, but our family was whole. Your arrival has left us imprisoned and torn apart. As soon as your attack started, they took her away to the core of the Balmera. For all we know, she could be gone for good," Rax answers, full of despair.

Allura notices strange movement by the Galra on the Castleship's map, "Paladins, are you there? The Galra troops are moving down the tunnels. It looks like they're going down toward the center."

"They must be headed to the core of the Balmera. That's where they're holding Shay," Hunk replies and rushes off to the Balmera's core.

Shiro, meanwhile, is still in his speeder, "They're drawing us into an ambush, but we don't have a choice if we want to save Shay. We have to follow. Lance, Keith, get to the core. I think we're going to need everyone together to get through this firefight."

Lance and Keith are still in the control room. The bay doors finish shutting.

"Copy that. We're on our way," Lance answers as Keith damages the computer console, followed by Lance damaging the lock to the door so no one can access it, before they both leave.

Pidge is in her speeder, but the tunnel becomes too narrow.

Allura speaks to Pidge over their communication channel, "Looks like you're in an area where the tunnels are too narrow for your speeder."

"Yeah. Proceeding on foot," Pidge confirms and enters the narrow tunnel and sees shadows approaching, "There's someone here."

"Looking into it," Allura replies as the shadows come closer, Pidge summoning her Bayard and rushing to attack, "Pidge, no! Those are Balmerans!"

Pidge stops when she sees Balmeran children, "Phew!" Pidge greets the children, but the Balmera groans and trembles, so the Balmeran children run in fear; one child trips and is nearly crushed by falling rock, but Pidge saves them, "Don't worry," Pidge speaks to the other Paladins through the communication channel, "Hey, team, be careful. The Balmera is very unstable."

Lance and Keith immediately run into a squadron of Galra Sentries that bombard them with laser fire.

"Their shooting is destroying the Balmera. We gotta do something!" Keith growls, Red and the other Lions angry at the Balmera crying in pain.

"Well, we can't shoot back! It'll just make it worse," Lance looks around and devises a plan, then tries to direct Keith with motions instead of words.

"Huh?" Keith does not understand at all, but looks around and figures out what Lance intends and climbs to sneak above the Sentries.

Lance jumps out in front of them and waves his arms, "Na-na Na-na boo-boo!" Lance defends himself with his shield as the Sentries fire at him.

Keith jumps down from above and attack the Sentries, destroying them. Lance gives Keith a thumbs-up.

Hunk, meanwhile, runs to the core of the Balmera and finds no one there but Shay, muzzled and hanging from the ceiling, "Shay! You're alive!" and then shoots Shay free and catches her as she falls.

Shiro and Pidge then arrive.

"Where are the Galra? If this is an ambush, they should be here waiting for us," Shiro wonders.

Keith and Lance arrive only for the doors to the core suddenly all shut.

"Not an ambush. More like a trap," Hunk sighs.

"Whatever it is, keep your guard up," Keith warns, partly from previous encounters with the race and partly voicing the Lions' thoughts.

"The Galra, they gained knowledge that you would return to the Balmera," Shay informs them.

"How?" Pidge asks.

"I know not. But they set this trap just for you. I was the bait," Shay replies sadly.

"Who could have possibly known that we were heading here to save Shay?" Shiro asks aloud.

"Rolo! Those liars must have told Zarkon," Hunk growls.

"We have to figure out how to get out of here," Shiro orders.

"Wait! We have a giant Castleship hovering in the sky. Allura, can you please come get us?" Lance asks.

"How do you expect her to do that, genius?" Keith facepalms.

"I don't know, maybe they got teleporters or something," Lance replies, causing Keith to deal with the exasperated sighs of the Lions.

Turns out, Allura and Coran are on the Castleship and under attack.

"We're quite occupied at the moment. We're completely surrounded by Galra ships and we're taking heavy fire!" Allura informs them.

"Princess, our particle barrier won't last much longer!"

"Paladins, you need to get out of there as soon as you can!"