Several people are standing. A few of them are hunched over their computers, still- most of them are looking up at the larger monitor.

Everything is normal. Within bounds. As predictable and neat as anything can be observing the moon of a planet at the edge of the solar system.

Nothing is wrong, except the fact that three people and their entire ship should be there. Or, in fact, anything, except a single bored hole to suggest anyone was there to drill an ice core in the first place.

"Think the kid could tell us about it?"

Iverson's good eye doesn't pull away from the monitor.

"I mean, the alien one."

"I know which kid you mean," he grinds out, with about as much patience as he can manage at that point. "What do you think he's going to tell us? There's an empty moon where two of our best men and a promising cadet used to be?"

The officer shrinks a bit at his tone- but holds strong. They're all stressed. It's hard to talk to anyone in this room without running into sharp edges of some kind. "He mentioned he was fleeing something, right? And we got an energy spike from 01 the same day they missed their first check-in."

"Or we can try not to make baseless guesses about something we clearly don't understand."

Another person speaks up, quietly. "So we're lying to the general public and pinning the blame on one of the victims." She doesn't pull her eyes away from her station.

"You do me a favor, you find Shirogane alive and get a better explanation for what happened, I'll personally apologize to him and everyone else. In the meantime I'd like to avoid a global panic."

The woman doesn't lift her head to meet his eyes, but her tone is distinctly drawn taut when she says "Yes, sir."

It's only years of muscle memory in military posture that keeps him from deflating. "Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like someone to explain how a thirteen-year-old broke into my office this morning."

Working towards fighter class takes up a lot more time than he expected, which ultimately, works out very much in Lance's advantage.

Space travel is imperfect. Earth is doing its best, but they don't have… anything, really. It makes sense not everyone is going to make it out. And he knows already that he can't help with that from his current situation.

He hadn't known Shiro as much as he had Sam, but it was enough to know that he'd been an incredible guy. Charming, polite- and incredibly good at what he did. You didn't get where he was at 24 without something going for you.

And now they were gone. Just like that. And the worst part was afterwards; more or less the entire Garrison campus moving back to business.

He can't even begrudge them. He's doing the same himself.

Hunk disagrees, considering the number of times Lance talks him into sneaking out of the Garrison- but sometimes he just has to get away from it all, and the least he can do is spread the joy a little.

A few times, he seriously debates sneaking in to see Blue. He could probably just ask the Garrison, but another part of him resents that. She doesn't belong to them. Ultimately, it doesn't come to anything- he's occupied, and stays that way.

Keith disappears. The instructors call it a discipline issue. Rumors abound about a fight. A few of them insist he put someone in the hospital- stabbed them, even. A lot of it just sounds like gossip, and Lance isn't interested in poking around. Either way, it stands that his dorm room is empty within a day, and no one afterwards seems to have any idea where he went.

A week later, Lance makes fighter class. He gloats about it- but there's a bitter aftertaste to it.

He knows who that spot belonged to.

Simulator class proves to be simultaneously the greatest and worst thing that has happened to Lance since arriving on Earth. The first time everything lights up in a field of stars, it doesn't feel like a fake ship. It doesn't feel like a pretend assignment. He can't even listen to what he's supposed to be doing- Hunk, and the other student they're paired with, some fourteen-year-old whiz kid- because he's back out there.

It feels almost like home.

And then the ship crashes.

Well, no. That's avoiding the issue.

And then he crashes the ship.

Iverson makes it very, very clear after the fact whose fault that was.

Excuses clatter ineffectively around Lance's head for hours afterwards. The controls are wrong. He's out of practice. That's not how space works.

None of them actually make it out his mouth.

He resolves to try harder. Cautiously. Manages a few good exercises, and more bad ones. It's never completely easy, never completely like what he's used to- and he's not alone in the ship. He butts heads with Hunk, and the other one- Pidge, which he swears is some type of Earth bird. Who names their kid after a bird?

So-and-so Gunderson, apparently.

Outside of being fourteen, a few things stick out about Pidge. He's squirrely around the instructors sometimes- but that doesn't stop him from yelling at them from time to time. After a while, a particular subject emerges that seems to be the target of almost every one of Pidge's outbursts.

Kerberos.

The failed mission.

He still hadn't talked to Iverson about it. Hadn't been sure what to say. You don't lead a conversation about someone else's loss with 'jeez you humans sure are bad at space, am I right'.

(Especially considering his track record with the simulator)

But it feels like there's something to say. Earth is a galaxy over from what's considered civilized space- it's a fringe planet if there ever was one- but if one of the Lions is here, someone should've come by now. An Altean scout ship, or…

Lance puts down the book he'd been trying to read the entire time. "Hey Hunk, how do you feel about having a night on the town?"

"You mean sneaking out again? After we just got chewed out by Commander Iverson? No, great, I love it, just two guys getting in trouble for like the eighth time this semester alone."

"Well, it won't be just us. It'll be-"

"Oh no,"

"Team building."

Hunk sighs, deeply, picking up his vest from where he left it. "Has it occurred to you we can bond doing other things? Things that won't get us in trouble?" He takes a moment longer to find his boots. "Like, I dunno, group study session."

Navigating the hallways at this point is easy enough, even taking a detour to try and get to Pidge's dorm. It's not even enough to keep Hunk from continuing to complain, though he keeps his voice down after the lights shut off.

"...start an agate collection. Get fast food sometime. Of course by 'get fast food' I mean let me make you something that isn't overcooked garbage but y'know-"

"Shh!" He hesitates at Hunk's brief, affronted look- sorry buddy, it's for a cause- and then pokes his head around the corner, just in time to catch a retreating flash of orange sneakers.

…Looked like Pidge had other plans for tonight. But now, so did Lance.

"You come up here to rock out?"

There's a moment where Pidge defies gravity by sheer force of surprise. He shuffles clumsily in place- feet together, hands in his lap, somehow trying not to look suspicious. "Oh. Lance. Hunk. No, uh, just looking at the stars."

An appraising eye sweeps over the miscellaneous scattered hardware. "Where did you get this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech." Insofar as his knowledge of human anything goes.

"I built it."

"You built all of this?" There's a thread of awe in Hunk's tone- it's hard to say how much Pidge appreciates it, because he definitely doesn't appreciate the questing fingers heading for the keyboard.

"With this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system."

He plays at considering it- as if he just picks the thought out of thin air: "That right? All the way to Kerberos?"

He watches Pidge fold away from the name.

"You go ballistic every time the instructors bring it up. What's your deal?"

Silence- except telling Hunk off for touching something again. Time passes. Too much. After a moment, Lance sits down, cross-legged. "Hey, we're not leaving anytime soon." Partially because he doesn't think he could tear Hunk away from that setup if he tried to- out of the corner of his eye Lance can see him inching towards the screen again.

"Fine." Pidge turns to face them both, an odd expression of gravity. "The world as you know it is… about to change. The Kerberos mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake."

Oh he's just decided he really doesn't like where this is going.

"…So I've been scanning the system, and picking up alien radio chatter."

"What have you been hearing?"

Both Hunk and Pidge are staring at him, but he doesn't really care. Suddenly, the peaceful blips on the two screens don't seem nearly so much of an idle curiosity. He makes a grab for the headphones.

Pidge finds his voice first. "Lance, what the hell?"

"Depending on who's talking, this entire planet could be in big trouble." The headphones are halfway to his ears when a much smaller hand catches his wrist.

Perplexed hazel eyes are studying him sharply. "What do you know about this?"

He forces himself to breathe. Lowers the headphones. If Pidge is right, there's a whole solar system they could be in. There's no guarantee they're heading for Earth now. Yet.

"…How much trouble are we talking here?" Hunk ventures into the silence.

"I mean a fleet. Maybe not the entire thing. They might not even know I'm here. It's been over a year-" Maybe it's not Zarkon. Maybe it's a friend. Maybe they're trying to hail. "Pidge, I'm serious, what have they been saying?"

"...Well, I haven't been able to make heads or tails out of a lot of it, but, there's been one word that keeps repeating." Pidge rummages at their notes. "Voltron."

"…Quiznak."

"What?"

"It's like a swear word," Hunk clarifies; Lance tones him out, stumbling to his feet.

Pidge twists in place. "Where are you going?"

"Commander Iverson needs to know about this." He makes it about two steps to the stairs when the sirens go off- the campus is going into lockdown. Or he already knows about it.

He barely has time to process before Hunk is pointing out something.

Something coming down from the sky.

Pidge holds up binoculars for a moment. "…Lance, were you serious about a fleet?"

There's a dark speck in the center of the fire. He swipes the binoculars, not paying much attention as Pidge comes along for the ride.

"…That's too small to be a cruiser. Way too fast." He waits for them to pull up, slow down. It nosedives into the ground instead, impacts with a brilliant flash.

Pidge is already gathering his stuff as furiously as he can go. Lance doesn't wait, but runs for the door. "Hunk, c'mon!"

He doesn't know who's coming down but he has to meet them.

And oh god he wants to be wrong about who sent that ship.

He's not. By the time he's gotten there, the Garrison has beat him to it- there's a tent set up, surrounded by guards and people. But it's altogether too easy to see the faintly glowing pod already tied down for transport.

Pidge hesitates, watching him at an angle before broaching the subject. "Do you… recognize that?"

"Yeah. Bad news."

He slides down the slope easily- the guard standing closest to the entrance spots him, trains their rifle in his direction. "Stay where you are!"

He pushes something out through his teeth that's more irritated huff than meditation breath and shifts.

The guard flinches. A hasty conversation passes on radio- Lance could nearly pick it up, but he's distracted when a faint chorus of scraping noises signals that Pidge, then, after a moment, Hunk, have joined him. They stay behind him when he approaches the quarantine unit.

"Look, you-" even with face concealed, the guard is sizing him up, nervously. "Nobody's getting in here. Commander Iverson's orders. That means you, too. You're not even supposed to be here."

With a distinct thread of palace hauteur, Lance squares his shoulders. "That's a Galra pod. The ship that launched it isn't going to be that far behind. So either you can go tell Commander Iverson that, or you can get out of my way and let me do it. You know, like we agreed I was supposed to if something like this happened."

"And what about them?" They take a hand off the weapon to motion over his shoulder.

Hunk is looking distinctly uncomfortable- not the normal kind, the 'this is a bad idea but I'm going along with it because you're you, Lance' but genuinely unnerved, and a pang of guilt hits Lance hard.

Pidge meets his eyes, brows knit together over them. Spindly hands are balled tightly into fists. It looks as if they're caught somewhere between 'please' and 'don't you dare'.

With a bravado that Lance doesn't remotely feel, he sweeps back around to face the instructor. "They're with me."

Faceplate notwithstanding, he can feel the guard's incredulous look. He refuses to let his own waver, until the guard breaks away from him to talk on the radio. It's a very short conversation, something he's not sure if he finds heartening or dispiriting.

Either way, he doesn't get to hear the answer.

Because right then, something explodes.