Part I: Constellations

Chapter 1: Zephyr

Everything had gone wrong.

Coran, what's happening?

Just when things were starting to look up—the shields around Zarkon's command went down, the princess opened a wormhole—

The integrity of the wormhole has been compromised. It's breaking down!

But something went wrong—because something always had to go wrong.

What does that mean?

And success was pulled away from under their feet, leaving them all in free fall.

It means we have no control over where we're headed!

Spat out of the wormhole one by one, to destinations they couldn't decide, to the farthest reaches of space.

Pidge found herself blasted out into unfamiliar space, spinning out of control, spiraling downwards, caught in the gravity of a nearby planet.

"No, no, no," she muttered, pulling frantically at her joysticks. "Come on, girl, stay with me." The lion responded weakly, trying desperately to pull up, to level out. Her thrusters sputtered.

"No, no, we've entered atmo." They were hurtling towards the surface of the planet, the ground rushing up at her rapidly. Pidge deflated. "Oh, quiznak."

Then there was a crash, and she was in darkness.

There was a gentle nudging in her mind, slowly bringing her back to consciousness.

She let out a groan as the cabin slowly came into focus around her. "Oh jeez. That was quite a crash."

Her lion continued kneading at her mind, washing over her senses, asking silent wordless questions.

Pidge stretched experimentally, wincing as all her aches came to her at once. A deep throbbing beat at her chest, and she lightly massaged it. "Yeah," she muttered. "I'm fine. Just a bit sore." She slowly flexed her right ankle, rotating it gently. "You okay, girl?"

She was answered by a soft rumbling, a series of images running through her head.

Pidge sighed. "Alright. Could be worse. I guess. Definitely could be better, though."

The cabin was dark. The indicator lights on her armor illuminated the room slightly, casting a faint cyan glow over the cockpit. Pidge fumbled at the side of her helmet before locating the switch to activate the headlamp.

The console was a mess; a few control panels had been knocked out of place, leaving bare sparking wires. Pidge tried pulling at the handles, pushing some buttons. The screens in front of her flickered weakly, then went out again.

Going off what her lion had told her, she made a mental checklist. Mouth beam and tail beam were inoperable, as was the jaw blade. The particle barrier crystals had been knocked out of alignment. The metal plating on the side of the lion was dented. Only half the thrusters were functioning. Not to mention the busted console.

She couldn't fight. She couldn't put up her shields. She could barely fly. At this point, she was a sitting duck.

Pidge groaned. "Okay, girl," she said. "Looks like we're stuck here for a bit."

Her lion growled in assent.

"Well," Pidge announced, standing up and stretching. "Let's see what repairs I can get started on. How do I realign the barrier crystals?"

A few hours later, she found herself half-through a panel in the wall under the console, fiddling with the wires and circuits around her. "This one here, tighten this, readjust that…." She fitted a patch of circuitry back into place. "Alright, try now!"

The Green Lion rumbled, and slowly flickered back to life.

"Alright!" Pidge whooped, pulling herself out into the cabin. "That's more like it!" She started to screw the metal panel back into the wall. "So, what've we got? Particle barrier, cloaking, main power…?" She nodded, content. "Awesome. How're you doing on the bigger repairs?"

A flush of images and feelings ran through her head.

Progress was slow-going, but constant. The lion had decided to focus on the engines and thrusters first; the sooner they were operational, the sooner they'd be able to take off and find everyone else. But as for the weapons systems….

"We're not going to be able to do everything on our own," Pidge translated. "We'll need to get you back to the castle for a full repair."

A rumble of confirmation.

Pidge sighed, settling back into her chair and pulling off her helmet. "Okay. So flight capabilities. When will those be back online?"

Several quintants, was the response.

"Great," Pidge muttered. "And comms?"

Still dead.

"This just keeps getting better."

Green let out a low warning growl, gently admonishing her paladin.

Pidge sighed. "I know, I know, you're doing the best you can." She gazed down at her helmet, wishing she could just activate the comms and contact the rest of her team. "Well," she mused, "if we're going to be stuck here for a few days, we should probably know what 'here' is." She stood up, a little too forcefully, and barely made it a step before her right ankle gave out beneath her. With a yelp, she crashed to the floor, her helmet rolling across the cockpit.

A spike of worry rolled through her head as she fell, her lion mentally pacing anxiously.

Pidge sighed, rubbing at her ankle. "I'm fine," she assured her lion. "Just…maybe less fine than I originally thought." She gingerly pulled herself back up to a standing position. "I may have sprained my ankle," she admitted. "Do you have a medbay on here?"

Her lion guided her out of the cockpit towards a smaller room in the back. There was a metal cabinet against one wall, and upon opening it, Pidge found a array of food rations and first aid supplies. She sighed in relief. "Thanks, girl."

There was a small mirror on the inside of the cabinet. As she caught sight of her reflection, she noticed there was a small cut on her cheek. And considering how sore her chest was, she was probably riddled with bruises, maybe worse.

Not only was Green pretty banged up, but she was as well.

"Magic Altean painkillers," she mumbled, taking a bottle from the cabinet and glancing skeptically at the unreadable label. "Let's hope these work on humans."

She opened the bottle and shook a few of the translucent blue pills into her hand, swallowing one dry.

Instantly, a wave of calm passed through her, relieving her of all the tension and aches that she'd been dealing with for hours. She didn't realize how bad the pain had been until it was gone.

"Oh jeez," she murmured, taking a deep breath. "Wow. I'm gonna need to stock up on these." She placed the bottle back in the cabinet and started to make her way back to the cabin. "Why didn't you tell me about these before?" she teased.

Back in the cockpit, Pidge settled comfortably back in her seat. "First step," she told herself. "Find out where we are." She booted up the display screens. Green's "eyes" opened, allowing Pidge her first glance at what lay outside of the lion. "Sand," she noted. "And…a large rock? Oh, boy, this is exciting." She pulled up one of the smaller displays and pushed a few buttons, activating the star map and universal locator.

A error message flashed in red.

Pidge groaned. "Great. So not only are we on an unknown planet, but we have no clue where in the universe we are."

That was worrisome. Who knew what hostile forces could be out here? Were they in Galra-controlled space? Or perhaps this planet was inhabited by savage beasts.

And without operational weapons….

"We're gonna have to stay hidden," Pidge said, opening a few more display screens to run some other diagnostic scans.

As much as she'd love to leave Green cloaked over these next few days while they were stuck, stranded, on this planet, or have the particle barrier up the whole time, or even both––that would just be using up energy that they didn't have to spare.

"Yeah, you just focus on repairing yourself," Pidge assured her lion, patting the console comfortingly. "The sooner you're up and running, the better."

Her lion asked a question, focusing on what they could see of the planet outside.

Pidge frowned. "You want me to check it out?"

Green responded in the affirmative, already opening the hatch on the ceiling.

"You sure you'll be fine on your own?"

The lion's reply was almost indignant, and Pidge laughed. Even without a functional weapons system, Green was as feisty as ever.

"Alright, alright," Pidge said, standing and grabbing her helmet off the floor. "Then I'll go ahead and take a look around."

She exited the cabin through the door on the roof, climbing atop her lion to look around.

The planet was dusty, covered in sand and rocks. As far as she could see ahead of her, there was desert. They had crashed in the foothills of a mountain range, leaving imposing mountains rising on one side of her, and the equally imposing desert stretching out as far as she could see on the other side. "We seem to have landed in the middle of nowhere," she reported. "We're pretty shielded, with the mountains. But we can't be blending in too well."

Everything was awash in gold, the sun bathing the desert sands in its warm light. If it weren't for the orange tinge to the sky, the wispy clouds sparkling like strokes of golden paint, she could almost believe she was back on Earth.

She pushed that thought out her head, firmly focusing herself on the issue at hand.

"Okay, let's see if there's anything else on this planet besides sand." Pidge dropped back into the lion, heading down to where her green-and-white podship was docked. "Let me out, girl. I'll see what I can find."

The bay doors on the lion's chest slowly opened, and Pidge went racing out.

She navigated her speeder amongst the rocks, flying down the hill until she hit the open and exposed desert floor. Not wanting to abandon her cover entirely, she kept close to the mountains. If anything were to spot her, Pidge was confident she'd be able to use the mountains to her advantage.

She tore through the rocky terrain, keeping an eye out for any abnormalities. It was a while before she spotted anything other than just the cliffside.

There were two figures, vaguely humanoid, up ahead. Pidge narrowed her eyes, trying to get a better view before she got too close and they saw her. Her helmet's visor zoomed in for her, focusing on the figures. They were silvery gray, with purple accents, unmistakably—

Galra.

She yelped, yanking hard on the controls, taking a sharp turn to hide behind an outcropping of rock.

Two Galra sentries. Thankfully only the robots, no officers. But if there were sentries here, then there must be more Galra nearby. An outpost, maybe? Or was this another planet that they'd enslaved and colonized?

Green was concerned. Pidge felt the lion's worry passing through her, mirroring her own heightened heart rate, but she only tightened her grip on the controls of her pod. "I'm going to check it out."

Despite the protests of her lion, Pidge climbed out of the pod and carefully crept around the outcropping she'd hidden behind.

She glanced over at the sentries, which thankfully hadn't seemed to notice her. Good, she thought. Let's keep it that way.

Using her jetpack, she made her way higher up the mountain, keeping an eye on the oblivious sentries below.

Once she was directly above them, she started pushing experimentally at a boulder, inching it towards the edge of the cliff. "Come on," she groused. "Move."

With a final heave, the sandstone rock went tumbling down the mountain, smashing into the sentries below.

"Yes!" Pidge cheered. "Now let's see what you're guarding here." She hopped down the cliff, using her jetpack to slow her fall.

Once at the ledge where the sentries had stood, she cautiously peered around the corner of rock, spotting something on the terrain below.

It was a large compound, with several squat metal buildings half-buried in the sands. A wall surrounded the yard, interspersed with watchtowers, leaving no doubt in Pidge's mind as to what she saw.

It was a prison camp.

Groups of people milled about, wearing the dark purple-gray of Galra prisoners. While some looked rather humanoid, others were unlike anything she'd ever seen. Amongst them, she spotted figures with brightly colored skin, with antennae, with horns, with feathers, with too many limbs. Squadrons of sentries stood guard around the perimeter of the compound.

There was one prisoner who caught her attention almost right away. Pale tan skin, and a mop of messy caramel-colored hair.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she took him in, her helmet automatically zooming in. He looked…like he could be human.

Then the figure turned around, and Pidge gasped as she got a clear look at his face.

"Matt?"

AN:

Hi!

This is my first Voltron fic and I'm super excited to be posting it.

Pidge is perfect and wonderful and is also in fact the light of my life, and I desperately need her to find her family, so I decided to write this.

WARNING: Though this IS a canon-divergent fic, it was written AFTER watching season 2! So it WILL contain spoilers for season 2! This has been a PSA.

I've already finished writing the rough draft for this; chapters 2 - 10 are currently undergoing beta reads and edits. So this should be updated quickly! I'll try to post chapters on a weekly basis, but no promises.

Come say hi to me on Tumblr! My url is this-book-has-been-loved.

I hope you guys enjoy this story!

~ Brigit