For The Stars

Chapter 11: Cat and Mouse

Keith and Lance floated weightlessly behind the group, watching as Pidge, Shiro, and Hunk stared at one of the damaged coil rods on the exterior of the ship. Why Shiro had insisted on ALL of them coming out here was beyond him and, quite frankly, ridiculous. What could he possibly contribute? Or for that matter, what could Lance contribute? Neither of them were engineers, or mechanics, or tech wizards. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, letting his body fall into a relaxed posture as he floated in the space surrounding the Castle of Lions.

"Let's hurry up with these repairs. Zarkon could be here at any moment." Shiro commanded them all through their helmet coms and Keith rolled his eyes.

"Okay, panel's off. Now, what?" Hunk asked as he pulled the coil from its containment slot.

Coran had promised to walk them through the repairs, but Keith still didn't see why the Altean wasn't out here himself fixing his Altean ship of Altean design with Altean parts. Honestly, Keith was starting to think he was the only one on this team with any common sense.

"Very simple. Just loosen the blaxums on the somoflange." The man announced and Keith watched with an amused expression as Hunk stared nervously at the controls.

"Could you be more specific?" The squishy teddy bear of a paladin deadpanned. He stifled a laugh, garnering a suspicious glare from Lance.

"Sorry, Hunk, he means the poklones on the agroclams." Allura cut in and Keith smirked into his helmet from behind the group. A ship this size wouldn't even use any agroclams; they'd be too small to be effective.

"No, that doesn't help." Hunk sighed and it took every ounce of self-control not to lose his resolve as he watched the poor guy struggle.

"Easy, Hunk. I've got this." Lance interrupted, pushing the actual 'astro-mechanical engineering' cadet out of the way. Keith face palmed as the absolute dipshit pressed a series of buttons resulting in the near catastrophic failure of the engine core.

Allura and Coran panicked over the coms. Hunk curled in on himself, dissolving into a mess of nervous energy. Keith and Shiro tried to glare the coil back into submission. And Lance had the decency to look remorseful as he moved aside for Pidge to take over. The Green Paladin took a tic or two to assess the controls before immediately fixing the entire situation. Keith was impressed, but then again when it came to Pidge he usually was.

"The tech on this ship never ceases to amaze me; it's so mathematically elegant. Its fit is 100 times more frictionless than any exoskeleton we have on Earth. It's ... beautiful." They gushed, staring in wonder at the repaired haul of the Altean Castle, stars sparkling behind their eyes.

"It's not a sunset, Pidge." Lance deadpanned and Keith couldn't hold back his chuckle. That line, that delivery: flawless.

A glowing snowball smashed into the side of Hunk's head. At least it looked like a snowball, not that Keith would know what a snowball looked like. He'd only ever seen them in videos on the Internet back at the Garrison. He quickly turned around to face the direction in which the alleged snowball had come, only to stare down an entire blizzard of them originating from a fixed point far off in the distance. The cloud of glowing puffballs was massive, completely engulfing the entirety of his field of view into the infinite void of space. Immediately Shiro went on the defensive, returning to "Officer Shirogane" and commanding them all to pull up their shields.

"Remember your rogue projectile cluster training from the Garrison. First, we need a temporary shelter." Keith was about to comment that they didn't need a shelter; they could easily just re-enter the Castle, when a goo-ball smushed against the back of Shiro's head. "Oof, wha-?" Their Black Paladin gasped in alarm as he spun around.