Voltron: Legacy

Chapter 13

Surprisingly, it didn't take that long to find a room that had tech Jason could work with. It was even empty. He rushed over to the main screen, started typing, and quickly got lost in the work.
"Is it just me, or is this starting to feel a little too easy?" Linnea asked.
Jason groaned.
"I can't read these symbols! Like, not at all. I don't know which information is important or not."
"So download all of it." I told him.
"Yeah, the only problem is that there's so much alien code here, that would take almost an hour. Almost an hour of me being a freakin' sitting duck."
Leilah turned to look at Linnea.
"See, you jinxed us!"
"But I didn't do anything!"
I took a deep breath.
"Jason, just get as much downloaded as you can in the time Linnea and I are gone. If there's anything really well-protected, try to focus on that, it's probably important. If things go wrong, just contact us and we'll come get you."
"Got it."
"Linnea, let's go exploring."
"When you say it like that, you make it sound fun. Entirely false advertising."
I bowed deeply and waved the other girl out the doorway.
"Okay then, let's go try not to die. Better?"
"Better."
We walked out the door, partially closing it behind us to hide the other three from view, and headed down the dimly lit hallway until we came to an intersection. Unlike normal hallways, these were almost more like rounded tunnels, with no real flat part to the floor. Suddenly, clicking footsteps sounded from one of the other hallways.
"Someone's coming!" Linnea hissed. "Where do we hide?"
I looked around, frantically, until I saw a smaller, inconspicuous tunnel coming off of the main hall. "There."
We sprinted for the tunnel entrance and ducked inside. The footsteps came closer, we backed up, and I tripped over the bottom step of a flight of stairs.
"Dammit!"
Linnea helped me up. "So, we climb the stairs?"
"Yep."
After what felt like an eternity of climbing, my leg muscles were burning and my nerves were pretty frayed from hiding from the Archanai guards at each intersection we passed. Finally, we came to another door that wasn't guarded.
We darted inside, and promptly both screamed. Sitting on a dais in the center of the room we'd just entered, facing away from us towards another door, was the biggest Archanai we'd seen so far. It looked different than the others, too, way fatter, with more legs and a pair of translucent purplish wings folded against its long, bloated lower half. It turned to face us, and as it did, I noticed a slick, off-white oval the size of my fist slip out of a hole in its rear end. There was a growing pile of them behind it. I gagged.
"I did not need to see a pooping Archanai during the last few minutes of my life. Like seriously, that is just about the worst possible mental image to have while dying."
Linnea frowned.
"It's not pooping. Those look more like . . . eggs. Oh, quiznack. I think we found the hive queen."
"Huh?"
"I'll explain later. Right now, I have to save you. Don't scream."
Before I could ask what that meant, Linnea took off her helmet and her body started to change. Her skin darkened from its usual warm, creamy brown to an unnaturally glossy black, she shot up a few feet in height, and her hair retracted backwards into her head and disappeared. When she was done changing, she looked almost exactly like an Archanai, except for her purple eyes, which had stayed the same. I yelped.
"What the hell?"
"Altean shapeshifting powers." Linnea snapped. "Now let me do the talking."
I nodded and made a lip-zipping gesture.
Linnea turned to the roomful of Archanai and started moving in a weird, sinuous way, almost like some kind of creepy dance. They just watched for a minute, then a couple of the biggest ones started mimicking her, circling around both her and the hive queen. Finally, all of them but the queen were dancing, and suddenly they all turned and stampeded out the other door.
"What did you do?" I whispered.
"Back on New Altea, a lot of our neighbors kept bees." Linnea said with just a tinge of pride in her voice. "I loved studying their behavior. They communicate mainly through scent signals and dances, so I thought the Archanai might do things the same way. I told them there were intruders on the opposite side of the building from where our friends are, so we should be safe for a while."
"You. Are. A. Genius!"
She hugged herself.
"I wouldn't say so, but thank you."
A crackly hissing sound came from the hive queen, and Linnea turned back to her, eyes wide. After a long exchange of hisses, wiggles, and dancing between the two, Linnea yelped.
"We need to go. Now."
"Why?"
"Because she thinks you're a prisoner and she's challenging me for the right to eat you!!"
"Yeah, we should leave then!"
We sprinted out of the door all the other Archanai had left through. The hive queen followed us part of the way, then realized she wouldn't fit through the doorway. She gave a bloodcurdling screech and started ramming herself against the surrounding walls, sending huge flakes of the black material flying. I hurriedly called the other three.
"Hey, what's up?" Xaroc asked.
"We blew our cover and there's a very angry queen Archanai on our tails!"
"Good thing is, she let slip where they were keeping the prisoners!" Linnea added, shifting back to her regular self as we ran.
"Wait, she did?" I asked.
Linnea nodded and showed me the coordinates. I grinned. Finally a bit of luck.
"I'm sending you all the coordinates, meet us there!"
"We're on our way!" Leilah said, ending the call.