Catch the Stars ||Keith Kogane||

68

By the time Trip arrived in the cortex, the lion hangar was opening and they were just beyond planet Puig. Allura stood in the control center, her hands on her pedestals, and the window was covered in the vitals of the castle and connected to their coms. She was prepped for battle.

"Trip!" Coran greets, "you decided to stay behind?"

"Yes," she says simply, the weight of her sword on her back leaving her wondering if that had been the right choice, "this is a fight that Voltron has to take, not Olympia."

Plus, Keith had nearly begged her to stay behind. But that goes unmentioned to the Alteans. She takes her spot beside the control center and Allura, her eyes on the window and screen in front of her.

"We're en route to Puig," Keith's voice makes the waves on the screen shake.

"Wait," Pidge is next, "where's Lance?"

The Blue lion wasn't up on the screen with the rest of them, and Trip took note of that. She bites her lip. This was already off to a rocky start if they were down two paladins. It wouldn't look good to the people of Puig, even if they did win whatever fight was surely waiting for them.

"Lance?" Keith asks the airwaves.

"My lion won't respond!" Lance declares through the coms of the helmets rather than the lions, "the forcefield is up again!"

"Figure it out and catch up with us as fast as you can!" Keith instructs. The other three lions were already away from the castle. Trip could make out the colors through the window as they got farther and farther away, closer to Puig.

"There's nothing there," Trip says when Lance groans and steps away from the conversation to figure it out with his lion.

"What?" Allura asks.

Trip grits her teeth as Puig comes into view. There was no fight, no Galra forces, not an enemy in sight. The Galra hadn't returned to take over the planet again, if they had ever returned at all. All at once, she knew that she should've trusted her gut.

"It's a trap!" She announces just as a rush of purple light appears beyond the windows and steps into the path of the lions, "Allura, tell them to get out of there!"

The purple light turns into a ship, into a thousand other ships, and suddenly the fleet of galra ships is facing Voltron and not Puig. Trip had known that this was fishy, she should've listened to herself and went with them. She had to call in her ships, and tell them that Voltron was under attack and short a paladin.

"Someone is tapping into the radio!" Coran says as Allura watches the fleet appear.

Trip reaches for her clipboard core just as a new voice breaks into the castle speakers.

"Voltron," says the man, "this is Lotor, son of Zarkon, commander of the Empire Fleet. Surrender immediately."

Trip's hands freeze. Son of Zarkon? The news ruptured her train of thought. Zarkon didn't have any children. He hadn't for a thousand years. Not even a wife. No one knew why and no one wanted to get close enough to him to ask. The Blade hadn't given any information on a supposed son either...

"Son?" Allura asks, her mind on the same path as Trip's.

"Did he say son?" Hunk asks the team. The lions had come to a surprised stop before the fleet.

"Zarkon doesn't have children..." Trip says, though her voice is unsure at the moment. None of the history books, none of their intel or The Blade's, had ever said anything about a son, or children at all. He'd never even had a queen as far as Trip knew. She'd always thought it was his cockiness that stopped him from having an heir. Why have one if you think you're invincible?