The battle raged on as our lions, now psychicly linked to us, swooped doen and picked us up from the Galra ship. Before i took my place in the White Lion, I quickly but carefully handed Admiral Sanda to the crew upon the Atlas.
We took our places, me and formed Voltron. I smiled when I felt my lion merged with the mighty warrior.
"Welcome back to the fight, Paladins." Shiro said happily.
"Yeah, it's good to be back. You know, in our bodies." Hunk replied.
"MFE pilots, what's you status?"
"Power is dropping."
"Return to the Atlas and recharge."
"Copy that. We're on our way."
The MFE pilots rushed up through the upper atmosphere and landed inside the Atlas.
I sighed and turned my attention back to the upcoming fight. In an instant, Voltron lifted his arms to block the ongoing barrage of lasers being shot at both us and the Atlas.
Fighters aimed from the sides but Voltron acted fast and shot down multiple fighters with our laser.
We spun through space, aiming and hitting every fighter we could find shooting them down every time.
"Form sword!" Keith shouted. I pushed my power into the Red and Green Lions as they created the sword and rushed back into battle.
Voltron landed on one of the large cruisers and sliced the main laser in half before jumping off the ship as it exploded.
We floated proudly and without fear, our shoulder cannon aimed and ready to fire at the three other cruisers in the distance.
The cannon powered up with a little extra help from me fired with everything it had at the three cruisers.
The shot made contact with the first cruiser, we watched it explode into nothing as the shot was successful.
"Paladins, Commander Holt has figured out something." Shiro said through the comms.
"What is it, commander Holt?" I asked, "Is it about the Zariforge cannons?"
"Yes. I know what Sendak is going to do. He's going to converge the beams to make one massive amplified emission of particle radiation."
My eyes widened in fear when I heard Sendak's plan for the Earth.
"Is that even possible? Shiro asked.
"Yes. I know because I gave then the technology. When I was enslaved, the Galra had me working on particle emission amplification. I'm sending you thr Zaiforge cannons' movements."
Diagrams and pictures of predicted movements appeared on our screens.
"This is a simulation I've run based on their current trajectory. It leads to a single point in space. Once they're in position, their individual beams will,merge together, exponentially increasing their destructive force. It will be powerful enough to completely vaporize Earth."
"We can't let that happen. What do we do?" Hunk asked, fearing the impending destruction of Earth..
"Should we go after the Zaiforge cannons? The Lions might not be able to defeat them all in time." Allura suggested.
"If even two of those beams connect, they have the power to destroy Earth." Commander Holt clarified.
"We know they're being controlled by Sendak. Let's take him out." Keith said, thrusting his controls forward.
We sped quickly towards Sendak's maon ship, the ship the very Galra was inside. But we weren't able to make it so far when a sudden burst of energy exploded on our backs.
We screamed in pain as the burst of energy surged through us. It finally stopped, pushing us back but we quickly gained back our bearings.
"What the heck was that?" Lance yelled.
I tapped a few keys and magnified our view od what had hit us. What hit us came from one of the bases we were supposed to destroy.
It chagred again and fired another shot. We managed to dodge it in time, but anither shot from a different base on Earth fired, ricocheting off of a nearby space plate and once again it hit us in the back, making us scream in pain again.
"How are those bases attacking us from the ground?" Hunk asked.
"They must have been designed to defend the cannons after they launched." Pidge hypothesized.
"Shield!" Keith shouted, "Zurine, can you give us some extra power?"
"Of course!" I shouted, channeling my power over the moon into the shield as it foemed in front of us.
Another shot was fired and we were prepared for it, blocking the attack from in front of it, but we were blinded from the other attacks around us.
The cruiser to our right began fire, we turned and blocked the attack with our shield, leaving us vulnerable to other attacks.
"We're being attacked from all angles." Pidge said.
"Should we fall back?" Hunk asked.
"No, we're too close to retreat." Lance said.
"We can't take any more shots from those ground-based cannons."
"Get in close to those cruisers. They won't fire on their own ships." Keith said.
"In not so sure about that, Keith." I said, "The Galra believe in victory or death. They will do anything to gain victory even if it means taking out their own."
"It's the only thing we've got right now, Zurine."
We flew over to the closest cruiser, hoping that Keith's plan would work and that they wouldn't fire at us.
However, we were sorely mistaken. The ground-based cannon fired, not even sparing the cruiser we hid behind.
We all groaned in pain as the rebounding shockwaves hit us. We flew over the cruiser and took a look at the damage Sendak had caused to his own ship.
"Zurine was correct." Allura said, "Sendak's destroying his own ships to get to us."
The attacks went on, firing at us from all angles. We blocked them with the shield, but even that was not enough. As we tried to fly away from the attack, we were hit by another shot from the ground-based cannon.
I looked up and saw the Atlas taking on heavy fire like us, but then I looked back to my screens and saw the Zaiforge cannons nearing their final positions.
We were pinned down no matter what we did. I gained a slight bit of hope when I saw the MFEs take off towards Earth's surface.
"Paladins, you have to stop your attack." Shiro suddenly said confusing and surprising us all.
"What?" Keith questioned.
"Abort your attack or Earth will be destroyed."
"What's going on?" Lance asked.
"The Atlas will continue to attack Sendak while the MFEs attempt to take out the ground cannons. But just in case that doesn't work, we'll need you to stop the Zaiforge cannons directly."
"How are we gonna stop all these cannons?" Lance asked, "I'm not sure a Lion can take one down on its own."
"We just need to take a breath and think." I said, "Is there any way we can block those beams?"
"We would be annihilated." Pidge retorted.
"Hey, what about those reflective plates they used to curve the beam around Earth?" Hunk suggested.
I pulled up the data from the plates and analyzed them quickly.
"They could reflect the beams and keep them from merging." Pidge said.
"That seems like a good plan, Hunk." I said.
"Okay. It's the best plan we've got so far. Let's go!" Keith said as we raced to the plates.
"These plates are pretty far apart. I'm sending flight paths I calculated with the fastest possible routes." Pidge said as we split into our separate lions.
"Keith and Lance, you'll take the furthest plates. After you've got your plate, head to the indicated cannin on the course I've sent you."
"Got it!" Keith replied as he and Lance went to their assigned plates.
"Zurine are you okay? You've been using a lot of your powers so far in this battle." Allura asked as we headed to our assigned plates.
To be honest, I was really tired, but I knew that if I lied to them about my condition, they would worry even more.
"I'm a bit tired, but I'll manage." I replied, "Commander Holt, how much longer do we have until the cannons are ready to fire?"
"Two minutes, 15 seconds and counting." Commander Holt replied.
"It's gonna be tight." Pidge said as she pushed her accelerators as far as they could go.
I closed my eyes and focused on my lion.
"White how much faster can you go with this weight?" I asked.
"It will be tight, but I can make it it if you push in your powers over the sun a little more." White replied.
I did as she said and pushed my powers over the sun to make her go faster.
Indeed my White did go faster. I could see my friends with their plates in their possession, ready to deflect the blasts once in position.
"We're almost in position." Keith said.
We positioned our plates in front of the seven cannons just as they were about to fire.
The energy inside the cannons rose past their limit. The loud hum of their power thumping in our ears as they began to glow purple.
In an instant, the cannons fired... And the plates reflected the blasts away from Earth. We pushed to keep the blasts deflected, the plates were strong, but tbey wouldn't last forever. Even now I could see cracks forming om them.
"They're gonna rupture soon! We don't have much longer!" Hunk shouted.
"Don't give up!" I shouted, "We've got this, we can save Earth! Just keep going!"
"Zurine's right, we can do this!" Keith said, "Atlas, what's happening?"
"Hold a little longer! We have a plan!" Coram shouted.
"Whatever it is, we're runnjng out of time!"
The plates began to crack even more, before finally shattering under the force of the cannons. Our lions we're flung away from the cannons and their beams connected.
I watched in horror as the combined cannon fire was aimed for Earth.
We had failed...
Earth was going to be destroyed.