The Paladins were lost.

All the Paladins. Lost. The sight of the Lions whirling away into the corrupted wormhole, away from her and Coran, each of them seeming so small and fragile. The image was burned into her mind.

As well as the screams of the Paladins as they tried, without success, to keep from being flung away, out of their bays and into the unforgiving cold of space.

And it was her fault. They'd come to save her.

Fighting back a sudden overwhelming urge to cry, Allura tried to regain some small measure of self-control as she slammed a sequence of numbers into the castle's command board. This was no time for tears.

If this command sequence worked, it might help them regain control of the Castle of Lions before they fell into a star. The corrupted wormhole flashed out of existence above them as her frantic attempts to regain control of the starship succeeded, leaving the castle and the two lone souls on it floating in the deep, cold silence of space. Distant stars gleamed above and below them.

Beside her, Coran was saying something about how they could still make this work, that they could find the Lions, and with them, their Paladins.

She turned to him, eyes bright and full of tears. "Coran, it's not - it's not feasible for both of us to search. We have - we have to keep this ship out of Zarkon's hands - we can't possibly hide it long enough to leave it unmanned-one of us will have to stay here, and the other one can go look for them-"

Coran blinked. "Princess, do you really think I'd let you go out and search for them - by yourself?"

She felt the tears start to fall, and angrily tried to blink them away, feeling her mouth contract in misery and worry. "No, I - I just thought - since - since it's my fault they're - they're in trouble - "

Coran shook his head vehemently. "No, Princess. They went in after you because they wanted to. You should feel no guilt on that account."

Angrily, Allura swiped her tears away with one hand. "Coran, we have to get to them before Zarkon does - if he gets the Lions, and the Paladins - Coran, he could destroy them all." Her voice shook as she thought of what he could do. "He might - he might torture them - "

Images flashed through her mind. Hunk, with his giving nature and gentle heart. Keith, his perpetual half-frown concealing an iron loyalty. Lance, who always made his teammates laugh with his jokes, who had saved Coran when Sendak's explosion could have made her the last surviving Altean. Pidge, with her quick, strategic mind and questioning nature. And Shiro.

Oh no. Shiro.

He never spoke of his time with Galra unless he had to, but her heart nearly stopped when she thought about him, recaptured and face to face with Haggar. The witch had clawed his side - he'd been injured - had her claws been poisoned? There hadn't been much blood, but -

With an effort, she pulled her thoughts back to the present situation. "Coran, we have to try and hide this ship, if only temporarily. After we do that, can you send out a signal to the Lions, tell them where we are? It would save time if some of them are able to make it to us - "

Coran's fingers were already typing out a complicated tracking sequence. "We'll have to try and locate them first. Once I map where they landed, we can send out a homing beacon to each -"

His voice cut off abrubtly. Allura turned to see his friendly face go ashen pale.

"What is it?"

Her voice was sharp, sharper than she'd intended, but panic swirled in her chest. "Coran, what's wrong?"

He stared down at the screen in front of him, as if frozen in place. She had to call his name again before he looked back up at her. When he finally managed to get the words out, his voice barely registered as a whisper.

"Zarkon. He has them."

"Who?!" Allura almost shouted. She didn't know which of the Paladins were now in Zarkon's hands, but it felt like an eternity passed before Coran's answer came to her ears.

"All of them."

She felt her legs give out beneath her, and she clutched at her command console for support.

"How-"

"He must have - have - sent every fleet - every fleet - after them - " Coran said numbly. His hands slowly curled into fists. "They - they didn't even land. They - they all - were taken - "

Allura suddenly heard something - the comms, a distant, almost inaudible buzz. Her name.

Someone - one of the Paladins - was saying her name.

They weren't dead.

The Lions were captured, but not every Paladin was dead.

The person - who was it - said her name again, and she nearly cried with relief. She gestured wildly to Coran, pointing to her earrings. His face regained a fraction of its usual color, and he punched a button. The faint signal was now audible over the castle's systems.

"Allura-" the voice buzzed. "Allura - can you hear…are…there-"

"YES, YES I'M HERE!" she felt like screaming, but she regained some tiny measure of control and managed to speak in a normal voice.

"Yes, I'm here," she said. "Keith, is that you? Lance? Pidge?"

The voice cut out again, but she caught a fraction of the transmission. "-in space - Galran ship - tractor beam-"

It was Hunk. Hunk was alive. She wanted to cry with relief, but first she had to help him, however she could.

"Hunk, you're breaking up - tell us where you are, we'll come and - "

A burst of static, and then Shiro's voice, panicked. He was shouting.

"NO - ALLURA - CUT THE TRANSMISSION - IT'S A TRAP-"

Without hesitation, Coran slammed down a lever on his keyboard. The light in Allura's earrings died away. Horror-stricken, she looked over at her old friend, but he shook his head and pointed to a blinking light on her dashboard. It took her a precious second to understand, but then she did.

They had a track on the signal. They could follow it. Thanks to Coran's swift action, they had broken off just before the Galra would have found them.

She reached towards a lever on her control panel, keeping eye contact with Coran. She lifted one finger, to signal that she was going to open a one-way channel. He hesitated for a moment, then nodded his head, giving her what the humans called a 'thumbs up'.

He was confirming her theory. Keeping it only one-way would let them track the signal without being tracked themselves.

They could not be heard, but they would be able to hear what was happening on the ship that had tried to trick them.

Without further delay, she set the castle to arrive at the new coordinates. If they could keep an 'ear to the ground' as they approached, they might be able to find out more about the situation. She made sure to activate the cloaking technology Pidge had installed around the castle. Due to the recent battles the ship had undergone, it would only be functional for an hour, but once they arrived at the transmission's location, every second would count. And if the castle were seen during approach, the Galra might kill whoever they had prisoner.

As she took hold of the lever that would enable the sound system again, she clenched her teeth together. What they might hear could be maddening, but it could also let them know who was still alive.

Please. Allura thought as she activated the one-way channel. Please let all of them be alive.

As the castle's audio systems came back online, a horrible, raspy voice resounded through the echoing passages and empty hangars of the Castle of Lions.

"-lmost had a trace, but then my former Champion had to ruin my plan-"

There was a crackling of energy, and a scream of pain from someone. Shiro.

Allura felt her jaw tighten in anger, but then another voice caused her heart to stutter a few beats. Keith. That was Keith.

"Hey! Leave him alone - "

Footsteps, a sound of impact, as if from a sharp blow. Keith's voice cut off abruptly, and Allura and Coran both winced, looking at each other in both fear and frustration.

"If only we could see - " Allura muttered - "we might know if Zarkon is also there - see who - "

She cut off, not wanting to say it aloud. Who is still alive.

Coran nodded and began working silently, almost viciously at another of his control panels. Clearly his current inability to help the Paladins was causing him great distress. But with a few deft adjustments, he was able to bring up a video feed that showed the room where the witch was. They had been able to tap the feed from one of the Galra's monitoring panels in the room where they had also opened the one-way audio channel.

The video wasn't very clear, but it showed enough. A dark figure, in hood and cloak, was turning back from a machine that glowed purple with Galra energy. It was about the same size as the meditation circle that the Paladins had trained in together the first day -

Coran's eyes went wide in dismay. No, it was exactly the same size of the meditation circle.

And there were five chairs inside that glowing purple circle. Each was occupied by a figure.

Coran and Allura glanced at each other in desperate hope, and Coran adjusted the feed so it came in just a little bit clearer. That was as much as he dared do without chancing discovery. If there were too much interference, one of the Galra drones might get suspicious. All they could do now was watch.

All five Paladins were breathing. The clutching, desperate fear that had grasped Coran's heart the moment the wormhole had been corrupted released its hold just a tiny bit. Then he got a good look at the circle, and he growled in anger.

The restraints that secured each Paladin's wrists and ankles to their chairs glowed with purple Galra energy. None of the Paladins looked like they were in good shape. Their helmets and armor had been taken away alone with their bayards, and they were all dressed in what Coran assumed to be standard Galra prisoner garb.

Keith had a split lip, like someone had punched him very hard, and he looked dazed. His eyes had difficulty focusing on any one object, and Coran didn't like the large greenish bruise that was forming on that side of his face.

Shiro was pale, his eyes closed, his face tight with pain, and his breathing was hitched. There were gashes in his side that Coran had not seen before, and he couldn't see any bandages or any other attempt to keep the bleeding in check. From the look of it, the gashes were recent injuries. If the wounds had not been half-cauterized, the blood loss would already have been substantial.

Lance's eyes were darting around, and beneath his attempted nonchalance, Coran could sense a deep and draining fear.

Hunk was shaking his head from side to side, as if he had been in a daze, and was having trouble focusing his mind.

Pidge's mouth was set into a hard and narrow line, and she was glaring at the witch Haggar with murder in her eyes.

"You used Hunk to try and trap Allura," she said, and Coran saw Allura raise a hand to her mouth in a dismayed gesture.

So that had been the plan. If not for Shiro's warning…

"What of it?" the witch replied. "Now I have five Paladins to choose from. He seemed the best one for the task."

"…hey…lady…" Hunk said, and he sounded like he was half-asleep. "You can't just go….around…using people's….voices like that…it's rude…"

"Dang right it's rude!" Lance joined in, nodding and trying to smile over at Hunk, who still seemed to be out of it. His eyes burned with a deep-set anger, but he was clearly trying to keep his voice light, to help keep his friend distracted. "What would that be called back at the Garrison, huh, buddy? Plagiarism? Vocal-napping? Somethin' nasty, I guarantee-"

He seemed to be about to go on, but the witch raised a hand and let a small ball of black energy pulse in her palm. Lance swallowed and was quiet. He exchanged looks with Pidge, and they each looked ten years older in that instant.

Fear did that to a person. Fear, and pain, and despair.

Coran felt his face contort into a ferocious snarl. He hated seeing anyone in pain, or in fear of someone else. The young ones were trying to be brave, but it was only a matter of time before Haggar accomplished something permanent.

Coran slammed a fist into the wall next to him, breaking through the panel and into the stone beneath.

No.

He would not let that happen.

A memory surfaced then, the memory of another promise he had made.

I will keep your daughter safe. I will not let the ways of Altea be lost.

He had to protect the Paladins. In the short time he'd known them, they had become much more than the pilots of the greatest weapon of the universe. They had become family.

It was not something Coran could bear to lose a second time.

Well, this time, anyone who stood between him and his family would suffer. Coran raised his eyes to the Princess, who was looking at him in a mixture of startled wonder and amazement. It was clear she could tell what he was thinking.

"Coran," she said, and something proud showed in her voice, "I don't think I've seen you this angry in ten thousand years."

"That's because I save it for the right occasion," Coran growled in reply. Allura nodded, a fierce smile crossing her face, because she knew the anger was not directed at her, but at what lay ahead of them.

"Then let's go save our Paladins."

A few ticks later, they had a plan laid out.

From the star maps, they could see that the Druid ship orbited one side of a great star. Once the Castle of Lions arrived on the other side of the star, it would remain hidden there while he and Allura flew a small cloaked shuttle nearer to the Druid's ship. From there, they would use the audio feed to pinpoint the nearest vent to the Paladin's location and cut their way in. The hope was to free the Paladins and get both them and the Lions out if possible, but if that were impossible, they would use a shuttle to get them and the Paladins away.

Then it would be a race back to the Castle of Lions, and from there, Allura would wormhole them out. If they got back fast enough, the witch Haggar wouldn't be able to fire her black energy beam at them again. From what little Coran had been able to see before the wormhole had been completely corrupted, Haggar had needed a direct line of sight in order to fire her weapon.

It was a desperate plan, but they didn't have time for anything else.

Just as the Castle arrived at the specified coordinates, Coran felt the ship's cloaking device hit the half-way mark. A thrum through the deck, and then a countdown ticker on the main control panel began to run.

Thirty Earth minutes.

Just that amount of time to get their Paladins back before -

He tried to put the thought out of his mind. If they weren't all back before the invisibility shield expired, none of them would never leave. Because he and Allura were not going to leave anyone behind.

"Let's go," Allura said, already moving towards the doors leading to the shuttle's bay.

Just as he was about to leave the room after Allura, he saw something on the monitor that made his blood run cold.

Haggar was walking around the circle, and she was placing a glowing purple device on each of the Paladin's heads. Pidge tried to shake the device off her head, but it was firmly bolted in place.

Oh, no.

"We have to hurry!" He shouted, turning on his heel and racing out of the room. "She's going to try the mental exercise!"

"The - what?!" Allura panted as she tried to keep pace with him. "She's doing what?!"

"The mental exercise - the one where every Paladin can see into the mind of the others!"

"Oh, Quiznak!" Allura spat. "She'll try and twist it somehow - it's what the Galra do - we have to get to them, NOW!"

They both piled into the shuttle, and Coran activated it and took off at record speed, talking the entire time.

"That mental access - their inmost thoughts, doubts, fears - the damage it could do to them in her hands, it might permanently harm them, Allura - we can't let that happen - "

"We won't," she said. "I don't care how many Galra lie ahead, Coran - we are getting our friends back. I'll kill every one or anything in our way."

Coran glanced over at Allura, and just for an instant, the anger at the Galra abated, and he felt a surge of pride in his Princess. He may be one of the only two Alteans left in the universe, but Allura…Allura was a good companion.

"Princess, I am honored to go into battle with you," he said.

She looked over at him, and just for an instant, her eyes were warm and kind. "The honor is mine, Coran."

Then they both looked ahead, to the fleet of Galran ships ahead.

They were running out of time.