Oh yeah, when they made it out of here, Lance was definitely starting a cardio routine for training. He was getting a stitch in his side, he couldn't seem to get enough air, and Keith outran him effortlessly. He tried to speed up, fixing his eyes on the jetpacks protruding from between Keith's shoulders. No use. Keith was just fast.

Pidge's voice crackled over the line. "Where are you guys?"

"We're-we're on our way," Keith panted. Lance was glad to hear him so out of breath. "One minute."

"Shiro?" That was Hunk, sounding nervous and uncertain.

"Three minutes until this ship jumps into hyperdrive," Shiro said. "Allura and I can get out in a pod, but you'll need to pick up."

"Got it," Pidge said. "Guys, you better hurry up."

"We're hurrying," Lance gasped. He would've tagged a 'geez, Pidge' on that if he had the breath. He got the impatience, he really did, but god was she pushy.

Up ahead, Keith skidded around a corner-one Lance recognized, finally. They were one short hallway and a sprint across the planetoid's surface away from the Green Lion. Lance tucked his head and struggled to put on more speed. Freaking Keith. He just had to be ten steps ahead at all times. Or, y'know, most of a hallway ahead. The doors ahead of Keith opened, showing a wide swath of star-speckled black. Lance could just barely make out Green's hunched back over the rise. So close.

Lance kicked on his jetpack and launched himself forward, landing beside Keith just as they hit the surface. He turned and shot Keith a look, ready to rip off on him if Keith decided to poke fun at Lance for using his jetpack, and almost tripped. Keith's face was pinched, ashen and angry-looking.

"You okay?" Lance panted.

"Fine," Keith snapped back, not looking at him.

Less than a hundred yards ahead of them, the Green Lion's head lifted and turned, scanning the area, and then locked onto them. The massive head lowered again, jaws opened. Just in time. Keith pulled ahead of Lance again and hurtled into Green's waiting mouth. Lance scrambled after him, and the jaws snapped shut, plunging them into...well, not darkness. Dimness, lit only by the turquoise lights the Alteans used in everything. Lance sprawled face-first across the floor, gasping for air. If only the Garrison had sports teams. He would never have gotten so out-of-condition if he'd still been swimming competitively before they found Blue. By the time he caught his breath and sat up, they were moving. He could feel the way the Lion shifted around him, the faint tug in the back of his mind that came from being in a Lion. It wasn't as strong as it would have been in Blue's cockpit, but the others' emotions simmered against him. Only Keith was close enough to sense properly, and he wasn't happy. Not angry, but definitely not pleased.

Then again, you didn't need Lion-based telepathy to get that. Keith's expression was a shade darker than his usual scowl, and he stood with his arms crossed. Lance pushed himself upright, and Keith nodded and headed for the cockpit, leaving Lance to scramble after him.

They reached the cockpit, and Lance would have taken a second to admire the view if it weren't for the cruiser blotting out half the starfield in front of them. Man, was it ugly, all twisted black and grey metal and sickly magenta lighting. And Shiro and Allura were on that thing. Where did the escape pods leave from? How big were they compared to the cruiser? Would they even be able to see it when Shiro and Allura escaped?

Hunk looked up from Green's dashboard when they came in. His face brightened to a smile. "Hey, you guys made it!" He hesitated, glancing back at the door, and his brow furrowed. "...Wait, where's Sendak?"

"He bought us time to get out," Keith said.

Pidge whipped around immediately. "He what?"

"The sentries would have caught us before we got out. Sendak stayed behind to let us get away," Keith snapped.

Pidge's brows furrowed. Movement over her shoulder caught Lance's attention, and he completely missed whatever she said trying to get a better look at whatever it was. The space around the cruiser seemed to warp and twist, wrenching the stars around it dizzyingly before it vanished. Something dropped from the place it had been, something much smaller and slower, reflecting light from around it. A meteorite? No.

"There's the escape pod!" he yelled.

The other three spun back to the viewscreen. Pidge plunked back into her seat, hands darting across the controls. A bright green box popped up around the speck, zooming in-Lance recognized the pod, the same model as the one Shiro had crashed on Earth. She grabbed for the controls and took Green in.

Reaching the pod was no trouble at all. Maneuvering to catch the pod and let people into the Lion, on the other hand? Tricky as all hell. Pidge ended up grabbing the door end of the escape pod in Green's mouth like a Lion-sized chew toy.

The door hissed open, and Shiro entered the cockpit. Just Shiro. Lance glanced over at Keith, who nodded slightly and popped the big question.

"Where's Allura?"

Shiro's face crumpled, and he gripped the back of Pidge's chair in shaking hands.

"...Shiro?" Lance asked.

"She sacrificed herself to save me," Shiro said. Shock and dismay rippled through the link. Lance felt paralyzed, like he couldn't get enough air into his lungs.

Pidge recovered first. "You mean she's still on that ship?" she demanded. Concern and anger flooded out from her in waves.

"The one that's headed to Zarkon's Central Command?" Hunk prompted.

Oh. That was bad. That was really bad.

"...Shit," Keith said, summarizing what they were all thinking.

"We can't let Zarkon get Allura," Shiro declared.

"...But you say going there would be a huge mistake," Hunk said. Lance didn't remember Shiro saying anything about that. Maybe he'd said it while Lance and Keith were with Sendak-he knew he hadn't heard everything over the comms. "You said attacking that place head-on would be the dumbest possible thing we could ever do."

Shiro ducked his head, showing tension in the line of his shoulders. "I know," he said quietly. "But now, we don't have a choice."

Silence fell.

Then Shiro lifted his head and looked around, and Lance felt confusion jangle through the link like pebbles through water. "...Where's Sendak?" he asked.

"He, uh, pulled an Allura," Lance said hesitantly.

"We're going back for him," Keith snapped.

"There's no point!" Pidge snapped back. "I already told you, he was just using it as an opportunity to escape!"

"No, he didn't!" Keith all but shouted. The air shimmered with his anger. Pidge opened her mouth to yell back, but Shiro cut her off.

"Pidge, take Green back down to the Hub. We're going back for Sendak." Pidge shook her head. Shiro's expression darkened. "Pidge."

"Fine," Pidge muttered, and turned her Lion back towards the base.

As they approached, Pidge's viewscreen targeted several panels on the arms of the base. Large bays were opening, something was rising-

"Cannons!" Hunk yelped.

The first blast roared across the void, and Pidge jerked at the controls. The change in direction flung Lance sideways into Keith, who grabbed him by the shoulders and staggered. Pidge pulled Green into a dive to dodge other blasts. Keith dropped, pulling Lance to the floor with him. Hunk did the same on the other side of Pidge's chair, and he could see Shiro's death grip on the headrest warping the material under his fingers.

"I can't find a way in!" Pidge yelled, pulled Green back out of range.

"Maybe if we took out the cannons?" Lance suggested.

Shiro shook his head. "That could depressurize the whole base," he said. "Disengage. We'll come back for Sendak later if he can't make it out on his own."

"But-" Keith began.

Shiro cut him off. "There's too much risk for everyone involved." He paused, then added, more softly, "We'll get him back, Keith. Voltron doesn't abandon people."

Pidge pulled the Lion back, piloting them up and away from the base, back toward the Castle. Lance kept his eyes on it until it left the viewscreen. He couldn't believe things had gone so wrong so fast. Allura, captured? Impossible. And he couldn't unsee Sendak choosing to stay behind, to give him and Keith a chance to escape. It was almost funny, in a way that made his throat tighten. They landed in Green's hanger, and, as one, booked it for the elevators.

They made the bridge in record time, and the second they crossed the threshold, Shiro snapped off orders. "Pidge, scan the download from the ship, find out where Zarkon's Central Command is."

"On it!" Pidge yelled back, sliding into her chair. Hunk hovered behind her like an anxious technical cloud.

"What happened?" That was Coran-Lance hadn't realized he was still on the bridge, but the Altean bustled over from his control area. His brows pinched, his eyes darted-they were short two, and Lance knew Coran knew it. "Where's Allura? And Sendak?"

"Captured," Shiro said. "Allura sacrificed herself to save me and the information. Sendak stayed behind to protect Lance and Keith, we can only assume he's fallen back into Galra hands. There wasn't a choice-"

"How is that possible?!" Coran demanded.

"Coran, I'm sorry things didn't go as planned, but we can't focus on what went wrong. We've got to figure out how to make it right." Shiro turned away, looking over at the others. "Pidge, anything?"

"...You've gotta look at this," Pidge said.

A few taps on her work station brought something up on the main viewscreens, and for a long moment Lance's brain refused to process it as ship schematics. It was just too big, monstrously shaped-something like that could never have been built in gravity. Long, scything arms stretched out from an improbably small central hub like spokes from a wheel, like, like-like the symbol that had preceded Sendak's transmission the first day. The Galra imperial crest.

"Look at the size of it," Coran whispered, sounding shaken.

"I think we should go in right away," Pidge said. "Every minute we waste gives Zarkon more time to prepare for us."

"I agree," Lance said, crossing his arms. "We form Voltron, fly in, fly out, dust off our hands, and walk away."

"Uh, remember the Balmera?" Hunk protested. "We could barely take on one fleet, but this-a base this size could hold a thousand fleets!"

"That's why we should have gone back for Sendak," Keith snapped. "He would know exactly what we'd be up against here-he could tell us how to fight it!"

"Gone back?" Coran asked.

"He stayed behind in the Hub," Lance said.

Coran's eyes widened. "You didn't remove his cuffs, did you?"

"Well, no-" Shiro said.

"There's a tracker implanted in the cuffs. Even if they're deactivated they should still emit a signal we can detect so long as he's in range-"

"Is the base in range?" Keith interjected.

"It should be," Coran said, pulling up a screen. His fingers darted, pulled up what looked like a radar scanner. And there, a blue dot in the general direction of the Hub-

It flickered and vanished.

"Uh, what just happened?" Hunk asked.

"...I don't know," Coran said. "Either Galra have developed their own wormhole technology in the last ten thousand years, or the cuffs have been destroyed."

"I told you we couldn't trust him!" Pidge said.

"You don't trust him because you're afraid he's going to take revenge for you murdering his friend!" Keith shouted back.

Silence.

"Wait, what?" Lance asked. Pidge had killed someone?

"You said you wouldn't tell anyone!" Pidge yelped.

Hunk looked ashen. "Pidge, did you lie to me?"

"What was I supposed to tell you?" Pidge looked on the verge of tears. "I didn't mean for it to happen, I-"

"Everyone, calm down," Shiro said, pushing his way to the middle of the group. "Let's save this conversation for later. Right now we need to focus on rescuing Allura."

"Which we wouldn't need to do if Shiro hadn't lost her!" Coran snapped.

"Okay, okay!" Hunk shouted. Everything went quiet again-the beginnings of a shout on Shiro's face, the murderous glaring between Keith and Pidge, the hum of anger rising in the link. "This isn't helping," Hunk said, more quietly this time. "We can't just sit here and bicker like this."

Shiro's expression softened, then firmed up again with determination. "Let's focus," he said. "We know where Allura is. We need a plan to get to her, get her out safely, and avoid being captured."

"We have the command system schematics," Coran said thoughtfully. "If we can find a way in undetected-"

"Then that's a third of our problem gone," Hunk chimed in.

"Pidge," Shiro said, making direct eye-contact with her, "send copies of those schematics out to everyone's stations. I want everyone looking for an opening we can use. Any gap in their security we can exploit, somewhere they've let down their guard, anything that looks like a chance."

He looked around, meeting everyone's eyes, and there was something flinty in his stare. Lance felt a chill run down his spine. He'd never seen Shiro like that before, but he recognized the implacable determination rolling off him in waves. There was no room for argument here. Lance hurried to his station and pulled up the schematic, rotating it, scanning it from different angles.

The monstrous command ship was only a small part of the whole system. Rings orbited it, whole planets caught up in the path like the universe centered on Zarkon. Most of it probably did. Lance turned the model again and again, searching, searching-

"Anything?" Shiro asked from behind him, and Lance nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn't heard Shiro's footsteps approaching.

"There's just no way in," Lance said. "They'll have us tracked from every direction."

Shiro's brows furrowed, and he looked from the screen to Lance. "There's got to be something. Keep looking."

Lance returned his focus to the screen, but he kept track of Shiro in his periphery. He moved forward, level with Coran. They were far enough away that Lance couldn't hear them talking, but he could tell by the way Coran turned and looked that Shiro had something to say.

And then Coran said, a good bit louder, "Wait a tick, I think I've got a way."

Up on the big screen, a box lit up around one of the ring planets and zoomed it in for a closer look. Coran pointed, Shiro leaned over, and they put their heads together and conspired for a few seconds.

Then Shiro turned around and faced the rest of the bridge. "Everyone, eyes front!" he called. "We've got a plan to get Allura. We're going to jump to the heart of the enemy, unseen and undetected."

"I thought we needed Allura to open a wormhole," Pidge said. Lance turned and stared at her. Where had she gotten-oh. Jump to the heart of the enemy.

"It's true that Allura powers the Castle's ability to travel through wormholes," Coran said. "However, I think we have enough of her residual essence stored in the system to make one jump. We'll hide the Castle here-" he pulled the planet back up on the screen- "inside one of these giant gas planets in Zarkon's command system. The gas is so dense, we'll be completely hidden."

Shiro took over. "From there, we'll use the Castle to scan for Allura on Zarkon's ship, then attack before he knows what hit him."

"There's only one hiccup," Coran said, reclaiming the flow of conversation. "We have enough energy to wormhole in, but without Allura, we won't have enough energy to wormhole back out."

"It doesn't matter. We're not leaving without her," Shiro said adamantly. He looked over the Paladins one more time. "Get ready. We'll need to launch as soon as we have Allura's location. There's no time to waste."

Coran opened the wormhole, and the Castle moved through it.

Lance got his first look at Central Command through a haze of red gases. Wide rings lined with violet light rotated slowly around that hulking ship, which loomed from the void like-like-the only analogy Lance could think of was that old sci-fi movie his parents had been so fond of, with the gigantic planet-destroying ship. Central Command was spikier. More threatening.

"I'm detecting Allura's energy signature!" Coran exclaimed. Part of the ship lit up and zoomed in on the screen. "From this distance, the signal's pretty weak, but she's somewhere in this part of the main ship."

"...Gives us a starting point," Keith said.

"Once we get closer, we'll be able to narrow down her location," Coran said.

"Okay guys, this is it," Shiro said. "Voltron is going to come in fast and without warning. We'll smash our way into Zarkon's ship and grab the Princess before they know what hit them."

Then, without another word, he started for his hangar. Lance stayed frozen for a second, staring around at the others. As one, they booked it for their own hangars, their own Lions. And then Lance was scrambling into Blue's cockpit, feeling her presence uncurl in the back of his mind. She wasn't happy. Her anger-how dare Zarkon touch her pride!-bled into his own mind like dye on white cloth. They shot down the launch tunnel, out of the Castle, and it wasn't just Blue's anger anymore. The other Paladin's consciousnesses brushed up against his own, anticipation and anxiety and rage, rage, rage, and Blue arched up to join the rest of the pride-

They are furious. Zarkon had taken from them their Princess, bright-shining Allura, and they are going to take her back. He had no claim. Usurper, usurper. They scream across the void, toward the monstrosity Zarkon had hidden himself within.

Dark energy arches from the spires of the command ship, reaching for the rings, and parts of themself splinter to watch it more closely. A violet dome encircles them from the outermost ring.

"What is that?" Hunk asked. They feel the question as much as they hear it, dancing across their mind in blazes of gold.

An answering gout of green from Pidge- "I don't know, but I hope we can find a way out of here once we get the Princess." The oncoming ships blaze with magenta and violet. "They're gonna fire!"

Black-or Shiro, impossible to tell-snarls, and they smash Red-first into the nearest cruiser. "Form sword!" Shiro bellows.

Red and Keith respond with the same vicious eagerness, and they tear through steel like wet paper. The cruiser implodes in their wake, and they feel the shockwave all through their body. Some part of them thrills with vindictive delight, with vengeance ten-thousand a years in the making. Ion cannon blasts ripple the void around them, to no avail. Cruiser after cruiser smashes beneath their sword.

"More trouble straight ahead!" Lance shouts, blazing blue auroras through their consciousness.

A line of cruisers. They pull back, and Shiro barely has to cry a command before Hunk and Yellow arm them. Blue light roars across the void, leaves them only a field of shrapnel to dance through. They draw their sword again and advance, closing with Central Command.

Claws tear across their mind, raking through their consciousness, and they feel themselves fragmenting. Paladins cry out, but even with the comms the words are unintelligible. The center cannot hold. The center cannot hold. Black's fear drowns them.

You are a fool to bring Voltron here, that voice says. Fear crashes through them in waves from all directions, every part of their awareness cries for escape. The center cannot hold. The center cannot hold, and they shattered.

"What just happened?" Hunk shouted. The comms were back, Lance realized, because he was definitely hearing Hunk's voice again. "Something tore us apart!"

"I don't know," he replied. "But we've got bigger problems right now. Look!"

Cruisers. Every single ship they hadn't destroyed swam through the void towards them. Oh, yeah. They were fucked.

"Why do I get the feeling these guys knew we were coming?" Keith growled.

Fighter pods arched from the rings, rocketing towards them, and Red shot past Blue and dove into battle. Lance spurred Blue after them, firing on fighters and cruisers alike. The universe blurred around him. Out of Voltron it was mostly him and Blue, and he could feel their edges blurring together as they sank deeper and deeper into each others consciousnesses.

"There's no end to these guys!" Hunk shouted. The advancing line readied to fire.

The Castle got them first.

"Coran attack! I've waited ten thousand years for this!" Coran yelled over the comms.

Lance whooped. The Castle had the big guns. They could do this! Maybe. Probably. They could probably do this. Space filled with explosions.

None of them had realized anything was wrong until Shiro groaned over the comms.

"Shiro! Are you okay?" Keith called.

Shiro growled with frustration. "Something is overriding the controls-my Lion is not responding-" Something back at the command ship flared purple, and Shiro screamed. Then he cut out.

"I'm going in," Keith declared. Red zipped past, soaring towards the monstrosity.

Shiro's comms cut back in on a startled shriek.

"What do we do now, guys?" Hunk asked. "Our plan isn't really working out as, well, planned."

"I'm going for the Black Lion," Shiro said. His voice sounded strained. "You guys get the Princess, now!"

"I've identified her exact location. Uploading coordinates to you now," Coran said. "In the meantime, I'll provide covering fire from out here...all alone...against the entire fleet...so, yeah, do you mind hurrying?"

"You guys go get the Princess without me," Keith said.

The hell? "What?" Lance yelped. "We've gotta stick together! What are you doing?"

"Whatever I can," Keith said. Red shot around the corner of the ship and disappeared from sight. Lance almost pursued, but a swarm of fighters descended on him and by the time he'd finished them off Keith was gone.

And then Hunk yelled, "This is it! The Princess is in this part of the ship!"

Lance disengaged to group up, joining Hunk and Pidge as their Lions circled one of the scything arms. "How do we get in?"

"Maybe I can try hacking one of their cargo bays," Pidge suggested.

"We don't have time for that!" Hunk said.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Actually, yes! I do!"

Hunk rammed the Yellow Lion, headfirst, through the hull of the ship. Maybe a second later, a wave of fighters descended. Lance wheeled Blue around to face them.

"Looks like we gotta cover Hunk's butt!" he hollered to Pidge, who grumbled back. "Hunk! Did you get the Princess?"

He could tell Hunk was out of his Lion by the crackly tone his comms took. "Yeah, I got her, but there's a change of plans. We gotta get Shiro. Can you cover Yellow?"

"...Yeah, we gotcha," Lance said. He spun to face the next wave.

And the next. And the next. They just kept coming.

"Hunk, buddy?" Lance yelled into the comms. "Me and Pidge are getting slaughtered out here, you think you can hurry it up in there?"

"I'm trying, dude," Hunk panted back. "We got Shiro-Allura and I are getting back to Yellow as fast as we can, but this ship is huge and-"

"Sentries!" Allura shouted.

The comms descended into chaos and fighting, and Lance had to block it out to focus on the new troop of fighters flying around a corner of the giant ship. They always seemed to fly in groups of three or more, moving in sync-no way there were real pilots in there, not even professionals could possibly fly so fast, so close, so precise-but the controlling AI was...well. Really, really predictable. Same patterns, same maneuvers, over and over, and Lance was getting the hang of it. It was almost like playing a video game. Except the stakes were a lot higher than beating his older sister's killstreak. Another fighter shot around a different face of the ship-the opposite direction the other pods were coming from-and Lance lined up a shot and fired.

And missed. The pod wasn't there-it had rolled neatly out of the way. Lance lined up another shot. Another miss.

"What the quiznak?" Lance muttered. "Hey, Pidge, there's a fighter on your eight, you wanna help me get a bead on 'em?"

"You got it," Pidge replied. Green spun dramatically, firing off a burst from the Lion's tail laser.

The fighter spiraled out of the way, looping and pinwheeling around the blasts.

"What the fuck?" Pidge yelped.

"I think this one's got a pilot, it's definitely not flying like the other ones," Lance said.

"Maybe. Hang on, has he actually fired on us?"

"...No?"

"Weird."

The fighter zipped around Lance in a wide arc. He held his fire-though it took everything he had to keep his fingers off the triggers. Blue hummed aggression in the back of his mind. Her pride was in danger, and every successful strike helped protect them. But they held back. Waiting.

And then another salvo of fighters whipped around a corner, peppering the area with laser fire, and Lance fired indiscriminately into the cloud. Pidge joined in-and then, to his shock, a burst of red lasers shot over Blue's head, ripping into the swarm. Blue spun, and the solo fighter came into his viewscreens. It bobbed up and down and fired another round off, then zipped forward, banking around Blue's shoulder.

"Pidge, I think he's on our side!"

"What?"

"I said-"

"I know, I heard you! But why would a Galra pilot be on our side?"

"I dunno? Can you get him on the comms?"

"Lemme check."

The wave of oncoming fighters died down, and Lance took the opportunity to catch his breath and ask Blue to zoom in on the solo fighter. She obliged, but the dim shape visible through the thick red glass told him nothing about the pilot. They swiped their tail over the fighter, which spun towards them-startled?-and bobbed what was probably a greeting. Come closer, Lance urged. He wanted a better look at their unexpected ally.

"You getting anything, Pidge?"

"Nothing. It's like that pod doesn't have communications or something."

"Weird."

"Guys, Allura and I just got back to Yellow," Hunk said. "Are we clear out there?"

"Yeah," Lance said. "But, uh, we got a buddy."

"A 'buddy'?" Allura asked. She sounded skeptical and out of breath.

"There's a Galra fighter hanging around, but he hasn't fired on us-he actually went after the other fighters during the last wave." Pidge said.

"It could be a trap," Allura said. "Take him out."

"But what if he's an ally?" Lance asked.

"Are we really going to take that risk?"

"I think we have bigger problems than just this guy," Pidge said. "Keith's fighting Zarkon, and he turned off his comms a couple minutes ago."

The Yellow Lion lurched backwards out of the hole in the ship and spun around, bracing its hindpaws on the hull in preparation for push-off.

"I think Shiro was headed that way to get Black?" Hunk said uncertainly.

At that moment, the dim shape of the Black Lion shot around the curve of the ship, back towards the Castle. The Red Lion dangled limply from its jaws.

"And there's Shiro and Keith. Come on, let's just get out of here," Lance said.

Allura sighed. "Alright. Let's go."

Blue's scanners blipped the fighter pod a couple times on the way back. A quick glance showed it trailing them at a safe distance, dodging other pods. "...Hey guys, that fighter's still following us."

"Well, it probably won't survive the wormhole," Allura huffed. "And if it does, we'll take care of it on the other side."

Lance wasn't sure he liked that 'probably', but...well, if the pilot did follow them through the wormhole and the pod survived, he'd like to meet the guy. He was probably a better pilot than Keith, even, considering his sheer confidence in maneuvering around the Lions. He guided Blue back into her hangar but stayed in the cockpit, waiting. If they had to go back out to handle more Galra ships, he wanted to be ready.

Allura sounded out-of-breath when her voice crackled back over the comms. "Alright, Paladins," she declared. "Time to get out of here."

Nothing happened.

"Hello? What's going on? I don't see a wormhole." That was Hunk, sounding panicky.

"The Galra barrier is jamming our ability to create one!" Coran hollered back. "They have us completely surrounded!"

Lance flipped on Blue's link to the Castle's visuals in time to watch the violet barrier that sprang up around them when they entered the command system flicker and die, fuzzing out and vanishing.

"What just happened?" Pidge yelped.

"Who cares? Wormhole!" Hunk yelled back.

The now-familiar blue vortex opened up in front of them. It always looked like a whirlpool to Lance, like every kids' cartoon he'd watched, like the one his uncle described from a trip once. He'd been afraid of it when Blue called up the first one at the edge of Earth's solar system. He wasn't anymore. The Castle plunged forward into the blue.

And then disaster. Streaks of black and maroon shot past and around them, the walls of the vortex shifting rapidly from turquoise to red-violet and strands of energy crackling between them.

"Coran, what's happening?" Shiro demanded.

"The integrity of the wormhole has been compromised! It's breaking down!"

"What does that mean?" Lance couldn't help shrieking.

"It means we have no control over where we're headed!"

This was bad, this was very bad, this was how they were gonna die-not taken out by Galra soldiers, but by someone messing up the wormhole.

The Castle jerked and shuddered, and Lance felt Blue's paws leave the hangar floor. Her claws scraped against it, almost clinging. The others were all screaming into the comms. He recognized Keith's shriek above the other's, saw the Red Lion vanish into the wall of the wormhole. Black tumbled after it. He screamed his teammates' names, desperate, knowing it wouldn't do any good. And then he hit the wall himself and everything was confusion-his own screams, his teammates' screams fading out through the comms, light and dark flashing past his viewscreens, Blue's terror ringing in his mind like a siren.

And then they hit the ice.

A/N: phew! Done!

So when I started the first draft of St. Erasmus' Fire, I decided to end the fic at the end of Season 1 for the sake of my sanity-but the redemption arc is not over. If all goes well, you can expect the first chapter of the next section in late January or early February.