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People called them the Defectors.
They had earned the title, the three of them: no one else had ever deserted Galaxy Garrison and lived to tell the tale. They were unique, and since that first splash of notoriety, their reputation had only grown. They were anarchists. They were mercenaries. Word was, they’d take out any Garrison target – person or location – for the right price. They had a habit of showing up unexpectedly to help out the most unlikely underdogs. They had bounties on their heads higher than anyone else in the Ten Galaxies. And they never failed, and they were never caught.
Their legends grew and spread and became embellished, but each of them had their signature abilities. People knew, more or less, what the Garrison had given them before they left.
Pidge was their recon, their intelligence, their spy. All she had to do to interact with a computer was press her fingers against it. People said she could download every single data point on a hard drive into her brain in an instant. There was nothing she couldn’t hack if she could get into contact with it. The more lurid rumors said she could do the same thing to biological entities too, that she could, in essence, read minds – those theories were laughed off nervously, but no one ever quite had the confidence to completely deny them. She had a robot, too, that stuck to her side like a witch’s familiar, defending and attacking for her.
Lance was the ranged fighter, their lookout, their scout. No one was sure whether his eyes were bionic or alien, but people said he could see colors no other human being had ever seen before. Anyone who had met him in person would whisper about how the eyes were too bright, too intense, how the pupils seemed to glow, and expand and contract unnaturally. He could see in the dark, in infrared and ultraviolet, he could look through walls. And his aim never faltered.
Hunk was the tank, the shield and battering ram both. He was bulletproof and laser proof. If there was anything that could pierce his skin or even bruise him, no one had yet discovered it. He had the strength of a wild ox. Everyone tried to aim for his prosthetic leg, expecting it to be a weak point, but it was stolen Galra tech and Garrison modified, and stood up to just about everything. Plus, aiming for his leg was a good way to get your face blasted by the cannon embedded in his knee.
Those who did meet them – to hire them, by chance, or the unlucky saps who thought they could take them in as bounties – usually found the in-person experience clashed with their expectations. Few people were prepared for Lance’s shameless flirting or Hunk’s nervous rambling. Pidge, at first, usually seemed a little bit more in line with her public image. She was quiet but sharp, eyes glinting with intelligence behind her glasses. Present her with some shiny new tech or a robot, though, and her eyes would go starry and she’d bounce in her seat like a child on Christmas. However, put them in danger, and those who escaped to tell the tale said they understood why they’d never been caught.
--
Pira couldn’t believe her luck. She’d been sent on assignment from the Garrison to what she had expected to be one of the dullest backwater edges of all the Ten Galaxies. She would have been lucky to get a skirmish with the Galra. There had been some rumors of a rogue alien, something that had been wreaking havoc breaking into places all over this sector. It shouldn’t have even been Garrison business – they didn’t deal with petty thieves – except that whatever it was had broken into a Garrison outpost, and now, because they hadn’t yet ID’ed what species it was, they had to treat this like a possible Galra spy. Never mind that the outpost had been defunct for a decade, with no one and nothing there. Even the Garrison recognized how pointless it was, since they had sent Pira solo while the other two members of her team got a cushy auxiliary assignment in the middle of the Milky Way.
Then, lo and behold, she hadn’t even been there two days when the Defectors themselves waltzed into the inn where she was staying, bold as anything. She’d almost called for backup then and there, before realizing how stupid she would look if they got away before a team got there to assist her. Better to wait, she decided, be cautious. If she could take just one of them in by herself, that was better than the whole team escaping. And she was confident she could. They’d cut and run before they even completed their training. Pira was an experienced Garrison soldier. She would take them down.
She had stalked them for almost two weeks, now, amazed that they were staying in one place for so long. Every day, she expected them to leave, and every day, they stuck around longer. Still, she knew she had to make her move soon. The longer she waited, the more likely it became that she would miss her chance.
She’d settled on Hunk as her target. Pidge was too smart, too unpredictable, and trying to transport her without letting her take over a ship would be far too risky. Lance’s eyes concerned her. He saw and processed things too fast. She’d seen the footage on the news – Lance could dodge bullets. The Garrison insisted they’d only experimented on his eyes, not given him super speed. But however he was doing it, the fact remained that trying to spring any kind of surprise attack on him was almost certainly a lost cause. And she knew better than to get into a head-on fight with any of them.
Hunk’s invulnerability and strength were bound to be difficult, but a carefully planned trap should be able to counteract both. He was smart, too – all three of them were dangerously smart – but Pira was confident that if she could just get him properly restrained, he shouldn’t be able to get out. She just needed to make sure she could get him back to the ship before the other two noticed anything was wrong.
She saw her chance late afternoon, when the three of them split coming out of the inn. She followed Hunk at a distance. The Garrison’s experiments had given her the ability to leap impossibly high and far and still land as soundless as a cat, so jumping from building to building wasn’t difficult. She stayed above his head, so even if he glanced back, he wouldn’t see her unless he looked up. She needed an opening, just a small gap in people so she could make sure no civilians got caught up in her trap. Her aim was not as flawless as Lance’s, and she couldn’t afford to let Hunk take a hostage.
He paused, right at the edge of a busy street, about to turn off onto a much quieter alley, and she cursed under her breath, holding her finger on the trigger. If he would just take one more step…
“So are you going to, you know, attack me?” he asked loudly. Her inhale came so sharp and cold she almost lost her balance, her legs tensing where they were hooked against a building’s half-rusted fire escape. He couldn’t know she was there. “Because there are a few other things I still have to get done before tonight, so like, you know, if you could go ahead and do it then we can both just get it over with?” She hung frozen, eyes fixed on him in disbelief. He was bluffing, she told herself. He’d sensed her watching, but he didn’t know for sure if she was there. He was just hoping that if there was someone following, they’d panic and give themselves away…
He turned and looked straight at her. “You know, I’m surprised you didn’t flunk Survey & Recon at the Garrison, the way you’ve been following us around,” he said casually, as if they were having a chat over tea.
Pira panicked. She pulled the trigger blindly, and hit him by sheer luck as much as skill. He didn’t even flinch as the blue ball smacked against his chest and exploded into a bubble that enveloped him. He glanced at the walls, pressing his fingers against them experimentally, and nodded in a way Pira could have sworn was meant to be approving.
“Kinetic forcefield bubble trap,” he said. “Good choice.” He reached into his pocket and pulled something out – were those earplugs? Pira was jumping down the fire escape. Most of the pedestrians had fled when they heard the explosion, but a few lingered on the street, gaping. She fired a warning shot at the ground from her regular laser, and they scattered, shrieking. “No matter how hard I hit it or blast it with my canon, it just absorbs the force and makes it stronger,” Hunk was saying, fixing a blue and silver device into his ears. “A trap perfectly suited to counteracting someone with super-strength.” He lifted up his prosthetic leg and fiddled with some kind of cog or wheel on the side. Pira landed in front of the bubble, activating the magnetic link that would allow her to tow it along behind her. Her eyes darted from side to side, worried that the local police would try to interfere, but no one appeared. “Of course, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I invented it,” he said. Pira’s veins turned to ice, and her hands stopped midair. She slowly looked up to meet Hunk’s eyes, round and light and unconcerned and almost kind. He smiled slightly. “It looks like the Garrison hasn’t figured out how to fix the sonic frequency weakness yet,” he said. Pira’s eyes went wide. She started to throw herself backward, trying to scramble away, as Hunk raised his knee. She was still far too close when the blast of sound vibrating at a frequency exactly counter to the bubble caused it to pop and hit her like a full body tackle. She smashed to the ground and barely had a moment to wonder if she would wake up dead before the world went black.
--
“Why are we doing this again?” Hunk asked, fingers tapping against each other nervously as Pidge hacked the door.
“Becauuuuuuse Pidge says there’s like twelve subterranean levels that aren’t even on the official blueprints—”
“Which she got how, again?”
“—and we wanna see what’s down there!” Lance flung an arm around Hunk’s shoulders, hanging against his side with a goofy grin. Hunk crossed his arms.
“If they’re not on the blueprints, how do you know they’re there?”
“Hyeon mentioned something about the building reaching really deep into the ground, so I hacked the electricity grid and found out it went down twelve stories past what was supposed to be the lowest basement,” Pidge said casually. Rover hovered over her shoulder, humming softly while she worked. The alarm system made a happy ding and she pulled her fingers off, eyes snapping from solid green back to their normal light brown. “I think they gave him more powers than they really intended to. All that elemental control stuff is really unstable still,” she mused, moving her fingers to the scanner on the door.
“But, it’s, it’s not really our business, right?” Hunk asked. Lance was watching Pidge as her eyes lit up green again, a frown creasing her forehead as she struggled through whatever encryption they had on the scanner. “I mean—”
“If the floors aren’t even on the blueprints, it means they’re hiding something, and I want to find out what it is,” Pidge said. Hunk could hear the gleam of determination that would normally light her eyes, even while they glowed solid green.
“Is this about your brother?” he asked. “Because when I said that we would help get him back, I thought we meant, like, once we’d graduated and were running missions for the Garrison. I didn’t think it would involve hacking and breaking into the Garrison’s secret subbasements or whatever. I mean, aren’t we on their side? They’re our best hope against the Galra, right?”
Pidge pulled her hand away from the door as it unlocked with a click and swung open. She frowned at Hunk. “There’s something they’re not telling us about how the Kerberos mission got captured,” she said. “The facts don’t add up.” She paused, and flashed a smirk. “But tonight, we’re just exploring. Come on, ya big lug.”
Lance swung himself around so he was hanging off of Hunk’s arm and pulling him towards the door, albeit ineffectively. Hunk struggled not to flinch as his face came into view. He was still getting used to the way Lance’s eyes now glowed in the dark.
“Come onnnnnn,” Lance whined. “Iverson told us we need to work on our team building.”
“And the best way to do that is to all nearly get expelled together?”
“Exactly!” Lance grinned, his teeth joining his eyes, both shining pale and bright in the darkness. “So let’s go!”
Hunk sighed, but finally let Lance drag his arm forward. “Lead the way,” he said glumly. Pidge elbowed him in the ribs.
“That’s the spirit,” she said. “Besides, we can’t get expelled. Once they start the ability trials, you’re here forever, no matter what you do.”
“Way to make it sound ominous, Pidge,” Hunk said, but he followed his two friends into the dark.
--
Lance was sitting backwards on the chair, knees flung wide to either side, arms resting on top of the seatback and chin hooked over his arms. He cycled through vision types as he stared at the still-unconscious Garrison agent handcuffed to the chair in front of him. An x-ray showed him a discolored section of bone, probably the remnants of a broken leg a few years ago. Her temperature was high — too high for a normal human, but the Garrison’s experimental subjects had a tendency to run hot. No one was quite sure why. He zoomed in on a tiny scar, almost lost in freckles on her cheekbone, so faded it could only be from childhood.
“So why is she here again?” he asked.
“I thought we agreed that if she tried to attack us we had to incapacitate her. I didn’t actually mean to knock her out,” Hunk said from behind him.
“Right but like…” Lance drummed his fingers against the side of the chair. “Why is she here? What’s she doing in our room?”
“She was unconscious! I couldn’t just leave her in the street. What would you have done?”
“Well she’s not still going to be here waiting patiently if we leave her alone,” Pidge said. “What are we supposed to do about our meeting? I doubt our friend would appreciate us bringing her along.”
Lance pulled his eyes back to normal with a blink – or as normal as they got anymore – feeling his pupils constrict as he turned to Pidge. “Well, I’m not going to stay behind to guard her. We’ve been trying to find him for sixteen years, I’m not missing it.”
“Guys?” Hunk interrupted. “I think she’s waking up.”
Lance twisted back to face the woman. Her fingers twitched in the handcuff that locked against the chair legs. He saw her forehead crease, and her eyes abruptly flew open. She took hardly a second to assess the scene in front of her before she surged against her restraints, trying to push off the ground with her enhanced legs, trying to yank herself sideways and topple the chair and break it, trying to pull her hands out of the cuffs, but nothing budged. She stopped, and locked eyes with Lance for a moment before turning her head to take everything in more thoroughly. Then she asked, “Why am I not dead?”
Lance held back a laugh and half-turned his head towards Hunk, letting a smile play around his lips as he said, “Yeah Hunk, why isn’t she dead?” Hunk huffed in annoyance behind him as Lance turned back to the Garrison agent, who flinched. “Contrary to what you may have heard, we don’t just go around gunning people down in the street,” he said. “Even if they are Garrison agents who have been following us for two weeks.” She inhaled sharply.
“How did you—?”
“You have a Garrison communicator on your wrist. Did you think we wouldn’t notice?” Pidge asked.
“But I—”
“Even if we hadn’t made you the instant we arrived, six different people tried to warn us about who you were,” Lance added. “People like us more than they like the Garrison out here.” The agent fell silent for a moment, flexing her hands in her cuffs, before she looked back up at them.
“The Garrison will be coming for me,” she said. “My tracker will register I was attacked and—”
“It’ll take them at least a day to get someone out here,” Lance said. “We’ll be gone by then. You have good timing, actually. Well, it would’ve been ideal if you’d held off one more day. But now we don’t have to risk a whole squadron descending and scaring off our friend like every single other time.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Pidge asked. “What happened on the Oriston Moon was not my fault.”
“Guys, can we focus?” Hunk asked. The Garrison agent was looking between them suspiciously.
“Your friend?” she asked. “Who are you meeting?”
“Why don’t we introduce ourselves first?” Lance said. “We don’t even know your name yet.” He lifted an arm off the seat to wave. “Hi, I’m Lance! Although, you probably know that already.” The Garrison agent pressed her lips together and remained silent.
“You know I got your name when I hacked your communications a week and a half ago, right?” Pidge asked. The Garrison agent glared.
“Why even bother asking, then?”
Lance pouted. “Because it’s polite!” he said. “Come on, all nemeses are supposed to be able to have civil conversations with each other before the fighting starts.” The Garrison agent’s face twisted in a series of emotions and landed on annoyed.
“I’m Pira,” she said finally. Lance grinned.
“Nice to meet you, Pira!” he said cheerfully. “Don’t feel too bad about not catching us, the Garrison’s been trying for sixteen years.”
“What exactly are you planning to do with me?” Pira asked dryly. Lance glanced back towards Pidge, who shrugged.
“We’re working on that,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d just take a shuttle back to Earth if we asked nicely?”
“I don’t suppose you three would surrender yourselves to me if I just asked nicely?” she said sarcastically. Lance leaned back, bracing his hands on the seat behind him, and pursed his lips.
“Here’s the problem, Pira,” he said conversationally. “We’re meeting somebody tonight, somebody we’ve been trying to find for a very long time. And we’re concerned that if we just leave you alone, you’ll break out and do something inconvenient, and it might be sixteen more years before we get this kind of opportunity again. And we’ll all be what, like fifty years old by then? We’ll all be in the midst of mid-life crises and buying fancy moonjumpers for no reason, it won’t be a good look.”
“Lance.”
“Right.” He sat forward again. “Anyway the point is, we’re at a bit of an impasse here. We don’t want to hurt you, but we’re not really sure what to do with you in the meanwhile.” Pira studied him for a moment, betraying nothing in her expression.
“You’ve really been able to evade the Garrison for over a decade?” she said finally. “Really? You?” Lance rolled his eyes.
“Why do I always get that reaction?” he demanded of the air.
“Because no one believes Pidge and I could have put up with you for sixteen years.” Lance dropped his head back to look at Hunk upside-down.
“But I’m so pretty,” he said, pursing his lips up as if for a kiss. Pidge reached out and shoved his head back forward.
“Focus, Lance,” she said.
“You guys are no fun,” he whined. He turned back to Pira, studying her. “I don’t suppose we could persuade you we didn’t just turn traitor because we felt like it. If you knew everything… Maybe you’d be on our side,” he mused quietly. He flinched as Hunk’s hand dropped unexpectedly onto his shoulder and squeezed softly.
“You know that won’t work. That never works,” Hunk said. Lance leaned into his hand, so slight a movement no one but him could have seen it.
“Who is it you’re meeting?” Pira asked again.
Lance frowned, and glanced between Pidge and Hunk. “What if we did bring her with us?” he asked.
“What.”
“No, really,” he insisted. Hunk let go as he lifted off the chair to bring his left leg swinging over, sitting sideways, keeping half an eye on Pira still while turning to face Hunk and Pidge. “She’s curious. She wants to know who we’re meeting, she’ll want to hear what we talk about. It’s all information gathering for her. So we can probably agree to all attack each other later, right?” His eyes flicked briefly over to Pira. “I mean, what else are we going to? Hit her over the head and hope she stays unconscious long enough for us to go and come back? I don’t exactly carry around a syringe of medical anesthetic.”
“Do you really think… he… will be okay with it? You don’t think he might just run? Again?” Lance shrugged.
“He’s been trying to find us too. I think as long as we’ve got her under control, then our best option is to take her with us. Besides,” he glanced at his watch, “we’re running out of time.” He looked back at Pira, zooming in close as if he could read her secrets in the invisible lines of her skin. “You want to see who we’re meeting, don’t you?” Pira pressed her lips together and flexed her hands in the cuffs.
“I’m going to get whatever information I need to take you three down and get you back to the Garrison,” she said. Lance clapped his hands together and rubbed them.
“Right, I think that’s a yes,” he said. “We’ll have a good old-fashioned fight to the death later. But, let me warn you.” With lightning speed, he snagged a pistol out of his belt with his left hand and aimed it at Pira, the barrel less than an inch from her forehead, his finger on the trigger. “Try anything funny in the meantime, and I will shoot you.” All the teasing and levity was gone from his voice. He let his eyes glow unnervingly bright as he took in every minute movement, every blink and twitch she made. “We don’t have the luxury of being merciful.” He held the gun on her a moment longer, while she attempted to stare him down – but he could see how fast the pulse beat in her neck, how quickly her breaths came. He flipped the pistol up and stuck it back into his belt, letting his smile return. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”
--
Lance crowed with triumph as he heard the lock click and stood back, grinning, holding the twisted bobby pin between his fingers. “Lock picking is so much easier with x-ray vision. But, just to be clear, my brother Jaime taught me to do that when I was nine, and I could definitely have done it anyway,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Pidge said, staring down the dark hallway in front of them. She was frowning. “Something about this isn’t right,” she said.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Hunk said. “We’re super definitely not supposed to be here.” Pidge shook her head.
“Not that,” she said. “Why are there old-fashioned regular locked doors down here at all? We already went through an alarmed retinal scanner. How much more security do they need?” Lance and Hunk both shuffled uneasily, glancing at each other.
“They’re covering their bases,” Hunk said reluctantly. “For… people like us.” Pidge adjusted her glasses.
“There’s something down here they don’t want us to find,” she said.
--
Pidge dropped a hand on Rover, chattering to them in her head, binary code as familiar to her as English had ever been. She double-checked the time with him, used his scanner to make sure there weren’t any unexpected Garrison ships descending out of the sky, ensured Pira’s communicator was offline and checked for any news report that might indicate things had gone awry. But everything was quiet. Pira stood docile to the side, hands cuffed behind her, an ability inhibitor circling her upper arm, dark eyes watching them closely. Lance rubbed idly at the butt of his pistol, watching the corners of the abandoned warehouse for any sign of their friend. Hunk stood behind Pira, arms crossed, his left pant leg clipped up to leave his prosthetic exposed. Lance caught Pidge’s eye as she pulled a hand off Rover. He leaned down and pressed his lips against her hair, murmuring “He’ll show, don’t worry.”
She swatted him away. “Later, and I’m not worried,” she said. Hunk rolled his eyes.
“Lance, you’re supposed to be the lookout,” he reminded. Lance sighed and turned back to scanning, his eyes glowing bright.
“If you hadn’t decided to tie a Garrison agent up in our room, this afternoon could’ve been a lot more relaxing,” Lance grumbled.
“This is not even a little bit the time or place,” Pidge said.
“I’m working, I’m working!” Lance protested.
“Whatever you say.” Pidge turned back to Rover, settling her hand against him again, but she bumped her arm lightly against Lance’s all the same and saw him smile.
It had started with just sharing a bed for convenience’s sake. They’d had no money to waste on more than a single room. Then they got sick of rotating through who slept on the floor, all of them waking up every third morning with cricks in their necks. Pidge was tiny and Lance was lanky, so they could usually squeeze the three of them onto any bed bigger than a twin. Personal space had long since been abandoned anyway. They’d all seen each other naked, all spent days smushed against each other in hiding places, all walked in on each other masturbating. Lance had already planted a sloppy kiss on Hunk’s lips when drunk that one time. Sleeping next to each other was nothing.
No one thought much of it when they began to cuddle closer during the winter months. It was cold. They couldn’t afford decent clothes or blankets, and didn’t dare carry too many heavy supplies with them anyway. They were all just seeking body heat. The tipping point was probably the first time Hunk woke up to find himself actually spooning Pidge, and when he tried to roll away, she reached behind her, grabbed his arm, and yanked him back muttering “No. Warm.” A little later that same month, when Lance kissed both of them, one after another, in victory after a hard-won fight, it had just felt normal. As if they’d always done that. A week later, they were climbing into bed naked without ever having formally discussed what was happening between them. They were a unit. A complete set. There was no reason for that to be different in love or sex.
The sex was awkward the first time - only Lance had ever been part of a threesome before, and Pidge had only had sex at all once before. There was a lot of bumping and giggling and awkward angles, and in the end they all had to roll away from each other to finish themselves off. Now, though, they were as synchronized as they were with everything else. Their partnership ran too deep to name. She wouldn’t have called Lance and Hunk her boyfriends, or her lovers, or her allies or co-conspirators, or anything of the sort. Their relationship on all levels simply was, it existed as an irrefutable piece of her life. Even when they fought with each other, they never stopped trusting each other.
Pidge had joined the Garrison early, after skipping a grade in elementary and passing the entrance exam with flying colors another year earlier than she should have. She was barely turned fifteen to Lance and Hunk’s seventeen when they were put on a team together. They endured grueling training together, comforted each other through homesickness, pushed each other to do their best. She confided to them that she’d taken the entrance exam early after the Kerberos mission was lost, determined that her brother was still alive somewhere and that she would find him. She had to get special permission to begin the enhanced abilities program at sixteen. The waiver was the first legal form Hunk and Lance signed under their own names, the morning of their eighteenth birthdays. They spent over a year learning and training their new superhuman abilities, continuing the trials and becoming ever more powerful. Pidge went from being able to speak directly to computers to being able to download all their data at a touch. Lance went from unnaturally magnified vision to eyes that shone silver and could see through walls. Hunk went from Olympic-level strength to being bulletproof.
Then everything went to hell. They fled in the night, and suddenly they had no one but each other, could trust no one but each other. From the time she was seventeen years old barely a day had passed that she hadn’t spent in their company. The longest any of them had spent away from the other two, in sixteen long years, had been a month. She’d barely survived her teens. Her early twenties had careened from one dangerous situation to another, with bare moments of safety in between. When she was twenty-five, they spent two whole months marooned on a quiet planet after their ship broke down, and it was the first time in a long time she had gone more than a week without encountering at least one life-threatening situation. By the time she was twenty-seven, they had found allies and safe havens, and could take the time to rest and recover when they needed to. She’d turned thirty and actually had a real birthday party, and never wondered if she was going to be shot once the entire day long. The three of them belonged with each other, down to their bones.
Rover registered a heat source moving towards them and Pidge pulled her hand free, blinking away computer code. Lance, predictably, had already spotted him, descending from the second level, apparently having entered through a window. Lance’s lips pulled back in a grin almost feral, and he waved his hand in greeting. Pira squinted into the dark.
“Who is that with you?” a voice asked, and Pidge felt a jolt go through her. Part of her had been convinced they would never really find him. She had never really expected to hear his voice ever again.
--
The cage was bolted to the floor in the middle of the room, too small for whatever was inside of it to stand up or lie down or do much of anything besides remain curled in a ball of filthy rags. There was a forcefield up too, quickly deactivated by Pidge pressing a finger to the console. Rover glowed green above her head, the brightest light source in the room. The figure in rags did not stir. It was deathly silent, except for the distant sound of dripping water.
The three of them approached cautiously, feet ringing loud against the stone floor. The figure was still alive – they could see its chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. They stopped well out of arm’s reach, over a painted red line indicating a safe distance, although it seemed doubtful that the figure could have gotten more than a few fingers between the close-set steel bars. Lance’s eyes were working overtime, his pupils glowing silver as he squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the figure’s face. Then he gasped, faint, horrified, dismayed.
“It can’t be—” he whispered.
--
“She’s the Garrison agent who’s been stalking us for the past couple weeks,” Hunk said, his voice remarkably even. “Finally decided to try and attack us today.” There was a brief pause. “Don’t worry, though. She’s agreed not to try and kill us until after we talk.”
“Are you going to introduce me?” Pira asked sarcastically. Lance tilted his head to glance back at her.
“She’s a little testy that Hunk got out of her trap,” Lance explained. “Her name’s Pira. Pira, this is… an old classmate of ours.”
--
“What? Who is it? Do you recognize them?” Hunk asked, his voice quavering. Lance’s eyes had gone wide, his entire face contorted with disbelief and disgust. He reached up and grasped Hunk’s shoulder, his fingers digging in for support, his legs trembling. He swallowed visibly.
“Keith?”
--
Keith stepped forward cautiously. He was so much taller than Pidge remembered him, his shoulders broader. The hilt of a sword strapped across his back poked up over his shoulder, and he was dressed in some kind of black and purple uniform. He pulled a hood off his head, shaking his hair loose, and glanced between the four of them. A purple scar slashed his cheek. And his eyes…
--
At the sound of its name, the figure lifted its head. The three of them fell back a step in unison. Keith’s eyes glowed yellow, the iris and pupil reduced to bare black slits. Fangs protruded from his mouth.
“He looks like—” Hunk started to whisper.
“I know,” Lance said.
--
Pidge heard Pira’s gasp, saw her stumble back a step despite herself.
“He’s Galra,” she hissed. “I knew you were traitors, but this? You’re spies for the Galra?”
“No,” Lance said. His face was uncharacteristically somber, his voice almost sad. He kept his eyes on Keith. “We just found out the truth. All the dirty little secrets the Garrison doesn’t want you to know.”
--
“…I don’t think I care,” Hunk said. He’d gone pale, eyes transfixed on Keith, or the thing that had once been Keith. Slowly, Lance let go of his shoulder, and shook his head.
“Me neither,” he said. “Pidge?”
“No,” she said. She took a couple shuffling steps, hesitating at the line, before purposefully stepping over it and striding forward to crouch beside the cage. Keith shoved backward, pressing himself against the bars as far away from her as he could get, snarling. “Keith?” she asked. “Do you remember us?” Lance and Hunk moved forward slowly, joining her to crouch in front of the cage.
“Keith… buddy, it’s us. It’s Lance and Pidge and Hunk,” Lance said slowly. “It’s okay.”
The snarling quieted. Some of the yellow seemed to dim from Keith’s eyes. He blinked and looked uncertainly between them. “You… I remember you,” he said. All of them tried not to flinch at the sound of his voice, raspy and hoarse with disuse.
“Yeah, of course you do,” Hunk said. “Remember when you judo-flipped me in training? Good times, right?”
“Are you going to hurt me?” Keith asked.
“No,” Lance answered fiercely. He glanced at Pidge, who nodded once, sharp and determined, and then at Hunk, who covered his face and squeaked in fear but nodded his assent. “We’re going to get you out.”
--
Hunk watched Keith drawing closer to them. Keith’s eyes flicked to Pira and back a few times, but he made no move to run or try to take her down. He paused a few feet away, drinking in the sight of them.
“I don’t think I ever said thank you,” Keith said. “You saved my life, and I ruined yours.”
“Hey, hey hey hey hey no,” Lance said, putting up his hands to stop him. “Saving you was the one good thing we ever did at the Garrison. You do not get to apologize for that.” Keith smiled softly.
“I didn’t know… I spent a lot of time hiding after you got me out. It wasn’t until almost three years later that I started hearing rumors about you. I thought… I thought for a long time you might’ve just replaced me in that cage.”
“They told us… When you disappeared, they said you got expelled,” Lance said. “We had no idea.” Hunk saw Lance bite his lip, saw his hand clench into a fist at his side. “I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner.”
“And you don’t get to apologize for that,” Keith said. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I should’ve,” Pidge said. “I was already suspicious about the Kerberos mission, I should have dug deeper, I should’ve—”
“It’s a long time ago now,” Keith said. He paused. “Your brother’s saved my skin a few times,” he added. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile.
“He told me,” she said.
“Your brother?” Hunk could tell Pira’s exclamation came in spirt of herself. Her fingernails were digging so sharply into her palms he was afraid she would draw blood. “Matt Holt was lost in the Kerberos mission, unless you’re telling me he was a filthy Galra spy too.” Pidge’s eyes went the kind of flat and cold that meant danger. Hunk inched away from Pira.
“He was no such thing,” she said quietly. “Kerberos was a suicide mission. The Garrison meant for it to fail. You’re lucky that my family and Shiro saw the trap for what it was in time.”
“I don’t mean to rush this,” Hunk broke in before Pira could retort. “But we may not have unlimited time.” Keith nodded.
“Right,” he said. He dug into a hidden pocket on his uniform and pulled out a memory chip. “It wasn’t easy,” he said. “But this should have everything you need.” He held it out to them. Pidge took it, her eyes flaring briefly green.
“What is that?” Pira demanded.
“Our bargaining chip,” Pidge answered, staring at the chip between her fingers like she couldn’t believe it was real. She clenched her fist around it and tapped Rover, who opened up a compartment. She put the chip inside.
“What are you planning to do about her?” Keith asked, jerking his chin toward Pira. Pidge turned to study her.
“We’re not sure,” Hunk answered. “Now that she knows about you—” He broke off as Rover beeped urgently. Pidge pressed a hand against him, her eyes flashing for just a moment.
“GET DOWN!” she shouted. Hunk threw his arms around Pira and dove to the floor, shielding her as the warehouse exploded around them. He felt pieces of the warehouse breaking across his back, slabs of concrete that would snap anyone else’s spine. He braced himself on his elbows, trying as hard as he could not to crush Pira beneath him. His ears rung with the sound of the explosion, and he and Pira coughed and choked on the dust as the debris settled. His eyes watered and he blinked rapidly. He and Pira noticed at the same moment: in throwing her to the ground, he had broken the inhibitor cuff. She got her legs up between them and kicked Hunk with all her strength, sending him staggering backwards. She got to her feet, hands still cuffed, and sprang away. Hunk cussed under his breath, but there was no time to chase her.
Keith and Lance had both sprung away from the explosion and staggered back into view, dust-coated and coughing. Keith had his sword in his hand. Lance grabbed the white cylinder out of his belt that expanded into his Garrison rifle at a touch. He was desperately rubbing his eyes with his free hand. A green glow betrayed Pidge’s location: it flickered and disappeared as Rover’s defensive forcefield retracted, and Pidge stood up from where she had been crouching, a hand locked onto Rover.
“Lance!” Hunk called, tossing him a water bottle he pulled from his pocket. Lance caught it one-handed, twisted the top off, and emptied it over his eyes. He dropped the empty bottle, spitting water on the ground and blinking rapidly. He turned his eyes to the sky, darting across the cloud cover. He hefted his rifle over his shoulder and fired off a shot. Something metal dropped from the sky, crashing down to the roof of another warehouse and exploding into flames.
“Garrison drones,” Lance reported. “Next one is eighteen seconds out. Probably not big enough to carry more than two bombs. They must have been sent after Pira. Fuck, why didn’t we think about that?”
“There shouldn’t be any Garrison drones in this sector,” Pidge said. “Unless we were wrong and Pira did tell them about—”
“Pidge, look out!” Hunk shouted. Pira dropped from the dust cloud straight onto Rover, hands free of the cuffs. Pidge stumbled as Rover was yanked away from her, shrieking in alarm. Pira attempted to wrestle them into submission, one hand prying at its underside.
“She’s going for the chip!” Hunk shouted as he rushed toward her. He didn’t dare fire his canon for fear of hitting Rover.
Keith beat him to it, slashing Pira’s leg to the bone. She screamed and fell away, blood coating her pants. Rover rushed back to Pidge’s side as Lance dropped another drone from the sky. Pidge stroked them gently, ensuring they hadn’t been damaged, before laying a hand against them again and scanning the area.
“They’re cloaked,” she said. “Rover can’t pick them up. I don’t know how many are coming.” She pulled her hand free. “We should run for it,” she decided. Hunk nodded as Lance shot down a third drone.
“Agreed,” he said. “Keith, are you—?”
“I’ll make it back to my ship,” Keith said grimly, his eyes fixed on the sky. “Don’t get killed, understand?” Hunk impulsively reached out and grabbed him in a hug. Keith went stiff with surprise for a moment before he returned it.
“We’ll see you again,” Hunk promised as he pulled back. “Sooner, this time.” Pidge reached out and threw her arms around Keith’s neck.
“Thank you for finding my brother,” she said. “Tell him we’re coming. Tell them all we’re coming.”
Lance shot down a fourth drone, and then turned and pulled Keith toward him. “I have twenty-one seconds,” he said fiercely. “Stay alive out there.” He squeezed tightly, and then turned back and took aim to the sky again. Keith looked between them, looking overwhelmed for a moment, and ducked his head.
“I owe you guys my life,” he said. “Thank you.” Then he darted into the darkness and was gone. Hunk and Pidge glanced to where Pira was whimpering on the ground. Hunk sighed, pulled out a piece of cloth, knelt down, and deftly tied a tourniquet around her thigh.
“Don’t say we can’t just leave her here,” Pidge said. Hunk pursed his lips.
“Some kind of emergency services should be out here soon enough,” he said. “She’ll be fine.” Pira glared up at them.
“The Garrison will take you down,” she spat. “You and all the other Galra spies.” Hunk sighed and stood back up.
“Maybe,” he said. “But they haven’t yet.”
“Hey guys, are we going or what?” Lance shouted, eyes still trained skyward. Hunk took Pidge’s hand.
“Let’s run,” he said.
--
Sometime later, in a black and empty part of space, Lance flipped the untraceable illegal shuttle to autopilot and climbed into the cramped back section with a sigh. Pidge was dozing against Hunk’s side, eyelashes fluttering. Hunk was doing his best to tune up his leg without jostling her, but abandoned the project entirely as Lance flopped across his lap and shut his eyes. Hunk moved his hand to stroke Lance’s hair.
“Want your blindfold?” he asked. Lance shook his head.
“Not just yet,” he mumbled. “S’okay for now.” He cracked one eye open, looking up. “Might still want to enjoy the view,” he teased.
“Oh yeah, I’m real pretty from that angle,” Hunk said, rolling his eyes. Pidge snorted.
“You’re pretty from any angle,” she said. She turned her head to kiss his shoulder.
“Can you believe we actually did it?” Lance asked. “We actually saw Keith again for real.” Hunk shook his head.
“Definitely one of the weirder things that’s ever happened to us,” he agreed.
“Mmm, let’s celebrate,” Lance said. Without opening his eyes, he pulled himself up Hunk’s chest to place a kiss on his mouth. Hunk reached up to cradle Lance’s head, careful, gentle, watching his strength every moment. He felt Lance smile against his lips.
“This changes everything, now,” Pidge murmured. “Finally, we might actually be able to…” She trailed off. Lance opened his eyes to reach over and pull her chin to look at him.
“Hey, nothing sad tonight, okay? Tonight’s for celebrating.” She smiled and leaned in to kiss him. Hunk took the opportunity to press a kiss to her neck. Pidge broke away from Lance to turn and kiss Hunk as well. He pulled at her lip, sliding his tongue into her mouth and Lance, eyes still closed, let his hands begin to drift downward, undoing the buttons on Hunk’s shirt as they went.
They fell into each other, three spots of warmth floating in an empty, hostile expanse, dreaming of a better future.
--
“We lost him,” Pidge said, staring off into the desert. She bent over controls of the hijacked ship, fighting tears. “I don’t know where he’s gone. He’s barely alive and he’s disappeared into a desert and we lost him.”
“Hey, all of us got away,” Lance said, reaching over and squeezing her arm. “Which, to be honest, I wasn’t actually expecting.”
“Yeah, look, I’m messed up about Keith too, but can we talk about us for a moment?” Hunk asked, twisting his hands nervously. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” The three of them glanced between each other, reality settling heavily between them. They had betrayed the Garrison, absconding with their prisoner, their technology, and their experimental abilities – not to mention the knowledge that could theoretically bring them down.
“Well, we’re completely screwed,” Lance laughed, leaning back in his chair. “I give us a week, max.” Pidge snorted.
“A week? We’ll be lucky to make it two days before we’re caught.”
“Two days? Two days?” Hunk tried to resist the urge to claw at the side of the ship for support, knowing he’d crumple it into scrap metal if he did. “What if we, I don’t know, went to the police? We have to let people know. There are people who can protect us, right?”
“Our evidence ran away into the desert,” Lance said, staring out the window as if he could will Keith back into sight. His pupils glowed softly. “Without him…”
“We’re on our own,” Pidge finished. She rested her fingers on the ship’s controls, her eyes going solid green as she talked to the ship’s computer, banking slowly around a rock outcropping. Lance stood up and stretched, joints cracking.
“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not ready to die just yet. Or get court-martialed, or whatever the Garrison is gonna do to us.” He turned to face them with a grin. “What do you say?” he asked. “I bet we can make it two whole weeks if we really try.” He stuck a hand into the center between them. Pidge grinned, her eyes still glowing solid green.
“Two weeks? Please. I’m smarter than any of the generals they’ve got. We’re going to make it for an entire month before they catch up to us.” She stuck one hand on top of Lance’s, the other still glued to the ship’s controls.
“Yeah, you know, I just vote for, ‘as long as possible,’” Hunk said, adding his hand. “How about that?”
“Heh,” Lance said. He turned his hand palm up, to wrap his fingers around Pidge and Hunk’s, and added his other hand on top, holding them together. “You got it, buddy. If they’re going to catch us, we’re gonna give them one hell of a chase.”