There were several men and a few women gathered within and it was obviously a more a war council than anything else. All talk stopped when they entered; the elders staring at the six strangers with something at was part curiosity and part suspicion.
Zachary led the Voltron Force into the circle of people and bid them to sit down. His eyes were mildly apologetic at the discomfort they were experiencing.
“These are the members of the Voltron Force. They were sent here by the Galaxy Alliance to help us,” Zachary told the Council when all six were settled. “This the Princess Allura of the Planet Arus, Samantha, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge.” He placed a hand on Keith shoulder. “And this is their Commander, Keith.” Zach’s voice rang with pride. “My eldest son.”
Murmurs of astonishment spread like wildfire around the cave, and Keith felt all their eyes raking over him, looking from him to his father in search of a family resemblance.
One of the men, the chief of the armory, finally cleared his throat and nodded towards Keith. “Yes, you truly are your father’s son, and we are glad to have you. But… we have asked for help against an army and the Galaxy Alliance has only sent us six young people! Does the Alliance not take our plight seriously? We are on the verge of a major rebellion, and they send us these children who appear to be barely out of school!”
“Now, wait a minute,” Hunk began, his temper rising. “Look here, sir, I don’t appreciate being called a –“
“Six young people and their five powerful Lion ships,” Lance inserted smoothly, cutting off Hunk’s outburst. In spite of the skeptical looks the council members gave him, he went on. “We may be young, but we also fly some of the most formidable ships in the Far Universe. Believe us, the Alliance takes your plight very seriously.”
The chief of the armory turned to Zachary. “Is this true?”
Zachary nodded. “I saw their ships, and they are more powerful than most of the ships I had flown while I was still with the Alliance. They will give us the edge we need.”
“Then I take it we will be pushing the attack for tomorrow,” one of the older men said.
Zach nodded again. “We would have done it within the next two days, with or without the arrival of our reinforcements,” he pointed out. “Besides that, the more time passes that Kat and the others remain undercover on the base, the more dangerous it is for them. They could be included in the next shipment or discovered for what they are.” He frowned and the worry was evident in his tone. “The last heist we pulled could also have alerted even that fool Erinol that we are up to something.”
“Erinol has his head so far up his behind that he does not know squat,” the chief armorer said with confident disgust. “Do you know when the next shipment is due for pick-up?”
“Three days from now,” another of the men answered. “If they’re on schedule – and they are most of the time. That would mean additional firepower for them – Zarkon’s slave ships are almost as well armed as his battle cruisers. Besides, as Lyon says, our own men and women within the base may be included in the outgoing shipment and will not be able to fight without being discovered.”
“You can certainly capture the base now,” Pidge commented wryly, remembering what Zach said about the crates of weapons hidden within those caves. “If those weapons you managed to hijack over the years are still functional, you’re a pretty even match for those at the base, especially if they’re as complacent as you think they are and if they don’t get any outside help.”
“Does anybody in this gathering have anything to say against the assault beginning tomorrow morning?” Zach asked, looking from face to face.
No one replied.
“Very well, then we begin our attack at high noon tomorrow. We will move into place beginning midnight,” Zach said, his voice grim. “Our council of war convenes after the feast. We must finalize our plans.”
One of the women sighed and regarded Zach with worried eyes. “Are we doing the right thing?”
Allura was the one who smiled at her reassuringly in reply. “Yes, you
are.”
“Aidel, come in, this is Commander Mutak of Slave Fleet Noir, over.”
“We read you, Commander Mutak.”
“It appears that we will be coming into Aidel a day earlier than we expected. Alliance forces on Planet Mistah caused us to pass over that Planet entirely. Furthermore, we are under Haggar’s strict orders to deliver one of her robeasts to King Erinol, in response to his ‘neurotic ravings.’ We expect the shipment to be ready as soon as we dock. Do you copy Aidel?”
“We copy. We will inform the king and begin preparing the next shipment
tonight.”
“What does that hag mean, my ‘neurotic ravings’?” King Erinol snarled, hurling his glass at the messenger who brought a copy of the communication to the throne room. The king sat slumped in his chair, so low that he almost appeared to overflow his throne. His large belly and flabby jowls revealed the excesses of his life. “Weren’t they told that the last shipment of laser rifles they sent us was hijacked?”
The messenger cleared his throat. “Uh – they think you’ve, um, misplaced it, sire,” he ventured cautiously. He gave a sigh of relief when Erinol did not explode, only stared off into space. “ Shall we begin preparing the slave shipments, sire?”
Erinol nodded absently. “Yes, yes – do that,” he ordered. “But make sure to send in the more recent slew of slave women up here to the throne room before herding them off to the ships. I want to be the first to choose the ones I want to keep.”
“Yes, sire.” The messenger complied, bowing hastily to the king before leaving the room.
The slave woman, Katherine, perched at Erinol’s side listened intently to the exchange, her emerald green eyes flashing as she continued to fan the king. Her skin, once white and creamy and her most distinctive feature, had been darkened with a special paste to prevent the guards she had assaulted from recognizing her. As it was, she had been fortunate that the guards she had knocked unconscious at the communication room had been too humiliated to report the incident to their superiors. She was fairly certain that no one had been alerted of the incident.
Luckily, despite her already darkened skin, she was still among those picked out by the king to be one of his own servant girls. Lucky because her privileged position as one of Erinol’s ‘concubines’ allowed her access to many areas of the castle and giving her the chance to talk with the other well-placed ‘slaves’ from the Resistance about the final battle plan set for the next morning.
Before the mission, spies and defectors from the castle had informed the Resistance leaders that Erinol was beyond the point of being able to take liberties with his slave girls, keeping them only for show. That knowledge was the only reason Zach had given in and allowed her to be the one to send the message to the Alliance herself, knowledge that Katherine thanked her stars for being true. She could never stomach the thought of having to lie with anyone other than her husband, much less the disgusting man she was now serving.
Now it was apparent that their luck had about run out. The arrival of the slave-ship fleet did not bode well for the Resistance forces, especially if by this time the Alliance had not yet sent reinforcements… And from the lack of panic on Erinol’s part aside from the uneasiness about the lot shipment of rifles, she assumed that the Alliance was not going to be involved in this battle either.
Kat grit her teeth against the rage she felt at the lack of response from the Galaxy Alliance, so similar to the anger she felt years ago, when no one had responded to the mayday message she and Zach had sent before they had crashed on the planet surface. Zach had been more stoic about it, more accepting of the consequences of flying their last mission, but Kat had hoped against hope that the Alliance would not ignore an SOS from their own simply because it was expedient. Life on Aidel these past ten years had not been terrible; she had Zach and the twins and battle for freedom kept her going. But all this did not make up for her lost son.
I will come back for you, Keith, she swore. When this battle is over, I will come back to Earth for you. The thought of her eldest son turned her thoughts back to her twins – and the other children of the Resistance – who were all counting on her. She had to find a way to warn Zach and the others of the change in the fleet’s arrival. Failing that, she had to make sure that the spies within the stronghold made sure to rally the slaves behind them in an all-or-nothing assault on the castle armory and docking bays.
She sighed softly, praying that Erinol would decide to retire soon.
She was in for a very busy night.