Hunk and Lance stood grappling with each other on the practice hall mat, Hunk employing a potentially lethal lock around Lance’s neck. With one fluid motion and a quick twist of his shoulder, Lance sent Hunk flying over his shoulder and unto the mat below. Hunk’s impact was punctuated by a groan and a smattering of applause from the princess, who was watching at the sidelines with Keith.
“That was great!” she exclaimed with a delighted laugh. She glanced archly at the Captain, who raised an inquiring eyebrow at her. “Do you think I’ll ever get to throw you like that? I’ve managed to do it to everyone on the team but you.”
“It just takes a little bit of practice, Princess,” Lance encouraged her with a grin as he went to Hunk and offered his hand to him. Hunk pulled himself up with a groan, rubbing the back of his hip in exaggerated pain. Lance glanced at Keith and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well – against Keith, maybe a little bit of practice and a lot of luck.”
Keith gave her a grin of his own. “There’s no rule that says you can’t try, Princess,” he offered magnanimously, standing up in one motion and holding out his hand to help her up. “Want to try that move Pidge tells me he taught you last week? It might work.” He winked at her teasingly. “I could decide to go easy on you today.”
She ignored his offered hand and stuck her tongue out at him instead. “No, thank you, I’d really rather not be thrown today – Nanny made such a fuss about my bruises after Pidge threw me the last week that she threatened not to let me practice hand-to-hand with you guys if she saw me injured again,” she explained with a small grimace. She tipped her chin up and tossed her head arrogantly. “Besides, I’d rather take you by surprise the next time we spar – you won’t know what hit you!”
Hunk laughed as he gingerly lowered himself beside Allura. “That’s the spirit, Princess! With that attitude, you’ll have even Keith crawling on the mat in a few weeks,” he hooted, his exclamation ending on a groan as his own bruised hip touched the floor once again. “You’d think that with all this extra padding, getting thrown would be easier on me,” he muttered ruefully, earning a laugh from all three of his teammates.
Lance glanced at Keith, who was going into the motions of a kata for his warm-up. “Since the Princess isn’t taking you up on your offer,” he said, tapping Keith’s shoulder with a cocky grin, “You might want to take me on. I’m feeling lucky – and you just might decide to go easy on me, too.”
“Are you kidding? If you win against me today, you’ll win against me fair and square,” Keith said with a laugh, ending his kata and following Lance to the middle of the mat. The two combatants bowed to one another to signal that the match had begun.
Allura admired the smooth, graceful movements of the two combatants as they scoped each other out warily. “They make it look so easy,” she told Hunk in awe, the wonder of the spectacle something that she could never quite get used to. She gasped as she saw Lance almost get a kick in at Keith, who darted away with a laugh. “That didn’t look like judo to me.”
“That’s because they’ve been training for years. What they’re doing right now isn’t a particular martial arts discipline but a combination of everything they know – and some made up ones along the way,” Hunk explained matter-of-factly, leaning back on his arms to enjoy the show. “Lance was always one of the best back at the Academy, and Keith…well there’s ‘one of the best’ and there’s the best.”
Allura watched in mute fascination as the two clashed once more in a flurry of kicks and arm strikes, darting away from one another in lightning fast movements. In the next skirmish, Lance managed to get an elbow into Keith’s stomach and, in Keith’s ensuing distraction, get a grip around Keith’s neck. Keith used his strength to lift Lance up on his back in preparation for a throw, but although Lance’s balance was slightly thrown, his arms held fast.
“I’ve got you now, O Mighty Leader,” Lance wheezed triumphantly, even if Keith was still trying to shake him off like a rag doll.
“Don’t count your chickens yet, Hawke,” Keith said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to throw that arrogant head of yours against the mat if it’s the last thing I do!”
The door to the practice hall slid open to admit a breathless Pidge, catching Hunk and Allura’s attention. Whatever had brought Pidge here, from where he was on duty at Castle Control signaled that something was going on.
“You guys gotta come with me, pronto,” he gasped, leaning against the wall and fanning himself. “There’s an important transmission from Galaxy Garrison – Lance’s dad, Admiral Hawke, is on the line and he appears to be spitting mad about something.”
The sound of Pidge’s voice distracted Lance, who glanced in his direction curiously. The loss of concentration was enough for Keith to finally throw Lance off and almost get a hit from the elbow in his stomach if he hadn’t sprung away in time. Keith decided the match by sweeping a leg under Lance as Lance jumped back in range in at attempt to get a final blow at him, causing Lance to lose his balance and stumble onto the mat ignominiously.
“If it weren’t for Pidge…“ Lance groaned as he picked himself up from the floor and bowed to Keith. “I keep forgetting that leg sweep of yours,” he growled, brushing himself off and straightening to find Keith bowing at him in turn. “It gets me every damned time.”
“That was my Dad’s move,” Keith said with a grin and an apologetic shrug. “If it’s any consolation to you, that damn move also got me every time my Dad and I sparred.” He turned to Pidge, Hunk, and Allura, who were all standing at the edge of the mat and looking at them with worried eyes. “What’s that I heard about Uncle Hawke being on the comm system?” he demanded, all-business now, picking up his hand towel from the floor and wiping the back of his neck.
Pidge nodded his confirmation. “He wants to talk to you, Skipper,” Pidge said urgently. “Coran asked me to get you guys to Castle Control as soon as I could.”
They followed Pidge through the Castle Corridors at a run, none of them bothering to change out of the gi they were wearing, not even the Princess.
As they ran through the corridors, Lance shot Keith an extremely bewildered glance. “Dad has no direct jurisdiction over the GG division we’re under – he’s chief of GG Intelligence, not the Interstellar Command,” he said with a frown. “And if he were calling about a family emergency, he would be asking to talk to me. Why would he be insisting to talk to you?”
“You got me there,” Keith said with a puzzled frown of his own, then, as they entered Castle Control, he shot Lance a devilish grin. ”Maybe he wants to know about your depraved love life and doesn’t expect you to tell him the unvarnished truth.”
Lance grimaced and smacked Keith on the shoulder. “Not funny, Skipper,” he said in a dry tone. Then he looked at Keith apprehensively. “You aren’t going to snitch on me, are you? At least not yet. They’re never going to let me live it down when they find out that Sam and I are –“
A ghastly shriek from Nanny caught their attention. “Princess! How can you come down here and traipse around the castle in pajamas?” she wailed, wringing her hands together in utter dismay. Allura gave an audible groan that drew a laugh from the rest of her teammates. Nanny took the sleeve of the gi in between two fingers and grimaced in distaste. “Look at yourself, young lady – you’re not fit to be called a princess!”
“Oh, Nanny, these aren’t pajamas, it’s a gi!” Allura explained with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s a perfectly decent thing to wear at hand-to-hand practice…”
“Ach!” Nanny snorted and threw up her hands in exasperation. “Decent, my foot! I am going to get your dressing gown to cover that… that… monstrosity!” With that, the distraught governess strode out of Castle Control and made her way to the Princess’ chambers.
A loud chuckle from the Castle Control monitors and an outraged ‘ahem’ from Coran brought back the entire team to the matter at hand. The kindly face of Lance’s father, Admiral Anthony Hawke, grinned at them from the huge screen. With his thick brown hair and mustache barely streaked with gray and only crow’s feet of laughter around his eyes, he would pass as Lance’s older brother.
“Your Highness, Captain Keith, members of the Voltron Force, greetings,” the Admiral said, in a crisp military manner, but his eyes were twinkling playfully. “And may I say, Your Highness,” he intoned solemnly, “that your outfit is one that I consider to be the height of loveliness. In fact, it’s all the rage among the female cadets at the Academy.”
“Admiral Hawke, sir,” Keith saluted towards the monitor, with a wide grin that belied his military stance. “You wanted to speak to me?”
“Get off it, Captain, I was changing your diapers before you were even consciously aware that you were wetting them,” the Admiral replied, letting go of his formality and giving Keith a grin of his own. “Plain ‘Uncle Hawke’ will do just fine. But before I do go into official business – Lance Alexander, how have you been treating our Samantha? You know, it was just about time, son. I thought you’d never get around to it.”
Lance’s eyes widened and he began to sputter amidst another burst of laughter form the rest of the team. Admiral Hawke gave his son a wink.
“Da-ad! How the hell did you find out about that?” Lance ground out, flushing to the roots of his hair. He glared murderously at Keith, who merely shrugged back at him blankly with a don’t-look-at-me expression on his face. He turned back to his father with a defiant glare. “Of course I’m treating Sam right. As a matter of fact, her cousin Jael is flying her over here from Merion in a few hours for a visit. But please tell me that you didn’t place this transgalactic connection just to inquire about my love life.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, son,” his father replied crisply, the military starch back in his tone. “As a matter of fact, while you were taking your sweet time getting here, I’ve managed to give Coran an overview of the present situation.” He sighed, passing a hand over his eyes. ”And, frankly, it’s hell of a mess.”
Coran regarded the entire team gravely. “Just yesterday evening, in our time, Galaxy Garrison headquarters received a distress signal from a small planet under Zarkon’s control located on the borders of the Near Universe and the Far Universe about one thousand light years away,” he explained.
As Coran explained, the lower corner of the huge screen projected an image of the planet in question as well as its nearby neighbors. “The people there are asking for support from Galaxy Garrison for a rebellion against the tyrant ruling there,” he told the team. “And Admiral Hawke is asking if we could send the Lions there to help them.”
Lance looked up at his father with a frown. “Dad, you didn’t happen to be moved to interstellar command without telling me, did you? Isn’t this sort of thing supposed to be under Space Marshall Graham’s jurisdiction?”
“No, Lance, I have not been moved to Interstellar Command,” the Admiral denied with a shake of his head. “However, I have brought this matter up to Marshall Graham, and he is aware that I am bringing this matter up to you.”
“Besides, Admiral, I don’t understand,” the Pidge said with a bewildered frown as he studied the planet coordinates flashing on the monitor. “This planet is relatively nearer Galaxy Garrison’s main headquarters than Planet Arus is. Wouldn’t it be more practical to send forces from there?”
Coran cleared his throat to get the team’s attention once more. “I believe that the Admiral feels that this mission would be of personal significance to one of the members of the team,” he commented, fixing his gaze on Keith, who was quietly staring at the coordinates on the screen with a stunned look of disbelief on his face.
“Actually, the reason why this matter was brought up to the Intelligence department is because the distress signal was sent over a highly classified frequency that has officially not been in use for the past six years or so,” Admiral Hawke explained quietly, his gaze also fixed on Keith. “And what’s more, the message was verified using a code that is unique to each member of the Intergalactic Stealth Corps.”
Keith finally tore his gaze away from the planet coordinates and caught the Admiral’s look. “Those are Aidel’s coordinates,” he choked out, his face pale. “That distress message came from Aidel, didn’t it?”
The mention of the planet’s familiar name caused Allura’s own gaze to rivet towards Keith.
With a sigh, the Admiral nodded. “Yes, the distress signal did come from the Planet Aidel,” he confirmed meeting Keith’s gaze with his own. “And the verification code they used for confirming the authenticity of the message – it was…” He took a deep breath before went on. “Keith, it belonged to your mother.”
Reunion - Uncovering the Truth