Disclaimer: Voltron, in all its varied forms, belongs to WEP. Star Trek:
The Next Generation belongs to Viacom, I believe. Dick Clark belongs to
himself.


A Bedtime Story


Allura crossed her arms across her chest and glared at the monitor screen in
disbelief. "No, surely you're not serious."

Amalgamous' indicators turned red with a bout of righteous robotic ire,
courtesy of an emotion chip cleverly stolen from the set of Star Trek: the
Next Generation when no one was looking. "You heard me, Your Highness. You
will give yourself up to Lotor immediately. All 900 Alliance worlds have
unanimously approved this course of action as the most effective way to
distract Lotor's attack fleet from their current collision course with the
Troika Moons."

Allura clenched her hands into fists in an uncharacteristic display of
anger. Eyes flashing, she turned to the captain standing faithfully at her
side. Keith sighed and shrugged. "He's got a point, princess."

"What?" Lance jumped forward and stared at Keith with his best patented
'you have got to be joking' expression. "Come on, Keith. You're the one
who's always harping on me about dividing up the team, and now you want
Allura to give herself up to Lotor?"

"Well, he does have a point."

Lance's eyebrows shot up somewhere around his hairline and Allura decided to
head this off before it got ugly. "All right. I'll do it."

Lance spun around to stare at her. "Don't be stupid, Allura. You can't
give yourself up to Lotor. He's a murderer." He paused, annoyance crossing
his face as she continued to stare back, obviously undaunted by his flawless
logic. "He's a half-human monster."

Allura grimaced. He did have a point there. The very idea that Lotor's
once-flawless form had been so thoughtlessly ravaged by the Alliance doctors
struck her as a travesty of justice. Surely there had to be a halfway
decent surgeon in Beverly Hills available that day. That Dick Clark person
still looked young and fit, even if she didn't truly believe the boys when
they said he was now 3000 years old. Shaking her head, she pulled herself
physically back to the point. "I have to do this, Lance. I can't let all
those innocent people suffer for my own misguided pride. Can a princess of
Arus do any less?"

Blindsided by self-righteous logic, Lance was struck speechless for at least
two minutes. Allura took full advantage of the situation. Turning back to
Amalgamous, she pasted a sweet smile on her face. "Tell Lotor I accept the
conditions of his surrender and I will turn myself over to him at Galaxy
Garrison, just as soon as his fleet has left the area surrounded the Troika
Moons."

Amalgamous' buttons turned a happy green color with absolute delight.
"Wonderful, Princess! I'm so happy to hear it!" The screen cut short with
a burst of static. The logo www.voltronforce.com immediately filled the
now-blank screen in a burst of gratuitous advertisement.

Allura sighed and turned to meet the faces of her friends for what might be
the last time. Lance had stopped being struck speechless in favor of
glaring at her wordlessly, his arms crossed over his massive chest in
obvious anger. Keith stood next to him, still looking faintly dazed.
Allura let her eyes run over him slowly, suddenly noting changes that had
not caught her attention before. 'Since when did his hair develop blonde
streaks? For that matter, weren't his eyes black?'

Blinking, she turned to Hunk and Pidge. Both were regarding her sadly from
the space on the far side of the monitor reserved for the less-important
characters. Coran, currently with only a bit part, was nowhere in sight.

Hunk cocked his too-round head sideways. "So what's the plan?

"Plan?" Allura shook her head. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, princess, there's always a plan. You agree to give yourself up to
Lotor and then WHAM! We get him from behind."

Keith crossed his arms and managed to look a great deal like a sulky child.
"This is important, Hunk. You're beginning to sound like Lance."

At this apparent slam in his direction, Lance instantly perked up. "Oh?
And you're implying that's a bad thing?"

"No, I'm implying that you just never think things through, that's all."

Slipping unnoticed out of the room towards the door to her lion [author's
note: has anyone actually ever seen any of the characters from V3D get in
their lions? Hey, that's where Coran is all the time. He's they're valet!
Oops. Sorry. Back to the story.], Allura grimaced and blocked out the voices
raised loud in argument. Maybe life with Lotor would actually be an
improvement.

*****

Blue Lion shot alone through the sky towards Galaxy Garrison. Allura was
lost in melancholy sadness. In the old days, before the disbanding of the
team, she never would have been in a situation like this. What had happened
to them all over the last five years? Things could not possibly have
changed so much. They'd won the war!

Now was not the time to worry about such things, however. Her future was
about to begin. Following the flight coordinates sent to her by the robot
drones controlling the Garrison airbase [author's note #2- do any people
actually work at Galaxy Garrison? Someone has to program all those robots,
right?], Allura landed directly in front of Lotor's flagship.

Emerging into the afternoon sunlight, she let her cold gaze travel over
Amalgamous, waiting patiently on the tarmac with Zarcon standing directly by
his side. There was something about Zarcon's presence in the Alliance that
just wasn't right [author's note #3: well, duh!], but she couldn't put her
finger on it.

The thought vanished from her mind as a shadow passed over her. Tilting her
face up, she found herself staring directly into Lotor's half-mad yellow
eyes. Lotor reached out with one robotic arm and yanked her to her feet.

"Allura, my love, my life! It's about time you came to your senses!"

The grip on her arm was threatening to cut off her circulation. Allura
began to struggle. "Lotor! Let go of me! I said I'd come with you willingly."

"Willing, unwilling, who really cares? It's not like I'm a whole man
anymore anyway. Your Alliance doctors saw to that." Picking her struggling
body up, he thrust her towards a robotic guard. "Take her away and chain
her up in the hold!"

Allura gasped. "What?"

Lotor shrugged. "Maybe I'll fetch a good price for you at the slave
markets." He jumped back into the ship and winked at his father. The last
words she heard before her vision dissolved into blackness was his shout.

"Set a course for the Troika Moons!"

*****

Allura struggled against the grip pinning her to the floor with all her
might. All those people were going to die. Her sacrifice was in vain, and
no one was even coming to rescue her! Tears fell down her cheeks and
muffled sobs constricted her chest.

"Allura! Allura, come on, look at me!"

Slowly the voice filtered through Allura's consciousness. She blinked her
eyes, trying to clear her clouded vision.

"I don't know, Keith. Maybe she smacked her head when she fell."

"Allura!"

"K-Keith? Lance?"

The object in front of her slowly came in to focus, resolving into a pair of
large very concerned dark eyes.

"Princess? Can you hear me?"

"Keith?" Allura pushed him away and sat up. She shook her head in
confusion then forced her eyes back to the man kneeling in front of her,
unruly dark hair curling over the shoulders of his ever-present red flight suit.

"What… what happened?"

Lance knelt down in front of her. "You wandered out in the middle of the
night again. What are you trying to do? Give us all premature heart failure?"

Allura shook her head. "I was supposed to be at the Garrison. Amalgamous
is going to be furious."

Keith's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

"Amalgamous. You know, the robotic leader of the Alliance."

Lance shook his head and dropped down by her side. "You must have hit your
head. The leader of the Alliance isn't a robot. I don't work for any-"

"-glorified calculator." Lance blinked in astonishment as she finished his
sentence. Suddenly sensing her amusement, he stuffed his hands into the
pockets of his leather jacket and shot her a mock-glare.

Allura glanced around at the landscape, recognizing for the first time the
forest surrounding the castle. "The war isn't over? We were never disbanded?"

Lance shook his head sadly. "That must have been some dream, princess."

Allura considered this for a minute. Whatever it was, things were
definitely looking up. Keith and Lance actually looked more like human
beings than walking talking action figures and she wasn't decked out in
revealing body armor like some kind of killer Barbie doll. Chances were
good then that the Alliance had never been corrupted. As the last images of
the dream filtered through her mind, Allura smiled. Lotor was probably
still a whole man, then, and he likely still worshipped the ground she
walked on.

Keith ruffled her hair affectionately and pulled her to her feet. "Come on.
If we don't get you back to the castle and let Dr. Gorma take a look at your
head, Nanny'll have us for breakfast." He paused, staring down at her
intently. "What was it like? The war being over, I mean."

Allura shuddered and turned to begin the trek back uphill towards the
castle. "You don't want to know, Keith. You don't even want to know."


*****

Megan
meff@iwaynet.net


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