Chapter Text
Night settled over Arus like a soft, protective veil. A mild breeze whispered through the tall grass and rustled the treetops, carrying with it the delicate perfume of blossoms that only dared to bloom after dusk. Starlight shimmered in the sky and danced across every lake and river. The stone lion guarding the Castle of Lions caught the moon’s pale radiance, its carved features dusted in a serene, silvery glow.
Inside the Castle, however, alarms bleated, yanking the sleeping Voltron Force from their beds and out into the dim corridors — each seized by the same grim certainty: Zarkon, or his vile son Lotor, was about to launch another assault on Arus. No words were exchanged, just grim looks.
This was a dance they were all familiar with, after all.
“Coran…” Keith slid to a stop as he reached the control room, heart beating a hard staccato against his ribs, breath an icy sludge in his chest, eyes sharp as he focused on the computer screen. “What’s going on?”
“An unidentified ship has crossed into Arus’s planetary field,” came the advisor’s tense response.
“What kinda ship?” Suspicion mixed with dread as Lance moved up beside Keith. “One of Zarkon’s?”
“I do not know.” Coran’s fingers moved across the console with an almost hypnotic grace as he studied the information flying by on the screen at rapid fire speed. “It is not broadcasting any known Alliance or Arusian codes.”
A tense hush fell over the control room, all of them aware this unknown ship could be someone seeking aide or refuge from a planet under the oppressive control of Doom.
However, there was also an awareness it could be part of a cleverly designed trap.
“Are you sure it’s a ship?” Lance stepped closer to peer at a readout. “Could be one of Haggar’s robeasts.”
“Something’s sure out there.” Pidge tapped a sensor array. “Whatever it is… though… it’s not following any flight pattern I recognize.”
“In either case,” Coran said, head turning towards them, expression grave, “we must proceed with utmost caution. The universe rarely sends surprises that are friendly.”
The holo-screen exploded into a burst of static, flooding the room with harsh white light.
A single pulse cut through the distortion.
Sharp.
Piercing.
Urgent.
“That is no Arusian frequency.” Coran’s mustache twitched as he scanned the readout. “In all my years of service, I have never encountered a signal like this.”
“Nor have we.” Keith’s brow creased as the pulse sounded again — louder this time, sharper, more insistent. “It’s almost like a distress call...”
“Or Morse code,” Pidge said, brow creasing. “Hear that? Three short pulses followed by three long before three more short pulses.”
“SOS.” Hunk grunted as he leaned over to look at the sensor array Pidge stared at. “Someone’s definitely calling for help.”
“Coran.” Allura stepped up beside Keith. “Do you have an image of the ship?”
“Yes, Princess.”
An image on the screen revealed a battered ship drifting through Arus’s aerospace.
No insignia.
No running lights.
Nothing but thick plumes of smoke coming from its engines, a scorched hull, and a great hole ripped into its starboard side.
A low hum vibrated through the control room, as if the ship itself was trying to plead for help.
“Oh my…” Allura’s voice was soft but steady. “Coran, can you magnify the signal?”
“I’m trying, Princess.” Coran’s fingers moved across the controls with controlled grace. “I’m afraid the ship’s systems are barely holding together. It’s a wonder we’re receiving anything at all given how damaged it is.”
Another pulse rippled through the speakers — this one fractured, almost desperate.
Keith stepped closer, eyes narrowing on the ship. “That’s not any Morse code I recognize.”
“Because it isn’t Morse code this time.” Pidge adjusted his glasses as he scanned another sensory array. “Whoever’s on that ship must’ve rerouted the comm system. This pulse might be the only thing they can manage with all the damage the ship took.”
“I can’t believe anybody could be alive given how badly damaged that thing is,” Lance said, tone grim. “Whatever attacked them sure wasn’t messing around.”
The holo-screen flickered, then sharpened just enough to reveal more of the drifting vessel. A fragment of an insignia — scorched, half‑melted — blinked weakly on a battered panel but the screen sputtered out before it could be identified.
“That ship didn’t just get hit.” Hunk blew out a heavy breath. “It got hammered.”
“No crew, no lights, no ID.” Lance crossed his arms over his chest, trying to mask his unease. “This has Zarkon written all over it.”
“Arus…” came through the static, thin and warbling, as if dragged across half the galaxy. “…help…”
Recognition hit Keith like a blade to the spine.
His head snapped up.
His breath left him in a sharp, involuntary gasp.
“No,” he whispered, eyes locked on the battered ship drifting across the viewscreen. “It can’t be. Not her.”
Not after all these years.
The image flickered, stabilizing enough to reveal a control room lit by failing emergency strips, shadows pulsing with each power surge.
A shower of sparks rained from a ruptured conduit, briefly illuminating a figure at the console.
“Arus…?” the voice came again, clearer this time. “…Voltron… Akira…”
His name.
Not the one he adopted after moving to the United States, but the one given him by his parents.
Spoken in a voice he memorized long ago.
Sure, it was older now and roughened by pain, exhaustion, and fear, but it was unmistakably hers.
“Akari?” His heart slammed against his ribs. “Akari, is that you?”
Static swallowed the image for a half a heartbeat, warping the silhouette on the screen.
Then the interference thinned, and the figure lifted their head.
Enough for Keith to see their eyes — the same shape, the same storm‑dark shade as his own.
Akari.
Who he hadn’t seen since she was taken by their aunt after their parents died in an accident when she was ten and he twelve.
Akari.
Here.
On a crippled ship drifting through Arus’ planetary space.
Alone, afraid, but alive.
Her flight suit was torn open at the neck and shoulder, fabric scorched and fraying.
Sweat plastered her dark hair to her temples.
Blood streaked her forehead and jaw in dark, uneven smears.
The insignia on her chest marked her as Alliance medical corps — a detail which made his stomach twist into knots. If I had only known…
A violent shudder rocked the ship, the lights behind her flared, sputtered, and died.
Warning sigils flashed across the screen — hull breach, failing life support, catastrophic power loss.
Her image flickered, dimming like a star on its last breath.
“Akira…” Her voice broke under a surge of static. “… too late…”
The transmission then snapped to black.
“Akari!”
“Keith, I’m locked onto the signal.” Pidge’s fingers flew across the console. “It’s coming from a medical transport — Arusian design, but heavily modified. And… oh man… life signs are almost nonexistent.”
“Everybody to their lions,” he snapped, voice tight. “We’re going. Now.”
“Listen, I’m all for going to help. She’s clearly in trouble and all.” Lance shifted to face Keith, who side-eyed him. “But don’t you think we need a plan before—”
“The plan is to reach that ship before it either breaks apart or crashes on Arus.” Firm, absolute. “That’s it.”
Lance blinked. “Okay, but maybe we don’t need to dive headfirst into dan—”
“Lance,” Hunk cut in, tone surprisingly gentle for a guy as big as he was. “Look at Keith. Clearly, whoever that girl is, she’s important to him.”
Keith didn’t deny it.
Couldn’t.
Not when his heartbeat was a drumbeat in his ears, drowning out everything but Akari’s voice, thin and cracking, whispering his name across the void.
“Go.” Coran pressed a button on the console to raise the dais and reveal the chutes leading to the Lions’. “I shall have the medical team on standby for when you return.”
He sent the advisor a grateful look. “Thank you, Coran.”
He made to step towards his chute then but Allura’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Keith, we will rescue your friend,” she said, eyes soft with understanding and something more. Something Keith didn’t dare define. “But you must remain focused.”
“I am focused, Princess.”
Focused on a ship drifting through space.
On a fading signal.
On a sister he hadn’t seen in fourteen years.
Who he thought lost to him because of an entirely different sort of distance.
“Now, get to the lions,” he ordered as he moved toward his chute, jaw set, belly burning with something fierce and unshakable.
The rest of the team sprinted to their chutes without another word.
Questions would come soon enough, though.
One’s Keith wasn’t exactly prepared to answer but knew he would need to once they got Akari back to the castle.
Everything inside him shifted as a memory rose to cut away the walls he erected around his heart with the sharpness of a blade.
The last time he saw Akari was the day after their parent’s funeral.
Small of feature, small of frame.
Clinging to him with both hands as their aunt, Kiko tried to yank her away.
Her face streaked with tears, her voice cracking as she begged not to go.
“Akira, don’t let her take me!”
He tried.
God, he tried.
He was only twelve, though, grieving, powerless.
Aunt Kiko’s grip on Akari’s arm was like iron, her decision final, she was going to live with their grandmother in Japan.
Akari’s small fingers were pulled from his shirt, and she was drug over to the car parked in the driveway.
He could still see her reaching for him as the car door slammed shut.
Still heard her sobbing his name as they drove off.
Something inside him tore loose and went with her.
He learned that day how fast someone could be taken from him.
How easily.
How permanently.
After that he stopped letting people close.
Stopped trusting anyone who mattered would stay.
Even at the Academy, even with the members of his team, he kept a part of himself out of reach.
Losing someone he loved once was unbearable.
Twice?
Unthinkable.
Keith forced his memories back as he dropped into the shuttle which would take him to his Black Lion.
He didn’t have the luxury of indulgence.
Not now.
Not when Akari was drifting through space on a damaged spaceship about to crash land on Arus.
He grabbed his flight suit from the locker it was stored in after every mission.
He wasn’t twelve anymore.
Was no longer a scared, angry, grieving kid at the mercy of adults who weren’t thinking about what was best for him or his sister.
He was Captain of the Voltron Force.
He and his team would make sure Akari wasn’t lost to the void.
Keith changed into his suit before sitting to pull on his boots.
Seconds later he was lifted inside the cockpit of Black Lion. The air hummed around him, energy crackling like static across his skin as he settled behind the controls. Black Lion’s systems awakened in response to his presence, lights blossoming across the console in a colorful array which normally enchanted him, the canopy sliding shut with only a whisper of sound.
The world outside ceased to exist in that moment, replaced by the steady thrum of Black Lion’s heart syncing with his own.
“Position keys,” Keith ordered, his own sliding into place with a familiar click.
Black Lion answered with a deep, resonant roar as it rose on its podium.
“Keys set,” the team echoed in perfect unison.
In less than ten seconds, all five Lions left Arus behind, streaking through space in tight formation.
Keith tightened his grip on the controls, jaw set, eyes locked on the view outside the viewport, and chest tight with fear over what they’d find once they reached the damaged ship.
Hang on, Akari, he pleaded silently. I’m coming.
Art by me, done in Procreate
