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There's gonna be trouble, you know what they said
We should have been home by now
“I’m tired of being captured,” Shiro tells Matt when they come to, taking stock of their situation. The cell is bare, drab grey, and tiny, lit only by glowing blue lights running along where the walls hit the ceiling. Whoever ambushed them has them bound pretty tightly together by the wrists. Matt yelps when Shiro sees if he can rip through with his cybernetic prosthetic.Whatever their captors used to cuff them doesn’t budge.
“Well at least it isn’t the Galra this time,” Matt says somewhat optimistically, “That would be bad.”
“True,” Shiro agrees. “We were a real thorn in their side before the war came to a close. I can’t imagine we’re their favorite people.”
“You’d think war heros would get a warmer welcome,” Matt complains, fidgeting against their bonds, “I can understand them not knowing who I am. I was a little more of a background player. But you, ‘The Champion’? Your reputation is a little harder to ignore.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Shiro says quietly. Matt goes still.
Whoever their new captures were, they could be worse than the Galra Empire. Their friends in The Alliance warned them as they made their long journey back to Earth of a new threat on the horizon. Shrio desperately hopes this isn’t that threat, that it’s just some sort of misunderstanding, but he knows better now not to expect it.
He feels Matt tense at his back when the door to the cell slides open and readies himself to face their new captor.
There is no guarantee, but the form seems to be male: tall and slender but broad in the shoulder. The face is concealed by a featureless, black helmet, a match for the black of his body armor, accented in blue. There’s a knife sheathed and strapped to his hip. Shrio knows that can’t be the only weapon on their person. He holds some sort of glowing tablet.
He looks at it now, then looks back at Shiro and Matt before turning on his heel and stalking right out. The door slides shut after him but it barely muffles the noise when their visitor starts shouting. Matt goes stiffer than a board.
“Is that…,” he starts hesitantly, “Is that Spanish ?”
Shiro blinks, listens more closely, and then blinks again. People from all walks of life enlisted in the Garrison back on Earth and while Shiro has never been fluent in it, he has heard more than enough of the language to recognize the swear words when he hears them. This person has a rather colorful vocabulary. Shiro could listen to it all day. A language from Earth heard from someone other than Matt. The hope in his chest gets painfully tight.
The door opens again. This time their visitor wears no helmet.
He’s human. Or, Shiro reminds himself, something human looking enough. Warm brown skin and long, dark hair pulled into a ponytail, suggests a Hispanic background to match the Spanish. The scar that cuts through edge of the man’s bottom lip adds a certain roguish charm backed up by a sharp nose and clever eyes. The man beams at them.
“Matthew Holt and Takashi Shirogane. Sorry for the rough welcome.” he greets them in perfect English, pulling out a fob and pressing something on it to release their bonds. “ Someone mistook you for...well that doesn’t matter. It's all straightened out now. You can call me Echo.” He pauses, smile shifting into something more smug. “Pidge is going to be so pissed I found you first.”
“Pidge?” Matt asks, eyebrows raised somewhere near his hairline before furrowing together. He turns to stand just behind Shiro when the both of them get up. Shiro can see him rub at the wrist he pinched earlier trying to break their bonds and feels a little guilty.
“Your sister Katie.” Echo motions for them to follow and starts leading them down a hallway and out of what seems to be a cellblock. “She infiltrated the Garrison under the alias Pidge Gunderson after your shuttle was lost. Most of those who work with her know her as that.”
“Katie infiltrated the Garrison?” Matt sounds incredulous. “Why?”
“To find you and your father,” Echo says. “Obviously. The Garrison said it was pilot error and you’d all bit the dust. Of course anyone with half a brain would realize that’s bullshit, especially with Shirogane in the cockpit. I’m sorry for your loss, by the way; Commander Holt was a brilliant mind. Pidge was devastated when she found out.”
“I’m going to guess,” Shiro interrupts, pushing aside the part of him that's flattered by this stranger’s praise and the sadness that wells up at the reminder of Samuel Holt’s death, “that you’re not with the Garrison.” Shiro can feel Matt tense beside him, aware again of where they are and where they are not.There was no shortage of human like aliens, no shortage of shapeshifters out in the vast possibilities in space.
Echo comes to a stop.
“I was,” he says, turning to face them. “I was a pilot like you Shiro, before I ...was part of the Alliance. Until I saw what the Garrison had become, or maybe had always been.”
They have left the cellblock behind, now standing before a great doorway. Around them, beings of every shape, size, and species mill about on their business. A few glance at them and a few stare, but no one approaches.
“And what’s that?” Shiro asks. Echo hesitates again, silent for a few beats before speaking.
“Shortly after you and the Holts were declared dead,” he begins, clever eyes serious and leveled unflinchingly with Shiro's, “the Garrison’s space travel technology progressed by leaps and bounds. It became dramatically clear we weren’t alone in the universe when you couldn’t spit without hitting a Galra warship. The Garrison joined the rebellion efforts of course, human nature, and eventually the Galra were defeated.” The man’s solemn expression turns sadder somehow.
“So many planets were devastated by the Galra. The Garrison offered their help. For a while that’s all it was. Eventually though, they would set up a base and take whatever the Galra hadn’t. Technology, resources, even the people sometimes.”
“They’re the threat we heard about.” Matt confirms quietly. Before, when they had been captured that first time, completely unprepared for their first traumatic encounter with an alien force, The Galra Empire had been around long enough to stir up a rebel backlash. Those same rebels had freed Shiro and Matt from their imprisonment, became their comrades in the Alliance, the fight against the Galra.
“After escaping the Galra we joined the rebellion, the Alliance.” Matt says, raising his voice to address their companion. “When the war was over and we decided to try and find our way back to Earth, back home… well let’s just say we’ve been warned. I just never imagined it would be home. Forgive me, if I ask for proof.”
“Geez,” Echo says, raking a hand through his hair. “I didn’t see all the Garrison’s shady shit until it literally fell on me. I’d ask for proof too. That’s why I brought you here.” He gestures to the doors, the weary sadness fleeing his face, chased away by a smirk. “I hope you’re prepared to meet royalty. I’m about to introduce you to Princess Allura, commander in chief of this little operation.”
Spinning on his heel, Echo pushes the great door open, revealing a large, spacious room full of windows looking out on the commerce planet where Shiro and Matt had stopped to refuel before they were apprehended. Surrounded by the universe exploded around her in hologram and people taking note of every word, stands the woman who could only be Princess Allura. It’s the air of command that hangs about her that gives it away; the way her audience scatters the moment she dismisses them as Shiro, Matt, and their companion enter.
Unlike Echo, Princess Allura, while humanoid in form, is obviously alien. Silver hair pulled up and out of a startlingly beautiful and young face, sharply pointed ears, and unsettling blue eyes with pink pupils that match the pink dashes on ridge of her cheekbones, number a few among the differences. She is a couple of inches shorter than Shiro, but even as they draw close to her, the regal aura about her makes her seem twice his size.
“Echo,” She greets. “If these men are who I think they are I hope you realize Pidge will be furious with you.” Her English is crisp and clear, faintly accented with what Shiro wants to say is British, but knows is not.
“I know,” Echo says smugly. “I’m looking forward to it. When is the next time she is set to check in?”
“In a few ticks, actually. Your timing is impeccable,” the princess replies, turning to a console beside her to collapse the hologram still up around them. “We can receive her transmission here for convenience.”
“What are ticks?” Matt asks.
“The Altean equivalent to seconds,” Echo replies, before sighing dramatically. “ You can teach an alien English but you can’t make them use it. Allura can speak as many Earth languages as I can and more besides but she still refuses to use our time system when speaking them.”
“Because it’s a terrible system,” Allura says over her shoulder, fiddling with the console and pulling up a holoscreen. “Altean time cycles are so much easier.”
“She’s explained them to me at least a hundred times since we’ve met and I still don’t get it.” Echo tells Shiro and Matt. He doesn’t have the opportunity to say anything more as someone who could only be Katie, though grown up quite a lot since either Shiro or Matt had seen her, flickers on to the screen.
The family resemblance is striking, even while dubiously lit in the glow whatever she’s using to communicate with Princess Allura. Especially with her tawny hair cut short, Katie looks just like Matt. Shiro might have had to double check that his friend had been standing right beside him, if he hadn’t heard Matt’s sharp intake of breath.
Katie blinks back at them from the holoscreen, leans closer, then jerks back like someone had slapped her. Shiro can just make out the wetness growing in her eyes.
“Matt,” she breathes, “God, Matt! Is it...no of course it’s you. I wish...”
There’s a clanking noise in the background. Katie flinches and startles, glancing about herself. Wherever she is, it’s dark and unrecognizable behind her. The screen view shifts a little as Katie pulls somewhere even darker.
“I wish I had more time,” Katie says, with obvious effort, pulling herself together.
“Me too,” Matt gets out. He’s crying, not sobbing but close.
“There’s so much we need to talk about and a decade of catching up to do.” Katie shakes her head. “But I only have few minutes and that’s not enough time. Princess, did you get the movements I sent the last time I was in contact?”
“Yes,” the princess says, “all Garrison activities in those sectors have been slowed. I’ve been working with several of our members for a more permanent solution. I believe we are very close.”
“Good,” Katie says, “I’ve been assigned recently as the communications officer aboard the G.G.B. Pride of the Stars. So my next check-in will be delayed, but they should be more frequent after that. ”
“Be careful,” the princess warns, “ the commander of the Pride of the Stars is not known for leniency.”
“I’m always careful,” Katie protests, “Echo’s the one you should be worried about. He can make trouble standing alone in a locked room.”
“Hey!”
Katie takes a moment to smirk at Echo’s indignant pout but quickly moves on, focusing on something on her own screen before typing on a keyboard out of view. The faint noise of the keys clicking is just barely picked up by the mic.
“I’m sending you the latest info on the Garrison’s big picture I gleaned before I got shipped out. Luckily for you, I have a contact on board who’s pretty high in rank, so this assignment won’t interfere with me finding out more. The Pride of the Stars is a flagship, so I’ll also have some detailed troop movements for the next transmission.”
“Who is this contact?” Princess Allura asks, a frown wrinkling her brow. “What is his rank that he is privy to this knowledge?”
“Sorry, Princess, I can’t tell you without compromising my contact. Both of us are riding a very fine line here. When I can tell you I will.” There’s another clank followed by what sounds like footsteps that echo eerily. Katie looks back at them, gaze focused and serious. “I have to go now. Matt, try to stay out of trouble till I can see you in person. Echo, Princess, I’m trusting you to make sure he does. Shiro, I’m glad you’re alright. Please keep looking out for my brother.”
“Will do,” Shiro promises over Matt’s protests that he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. “Stay safe, Katie.”
“Thanks.”
“You try to stay out of trouble yourself,” Matt adds, “I love you, Pidge.”
“I love you too,” Katie gets out, choking up again, “and I will. Pidge out.”
The holoscreen flickers off.
Shiro lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Matt sniffles quietly. It feels like a weight has been lifted. After so long without a familiar face, not knowing when or even if they’d find Earth, seeing Katie is like getting good news after a year of tragedies.
“I promised you proof.”
Shiro is abruptly broken from his reverie when Echo speaks. He sees Matt shake his head as if to clear it before his friend looks back to Echo.
Both the princess and Echo stand together, Echo a step behind, hand resting on the princess’ shoulder. For as long as they have been in her company Princess Allura has been regal as her title implies. Now she is fierce, a warrior instead of a royal. She stands as if she’s seen battle, won that battle, and is prepared for more. Shiro has seen her expression in the reflection of his own face. He knows the weight.
“I know that often a person’s word is not enough,” the princess begins, “but I hope you will trust mine. If it is not enough, the evidence of the Garrison’s wrongdoings are plentiful. But you must hear this first.”
The thunder is rolling, the sky is black
It's gotten so dark somehow
There's gonna be danger, God I wish we were back
We should have been home by now
We should have been home by now