the world
gives you
so much pain
and here you are
making gold out of it

there is nothing purer than that
  ▬ rupi kaur ▬  

  ▬ ✦✧✦ ▬  

Emberson let out a breath, tightening her seat belt as Lance spoke from the front of the ship - smoothly gliding along the space. So far. 

    "Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14. Begin desent to Kerberos for rescue mission." 
The ship shook as Lance turned sharply and got closer to the planet. A slightly bigger boy behind her groaned at the turn. 

    "Lance, can you keep this thing straight?" He asked in a begging tone. 

    "I told you to take the medicine I had before we got on!" Emberson glared sharply at the boy, making him gulp. 

        "Relex, Hunk - and lay off him Em." The Caucasian boy shrugged carelessly from his seat. "I've just getting a feel for the stick. It's not like I did this!"  

Em tighten her grip on the console in front of her as Lance made the ship dive. Hunk groaned even more, turning slightly green. "Or this!"

    "Okay, unless you want to wipe beef stroganoff out of all the little nooks and crannies in this thing, you better knock it off, man!" Hunk exclaimed.  

    "Nose goes!" Emberson shouted, tapping the tip of her nose with her finger. A computer next to her beeped a signal as Pidge stopped typing. 

    "We've picked up a distress beacon!" Pidge shouted from his spot.  

    "All right, look alive, team!" Lance flicked some switches. "Pidge, track the coordinates. Ember, get med bay ready just in case." 

    "Copy." The two of them turned in their seats, Em turning towards the set-up med bay. 

    "Knock it off, Lance! Please!" Hunk shouted from his spot, gripping the arms of his chair. The computer started beeping, making Em turn back around.

    "This one's on you, buddy." Lance gestured to the ship. "We've got a hydraulic stabilizer out."

Hunk let out a grunt and grabbed the little tablet near him. He gulped with a weird look on his face. "Oh, no."

    "Oh, no. Fix now, puke later." Lance ordered from his spot. 

    "Man if someone only took those pills I had early today!" Emberson glared slightly at Hunk again. She had to deal with this a lot more than you would think.

    "I get it, Em! I should have took those - ugh - whatever!" Hunk gulped again. 

    "I've lost contact. The shaking in interfering with our senors." Pidge announced from his spot, making Emberson turn back around and look at the screen. 

    "Did you try to-?"

    "Yes! I did!"

    "Come on, Hunk!"
    "It's not responding," Hunk moaned in discomfort as he unbuckled his seat belt and headed over to the panel next to Emberson to fix the problem. 

The blue signal popped back up on the screen, making Lance smirk. "Never mind, fellas. Thar she blows. Preparing for approach on visual."

    "I don't think that's advisable with our current mechanical and gastrointestinal issues." Pidge stated from his spot, turning slightly to look at Lance. 
As he said this, Hunk held his mouth, swallowed, and nodded. "Agreed."

    "Stop worrying. This baby can take it, can't you, champ?" Lance lightly patted the shuttle they were inside. Responding to it, the ship rumbled dangerously. Lance pulled back his arm quickly. "See? She was nodding. She was nodding."

    "And there is aliens out there." Emberson muttered under her breath, turning back around. 

    "Pidge, hail down to them and let them know their ride is here." Lance ignored the black-haired girl to speak to the brunette. 

    "And make sure no one is injured," Emberson added on out of habit, clicking through something on the tablet. Pidge unbuckled himself from his seat and stood up, going to the radio.  "Pidge," Emberson drawled out in warning, unbuckling herself as well. 

    "Attention lunar vessel-" He was cut off by the ship shaking horribly, Pidge to fall to the ground. 
    "What are you doing? Buckle your belt. And, Hunk, stop that shaking!" Lance said, looking back at his team quickly.

    "I'm try- Oh, no." Hunk ducked down into the box, making Emberson wrinkle her nose at the sound of him throwing up. 

    "Attention lunar vessel," Pidge started again, this time sitting down and buckled. "This is Galaxy Garrison Rescue Craft One Victor Six Three Tango. Coming in for landing and extraction, against crew recommendations."

    "Ask if anyone is injured!" Ember hissed, rubbing Hunk's back soothingly. 

    "No time for your mutinous comments now. They're going under and we're going in." Lance directed. That being said, Lance started taking a head-first dive. 

    "Watch out for that overhang!"

    "No worries." Lance shrugged it off. "My first year in flight school, you know what they called me?" He turned around to look at his crew. "They called me 'The Tailor' because of how I thread the needle."

    "Turn back around!" Emberson ordered, shoving Hunk over to his seat. He hastily buckled the seat belts as Lance got closer to the over hand. 

    "Come around, come around! Come on, Come on!" Lance chanted. As they started to pass the overhang, the windows went blurred before red lights started to flash. 

    "We lost a wing!" Hunk called out. 

    "Oh, man." Lance sighed as the beeping continued. Everything started going black as they hit the ground before two glowing red words appeared;

    "Simulation failed." Said a computerized voice.  

    "Nice work, Tailor." Pidge grumbled from his spot as the crafts' doors opened up. Emberson let out a sigh, blinking slightly at the bright light. 

    "Roll out, donkeys!" Said their commander, Iverson. With a sigh, they all unbuckled and scrambled their way out of the simulator, standing in a line shoulder-to-shoulder in front of their classmates and commander.  "Let's see if we can't use this complete failure as a lesson for the rest of you students. Can anyone point out the mistakes these four so-called cadets made in the simulator?"

    "The engineer puked in the main gearbox," A boy raised his hand. 

    "The engineer didn't listen to the medic in the first place," A boy added on. 

    "Yes. As everyone knows, vomit is not an approved lubricant for engine systems. We also have medics for a reason." He glared harshly at Hunk, who ducked his head. "What else?"

    "The comm spec removed his safety harness." Lizzi - one of Emberson's friend - pointed out. 

    "The pilot crashed!"

    "Correct. And worst of all, the whole jump, they're arguing with each other." He turned back to the four students, who were looking anywhere but at him or their classmates. "Heck, if you're going to be this bad individually, you'd better at least be able to work as a team!"  He seemed to let out a tired sigh - his one eye staring holes into them. For some reason, he kept the other eye closed.

    "Galaxy Garrison exists to turn young cadets like you into the next generation of elite astroexplorers, because these kinds of mental mistakes are exactly what cose the lives of the men on the Kerberos Mission."

Pidge snapped his head up and glared harshly at their commander. "That's not true, sir!" He stated.

    "What did you say?!"

Both Lance and Ember covered Pidge's mouth before anything else could be said.  "Sorry, sir! I think he hit his head when he fell out of this chair. But point taken." Lance smiled innocently up at the commander. He marched forwards slightly, Lance letting go of Pidge as their teacher got closer. 

    "I hope I don't need to remind you that the only reason you're here is that the best pilot in your class had discipline issue and flunked out. Don't follow in his footsteps." 

    "Sir!" Emberson snapped from her place, glaring at her instructor with her doe eyes. "That is not needed! Lance would still be here, regardless of what Kogane did."

Iverson narrowed his eyes and walked closer to the girl. 

    "What did you say?" He asked rhetorically. 

    "You know what I said, sir." Emberson said, her courage shrinking. "I'm not about to take it back." 

He stared at her, seemingly burning holes into her head and through - before he turned to her classmates. 
    "Next!"

   ▬ ✦✧✦ ▬   

    "I swear! That man thinks he is on top and way above us! He shouldn't be that rude to Lance - much less anyone else! Gah, what I wouldn't do-"

    "Em." Pidge looked up at the girl as they walked down the hallway. "Calm down. What's wrong? You usually don't get this worked up over something as simple as that."

    "It. . .It's been bothering me for a while. I guess I just had enough." Em sent the short girl a small smile, shouldering her backpack. "Sorry, I didn't mean to blow up on you."

    "No, it's good to get it out while you can. You don't always have to carry everything in you." Pidge said wisely before stopping before her room's door. "Stay right here, I should be back in less than three minutes." 

Emberson nodded, leaning up against the wall as their teachers walked around the hallway, chanting; "Lights out in five minutes!"

Before this story went any further - Emberson didn't always know Pidge was a girl. It came about when Pidge 'secretly' talked to her asking for some products during their free time. After hearing Pidge's story - which the short girl quickly explained - Ember stuck to the idea that Pidge was so ready and into her mission to find her brother and father that she forgot the girly needs.

Instead of judging, Emberson smile at her communicators leader that she just needed to come back if she needed more. 

    "Lets go," Pidge stated, knocking Em out of her thoughts as she ran out. "Maybe we can pick up some more feed!"

    "Right behind you!" Em picked up her step to run besides Pidge - the two of them running to Em's personal spot on the roof. As it turns out, that's where they got the best signal for. . .whatever it was. 

Once they were up there, the two girls put together the monitor they made together. Really though, it was just Pidge telling Emberson where to put stuff and what it does. Em was learning from Pidge about everything tech - everything she could. 

Emberson loved to learn new things - anything and everything. So Pidge decided to would be a helpful trait to know what she was doing around a computer. 

The two of them put their headphones on - Pidge's green with black and Emberson's black with yellow - as they zoned in on what they were doing. 

Emberson typed a few things in, getting a message. With a hum, she tried to convert the language into English so her and Pidge could understand it better. Her headphones were pulled off, making her jump in surprise and turn to see Hunk and Lance. 

    "You guys come up here to rock out?" Lance asked with a mischievous smile. "Or something more?"

    "We're just watching the stars." Ember shrugged, putting her headphones around her neck. 

    "Where'd you get this stuff? It doesn't look like Garrison tech." Lance noted, Pidge send Ember a sly smile at the question. 

    "We built it."

    "Well," Ember started. "Pidge just told me what to do. I'm learning."

    "You built all of this?" Hunk asked, sliding forward to touch the computer. Pidge smacked his hand away. 

    "Stop it! With this thing, we can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system."

    "That right?" Lance seemed to be putting stuff together. "All the way to Kerberos." 

Pidge's smile was wiped off her face as she looked away glumly. Emberson put a hand on her shoulder - giving Pidge's shoulder a squeeze. 

    "You got ballistic every time the instructors bring it up." Lance pointed out. Emberson watched as Hunk reached out for the tech. With a sigh, she grabbed his hand gently and lead it away.  

    "No." She said sternly. 

    "What's your deal?" Lance continued.

     "Second warning, Hunk!" Pidge glowered. 

    "Look, Pidge, if we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets." 

Emberson and Pidge seemed to deflate a bit - both for different reasons - but Pidge finally spoke up. 
    "Fine. The world as you know it is about to change." She stated. 

    "The Kerberos Mission wasn't lost because of some malfunction or crew mistake." Ember started. 

    "Stop touching my equipment!" Pidge shouted at Hunk, who rolled over with a disappointed groan. 

    "So, I've been scanning the system and picking up alien radio chatter - most of which Em over here translates to English-"

    "As long as you got the key points of the symbol or chatter - you can get almost anything out of it." Em explained quickly at the confused looks on Lance's and Hunk's face. 

    "Whoa. What? Aliens?" Hunk echoed. 

    "Okay. So, you're both insane. Got it." Lance nodded, not looking impressed in the slightest. 

    "I'm serious." Pidge narrowed her eyes, pulling out a notebook that she and Em drew on. "They keep repeating one word, most of the time, 'Voltron'. And tonight, it's going crazier than I have ever heard it."

    "How crazy?" Lance raised an eyebrow in disbelief. The four students jumped in surprise as an alarm went off and Iverson spoke. 

    "Attention, student. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: all students are to remain in barracks until further notice."

Hunk stood up, looking around in confusion. "What's going on? Is that a meteor? A very, very big meteor?"
Like he said, what looked like a flaming ball of rock was heading straight towards Earth - at least a mile away from their spot. Pidge grabbed his binoculars, letting Emberson look as she spoke. 

    "It's a ship."

    "Holy crow!" Lance yelped, yanking the binoculars from Emberson's grasp. But she still managed to see a small purple ship.  "I can't believe what I'm seeing! That's not one of ours." 

    "No. It's one of theirs." Pidge said. 

    "So, wait. There really are aliens out there?" Hunk asked in disbelief - as if he couldn't process it. 

    "I hope so, or whoever is in that ship has a long of explaining to do." Emberson shook her head, checking her bag and making sure it was full of enough medical supplies. Tons of rovers started driving out towards the crash-sight, making Pidge and Ember throw their bags on their back. 

    "We've got to see that ship!" Pidge exclaimed. With that, Lance and Pidge started heading towards the doors. 

    "Hunk, come on!" Lance ordered.

    "Oh, this is the worst team-building exercise ever." Hunk complained, making Em giggle and look up to him. 

    "Come on, we better catch up. I'll take the rear." 

    "If you say so," Hunk groaned, running after his friends.