Keith sighed, leaning against the Black Lion. The Paladins, as well as the others that were traveling with them, had been traveling in the Lions for three days straight, having been unable to find a planet with oxygen on it since the last time they stopped to rest like this. Keith certainly didn't hate being in the Lion, but Jesus, did sitting in one spot for days at a time get cramped. He was cleaning his knife, as it had gotten a bit dirty as of late. When he finished, he saw Lance in the reflection. He was leaned against the Red Lion and looking kind of depressed. Keith frowned. Usually Lance was the first person to try to lighten the mood with a joke, but lately he had seemed distant. Granted, Keith had been gone for a while, but surely a person couldn't go from excitable to depressed
that quickly.
I guess I should try to cheer him up, Keith thought
, Morale is
important to the entire team.
"Hey," he said, smirking, "Wanna have a quick race? See how well you've bonded with Red and all?"
"I bet I can fly Red faster than you
ever could!" Lance exclaimed, all traces of how upset he had been before leaving his face. Now he looked like the old, cocky Lance that Keith knew.
Keith looked back to Shiro for confirmation that, yes, they could in fact do this. Shiro gave a tired nod and said nothing. Lance and Keith got into their respective Lions and took off. Over the intercoms, Keith decided to ask Lance about what he'd been seeing in him lately. "Lance, you seem a little upset lately. Something up? Other than...well--"
Lance interrupted. "I'm fine. Just...I don't know...adjusting to everything."
Keith said nothing, sure that Lance was hiding something. Could he be worried about the Princess? Allura had been upset as well, but Keith was pretty sure he knew why. Lance yelling brought him out of his thoughts. "KEITH! Look out!!" he shouted.
"Wha--SHIT!" Keith swore, swerving to avoid a piece of space debris. Unfortunately, he rammed into Lance.
"Hey!" Lance exclaimed, then yelped. A strange wormhole had opened right behind him, and he was quickly sucked in. The wormhole didn't look like anything the Castle of Lions produced, but it was definitely a wormhole.
Keith's eyes widened. "LANCE!" he yelled, then realized that he was feeling the gravity of the thing himself. Panicking, he swore loudly and cranked up his thrusters to try to go the opposite direction, but it was to no avail. The other Paladins had gotten into their Lions, but Keith had already disappeared into the wormhole. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
"Guys?" Pidge said quietly, "I think we just lost our Red and Black Paladins..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the other side of the wormhole, Keith realized he was heading towards the ground and pulled up. "Lance! Can you hear me? Where are you?" he asked.
God, please don't be dead...
"Keith! I can hear you loud and clear. Look up," Lance replied. Keith did, and was relieved to find that Lance was in fact there and okay.
Keith looked around. They had emerged on a planet that looked a lot like Earth. "Let's land real quick," he suggested, seeing a large ship. If it had any decent surveillance, there was a good chance they had already been spotted. After all, it couldn't be too hard to see to gigantic robot lions appear out of nowhere. "We don't exactly have Pidge's cloaking system, and we don't even know where we are." His nav screen just showed static and a loading symbol. Keith guessed it was recalibrating or something.
"10-4," Lance said. They found a spot to land relatively quickly...hopefully quickly enough. Keith doubted it. On top of that, he hadn't gotten anything from the other Paladins, which was also worrying.