"Deal With The Devil" by Tamy Two "Is it me or has it been quiet on the Zarkon/Lotor front?" Lance leaned back in his chair, propping up his legs on the conference table. "Lance, do you mind?" Keith gave me a level look. "All right, all right..geez, try and get comfortable." Lance took his feet off of the table. Princess Allura looked at her two pilots and wondered again how these two very different personalities could work together, but they did. "Where are Hunk and Pidge?" Allura asked, taking a seat to Keith's right. If she wished, she had every right to take the head of the table being Arus' ruler, but she did not as Keith was leader of Voltron Force. It was an arrangement that worked well with her and anyway she did not need things like that to remind her of her status. She knew it without resorting to surface trappings. "Here we are!" Hunk said as he entered the room with Pidge right behind him. "Sorry, Princess. We got held up running diagnostics on the lions. Blue Lion had a glitch but we were able to fix it." Pidge pushed up his glasses with annoyance. There were times when he wished he could ditch these things, but he was one of the very rare people who could not take implants or treatments to correct his vision. They sat down and Coran came into the room with a datapad in his hand. He looked serious as he always did, but Allura knew better than to chide him on that. She knew that his first priority had always been to protect Arus and to protect her. He kept the promise he had made to her father to the letter, although in recent years it had been hard for him to realize that Allura was no longer the child she had been when her father was killed by Zarkon. Coran remained standing and went to the other side of the table, setting the datapad down. He looked at them all and addressed them. "Princess, Voltron Force..Now that we're all here, we shall begin the meeting..Princess?" Allura nodded. "All right, guys. You know that as of late, attacks by Zarkon and Lotor had decreased dramatically." "Right, Princess.." Keith replied. "We've ran patrols, scans and no reports on attacks of any kind. Personally I think it's suspicious." "Remind me not to take you on vacation, Keith." Lance quipped. "But, he is right. I mean there hasn't been a peep out of them for quite awhile, and no sign of the Revenge either." "Exactly." Allura said. "However, you know that some of the Garrison fleets have been reporting seeing odd ships - ships that aren't recognizable to Garrison databases - appearing and disappearing in space." "Yeah.." Hunk replied. "The tabloids were callin' them 'ghost ships'." "The official chatter from Garrison said that perhaps the crew of the fleets were staying too long in space and that the crews needed to be rotated to prevent such 'illusions. Also, the descriptions of the ships couldn't be captured and so descriptions varied." Pidge replied. "Good ol' Garrison.." Lance sneered. "Count on them for damage control." "The ships were harmless enough, appearing and disappearing instantly until just a short time ago." Allura looked at Coran, who activate a button on a datapad. Immediately a static filled holo emanated from the pad. It was frozen for the moment waiting to start it's loop. "This is from the data recorder of Garrison ship Domingez." Coran said. "The quality is not good, but the ship itself was damaged. We were lucky to get this as it was." "I thought th' black boxes were indestructable.." Hunk said thoughtfully. "They are in principle - under conventionally known weapons, but if the weapons were unknown then it's a big possibility." Keith looked intently at Coran. "Start it up, Coran." Lance said. He had the feeling that this was something big. Coran pressed a small button and the holo started it's loop. At first the holo showed the normal sight of a Garrison patrol unit. Then without warning, directly opposite the fleet, a large hulking ship appeared. "Maybe a cloaking device?" Lance mused. "No shimmer, see?" Pidge pointed out. "Going out of cloak produces a distortion effect." "Knew all them 'SpaceHunt' marathons did ya good, Pidge.." Hunk cracked. Then they were all struck silent as the large ship opened fire upon the Garrison ships. "The lead ship - the 'Phoenix' did their standard hailing frequencies. The other ship did not respond as you can see." Coran said. "Shit!" Lance raised halfway out of his chair. The Phoenix had simply vaporized. The other ships in the fleet fired upon the massive vessel but they seemed to have no effect. One by one they were vaporized as if the hulking vessel did not want to bother with them. "No demands, nor response.." Coran said. "There it goes.." Allura watched as the alien ship disappeared as silently and as quickly as it came. "But why did it leave the Dominguez?" Hunk asked. "Maybe to prove a point.." Lance said. "You know, like send a message to the enemy. Besides, Dominguez is a one-man recon ship, isn't it?" "Yes, it is." Keith said. "Used to work with the Explorer folks briefly. Pidge, did you get a good look at that ship?" "Even better, Keith. Just uploaded the image to my pocket pal here.." He patted the small palm size datalink that he always carried. Allura said, "Perhaps there is something in the old archives about these ships. I'm sure that there were other invaders besides Zarkon." Coran turned off the holo and said, "It may well be that Zarkon, Lotor and Hagar are behind this - perhaps to instill terror among us." "Yeah, but if Lotor is in on it, you KNOW that he would have been on the interstellar horn making demands and playing galactic emperor." Lance said, getting up out of his chair. "That IS true." Allura said. She still felt sorry for Lotor, but this did not mean she was going to be soft. "But perhaps they've changed tactics." "Huh..they got smart? That's scary.." Hunk commented. "If it is those three, we'll notice it sooner or later. I suggest that we research this further. Princess, Pidge, see what you can find out. Lance, Hunk, we're going to investigate the scene of the crime.." "All right! Road trip!" Lance was ready to jump in the red cat. "Gotcha, Keith." Hunk nodded. Coran's eyes suddenly widened as he touched the small earpiece he wore. it was attached to castle communications. "Coran!" Allura went over to him alarmed. He looked at her and said, "It seems, Princess, we have a gravely injured visitor.." "Who?" She asked. "Lotor." Coran said flatly. [CONTINUED]