VOLTRON-X
                                                          
                Book 9: Kingslayer
                  By: Christine
  
  
       The crown prince of Galra was marched to the pit
  of skulls under heavy guard.  His hands were tightly
  cuffed behind his back, his ankles connected by a short
  length of titanium-alloy chain that forced an awkward,
  shuffling gait.  Stripped of his armor and fine
  clothes, Lotor wore only a brief, standard-issue slave
  tunic.  No shoes, though.  His flesh was badly abraded,
  the skin over his left cheekbone gashed and oozing
  where someone's armored fist had smashed his face. 
  Even the weather was against him.  Rain in hissing
  gusts beat down at the prince, dripping through his
  bloodied hair and pelting his bruised body.  The folk
  of Galra looked on and laughed, calling out insults and
  taunts they'd never have dared say if he were free, and
  armed.  The crowd wasn't half as abusive as his escort,
  however.  
       The guards were Zarkon's men, hand chosen for
  their dim-witted loyalty to the emperor, and their
  reflexive brutality.  They prodded the silent prince
  along with jeers and blows, laughing as he slipped on
  the icy gravel and crashed to his ripped and bloody
  knees.  Then someone jerked him upright again, and
  Lotor resumed his walk.
       Oddly enough, beaten and humiliated as he seemed
  to be,  the prince's face was icily composed.  One
  might have thought him out for an afternoon walk.
       Zarkon watched from the comfort of a splendid silk
  pavilion as his son was led to the place of execution. 
  A frown marred his already hideous face, for it wasn't
  like Lotor to be so calm in the face of defeat. 
  Strange. The deposed prince never glanced his way, but
  kept walking, drawing ever closer to his death.
       Zarkon leaned back against scarlet cushions,
  signaling absently for more wine.  He was in absolute
  control of the situation, the monarch decided; loyal
  guards posted all about, Lotor's fleet paralyzed by the
  capture of their leader, Haggar seated close at his
  side.  What reason had he for concern?  It was Lotor
  who would die today, slowly and in horrible agony, as
  his father and the imperial court looked on and
  laughed.  He would be hung upside down from the
  execution post, then gutted, his entrails drawn out
  with hooks for the impatiently crawking vultures.  Then
  the guards would leave, and the birds would descend to
  feed as they had so many times in the past.  Lotor had
  to know all this, and yet.... and yet he was as calm as
  if he, and not Zarkon, were the victor.  Despite
  himself, Zarkon felt the first icy stirrings of fear. 
  He wished that this business might be concluded more
  quickly.
       Somehow, despite many savage kicks and blows,
  Lotor managed to climb the steep rise that led to the
  post.  A thick log of battered, blood-stained kreel
  wood, it was shaped like an inverted 'T' , and boasted
  two sets of corroded manacles.  The well-armed imperial
  executioner stood beside it, caressing the dark wood
  with a loving hand.  He wasn't Galran, standing seven
  feet tall and muscled in proportion, with triple jaws
  and a broad tail . Lotor knew him well, having sent the
  man many victims in the past.  Now it seemed that their
  professional relationship was about to deepen.
       At the base of the post, the guards removed his
  bonds.  Lotor flexed his hands a bit, to get the
  circulation going again and buy a little time. 
  Grinning with all three mouths, the executioner reached
  for him, meaning to bind him to the dark post.  His
  grab never connected. 
       With blinding swiftness, Lotor seized the alien's
  cable-thewed arm and threw him into the startled
  guards.  It was a signal.  His men had been watching
  from a distance, ready to intervene.  Now a hundred of
  them transported from the orbiting fleet to his side,
  while Vraghur and hundreds more teleported directly
  into the imperial pavilion.   People screamed, trying
  desperately to fight or get away, but Lotor's men and
  his guns were everywhere.  Laser bolts hummed through
  the fetid air, cutting down a few well-chosen examples. 
  After that the crowd became very still and quiet,
  except for the occasional whimper.  They knew what was
  coming.
       An armed perimeter was quickly established, with
  the prince at its well-defended center.  At least a
  dozen battle ships settled through the roiling black
  clouds, gathering to hover over the royal city like
  death given sleek, dark form.  There would be no
  resistance from that quarter, either.
       Zarkon was surrounded and captured, his guards
  slaughtered like Sk'roven.  The coup was over in
  minutes.  One of the prince's high officers offered him
  a uniform, and his sheathed laser sword.  Lotor
  accepted, clothing and arming himself as his father was
  dragged before him.
         The emperor bellowed like a sturg, shouting
  threats and curses at all who dared lay hands upon him. 
  Zarkon even tried to plead with Lotor, though he knew
  that the prince would show no more mercy than he'd
  received.  Haggar followed more quietly, at the point
  of a rifle.  The blue cat upon her shoulder was far
  less calm, hissing and scratching at all within reach.
       The crown prince ignored them. He turned his face
  up to the glowering sky, allowing the acid rain to wash
  him clean of dirt and crusted blood.  Free, alive, 
  victorious....  and soon to be rid of his father.  When
  he'd cleansed himself of the stink of prison and
  failure, he turned his attention to other matters.
       "Vraghur,"  he snapped, as his XO strode to his
  side.
       "Valkrover Lotor,"  the man responded, dropping to
  one knee.
       Lotor indicated the executioner and crowd with an
  impatient gesture.
       "Rise. Gather these together and kill them all."
       "The court as well, Sire?"
       The prince nodded, his golden eyes narrowing.
       "No one is to survive who is not wearing my
  colors.  Am I understood?"
        Getting to his feet, Commander Vraghur saluted
  his leader.
       "Yes, Sire.  It will be done as you say.  And what
  of this one?"  He jerked a thumb at the gibbering
  Zarkon, who had gone white beneath his fluttering
  scales.  Lotor actually smiled.
       "My dear father has one last duty to perform,
  Vraghur.  Bring forward the witch."
       Haggar was swiftly prodded up to face Lotor.  He
  sneered at her, razor keen and triumphant. 
       "How much is that wrinkled carcass worth to you,
  old woman?"  he gloated.
       She shrugged.
       "If you are inquiring about my allegiance, Prince
  Lotor, it is on the winning side, as ever.  What do you
  require?"
       Lotor snorted, more amused than angry.  Behind
  him, a throng of guards ordered the weeping multitude
  into a tighter circle and opened fire.  Streaks of
  burning light, screams, pleas, moans of pain.... then
  silence.  The prince cocked an ear to listen, smiled
  slightly, and continued his conversation..
       "Ever practical, eh, Witch?  Good enough.  I want
  the former emperor transformed into a beast man.  He
  shall be sent against Arus, and Voltron!"
       "NOOOO!!!  Lotor, damn you!  I'll have you
  skrugging flayed alive!"  Zarkon roared defiantly, only
  to be silenced by at least fifteen crashing rifle
  butts.
       "Well, Witch?"  Lotor prodded.
       She bowed low, her face unreadable
       "Your will is law, Sire.  I will make him strong,
  savage and invincible, and send him to Arus against the
  Voltron Force."
       "Very good.  I will have more work for you by and
  by.  A word of caution, harridan- You will serve me
  better than you served my father, for the day that you
  fail, or betray me, you die.  Am I understood?"
       Haggar bowed her head in assent, as the hysterical
  Zarkon was dragged off to her work room.
       Eyes mere yellow slits in a hate-filled face,
  Haggar thought:
       One down,  one to go.
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
                                                      
  EARLIER:
  
       Glittering in the lamplight, the giant warmech
  seemed ready to burst through the cave wall.  Sven
  gauged the distance from cavern floor to cockpit with a
  practiced eye.  Not unlike estimating a leap over a
  crevasse, really, only up instead of across.  It was
  quite a distance, but not beyond his ability.
       Moments later, as Hund and Romelle looked on, he
  used hand and footholds, and the power of his own
  thoughts to ascend the rock wall.  Up close the
  fighter's metal skin was pitted and scored as if sand
  blasted.
       "Seen a lot of action....," he found himself
  thinking, not certain quite what that meant.  He
  touched its hull, felt the leashed power that slumbered
  deep within.  It wasn't dead, then.  That was
  something.  Didn't mean it would still fly, though.
       The cockpit was in the chest cavity.  That much he
  remembered.  Fortunately, it wasn't one of the areas
  that had been swallowed up by rock.  He raised himself
  up, past the jump jets, hip assembly and waist column,
  and higher still.
       The chest was roughly shield-shaped; high, broad,
  and deep.  In its center a transparent canopy was
  marked with some sort of green bird's head symbol. 
  Sven touched the image with his left hand, traced out
  the white marks below it that told the pilot's name. 
  He didn't understand them, though the shapes of
  the..... letters?..... were naggingly familiar.
  
      Just below the canopy's heavy, soap-bubble curve,
  two big red touch pads lit up.  One flickered more than
  the other, so he placed his hand upon it, palm down. 
  Then the canopy simply blinked out of existence,
  exposing the warmech's shadowy interior.  Nothing more
  barred him from entering, so, with a deep, steadying
  breath, Sven climbed within.
       The cockpit was dominated by a padded seat and a
  galaxy of lights and instruments on side and fore
  panels, overhead, even the deck.  Many of them were
  flashing red.  Sven frowned a little, recalling vaguely
  that this was not a good thing.  He went to the seat,
  brushed away the pile of dust and cloth that he found
  there.  Something glittered and tumbled away with a
  faint metallic clatter.  He caught it before it could
  hit the deck, and brought it up for a closer look.  A
  chain, with two flat, oval plates hanging from it, one
  in a sleeve of plastic.  There was an embossed design
  and letters on both plates, matching what he'd seen
  painted outside.  He stared at the letters until they
  began to make sense.
       Tran, Ngoc Coy....,  Cmdr.....,  94472658GAN 
       It was only then that he realized that the pile of
  dust and cloth he'd swept away had been a man.  Sven
  paused a moment, holding the metal plates and feeling a
  confused jumble of emotions, none of which would stand
  firm long enough to be recognized.  Something came to
  him finally, the words that one said when sending the
  body of a dead friend out into space for the last time.
       "Good hunting, Commander,"  he whispered
       Then, pocketing the dogtags, Sven sat down in the
  pilot's seat.  A helmet materialized by the front
  instrument panel, black, with the green bird symbol
  stamped upon the front.  Taking it up, he put the thing
  on, and entered a world of vivid 3-D displays, massive
  power and expanded awareness.  Moments later, dry and
  light as a leaf, the computer touched his mind.
      He had trouble understanding it at first, for its
  words were strange to him.  This it solved easily
  enough by flashing images and concepts into his mind at
  the rate of hundreds per second, then recording the
  words that came to him, or else supplying them when he
  came up blank.  In this manner they soon gained enough
  of an understanding to go on, and a bit more of the
  blackened void in Sven's mind was filled.  Satisfied,
  the computer began firing questions.
       'Name?'
       "Sven."
       It chewed on that one for awhile, then asked,
       'Rank?'
        ?
        At a complete loss, he replied with the word he'd
  used earlier.
       "Commander."
       'Tag?'
       This one Sven was confident of, for he figured it
  meant what the mech itself was called.
       "Loki."
       'ID number?'
       Once again, Sven drew a blank, but the word
  'number' triggered a response of sorts, so he went with
  it.
       "Um,  1..,2..,3..,4..,5..,6..,7..,8..,9."
       A short pause followed.  Then,
       'Valkommen, Commander Sven:123456789.  Initiate
  start-up sequence to begin launch."
       "Launch?"  Sven repeated blankly.  How could he
  launch when half of the fighter was melded with a rock
  wall?  The computer helped him out again, supplying the
  answer.
      'Boost power feed to the main EM coil, Commander. 
  Then trigger an interdimensional phase.  Caution,
  Commander: be advised that there is very little room to
  maneuver in this location.'
       As if he didn't know that.  Wondering whether all
  computers were such annoying nursemaids, Sven followed
  the directions that appeared in his head; sealing the
  cockpit, charging up the EM coil and channeling its
  radiation to trigger a phase.  All at once the big
  fighter shuddered, going subtly out of sync with the
  universe.  Seeming to slip and stretch in a million
  different directions at once, it moved just far enough
  between dimensions to burst out of the rock like a
  whale breaking water.  Forward about fifteen feet, and
  the mech was free.  Trouble was, the physical movement
  totally disoriented him, for it was reflected by
  phantom ships across a migraine-inspiring spectrum of
  space-time probabilities.  A hundred million
  conflicting scenarios crowded his mind-
       They were a thousand feet below the surface....,
       or three miles high.
       The wall extended twenty feet further in front of
  them.....,
       and at the same time had never existed at all.
       They were lost in a white-hot universe packed with
  jet-black, shrieking stars....,
       and falling through a void of firework color that
  drank energy.
       All of these images and millions more tugged at
  his consciousness, fighting to become reality.     A
  natural's mind would have been swamped, but Sven was
  specialized, computer enhanced, and without
  expectations.  He didn't know enough to be worried. 
  Instead he sorted through the nearly infinite
  possibilities for the handful that matched his own
  universe.  Out of the four possible, Hund was missing
  in one, Romelle had bright red hair in another, and the
  third featured a cavern that was waist-deep in writhing
  green slime.  The dark-haired Romelle of that universe
  seemed rather irritated.  He fixed on the remaining
  possibility, punched in its coordinates, and returned
  to normal phase, about seven feet in the air.
       Reflexively kicking on the jump jets, Sven lowered
  his mech to the cavern floor with a resounding metallic
  clang.  The resulting pressure wave sent Hund and
  Romelle flying.  They weren't much singed, though.
       Romelle picked herself up off the ground and gave
  Hund a little pat to silence his growling.  The giant
  mech towered so far above them that she had to crane
  her neck to see it all.  It fairly thrummed with power,
  washed in a fading rainbow of alien colors that she had
  no name for, and could never afterward recall.  Her
  heart swelled in her breast, full of pride, love and
  fierce, wild joy.  They were going to make it.
       She held her breath as the warmech wobbled a bit,
  leaning forward as if about to fall.  Then it steadied
  itself and knelt down.  A giant hand was extended, palm
  up, inviting them to step aboard.  Romelle clambered
  onto the great palm, calling Hund up after her.  The
  hound whimpered, but obeyed.
       When all passengers were in place the mech cupped
  its hand a bit, to prevent anyone from falling off,
  then lifted them from the ground to the cockpit. 
  Scenting his master, Hund leapt on in and began fawning
  all over Sven, who gave him a rough hug.  Romelle
  followed more sedately, forcing herself not to look
  down, for she had no head at all for heights.
       Sven had removed his helmet by this time, so that
  he could attend to Romelle without distractions. 
  Pushing away the hound, he offered the princess his
  hand and helped her aboard.  Seconds later she was in
  his arms, laughing and crying at once.
       "You did it!" she exulted, embracing him tightly. 
  "Sven, you really did it!  We can leave this hell
  world!  All you have to do now is fly us out of the
  cave, and back to Pollux!"
       His face fell a bit, at that.  Walking the mech
  forward fifteen feet was one thing, but flying and
  navigating....?  He sat down.  Concerned, Romelle came
  forward and took his hand.
       "What is it?"  she whispered softly, expecting to
  hear that the fighter was badly damaged, or too low on
  fuel to leave Galra.  Sven looked up at her, troubled
  and uncertain.  Speaking with difficulty, he asked,
       "What.... if..... I can't?"
       Romelle sat down on his lap, drew his head down
  against hers until their foreheads touched.  She said,
  fiercely, tenderly, protectively,
       "Sven, my love, my warrior, my life.....,  you
  CAN."
       Drawing strength from her assurance, Sven nodded.
       "Jaha."
       He would have attempted the flight right there and
  then, but Romelle had come to a momentous decision.
       "Love, before we go, there is something that I
  must do."  Reaching into her robe, the princess located
  the hunting knife she'd rescued from Sven's trophy
  pile.  Bracing herself, she pulled the robe further off
  of her shoulder and nicked the flesh of her chest, and
  then her left palm as well.       
       "Give me your hand,"  she said.
       He complied without question, uncertain of her
  intent, but not really worried.  Seconds later he
  sported matching cuts of his own.  Then she pressed his
  bleeding palm to the cut on her chest, and put her own
  lacerated hand to the small gash over his heart. 
  Softly, she whispered,
       "Thou into me, and I into thee, now and forever. 
  Let us never more be parted."
       A small but powerful magic took place then,
  healing all four cuts to fine white scars, and binding
  Sven and Romelle more tightly than any paper, or gold
  ring could have.  All mischief suddenly, the newly
  married princess leaned forward on his lap and
  whispered,
       "You may kiss the bride!"
       Sven drew her in for a long, deep, kiss.  He
  wasn't sure what had just happened, and didn't really
  care.  What was one more mark on a body as tattooed as
  his?  Holding her away after a bit, he said, labored
  and slow,
       "Is your..... something...... done now?"
       She nodded, nuzzled the side of his face.
       "Yes, Love."
       "Then..... best... we go."  
      After that he abandoned speech as too difficult,
  called another seat into existence with a brief
  thought, and waved her into it.  Romelle held him close
  a moment longer, then got up and went to her seat.
       Hund had been sniffing busily about the cockpit,
  exploring sights and scents as alien to him as flaming
  strawberries to an octopus.  Now he lifted a leg and
  jetted forth a stream of foul-smelling, acidic liquid
  all over the rear bulkhead.
       Gagging, Romelle clapped a hand over her mouth and
  nose.
       "Bright Lady.....!"  She croaked.  "What has that
  monster done?!"
       Giving her a rare smile, Sven replied slowly,
       "He... always... do that.  To me, too.... first
  after I .... healed him.."
       "Holy Goddess!  How long did it take you to get
  rid of the stench?!"
       Still smiling, Sven held up three fingers.
       "Three DAYS?!"  she asked, incredulously.
       But he shook his head.
       "Weeks."
       Romelle groaned.
       "Goddess!  Sven, when we get back to Pollux, that
  creature sleeps outdoors!"
      
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
    
       A'lara, Bandor, dozens of refugee diplomats, 
  deposed royalty, and the Voltron Force met at counsel
  in the east dining hall early one morning.  The subject
  was urgent, and hotly debated.  Bandor spoke first,
  saying,
      "Arus is free, Princess A'lara, and yet her sister
  world Pollux remains in bondage, her people groaning
  beneath the yoke of the tyrant Zarkon.  It is neither
  just, nor safe, Cousin, to permit his forces to remain
  there, so close to your own world, when they can easily
  be driven off with the resources at hand.  The people
  of the galaxy cry out for deliverance, and I say that
  we must answer their pleas by forming an alliance to
  liberate them, one world at a time, beginning with
  Pollux!"
       The young Prince's speech was met with resounding
  applause from the gathered dignitaries, most of whom
  hoped that their own worlds would be the next freed.
       Then Koren stood up, a slight frown creasing his
  greying brow.  He bowed first to the princess, then
  Bandor, saying,
       "Your Highnesses, My Lords and Ladies, the
  prince's words have stirred us all, for who would not
  rush to the aid of a beleaguered friend, if they could? 
  However, moved as I am, still I must counsel against
  this reckless course of action.  To mount such an
  invasion force as Prince Bandor speaks of would require
  years of meticulous planning, and cost ludicrous sums
  of money.  Worse, it would leave Arus undefended.  Rely
  upon it, Zarkon is waiting for just such an
  opportunity, and will strike the moment our forces are
  committed elsewhere."  Shaking his head, the aged lord
  gazed keenly around the chamber,  transfixing the
  gathered worthies with the force of his cold stare. 
       "Speaking on behalf of Her Highness,"  he went on,
  "I must decline Prince Bandor's request for aid. 
  Voltron, and his pilots, will remain on Arus."
        Keith, the princess, and most everyone else were
  too taken aback to speak.  Lance would have had
  something to say at his own funeral, though, and he
  didn't hold back now.  Rising, the  gunner stretched
  until his joints cracked, then ambled across the
  meeting hall to stand before Koren.  When he was close
  enough, Lance reached out and clasped the elderly
  nobleman's thin shoulder in mock friendship.
      "Koren, old boy..,"  he began, "...and I want you
  to know that I mean this in the nicest possible way..., 
  FUCK you!  If Bandor needs my damn help, he's getting
  it.  I'm gonna go free Pollux whether anyone else
  comes, or not..  Don't like it, get yourself another
  lion pilot, and another lion, too,  'cause Red's a
  one-man kitty."
       Lord Koren Raible jerked his shoulder out of under
  Lance's hand and stood there a moment, his jaw wagging
  indignantly up and down.  No sound did he make, but the
  way his clenched fists trembled at his sides spoke
  volumes about his mood.  Very red in the face, A'lara
  's chief courtier was patently furious.
       Keith stepped in before the man could order Lance
  flogged or hung by his thumbs from the portcullis.
       "Apologize, Lt. Calvin.  NOW!"
       "Alright, fine.  UN-fuck you.  Satisfied?  I'm
  still going, though."
       A'lara spoke next.  Avoiding Lord Koren's
  incredulous stare, she stood up and said,
       "We're ALL going.  The Voltron Force will not
  stand idly by while a friend and ally suffers, My Lord. 
  Zarkon's scaly ass...,  I mean FORCES..., will be
  blasted off of Pollux within the week, or I'll know the
  reason why!"
       A great cheer was raised up again, for the warrior
  princess of Arus, and her noble knights.
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
    
  
       Beaten, humiliated and very much in fear for his
  life, Zarkon stood manacled in the self-same chains
  that had once held Prince Avok.  But unlike Avok, he
  was far from silent.  As the witch began her arcane
  preparations, Zarkon blustered, raged and threatened.
       "You will be punished, both of you!  Lotor will be
  gutted and left for the dogs, and then I'll have your
  hands and feet and tongue cut away, hag, blind you, and
  kick you out to root for garbage behind the palace like
  a sow!  I'll....!"
       Glancing up from her sigils and herbs, Haggar
  silenced the wild-eyed emperor with a whispered spell.
       "No,"  she told him calmly,  "you won't.  You've
  had a good run, My former lover;  three hundred years
  of death and destruction such as the galaxy has never
  seen, but it is over."
       She glided around the scarred table, coming
  forward to stand within inches of the terrified
  emperor.  Spitting hate like a cobra's venom, the witch
  hissed,
       "Two-hundred and seventy-five years ago I made a
  terrible mistake.  Against the counsel of those who
  truly cared about me, I fell in love with a handsome,
  arrogant bandit.  I was thrilled by his dark power,
  drawn to the exotic sweetness of his evil.  So besotted
  did I become that I made pacts with demons for him,
  even betrayed my father and nation, allowing this
  murderer to steal the crystal throne he was unworthy
  even to polish!"  Her voice changed, becoming distant
  and chill as her thoughts turned further inward.   "I
  see my father, sometimes......,  empty-eyed and
  suffering.  He and the rest of my dead family gather
  around me like shadows when the night is deep and
  coldest, pleading for release.  Well, they shall soon
  have it.  Your blood, Dear my former Lord, will buy
  them peace and freedom, just as your son's death will
  liberate ten-thousand worlds.  Ah....,  I see you
  thinking to yourself that you might escape, or find a
  way to defeat the mighty Voltron."
       Haggar laughed then, like two dead branches
  rubbing together in a cold wind.
       "But it is not to be.  I will make you strong,
  yes, but I will also place an antimatter charge within
  you that will destroy you and Voltron both, in the
  midst of battle.  And, lest you should try to escape
  your fate by refusing to fight, I will dose you with
  the rage drug to the point of madness."
       Zarkon strained at his bonds and fought to speak,
  but no sound came forth.  Taking up a vial of
  bone-powder,  Haggar summoned her familiars and began
  the dreadful transformation.
       "Lay back and enjoy, My once Love; it is going to
  be a very long night."
  
     
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       Despite Lord Koren's dour predictions, war
  preparations went swiftly.  Beside Voltron and the Red
  Hand squadron, Arus could now field a fleet of eighty
  light cruisers, two destroyers, and a fighting force
  nine thousand men strong.  Not large, perhaps, but with
  tactical surprise on their side a lot could be
  accomplished. 
       Reinforcements poured in daily, for the enslaved
  folk of the galaxy were willing to risk everything to
  reach freedom.  Galra's warships and weapons might
  slaughter whole civilizations, but they couldn't kill
  hope; not when Arus had dared to rebel against Zarkon,
  and driven him yelping away.  All of this raw material
  needed shaping, though. 
       Being a special forces major before he was a lion
  pilot, Keith took charge of the ground troops, molding
  them into a precision fighting unit.  Bandor trained
  the new pilots, drilling them to the point of collapse. 
  The prince was an uncompromising and sometimes savage
  taskmaster, but knowing what they were going up
  against, no one complained.   Meanwhile, Pidge worked
  out the navigation coordinates, plotting hyperspace
  jumps from Arus to Pollux and back again for an entire
  fleet...., in his head.  Hunk, Lance and the princess
  had less to do;  A'lara made dozens of stirring
  speeches, Hunk set up a hospital ship, and Lance...., 
  Well, Lance played cards, slept around a lot, and got
  into countless fights.  In short, being his usual self. 
  Even he could be serious, though, when the situation
  demanded it.
       Everyone was tense and eager, electric with
  readiness to attack.  
    
      
  _______________________________________________________
                                                      
                                                      
  GALRA:
  
       In the machine he was powerful.  His mech body was
  larger, and far stronger, than mere flesh.  It was
  wounded, though, in ways that he no longer had the
  knowledge to understand or fix.  As his mind grew new
  connections to match the combot's abilities, Sven
  checked out its systems.  Bit by bit he discovered that
  he had propulsion, cloaking, partial weapons, some
  navigation, and warp.  But the comm system was totally
  fried, and the shields unreliable at best.  Escaping
  this prison world in such a desperately injured mech
  would be difficult.  Yet, standing sixty feet tall
  again, fully charged and super-powered, with Romelle's
  thoughts warm and soft against him, Sven never even
  considered backing down.
       He initiated the launch sequence, then slipped
  back into phase.  Four mighty engines thrummed and
  growled, drawing power from the ultra-dense white hole
  that burned in his mech's sixth dimension center.  The
  universe sprouted weird shadows again, most of which
  Sven ignored.  Scanning the rocky ceiling, he kicked on
  the jump jets and blasted up through the very rock.
       It was like being driven through a cold, hard
  sieve.  Hund and Romelle panicked, terrified by the
  feel of a foreign substance slipping between their very
  atoms.  Freeing a bit of his mind, he calmed them,
  promising that the phase would not last much longer. 
  Five feet, ten, a hundred, and then they were free, out
  of the cave and into Galra's dim, polluted dawn.  He
  selected a universe and ended the phase, then cloaked. 
  Scanning his perimeter, Sven spotted the imperial city
  and palace 10.752 miles away at -5 by 20 by 3.  The
  space port lay just southeast, and a few degrees high. 
  Great hot pulses of microwave radiation exploded
  outward from it every five seconds.  Scanning waves. 
  Instinctively, Sven increased power to the cloaking
  device and dimmed his own scans.  He heard their
  communication; fighter craft high and screechy against
  the inside of his skull, battle ships replying bass and
  slow.  Deepest of all, Galra's central computer system
  had a psionic voice like a bronze bell; a clear,
  booming clarion call that ran the entire planet.   A
  thought came to him, then.
       Tracing the central computer's emanations to their
  source, Sven readied a hellcat missile.
       'Target acquired,'   his own 'puter told him.
       Working a certain part of his mind, he fired.  The
  combot bucked as the hellcat launched and sped away. 
  Hugging the terrain to avoid enemy radar, the missile
  shrilled across the plain at near light speed. A
  fractured second later it struck Centcom and detonated
  with the force of a tactical nuke.  A deep crump, a
  draconic roar, and then a searing fireball rose like
  another sun. Up and then out it spread, screaming
  blue-white edged in sullen red.   The resulting shock
  wave flew outward, hurling and splintering buildings,
  air cars and fighter craft.  Only the shielded palace
  and royal compound escaped destruction.  Sven went into
  phase again briefly, allowing the wave and debris to
  pass right through him.  Even so the surge lifted his
  mech and drove him back a good seventy feet, as a wave
  at the beach might move a tired swimmer.  The central
  computer's voice was choked off in mid note, leaving
  its frightened dependents in utter chaos.  Their
  psionic communication rose to a loud, feverish
  crescendo. Sven blocked most of it out, for it gave him
  a headache.  Directionless, but still plenty dangerous, 
  the surviving Galran fleet began seeking out the source
  of the attack.  It was time to leave.
       Cutting on his impellers and jump jets, Sven
  blasted away from the cratered surface, sliding between
  two wildly groping battleships and out into space.
       As Galra dwindled in the view screen, Romelle
  whispered,
       "We will return to finish this soon, Lotor, with
  an army at our backs.  And then you will pay for what
  you've done."
       Her expression was grim and intense, her throaty
  voice hard.
      Sven was too busy plotting a hyper-space jump to
  notice, however.  Pulling the coordinates from her
  mind,  he took a deep breath and sparked the warp
  field.  Flashing away from the mech, the field ripped a
  gaping wound in space-time, momentarily revealing the
  icy, devouring blackness  that lay beneath. The opening
  pulsed and grew, reaching hungrily for the source of
  the disturbing field. Tiny as a gnat, the combot and
  its three passengers were yanked through the warp hole,
  leaving Galra far behind and long ago.         
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       Haggar finished her work a few hours before the
  explosion destroyed Centcom.  Staying up all that
  night, she had forced herself to watch every moment of
  the gruesome transformation for vengeance's sake. 
       Zarkon's muscles bulged and twisted, nearly
  bursting through his scaly hide.  Ripping through his
  jaws, the emperor's yellow canines lengthened, becoming
  saber-like fangs.  Then a flat, powerful tail like a
  crocodile's issued from his hips, and a row of sharp,
  curving spikes from his back.  A third eye opened in
  the midst of his forehead, capable of firinging rays of
  searing death at anything it glimpsed.
      A monster, now, in body as well as soul, the Zarkon
  beast tore at its bonds, desperate to reach its
  tormentor.
      Haggar wasn't finished, though.  Muttering another
  spell, she produced a tiny, pulsing mass of glimmering
  circuitry.  No bigger than an orange seed, it quivered
  upon the palm of her withered hand like a jeweled
  insect, flashing little strobes of cobalt and ruby.  A
  beautiful thing, really....., until one realized what
  it was for.  Raising her hand to her lips as though
  blowing a kiss,  the enchantress wafted the thing
  toward her victim.  It sparkled across the gap, coming
  to rest upon his muscle-bound chest.  There it began to
  grow, sending out long, barbed shoots of bio-circuitry
  that buried themselves in his flesh and sank deep.  He
  writhed and bucked, screaming soundlessly as mind and
  body were contaminated by Haggar's rapacious mechanical
  parasite.  Soon he was neither machine nor man, but a
  horrid composite of each;  powerful, deadly and totally
  mad.  Dosing him with enough of the rage drug to kill
  an ordinary person, Haggar made one last spell,
  planting death deep within her former master.
       He was ready.
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
      Receiving the witch's signal, Lotor rose from his
  desk and left the room..  He had been looking over
  Zarkon's records, and discovering that the empire was
  not quite the juicy plum he'd anticipated.  Troops and
  warships were scattered all over the galaxy, attempting
  to quell the raging tide of rebellion that threatened
  to wash away all of Zarkon's ill-gotten gains.  There
  was trouble everywhere, from minor vandalism, to
  rioting, to all-out war.  And all of it centering on
  Arus, and Voltron.  He had to smash the resistance on
  that wretched world, Lotor realized sourly.  Otherwise,
  he'd lose everything.  Thinking on these matters, he
  left the imperial suite and headed for Haggar's
  workroom, followed at a respectful distance by a trio
  of loyal guards.
       Halfway to the witch's lair he was stopped by a
  lovely Felarra.  Tall, white-furred and golden-eyed,
  with a luxuriant mane of magenta hair that fell in wild
  curls to her slender waist, she stepped from a side
  passage to block his path.  Immediately, his escort
  surged forward, guns drawn.  Lotor waved them off with
  an impatient gesture.  After all, if he couldn't defend
  himself from a mere woman, he didn't deserve to wear
  the crown.  He scowled at her, plagued by the notion
  that he'd seen her before.
       She bowed slightly, murmuring,
       "Valkrover Lotor."  Her voice was a sensual,
  purring caress.  Lotor began to be interested despite
  himself.  She'd make an intriguingly exotic addition to
  his harem, the prince decided.
       "Who are you?!"  He demanded, stalking forward.
       "I am Merla, Highness.  Once a queen, now a
  pirate, and captain of the Scylla.  I came here to
  treat with your father, but as he is......
  indisposed..., it seems I must bring my offer to you,
  instead."
       In two long strides he stood before, but not over,
  her.  Merla was quite tall.  He remembered her then- 
  the beautiful Felarra who'd witnessed his humiliation
  in the throne room.  Lotor hated being reminded of past
  shames.  Eyes narrowing tensely, he growled,
       "What can you offer me besides yourself, Wench?!"
        She shrugged, a muscular twitch that rippled the
  length of her strong, shapely body.
       "An alliance, Highness.  My people and ships are
  numerous and powerful.  We can aid you in holding your
  empire together....., for a small fee."
       Ah, a businesswoman!
       "How small?"  he inquired.  He was beginning to
  like Merla.
       "Thirty-five thousand radium marks, Highness, for
  a fleet of seventy-two corsairs with warp capacity and
  heavy armament."
        He kept a straight face with an effort.
       "That's what you consider a small fee?"
       Tossing back her long hair, Merla gave him a look
  that would have melted the equatorial icebelt.  The
  pheromones she was emitting weren't bad, either.
       "I'm worth it,"  she replied, all bold,
  hot-blooded promise.
       Grinning suddenly, Lotor offered her his arm.
       "I am on my way to examine a new weapon,"  he told
  her.  "Why don't we discuss terms on the way?"
       She inclined her head, regal as a doom cat.
       "As you wish, Highness."
       They headed off together then, talking in low,
  silky voices, but truly communicating without words.
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       Everything was as ready as it was going to get,
  A'lara decided.  They could spend more money, train
  harder, and waste more time, but none of that would
  bring Pollux any closer.  Meeting in a privy counsel
  late one afternoon, the princess, Bandor, Keith, and
  Koren made the decision to launch the strike.  At dawn
  of the next day, the troops were loaded into carrier
  ships, and the fighters and lions launched. 
  Rendezvousing in high orbit, the strike force opened
  the warp to Arus's occupied sister planet, and began
  the jump.
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
      Lotor examined his new "weapon" with pleasure.  The
  monster raged and tore at its manacles, struggling to
  reach and slaughter the smiling prince.  One could
  still see a bit of Zarkon about the eyes, but for the
  most part his father was gone, buried deep within the
  beast-man's monstrous shell.  The thought that Zarkon
  would soon be cut to pieces by Voltron only added to
  Lotor's satisfaction.  An empire, a beautiful new
  mistress, and a doomed father; this day was turning out
  to be very fulfilling, indeed.  All that remained was
  to destroy Voltron and crush the rebellion on Arus, and
  his triumph would be complete...... almost.  At the
  back of his mind, clawing and twisting at his heart
  like a thorn that could not be pulled from the flesh,
  the princess of Arus lurked.  Nothing else mattered if
  he couldn't have A'lara for his queen.....
        "Sire?"  Haggar prompted.  Apparently he'd said
  something aloud.
       "Err..., nothing,"  Lotor hedged.  "I only said
  that your work seems satisfactory, Witch.  In the lab,
  at any rate.  Today's battle will prove whether your
  moldy spells and beastmen are worth keeping."
       Haggar bowed.
       "You will not be disappointed, Sire,"  was all
  that she said.
       "I hope not, Old Woman, for your sake."  Turning
  to his escort, he snapped,  "Have this thing loaded
  onto my flagship.  We leave for the Pollux air base in
  forty-seven haads."  And thence to Arus, where he would
  capture A'lara and make her his own.
       Less than thirty haads later, they were ready to
  leave.  The Zarkon beast was secured in a coffin in the
  aft cargo hold, and most of his fleet was in orbit,
  awaiting the word to go.
       Settling into the captain's seat, with Merla and
  Haggar on either side of him, the prince gave the order
  to launch.
       "Take us out of orbit, Vraghur,"  he commanded.
       "At once, Sire!  All ahead fu.....,"
       His XO never completed the directive.  There was a
  screaming-bright, sun-like flash from the vicinity of
  the Imperial City, and then all planet-side telemetry
  failed.
       Lotor bolted from his seat.
       "What the skrug?!"
       Vraghur consulted the long range scanner.  Tense
  and clipped, he announced,
       "Dra-Lotor had been attacked, Sire!  Source
  unknown!  Shall we put about?"
       The prince shook his head.
       "Nej....., I mean NO!  Let the guard forces handle
  it.  We have work elsewhere."  There were too many
  monuments to his father in the former Dra-Zarkon,
  anyway.  He'd simply rebuild it in his own image and
  restock the population from one of Galra's many colony
  worlds. Let it burn.  No big loss as far as he was
  concerned. 
       As they were preparing for the jump, something
  small and fast streaked between his flagship and the
  sleek, deadly Ztok-dotr.  Another attack?   These
  delays were beginning to annoy the prince.
       "Shoot it down!"  he barked.
       "At once, Valkrover!" 
       Commander Vraghur tried to scan the thing, which
  appeared to be a fighter of some sort.  But Haggar,
  sensing who was within, cast a subtle spell, fouling
  his instruments.  The combot slipped away before he
  could get a targeting lock, and thus did Sven and
  Romelle escape Galra.
       A very short time later, Lotor's fleet warped to
  Pollux.
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       Aboard the combot, the eternal nothingness of the
  warp went on and on, for the jump was a deeply curved
  singularity that would burst open only when Loki's
  computer found the right corridor back to reality. 
  Between the combot and its pilot, a million odd slants
  on space-time had already been rejected.  Romelle took
  advantage of the quiet moment, calling softly,
      "Sven?"
       Her handsome young husband pulled part of his mind
  free of the computer matrix.
       "Ja?"
       Biting her lower lip, the Princess got her
  thoughts in order.
       "When we get to Pollux...., there might.... there
  might be some people already there who claim to know
  you, claim to be your friends, but they're not."  She
  had his attention now.  Pulling off his helmet, Sven
  let Loki handle the calculations, and turned to stare
  at Romelle.  He knew so little about himself that her
  words had the force of fate.  She went on, speaking in
  a tumbled rush.
       "They are the Voltron Force, Love, and you used to
  fight with them.  Then, one day, you were terribly
  injured in a great battle, and they left you behind to
  die, not wishing to be burdened with a sick man.  Lotor
  found and captured you, made you a slave.  Your mind
  was shattered by him after you tried to escape.   The
  Voltron Force knew where you were, and what was
  happening, but they had already found a replacement
  pilot for your lion, so they did nothing to save you." 
  Leaning forward, she placed a hand upon his left knee
  and added, slowly,
       "They are NOT your friends.  Or mine, either. 
  They killed my brother Bandor."
       Sven looked down, hand to his forehead.  The
  stricken look in his eyes almost made her reconsider,
  but not quite.  Romelle was convinced that what she was
  doing was for the best.  She hadn't lied so very much,
  she told herself firmly, and she'd make it up to him
  later.
       "Don't concern yourself with them, Darling.  All
  of that is in the past, and I will never leave nor
  betray you.  I promise."
      Sven didn't answer immediately.  In his mind he
  could hear a cold, taunting voice saying,
       "They don't need you, they don't care about you,
  and they aren't coming to rescue you, if that's what
  you're hoping for!  Your precious, noble friends have
  found a new pilot for your skrugging lion!"
       It hurt like hell to know that the voice had been
  right.  He didn't matter.  A soft, insistent psionic
  pulse drew him out of his dark thoughts, finally.  Loki
  had found a corridor.
       "Strap in,"  he told Romelle, grim and quiet. 
  "Almost there."
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       The sky over Pollux was a bright, prismatic blue. 
  On  clear days, it formed a ring of shimmering color
  around the sun and both moons, and had long been held
  to be one of the most beautiful sights in the galaxy. 
  Now it was just the busiest.  Transports and gun ships
  cris-crossed the planet, picking up slaves and
  prisoners, dropping off supplies and munitions.  Nor
  was that the only change.  The land beneath was
  cratered and blood-soaked, for slaves weren't all the
  Galrans were carrying off.   Deep, eroded gashes sliced
  across the land, which was being strip mined to the bed
  rock, while mighty forests that had stood ten thousand
  years were reduced to lumber in a matter of weeks,
  loaded up and carted away, that Galra might have the
  luxury of wooden furnishings. 
       Some of the damage had nothing to do with greed,
  however; just arrogant carelessness.  The lakes and
  rivers were fouled with toxic chemicals and radiation,
  scaled with the floating, swollen carcasses of dead
  fish.  The stench was indescribable.  And matters were
  no better in the capital.
        The palace had been gutted of artworks and
  treasure, and now served as a barracks.  In the topmost
  turret dwelt the planetary governor, one Grizbeck
  Kozack; a man singularly lacking in brains and ability,
  but tremendously loyal to Galra.  He'd been appointed
  by Zarkon, and had overseen the rape of Pollux  without
  diverting more than a quarter of the profits into his
  own pockets.  Relatively honest fellow, for a
  politician.
       Kozack was at his balcony, shooting down Pollux's
  few remaining birds with a laser pistol, when all hell
  broke loose on his new world.
       The gem-like sky split open suddenly, disgorging
  wave after wave of fighters, troop carriers, and the
  five lions.  They roared from the warp hole like a
  storm wind, firing at anything with a Galran symbol
  upon it.  Kozack screamed like a woman, flung the gun
  away, and ran for the shelter of his bedroom, bellowing
  something about diplomatic immunity.
       Far overhead, Keith pulled Black lion above the
  sporadic return fire, and shouted,
       "This is it!  Follow the plan as outlined!  Hunk,
  Lance, Pidge, we'll soften things up for a troop
  landing, while Bandor's squad takes out the fighters. 
  Princess, you stay high and keep an eye on things. 
  You're in reserve in case one of us needs back up.  Got
  it?!"
       "Yes, Kogane."
       "Javohl, Herr Kaptain!"
       "Sure 'nuff."
       "Affirmative, Keith."
       "Good.  Let's do it!"
       Proud and strong, four mighty lions thundered to
  the attack.  Black and Red took out gun emplacements,
  blasting ion cannons and mortars into radioactive dust. 
  Green and Gold harried the tanks and crawlers, usually
  giving the men inside a split second to get out before
  vaporizing their weapons.  Meanwhile, Blue fired from
  above, giving the Princess a very bad time indeed.  He
  wanted to be in the thick of the action, not perched
  safely overhead like a fat squab, and it took every bit
  of A'lara 's mental control to keep him from leaping
  into the fight.
       The Red Hand squadron looped and twisted among the
  Galran bat fighters, filling the sky with metal, blood
  and fire.  Hundreds of massive explosions announced
  each kill.  Fiery streaks trailing thick black smoke
  plunged out of the air, adding to the chaos caused by
  the lions.  Taken utterly by surprise, the Galrans
  began falling back to their sheltered bunkers and
  escape ships.
       Then another warp hole opened up just beyond
  Pollux's gravity well.  The sky tore as if cleaved by a
  giant sword, revealing the bleak nothingness of
  hyperspace.  Then the rainbow-edged blackness widened,
  and Lotor's fleet issued forth. 
       Muttering,
       "Aw, shit!"  Keith brought Black lion around to
  face the new threat.  "We've got party-crashers, team!"
       "And they didn't even bring any beer!"  Lance
  complained.  "Looks like I'm going to have to go
  explain things to them."
       Abandoning the ground war, the lions surged into
  the upper atmosphere after the emerging fleet.  A'lara
  joined the others, unable to hold Blue back any longer. 
  She tried to stay close to Lance, but he kept pulling
  such rapid, precise maneuvers, that she simply couldn't
  keep up with him.
       Lotor's flagship had been one of the first out of
  the hole.  Leaning forward, the prince took one look at
  the situation and snarled,
      "Battle plan grevokt, NOW!  Assume formation and
  fire at will!"
       Then, as Commander Vraghur broadcast his orders,
  he added,
       "Release the new beast-man!"
       Seconds later, the lions engaged his vessels in
  another savage battle, with quarter (mercy) neither
  asked, nor given.  The robot cats fired a blizzard of
  missiles, plasma blasts and depleted-uranium bullets at
  his ships, weakening their shields.  Lotor ventured
  forth in his bat fighter and struck back with torpedoes
  and laser fire.  He scored a direct hit on Green Lion
  in the first few moments,  blasting away one of her
  shoulder cannons.  As Chibi withdrew to heal and
  recharge, the beast-man's coffin was launched.
      "What the hell.....?!"  Keith blurted, watching as
  the thing streaked past his startled lion.
       Said Hunk, finishing off a destroyer,
       "Looks like we got us another playmate, Boss."
       He was right.  The coffin raced away from the
  battle, then exploded open in a burst of searing light. 
  Something formed from the coruscating energy, and began
  to grow.  Protected by Haggar's spells from the deadly
  vacuum of space, the Zarkon beast surged from its
  prison and started after its prey..
       "Damn!"  Keith blurted, eyes on the monster's
  mad-eyed, snarling face.  "That's the ugliest one yet!"
       "Oh, I dunno,"  Lance quipped, swooping in for a
  strafing run.  " 'Lara looks worse in the morning!"
       A'lara gasped,  hand flying to her pink mouth. 
  Did she really look THAT bad without makeup, the girl
  wondered?
       "What's the plan, Boss?"  Hunk prodded, cutting
  around behind the raging monster and firing a pod of
  missiles.
        Keith considered briefly.
       "Pidge, scan the sonuvabitch; pinpoint his
  weaknesses.  Hunk, Lance, concentrate fire on his head. 
  Keep him off planet and as far away from us as you can. 
  Princess, stay...,"
       "I know,"  she muttered dejectedly.  "....stay
  high and watch for trouble."
       There was plenty of it.  With Lotor's fleet at
  their backs, and that crocodile-tailed horror of a
  beastman before them, the lions soon ran into serious
  difficulties.  The Zarkon beast opened its third eye,
  cutting lose with a flare of energy so intense that it
  melted Red lion's left hind leg before she could dodge. 
  Hunk dashed in to cover his injured friend, firing
  rotor missiles and lasers at the monster.  Zarkon
  merely shrugged them off, uttering a crazed, soundless
  laugh.  His eye beam flashed again and again, scoring
  glancing hits on Blue and Green.  Meanwhile, the fire
  from behind intensified as Lotor closed the jaws of his
  trap.
       "Take evasive action!"  Keith bellowed,  "Get the
  hell out of the way!"
       Worried about the princess's safety and unsure of
  her skill, he was reluctant to form Voltron.  Instead
  he hoped to use the lions' maneuverability and speed to
  defeat Lotor's superior fire power.  It wasn't working
  out that way, though.
       Finishing up his scans, Pidge called over the
  comm,
       "Commander, it hasn't got any weakness that I can
  detect.  Haggar's brewed up a champion, this time."
        "Figures,"  Keith grunted, dodging another
  eye-beam.  "Any more good news?"
       "Unfortunately, yes.   According to my powerflow
  data, there is some sort of massive charge buried
  within the creature.  In other words, if we destroy
  him....,"
       "We got caught in the detonation and blasted to
  kingdom come."
       Chibi nodded wryly, responding,
       "That about sums it up."
       Keith was about to give another order, when space
  gaped open for the third and final time.
       "Jesus H. Christ!"  He growled.  "Now what?!"
       The hole widened, its netherworld gloom making
  space look warm and cheerful by comparison.  Moments
  later something blasted out of it at near light speed. 
  Keith focused his scanners on the newcomer,
  spotted.....  a combot?  Battered and scarred, the
  battle robot looked more like a museum piece than a
  fighter.  Nevertheless,  it tore into Lotor's battle
  group like a demon,  spinning, dodging and firing with
  insane abandon.  Lance joined in, whooping,
       "Yeah, Buddy!  Take it to 'em!"
       His friendship with Sven had long since blunted
  his hatred for the giant battlemechs, making this one a
  welcome sight.  He had no idea who was piloting the
  thing, but was more than ready to welcome a new ally.
       Startled, Sven looked up through the canopy as a
  giant red cat robot sped to his side.  Half familiar,
  half discomforting, it stirred a confused welter of
  emotions that he had no time to examine.  Instead he
  shoved away the uncertainty, banked closer to his
  sudden wingman and began blasting a fiery swathe
  through the Galran fleet.  They fought as one,
  instinctively knowing where the other was going to be,
  and what he would do, covering each other with such
  pin-point accuracy that neither fighter was even
  nicked.  At one point, Sven thundered directly at a
  destroyer, right between the twin beams of its main
  gun, firing all the way.  Then, at the last possible
  instant, he launched a trio of hellcats and pulled
  away.   The missiles slammed into the destroyer's hull
  and detonated, ripping the vessel apart. 
      Lance imitated the stunt, laughing,
      "Dude, you are one crazy bastard!"
      Lance wasn't quite as quick as his friend, and
  nearly got caught by the blast.  Sven covered him with
  a shield surge, deflecting the brunt of the explosion
  harmlessly away.
       "Thanks, Man,"  Lance called out over the comm.
  "Almost got toasted, that time!"
       But Sven did not respond, for his comm system was
  down.  He could neither send, nor receive.  Instead he
  loosed another hellcat at a desperately fleeing bat
  fighter, and cut for Pollux.
       "Hey!"  Lance shouted, "Where're you going?!  The
  party's just getting started!"
       Curious, he started to follow the combot away from
  the other lions.  Then Keith ordered him back, getting
  his attention with an electro-blast across the nose.
       "If it isn't too much trouble, Lieutenant, would
  you mind very much GETTING THE HELL BACK TO WORK?!!"
       "Take it easy, Cap,"  Lance replied serenely, as
  he brought Red back around.  "All this yelling isn't
  good for your blood pressure.  Now, look at me, for
  example...,"
       He got the Zarkon-beast's laser eye in his sights
  and fired a blast of searing plasma at the thing,
  rocking back its scaly, tusked head.
       "....I'm a man who loves his work, jumps out of
  bed every morning eager to punch that time card. 
  Yessir, there's nothing I love better than a good
  fight.  But do you see me getting .... (alright, you
  bastard, be still and get killed!  don't make me take
  it to the trunk, now!)... UH! .., worked up?  Hell,
  no!"
       Then the beastman extended its arms and fired two
  ghostly anti-energy bubbles at Red lion.  They struck
  one after the other, collapsing Red's shields.
       "SHIT!"  the gunner yelped, for there was so much
  laser and missile fire around him that he was certain
  to be struck, and soon.
       Noticing his plight, Keith punched the comm and
  shouted,
       "Lance, get your ass out of here and heal up! 
  I'll cover you!"
       Lance went.  Yanking hard on the stick, he broke
  for Pollux, hoping that the battle there would be a
  little less intense.
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       Sven had found a relatively safe landing spot on
  the lee-side of a tall hill.  The spires and turrets of
  the capital city towered silver and gold in the
  distance, backed by the firework splendor of battle. 
  From here the explosions looked almost festive.
       Opening the canopy, he knelt the combot down and
  raised its hand to serve as a boarding platform. 
  Romelle got to her feet, greenish-pale and wobbly. 
  She'd been airsick several times during the space
  battle, and still looked a little rough.  Handing her
  gently out of the cockpit, he whistled Hund up and
  stepped out himself.  Then, at a brief though from its
  pilot, the mech's hand lowered all three of them to the
  ground.  Sven helped Romelle to step off.
       "Hide,"  he told her.  "Then....., when this ends, 
  find.... your people."
       She gave him a long, stricken look.  Seizing his
  arm, Romelle fought the nausea back long enough to say,
       "Promise me that you'll come back!  Sven,
  promise!"
       He didn't know quite how to answer that. 
  Certainly he would return if he survived, but that
  didn't seem to be what his woman wanted to hear.
       "I..... will try,"  he said at last, for want of
  anything more inspired..
       She took his hand, pressed it to her pale cheek.
       "You must,"  she told him, her voice a husky
  whisper.  "I need you."
       Smiling a little, he kissed her forehead, stroked
  back her long, red-gold hair.
       "Jaha."
       Then he pulled away.  Signaling the hound, Sven
  indicated Romelle and grunted a single sharp order.
       "Guard!" 
       Hund clashed his serrated jaws together and went
  over to stand before the princess.  Any harm that came
  to her now would be over his twitching corpse. 
       When he was sure she'd be alright, Sven gave her a
  last caress, boarded his warmech and rejoined the
  fight.
       Romelle watched tearfully as the combot shrunk
  away to a glowing pin-point.  Then, even that was lost
  amid the screaming glare of battle.
       "Goddess,"  she prayed, "please keep him safe!"
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
      
      
       Black and Gold lions struggled mightily against
  the beastman while Green and Blue tore into the Galran
  fleet.  Bandor's fighter squadron, reduced to less than
  half the original number, did what they could to help. 
  The worst threat was the Zarkon beast, for it could not
  be hit too hard without detonating.  Taking advantage
  of their weak assaults, the monster was driving Keith
  and Hunk slowly back toward the Galrans.
       Desperate for a solution, Keith thumbed the comm
  and shouted,
       "Pidge, we need some options!  Come up with a
  strategy on this guy before we end up in Lotor's lap!"
       Chibi nodded tensely.
       "I'm working on it, Commander, but the charge
  seems to be integral to the beastman.  It cannot be
  removed or defused without detonating."
       Rumbled Hunk,
       "How 'bout we launch a strike and then run like
  the blazes?"
       "No good, Big Guy.  If my calculations are
  correct, that charge has super-nova force."
       Keith paled.
       "Shit."
       "Precisely."
       As there were no good options, Keith came up with
  a workable bad one.  Dodging a salvo of laser bolts, he
  announced,
       "Okay, here it is-  we came to free Pollux, and
  that's what we're going to do.  I'll lure the thing as
  far out as I can, then set off the charge where no
  one'll be hurt but me."
      This idea was met with a storm of protest from the
  rest of the team, each of whom thought they were a
  better choice for a suicide mission than Keith..
       It was about then that the transformed
  slaughterhawk returned to the scene, with Red lion
  close at its side.
       Sven didn't know what the hold up was, and
  couldn't have cared less.  Singling out a destroyer
  that was making life hard for the lumbering troop
  ships, he throttled forward as far as he could and
  hurled himself directly at it.   Lance shadowed him,
  calling out over the comm,
       "Listen, man, you're getting too close!  Fire
  something, and pull the hell up before they nail you!"
       But the mech pilot wasn't receiving.  Dipping a
  wing to warn him off, the fighter slipped into phase,
  got past the destroyer's force shields and  plunged
  right through the vessel itself.  The effect was
  immediate and incredible.  Every electronic device on
  the Galran ship cut off at once, leaving it blind,
  paralyzed and helpless.    
       "Well, all right!"  Lance crowed, finishing off
  the derelict with a few well-placed missiles.  "You
  rack 'em up, and I'll knock 'em down, just like
  shooting fish at the hatchery!"
       They tackled eleven more ships this way, wreaking
  such havoc that the fleet was thrown into chaos.
       Meanwhile, Akira found himself facing Lotor.  Lion
  and bat fighter dove, swooped and rolled, jockeying to
  get a targeting lock.  But both pilots were incredible
  skilled and deadly quick, and neither could get the
  drop on the other for longer than a startled heartbeat.
       Inside the cockpit, Keith jerked his gaze from
  scanner to view screen to instrument panel and back
  again,  jumping slightly every time he heard the
  psychotic scream of the target-lock indicator.  Ringing
  in his head and ears at the same time, it meant that he
  was square in Lotor's sights.  Never for very long,
  though.  Dropping down or looping over, he turned the
  tables every time.  Once or twice a missile hissed
  past, sparking against Black's shields.  He banked away
  from them and cut loose with a volley of
  electro-blasts, forcing Lotor to peel off or be
  destroyed.
       "Run, slave!"   Lotor growled, golden eyes
  narrowing to mere slits.  "Perhaps if you're fast
  enough, I'll let you live!"
       But Keith wasn't having any.
       "And if you could fly as well as you talk, you
  might actually have a prayer of winning this battle! 
  Maybe you should think about switching tactics..  It
  gets kind of boring kicking your ass all the time!"
       What he didn't realize was that the prince HAD
  switched tactics.  With each maneuver; with each shot,
  dodge and trick, he was edging Keith closer to the
  beastman.  Another few  moments and Black lion would
  come within range of that eye blast.  Grinning nastily,
  Lotor fired another missile, counting on Akira to bank
  left.   Keith did just that, slipping off of the hook
  and into the razor jaws.  Suddenly, the entire cockpit
  seemed to fill with a painfully intense, laser-red
  glare.
     Zarkon's third eye came fully open, and Black lion
  was struck head-on by the blast.  Keith lost his
  shields in the first billionth of a second.  Then the
  outside hull went.  Soon, he'd be incinerated.
       Reacting instinctively, the entire team opened
  fire upon the beastman, concentrating so many force
  blasts and missiles upon it that the antimatter charge
  came to full, fiery life.  It burst from Zarkon's scaly
  body and began to flash outward, spelling certain doom
  for the Voltron Force, Lotor, both fleets, Pollux, and
  even Arus.  Not the witch, though.  Knowing what was to
  come, Haggar had spelled herself off to a safe
  location.
       It was one of those freeze-frame moments,
  everything seeming to happen in terrible, unstoppable
  slow-motion.  The vessels of both fleets hit full
  reverse, trying desperately to get out of the way. 
  White with fear, A'lara swooped in after Keith, frantic
  to save her handsome warrior.  Meanwhile, Lance, Pidge
  and Hunk fired everything they had at the monster, as
  though all they needed to do was hit it harder.  And
  still the antimatter swelled, a ring of boiling,
  red-tinged blackness that devoured everything it
  touched.
       Still in partial phase, Sven spotted the sudden,
  deadly power surge and did the only thing he could
  think of;  he flew directly into it, taking the
  antimatter charge with him as he slipped away between
  dimensions.  Combot and nova blast disappeared
  together, leaving only the gutted beastman. 
       Struck by a firestorm of plasma bolts, freeze rays
  and lasers, the Zarkon beast began to glow, eaten away
  from within by the energy it was absorbing.  Still
  raging, it flailed and bellowed, fighting to reach the
  swooping lions.  But their concentrated firepower
  overcame the beast before it could strike again,
  blasting the thing into a giant shower of glittering
  motes that one by one winked slowly out.
       "NO!!  Grug take it!  Not again!"
       Cursing furiously, Lotor was forced to sound the
  retreat.  He and his remaining vessels tucked tail and
  warped back to Galra, defeated again.
       Meanwhile, A'lara got a tractor beam on the Black
  lion, and brought him to a safe landfall on Pollux. 
  Most of the others followed her, except for Lance.  The
  gunner stared at his blank scanners, thinking,
       'I only ever knew one man THAT dumb-ass brave....'
       Aloud he muttered,
       "Come on...., come on....!  Dammit, Sven, where
  the hell are you?!"
       Then something....., a weird idea...., hit him. 
  His friend was alive still, but lost, his mech too
  badly damaged to return to this universe without help. 
  Doubting his own insight, Lance nevertheless turned off
  the scanners, closed his eyes and tried reaching out
  with his thoughts.
       'This way, Partner.  We're right over here.'
       For a long time nothing happened, and Lance began
  to lose hope.  Then a bright spark appeared in the
  depthless black of space, grew to become a sun-bright
  line.  Like paper sliding beneath a closed door, the
  singed and sparking battlemech flowed through the line,
  attaining the usual three dimensions a few moments
  later. 
       Lance grinned.
       " 'Bout time you got here,"  he said cheerfully,
  though he knew that his friend couldn't hear him.  
       Red greeted the slaughterhawk in her own fashion,
  sending a pulse of biomechanical energy through its
  systems that swiftly repaired most of the damage.
        Eagerly, Lance punched the comm button and tried
  to raise his wingman.  He got no answer, though.
        The truth was, Sven was deeply confused.  He and
  the lion pilot had fought well together, and he
  couldn't have returned from phase without the man's
  help, yet....  Romelle's words, and Lotor's, still
  burned in his mind.  He had no personal memories of the
  Voltron Force, and only vaguely remembered the Blue
  lion.  Thus the lies had more power than they should
  have.  He didn't quite trust the man, yet neither could
  he hate him.
       Responding with few clicks of the mike, Sven cut
  for Pollux.
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
      Unable to stay out of trouble, Romelle crept
  slowly, warily, to the city wall.  Three times Hund had
  defended her from deserters, snapping and leaping as
  she shot them dead.  Most of the fighting was over by
  the time she reached the western gate, with only a
  little sporadic gunfire now and again to indicate that
  the Galrans still had a toehold.  Then even that was
  silenced.  It was still very dangerous, though.  Gangs
  of panicked, hungry people wandered the cratered
  streets, looking for food and weapons to steal.  Fires
  and shattered wreckage were everywhere.  Holding tight
  to her pistol, Romelle set off through the burning
  city, keeping one eye on the sky, and the other on the
  alleys and blazing buildings.  She wasn't concerned
  about Sven's ability to find her again, provided he was
  still alive, that is.  Squaring her shoulders, Romelle
  rejected the notion that her lover might fail to
  return, and headed for the palace.
       No one recognized her, for she was just a sooty
  and desperate-looking as the other refugee women, royal
  blood or no.  Probably for the best, it nevertheless
  startled her not to be bowed to and honored by her own
  people.
      In the courtyard of the palace a starfighter had
  landed.  The warplane had a distinctive emblem on its
  wings and tail assembly, a blood-red clenched fist. 
  Romelle paused, unaccountably drawn to the craft, and
  its pilot.  She watched from the shadow of a sagging
  archway as the pilot opened his fighter's canopy and
  leapt out onto the wing.  He was thin, she noted
  absently, all angles and awkwardness.  Then he took off
  his helmet, and she saw bright red hair, blue eyes,
  freckles, and a nose about three times too big for that
  round-chinned face.
       Shrieking,
       "BANDOR!!!!"  Romelle threw caution to the winds
  and started forward at a wild run.  Her brother,
  somehow miraculously alive, turned his head, spotted
  the girl, and ran to meet her.
       Many hugs, kisses, and joyful explanations later,
  Romelle remembered royal protocol enough to curtsey.
        "Your Majesty,"  she murmured, for Bandor was now
  king of all Pollux.
       His smile grew shaky at that-  the circumstances
  of his rise to the throne had been bloody and painful
  beyond words, and it still hurt to hear himself
  addressed as his father should have been.  He raised
  her up, saying,
       "C'mon, Roma.  That's enough!"
       To break the sad silence, she introduced Hund,
  who'd been sniffing and staring rather suspiciously the
  whole time.
       Bandor started to extend his hand, but Romelle
  caught it.
       "You DON'T want to get that friendly with him," 
  she grimaced.  "Trust me."
       The king withdrew his hand.
       "Where did you come by this...., um...., animal?" 
  he asked her.
       Romelle took a deep breath, meaning to introduce
  the subject of Sven.
       "He belongs to my hus....."
       Then, a sudden deep shadow crossed the sky. 
  Gliding in on full impellers, silent as a moth, the
  combot touched down in the courtyard by Bandor's small
  fighter.   Sixty feet tall and oddly beautiful, it sent
  spears of reflected firelight bouncing crazily around
  the inner court.  It wasn't alone.  Red lion circled
  overhead a few times, but couldn't find space enough to
  land in.  Roaring, she streaked away to a soft
  touchdown outside the city walls. 
       The young king back-stepped just a bit, tugging at
  Romelle.  He'd seen the battlemech in action, and felt
  very helpless and small standing before it like this.
        Romelle twisted away from him.  Giving her
  brother a quick pat, she hurried over to the
  slaughterhawk, breaking into a run when Sven popped the
  canopy and leapt from his fighter to the
  debris-littered ground.  Hund got there first,
  remarkably fast for a three-legged dog.  Sven was
  knocked off of his feet and treated to a brief,
  affectionate wrestling match that left him with several
  nasty cuts.  On the bright side, he managed to pin the
  hound, and was back on his feet by the time Romelle
  arrived.
       Crying, laughing and saying his name many times
  over, the princess flung herself into his embrace and
  delivered the tightest hug that soft, slender arms and
  a loving heart could give.  Intermingling her words
  with a thousand happy kisses, she cried out,
       "Sven!  Oh, Sven, you're all right!  I was so
  worried!  I missed you so!"  A lot of other silly,
  relieved, joyful things tumbled out of  her before
  Romelle sobered enough to ask,  "What happened, Love? 
  Why did you wait so long to return?  Was the fighting
  very fierce?"
       Sven tried to tell her of the battle, but couldn't
  find words.  Silent explosions, a crazily wheeling
  starfield, missiles and lasers streaking past so close
  that they scorched the hull, his thumb on the firing
  stud and the wild, mad joy of a clean kill...., all of
  it was reduced to:
       "It was...... a big fight."
       Reaching up with a fond smile, she stroked the
  black hair off of his face.
       "I can see it in your thoughts, my Sven."
       He nodded.  Giving up on speech, he kissed and
  caressed her instead, leaving Romelle feeling warm,
  weak and foolish.  Then Bandor interrupted them with a
  polite cough.  The young king was more than a little
  confused.  Sven was supposed to be dead, wasn't he?
       "Oh!"  Romelle jumped guiltily, having forgotten
  that her brother was nearby.  Turning to face Bandor,
  she tugged Sven forward by the hand and presented him,
  saying,
       "Bandor, this is Sven, my love and husband.  It
  was he who rescued me from Galra, and I owe him my life
  many times over.  Please....?"
       She didn't finish the sentence.  Being a princess,
  she wasn't supposed to marry without the permission of
  the king and high council.  Certainly not to some
  common warrior, at any rate.  Yet, Bandor could see
  that his sister truly loved the fellow, who had proven
  himself one hell of a pilot, if nothing else.  That
  he'd been a member of the Voltron Force helped
  considerably, of course.  Extending his hand, the young
  king placed it atop theirs and sealed their union with
  a simple clasp.
       "Welcome to the family,"  he told Sven.  Then,
  grinning a little,  "Take some of the pressure off  me
  and get started on the heirs right away, will you?  I'm
  tired of Councilman Zavok's nagging!"
       Romelle turned pink and gave him a bad-tempered,
  big-sisterly slap.
       "Bandor!"
       Ignoring her, he continued blithely,
       "About seven should do nicely, I believe.  Always
  good to have plenty of spares.  In fact, if you start
  right now, you could be changing velvet diapers by
  early next...."
       "BANDOR!!!  You stop that this instant!"
       Sven glanced from one to the other, confused.  The
  words were coming too fast for him, and Romelle was
  projecting nothing but anger, mortification, and
  shame-faced laughter.  She didn't seem to be in any
  danger, though.  He relaxed by slow degrees, smiling a
  little to hide his lack of comprehension..
       Then Lance entered the courtyard at a dead run,
  the rest of the Force hot at his heels.
       Glancing around, the gunner spotted his tall
  friend a few hundred meters away.  Dressed in a Galran
  uniform and body armor, his straight black hair hanging
  halfway down his back, was a very changed Sven.  He'd
  been right all along, his wingman was alive.  Calling
  out...,
       "I KNEW IT!  I knew you weren't really dead! 
  Goddamn, it's good to see you, partner!"
       ......Lance started forward with a big grin on his
  face,  then paused a moment.  There was neither
  recognition, nor friendship on Sven's face. Eyes
  narrowing slightly, the mech pilot simply stared at
  him, suspicious and remote.
       By this time, Romelle had spotted Lance and the
  other pilots.  Heart going suddenly cold and jerky with
  fear, she seized Sven's arm. 
       "Love, don't listen to....,"
        But Bandor stepped in.  Shaking his head, he
  pulled his sister away and forced her to wait.  He was
  beginning to understand the situation.
       Giving the female's shoulder a brief squeeze, Sven
  walked halfway over to the waiting others.  Their faces
  troubled him as they crowded round, smiling and calling
  out words that he was too upset to grasp.  He blocked
  their attempted embraces and handshakes with a sharp TK
  pulse.  Not as strong as he could have done, but not
  pleasant, either.
       Worried, Lance looked over at Keith, then
  demanded,
       "Sven, man, what's wrong with you?  Don't you
  remember us?  We're your friends!"
       A thousand terrible impressions flooded his
  thoughts; bitter cold, wracking pain, captivity, 
  defeat, Lotor's mocking voice,  the hollow ache of a
  gutted mind.  Loneliness, abandonment, confusion.  As
  far as he knew, he'd been deserted, and left to
  die...., and now they wanted him back....?!  Something
  closed up like a fist within him, rejecting their
  offered warmth.
       "Friends...?"  he repeated, very quietly.
       "You better believe it!"  Lance replied.  "Best
  friends."
       "Then....," he said, voice lowered to a feral
  snarl.  "where... the hell.... WERE you?!"
       Not waiting for a response, he shoved them all out
  of the courtyard with a second, stronger burst of TK,
  and returned to Romelle.
       Lance, Keith, Hunk, Pidge and A'lara could only
  watch helplessly as Sven turned his back on them and
  walked away.
  
      
  _______________________________________________________
  
  
       Epilogue-  Pollux had been liberated, and the
  emperor was dead, though it was awhile before this last
  became common knowledge.  Lotor had it put about that
  Zarkon had contracted a "cold" and was retiring to his
  summer villa indefinitely, leaving his son in charge.  
  Fearing that the realm would crumble if his rebellious
  worlds learned the truth, Lotor didn't have himself
  crowned.  Not just yet.
       Instead he firmed up his alliance with Merla, and
  made plans to bring Arus down through treachery and
  deceit.