8 「Vitreous Alliance」

Lance, seated in the back with Iverson and Adam, seemed to be relaxing; distracting himself.

"So, I see they didn't want you to be the pilot?" Adam seemed to find this rather amusing. Considering the fact that Lance was a rather lousy and reckless pilot. Though it was mainly because he not only lacked patience, but it appeared that he disregards the limitations of his team.

"Uh-huh?" Lance glanced over at the man with a brow raised slightly. "Your point?"

Adam shrugged, amused, in response to this as he looked to the ceiling. When the shuttle finally touched down minutes later, both Adam and Iverson disembarked first with Lance following closely behind.

The two came to a halt as they walked around the shuttle and rested their eyes on the alien in armor. Why was he battle ready? Was he a soldier? Noble? They looked over the technology which adorned him.

"You wanted to negotiate?" Iverson stepped forward, keeping Adam a pace behind.

That's when Adam spoke up as well, "You believe Shiro is still alive?!" It was clear he was asking about his boyfriend's well being.

Nemoi looked gazed over Adam for a moment before nodding slightly, at first ignoring Iverson. "Shiro will come crashing down in around six days from now. He will have partial amnesia. I want you to bring him here, if at all possible. It'll dampen the tracker on him."

Iverson blinked a few times hearing this. Tracker? The hostile aliens he had been told about, the Galra, had placed a tracker on him? "What are they looking for?" He immediately surmised they had put a tracker on Shiro to find something, to follow him to something.

"They want to find a piece of a weapon, the only weapon, that can defeat them. Voltron, a sentient weapon which chooses its pilots based on their personalities." As he explained, he pointed to the three teenagers which were standing in front of the shuttle. "Green, yellow and blue... Those three are chosen pilots. Shiro is the Black lion, Keith is the red lion."

Lance, Pidge and Hunk weren't really all that surprised since some of the information had been given to them earlier, the day before. They didn't at all seem bothered by it, but it was clear that the two adults were conflicted with having children fight a war. Let alone be trained into killing machines.

"Commander Iverson. My Battlecruiser, Chimeras Castle, will be operational in six days. I will intercept the Galra Battleship chasing Shiro's shuttle as the pilots clear Earth to obtain the other Lions." He informed him with his hands folded behind his back. Clearly, he sounded as if he was a lower ranked officer reporting to a superior. However this wasn't a suggestion or request that he was speaking of, it was an absolute.

"What I want from you, in exchange for my technology and further information, is manpower as well as the sanctioning of their involvement." He held his hand out towards the teens once more.

Iverson looked over towards his cadets then back towards Nemoi for a few moments. "What was your name again, Nemoi? Is that a form of Nemo? As in Captain Nemo, a man with no home, no viable origin? While you give us your good will, how can we trust you with our officers? Our cadets?"

Nemoi frowned hearing this man speak of this, his head looked like it was about to burst from his neck like a rocket. "Matthew Holt, Samuel Holt and Takashi Shirogane. The Kerberos mission affected more than those three. This will bring them back to Earth, and it will spare the Earth from the safe fate as Altea at the hands of the Galra."

"Altea? Your homeworld. What exactly did they do to it?" Iverson squinted his good eye, staring through the man like an old navy sniper.

"They drained it of life, stole its quintessence and reduced it to barren tomb world. Along with all of our other worlds... And people." In that moment, they could see Nemoi trying to hold the shaking, survivors guilt.

"How many of you are there left...?" He asked with a frown across his lips. He knew what it looked like, to be a sole survivor.

"The Princess and the Royal Advisor are likely the only other survivors hidden in stasis, unless the Galra are farming them for pure Quintessence, it is unlikely there are many left as the Galra had hunted us relentlessly ten thousand years ago."

Hearing this, Iverson lowered his head slightly. He could no longer think that this was too good to be true. That thought was now scratched out. He had nothing, so he was willing to give everything. A man with nothing else to lose was a dangerous man, dangerous for his enemies, but valuable to his allies.

Iverson turned and looked towards the teens and narrowed in one good eye on Pidge's pocket after noticing something out of the ordinary. The kid was armed? Why was the kid armed? He then glanced over towards the man, a brow raised.

Nemoi's eyes had followed the man's sight to Pidge's pocket and chuckled quietly to himself. She either forgot to give the weapon to Iverson, or didn't bother to.

Adam seemed to have his attention entirely on Nemoi, noticing how he was looking at Pidge. There was that longing, an emotional attachment. Adam looked over towards Pidge and focused his sights.

He after some thought, quickly put two and two together. Pidge Gunderson, whom looked eerily like Matthew Holt, was none other than Katie Holt. Which meant that this Alien could easily manipulate her into following him. However, having seen how he looked at the girl, that didn't seem so.

If this alien was the path to get Shiro back, he was all in. He stepped forward and walked towards him with a refined stride. Placed a hand on Nemoi's shoulder and he however maintained a professional demeanor and refrained from visibly smirking. He instead smiled with his eyes.

"Thank you, Adam. Lets hope you are the first face he sees." Nemoi said as he looked over at him, a genuine look across his face. "If you wish to join the Chimeras, you'll be with him for the duration of the War."

His eyes narrowed on Iverson as he turned around to see his fellow instructor and subordinate placing a hand on the aliens shoulder as if agreeing to the terms.

"That's rare," Iverson stated aloud as he took in a deep breath and relaxed as he exhaled. "If it's for the defense of mankind, I have no problem accepting this terms. If it were in my power to grant them. As to help with my negotiations with the higher ups, tell me a bit more about the Galra."

Nodding hearing this, he let out a nervous chuckle, remembering how the Admiral had surrendered to the Galra and was stabbed in the back. "They see surrender as a sign of weakness. They will turn around and kill you and your surrendering forces without a second thought."

With that simple response, that little bit of information, Iverson tensed.

"The Galra force their prisoners to fight in arenas, work in camps, to run their research and development until they drop dead from exhaustion. Shiro... Matthew Holt, those to were put into the Arena, Samuel the one incapable of fighting, is likely in a work camp. They also experiment on their prisoners. The Galra Empire only accepts Victory or Death, for friend and foe."

This reminded them of the war torn past of humanity. Nazi Germany where the weak were culled from the herd, Jews and prisoners were put in work camps. Sparta where defective children were dropped off the side of a cliff, children were armed as soldiers, forced to fight and survive.

"Kill or be killed world, huh?" Iverson muttered to himself as he scratched the back of his head. Being subjugated by the Galra wasn't a highly rated choice.

Pidge snickered slightly hearing Iverson say this. It was a quote from an old, popular, game. She would go on to walk over to Nemoi and tilt her head to the side, looking him over. "Did you get taller?"

He smirked down at her, "Probably." Nemoi had indeed changed his height to his normal height. He was an entire head taller than Pidge. Placing a hand on the top of her head, she looked over at Adam as Nemoi pat her head.

Adam simply looked down at her, as he knew exactly who she was. She could see that in his eyes.

"Seems like it's going to be revealed sooner, rather than later." Nemoi would scratched the back of his head with his other hand.

Iverson raised his brow above his good eye, and looked at him, then towards Pidge and Adam.

Pidge nodded slightly to Nemoi and sighed on her own. She turned towards the officers and her friends. "I am Katie Holt, daughter of Samuel Holt and sister of Matthew Holt, both of whom were on the Kerberos Mission. They were wrongly assumed dead by the Galaxy Garrison who covered it all up!"

Iverson's eye twitched hearing this, he was redder than a potato. He pointed at the girl, with his head tilted at an aggressive and angry angle. "You..." His anger slowly subsided as he found himself in a relaxed posture as he noticed that Nemoi had placed an arm in front of her. Even though he only had one good eye, he could clearly see the inch of a hightech blade sticking out of his forearm.

The alien would defend a single human? Was it because she was a pilot or...? Iverson looked to Nemoi's face, no, he could tell that wasn't the case. It looked like a clawed beast readying to defend its territory.

"I see... That's how it is." Iverson laughed heartily, wiping beneath his nose with his index finger.

"Let Admiral Sanda, that surrender is not an option. Surrender is permadeath." Nemoi stated as he stepped passed Adam and Katie. His eyes piercing through him for a moment before he smirked lightly. "Also the shuttles have a simulation mode."

Katie, Hunk and Lance all looked at him warily as he spoke of an unknown Admiral, telling them not to surrender, that it only meant death. However Katie was also able to pick up on the gamer lingo of Permadeath, which caused to her smile awkwardly at the serious notion.

"And I will be taking the pilots to their destination, no matter if this alliance is accepted."

Iverson nodded slightly, seeing how set Nemoi was in the path he was going to take. Not that it mattered if he sacrificed himself. He was more concerned with his cadets, and the fact that Katie had been hiding amongst them the entire time. "We will hide Pidge's identity for the time being, and we'll converse with the other commanders over this manner. Your offer gives my cadets and members of the Galaxy Garrison a unique experience, deep space travel."

"Aye, sir." Nemoi responded with a small smile across his lips.

"I am curious, Nemoi, what were you back on your world?" Iverson ask, having noted how he carried himself and spoke to someone of 'superior' rank.

"I held the titles of Lord and Viscount," His head tilted to the side slightly. "Now I am Lord and Count with my father's passing at the hands of the Galra..."

From one's knowledge of medieval ranks, or of ranks pertaining to kingdoms, a Viscount was similar to a sheriff or a hereditary title for an individual being an heir to be a count. However since his worlds were gone, this title was without land and county.

"You have my condolences," Iverson stated as he placed one hand on the boy's shoulder. In his eyes, this Altean was nothing more than a boy playing the role of a knight. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen human years," Nemoi stated as he locked eyes with the cyclops.

The nerves on the side of Iverson's head seemed to reverberate, this guy really was just a child, as old as the other cadets. He swallowed shallowly, turned his head towards the shuttles. "While I cannot promise that all your demands will go through, I can bring cadets here to train and learn for the sake of the Universe."

Nemoi nodded slightly as Iverson came up with a compromise off the bat. While it wasn't exactly what he had originally wanted, this was a suggestion he could go with. If they became familiar with Altean Tech, this meant they would be able to use it against the Galra.

"I will leave Adam here, to be your advisor." Commander Iverson added, patting the shoulder before letting him go. Then he turned towards the shuttle, paused and looked at Lance. "I'll need you to pilot. Think you can do that without killing us both in the process?"

Lance immediately beamed, nodding rapidly, almost panting like a dog receiving a treat.

Adam, Hunk, Katie and Nemoi all paled as they watched the duo climb into the shuttle, roughly take off and leave the hangar; leaving skid marks and sparks behind.