The Gold Paladin

Discovery

It had been a few days since the Kral Zera and nothing out of the ordinary happened since Lotor took the throne. There have been many Galrans that disliked Lotor having the title of Emperor, but it wasn't like they could do anything about it because Voltron was Lotor's 'ally'.

Novae however couldn't stand the fact that Lotor was on the throne and was constantly suspicious of his actions, but it was better having him on the throne than any other Galran ruling over the Empire.

But that wasn't the only thing on her mind. As she sat on her bed, Novae continued to stare the poison she had created to counteract the effects of her blood. She only kept enough on her to disable a person for a few minutes. She never thought she would have to create something like this, but it seemed to be necessary for only the gravest situations.

Not only that, but her mind constantly wandered to Shiro and the fight they had the other day. She didn't like the fact that Shiro was acting so reckless with bringing Lotor to the Kral Zera without even consulting the team before flying off into space with him. He used to be so much more thoughtful about these kinds of situations, thinking over every kind of outcome and deciding on the pros and cons of the actions.

But ever since he came back after being missing...

"He will be leaving soon, Young Star." The Gold Lion said, breaking her from her thoughts, "You should get going if you want to give it to him."

"Yes, you're right." Novae said and stood up from her bed, walking over to her desk and taking a small box filled with a gift for Sam to use on Earth if the need arose.

🦁🦁🦁~~~~🦁🦁🦁

Commander Holt and the Voltron team stood in the hangar with an Altean pod fueled up and ready to leave with Sam on board towards Earth. He smiled as he began saying his final goodbyes to the team and his children.

"We're going to miss you up here, sir." Shiro said.

"Ah, you guys seem to be fine without me." Commander Holt replied, "Your mission is here. Mine is on Earth. As soon as I get back, I'll inform the Galaxy Garrison what's going on and start working to upgrade our planetary defenses."

"Tell Iverson the next time I see him, I'm going to kick his butt for strapping me to that table." Shiro joked, raising a fist to further prove my point.

"I'll be sure to tell him that." Sam chuckled.

"Hey, I had everyone record some messages for our families." Hunk said sheepishly as he held out the recordings toward Commander Holt, "Uh, a little heads up, I got a little teary in mine, so... that's Mom's eyes only."

Sam smiled, "Of course." And he took the recordings.

"Oh, and you don't wanna see Lance's, either, since it's probably just a love message to Jenny Shaybon or the other Jenny. What was her name again?"

"Shut up, Hunk!" Lance yelled, crossing his arms in annoyance and a bit of anger.

"Okay, I was just joking. Jeez." Hunk said before seeing Lance's sad expression, "Hey, are you okay, dude?"

"I'm fine." Lance said, "It's just... Once I started thinking about going back to Earth, I... I started missing my mom and my brother Marco and my brother Luis and my sister Veronica and my grandma and..." Lance stopped when his voice began to crack, furiously wiping his eyes of tears,

"Um, are you crying?" Hunk asked.

"No!" Lance sniffed and slumped his shoulders, "No, I just... I just got space dust in my eyes. It's very dusty in here."