"Lance, you better not fail this test again. I refuse to hold myself back another year, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah. I got this, alright?" I crossed my arms and sent him 'The Look'. "I'm serious, alright? I got this!"

"I'm trusting in you this last time. If you fail this, I'm leaving you behind and taking your team since mine failed." He nodded and hopped into the fake ship. I turned to look at Hunk and Pidge. "Hunk, Pidge. I love my cousin dearly. But he is a total imbecile, so please, please help him pass." They nodded and chuckled.

"Kristin, why do you act so coldly towards everyone? You are so nice and caring." They had just finished putting on their gear. "Just shut up and help him before I kick you both in your premature nutsacks."

They scrambled off into the simulation shuttle, and the door closed. Oh, this should be quite an interesting show.

~~~•~~~

"That was terrible boys!" I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. Lance, you just had to try and show off, didn't you...

Commander sighed, "Everyone is dismissed for the rest of the day. Tomorrow is also a free day, use it wisely because you won't have another for another month. Understood?" Commander's voice was loud as we all saluted and walked off.

I walked over to Lance, Pidge, and Hunk as they began to walk off. "Hold it you three!" They froze in their spot and turned towards me slowly, fearfully. "Go get dressed, then come to my dorm. We are going to have a long talk."

It wasn't a long walk back to my dorm, maybe only ten minutes since mine was in a lower level. It was a plain room. The walls were light grey with small, purple designs. I had a few of my drawings hung on the walls, but nothing more than that.

I changed from my uniform to my usual outfit, a simple black oversized sweatshirt I stole from hunk ago, and some ripped grey skinny jeans. I had just put on my fuzzy socks as well, when a knock sounded on my door.

"Come in."

The three boys walked in nervously with their hands behind their backs. "H-Hey Kristin, how i-is it goin'?" Lance chuckled nervously. Hunk, being the nervous person he always was, shot his hands out in front of himself. "Here is some freshly baked cookies Kristin! I'm so sorry, please dont hurt me, I didn't mean to barf!"

I slowly stood up and walked towards them. When I stood in front of Hunk, I placed a hand on his outstretched ones. He flinched.

"Hunk, you are so precious sometimes. I only started yelling because I knew Commander was watching. He always asks me to scold you all because, and I quote, 'You scare more sense into them than I ever could. You'd make a great leader for an expedition one day.'"

They all sighed in relief. I took the r bag from Hunk's hand and smiled. "Thanks for the cookies though, Bestie."

"No problem Kristin."

I set the bag down on my bedside table and proceeded to flop onto my bed. Lance laid on my right side while Pidge sat on my left, and Hunk sat criss-cross at the edge of my bed.

"We should do something tonight. Maybe sneak into town, hit up a pizza place then head down to the beach and take a walk?"

"I was thinking me, Hunk, and Pidge could pick up some ladies tonight." Lance smirked and looked at me. "Pfft. You three, get ladies? Lance, you could barely get that one girl to go to the dance with you that one time, and you were bribing her with money."

He flushed pink and huffed angrily, sitting up and crossing his arms. "Yeah, well, she was ugly anyways!" I 'tsk'ed, chuckling while Pidge and Hunk snickered silently.

"Honestly, pizza and the beach sound great for tonight. But could we save it for tomorrow?" Pidge spoke up. "Why?"

"I just uh... I have to do some stuff.."

I looked at him suspiciously. I noticed his posture was slumped, and his face was a mixture between nervousness, sadness, and anxiousness. He only gets this emotional over one thing, his family. I wasn't going to push it.

"Alright. Maybe tomorrow. Hunk, Lance, wanna watch some movies tonight?" They nodded.

"Pidge just upgraded our stuff a dew days ago too, so it'll be our greatest movie night ever!" Hunk smiled. I nodded and smiled back. I looked over at Lance who looked a little disappointed.

I signed and poked his cheek. "Bubba, stop moping. I'll help you try and pick up a girl or two tomorrow. The old 'Help The Blind' act, like we used to." I saw his face brighten and he turned to hug me.

"Thanks Kristin! I'll pay for your food tomorrow, alright?" I nodded and patted his back awkwardly. "Alright Bubba. But please let me go, you know I font like hugs very much."

~~~•~~~

It had been a few hours. Pidge left before movie time, so it was just me, Lance, and Hunk in their shared room. I yawned, stretching my tanned arms above my head and my legs outwards. "Well, its almost eleven, curfew. You boys mind if I just crash here? They won't be waking us up since its free day tomorrow." They shrugged.

"Yeah, you can share the bed with me." I nodded at my cousin and rubbed my eyes. I stood and walked to the bathroom and opened the smaller cabinet in their. I kept some extra stuff in case I spent nights here. I took out my make up remover and began to take off my make up.

"Hey Kristin, me and Hunk are actually gonna sneak out tonight because we were craving some ice cream. Wanna join?"

I sighed. "Let me put some makeup back on, I'll be right out."

I reapplied some mascara and eyeliner, and did a couple coats of my usual dark red lipstick. I brushed my long silver hair, which I had just recently added white tips to. I grabbed my sunglasses and my purse and walked out.

"You ready Kris?" I nodded, going to Hunk's closet and grabbing his white sweatshirt, changing out of the black one. I checked to see if my phone was in my pocket, which it was, and walked to the door. "Alright, let's go."

I peaked out the door, watching a couple guards walk down the hall. Coast was clear. I turned to the guys and put a finger to my lip, signaling them to be quiet. We stepped out and quickly tiptoed to the end of the hall. I'm so glad I wore my white converses.

"Hey, is that Pidge...?" I looked around the corner to where Lance was pointing, and sure enough, there was Pidge. Sneaking around the corner.

"Why don't we hold off on the ice cream. I'm wanting to know where he's going..." So we followed him. We had to duck under numerous windows, and I constantly had to shush Lance's unnecessary comments or Hunk's nervous statements.

Pidge disappeared about fifteen minutes ago, but there was really only one way to go, so it wasn't hard to follow him.

'The roof, huh. Wonder what he's doing up there...'

I opened the door silently and we crept out to the roof. There sitting on the edge was Pidge. Surrounding him were many devices. Some had codes on the screens, other were hooked up to the headphones he was wearing and had dials on them.

"Hey Pidge, what'cha doin' there, hmm?" Lance spoke up after a couple minutes of us observing him. He yelped and jolted a bit, turning around quickly. "Ugh, you guys! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" I chuckled at the angry expression on his face. He was fourteen, and even though he had our wits, he still had young teenager sides.

"Aww, did we scawre you? Poor wittle bwaby~" I teased. Of course it was jokingly though. "Oh hush it, Kristin."

I sat beside him and looked around at the different gadgets. "These look familiar.. Are these what I caught you among a few months ago?" He sighed and nodded. "Yes. Hunk, dont touch my stuff."

Hunk, who I hadn't even noticed was moving closer to the equipment, back away sadly. "Well, what does it do?" Lance questioned, standing behind Pidge and leaning over him. "Its supposed to be a communicator, specifically one for outer space."

"So basically you created this to..." He nodded. I was the only one Pidge, or as I knew him, Katie, about his family and him actually being a girl. I had only found out one day when she had started her period and had to ask me for a tampon.

"Contacting aliens? Pssh, they dont exist." I looked at the computer screen next to us. "This might make you think again..."

All over the screen were different logs of hours upon hours of voice recodings. There were numbers displayed across the screen as well.

"You've collected all this data over the course of six months? That is crazy..." Pidge nodded. "Yeah. I've got so many recordings of what they've said. Numbers, staticy sentences. Codes in a different language. All of it. But one strange thing I always catch them repeating is this word..."

"What word?"

"Voltron." I froze. That story... It was a bedtime story my grandmother told me when I was little. About the lions and the aliens. "Kristin? Kristin! Is everything alright..?" I looked over at Pidge with wide eyes. "Are you sure they said Voltron?"

She nodded, and I looked back at the computer screen and began typing. "Pidge, look at these numbers. They all look similar."

I continued to type as she looked at the screen nodding slowly after a moment. "Hunk, don't touch my stuff!" Pidge yelled at Hunk again. Lance sighed and sat behind me and Pidge.

"So what does that mean?"

I finished, clicking a few more keys, before a set of four numbers came up. "These four numbers repeated in a pattern. When you pick out the numbers and the pattern they were put in..."

"It makes a set of coordinates. Kristin, you're a genius! How did I not see this before..."

"Wow Kristin. You out-nerded Pidge." I elbowed him in the arm, him grunting in return. "Kristin, that was great. I never knew you could do stuff like that." Hunk complimented behind me.

I turned to smile at him. "Thanks bud." He smiled back and nodded.

"We need to go out there you guys." I was about to protest, when we all heard a big crash. It wasn't to far away, and I immediately grabbed for one of the binoculars Pidge had out here. "Woah..."

There was a large spaceship that had crashed. I could hear all the adults going out there, and the electric waves on Pidge's monitors had started going haywire. "Its a spaceship... It doesn't look familiar though."

Pidge grabbed the other pair of binoculars and gasped. "I have to go check it out. If these have been aliens we were hearing, that might be one of their ships. I can ask them about my family." And off she went.

Off I went as well.