The Castle floats in space. The Paladins are all outside, together, attempting to fix the ship. Keith keeps a noticeable distance from Lance, but is very close to Shiro. He tries to keep a small amount of distance between him and Hunk and Pidge.

"Let's hurry up with these repairs. Zarkon could be here at any moment," Shiro says.

"Okay, panel's off. Now, what?" Hunk asks after opening the panel to reveal a glowing blue thing.

"Very simple. Just loosen the blaxums on the somoflange," Coran explains.

"Could you be more specific?" Hunk sighs, no idea what they are talking about.

"Sorry, Hunk, he means the poklones on the agroclams," Allura answers.

"No, that doesn't help."

"Easy, Hunk. I got this," Lance says and presses buttons and fiddles with a dial, only for whirring and alarms to go off and everything to go red instead of blue, "Uh-oh. That can't be good."

"No, not the smalters, the poklones!" Allura cries.

"No, no! It's the blaxums!" Coran yells.

"What are you talking about?" Keith asks quietly, reminding them that even the one from space isn't aware of those things.

"There. Fixed," Pidge fiddles around with it and fixes it.

"Well done, Pidge!" Allura congratulates.

"The tech on this ship never ceases to amaze me. It's so mathematically elegant. Its fit is a 100 times more frictionless than any exoskeleton we have on Earth. It's beautiful," Pidge sighs.

Keith smiles slightly, understanding where Pidge is coming from, thinking of how the Lions work. Green makes their pride known. Blue tries to block Green out and Yellow tries to get them both to get along. He asks Red to remind him to ask Pidge to teach him about technology and engineering and anything else in the future, since he never got the chance to learn anything really, except fighting, before joining the Paladins.

"It's not a sunset, Pidge," Lance deadpans.

"You're right. A billion sunsets just happen every day. Some genius engineer actually built this," Pidge replies.

"Kinda looks like a big, delicious curly fry," Hunk says and is hit in the face by what looks like a snowball, before Keith can ask what a 'curly fry' is, "What the?"

More and more of the snowball-like balls approach, surrounding the Castle.

"All right, we're prepared for this. Remember your rogue projectile cluster training from the Garrison. First, we need a temporary shelter," Shiro says, activating his shield.

Keith follows his lead, having no idea about this training, but Lance throws the balls at Shiro. One hits and surprises him and Keith, "Wha—?"

"Oh, sorry, Shiro. I was trying to hit Keith," Lance laughs.

"Like that?" Keith asks, as he lands one right in Lance's face, causing Shiro to smirk.

"Yes! Squishy asteroid fight!" Hunk declares and they start pelting each other.

Lance uses Hunk as a shield, "Alright, guys..." Shiro tries to stop them as he and Keith use their own shields to protect themselves from Lance's barrage, "Oh, oh! Okay, now, it's on!" Keith is laughing with everyone.

"Hmm," Pidge looks at the balls.

"Oh, come on!" Lance laughs, moving forward with Hunk as his shield, fighting Shiro and Keith, who seem to be on a team.

"I don't think these are asteroids. Coran, I'm going to need a containment unit."

"Just a tick," Coran says.

"They appear to be some sort of hyper-resilient spore," Allura observes from the computers.

"This bio-luminescent pulsing doesn't seem natural. It appears programmed. I think it's a code," Pidge adds, placing it in containment, finally catching the attention of those behind.

"A code? From who?" Hunk asks, only to be hit in the face by the spore.

"I don't know. I mean, it makes no sense. You can't program a spore."

"Actually, that's not true," Keith speaks up, shocking everyone into pausing the 'sporefight' temporarily.

"Really?" Lance asks.

"There's a race that could potentially do something like this, but they are under the Empire's control with almost no freedom. There are rebels, but I don't know if they could do something like this," Keith looks at a spore and squishes it into powder, "I didn't know..." Keith trails off, sadness lacing his tone, "I didn't know what a spore looked like until now."

"Maybe it's some sort of distress signal then?" Hunk suggests.

"If anyone can figure it out, it's you, Pidge," Shiro smiles, before getting hit in the face by a spore, resuming the fight temporarily.

"Before that, everyone needs to come in for decontamination," Allura informs them, shutting it down.

They go into the shower. Keith stands between Pidge and Shiro with no problems, but he still stands closer to Shiro. Shiro and Lance enjoy the shower, Keith stands still, slightly on edge and thinking. Hunk and Pidge are attacked by the water. When the soap comes in, Keith doesn't move, Shiro continues showering happily, but is now joined by Hunk, whilst Pidge and Lance struggle against the pull of the water. When water fills the room, Lance enjoys it, Keith continues thinking whilst the rest are intrigued. The air blows through and Shiro removes his helmet, making the most of it. Keith stands next to him, still thinking and Hunk just stands, letting himself dry. Lance tries to use Hunk as a wall to protect himself. Meanwhile, Pidge struggles against the air flow and gets blown away.

As they wait for Pidge to decode the spore, Keith looks at the symbol on his dagger. Footsteps approach and Keith hides it under his pillow. The door opens.

"Keith, did you happen to see a mouse come through here? He has something of mine," Coran scowls.

"Uh... n-no," Keith stutters.

"I'll find you, Platt," Coran says, before turning, only to stop and smile, "If you need someone to talk to, I'm always here," Coran turns to leave.

"Wait, Coran! How do you feel about the Galra?" Keith asks, nervously, playing with his jacket's zipper.

"They are a race like any other. They only have a different culture. Their current emperor is the one who created the Empire and causing all the pain," Coran looks at Keith, unwilling to approach and make the boy clam up.

"Thank you," Keith smiles slightly.

Coran nods and moves on. Lance, who was waiting in the hallway, follows him.

"Coran! Do you think the Galra ever went to Earth? Is that possible? They would have taken it over, right?" Lance asks, once they are far from Keith's room.

"Oh, I think you'd know if the Galra were there."

"The Blue Lion was there. Did a Galra pilot the Blue Lion, too?"

"Why? Is something wrong?"

"No! The Blue Lion's with me and we're very happy together! Very happy!" Lance just casts a longing look down the hallways and Coran rests a hand on his shoulder.

"Guys! Check this out!" Pidge interrupts.

Everyone heads to Green's hangar. Hunk and Lance stare at the floating spore. Coran stands near them and away from Keith, who is still slightly on edge with the Altean. Keith looks over Pidge's shoulder and admires their work. Shiro stands behind Keith (him and Pidge acting as a barrier between Keith and their teammates) but spares a look at Pidge's work only to be completely overwhelmed and look back at the spore.

"Oh, oh! I've seen this experiment. But, question: Why do we need to get electricity from a potato?" Hunk asks.

"What? No, no. I was able to crack the 'sporse code,'" Pidge chuckles and everyone but Keith and the Alteans groan.

"What's 'sporse code'?" Keith whispers to Shiro.

"Morse code is an old human code. Pidge is making a joke. I'll teach you it, if you want," Shiro smiles gently and Keith nods, turning back to Pidge.

"I ran the bioluminescent pattern through a variety of code-breaking sequences, including this homemade virtual Turing machine. Of course, I had to make a few tweaks to the original design, because, obviously, there have been several advancements since he designed it. Although, you have to admit, Turing was a shining light in the world of science in an age when far too many were still," everyone starts to stare at Pidge.

"Pidge," Keith says, sternly (worried about the Olkari), causing them to yelp, "What does it say?"

"Oh, yeah. 'Under attack. Galra. Help.' And then, there are coordinates."

"It's a distress signal. Good work, Pidge. Get those coordinates into the castleship's navigation system," Shiro orders.