Lion’s Last Roar
Part One
By Cheezey
“So, what do you think, Prince Lotor?” the witch Haggar asked of the younger ruler of Doom expectantly as they stood in front of the confined robeast in her laboratory. Although the witch had come up with many ingenious designs of the cybernetic creatures over the years, the one in the bio chamber was of a novel and more advanced design than any she had come up with prior. That particular design was one that had been in the works for weeks, but between the recent political nonsense between Lotor and his father King Zarkon, attacks by the Galaxy Alliance, and the additional distraction of Queen Merla’s sudden defection and return to her home world, development on it to even a prototype stage had been somewhat slow.
Fortunately, matters had settled down in recent days. Lotor had returned and reconciled with his father, and the Arusian-based Voltron Force was rather quiet after having been embarrassingly duped into wasting their resources destroying a false planet Doom. Relative order, at least as much as there ever was on their world, had returned to the point where Zarkon was comfortable enough to take a trip off-world to “take care of business,” as he had called it before he left with some of the robotic and military staff. Although Haggar was rarely glad to see her favored leader leave, she was pleased with the chance to proceed with her wicked work without distraction. As a bonus, the reformed Queen Merla had not returned to Doom, and as someone who had never been a fan of the arrogant Seventh Kingdom queen even before her sudden change of heart to goodness and light, Haggar did not mind her absence in the least.
Lotor eyed the bound creature in the bio chamber carefully. In its un-amplified size, it was still an imposing sight with its armor-scaled arms and glowing red sensor eyes, the latter of which formed a crown around its head so the robeast had a full 360-degree line of sight. Additionally the circular scales on its arms and legs, Haggar had just finished explaining to the prince, held coiled-up tentacles that would be released during battle. Those tentacles were made of a semi-liquid, highly conductive metal and bio-matrix blend that could merge and form thicker, stronger appendages, or split into many thinner ones to entangle an enemy craft as if in a web or net. The tentacles were also hooked at the end for additional grip and electrified with lazon-powered bursts that would ideally short out and destroy any craft it caught, or kill any living being in their grasp. The witch was proud of the design and felt a measure of confidence that even Voltron’s famed blazing sword might not be able to slice through them all, since they had one other advantage—the matrix from which the tentacles were constructed was connected by electrical impulse to the main part, and a severed piece could still do damage if it was within close enough range to receive the transmitted signal from a neighboring chunk of metal to work in harmony with it.
The last, and the witch’s personal favorite, aspect of the robeast that Haggar felt would make it an especially deadly foe for Voltron, was its advanced AI. In the past, her robeasts had used the standard AI their robots were programmed with, or they were sentient creatures that had been transformed into robeasts and retained that awareness. The AI of that robeast, however, was completely different. It had been obtained from a rather unique life form native to a planet that Doom had a contract with, the same planet that manufactured their robotic sentries for them, a world called Robear. The planet was populated by a civilization of robotic bear-like creatures that could best be described as the living link between machine and flesh. Their base was metal, and their biological processes—or the equivalent—were inorganic, yet they were sentient and mirrored the characteristics of typical biological creatures, including growing tufts of a fur-like substance on parts of their frame.
It was from a Berbil that Haggar had taken the AI for her robeast. Of course, since Doom was on peaceful trading terms with the planet, she had acquired the creature through ill means, but the creatures, despite their advanced construction, were peaceful by nature and hence rather weak and easy to overpower. It had been simple enough to obtain one, especially since there were individuals in Doom’s first circle of nobility that dealt directly with the Robear contracts. One noble in particular had a number of them staffing her estate, so Haggar had not even had to leave Doom itself to get the unfortunate test creature. She merely had to pay a mercenary to obtain it for her, one that would be disposable if caught, and the common soldier in need of a significant sum to pay off a debt in exchange for his services had worked out nicely enough.
From beside the old witch, Lotor evaluated the beast silently for several moments before turning to her to give his opinion. “It looks hideously vicious, but then again, so do all your creations,” the prince told her. “One might think that you model them after yourself.”
The witch’s eyes darkened with insult. “Only in that they are dangerous if provoked, Prince Lotor.”
“Hmm,” Lotor said thoughtfully, brushing off the sulky threat in her tone as unimportant. “Well old witch, if what you say is true, then this robeast might give Voltron a run for his money. If we could put even one of the lions out of commission permanently with it, it would give us a great advantage. You’re certain that it’s ready to be taken into battle?”
“As ready as I can call any beast that hasn’t been completely tested at its full size,” the witch assured him. “But it has performed well in this form, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t at its optimized state.”
“Fine then,” Lotor said, drawing himself to an authoritative posture. “Make the preparations for it at once. We will head to Arus and launch the attack as soon as possible.”
* * *
Several hours later, one of Doom’s most powerful battleships, the Drikelm-Skor, entered Arus’ airspace. Prince Lotor was in command of the craft and the mission, and accompanying him were the witch Haggar and fleet commander Cossack, as well as a host of robots. “We’ve been scanned and detected by a signal originating in the Castle of Lions,” one of the robots at the console announced. “Defense shields raised.”
“Good, let them see us and fire,” Lotor said nonchalantly. “Let them waste their energy firing at us so that this robeast can lay waste to that castle and those miserable lions.”
Another robot turned around. “Incoming transmission!”
Cossack walked over to the console. “Don’t stand there looking stupid, tin-head, put it on screen already.”
The robot did as ordered and a moment later the face of Coran, the Castle of Lions’ diplomat, filled their central monitor. The Arusian man had a stern look on his face as he regarded those on the bridge of the invading battleship. “Invading vessel from planet Doom, this is your first and only warning. Leave our airspace immediately or we will be forced to assume your intent is hostile and start an attack.”
Strutting to the center of the floor, Lotor faced the monitor arrogantly. “You don’t need to assume anything,” the prince replied confidently, “because our intent is hostile!” He glanced over at his companions. “Cossack!”
The blue-skinned commander looked up with an eager and vicious grin on his face. “Yes, sire?”
“Show our friends on planet Arus exactly how hostile we intend to be with a few choice welcoming blasts.”
“As you wish, sire,” Cossack agreed with a nod, and with the help of the robots at the panel, released a barrage of laser fire at the Castle of Lions below and its surrounding grounds.
On the other end of the transmission, Coran gasped audibly, but then regained his stern countenance with a measure of controlled anger. “You have given us no choice. Prepare to face a counter attack.”
With that the screen went blank, and Haggar giggled wickedly. “Oh, I thought they’d never ask!”
Cossack looked up from the console. “They’re firing their turret guns back at us and raised their shields, but nothing’s getting through to us.”
Lotor nodded. “Good. Keep drawing their fire, while Haggar releases her new pet.”
“Right away, Prince Lotor,” Haggar agreed. The hooded figure quickly exited the bridge to deploy her robeast, and a moment later a coffin-shaped vessel came out of the side of the Drikelm-Skor carrying the witch’s creation. Haggar herself remained behind in the battleship, but by the shuttlecraft bay where she could channel her magic directly to the creature once it climbed out. Although the battleship had the means to magnify the beast itself, she wanted to add her own personal touch to that robeast. It was a prototype and as one she had put a lot of effort into, it was a creation she was proud of.
A robot at another console spoke up as it read the signal of five incoming enemy crafts of a distinctive—and to those on Doom, notorious—shape. “Incoming lions, Prince Lotor!”
“Wonderful,” Lotor said with a cruelly pleased grin. “They’re coming at us with such energy. That Voltron Force has certainly become trigger-happy these days. One might even be able to argue that they’re the warmongerers.” Of course, Lotor was well aware that Arus had every reason to assume hostile intent from Doom, but why quibble over details?
“They didn’t have much of a problem blowing up your fake asteroid Doom, that’s for sure,” Cossack agreed from his seat at the control station. “So much for their high and mighty moral preaching. It’s enough to make you lose your lunch, I tell you.”
Lotor nodded. “Indeed. Now it’s our turn to make them lose theirs. Let’s shake up them up a little.” He lifted the communicator piece and addressed the witch awaiting his orders. “Haggar, release the robeast.”
The witch answered with a cackle, and a moment later, the robeast emerged from its coffin. Immediately one of the robots, already quite familiar with the procedure, fired the ship’s enhancement beam on the creature, while Haggar concentrated her own magical energy into the beam to magnify its strength. Cossack meanwhile kept the ships weapon systems firing heavily on the Castle of Lions below.
“The castle’s defenses are at 67 percent,” one of the robots reported. “Our shields are still holding at 54.”
“That robeast better get those lions’ fire off of us soon or we won’t hold out long at that rate,” Cossack pointed out.
Lotor frowned irritably at the commander. “Yes, fool, I know that. I can do the math,” he snapped. “Frankly I’m surprised you can.”
“Just keeping you on top of things,” Cossack grumbled back, mildly irritated at the insult, as he concentrated a blast on the central tower of the Castle of Lions. He was pleased to see that a portion of the energy did some damage, even if it was more cosmetic than structural.
The sound of high-pitched, wicked laughter filled the speakers of the room, followed by a clearly delighted announcement from Haggar. “My pet has gone off to play with the lions!”
Grinning confidently, Lotor strode closer to the monitor. “Put it on screen. Let’s watch this little show.”
Immediately a robot pressed a button and the image of the skies around them filled the large monitor of the battleship. All five lions were out and engaged in battle with their main ship and the smaller ships that accompanied it, but had just flown back to regroup when they saw the hideous monstrosity that Haggar had set loose upon them. It charged at the lions mercilessly, aiming first at the closest lion, which happened to be the red one, and with a roar snagged its leg in a snare of liquefied cables.
“He exceeds my expectations,” Haggar noted with a vicious gleam in her eyes as she returned to the bridge.
“He’s performing well so far,” Lotor agreed, “but the battle isn’t won yet.”
Cossack glanced over, noticing that the yellow and blue lions were in the process of trying to free the red lion from the cables. “As long as we keep those lions tangled, and they can’t form Voltron, we can pick them off one by one.”
Haggar nodded. “It will be easier for us if Voltron never gets formed.”
“Then he won’t be,” Lotor asserted, and picked up the communicator, keying in the frequency to broadcast directly to the robeast. With a ferocious growl the prince of Doom ordered, “Tear that red lion apart!”
* * *
On the opposite end of the battle, the Voltron Force was not feeling nearly as optimistic about the whole situation. Struggling fruitlessly to break free of the robeast’s cable hold, Lance winced in pain as a lazon-powered shock tore into the body of the lion, through the console, and into his body. “This thing is trying to fry me,” he snarled, shaking the sting off his hands for a moment. “If you’ve got any tricks for cutting me free, now’d be a good time to try them.”
“What the hell is that thing, anyway?” Hunk demanded from over in yellow lion. “I’ve sliced and burned through more tentacles than I can count, and it just keeps making more.”
“We’ll get you free, Lance,” Allura told the red lion pilot reassuringly, although her voice was not without a noticeable measure of concern. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You’ve got that right,” Keith agreed, and brought the black lion around to a position where it was in a better position to attack the robeast’s head. “Pidge, you and I will concentrate our fire on this thing’s head. If we can short it out, it might disrupt whatever’s controlling those cables long enough for yellow and blue lions to break him free.”
The green lion was at the black lion’s side in a second. “You got it, Keith!” Pidge replied. Immediately the two opened fire on the robeast’s back, flying in at opposite angles.
The robeast’s reaction to the attack was not as the Voltron Force intended. While it did respond to the assault from the black and green lions with an intense burst of laser fire from its eye crown that seared into the airspace above it, causing both attacking lions to evade to avoid the full brunt of the blast, its grip and attention to red lion and its assisting lions did not waver in the slightest.
A second and more powerful shock ripped through red lion, causing Lance to scream out in pain. Red lion thrashed helplessly, clawing and spitting liquid fire all around in a last-ditch attempt to melt the tentacles, but to no avail.
“Damn it!” Hunk swore angrily.
“Since when did these things learn to multi-task so well?” an equally upset Pidge asked. Although the youngest member of the Voltron force’s voice was calmer than Hunk’s, it was evident to all of his teammates that he was just as agitated and worried as the more vocal Hunk.
Keith growled as he returned fire on the creature, targeting its eyes to try and diminish its crown-laser attack. “This thing doesn’t operate like any of the robeasts I remember. It’s like it’s thinking on its own, but not like when we fought ones like Prince Avok or that Haggar transformed. Almost like it has better concentration.”
“I think it is a machine,” Allura offered. “It doesn’t even resemble any creature I’ve seen on any of the planets we know of, even as a mutated version.”
Slicing through a few of the cables on its torso with a recently freed front claw, Lance growled as he shook off a piece of the molten tentacle, already reforming into its hardened gripping form. “I’m no expert, but that’s gotta have the most advanced AI I’ve seen yet.”
“I hope Doom didn’t acquire something like that for all their forces on some planet they acquired,” Keith said worriedly. “Otherwise we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Pidge flew down alongside the robeast at high speed, trying to slice it with one of the green lion’s mouth-knives. “I sure would feel better if we could form Voltron and take this thing on.” He glanced at the monitor showing the heavy assault the Castle of Lions was under from the attacking battleship. “I don’t know how well the castle defenses will hold without us to draw the fire.”
Hearing the castle mentioned, Allura glanced at her monitor and felt a stab of heartache when she saw the damage the castle had already taken. Without the lions to disable the attacking ship, it was slowly falling under the heavy fire from the Drikelm-Skor. While the Castle of Lions was a fortress that could withstand a forceful assault, it would not hold forever, and she knew that Lotor had likely studied the castle’s structure, defenses, and limitations prior to attacking, and had sent a force that could appropriately deal with it while the robeast distracted kept Voltron and its lions’ hands full. “That’s all the more reason to break free and form Voltron as soon as we can,” the princess said, a hard and determined edge to her voice.
Lance grimaced as another shock went through the red lion, although not as violent as some of the prior ones had been, as he had successfully freed all but its back right leg, and with fast enough movement and enough fire blasts, had managed to keep the rest of its limbs from being re-ensnared. “If you guys can cut my ass loose, we can be up and forming in no time. I’ve got as much power as I can set to thrusters as soon as I can switch over. Just cut the cord and I’m gone.”
Over in yellow lion, now more occupied with trying to keep itself from the trapping grip of the lazon tentacles of the robeast rather than able to do much for Lance, Hunk sent an elemental attack at a thick stream of the liquefied metal that lunged toward yellow lion’s neck. “I’m all for that, just give me a second. This thing seems to be getting friendly with me now.”
Aggressively and decisively Princess Allura pushed the blue lion forward. “You just get yourself out of there, Hunk. It hasn’t paid me much attention yet. I’ll free you.”
“Be careful, Princess,” Keith’s voice warned over the speaker as he expertly guided black lion out of the way of more eye-crown fire. He had disabled a few of its sights and while the going was slow, the Voltron Force captain took that as a point of victory nonetheless. “Don’t gamble too heavily that Lotor won’t want to see you hurt. Remember what believing he changed got us the last time.”
“I don’t trust him, but I do have the advantage regardless. Don’t worry about me, Keith!” With that Allura sent the blue lion charging headlong into the fray, its mouth open in a powerful roar, and sank its teeth directly into the cables holding the red lion’s foot hostage.
The sharp metal tore through the cables easily, almost liquefying them beneath the steel teeth, but as they had discovered earlier on in the battle the ease with which the tentacles were cut was quite deceptive. The red lion lurched high into the air immediately after being freed, and shook off all but a few remaining droplets of the liquid cable, which reformed in the air and came after him of their own free will, but those were easily dodged and subsequently targeted once in flight.
Hunk took that as his cue to pull back with the yellow lion, and he was already well on his way away from the beast when he called out to the blue lion. “Good work, Princess! Remind us not to get you to bare your teeth to us,” he said with a relieved smile that quickly changed to alarm when no answer was forthcoming, and the monitor on his console indicated that the blue lion had not followed him out of there as they had planned.
Pidge, too, immediately noticed what had happened with the princess. From the green lion’s position underneath blue lion, near the ground dodging an onslaught of tentacles that sprang out of nowhere at him from the robeast’s lower legs after his earlier attempt to cut it open, he saw to his horror that the cables blue lion had chewed through with its mouth had melted inside it, and then reformed—effectively spilling into the interior of the craft and choking it from within. Before any of them could react, more tentacles sprang forth from the robeast, ensnaring the blue lion in a cable-net far more intricate than the one the red lion had just been freed from.
“Princess!” Pidge exclaimed, his young eyes wide in horror.
“Allura, can you get out of there?” Captain Keith’s voice was not without its own measure of alarm, an ominous sign in and of itself for one who tried so hard to keep a cool head even when things were dire.
Hunk and Lance’s reactions were less innocent and eloquent. The former just growled in a mixture of fear and outrage for the princess and anger at those harming her, while the latter narrowed his eyes worriedly and cursed. “Shit!” The red lion pilot felt more than a shade guilty that it was saving his hide that had put her in such a position.
Allura’s only answer was a strangled cry of pain as the tentacles tightened their grip and the impulses of the beast’s lazon-shock attack poured into the trapped blue lion at full force.
* * *
Aboard the Drikelm-Skor, Prince Lotor’s expression went from smugly pleased to horrified outrage when he saw that it was blue lion being targeted and destroyed by his beast. “Witch!” he roared in fury, “what is your beast doing?”
“He’s attacking the lions as ordered, sire. He obeys your command,” Haggar replied quickly.
“You know that I don’t want the princess harmed!” Lotor’s tone held a surprising note of worry, especially as the sound of Allura’s pained scream came over the speakers. “Get your pet off of her now!”
“Why couldn’t he have just held onto red lion?” Cossack muttered from the panel. Still focusing his attack on the Castle of Lions, the commander was glad he had nothing to do with the robeast ordeal. As it was, he had the castle defenses down to an estimated 23 percent, but the battleship’s own shielding force field was only left at 28 percent. Slowly they were wearing the castle down, but it was going to be close.
Haggar frowned as she reached for the communications console, watching the image of blue lion sparking and struggling in the death grip the robeast had it in. Lotor snatched it from the witch before she could speak to it however. “Robeast! Stop attacking blue lion this instant!” Lotor snarled in a rage. “You are only to stun or stall blue lion, and the pilot is not to be harmed! Destroy the other lions!”
Its actions showing no heed toward Lotor’s command, the robeast tightened its grip on the blue lion and sent another powerful shock through it, that time intense enough to knock the princess unconscious. “Robeast, no!” the prince bellowed, his voice taking on an edge of desperation. “Stop!”
A mechanical voice replied over the speakers. “Command illogical. Destruction of the target is vital to prime instruction of prevent formation of Voltron.”
“I am the Prince of Doom, and I order you to stop! Now!” The boom of Lotor’s authoritative voice filled the bridge, powerful enough to make all of those present, living and robot alike, give pause.
“Order invalidated,” was the robeast’s calm reply. “Prime instructions must be carried out.” The robeast lashed more tentacles around the captive blue lion and began to tear as it electrified its prey, causing the metal of the lion to squeal and spark as its circuitry was violated and ripped. Meanwhile it continued to swat more tentacles and fire its eye-lasers at the four other lions that moved in with ferocity to try and free their captive fifth with little success.
“He’s not listening,” Haggar murmured, simultaneously awed and frustrated with her creation. “It must be the advanced AI. It’s thinking for itself enough to invalidate orders that go against its programmed instructions. Incredible!”
Wheeling around in fury, Lotor drew his sword and held it at the witch’s throat. “A robeast that thinks well enough to not follow orders is useless! Get it under control and stop it, old witch! If Allura dies, I assure you it will be the last thing you ever create!”
“I—I’ll try, sire,” Haggar agreed nervously, and took the communication unit in hand to address her rebellious creation. “Robeast, I am the one that gave you life. As your creator, I am changing your prime instruction to include not harming blue lion or its pilot. Release it at once!”
The robeast’s response made it clear that it was no more willing to listen to its creator than it was to its prince. “Alteration of prime instruction illogical. No tactical purpose served in saving enemy craft and pilot. Destruction imminent.” The creature began to glow with sinister intent as it powered up for a final and destructive lazon blast.
“It’s not listening!” With an angry snarl, Lotor went to Cossack’s side. “Take that robeast down, now!” he ordered, pointing his glowing saber warningly at the console. “I don’t care about the castle, I don’t care about the other lions! I do not want Allura harmed any more so than she has been already!”
Despite knowing how counterproductive it was to their own purposes, Cossack knew it would be more counterproductive to his status as a living and breathing being to point that out, so he only nodded obediently and did as the prince ordered. “Right away, sire.” He turned to the robots. “You heard him, tin heads, take it down. Divert whatever power you can to the shields so the Castle of Lions doesn’t blow us out of the sky, but don’t return fire until that robeast is out of commission.”
Lotor meanwhile ran toward the back of the craft.
“Prince Lotor, where are you going?” Haggar asked.
“To make sure that robeast goes down myself,” the prince replied as he ran out to the shuttle bay where he boarded his own smaller fighter craft held within. Just before he closed the hatch, he looked back at the witch in the doorway to the bridge. “You’d better pray to whatever gods you serve that the princess hasn’t met hers, or else you will be meeting yours when I return.” With that Lotor slammed the hatch shut and powered up his ship. Moments later it blasted out of the hangar bay into the fray of battle, bound for the captive blue lion.
* * *
Chaos unfolded in the open air of the battlefield on the other side as well. “She’s not responding,” Pidge said, his high voice clearly panicked and struggling to hold back tears. “Those cables are tearing her apart.”
“And we can’t get at them,” Hunk echoed. “Damn, damn, damn!” He slammed his fist on the console as he fired another blast at the tentacles holding blue lion, but like before, it only sent more to ensnare him and the ones he severed seemed to regenerate within seconds of being blown apart.
“There’s got to be some way to get her out of there,” Keith said determinedly.
“But how?” Lance asked, before noticing the new blip on his console warning him of incoming fire. “The battleship is firing on us! Look out!”
“Wait,” Pidge corrected from green lion. “That wasn’t aimed at us. They fired on the robeast.”
Keith glanced at his panel and noticed the approach of Lotor’s ship, and that it subsequently fired upon the robeast as well. “What the…”
“They’ve stopped firing on the castle,” Hunk confirmed. “It sounds crazy, but it looks like they’re trying to take it down too.”
“Think they lost control of it?” a puzzled Lance asked. “Or do you think Lotor actually came out because the princess was taking the heat? I know he claims to love her, but…”
Over in yellow lion, Hunk shook his head. “I have a hard time believing that.”
“Believe it or not, there he is,” Pidge confirmed with obvious surprise. “He’s fighting his own robeast!”
Lance raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we ought to let them take each other out.”
“Wish we could, but there’s no time for that,” Keith chimed in with a shake of his head. “The princess needs us to get her out of there, and if that means helping Lotor, then so be it.” He flew black lion into a position to give Lotor’s ship backup fire, stopping the tentacles lashing out at his ship as he melted the ones surrounding blue lion.
“What do you want us to do, Keith? Cover you or move in?” Hunk asked.
There was a moment of silence as Keith considered before giving his answer. “Go in if you can, but beware of the heavy fire. That battleship might be trying to take out the beast, but it won’t hurt any less if those lasers hit us. And you already know to stay clear of the tentacles.”
“Right,” the other three lion pilots replied in unison.
* * *
On the bridge of the Drikelm-Skor, Haggar stood next to Cossack, who had assumed command in Lotor’s absence as the next highest-ranking military officer. “Seems like such a waste to kill that thing,” the commander muttered, irritated that a battle that had been going so well was being tossed into the proverbial toilet over Princess Allura at Lotor’s command, as his robots targeted it and laid heavy fire into it, tearing its back open.
“It really was my finest creation, almost like bringing a robot machine to life,” the old witch mused. “If it had been any other lion, Voltron might never have formed again.”
Cossack surveyed the scene as a second explosion tore into the back of the robeast’s leg, causing it to stumble. “Maybe that’s not a lost cause… the blue lion was pretty damaged.” He glanced over at Haggar. “Let’s just hope that its pilot wasn’t, for your sake. I’d miss your ugly mug around here.”
“Your concern is overwhelming,” Haggar grumbled at the commander with clear sarcasm as a blast hit the battleship, causing the lights to drop and alarms to blare—signaling that the shielding system had reached a critically low level of 5 percent.
Knowing full well what the alarms meant, Cossack let loose with an impressive string of curses and turned toward one of the robots, which immediately gave the commander a status report. “Shields to 5 percent. Castle of Lions returning fire heavily. Robeast tentacles currently being deflected,” it informed him. “Estimation of deflector power loss within two minutes. Retreat and withdrawal recommended.”
Cossack cursed again, while Haggar gripped her staff tightly, full of unspent frustration and anger. “We were so close.”
“Ready the ship for a retreat and get us the hell out of here,” Cossack ordered with an equally aggravated sigh. He deployed a final barrage of fire both at the robeast and the Castle of Lions, more as a final act of figuratively giving them the bird with weaponry than as an actual tactical maneuver. The final shots from the Drikelm-Skor struck the injured robeast in the head, blowing it in half, and lowered the Castle of Lions’ shielding systems to 8 percent, but that was significantly more than they had left as the engines switched into high gear and pulled them back out into deep space.
When they were safely out of firing range and on their way back to Doom, Haggar sighed and slumped against one of the consoles. Cossack flopped into one of the chairs and folded his arms across his chest sulkily. “Well, that sucked.”
“My finest creation, and he ordered it destroyed. We had Voltron’s lions dead to rights.” She shook her head. “King Zarkon is right, he is a fool for that princess, a hopeless one. I just hope she isn’t the death of him.”
“Or you, if Pinky got hurt bad,” Cossack said with a thoughtful frown. “But she’s probably okay. Those lions seem pretty durable, unfortunately for us, so maybe in this case that’s a good thing. And Prince Lotor’s a pretty resourceful kind of guy. He’s gotten out of worse scrapes than that, and it looked like we pretty much had the robeast iced by the time we pulled out,” the commander finished with a slight note of optimism, and then shrugged. “I’m just not looking forward to explaining this to King Zarkon when we get back. I’m glad he’s off on some other planet for a few days.”
“Me too,” Haggar agreed with a second sigh. “Me too.”