Young Writers Society

The templates are listed in the spoiler. Please delete anything in the parentheses! That information is there to help you create your character.

A sigh of defeat left her lips as she stared at her assigned reading for the night. No matter how many times she reviewed its contents, she couldn't understand what it was trying to tell her. Technology wasn't her forte. Micah was the expert on what made ships tick. And though she certainly saw the use for the information she had to study, she couldn't wrap her mind around how an engine was supposed to work.

She glanced at the clock. Curfew had already fallen, but the homework was due tomorrow and Micah was the one who could save her grades now. Sneaking out and getting to his room would be a difficult task, but it wasn't an impossible one. She had studied the layout of the building in detail when she had first come to the Garrison. Getting lost wasn't an issue. Avoiding the faculty might be, but she had to get a good grade on the pop quiz they were bound to get the next day.

She popped in her contacts before putting her sneakers on. Once she felt like she was prepared for what was ahead of her, she slid out of her room. She navigated the halls with ease. She knew them like the back of her hand. The one close call came when she heard a member of the faculty turning down the hallway she was in, but she hid herself in one of the unlocked classrooms. By the time that she finally arrived in Micah's hallway, her heart was racing and she felt a rush of adrenaline.

The door to his room suddenly opened. She ducked back into the hallway that she had just come from, pressing herself up against the wall as someone left it. It had to be a faculty member – why else would someone have gone in there at this time of night? – but she couldn't figure out why they would need to talk to him. When the footsteps sounded like they were going farther away, she peeked around the corner.

Micah was the one who had left the room.

Her first response was to open her mouth to call out to him, but then she heard someone else coming down the hallway that she was in. She closed her mouth. She didn't know where Micah was headed, but it looked like following him was the only way she was going to avoid getting caught.


She eventually found herself climbing up the staircase that led to the roof of the Garrison. The stars of the desert night sky twinkled above her as she took in the sheer beauty of it all. Sights like this were what had made her come to this school in the first place, though not many skies paralleled the wonder here.

She could have spent an eternity stargazing, but she needed to talk to Micah. He had some sort of technological array set up in his own corner of the rooftop, his mind focused on the sound coming through his headphones as she approached him. She lightly tapped him on the shoulder. She didn't want to startle him, but he gave a little jump in surprise as he spun around to face her.

“Hey, Micah.” She greeted her only friend with a wave.

He pushed his headphones back. “Cassie?” he questioned. “Wh-What are you doing up here?”

She sat down next to him. She understood how protective he was of his tech, so she wisely avoided looking at the screen – though she wondered what could have made him come up here in the first place. “I had some questions about the homework and wanted to talk to you about them. I sneaked out of my room. But by the time I got to your room, you were heading up here. So, um, what are you up to?”

He pointed at his laptop's screen. She glanced at the readings on it, but she couldn't understand what their importance was. When he realized that his explanation was lacking, he held out his headphones to her.

“I noticed some strange energy readings when I was in my room about a week ago,” he said as she slipped them on. “I came up here to get better data, but I've been hearing this all night.”

At first, she thought there was only static. But the longer that she listened to what was coming through his headphones, she started to hear a word being repeated over and over. Voltron, the stars whispered. She wordlessly handed the headphones back to Micah.

He looked up at the sky. “I think we're listening to aliens!” he confided in her. He was always enthusiastic when it came to anything scientific, and she loved seeing a smile spread across his face when he talked about.

She stared at him.

The grin faded. “You think I'm crazy.”

She frantically shook her head. “No, not at all! Something about what you're saying just seems right to me. I can't explain it-”

She was interrupted by a burning streak in the sky and sirens piercing the air. Both Micah and Cassie jumped to their feet as the loudspeakers announced that the school had been put on a lock down. A strange euphoria swept over Cassie as she realized that the streak in the sky was an alien ship. There was something incredibly familiar about it, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

The two of them stood there in silence for a long period of time. Cassie could barely believe what she was seeing. This didn't seem real, but, at the same time, it felt like it was meant to happen. She pulled her denim jacket closer to her and watched.

Micah rushed back to his computer as Garrison forces stormed the crashed ship. Neither of the two students talked while Micah worked on hacking into the cameras that they were beginning to set up. When they finally got visuals, they found themselves staring at the face of someone they hadn't expected to see.

There was a man strapped to a table. His clothes were ripped and were in an unfamiliar style. He looked as if he had been through some horrific ordeal. “America Imesson,” they whispered in unison. He had been lost on the Kerberos mission! How could he possibly be here now? He kept yelling about something called the Galra, but she was too shocked by him being inside a crashed alien ship to pay much attention to what he was yelling about. Then her shock turned to intrigue. Why weren't the Garrison workers taking his claims seriously? He was on an alien ship. If there was some alien race coming to Earth, wouldn't he know about it? They shouldn't be injecting him with tranquilizers.

“Something's wrong.”

Micah looked up at her.

She knew what she said next was impulsive and out of character, but leaving America there wasn't an option. Something didn't feel right. “We need to get in there and get America out. I just don't know how! They'll recognize us the moment we step foot in there, if we even get that far.”

Explosions suddenly went off from near the crashed ship. The two jumped in surprise for a second time, though they quickly understood what was happening when a hoverbike approached the now deserted building. “We have to help whoever that person is,” Cassie said.

Micah nodded in agreement.

Ione huffed, pushing the hoverbike to its speed limit. The second it was close enough to the ship she slammed the breaks, and the bike stopped nearly immediately.

Fighting wasn’t Ione’s favorite past time, so maybe she could distract the guards… Ione shook her head, grunted, and decided to just step in.

Parts of the ship were aflame, and she could feel the heat on her skin as she stepped inside it. There was no one in it. Ione scampered down the first hall, figuring out what was going on. The second hall she turned down had several guards protecting one door, and the minute they saw her, Ione knew she was in trouble.

Ione kicked each guard in the gut - enough for a split second of a distraction - and burst through the door. On the other side were three people with masks on - doctors? - and a young man strapped to a table. The doctors turn towards Ione, who is dead in her tracks.

“Hi?” Ione says, and gives each of them a light punch - enough to knock them out, but not enough to do any damage, She flinches as they fall to the ground.

Ione let out a breath of relief. A pang of guilt rang through her, but…

“America?” Ione whispered, touching his cheek. He appeared to be unconsious. She would need to carry him out here. She swallowed a lump in her throat. Pulling out a mini knife she kept, she sliced the straps that held her old friend down and lifted him up, just as two people came running in.

The slowed to a halt, gaping at Ione and America.

Ione stared at them. “Cassie? Micah?”

“Ione!” Cassie said, surprised.

We need to get out of here,” Micah pointed out.

Ione agreed, and lifted America up from the table. Micah rushed over to help her, and Ione was grateful she didn’t have to carry America out herself. The three of them, America being held, rushed out of the alien ship as fast as they could.

Ione led them to her hoverbike, and hopped on.

“Mind if we come along?” Cassie asked, and she and Micah hopped on the back of the back without waiting for a reply from Ione.

Ione didn’t care - she actually enjoyed the company. It was lonely without other students by her side. Ione fueled off energy and interactions with people. She loved it all. She missed it, too.

---

They reached Ione’s isolated home. Cassie and Micah hoisted America off the bike and brought him onto a bed while Ione quickly rushed inside, studying her plans. She had no clue what was going on.

Once America was settled in, Micah and Cassie joined her.

“Do you guys have any idea what’s going on?” Ione asked, a bit frustrated about her cluelessness.

Cassie gestured to Micah, who explained what they saw through the camera. “America was lost on the Kerberos mission and just crashed in this ship. When the ship crashed, the Garrison forces rushed onto it. America, at this point, was yelling ‘Galra’.”

Ione shook her head in disbelief.

“What’s all this?” Micah asked, a hint of curiosity popping up. He gestured towards Ione’s bulletin board with collections, drawings, and images of a lion in the cave.

“I’m not quite sure yet. After I got kicked out of Garrison, I was wandering around and found this cave. It had these weird images of lions on the walls. I’ve been working on it,” Ione explained, her eyebrows furrowed. She tapped her finger on her cheek.

“Did one of you hack the cameras on the ship?” Ione asked, finally figuring out how they were able to access the information. She couldn’t recall from Garrison, but she was sure one of them was an engineer.

Micah smiled shyly. “That was me.”

“Want to help figure out what’s with the lion?” Ione asked. She lacked information - maybe these two could help her. Maybe they could work together. Gosh, she missed people. She missed friends.

Micah squinted at the board. “I think I can make something.” Cassie raised her eyebrow, and Ione clasped her hands together with hope.

“I can probably build a small machine that will track alien equipment. I’ll have to…” Micah’s sentence trails off, and he rummages around Ione’s small house. She doesn’t have much, but he did bring along a few things.

Micah fidgets with parts and constructs something that resembles a mix between a cube and a disc - with some antennae and a blinking red dot. “I don’t know if this will work…” Micah says doubtfully, and Cassie shrugs.

“We can try it?” Cassie says, her voice turning up a bit into a question.

“You bet!” Ione says, grabbing her coat. As the three of them are getting ready to leave, they here rustling from Ione's room. America was sitting up in the bed, looking dazed and confused.

"What? Where am I?" America asked, squinting at the three of them. "Ione?" Ione waved at America. She glanced at the two Garrison students, and then they took turns explaining what was going on.

Kavros Gandari

The screen was still blank except for the dot. It was still blinking at the same rate. Like a sleeping heart. At times I wish it would wake up, just so I could investigate. Get out of the base. I leaned back in my chair, sighing. My ears picked up the sound of rapid footsteps in the hall and I looked over my shoulder.

"Rori!" A familiar voice shouted. The door banged open. Kalvax stood in the frame in all her purple, absurdly fluffy glory. "All's well in snoresville central?"

I sighed and turned back to the screen. "Kalvax, I working."

"Why do you think I decided to bust in here?" Kalvax slid into a chair next to me, spinning it in a circle. "Seriously. I don't know why staring at that dot hasn't driven you crazy yet."

"Because that's your job." I muttered, leaning my head in my hand and returned my focus to the blip on my screen.

"Aw, C'mon, Rori." Kalvax laughed as she continued spinning. "You gotta admit it's at least a little bit mind numbingly boring."

I shook my head a little. "Alright. It might be a little--" Something on the screen beeped. "Hang on..." I turned back to the dot. It was pulsing faster now, the light was more intense. There were four more blips on the screen.

"Get Kolivan!" I barked at Kalvax. "Tell him the blue lion has been found."