Sven sat up in bed. It was a little past midnight and he had gone to bed right after he had talked to Lance. But his eyes glowed a reddish color briefly before going back to their regular gray. He put his feet on the floor and stood, his sheets dropping to the floor. They saw the interior of Sven's room through his eyes on Hagar's crystal ball in her laboratory. She had taken over his mind as he slept with the intent of stealing some vital information from the Castle of Lions' computer. He was the perfect spy as he wasn't suspected of anything, being almost as perfect an officer as Porterfield. Hagar guided him out to the corridor, their minds having melded and were now one. She could control all his movements as well as acquiring all the information he kept in his head. Everything that made up the man was hers for the taking and to be used whenever she pleased.

He pulled on his civilian clothes, dark blue trousers and a white shirt, and walked unblinkingly down the corridors towards Castle Control.

"Hagar!" Zarkon yelled, his image appearing before them.

"Yes, Sire?"

"Please tell me that you're actually getting something done right now," he said, obviously very ill-tempered despite the party they could hear was going on behind him.

"We're in the castle, sire, getting the information that you desire."

"Their shield frequency?"

"Yes."

Zarkon smiled. "Good. Don't fail me, Witch, or suffer the consequences."

He went back to his party and Hagar returned to Sven who was just standing in the middle of the corridor while she had been talking. She had him move again and he made his way to Castle Control. As Hagar guessed, the room was in total chaos as various Arusian soldiers moved to and fro, sending out supplies and making repairs. He moved among them, hardly even noticed and managed to secure a console in one corner of the room away from prying eyes.

Hagar searched his mind for the access code and cackled when she found it. Lotor paced back and forth impatiently, his eyes never leaving the crystal ball. He stopped when Sven began typing in the code and held his breath, waiting for the screen to start listing what they needed. Instead...

Access code denied...Access code denied

"WHAT!!!" he yelled. "Hagar, what is the meaning of this!"

"They must have changed it while he was gone," she replied.

Sven whirled on his heel to make a fast getaway and nearly ran head-long into Keith. The Voltron captain was looking at Sven strangely and then suspiciously after glancing at the flashing red screen behind him. He had come out of the Conference Room after his communicator beeped, telling him of a failed security breach, to see who was the culprit.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "You're supposed to be resting."

"I--I..."

"Think fast, Witch!" Lotor prompted.

"I wanted to do something to help," Sven replied. "I was getting tired of lying around."

Keith appeared to want to say something, but instead clamped his mouth shut and put a hand on his friend's back to propel him towards the door.

"Get some rest, Sven, and I'll get you tomorrow morning to do some tasks. There's a pile of paperwork you could tackle for me."

"But I want to do something useful!"

"Believe me, paperwork is very useful. Come on, I'll walk you back to your room."

"BLAST IT!" Hagar cried, smacking the crystal ball with an opened palm. "We need the new access code!"

"Focus, Hagar," Lotor said. "Don't blow our cover now."

She forced herself to listen to whatever Porterfield was saying, but only answered in monosyllables and made Sven sound disinterested. For his part, Keith didn't appear to take any offense, chalking up Sven's attitude to disappointment since he couldn't stay.

"Do you think I could have the new access code?" Sven asked.

Keith hesitated. "Since you're not in active duty, I don't think it's a good idea. Besides, you don't really need it. You only need the code if you need something top secret, nothing for the everyday running of the castle. "

"Oh."

"They found Gwen and Morgan," Keith said when they reached Sven's quarters, his tone changing to one of quiet relief. "They're alive."

"That's great," Sven said flatly.

"Who are they?" Lotor asked Hagar.

"Commander Branegan's sister and her daughter," Hagar replied.

"Be more enthusiastic then!"

"That's wonderful!" Sven said, his face lighting up.

Keith looked at him strangely. "I think you really need some rest. I'll get you when Lance wakes up. I tried to wake him up when I found out, but he was too drunk to even know what I was saying."

"You let me know then," Sven said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Keith watched as his friend walked into his room. He scratched his head unable to shake the feeling that something was off.

What if Romelle is on the enemy's side and Sven is in on it with her, he thought. But I still have to give Sven the benefit of the doubt. I've known him too long to turn on him like this.

He shook his head and made his way back to Castle Control. Allura was just on her way out the door was he was coming back in.

"I thought you had gone to bed," she said.

"Not after what you told me," he said gravely.

"I was just about to get something to eat. I can't ignore my stomach anymore. Care to come along?"

"Sure."

They walked to the kitchen. Allura shoved her hands in her pockets and looked sideways at him.

"I'm going to propose an Emergency Alliance Meeting," she said. "We have to talk about this GG business as well as new plans for defense. And I want it here."

"I don't think we have the resources to pull off something like that."

"We have the strongest planetary shield in the Alliance," she said. "The only other place we can go to is Earth, but I don't think that the other leaders would want to go there since that's where GG is and we can't trust anyone there right now."

"You do remember that we're GG officers," Keith said dryly.

"How sad for you."

They reached the kitchen and in well-practiced movements moved about gathering their food. Too many nights they'd done this and it was more a habit now more than anything.

"I think we can do this," she said when they were seated at the table. "We've got the Lions as well as the ground shield. I can't think of another planet with better defenses than ours even though we're not even completely whole yet."

Keith stirred his coffee. "It's a bad idea. We can't have all these leaders in one place at one time. Zarkon is definitely going to take advantage of that."

She tapped her finger on the table top. She had considered that, but couldn't think of any other alternatives. She knew Keith would however.

"Have a conference call," he suggested. "We'll secure a line and use up all the monitors in Castle Control. It's not full-proof, but it's safer."

Allura nodded. "I want Pidge and Hunk working on that line as soon as possible. I'll have Coran send out word that all Alliance leaders are to go to a certain frequency the day after next and we'll talk about this situation. But isn't it too much to talk about over a line whether or not its secured."

"Yes, but your options are very limited right now."

"True."

Suddenly, Keith's communicator beeped and Pidge patched through.

"We just got word that Gwen DeSouza and Morgan are coming here," he told them.

"What? It's not safe for them to be traveling!" Keith cried, standing.

"Gwen insisted on it," Pidge said. "Should I send out an escort to meet her?"

"Yes."

"Take Green Lion and a squadron," Allura said.

"Aye-aye," Pidge said.

Keith closed the link and sat back down. "Lance is gonna wake up to some surprise."

"That's an understatement."

"So, are you going to go ahead with the conference call?"

Allura nodded. "We have to talk about this or else the Alliance is going to split. We have to rebuild some kind of trust because this has sure shot whatever trust we had to hell."

Keith moved to call Hunk, but Allura grabbed his communicator.

"After we eat," she said. "This is the only free time I've had in two days, Keith. Let me just sit and rest for a little while."

He looked at her, seeing the new lines on her face and the dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she'd lost ten pounds in two days as well as ten years. He nodded and took the communicator from her, pocketing it.

"Sure, Allura."