The meeting room had the hush of a war council. A long oaken table dominated the space, flanked by holo-maps and a wall-screen that pulsed with energy readings. Blade leaned against the table, katanas crossed along his back, the unreadable look he often wore sharpening like a blade.
Voltron sat opposite, shoulders broad and still from armor, eyes the kind that belonged to a man who'd seen too many good-byes. Optimus filled the room with his presence as he entered.
"Boomer, the Tenth Great, will join us after he finishes some political business. Ian's on his way," he said, voice low and sure as the tide.
Ice King's composure frayed; he groaned, once, twice, an almost human sound that punctured the room's formality every few seconds. It was a small thing, but in the stillness of military orders, it sounded like an omen.
The door opened and Ian walked in, rain still clinging to his coat from the capital's evening sky. He took in the assembled faces—some familiar, some that held the weight of legend- and the room splintered into a taut silence that only commanders could make.
Blade, never one to waste fuel on politeness, straightened and smirked. "So where's my space yacht?" His tone was teasing, but under the banter lay a sharpened edge, his way of loosening the tension.
Ian's reply was blunt and dry, a small smile ghosting across his face. "You can buy your own space yacht, Blade."
Optimus's expression hardened into the blade of a plan. "Look," he said, leveling his gaze across the table so it landed on every man present, "we are the strongest in the STF. We alone are going to stop the Light and prevent further destruction."
He tapped the holo-screen. The image flared, a map of a system marked with glowing scars, cities reduced to blackened rings, planets in partial shadow. "As we speak, he is barrelling through cities and worlds. We have him on a run-on sight call. Tomorrow, we intercept him on the planet he's currently on." Optimus paused and let the weight of the words settle. "We go in heavy and we go in quick. No grand parades. No reinforcements that slow us down. Fast strikes. Precision kills. We disrupt his pattern, trap him, and cut off whatever is feeding him."
The room absorbed the plan like a held breath. Outside the window, the hangar lights threw long shadows over the frozen hull of the Fang; inside, the faces around the table each reflected a different part of the coming storm—resolve, fear, hunger for the fight, and the tired, steady courage of those who'd seen too much to be afraid of dying, but not enough to surrender. Ice King's groan came again, softer this time—less protest and more the sound of a man bracing himself.
Voltron's hands tightened on the table until knuckles paled.
Blade picked up his katanas by the hilts and tested their weight as if reading the future by the feel of steel.
Ian looked at each of them in turn. "We leave at dawn." His voice was small and absolute.
Outside, Tenrihines exhaled a millisecond storm that winked against the glass and then died. Inside the room, the STF's best men prepared to move as one. The meeting broke with a shuffled cadence, boots, the soft hiss of armor, low exchanges of last-minute strategy. The hatch opened and the Frozen Fang waited just beyond, a sleeping leviathan ready to be reborn under new hands. They would leave at dawn.