One

     "KEITH AKIRA KOGANE!!!!!"
     "Uh-oh…" Lance blinked as Nanny's voice shrieked over the intercom in the lounge. Nanny never used anyone's full name unless she was hell pissed. Keith rolled heels-over-head from his upside-down position on the couch, and made haste to the control room.
     When he arrived, Nanny was doing her best to climb into Coran's arms, and the old cat was doing his best to not be crushed by the weight of the bellowing catwoman, who was wildly swinging her broom at the writhing silver shape on the floor. Her eyes focused on Keith, glowing with rage.
     "GET THAT MONSTER OUT OF HERE!!!!"
     The "monster" opened it's jaws and hissed angrily at her as the broom got too close. It reared back, fangs dripping. Keith, dodging the swinging broom himself, quickly grabbed the cobra around its hood and body. The snake thrashed for a moment, then recognizing its handler's grip, calmed, hood closing. Nanny slumped against the console with a sigh, trying to catch her breath as the young wolf comforted his obviously shaken pet, looping it around his body. Coran got his attention by clearing his throat.
     "I thought we agreed that if we let you keep that thing, you'd keep it locked up TIGHT."
     "Sorry," Keith grinned sheepishly, "I cleaned her cage this morning and… must have forgotten to lock it. She probably came here looking for me… followed my scent trail."
     "It could have BITTEN us!" Nanny accused.
     "You scared her!"
     "WE scared *HER*?" She gasped. Coran half-chuckled, seeing the look on Nanny's face. Keith continued to soothe his still agitated pet.
     "I'll go put her away and make sure the cage lock is secure this time, okay? It'll never happen again. I promise."
     "It does happen again, I'm afraid you will have to get rid of her. All right?" Coran gave him a stern, patenal look.
     "…………"
     "Keith…?"
     "Okay. It won't happen again."
     "It had better not!" Nanny waved the broom at him, making the snake hiss again. Keith stroked her head, feeling the coils of her body tighten around his ribs.

     "There. No more escaping, okay Buto?" Keith looked into the white cobra's gold eyes as he secured the lock. She was an intelligent animal, and fairly empathic to her owner. The quill-like scale on her hood and on her eye ridges rattled against each other as she coiled around herself, eyes still staring into his midnight blue.
     Tellarian cobras were certainly different from Earth ones. On visiting that world, the snake had decided to make her home in Black Lion's cockpit, and the young Commander hadn't even noticed until they were halfway back to Arus after their mission. A few moments were spent tensely waiting for the snake to make her first move. Knowing only Terrestrial cobras, Keith was surprised as she sniffed at him, then butted her head against his hand affectionately. It was kind of downhill from there. Well, once he got past the speedbumps of Nanny and Coran.
     Sighing, he got up from the cage, and looked around his room for a moment. Boredom set in too quickly when you were sixteen, and as far as he knew, he had done everything he was supposed to already that day. That meant the rest of the hours were his to do as he pleased.

     Lance had declined his offer to bring out Red for a bit of joyriding in favor of a long, languid nap, so Keith went solo. Without a sparring partner, he found himself in upper orbit over Arus, just enjoying the silence. One of the reasons he became a space explorer was because of his fascination and appreciation of the beauty of a starfield. That and he had an insatiable curiosity about everything in the natural and unnatural world.
     He allowed the natural sounds of space to lull him. The dull hiss of solar winds filled his ears, and he didn't fight the desire to sleep, slumping down in his seat, hands folded across his stomach. He hadn't even closed his eyes before all his systems went haywire, alarms blaring. Keith nearly fell out of his seat in his rush to sit up and see what was going on.
     "What the hell, what the hell…?" Some of these readouts were off the scale. Black Lion's external temperature was rising rapidly due to a dramatic increase of the solar winds. His eyes went wide as the stars in front of him began to buckle and sway like the horizon on a hot day. He'd only heard about disruptions in time-space, never actually seen or felt one. It made him dizzy to watch as he tried to move his lion to a safer vantage point. Before he could, the stars seemed to lurch forward at him, glowing like a thousand suns together. He yelped, and shielded his eyes with his arm until the light faded.
     He looked up with his dazzled eyes just in time to leap a fast moving object. He cursed as his lion rocked violently as it was caught in the wake of the phenomenon… that was headed straight for Arus.

---