"Especially not when the Galra...basically had hostages."

"Well, if there was any kind of 'cooperate and we'll keep the prisoners safe' deal, I, uh. Don't think the Garrison took it. And, anyway, the Galra aren't the kind to bargain when they can just take what they want." 

Magini looks like she's considering something she doesn't want to be considering. 

"...Shiro, how much is at stake here, do you think? What happens, if the Galra get the blue lion?" 

"A powerful weapon, in the hands of a civilisation that already conquers and plunders alien worlds by the dozens? Nothing good." 

"Then - shouldn't some of us go looking for it now? While we have a lead that the Galra might not?" She looks around at the others, clearly unhappy about the idea. 

...Ami nods slowly.

(-Magini is avoiding making eye contact with her, and she understands why, now, and it hurts, but what could she possibly say?)

Shiro looks exhausted, but: "You might be right. I don't remember enough to say how close the Galra are to finding the blue lion; it could be anything from weeks to hours."

"Shiro, going out to those caves in the middle of the night sounds like something you'd have yelled at me for doing a couple years ago! And you have a concussion." He looks at Magini. "Weren't you saying he's supposed to rest or whatever?" 

She curls back up into a ball, but - letting other people make these decisions is how she got in this mess in this first place. 

"That's why I said some of us. Shiro should really stay here and rest, and one of us should probably here and look after him, but... I'm not going to get any sleep tonight anyways, and those caves are going to be just as dark on the inside in broad daylight, aren't they?" 

Do they not get it? Her voice rises. "Every hour we wait, we're risking letting an expansionist conquering empire get a weapon that they care about enough to send a warship on a yearslong search for it! Why doesn't that terrify you?" 

Keith opens his mouth, an indignant response on the tip of his tongue, but Shiro cuts in first.

"Magini...I appreciate that you want to help, but this isn't your responsibility. You're just kids—smart kids, sure, but this shouldn't be on your shoulders. I'm a Garrison officer; I swore an oath to defend planet Earth, which includes all of you. I'm not letting any of you put yourselves in danger while I stay behind. That's not an option."

"But - that doesn't - " but her words fail her, and so she finds herself looking at Ami, begging the older girl for help.

??? Magini wants her to - think, Ami, think...

(And then in a jolt, she remembers... a line from a show that Magini had shared with her, a few months ago, before they'd first intercepted the Galra signals. Magini said it had been a favorite of her and her friends'. It went something like...)  

"I think what Magini is trying to say is that - in this situation, none of our formal responsibilities matter? The only thing that can matter, with this much at stake, is doing what we can to keep the Blue Lion away from the Galra. Is that right?"

Magini's eyes widen in surprise, but she nods.