Chapter Text
Lance doesn't know why it smells like salt, because despite the seemingly endless lines of docked ships there isn't a single drop of ocean in sight. But the sea breeze is there–maybe it's ambiance, conducted by the synthetic atmosphere of the space station–and the vessels looming before him have a certain elegance about them that makes him think they might be better fit for the oceans back home.
There's adrenaline buzzing in his fingertips as they run over the map in his pocket, cold and brass but alight with some kind of old energy that he can't quite explain. There's no battery, as far as he can tell—nothing to explain the humming sound the sphere gives off if ever he catches himself in a silence still enough to allow it.
Not that he's much of a scientist anyways. He's not much of anything, really, just a kid from a planet in a dying star system with the incredible fortune to be in the right place at the right time. That’s why he's here in the first place, tailing after his mom’s colleague in search of people who are actually qualified to handle an archaeological find of this magnitude. Or whatever you call a legendary map to the biggest treasure trove in the known universe.
“Keep your eyes peeled, my boy!” Coran’s enthusiasm cuts through Lance’s awed daze, shocking him back to the present. It might be his first time visiting a station this large, but he shouldn't gawk like some nobody-tourist. “We’re looking for the Altean , remember. It should be around here somewhere…”
Lance groans. “Coran, we've literally been circling these docks for hours . I've seen that ship like, eighty times by now!” He points at a hideous forest green vessel branded the S.S. Iverson with a build more akin to a military tank than a space ship. “Are you sure we’re even at the right pier?”
Coran assures him they're in the right place with absolute conviction, sniffing with a little indignation as he does. Lance backs off reluctantly. Sure, he might not be some nobody-tourist, but he's not exactly some wealthy merchant or explorer either. He doesn't know his way around a space station like Coran (supposedly) does. Besides, he's better off sticking on Coran’s good side. It's only because of him that this trip’s even possible—Lance’s mom would've sooner grounded him for accidentally letting pirates destroy their house than send him off on some expensive, life-threatening adventure to who-knows-what corner of the universe on a potentially futile search for a treasure no one’s even sure exists.
All in all, it’s shaping up to be a promising voyage.
Coran runs ahead, turning another corner and scratching at his mustache, then straightens up like he’s been shocked. He props his hands on his hips and grins at Lance and, with a proud sweep of his arm, announces, “There she is! The famous Altean. Quite a sight, isn’t she?”
“ Finally, ” Lance groans, coming up around the edge of the building and, before he can follow up with an unimpressed quip about how a ship is a ship is a ship, he stops short, jaw dropping and neck craning to take in the massive space ship in front of him.
The sleek, dark wood of the hull and keel reflects the early morning sunlight so sharply it’s practically blinding, broken only by windows for the canons that peer out from the gunport. The rails are made from polished, lighter wood, and are carved into intricate spirals and patterns. The sails are tied at the moment, but the flag at the top is undoubtedly the crest of Altea, a planet long-since swallowed by its dying star in a solar system light years away from Lance’s own. The forepeak of the ship made in that planet’s honor is mounted with the stone statue of a beautiful maiden, allegedly the last proper Altean queen before the people abandoned their home for good.
“It sure does bring back memories,” Coran muses beside him. Lance had almost forgotten he was there. “You know I used to work on this ship, back before I got my own little star-cruiser and decided to settle down on your planet. I have to say I rather miss the old days; there’s nothing quite like braving the wide open void with a crew of your most trusted mates right along beside you.” He starts towards the ship, leaving Lance to catch up a couple seconds later.
“Why’d you leave it?” Lance asks breathlessly, trying to take in as much of the elegant sight that he can. Coran really wasn’t kidding when he said the Altean was a big deal.
Coran shrugs, an almost forced gesture that paints a better picture of his wistfulness than his words ever could. “Had to move on, I suppose. These old knees weren’t made for running up and down the masts all day, you know. Besides,” he adds, lighter, “I like your planet. It’s much easier teaching history when you’ve got an actual classroom!” He laughs, and Lance offers a smile.
They’re turning the front corner of the hull when the gangplank slams down in front of them, startling Lance clear out of his skin. He yelps and jumps back. Coran, on the other hand, just smiles pleasantly and folds his hands behind his back, waiting patiently as the thundering footsteps from up above manifest into an actual living being.
“Coran!”
To Lance’s immense surprise, a stunning young woman throws herself at Coran before she’s even fully made it down the length of the gangplank. Her arms wrap around his neck so tight Lance is momentarily worried she might choke him, but Coran’s hands come to rest gently at the small of her back, and after that the only impression Lance gets is that he’s intruding on something private.
“Captain Allura,” Coran says, pressing his chin into her shoulder. “It’s been quite too long.”
Lance has to clench his jaw to stop it from dropping, because that would be rude. This beautiful woman, with her flowing silver hair and just–just un-captain-like appearance is the owner of this ship? Now that Lance takes another look, she does have the Altean markings, and those pointy ears, and the fabulous hair that Coran assures him is absolutely a defining trait of the Altean people. And of course, he has no problem with a woman being the captain. He was just so sure, from the way that Coran described his culture, that they wouldn’t be the type to leave women in positions of power.
Then again, Altea is gone, and other planets can be remarkably influential in terms of progressivism.
Captain Allura unhooks herself from Coran and looks Lance up and down. “This is the young man you said found the map?” She asks.
Coran nods. “That’s him! The same boy whose mother let me stay with them when I first landed on Montressor. You know, I have to say Captain, the people there are just as welcoming as you insisted!”
Allura smiles at him. “I’m glad to hear it, Coran.” Then she turns to Lance. “My name is Captain Allura. I’m sure Coran’s told you all about my ship, and what we stand for. And you are?”
Lance grins. He can’t resist turning on the charm–it’s just part of the routine when it comes to dealing with pretty ladies, kickass space ship captain or not. “The name’s Lance,” he says, his words practically dripping with honey-coated flirtation, “but you can call me your future first mate.”
Allura’s face twists into something grotesquely like disgust. “Charming,” she says dryly. Then immediately, as if the exchange had never happened, her pretty face resets itself and she leads the way up the gangplank, gesturing for them to follow, and continues her introduction.
“I’m sure you fully understand the terms of agreement, for this voyage.” She says as she steps up onto the main deck, weaving her way fluidly through the bustling crew members. Lance struggles to keep up as the sea of bodies that parts for her swirls back into place in her wake, offering him no consideration. Coran seems content to get lost in the crowd, more or less disappearing for good as he hangs back to catch up with familiar faces.
“Sure,” Lance says, slipping between a drone and a large, crustacean-esque humanoid to catch up with her. “I take care of the map, you take care of the ship, and at the end of it all you get your funding for your school or whatever, while I grab the glory and the gold!”
“For the most part, yes,” Allura sighs, leading him up to the less crowded quarterdeck. “Though I must inform you now, this isn’t going to be a pleasure cruise, Lance. You will be required to pull your own share of weight around here. I trust you know your way around a ship?”
Lance shrugs. “I’ve flown a solar surfer or two.”
Allura makes a sound like she’s suppressing a sigh and shakes her head. “Very well. I’m putting you in the care of someone who knows enough that it should rub off on you.”
“Oh?” Lance says, catching up to her and suavely falling into step beside her. “So I won’t be spending all of my time basking in your company?”
Allura clasps her hands together with a dazzling smile and comes to a stop at the base of the mizzenmast, where a young man sits tinkering with the lifelines secured in a metal ring around the mast’s circumference. “Thankfully, no. Pidge,” she adds, calling the attention of the kid sitting at her feet. He looks up then and pushes up his glasses, blinking in confusion at the sight of the two of them.
He’s nothing impressive, is Lance’s immediate thought. He’s a scrawny little pale kid with a rough haircut and geeky glasses. There’s no muscle that Lance can see, no immediate sign that this guy’s anything special. He’s human for sure, but not the Montressor breed. As far as boys go, he’s definitely on the prettier side, even if his overall presentation could use some work. Not that Lance would ever say that out loud.
“This is Lance,” Allura continues, stepping aside to let Pidge size him up. “He’s the person funding this voyage. I’ve decided to leave him in your care for the duration of the journey.”
“I’m sorry, what ?” the boy says, at the same time Lance shouts “ Are you kidding!? ” with all the indignation he can muster.
“I figured you could show him the ropes, since he’s a novice when it comes to sailing ships like this, and I trust your abilities. Besides,” she adds, pretending that the growing looks of horror on both of their faces aren’t there. “You’re our head navigator and communications specialist. Surely you’re the most fit for the job of dealing with our passenger and his map?”
Pidge frowns and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can Lance cuts in.
“Captain Allura, I didn’t sign up for this to be handed off as some ten year old kid’s personal assistant.”
The boy’s irritated retort of “I’m fifteen!” goes unnoticed as Lance implores the captain.
“If you think I’m spending this whole trip changing diapers, the deal’s off.”
Allura waves a hand over her shoulder as she turns away. “It’s all the same to me. Your forfeit leaves us with the map anyways, according to our contract, and I’m sure we could find out some way to open it without your help eventually.”
Lance scowls helplessly as she walks off towards the stairs down to the main deck. When she finally disappears, he turns his frown on the navigator-boy behind him, who’s already gone back to what he was doing.
“Hey, don’t just ignore me!” Lance says. The kid–Pidge–looks up at him with an unimpressed expression. Lance crosses his arms. “What, you’re too good for me now?”
Pidge sighs. “Frankly, yes,” he says. “I really don’t have time to deal with some newbie right now.” He turns back to what he’s doing and pulls a knot tight. Lance notices that his fingers are covered in small cuts and calluses, the sort that match the kind Lance builds up in solar surfing season back on Montressor. “I’m not some rookie-trainer. I’ve got stuff to do.”
He’s apparently finished with whatever he was doing though, because he stands up and starts walking towards the stairs that the Captain disappeared down. Unsure what else to do, Lance follows quickly, his irritation building.
“Hey, I’m not that new,” Lance insists, forcing his way through the thickening crowd after Pidge. “I’ve been surfing for years, I know my knots. Plus my mom runs an inn back on Montressor, and I’m in charge of ship valet and upkeep.” Granted, they don’t get many ships of this caliber back in their tiny nook in the town (or any, really), but Lance doesn’t like being treated like an idiot.
“Here, that kind of experience earns you menial labor at best,” Pidge says, making his way towards the bow of the ship where another set of stairs leads down into the lower decks. Lance can’t help but let his eyes wander, trying to take in as much as he can of this ship even as he tries to stay bitter. “You’re here because you can open a map. Don’t get too ahead of yourself buddy.”
Lance snorts and follows him around a turn in the hallway. “Yeah, and you can, what, talk to people? Somehow I don’t get the impression that you’re the right man for the job.”
Pidge ignores that comment in favor of pounding on a heavy iron door. “Hunk, open up!” he shouts. Lance thinks he might be gritting his teeth. He decides to count it as a win.
The door clicks but doesn’t open, and Pidge pushes his way inside, not bothering to hold it open for Lance, who scoffs and pushes on the door with more force than necessary.
The room turns out to be something like an engine room, or at least a dumbed down version of what Lance had expected the engine room of a ship this massive to have. In reality, it’s practically a storage closet in comparison, with one bulky machine hooked up to pipes and cables as thick as snakes taking up most of the maneuverable space.
There’s a heavier guy kneeled in front of the machine within arm’s reach of the door with his head buried in a mess of wires and sparking electrical odds and ends. He doesn’t bother to back out of what he’s doing when Pidge announces their entry. Lance is starting to recognize a pattern with the crew of this ship.
“Wha–hey!” Lance yelps when Pidge suddenly pushes him further into the room. Pidge steps back with his hand on the doorknob, halfway out of the room already.
“Hunk, I’m gonna go calibrate the starboard defense system. I need you to babysit this kid while I’m gone.” And just like that, the door closes, and Mr. Communication Expert is gone with the wind.
Lance sputters at the heavy iron door. “Are you–is he serious? Who does that guy think he is, calling me some kid? I’m older than you! ” He adds, shouting it loud enough that he’s sure Pidge heard it down the hall.
For a second, Lance almost forgets he’s not alone. Then, the guy working on the machine sighs and backs out, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes and adjusting the (frankly stylish) headband that’s supposed to be holding it back. “Whew,” he breathes, wiping sweat and grease from his forehead. Lance takes that moment to appreciate that it is pretty hot in here.
The guy turns to Lance with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. He can be kinda difficult sometimes.” He pulls a cloth out of his pocket and uses it to wipe his hand clean, then offers it (the hand) to Lance. “I’m Hunk, head engineer and chef of the Altean. ” He says, his words tinted with a little bit of pride. Lance can see why. He has absolutely zero idea how to even approach the machine Hunk’s turning inside out. Mastering both engineering and the culinary arts? That’s something to brag about.
It’s also a plus that the guy’s way more approachable than Pidge. Lance grins and shakes his hand. “Lance,” he says. “Master skysurfer and owner of the one and only Flint Map.” Yeah… the pride there definitely sounds more like bragging. He’ll have to work on that.
Hunk’s eyes widen nonetheless. “No. Freaking. Way. Are you serious? Do you actually have the map?”
Lance grins and pulls it out of his jacket pocket. Repairs apparently forgotten, Hunk scrambles to his feet and reaches towards the bronze sphere without actually touching it. He makes an indecipherable wheezing sound and digs his fingers into his bottom lip. He gasps dramatically for air.
“ It’s the real thing. Holy crow, I can’t believe it. The real treasure map of pirate Captain Nathaniel Flint! The key to his treasure planet that nobody’s ever been able to prove the existence of–this might just be the most significant historical finding i-i-in-in centuries!” He laughs and takes a step back, pressing a hand to his forehead in disbelief. “How’d you find it?”
Lance grins and sweeps his arms, still holding the map in one hand. “That’s the beauty of it, man. I didn’t find the map–it found me.” He pauses for dramatic effect. As far as he can tell, Hunk doesn’t notice. “Just one day, out of the blue, BAM! Pirates, everywhere, all over my mom’s inn. There was some old guy on my roof who like, died in my arms when he handed it to me? But then he freakin’ evaporated or whatever so I don’t know if he was like a hallucination or what. Anyways, then the pirates showed up and man, did they want this thing bad. But the dead guy willed it to me, you know? So I couldn’t just let him down. The pirates decided to be jerks about it and burn down my house, so my mom and I packed up the fam and hurried on over to Coran’s. He’s chill. He’s letting us stay there while my mom tries to scrape the inn back together.” He hesitates for a moment, guilt inching up his throat as he thinks about his mom back on Montressor, hard at work with no one around to help her. He shakes the thought from his head. That’s why you’re here, idiot. You’ve gotta hurry up and find that treasure if you want things to change.
He pointedly leaves out the part where the dying man tells him to avoid the cyborg. Somehow, he feels like the likelihood of him encountering the cyborg old Billy Bones was talking about as opposed to running into any of the dozens of cyborgs employed in the space shipping business is too cosmically unlikely to warrant any actual concern.
“Wow dude,” Hunk says. “That’s so cool. I mean, not the stuff about pirates destroying your house. That sucks. But the rest of it is pretty neat.” He shoots a mournful glance over at his unfinished work. “The only kind of adventure I see these days is the mathematically precise journey of an electrical charge from a generator through an external electrical circuit.”
Lance hums sympathetically. “Still, you’ve gotta be some kind of genius if you know how to work all this stuff. Speaking of which, what even is this thing? It doesn’t look nearly big enough to be the engine for a ship this big.” He taps the machine with his toe.
“That’s because it’s not,” Hunk says matter of factly, dutifully returning to his work. “It’s actually–an Altean solar energy converter.” His voice breaks with effort as he wrestles with some unseen screw or bolt. “Back when Altea was still, you know, a planet that existed, they were really big on loving the environment and preserving ecosystems and all that. Apparently, they were some of the first ships to fully convert to solar sails, and had a battery life of up to three weeks!” Is that an impressive amount of time? Lance isn’t well-versed enough in ships to know.
Hunk backs out of the machine again and sighs. “Of course, now most ships run on quintessence, ‘cause that’s the most efficient energy source by far. Though I can’t really say much for its environmental friendliness. Would you pass me that wrench?” Lance obliges, and Hunk’s voice takes on a muffled, tinny note again as he ducks back into the machine. “I’m pretty sure that stuff gives off radiation, or something. Have you heard about the Galran-employee-complaint scandal?”
“Uhh…” Lance had to duck out of the way as Hunk threw the wrench over his shoulder.
“Right, well basically a bunch of employees of some quintessence refinery were filing complaints about health violations on sight, going on about rashes and an increase of work related accidents that the companies weren’t doing anything about. Apparently it turned into this big conspiracy where the government was knowingly putting its people in there with little regard for their personal safety. A lot of people don’t believe it, but I don’t know. You know how the Galra are. ‘Vrepit Sa’ and all that. Those guys would do anything for their emperor.”
“Yeah, sure,” Lance agrees, not really having followed most of what Hunk said. Hunk seems to realize this as he sits back on his heels, dusts off his hands and quickly apologizes.
“Sorry. Rambling, I know. Basically, this thing converts solar power gathered by the sails into energy that the generator can use.”
“Ah,” Lance says, understanding. “That’s cool. You’re pretty smart, man!” He claps Hunk on the shoulder and they exchange a grin. Yeah, this guy’s definitely easier to get along with than Pidge. Too bad he couldn’t get dumped on him instead.
Hunk finishes up with the solar converter soon after that, and suggests they head down to the crew’s quarters so Lance can claim a spot not too far from him before all the good ones are taken. “You can just hang out with me I guess,” he says, “since Pidge isn’t big on people. He’s not really a bad guy, he’s just like that, you know?”
Lance snorts. “Sure, I guess. Doesn’t mean he has to act like a jerk about it though. I mean seriously, why’d Allura have to pair me with him? Heck, why’d she have to pair me up with anyone?”
Hunk sighs. “I’m sorry man. Allura’s really about team-building, and you’re technically a part of her team now. Pidge has a busy schedule and he’s… sort of a loner too. She doesn’t like that. My guess is that it’s more about getting him to be more social than getting you to be ship-smart.”
Lance groans. “Seriously? I’m stuck working for some five year old because the Captain likes team bonding? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Hunk just shrugs. “Hey, if it works, I don’t knock it. The guys on the Altean are probably the closest group of people I’ve ever met. It’s like a family on here, and not just anybody’s allowed in.”
Lance supposes that has something to do with the ship’s historical significance and background, but he doesn’t comment. This is fine. It’s not like Allura’s going to be breathing down his neck forcing him to spend his every waking moment with Pidge. Hunk seems chill enough. It’ll be like working at the inn: handle the rude people during working hours, then talk shit about them as soon as he’s off the clock.
Lance sighs in defeat. “It’s alright, I can deal,” he laments dramatically. “This isn’t the worst the McClains have tolerated. I’ll just let him know who he’s talking to, and we’ll be set from there.”
Hunk groans and shakes his head, letting Lance know that that’s an exceptionally bad idea. But Lance is already moving past it, eagerly going on to ask Hunk about the barracks while he tries to push any thought of Pidge from his mind.
This trip is going to be his childhood dream come true. He’s not about to have it ruined by some five-foot-two gremlin child with a stick up his ass.