Chapter Text
Day 0
“Welcome to Project Hourglass.”
Lee looked up at the ship he would be spending the next few years of his life stuck on. It was a state of the art design, sleek and shiny and the envy of any officer.
A decade ago.
He trusted his superiors just enough to know they wouldn’t put him on a rust bucket liable to get him killed out in the vacuum of space. But the look of the ship before him, the Dragon , definitely gave him pause. Years ago, when he was just getting his feet wet with space dust, he’d have thrown a fit at this last-minute mission file making its way to his desk. Now… he’d take anything to get off this planet or the next.
Even this. Whatever this was. He hadn’t even recognized the name on the top of the page that had been heavily redacted. Frustratingly redacted. His boss said “Apex” was new. Newer than this ship, Lee knew that for sure.
Someone whistled low from beside him, having snuck up on Lee while he eyed each rivet he could see from this angle.
“A 10-N Titan class,” a man said, sounding impressed. “Talk about ‘tried and true’.”
“Definitely tried,” Lee muttered.
The man laughed and Lee looked over.
“Don’t always judge a book by its cover… Shaw?” The man glanced down at the name on Lee’s chest before looking back up. Without waiting for confirmation he continued, “You ever seen a book cover? A paper one?”
Lee blinked. “No.”
“Shame. They’re definitely something special,” the stranger said. He walked over to the luggage pile and tossed a full duffel on top before making his way back to Lee’s side.
“Dr. Miura?” Lee guessed, assuming the man’s bags meant he was the one joining him on this peculiar excursion.
The man shook his head and stuck out his hand. “William Randa,” he said pleasantly, a disarming smile on his face. “You can call me Bill.”
Lee’s hand reached out to shake Bill’s automatically even as he frowned. “Your name wasn’t in the file,” he said, displeased.
“Nope. I’m a last minute addition. Officially, they want my cryptozoology expertise for recon.”
“Unofficially?”
“They’re tired of listening to my theories and want me to prove myself wrong,” Bill said easily.
Lee eyed him warily. “Are you replacing the other guy?”
“No,” a new voice said.
Lee and Bill turned at the answer to find a woman walking past them and adding her bags to the pile, beside Bill’s. She spun to face the two men, arms crossed and unfazed by all the movement around them as all the last minute tasks were completed… very last minute.
Lee looked at her then behind and around her. “Where is he, then?”
“Dr. Miura?”
“Yes,” Lee said, starting to get annoyed by the changes no one had informed him of.
“I am Dr. Keiko Miura,” the woman said flatly.
“Fantastic to meet you,” Bill said immediately as he stepped forward to shake her hand just as he had Lee’s. “Big fan of your work. What I could get a hold of, at least.”
Keiko tilted her head and her face softened a touch in the face of Bill’s smile. “Thank you,” she said slowly.
“Bill Randa. Here for the possible MUTOs and for documentation,” Bill explained, gesturing towards a dock worker rolling past with a cart full of videography equipment that looked newer than the Dragon .
“Keiko Miura,” she replied, shaking his hand firmly. “Astrogeology. And anything else they want to force on me.”
Keiko and Bill looked at Lee at the same time, expectantly.
“Lee Shaw,” he said, cutting himself off where he didn’t normally. “Security. Pilot.”
Keiko did not look impressed.
“Alright, folks, no more chit-chatting. You’ve done your necessary debriefs and then all of the other ones Apex insisted on,” General Puckett called out as he came upon them. “Time to finally set sail.”
Keiko turned to the General and her expression didn’t change.
“Thank you for being a good sport about this, son,” Puckett said to Lee, barely giving Keiko and Bill a passing glance as he clapped his hand on Lee’s shoulder and used his other to grip Lee’s hand in a bruising shake.
“Of course, sir,” Lee said reflexively.
“Now get the hell outta here,” Puckett instructed, tone jovial but jaw set firmly.
Lee nodded and started towards the open hatch on the ship.
Bill tilted his head toward Keiko. He rolled his eyes, quickly to avoid detection, and Keiko’s mouth twitched.
“After you,” Bill said, gesturing towards the ship and following after her.
“ Welcome aboard, Dr. Miura. Mr. Randa. Lt. Shaw. ”
Bill lit up when he entered the ship and he looked at the ceiling as if that was where the voice came from. “Thank you!” he said. To the ship. “No need for the ‘Mister’, though.”
Lee made a face from the dash while punching in his identification codes, ignoring any response from the ship’s computer system, if it made any, and started manually adjusting the settings available to him.
The ship rocked under their feet as the last of the containers were stowed away beneath them and the storage door was shut with a clang. The entrance hatch followed suit.
“I’m going to get my bearings,” Keiko announced. Her sharp eyes were already taking in the room.
“I’ll announce when we’re taking off,” Lee said and she graciously acknowledged him with a dip of her head before she left the deck without looking back.
Bill came up behind Lee as he started doing his flight check and reached out a hand towards the dash. With an automatic reflex, Lee knocked his hand away. Instead of looking put out, or pissed off, Bill just looked amused.
“You ever gone this far before?” Bill asked, staying by Lee’s side, annoyingly, but staying away from all the buttons he shouldn’t press. He leaned against the pilot chair and deftly pulled up a holographic file of the ship’s blueprints, apparently doing the same thing as Keiko just without moving.
Lee didn’t reply for a moment as he focused on his job. Then he said, “No. Not this far.”
“But you’ve been out before? Off Earth?”
“I’m in the Army.”
Bill nodded. “Yeah,” he said, as if that explained it. As if he understood.
Lee didn’t know if Bill did understand, but Lee’s answer did explain his past in so few words. Joining up was a surefire way to get sent off planet, if only to see the stars while being shipped out to a foreign battlefield that may or may not be made of dirt like the wars of old.
“Exciting, though, right?”
“The Army?”
“Going where no one has gone before,” Bill insisted. He had a smile on his face that could be easily confused as vapid; he looked too pleased for a mission so treacherous and unfamiliar. But Lee could see the clever glint in his eye.
The bay door alarms sounded and Lee looked up and out of the simulated window in front of him. The hall was cleared and they had the green light.
“Sit down,” Lee instructed, waving off Bill as he jokingly made to sit in the pilot chair. Lee pressed at the comm button. “Doctor, strap in where you are. We are go for takeoff.”