Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
“Where the hell is it?” Nate grumbled and stopped looking through the telescope. “You sure it’s going to be here?”
“My friend said this meteorite is going to pass earth at around 9pm.” Ray answered and hugged his jacket even tighter. “I don’t know how accurate it is. I’m an engineer, not an astronomer.”
“You’re an engineer, alright.” Ava retorted. “But your friend is definitely not an astronomer because we’ve been here for hours and still no meteorite.”
“Come on, Ava. Have a little faith.” Ray tried his optimism again, but it was starting to lose its effects.
“It’s hard to have faith when you’re freezing your ass of at 3am on a Tuesday and have a presentation about subconscious behavior in the morning.” Ava’s sarcasm earned a proud smile from Zari.
“I’m with pantsuit on this one.” The brunette said and headed for the door. “I’m out. Snap a pic for me if you see it.”
“Yeah, I’m leaving too.” Said Charlie and followed behind Zari.
“Same.” Nate also followed suit. “Sorry, big guy.”
“Maybe I should go too.” Ray agreed, admitting defeat. “Sorry for wasting your time.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ava chuckled. “Every minute with you guys is anything but wasted.”
She gave him a hug and said goodbye. They came to Ava’s house in the suburbs and used her backyard due to its clear view at the sky. Ava stayed outside for a few more minutes, stargazing as she usually did.
She still remembered the days she wished to become an astronaut before she learned about all the hardships and horrors of it. It was a slim chance but the thought of floating into nothing for eternity was too scary for her.
Same reason why she never went skydiving, or bungee jumping or even riding a rollercoaster. Being a safety freak had some downsides.
Ava sighed and got up from her seat. She was about to head back inside when she heard a sound. She looked back and noticed it. She could see the meteorite without the telescope. It was way closer than Ray’s friend said it would be. Ava could practically hear it.
‘It’s so beautiful. I gotta film this.’ She pulled out her phone and started filming. ‘Wow. This is incredible. A meteor, and so close. It’s just… whoa, whoa, why is it… holy crap, it’s coming…’
And then the said meteor passed over her house and landed somewhere in the woods. Ava panicked. It’s not every day that a meteor lands near her house. She didn’t know what to do. She tried to call 911 but somehow, she couldn’t get any reception. The meteor must have been running interference.
She decided to check the landsite and if it was burning or anything dangerous, she would find a way to contact the emergency response. If not, she would come back home, take a shower to calm down and let the professionals handle it whenever they showed up.
She went inside and grabbed her flashlight and gun before heading out. She didn’t want to run into a wolf or something unprepared.
The crashsite was close. Just a ten-minute hike. But once Ava was close enough, she noticed that it wasn’t a meteor. First of all, meteors are not made of metal plates and don’t have glass windows and blipping lights on them.
“What the heck is that thing?” Ava asked out loud and approached the machine with her gun drawn. The glass was covered with smoke, or maybe steam, but it wasn’t clear so she couldn’t see inside.
She tapped on the glass, waiting for a response but there was none. Not from inside the thing anyway. Suddenly the glass opened with pressured air coming out of its sides. It slid aside, revealing a passenger inside. A woman, not much younger than herself. She was unconscious but not dead. Her chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Ava took a step to inspect the woman closer when a whirring sound started emanating from the machine and then it… talked.
“Who are you? Identify yourself.” The machine spoke, surprisingly with a female British voice.
“What the frick?” Ava exclaimed, stumbled backwards and drew her gun at the machine.
“Threat detected. Initiating safeguarding protocols.” The machine stated and suddenly an arsenal of weapons popped out of the sides, all aiming at Ava. “Put down your puny weapon and listen for a moment.” Ava hesitated to pull the trigger. “I can obliterate you in an instant, but I have an emergency here.”
“What the hell are you?” Ava asked, shivering from both the cold and the sight of those advanced, alien weapons trained on her.
“I can explain everything once we’re out of here. And I need your help with that. Unless you want a bunch of armed men to take us away.” The machine warned and Ava could tell what it was referring to.
“What should I do?” Ava asked, lowering her gun and getting up to her feet.
“As you can see, the ship has taken a lot of damage.” The machine explained. “I can move it but not much. I need you to find something to carry the ship once I embark it.”
So basically it was asking for Ava’s pickup truck. Ava nodded and turned back to leave.
“Bear in mind that I know where you live and if you abandon us here, I will disintegrate your entire house.” The machine threatened which ruined Ava’s plan to run away and hide with a friend for the time being.
She ran back to her house and drove her pickup truck back to the spaceship. Luckily the spaceship was small and could just about fit on the back of the truck.
“Lovely. Now, if you would excuse me.” The machine said courtly and then three sticks that looked like spider legs sprung out from underneath it and it crawled onto the back of the truck it dipped as the weight of the alien aircraft was dumped on it. “Now let us be on our way.”
Ava drove them back to her house. She was so lucky it was about 4am and nobody would be awake in this ungodly hour to see her truck, carrying an alien spaceship and report her to the government. She didn’t know if those things that she saw in the movies were true or not, but she didn’t want to chance it. She parked her truck in the garage.
Ava got out of the truck and took a deep breath to calm down. She had never, not in a million years, thought that she would ever do something like this. And now here she was, harboring an alien that had just crash landed on earth mere minutes ago. If anyone figured out, she’d be doomed. Not the mention the possibility of the alien killing her.
“Now that we’re safe, I will happily answer all of your questions. You seem to have quite a few.” The machine said and awaited Ava to ask.
“First of all, what the hell are you?” Ava asked, still unable to wrap her head around the whole situation.
“I am Gideon. The AI/operating system for the Waverider which is this spaceship, as you humans call it. The pilot, is Captain Sara Lance.”
“Sara Lance? Gideon? Those are human names.” Ava wondered out loud.
“Oh, Captain Lance is waking up.” The machine, whose name was Gideon, announced and the woman inside the spaceship stirred. Ava was wary, ready to reach for her gun and shoot if she felt threatened.
“Gideon, where are we?” the woman asked, her voice hoarse. “What happened?”
“After your reckless maneuver through the rings of Saturn, the Waverider was hit by a meteorite. You passed out and I piloted the ship towards earth. We crash landed and were taken in by one of the inhabitants of the planet.” Gideon explained with enthusiasm like she had feelings and emotions.
“More like threatened.” Ava mumbled, which apparently Gideon heard.
“I couldn’t actually harm you.” Gideon clarified. “I am unable to open fire without my pilot’s command and since captain Lance was out of commission, I couldn’t use the armory for anything but threatening you or scaring you.”
“Gideon, we talked about this.” The woman sighed. “No hostile behavior while on this planet.”
“I’m sorry, captain.” Gideon apologized.
“Sorry about that.” The captain said as she climbed out of the ship. “I hope she didn’t give you too much of a fright. I’m Sara.”
“Ava.” She responded, holding out her hand for the captain to shake.
“Oh, I’ve read about this.” Sara squealed with joy and slight panic. “Okay, handshake, so, arm outstretched, fingers slightly spread, grab, up, down and separate.” She spoke as she did each step.
“That was the weirdest handshake of my life.” Ava said with wide eyes.
“Oh, thank you.”
“That was not a compliment.” She clarified before looking down at her watch. ‘It’s late and I can’t leave with an alien in my house. I’ll have to call in sick. Should be believeable since I spent hours out in the cold tonight.’ She thought and then looked back at Sara. “Come on. You have a lot of questions to answer.”
Then she led Sara towards the living room. She couldn’t sleep now, so might as well interrogate her stow away.