The heavy suspension of the government transport bus groaned as it navigated the winding, jungle-lined roads of the Puerto Rican coast.
Major Carol Danvers stood at the front of the cabin, gripping a chrome handrail as the vehicle took a sharp turn. She pitched her voice perfectly to carry over the roar of the diesel engine.
"So, what exactly is Project Pegasus?" Carol asked, flashing a practiced, confident smile at the rows of high schoolers. "Historically, it was a post-Cold War initiative. A massive financial sinkhole that NASA used to justify budget increases while researching theoretical light-speed travel. For decades, it was nothing but chalkboard math."
She let go of the rail, pacing down the center aisle. "But last year, a man named Thor dropped out of the sky into Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. The existence of extraterrestrial life was completely, undeniably confirmed. Overnight, Project Pegasus was revived and entirely restructured." She stopped, her bright blue eyes sweeping the cabin. "It is now a weaponized, faster-than-light aerospace division. Our goal is to develop a fleet of interstellar warships to ensure the next time an alien force approaches Earth, we meet them in the stars. Not in our streets."
Peter slouched down in his window seat, crossing his arms over his chest. Right. Because the government is doing a stellar job with planetary defense so far.
Earth had been invaded by hostile extraterrestrials twice this year alone. Both times, ground zero had been Peter's own zip code. If Project Pegasus was supposed to be Earth's ultimate shield, it was severely lacking in the results department. Besides, developing light-speed technology required a foundational baseline. Unless the military had secretly captured a flying saucer and was actively reverse-engineering it in a basement somewhere, the entire speech sounded like a massive PR stunt.
Around him, the Midtown High students were already grumbling. They were the academic elite, and they knew it.
"This is ridiculous," Harry whispered from the seat behind Peter. "We're the future of independent scientific research. Why should we sign our lives away to a bunch of politicians and clueless military brass?"
Peter leaned closer to Gwen and Cindy. "Ten bucks says the military doesn't actually have any working ships," he murmured. "They're just going to wave some shiny, confiscated alien scrap in our faces to secure a batch of cheap, genius-level intern labor."
Gwen snorted quietly. Cindy didn't even look up from her paperback novel.
Twenty minutes later, the bus pulled into the circular driveway of a heavily guarded coastal hotel.
The military escorts called it "unified management." In practice, it meant isolating the teenagers. Every student was assigned a private, single-occupancy room on the fourth floor. No roommates. No wandering the grounds without a designated badge.
Peter unlocked his door and pushed it open. He tossed his duffel bag onto the mattress. He didn't unpack. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a miniaturized Stark diagnostic scanner.
He slowly walked the perimeter of the room, watching the digital readout. The device chimed softly. He stopped in front of the bedside lamp. He checked the digital alarm clock. He looked up at the smoke detector on the ceiling.
Three separate audio-visual bugs.
"Typical," Peter muttered. He climbed onto the bed, popped the plastic cover off the smoke detector, and spliced a tiny bypass relay into the wiring. He looped the camera feed, feeding the military a continuous, static image of an empty room.
He dropped back down to the floor, shaking his head in disgust. It was one thing to recruit kids; it was entirely another to spy on them while they slept.
"So, what exactly are they planning to show us tomorrow?" Peter asked the empty room.
Before he could even form a theory, a sharp, icy spike drove itself directly into the center of his forehead.
Peter gasped. His hands flew to his temples. The high-pitched, vibrating frequency of his Spider-Sense screamed through his skull. He staggered forward, catching himself against the edge of the desk. The warning wasn't localized. It felt massive, raining down from the sky directly above him.
He looked up at the ceiling, his jaw tightening. "Come on. I just got here."
Black, liquid biomass immediately bled out from his pores. Venom washed over his skin, weaving itself into a sleek, muscular suit and painting the massive white spider emblem across his chest. The vacation was officially over.
Deep inside the subterranean levels of the Arecibo Observatory, Carol Danvers leaned against a heavy steel catwalk.
"You're actually going to authorize high schoolers to view the Phase Two results?" Carol asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Half the tech in this hangar is highly classified, Michael. It's reckless."
Dr. Michael Rossi, the Chief Scientist of Project Pegasus, chuckled softly. He adjusted his glasses and looked down into the massive excavation pit below them. "Technically, the project is in the 'undisclosed' stage. It bypasses standard confidentiality regulations."
Carol followed his gaze. Bathed in the harsh glare of halogen floodlights rested an ancient, heavily damaged spacecraft. It looked nothing like modern aerospace engineering. It had been excavated directly from an ancient terrestrial ruin deep underground. The hull was crusted with petrified rock, its geometric architecture completely alien to human aesthetics.
It was absolute proof that extraterrestrials had visited Earth thousands of years ago. More importantly, the ship contained an intact, albeit ancient, faster-than-light engine. To the aliens who abandoned it, it was likely obsolete garbage. To the United States military, it was the holy grail of physics.
Carol stared at the sleek, sweeping lines of the cockpit glass. Her fingers twitched against the metal railing.
"You're staring at it again, Carol," Rossi teased, tapping a few commands into his tablet. "Want me to clear the gantry so you can take it for a spin?"
"If it has a throttle, I want to fly it," Carol admitted freely, her eyes never leaving the ship. "I've told you a hundred times, Michael. My heart rate drops when I hit supersonic speeds. Babysitting a radar dish isn't exactly my calling."
"Patience, Major. Maybe one day you'll be flying a patrol route and witness an alien ship crash right in front of you," Rossi smiled.
"Let me guess. A dying alien crawls out of the wreckage and hands me a glowing green ring?" Carol deadpanned. "I've read a DC comic before, Michael."
Rossi laughed. "Hey, if an intergalactic police force exists, they certainly took the day off when New York got leveled twice." He turned back toward his primary terminal.
Rossi stopped talking. He frowned, leaning closer to the glowing screen.
"What's wrong?" Carol asked. Her posture instantly shifted from relaxed banter to military readiness.
"A momentary anomaly in the deep-space energy readings," Rossi murmured, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard. "Wait. It's spiking again. This isn't a sensor ghost."
A high-pitched proximity alarm began to blare throughout the control room.
Rossi punched a flashing red button on his console, routing the satellite telemetry to the main overhead monitor. The screen flickered, resolving into a pixelated, high-resolution feed of the upper atmosphere.
A battered, red-and-orange spacecraft tore out of a localized jump-point. It hit Earth's exosphere, trailing a violent streak of atmospheric fire as it plummeted toward the surface.
"Another UFO intrusion," Carol groaned, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Please tell me they aren't aiming for Manhattan."
Rossi tracked the projected trajectory line as it arced across the digital globe. He swallowed hard.
"Good news," Rossi said, his voice entirely devoid of humor. "The ship is completely bypassing New York."
Carol looked at him. "And the bad news?"
"The bad news is," Rossi pointed a shaking finger at the screen, "it's heading right for us."