#anywah it's hikaj's POV and he only ever sees Masara

[haphazardlyparked]

the au coalition, part II

happy birthday, ginger! <3 <3 <3 

i have endeavored to continue this (with @gingerly-writing‘s characters Koronis and Olympéa)

Hikaj stared at the viewport—really just a digital screen composed of compiled images from a range of cameras, providing him a much broader view of the battle outside than a conventional viewport would have—and realized he was clenching his teeth. A glance to the side showed him Koronis doing the same, face pale with the horror Hikaj felt welling in his breastbone.

“The Lapurian Nest is about to deploy.”

It was an automated message, updating the entire ship on the status of the unmanned weapon unfolding in the space before them, and probably all anyone heard was the sound of their imminent doom. Nest probes were deadly, hive-type weapons filled with decades of thousands of projectiles designed for only one thing: to cut through shields and shipmetal in a destructive swarm.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Koronis said flatly.

Hikaj had promised Koronis that, once, and his second-in-command—a king, if they survived long enough—enjoyed throwing it back in his face every time he thought they were going to die. Since the start of new Alavan coalition, Hikaj had heard it about eight times; Koronis did so like to play the reluctant rebel leader, dragged into the insanity of Hikaj’s vision.

HIkaj knew what kind of drive lay under Koronis’s stiff comportment and beleaguered expressions, though. Even if the other man didn’t necessarily want to be a king of his people, a leader in every sense of the word, Hikaj knew what Koronis did want for Ilyri, and also that ancient kingship restored would give it to him.

Yet this was the first time Hikaj worried. Not because Koronis’s grumbles could be construed as fatal lack of commitment, but because they were actually about to die. A Nest probe was about to unfold into its component parts and rip them all to pieces.

“It has been nothing but an honor, Koronis,” Hikaj said, as evenly as he could. It was true. That Koronis had had faith in him, unwarranted or not, had never failed to propel Hikaj forward, added steel to his spine and a bar to straighten his shoulders against, to lift his chin up to. That anyone had believed him had lifted Hikaj.

And now that faith was going to get them all killed. Hikaj had always known it could end like this, and yet it wasn’t shame or disappointment that filled him now in their final hour.

It was gratitude.

“May all the stars realign for you. For all of us.”

A bright light flashed between the Nest probe and themselves.

“Hikaj—” Koronis started, but he didn’t need to.

Hikaj saw the small one-man fighter lurch into being just as clearly as Koronis. Slamming on his comms controls, he opened up a channel keyed to the frequency he knew that fighter would be operating on.

“Masara, clear space immediately."

“Standby, Hokiraj,” came Masara’s cool, calm voice.

"Masara," Hikaj argued. "That's a Nest!"

But Masara had already closed the communications, Hikaj could tell. He and Koronis were left frozen, watching in horror as the pirate captain flew her lone manned fighter on an unmistakeable collision course.

“She’s going to break the Nest into pieces before it can fully deploy,” Koronis realized aloud, watching as the fighter’s tiny body became a blur in space, streaking like the stars as it built up more speed than it should have been capable of.

“She’s going to blow herself to pieces,” Hikaj growled. “The probes are the most heavily shielded equipment Lapur makes.” Even a Sascrin fighter, small and swift as Masara’s was, couldn’t do anything but smash against a Nest shield.  

Hikaj wanted to shout, to make a run for their own ship’s docks and do something, but he was trapped where he was, unable to do anything but watch Masara kill herself on the screen.

“Ship, calculate impact time.”

“The fighter is on a collision course. Impact in forty-nine seconds. Forty-eight. Forty-seven.”

“She’s not even supposed to be here.” Koronis moaned softly under his breath. “Who’s defending the Astrian gate?”

Hikaj didn’t reply, not quite understanding. He lunged forward, shouting “NO!” as the ship’s countdown reached one, and Masara’s blur of a fighter flashed against the Lapurian Nest. The result was a series of light bursts—explosions—so bright most of the bridge officers turned their eyes, and Hikaj was left blinking tears and starbursts from his vision for long, long minutes after.

No one said a word as the chain of silent explosions subsided.

“Shields holding at ninety-four percent,”said the computer, with its automatic post-impact updates. 

Then a ping of an incoming comms sounded, and the comms officer read, “From the Knight Queen?” 

Hikaj suddenly saw what Koronis must have already recognized: the debris scattered by the explosion moved strangely before them, knocked to the sides of one area of clean, empty space...

Where The Knight Queen sat, Hikaj realized, fully shielded and cloaked. Just as it had been when it exited its jump from gate-space, Masara’s tiny fighter latched to its hull before she launched and de-cloaked.

“Captain Hokiraj,” Olympéa Astri chirped over the comms, her face appearing towards the right of the screens as the ship prioritized her communication. “Greetings.” 

“Who is defending your gate,” Koronis demanded in a harsh, barely controlled voice, before Hikaj could greet her back.

“Captain Kinlo and a mixed fleet of Astrian rebels and military defects,” Olympéa answered promptly, wrinkling her nose at the inherent accusation.

“We would not have left it otherwise,” Masara confirmed, stepping into view by Olympéa’s side. She was still wearing a tight silver flightsuit. 

Hikaj automatically straightened. He felt feet away from his body, like his true self hovered before the screens while the rest of himself lowered slowly, coolly, into his captain’s chair.

“Queen Masara,” Hikaj said, in his best impression of Koronis’s most unbending propriety. “I request an audience with you at your most immediate convenience.”

Masara nodded, seemingly unsurprised. “Shall we bring you aboard?” she offered.

Hikaj nodded once. “Koronis will be with me.”

“Of course,” Masara said, and nodded to someone offscreen on her side. “Standby.” 

In the moment that The Knight Queen transported them aboard, Hikaj understood in part how Masara had survived the collision and destruction of her fighter. It was easy to forget how casually superior Sascrin technology was, until he and Koronis stood in Masara's bridge between the space of one moment and the next in a seamless transport.

Immediately, the bridge's officers stood to attention. Masara and Pea made for the door, and Koronis and Hikaj followed; this was Masara's center of control, and more fruitful conversations between them were better held elsewhere.

The four of them swept out into hallway just outside the bridge, and then Olympéa and Koronis peeled off into a side room without another word to either of them. Masara watched their rapid disappearance, and frowned at Hikaj.

“He is still so upset about the gate?" she asked.

"I can’t speak for him," Hikaj said, feeling a little flat and stiff himself. "But I’m upset. You put yourself in danger, again, Masara! You put your ship in danger, your crew, Pea--and least of all that damn gate!"

Hikaj looked at Masara, unsure how she would take the criticism, but unable to keep himself from giving it. He knew the Amirrans were used to taking risks, what with the Warknights they had at their disposal and their usual technological advantage, but he still worried that even after everything Masara was a little too reckless. 

She was committed to her priorities, and Hikaj would never be able to shake the fear that living--with or without him, though he fervently hoped with--was not one of them.  

“We were as reasonably safe as we could be,” Masara said. There was a note of reassurance in her tone. “We had intercepted communications on the Nest and came out to deal with it. We've done this before, Hokiraj. I wasn’t risking anything."

Hikaj's entire thought process stuttered at that. There were pieces clicking into place somewhere in his head, but mostly Hikaj felt a bone-deep relief. Not another foolhardy maneuver then; not a potential sign of some vengeful death wish.

"How many times have you destroyed Nests?” Hikaj asked, and tried to focus all the various accidents that may have been just too routine, or notices that were slightly odd, and clearly not meant for everyone. Lapurian central command would want the defeat of a Nest buried so deep, even the dead couldn’t find it, but Hikaj thought there must be some trace of the information somewhere.

"My crew, three. Among the others, four."

"Bless it," Hikaj said, half in curse. He realized he was walking again, following Masara on the path to her maps room. "So the Nests are not infallible machines of destruction after all.” 

“No,” said Masara. 

“And I assumed the worst about... But can you blame me, Masara? You're always reminding me that you're here for vengeance and nothing else, and I can’t trust someone who look at everything with an eye towards the long-term."

Masara stopped walking again, and turned sideways to face Hikaj. “We have had this conversation,” she reminded him, though not with any sort of annoyance. Hikaj stopped alongside her, and waited for her to continue.

“And I thought about it. You were right. We need—that is, my people deserve more than an empty goal. Arlis, Inarim, and I have been speaking with the others, and we have a few proposals.”

Hikaj felt like he’d been hit in the face with a flat plank of wood, and that someone, somewhere, was laughing at him.

Masara called it a “conversation”, but Hikaj remembered a real argument. He didn’t know how they had gotten there, but suddenly they Hikaj had been shouting about needing to live for something, not living to see something ended. 

“I failed my people, Hokiraj,” Masara had said, utterly calm in the pronouncement. “I already failed them. Our planet, our moon, they’re gone, and there’s nothing but an asteroid field where they used to be. What could I do now, other than win them revenge?”

“I don’t know,” HIkaj snapped back. “But don’t your people deserve to figure that out with you? A strong queen would be a more effective leader than the memory of one.”

Masara had said nothing to that—only nodded, once. And asked, “And Koronis?”

That had taken Hikaj by surprise. “What?”

“Is he angry with me for the same reasons as you?”

“Oh.” Hikaj had frowned. “Is he angry with you? I’m not sure. I thought he was either in awe of you, terrified of you, or disapproves of something. Either one of them’s enough to make him a bit anxious.”

She had laughed then, as Hikaj had hoped she would, and then he’d continued trying to put the argument behind them. Masara had gone along with him, allowing the topic to be changed to. In the following weeks, Hikaj had thought she was more withdrawn; she would ask questions that skirted the lines of the argument, as if reminding herself of what Hikaj had shouted at her over.

Now, he was understanding her behavior in an entirely different context.

“I admit it has been new and… challenging, to think of what my people need beyond base instincts like vengeance,” Masara said, calling Hikaj back to the present. “But I think you will like at least some of our ideas. Arlis even has money on it.”

Koronis and Olympéa were already there, by some magic of corridor alignment, by the time Hikaj and Masara arrived to the maps room. The room was circular and had a domed ceiling, and was large enough to fit six or seven people comfortably around a small globe that stood in the center of the room supported by a pole. 

By a pair of doors on the other side, Arlis looked up from last minute adjustments she was making on the console and nodded at Hikaj when he entered; to Masara, she saluted and asked, “Are we waiting for Inarim, Captain?” Per usual, she made captain sound like my queen. 

“He has the bridge,” Masara answered.

As Arlis turned back to the control screen before her, Masara looked at Koronis and Pea. The former seemed a little disheveled, and the latter somewhat smug, which told Hikaj a whole different story about their little detour.

“Koronis, I understand you may not have known we have destroyed Nest probes before,” Masara said, overlooking the signs before her. “What may have looked like an unnecessary risk was actually a calculated and controlled maneuver.”

Koronis looked faintly surprised, then thoughtful, and then he nodded at Masara and said, “Thank you. Olympéa just told me as well.”

“Good, I had hoped so. We Amirrans may seem warlike,” Masara acknowledged. She was speaking to all three of them now, and not just Koronis. “But we are not ones to sacrifice life lightly, either. Weeks ago, Hokiraj pointed out how we can play only a limited role in the new coalition if our only goal is to draw Lapurian blood, and I agree. It is time for Amir to look towards building something that can stand alongside Astri, Ilyri, and Kas.”

Masara stepped to the side as the globe in the middle of the room unfolded until it was a flat, horizontal surface. From it rose the projection of the Alava coalition systems, complete with the Astrian gate—the only one left to them after Lapur had destroyed the Kassan gate in retaliation for Hikaj’s starting a war—and the principle travel corridors between Astri, Ilyri, and Kas burning orange.

And slowly, using the map to illustrate their ideas, Masara and Arlis began explaining their project to restore, to some degree, Amir.

i swear i’m not stopping it here because i don’t have a plan for Amir, i totally do have a plan for Amir, but it’s 10:00 pm already and it’s your birthday and i’d rather be earlier than later!

 happy birthday @gingerly-writing!!!