Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-starship-pilot — Starship pilot who wonders why a ship this large would even HAVE an ejector seat
"Ah, well, you wouldn't, I suppose."
"...What's that supposed to mean?"
"The ship was originally built for the state forces of the Vun Archlave—"
"—and once again, I'm a barbarous foreigner who just doesn't get it. Fine."
"Zyan. Don't be— yes, you don't take for granted what's been propagandised to me since before I learned to talk. This is the shape my world is built in. You show me things and I am a fish grasping for the fact you have words for water, I'm not calling you barbarous. Come here. Please? There, that's better. That would be the seat of an Archlave Tactician-Cardinal, the ship's most senior officer, yes? It's not about the practicality of ejecting a single person in the event of disaster. It's that it's the divine and material prerogative and destiny of position to sacrifice all below it, meaninglessly should they see fit. The ejector seat—"
"Wait. Does this ship have escape pods?"
"Now, yes."
"Fuck. Fuck me. It's not about the ejector seat; it's about being the only escape mechanism. It's a visible symbol that the only life of any value on board is the only one ennobled to sit in that seat. Right? Ahhhh, I hate it here."
"That's why we're fighting them." A hesitation. "I'm glad you're here, Zyan."
"I'm a mercenary. Pay me and I fly."
"The Archlave can afford to pay you more. And anyone outside a civil war could pay you for a job with less shooting. I think— I hope. I hope you have more reasons than that. To be here specifically."
"Flying for the Vun Radicals?"
A flutter of lashes, a hesitant smile. "That, too."