A/N: Hello, and welcome back to the 714 Universe! In case you missed it, this is part of a series, so check out my profile for the reading order (since I have a cowriter, Canucklehead Cowgirl, and we trade off which of us is posting chapters in this universe). But if you're already here and ready to go, who are we to stand in your way? Let's get flying!
Chapter 1: "Space Invaders"
Noh was clearly enjoying himself piloting The Marvel as he and Jubilee took a tour of the stars. Since he had absolutely no idea what his status on Hala was ever since the failed Kree invasion of Earth — and didn't want to risk finding out — he had been taking them through more neutral sections of space, to some places that he knew would be great for partying safely.
Though when he ventured a little closer to Kree space and found that not only was it perfectly Kree-free but that it was very nearly overrun with Shi'ar… he had to pause and frown.
"What's up?" Jubilee asked when she saw the deeply-settled frown — over the sound of the music they had playing as she slid over to him in one of his looser-fitting shirts.
He smiled over at her and had to steal a kiss — just because she looked so wonderful — before he gestured at the holograms he had pulled up on his navigational screens. "There was a wonderful sort of… oh, there's not a Terran word for it. It's much like ice cream, but not the same." He pointed at a spot on the map. "They sold it here, and it was far enough on the outskirts of Kree territory that we would be able to visit without drawing attention. And now?" He glared. "The Shi'ar have overrun this area — and there is no more dessert store to be found."
Jubilee frowned at that, leaning over with her chin on his shoulder as he sat at the nav screen. "Do they sell it anywhere else?"
"That was the best spot," Noh said with a sigh. "But if the Shi'ar have made a few inroads into this area, then some of the other places I meant to take you may also be gone." He made a face. "They have no appreciation of art or of the finer things in life."
She kept her chin on his shoulder as she watched him glaring at the screens for a while. "Okay," she said at last when the glare wasn't letting up, "it's not just the space ice cream that's got you tweaked."
He glanced up at her and then had to laugh quietly before he pulled her down to kiss her. "Would you be terribly opposed to a quick detour?" he asked when the kiss broke. "I'm curious… the Shi'ar should not be this far into Kree territory."
She let out a breath, but when she saw the look he was wearing, she knew it was going to bug him until he looked into it. "You're making this up to me later, mister."
"I'll do one better than that," he teased. "If the Shi'ar are not too far into Kree territory… there is a perfect little dance club on a nearby moon that I think you would enjoy. And from there—" He grinned and kissed her. "—we'll simply have to find a private spot in the stars."
"It's a start," she teased him.
He kissed her again before he returned to what he was doing, navigating the ship further into Kree territory. It had been a while since he was this close to Hala, since he had promised Jubilee that he would stay out of trouble with the Kree, but he was starting to suspect that he had missed more than he was entirely comfortable with.
They headed first toward that dance club he had told Jubilee about. After all, they might as well multi-task if they were going to be going into Kree territory. But when they got there, Noh let out a noise of frustration. Once again, the club was gone, and he didn't see any sign of Kree ships, though he did see plenty of Shi'ar ships. The only reason they hadn't been stopped, he was sure, was his own shielding technology, which he'd used last time they went to the Shi'ar homeworld — but he had to admit that he was starting to get nervous.
Before they went any further, he hid the Marvel on the far side of an asteroid from the club and then called up the Chicago school — specifically, he called up Peter Quill.
"I know you have been on Earth for a while," Noh said, "but have you or the Guardians heard anything about the Shi'ar making inroads into Kree territory?"
Quill seemed surprised by the question, though he nodded thoughtfully. "They've been an issue pretty much since the Kree failed so spectacularly at invading Earth."
"They failed spectacularly as well."
"Yeah, but they retreated faster," Quill pointed out. "They didn't spend as many resources." He leaned back as he thought about it. "They were quiet for a while after that incident with the Phoenix. You know, the other spectacular failure and execution attempt? But I know they've been pressing every advantage they can get while the Kree are in-fighting."
Noh frowned at that. "Clearly, I have been away from home too long. I thought they'd have found some kind of settlement by now."
Quill shook his head. "Under what leadership?" he pointed out. "Last time I spoke with the Guardians, Hala was fractured, and the Shi'ar were taking whatever they could while the Kree were distracted."
"And the Guardians?"
Quill shrugged. "Well, when I left, there was a lot of Shiar fighting involved. I'm pretty sure that hasn't changed. But, you know, that's just a given."
Noh shook his head as he thought it over. "Thank you," he said. "I think I would like to see for myself just how far the Kree have allowed the Shi'ar to get."
"You gonna run 'em out singlehanded?"
"I may," Noh shot back with a small smirk. "That is what I was bred to do, after all: defend the Empire and all that."
Quill chuckled. "Yeah. Right. Aren't you supposed to be on your anniversary?"
Noh made a dismissive motion with one hand. "It's already interfered with my plans to take Jubilee to some of the places I knew before the Shi'ar made such inroads," he said. "I'm simply satisfying my curiosity."
"And if you decide it's time to run 'em out singlehanded?"
"Then I will ask Jubilee if she minds terribly showing off her beautiful mutation for a little exercise before we go back to our trip to the stars," Noh said, leaning back where he was sitting to look his wife's way with a winning smile.
"If I agree to this," Jubilee said in a haughty tone, "then I shall require a formal 'thank you' from whatever big headed Kree jerkwad is in charge. Or I will blow them up too."
"Good luck with that one," Quill said from the monitor. "Half the problem is that no one's exactly in charge over there. I think one guy made it a year? But he was too radical and got overthrown. It got hard to keep track."
Noh looked alarmed at that. "That does not sound like the Kree," he said softly. "We value order, structure…"
"Yeah, I've read the brochure," Quill said.
Noh shot him a dry look. "I just mean that the Kree in my home dimension would not have problems like this." He let out a breath. "Thank you, Peter. I'm sure I've got a lot to catch up on if I've missed something as important as my homeworld losing its structure and purpose."
"If it makes you feel any better," Quill offered, "as I understand it, it's actually a good thing, depending on how you look at it."
"How." Noh looked completely disbelieving as he stared at Quill.
"Well," Quill said, "they can't decide on a leader because they're trying to decide on a leader. You know. Instead of just… following the big talking head."
That had Noh perking up, clearly interested. "Really?"
"Oh yeah." Quill nodded. "Turns out nobody wants to follow the leader if it means dumb decisions. Like taking on the X-Men and stuff like that."
"Yeah, that is a bad decision and a half," Jubilee agreed.
"Undoubtedly," Noh said, leaning over to kiss her cheek before he nodded toward Quill. "Thank you for the information. I'm sure we won't need to contact you again; I'm simply curious to see how far the Shi'ar have gotten."
"Yeah, well, if it's a real problem, lemme know," Quill said. "I haven't flown full-throttle space travel in a while. Kinda miss it."
"Any excuse," Jubilee teased him.
"Yeah, pretty much," Quill agreed. "Happy anniversary, by the way. Make him take you to the place on the edge of what used to be the Skrull Empire. Way far off the beaten path? But so, so worth it. Someone gave 'em a classic Earth music selection and a jukebox. It's kind of amazing."
"Wonder who that was," she said.
"We'll never know," Quill replied before he laughed and ended the communication, leaving Noh and Jubilee in the Marvel as Noh leaned back to look at her.
"I know it's our anniversary," he said slowly, "and I promise I will make it up to you. But I can't just ignore the fact that the Shi'ar are creeping in on the Kree."
Jubilee sighed dramatically. "Fine. It's not like it's our anniversary unless we're doing something stupid and dangerous anyhow."
He smiled at her and kissed her cheek. "And besides," he said, "you look so beautiful illuminated by all the colors of your explosions."
"You are terribly biased," she said with her nose in the air. "But I'll allow it."
He kissed her again, smiling broadly. "And there is simply nothing wrong with my bias. In fact, it's to be expected."
"It is," she agreed, spinning on her toes as she took long strides to where she could watch him fly easier.
It didn't take them long to get further into what used to be Kree territory, though the deeper they got into it, the more Shi'ar they saw - which was worrying to Noh. If the Shi'ar were on the outskirts of Kree territory, it would be one thing, but the fact that their numbers were increasing closer to Hala - that could only mean trouble.
He was about to tell Jubilee as much when the indicator light went off on the left side of the cockpit telling him that his ship had been detected - clearly the Shi'ar had finally seen him, probably from an actual window, since his shielding was still good, as far as he was aware. He banked hard to avoid the Shi'ar ship that shot toward them.
"Well," he said, taking the controls in a slightly harder grip. "That didn't take long."
"Never does when we have things to do," Jubilee agreed, already buckling in for the wild ride that was sure to come.
Once one of the Shi'ar ships had figured out that something was up with Noh's ship, the others weren't far behind, following the lead of the first ship to dive after Noh as the smaller ship spun and twisted, maneuvering faster than the Shi'ar could keep up with - though the bigger craft were faster.
When another two Shi'ar ships seemed to appear just past the rings of a nearby planet, Noh swore in Kree under his breath before he pulled them into a tight spin, barely screeching into a dive below the ships ahead of them before they started to open fire.
"And now it gets interesting," Noh muttered and the Marvel didn't even need the prompting to put weapons in front of him - and in front of Jubilee, shifting the controls to in front of her so that she didn't have to unbuckle.
With both of them manning the weapons, they were giving the Shi'ar a real headache and keeping them back from the ship - and the Marvel herself seemed to be helping, twisting out of reach of weapons blasts if Noh was too busy firing to do so or course-correcting to line up a good shot for one of the two of them.
And, of course, when the Marvel did finally take a direct hit, she seemed to take it personally, firing back at the ship that had hit her without any prompting from either Noh or Jubilee as Noh couldn't help but smooth his hand over the controls affectionately. "Shame on them," he practically purred as the ship thrummed with energy.
Finally, with a particularly fancy bit of flying, Noh sent them screaming around the planet rings and then screeching to a halt, hiding in the dust trails and completely still, the same color and size as much of the ice at first glance.
"Shi'ar scout ships," Noh said like a curse after a moment as they caught their breaths from the adrenaline of the fight.
"I think … when they pass, we should hail Peterquill," Jubilee said, watching the displays.
"Agreed," Noh said, half his attention on making sure the ship's self-healing capabilities were being put to good use. "I'm sure if he had known the Shi'ar had a military presence this close to Hala - so much that they are defending it from even ships like ours - he would have told us as much." He frowned. "The problem has gotten to be more than I can ignore - because we have ignored it."
"So," Jubilee said slowly. "We rally the troops and go kick alien butt, right?"
"Of course," Noh agreed, checking the displays again to see if the Shi'ar had passed them so that they could contact Peter Quill.
It took some time, with the Shi'ar making a few passes through the rings to try to find Noh's ship, but eventually, the scout ships moved off, and just to be sure, Noh waited a bit longer before he called Quill again.
Though he had hardly made the call before the alarms went off again, and he swore under his breath as he went back to the controls. "Stupid," he berated himself. The Shi'ar must have had similar shielding technology to his own. Or perhaps technology they had stolen from his people.
"Already found something?" Quill asked over the comms when he picked up on the other end, though Noh just bared his teeth at him.
"Now is not the time - I'll call you back," he said, switching off the call a split second before the Shi'ar hit the Marvel with another direct blast that shuddered the ship but didn't quite make it through the shields - though Noh was not sure they could take another hit like that.
"What can I do to help?" Jubilee asked.
"Just keep shooting them out of the sky if you can," Noh said. "We should be able to outmaneuver them if we thin their numbers."
"If I can," Jubilee muttered with a little grin, falling right into rapid fire while singing under her breath the most cheerful tune she could think of.
Despite the situation, Noh was smiling at the songs Jubilee pulled out of her hat. There was something about flying to his wife's soundtrack that made the whole thing a little more fun - and easier.
And then of all things, the ship got a little boost when Jubilee discovered a single panel on the Shi'ar crafts that would allow a direct hit to ricochet and cause critical damage to said craft. "Oooh, that's fun! Try that one," she called out, dancing in her chair with a grin.
"My Jubilee, you are, as ever, a genius," Noh called back to her, smiling widely as he switched his targeting to take advantage of what she'd found. "This is new - the old models don't have that flaw."
"Ooooh!" she said, grinning wider. "I wonder if I can do this like pool and do bank shots! Alien a-hole, corner pocket!"
Noh just chuckled to himself even as the ship seemed to be responding better to his commands despite the hits it had taken. With Jubilee having so many epiphanies from her firing patterns alone, the imagination engines were getting a serious boost.
But then, he'd known this about her. It was one of the reasons he'd married her - she was brilliant, and creative.
He spotted the opening the moment that she made it for him - taking down a key ship in the Shi'ar formation for just long enough that he had the engines screaming to push them through the hole. From there, it was a simple matter of laying down the speed faster than the Shi'ar could get after them.
But rather than point them away from the trouble, Noh was steering them deeper into Kree space. "Jubilee, if you could call up Peter Quill again," he said. "They already know we're here - we may as well signal for backup."
"You've got it, sweetheart," she sang out cheerfully, trying - and succeeding at keeping her mood high. She twirled in her seat as she called up Quill. "Ooh, hey. Brother in law - or something. Whatever. So. The Shi'ar are being amazingly obnoxious? And we're totally getting chased. Like. You know. Half the fleet is here at least. So … if you're not doing anything more pressing? Maybe … you know. You could bring me a cherry coke? And some back up too, if it's not too much trouble."
"You want any Twizzlers with the cherry Coke or is this a liquid-snack-only kind of emergency call?" Quill asked, though it was clear he was moving to get the others in the school up and moving.
"Oh, I am a little past Twizzlers right now? But Sour Patch Kids — Oooh! Or Warheads — would totally hit the spot if you have any. Otherwise, all I've got right now is bubblegum for ass kicking, and I got plenty of gum to go around."
"Save me a stick of the grape flavor — that's my favorite," Quill told her as she heard him call out to Rachel briefly to tell her that they 'needed to go to space to save my sister-in-law and her husband's emotional wreck of a ship'.
"She is not an emotional wreck," Jubilee defended in a laugh. "We've been flying circles around these losers! I'll send you my firing patterns. Something really cool happens when you hit one little panel."
"Uh-huh, uh-huh, sure, yeah, you've hit the manic settings on the Marvel," Quill said.
"Manic Panic! Ooh! That reminds me — I think I need to get Kate to put a hot pink streak in my hair," Jubilee laughed.
"You should," Noh called out to her as he performed a tricky little spin that one of their Shi'ar pursuers couldn't follow to reverse course and speed in the other direction. "You would look wonderful." He paused as he pushed the engines a little further and then, once he'd shaken the scout ship, grinned her way. "That is — you would look even more wonderful than you do now, a feat I would never have thought possible."
"I know what you meant," she said, looking at him over the back of her chair, hanging her head upside down and still spinning, though he noticed she had a few sparks flying from her fingers. "Don't mind me," she said, waving one hand at him. "Charging up. Just in case."
"You are always so lovely when you are preparing for war," he said with a fond smile her way before he turned his attention back to piloting.
She grinned back at him, keeping up the good mood to help the Marvel — since she was always helped along by good emotions. And clearly, Jubilee needed to give her a boost, because Noh's narrowed-eyes look was only getting stronger and stronger the further they got into what used to be Kree territory and he could see just how deeply the Shi'ar had made inroads.
He was muttering under his breath, even after they lost their tails, and moved on to carefully steering the Marvel through space and taking in all the Shi'ar ships and outposts where they had not been before. And the more he saw of it, the more he was angry — at the Shi'ar for moving against the Kree, at the Kree for allowing it to happen, at himself for not knowing that he was needed.
After all, his people might have considered him to be a traitor, and he might consider his people to be shortsighted fools, but he didn't want them to be overrun by the Shi'ar, and he still felt a sense of duty to them, though whether that was simply because of how he was raised or because he had a duty as an X-Man to help those in trouble, he wasn't entirely sure. It was probably a combination of both.
They hadn't quite reached Hala before the concentration of Shi'ar was too thick to be anything but an occupying force — or perhaps an invading one; it depended entirely on how long they had been there.
Noh checked his sensors, pushing them as far out as they would go until he could definitely confirm that the Shi'ar were swarming at Hala itself, before he simply called over to Jubilee, "This is a much worse problem than Peter Quill represented it to be," as he pushed the ship in closer. Though even that attempt at a lighthearted tease died as soon as he had said it as he glared at the Shi'ar ships on the screen.
"I think that's usually the case with Peterquill," Jubilee replied. "He undersells bad things and oversells minor ones."
"Considering this is my home world, I think we are going to have to talk with him about what constitutes an 'important' report," Noh muttered low.
He took the Marvel in a little closer, testing the boundaries of the Shi'ar reach, until finally, it looked like he had pushed the boundaries a bit too far. Some of the battleships took notice of the small Kree craft at last and came shooting their way — though Noh was sure to lead them on a merry chase until they were further from the main fleet and close enough to a nebula that the Shi'ar sensors might not pick up the firefight. Then, he spun around to fire on them, deciding he could pick them off a few at a time while they waited for heavier backup from Earth.
The Shi'ar ships followed, not about to let the insult stand of a Kree ship shooting at them, and Noh almost smiled. He slammed on the brakes and spun around behind them to open up an easier target for Jubilee to hit the panels she'd discovered, and at that, he did start to grin.
"HA!" Jubilee shouted triumphantly, dancing in her seat as she continued shooting. "Bank shot! Two for one!"
"It is our anniversary trip," he laughed. "Any excuse to spoil you."
"Oh, sweetheart, no reason to start a war for that," she teased. "We already did that once."
"It seems to be our signature move," he shot back with a smile as he pushed the ship around so he could open fire as well, taking advantage of the panel she had found.
The disabled Shi'ar ships, however, had clearly called for help — if the other ships coming their way were anything to go by — and Noh was already moving to get the Marvel into position so they could keep up their rapid-fire assault. Before they could get moving, though, another ship joined the fray — definitely Kree by design, though wearing plenty of battle scars, and a little bigger than Noh's personal craft.
Noh smiled but didn't bother trying to hail the other craft, not in the middle of everything else going on. Instead, he kept an eye on the newcomer, observing his maneuvers until he had a pretty good idea of the style so he could run alongside the new guy. And, to his surprise, he found that a lot of the ship's flying style was similar to that of the Accuser Corps — though not quite the rigid formations that they relied on.
With the addition of that second ship, they were able to cut through several more Shi'ar ships before the newcomer spun toward them and zoomed over their starboard engine, headed away from the fight but clearly nearly tagging them as a signal to follow.
Noh paused for a moment. He did want to give the Shi'ar a black eye, and they were definitely doing a good job of that, but at the same time, it would be wiser to get an idea of what they were up against.
He spun the Marvel and followed the other Kree craft as they sped away from the fight. Thankfully, the Shi'ar had enough of a bloody nose that they couldn't keep up with the smaller, speedier ships, and Noh followed the newcomer closely until they came around the dark side of a nearby moon and touched down.